Michaela Kendall
Michaela Kendall
Trauma informed Psychotherapy & yoga
TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA
Yoga that works with where you actually are, not where you think you should be
For people who feel disconnected from their bodies, overwhelmed by the pressure to do it right, or who carry stress, anxiety, or trauma in ways that make movement feel complicated. Available in three ways, so you can start wherever feels right.
WHAT IS TRAUMA INFORMED YOGA
Yoga rooted in understanding what stress and trauma do to the body
Trauma-informed yoga is a body-based practice designed specifically for people whose nervous systems have been shaped by difficult experiences. To understand why it works differently, it helps to understand a little about trauma and the body.
A BRIEF NOTE ON TRAUMA
Trauma is not simply a difficult event. It is what happens inside us when an experience, or a series of experiences, overwhelms our ability to cope. It doesn't have to be a single dramatic moment. It can be the accumulated weight of feeling unsafe, unseen, or unable to manage for a long period of time.
When this happens, the nervous system responds by moving into protection: fight, flight, freeze, or collapse. These are intelligent, automatic responses. But when they become habitual, the nervous system can get stuck in those states long after the original experience has passed. The body continues to brace, shut down, or stay on high alert, even when there is nothing currently to protect against.
Trauma-informed yoga works directly with this. Rather than pushing the body harder, it creates the conditions for the nervous system to begin to settle, safely and at its own pace.
WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT FROM TRADITIONAL YOGA
Yoga designed around your nervous system
Trauma-informed yoga has a specific purpose. It is built for people whose nervous systems need gentleness, choice, and internal attunement rather than external achievement. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Invitation not instruction
Nothing here is a command. Every cue is an invitation you are free to take, adapt, or leave entirely. You are always in control of what your body does.
Working within your window of tolerance
We move at a pace your nervous system can follow. Gentleness is not a limitation here. It is the whole point.
No performance, no progress markers
There is nothing to achieve here. No pose to work toward, no level to reach. Success looks like feeling a little more settled than when you arrived.
Internal experience over external form
The question is never "does this look right?" It is "does this feel okay?" Sensation and internal awareness lead, not alignment or appearance.
Permission to pause, adapt or rest
Stopping is not failing. Resting is not opting out. At any point you can slow down, change what you are doing, or simply be still.
Led by someone who understands trauma
Every session is led by me personally. As a qualified psychotherapist and trauma-informed yoga teacher, I bring both the clinical understanding and the lived experience to everything I offer.
WHO IS THIS FOR
You might be in the right place if...
You feel disconnected from your body and like you live mostly from the neck up
Rest feels uncomfortable, unproductive, or faintly unsafe
You've tried yoga before but felt detached, wrong, or like your body just didn't cooperate
You swing between feeling wired and completely exhausted, and neither state feels like home
You understand your patterns but can't shift how you feel in your body day to day
You want something gentle, consistent, and led by someone who understands why this can be hard
HOW THIS SITS ALONGSIDE PSYCHOTHERAPY
Trauma-informed yoga is not a replacement for psychotherapy. It works alongside it. Where psychotherapy explores the roots of your experience through talking and psychological understanding, yoga therapy offers the body a direct experience of something different. Regulation, safety, and presence, felt rather than analysed.
Some people come to yoga therapy having already done significant psychological work. Others use it alongside ongoing therapy. Some begin here and move into psychotherapy later. There is no prescribed order. What matters is that both approaches are working towards the same thing: helping you feel more at home in yourself.
THE EXPERIENCE THIS WORK IS DESIGNED TO SUPPORT
You don't need a diagnosis here
What matters is the experience, not the label. These are some of the things people bring to this work.
Anxiety
The constant hum of worry, a body that feels braced and on guard, an inability to fully settle even when there's nothing wrong.
Emotional numbness
Not necessarily overwhelmed, sometimes the opposite. Flat, disconnected, and struggling to access what you actually feel.
Stress and overwhelm
Feeling wired, unable to switch off, or swinging between exhaustion and hyperactivity. A nervous system that has forgotten how to rest.
Depression and low mood
A heaviness that isn't just emotional. Flatness, disconnection, and a body that feels like it's moving through water.
Dissociation
Zoning out, going through the motions, feeling slightly unreal or like you're watching yourself from a distance.
Chronic Fatigue and Exhaustion
Exhaustion that doesn't resolve with rest. A body that feels depleted at a deeper level, and a nervous system that can't find its off switch.
Rooted in evidence
Based on trauma sensitive yoga principles
My yoga practice is grounded in the trauma-sensitive yoga framework developed by David Emerson at the Trauma Center in Boston, one of the most researched body-based approaches to trauma recovery. It was designed specifically for people whose nervous systems have been shaped by difficult experiences.
THREE WAYS TO ACCESS THIS WORK
Find what fits where you are
A flexible approach
Weaving in psychotherapy alongside yoga therapy
For some clients, it makes sense to bring both offerings together across the work as a whole. You might come primarily for yoga therapy and find that at certain points, a psychotherapy session offers the space to explore what's arising more deeply.
The two work towards the same goal from different directions. Moving between them, when it feels right, means neither insight nor embodied experience gets left behind.
For example:
"You might be working in yoga therapy on building regulation, and something surfaces that wants more space. A psychotherapy session can offer exactly that, before returning to the body work with new understanding."