Trauma can be defined as a breach of one’s protective barrier. It can be physical, mental, energetic, or spiritual. The event that caused the trauma passes, but the body still believes it’s under threat. This taxes all of its systems and we begin to experience wide-ranging symptoms and imbalances that can become chronic.
What needs to be understood about trauma is that it’s not the painful experiences we’ve had, it’s the impact that those experiences have had on us. Because trauma increases stress and decreases trust, it not only takes a huge physical and emotional toll, it also deeply affects how we relate to each other.
We believe that it is our collective responsibility to find ways to understand, support, and create healing possibilities for ourselves and one another—as well as to examine and repair the systems, institutions, and inequities that create the conditions for trauma to occur in the first place.
Healing Trauma with the Body offers a way to help heal trauma—whether for yourself, someone you love, or someone you work with.
We cannot heal from trauma alone. We need practice, teachings, and community.
We need you to join us.
What is Healing Trauma with the Body?
Taught by Michael Stone and Molly Boeder Harris, Healing Trauma with the Body is an inclusive six-week online course that offers safe methods for helping the body to process trauma so that we can gain a sense of sovereignty over our inner experience.
We set the rhythm for the course, releasing a new lesson each week, but you ultimately get to set the pace. You can do the lessons whenever you choose, in any time zone, anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection.
In addition to the six lessons offered, you’ll also get access to beautiful transcripts and supplementary reading. Plus, you’ll get lifetime access to the course content.
Who is Healing Trauma with the Body for?
Trauma is more widespread than we think. Statistics show that 70% of people in the USA will experience trauma at least once in their lives and 20% of those people will be further diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Trauma is so prevalent in our society that we created Healing Trauma with the Body to help people understand the havoc it wreaks in our bodies and brains and how we can begin to heal. You may even believe it’s your responsibility to educate yourself because you are any of these:
- a yoga teacher interested in recognizing and meeting the symptoms of trauma in public classes and private sessions
- a professional (teacher, counselor, psychotherapist, healing artist, etc.) who works with people who’ve experienced trauma
- from or working with a marginalized community—because trauma is often rooted in systems of oppression like sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and ableism
- witness to a loved one who has experienced trauma
- interested in better understanding your own experience with trauma.
These traumas may have already been integrated intellectually through therapy, or may have been “blocked out”, but they probably haven’t been worked through using the body. This course is for you if you’re open to the possibility that we need to slowly get to know what trauma we carry from inside the body. And that the best approach may be to blend mindfulness and movement practices so that our bodies are no longer cut off from what’s happening.
This course is for you whether the trauma—yours or someone else’s—is, as psychiatrist Mark Epstein puts it, “large, small, primitive, or fresh.” It’s for you if you want more compassion, understanding, and tools to help heal trauma.
The Benefits
Healing Trauma with the Body will open your heart and help you understand trauma more deeply than you ever have before. It’ll also give you language to talk about trauma, which means that you’ll be more able to give or ask for help.
You’ll learn:
- to expand your understanding of trauma and its impact on various systems in the body
- how emotional trauma affects our physical bodies, as well as our relationship with our bodies
- how traumatic experiences are stored in memory and the ways in which those memories are retrieved into consciousness for healing
- to meet and transform fear, dissociation, and shame.
You’ll finish the course:
- with new skills for regulating emotions through movement and mindfulness
- with an attitude of compassion
- having connected with like-minded participants.
How does the course work?
You’ll receive weekly video teachings with Molly and Michael via our easy-to-use custom-built online learning platform. Videos are available for streaming or download. You can also listen to an audio-only MP3 version.
Should you run into any problems, friendly and helpful technical support is available.
Sliding scale spaces are available by application. Please note, it can take up to a week to receive a response.
Commitment
Expect to commit to a minimum of 1 to 2 hours a week. This course includes optional homework and self-reflection questions to help you integrate what you’ve learned into your life and practice. An optional reading list is also included.
Please note, the objective of this online course is educational and not psychotherapeutic in nature. It is not intended to be a substitute for therapy or any other form of professional consultation. If you have been treated for, or believe you may have suffered from a psychological disorder or injury, please consider if you are in a position to safely participate in the course at this time and/or consider enlisting the support of a professional who can be a resource to you both during and after the course.
