Jivana Heyman 00:00:01
(INTRO) Hi, I'm Jivana Heyman, and my pronouns are he and him. Thank you for joining me for the Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga Podcast. This is a series of conversations that I had with an incredible group of Yoga teachers as I was researching my new book, A Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga, and I wanted to share these conversations with you in their fullness. Rather than just pulling quotes for the book, I wanted you to get a chance to hear everything these teachers had to say. So I hope you enjoy these conversations. Thanks for being here.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:40
Hi, everyone, welcome back. So excited to be here with Nityda Gessel. Did I say it right this time?
Nityda Gessel 00:00:45
You did.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:46
I love you. And I'm so sorry I say your name wrong all the time. That always happens to me too.
Nityda Gessel 00:00:53
I don't know if you've said it incorrectly before, I feel like you tend to get it right, so don't worry about it.
Jivana Heyman 00:01:01
Anyway, thank you so much for being here. I love talking to you. That's why I always ask you to do like all the things all the time. But yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here.
Nityda Gessel 00:01:12
Yeah, my pleasure. Happy to be here.
Jivana Heyman 00:01:15
So I want to talk to you about trauma and kind of like what Yoga teachers need to know. And so my question is like, what is in your mind, what is the most important thing for Yoga teachers to understand about trauma? I guess that's the first part of the question. Want to start there?
Nityda Gessel 00:01:31
Sure. So, oh, just one thing, right? I kind of have a two part answer to that. So one thing that's important to know, is that for a long time, what we considered to be trauma was somewhat limited. We tended to think that trauma was the impact or the consequence of this huge, devastating catastrophic event. And that can be one way that trauma manifests. But it's really important for people to understand the broad spectrum of trauma. And that trauma isn't only the things that happened to us. It's also what didn't happen for us.
Jivana Heyman 00:02:24
Yeah, I love that. And I already referenced that something you say about that in the book around too much, too fast. Too little for too long. Is that right?
Nityda Gessel 00:02:38
Yeah, there's like too much too fast, too soon, and too little for too long. And those are like kind of types of flavors of experiences. But those aren't the traumas, the trauma is what happens on the inside, afterward, or during.
Jivana Heyman 00:02:56
Right, so the trauma is like our response to some external situation. Right?
Nityda Gessel 00:03:04
Yeah, it's the body's or nervous system's response,
Jivana Heyman 00:03:07
Right. And so for Yoga teachers is like, the reason Yoga teachers need to be aware of trauma and understand it is that the way that they're, I mean, we're asking people to connect deeply with themselves, right to turn within. And that can be challenging for people because of trauma, right? I mean, to me that I feel like that's almost like the main obstacle that I've experienced is like, oh, wait, this isn't accessible to you, right? What I'm asking you to do is just too, I'm asking too much, right? Because I'm asking you to, to go beyond that to like, connect with feelings, maybe or places in yourself that you've not been in contact with for a while. Is that right?
Nityda Gessel 00:03:54
Exactly right, like we can, if we're unknowing, replicate too much, too fast, too soon, if we're demanding or commanding and our style of teaching. And it's important for folks to know that it's a survival protective response for people to disconnect from their bodies, and it's unconscious, right? So like, Yoga is about embodiment, which is freeing, right, but a lot of us have experienced a level of disembodiment in the aftermath of trauma, meaning somewhat of a disconnect between our mind and our body. Dissociation being one example, right, and that's for our protection that our body kind of takes us out. Or, our mind takes us out of our body, however you want to frame it. So then to ask people to bring their mind into their body, you know, can be too much, too fast, too soon for some folks. And so to kind of expand on this and answer your question further. It's important for Yoga teachers and all people to understand that with trauma, we have a lack of agency over our bodies. And so most important for teachers is to bring back that sense of agency for people to create a very choice oriented space, so that people have the agency to choose to do something or to not do something in your class.
Jivana Heyman 00:05:29
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of agency and choice. It's kind of central to Accessible Yoga. And I think and so much of what I write about in this book is that like, different techniques, because sometimes I think we oversimplify it a little, we talk about Invitational language like that's all. Or we'll say, like, just don't use certain words or don't teach certain poses or something. But it feels like to me, it's actually a much deeper question. So much bigger challenge, because of maybe the fact that we're replicating like a hierarchical structure that you'd have in school, like that's what we're doing in a classroom, like, like the teacher above the student, and the people are, then their power is taken away, just through the way we've set up the room or the way we're talking the tone of voice, that word choice, there's so many elements.
Nityda Gessel 00:06:22
Yeah, there's, can I expand on that?
Jivana Heyman 00:06:24
Yes, please.
Nityda Gessel 00:06:25
Yeah, like you said, there's so many elements or so many layers to it. And it's not like this cookie cutter formula, do this pose and don't do this pose and now you're trauma informed. It doesn't work like that, right? Because trauma is something that's moving and living and breathing and expanding and contracting in the body. So as teacher or guide, we need to be awake, right, to the small subtle cues that we are sending our students, right, lack of eye contact towards some students versus eye contact toward others, right? You need to be aware of the subtleties that we're sending our students, right, the messages, the biases, right, because students pick up on that. And really, it's about what I teach is that it's about creating an overall environment of safety and choice. And it's about us as the guide, embodying a regulated nervous system space, one in which we have an open, compassionate heart toward all, right, where we're really listening and seeing people from our heart. And, and that creates the safety, right, and there's something called co-regulation. So for folks who, they're not yet ready to really connect deeply with their bodies, or they can connect for a moment, but then they have to come out because the nervous system isn't ready for that. Therefore, for those folks, self regulation is challenging. And the beauty of Yoga is that it helps to build self regulation. But self regulation is a skill to build over time. But there's something called co-regulation. And that means that us as the guide, if we are regulated, if our nervous system is regulated, we can co-regulate, we can help other nervous systems regulate simply because their nervous system is in the presence of our nervous system. Right? So we have to be doing our own work as Yoga teachers so that we can remain regulated and tolerate some level of distress should it arise to support the other people in the room.
Jivana Heyman 00:08:39
I love that. I think that's the challenge, you know, for Yoga teachers is to do our own practice. And to embody the teachings in a way rather than just speak them. And I know it can feel like an obstacle for for new teachers, I think a lot of new teachers feel real insecure, because they want to be perfect, and they don't want to make a mistake. But we all have to start somewhere. And so I always encourage new students to lie, be okay with the learning and the messiness. But eventually, over time to be working towards that, right, like working towards that kind of regulated nervous system, to be able to handle challenges. I remember, like, you just made me think of a time when I was teaching in a hospital, and like, it was like a conference room at a hospital, but we couldn't turn off the loudspeakers, like they were just going. And the one day, they had code blue, code blue, code blue, like which basically means someone is dying in the emergency room, like someone is in or under, you know, serious duress, in the emergency room. And code blue was like, this is an emergency situation. You know, I think I was teaching shavasana or something, it was like, I had to, like, I had to find a way right, like to keep myself calm, and to respond to this, like, kind of emergency and to just be present with that and their experience, you know, and so I just talked about it. I mean, I just decided, okay, we need to talk about like, how does that feel to hear that, you know, but I realized if I wasn't more experienced that would just kind of yeah, knock me over.
Nityda Gessel 00:10:17
And that's a beautiful, thank you for sharing that example, like a beautiful example of like, how to self regulate in a moment of intensity to support the co-regulation of everybody else around you, because, wow, the timing of that. Yeah, and then kind of to go back to what you were saying, to teach in this way, perhaps it is, I don't want to use the word challenging, but it does take more consciousness or presence and intentionality. And so it is easier, perhaps to teach in a way that's not trauma conscious, to say, now do this, now do this. And that's maybe easier in the beginning, because you're still trying to figure out what you're asking of people, right? So just patience, right? Like the same compassion you want to have for others? Start with you. Right? It really starts with you, right? I've made so many errors on the job. And learned along the way, just like the example you gave, I have lots of examples like that, you know, or is this like, wow, let's slowly move everyone out of this. Without those learning moments, you know, those moments build character and they build wisdom. So it's okay to have those moments.
Jivana Heyman 00:11:38
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also, I feel like, I guess what I'm trying to get at is I think it's more sensitive people maybe that resist putting themselves in the position of teacher like, they're the ones maybe, like more insecure or sensitive, and maybe people have had trauma too like, resist being in that role. But I would encourage people to do that encourage, I encourage people who are like feel a drive to teach or like really feel motivated to be doing this work to get out there and do it. And especially if you don't think you're the one like to me there's something about people that don't see themselves as a teacher that I think makes them a better teacher in a way. I don't know.
Nityda Gessel 00:12:25
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I resonate with that. I do. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 00:12:32
So what are some other things that you would recommend? I know you lead entire trainings on this. So it's probably not fair to ask you in a few minutes. But you talked about, you referred to language. And I wonder if you could say more about that, because I worry a little bit about again, just like Invitational language, like it's like, as if it's like a set way to speak and it becomes maybe robotic. Like, I feel like there's, there's more to it. I don't know. What do you think?
Nityda Gessel 00:13:03
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, invitational language, and like, exploratory language, right, it's beautiful to interweave that throughout your class, because it does help create that overall environment of safety and choice. But that's, again, that's what you're coming back to, you're creating an overall container, right? People to have some structure within that structure, because there's like, not a whole lot of limitation, right? There's no shaming, it's lots of like, maybe this feels good. I wonder if that would feel good, right? It's not about starting every sentence with I invite you to, right? There's plenty of times where I'll say, inhale, bring your hands down, right, exhale, lift the arms up. You can start every sentence with "I invite you to" and I can see from your face, you're like.
Jivana Heyman 00:13:54
Yeah, I just I've been in classes like that, where I just, I just want to scream because I'm just like, for me, it actually, it gets me activated. Because it's so frustrating. But like what you're saying is more organically to thread it into your actual teaching, right? To make it the content.
Nityda Gessel 00:14:14
Make it, yeah, it's overall, right. So like when I teach I start off, the opening the welcome. Hi, my name is Nityda, welcome to class, I'm glad you're here. This is what we're going to be exploring today. I just want to give you a little bit of insight into the way I teach. So this is a very choice oriented space. You know, it's really about you listening to what you need, and responding in a way that honors what you need. And if you're not yet sure how to interpret, you know, your body's signals and know what you need, there's also space to explore that here, right? And just going on a little bit further from there, right, just to explain, I'm setting the stage, right? This is choice oriented, it's for you. And then I do use the words I invite you to or maybe you do this or be curious about this, right, but it's not like, you know, we don't want to be so teaching that way doesn't feel good. And then receiving that, as you explain doesn't feel good, right? So like, salutation, you're not going to say inhale, I invite you to lift your arms up, exhale, I invite you to fall forward, inhale, I invite you to step your right foot back.
Jivana Heyman 00:15:23
Right and also because I think a lot of I've taught a lot of beginners who just like struggle with just the basic ideas of how to connect the words I'm saying to moving their body and I think sometimes less is more, in that case, like precision is helpful. I love what you just said. Like, I definitely do that too, like create the container create, I don't know what to call it, What did you call it? Like a welcoming? It's really nice.
Nityda Gessel 00:15:50
Yeah, like an open, welcoming introduction.
Jivana Heyman 00:15:53
It's almost like a disclaimer to be like, you know, I want you to take back that authority over yourself. Like, I'm not here to tell you what to do. Sometimes I'll say, I'll say like, listen to me, but don't listen to me.
Nityda Gessel 00:16:09
Right. Yeah. And sometimes while I'm teaching, I'll say, you know, you can listen to what I'm about to say here, or you can stay totally inside. And totally just let me be background noise.
Jivana Heyman 00:16:20
I love that. Background noise. That's awesome. I think that's what it is, is just kind of incorporated into the flow of the words and the teaching itself. Yeah. I guess what I'm trying to get out to is like, it is the Yoga I mean, that is the practice, right? Is not to follow my words, but to actually find what works best for you. And to be more connected with yourself. I mean, that's where we're headed.
Nityda Gessel 00:16:45
Right. Because Yoga is not like fitness, right? It is not. It has become performative and competitive, right? But that's not the point at its origin, right? It's like awakening. So, if you're going to awaken that has to be something that happens on the inside, that can't be from somebody else, like telling you what to do.
Jivana Heyman 00:17:08
Right. And so I think, often, I would say an advanced, to me an advanced practitioner, someone who has more awareness of that of their needs, or more sensitivity to their inner experience. I don't know what you think about that, it doesn't really matter what advanced is.
Nityda Gessel 00:17:24
Yeah, yeah, I try to like get rid of hierarchical language and teach toward more like, sensation. Like, perhaps there might be more sensation in this variation, and less than this one, you can explore and see, you know, and find the one that feels right for you, based on the amount of sensation you're looking for.
Jivana Heyman 00:17:45
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Nityda Gessel 00:17:46
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'll say this might be a cooler, more lunar option, this might be more heat building solar option.
Jivana Heyman 00:17:58
That's awesome to actually connect more with the tradition, you know, of like hatha Yoga. Really focusing on our connection to nature, connecting with the body, understanding what it needs in any moment, rather than just like following along, you know, and doing what we're told.
Nityda Gessel 00:18:16
Right, exactly, exactly. Listening inward. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 00:18:22
Yeah. What else? Any other thoughts you have about?
Nityda Gessel 00:18:25
I wanted to say, because I don't know how much time we have. But I do feel like it's important to touch on this and not, I don't like elephants in the room, I think it's important to be explicit. It's so important that we continue to do our own work. Because when we are in the role of teacher, we are in a seat of power. And with the seat of power, there's the power to do good and there's the power to harm. The power to help and the power to harm. And this is the, abuse has become intertwined with different yogic lineages, right? There is a number of Yoga teachers who have been confronted about their abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse toward their students. And whenever I go over this in trainings, you know, trainees who have heard about the abuse are shaking their head, you know, like, oh, my god, yeah, it's horrible. Right? And then trainees who haven't heard about it are just like, Oh, my God, I can't believe, right? And so we start to create this separation, like, we would never harm anyone, right? And it's likely that we, I mean, the people that come to my trainings, I think it's unlikely they would sexually abuse their students, but it happens, right? But it's not even about like the type of harm, it's like, we all have the potential to do harm, because a lot of the harm we do is unconscious, right? So if we can stop separating ourselves from like, they're evil, and we're not they abused people, and we don't do that. And just really look at, well, we all have the capacity to do harm, either intentionally or unintentionally. And so how can we continue to work on ourselves and explore because that's what Yoga is about, right? The practice of Svadhyaya (self study), like what are our shadows that we have not unpacked yet? Because just because we haven't unpacked it doesn't mean it doesn't come out of us in our relationships.
Jivana Heyman 00:20:19
I love that. Thank you so much. I went through this with my teacher. And I'm often reflecting on that, like, what am I doing that might potentially harm? And it's ongoing because it has to do with the situation with individuals, like it changes all the time, things that I've learned to do with one group of people or in one setting doesn't work in another. So I just need to continually reflect on that. And, and also on my, my unconscious biases, like what it is that I, you know, just believe to be true. And how that impacts the way I perceive and interact with other people like around racism, for example, or ableism, or, you know, even as a gay person as homophobia and transphobia and sexism and fat phobia, I mean, all of these parts, I know that I know, you talk about that sometimes to about how the intersection of discrimination and trauma too, especially racism, has been a part of your work, right?
Nityda Gessel 00:21:34
Yeah. Yeah. Because it's all trauma, right? Trauma is like separation, you know. I think separation is a consequence of trauma and it perpetuates more trauma. So we've found many different ways as a collective to divide ourselves. It's like a survival response. But that creates more trauma, because when you divide people, then you always create a hierarchy, right? The Division is for the hierarchy. That's why there's the division.
Jivana Heyman 00:22:08
Right, and I wonder, so we can be, like reinforcing that trauma or creating more for people, if we're unconscious of that tendency in ourselves, the way that we're just replicating those systems is that what you're saying?
Nityda Gessel 00:22:27
100%, yeah. And you referenced unconscious biases and I think the challenge with unconscious biases is that they are unconscious. We have to choose to bring them from darkness to light. And so sometimes we have to hear from other people, right, you did this, and it hurt me. And then unfortunately, a lot of the times we react with a denial. So we're not ready to hear about our unconscious bias, right? But then there's other ways to uncover these unconscious biases, too. So there's anti racism, training, all different, you know, ways in which we can begin to explore and one way is like, wherever you have privilege, or wherever your identity is favored, whether based on race, or gender identity, or sexual identity, able identity, whatever the case may be, you're likely going to have some type of unconscious bias toward the people that are quote, "like you."
Nityda Gessel 00:22:27
Yeah, and I think we see that a lot in contemporary Yoga practice, you know, like a lot of bias towards, yeah, kind of younger, fit, white, thin bodies doing acrobatic practice as advanced practice. So it seems like there's like a general bias as well. But anyway, love that focus on self study and how it's more than just this more than just what we're saying, but it's actually our practice and our ability to be honest with ourselves.
Nityda Gessel 00:24:03
Mm hmm. 100% 100%. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:07
Yeah. And how trauma can be just by reinforcing those systems unconsciously by bringing and bringing yourself into a room. And I like you were saying, like, you're talking about how, when you bring up abuse in Yoga, some people are like, I would never do that. And I think it's the same around it's just like racism or whatever, I'm not racist. Yeah. It's like kind of a denial that's can be dangerous, I think, yeah.
Nityda Gessel 00:24:34
It definitely shows up that way, like as a denial, and it also shows up in even a more subtle way of like, you just don't know what you don't know. So when I create, when I start, day one of these 25 hour trainings on the trauma conscious Yoga method that I facilitate, beginning of day one, we set up a container, because typically, trainings are very intersectional. There's people from all different races and ethnicities, gender identities, sexual identities, etc. So, I just put it out there, you know, if there is a rupture, we will come together to create repair. And in the last training that I just did, there was a rupture and we all came together with no fingers pointed, we never mentioned any names to create some repair because there was a microaggression. And I mean, microaggressions are in intersectional spaces are just like the norm, unfortunately. Like the likelihood is going to be multiple microaggressions in a cross racial space is incredibly high. So this was a situation where I had on day one invited that if I'm not around to hear it, or if I am, but I don't pick it up. And if you are comfortable coming to me, bring what happened to me. And we will discuss it as a group with no names, right? And fortunately this trainee felt comfortable enough to come to me. And on day three (and the event, the incident happened on day two) but on day three, we all had a moment of coming together. Specifically for the people love the global majority in the space and people of the global majority is another term for People of Color, specifically for the people of the global majority in the training to have their voices be heard, and to share. Because ironically, it was a microaggression that was really much about like, voice being taken away. So yeah.
Jivana Heyman 00:26:35
That's amazing. I mean, I think, for Yoga teachers, I mean, it's helpful to get additional training like that. I mean, just like, if you want to really be conscious of these issues, we need to do the work. And that can mean, you know, studying with you, or similar programs, anti racism training, you mentioned, I think that would be amazingly helpful for all for all of us, especially white people. And, like you said, kind of to be open to learning. And sometimes we don't see our blind spots. So just listening when someone says something, right? Anything else you want to share about that around trauma in general? I know it's huge. You just wrote a whole book on it.
Nityda Gessel 00:27:22
I did. I did. I'm constantly talking about trauma. But I'm also constantly talking about the healing which is, you know, the, there's the darkness and the light. You know what, maybe I'll end with, this is a personal quote that I like to say, so you probably have heard me say it before. And it really is just about us continuing to do our own work. Right. So "no darkness, no light. No darkness, no light."
Jivana Heyman 00:28:01
I love that one. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here.
Nityda Gessel 00:28:04
Thank you. Jivana All right.
Jivana Heyman 00:28:06
Take care.
Nityda Gessel 00:28:08
You too.
Jivana Heyman 00:28:09
(OUTRO) Thanks, again for being here. I really appreciate your support. And I hope you'll consider getting my book, The Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga. It's available wherever you buy books. My hope is that the book will provide additional support for you in your teaching journey. For me, I always need to have a community of teachers around me to learn from to inspire me to keep me in check. And I hope we can do that for each other. So thanks again for being here. All right, take care. Bye.
