I just started taking a hot yoga class. It's great.

The unexpected benefits:

I tend to be a little shut off from my body because of the abuse. And I have some issues with gyms, etc. from the abuse, too. Yoga has all the benefits of really deep physical exercise without any of the triggers. I come away from the class totally drained physically with a real sense of what to do to exercise safely and well at home.

We do a lot of deep stretching and holding of demanding poses, for example, we stay the position you start a push up in for minutes at a time. The strength it brings is great. But It's so different "manly' exercise that it doesn't bring any issues.

More importantly, the people who take yoga classes seem generally to be people like us, people who are looking for a good, healthy, aware life. The exercise is just part of a spiritual thing that is also very cool. It's very pragmatic. We never talk about god or anything, just about the way the energy moves in the body and how to release tension and develop a really clear awareness of our bodies in space.

For those of us who struggle with disassociation or ptsd, or anxiety, it could be a really great way to resolve some issues without ever having to talk about the abuse. I think it heals by training our bodies to assume the postures of childhood. To melt away the ruts of time by fully relaxing again.

Then there are the nice people. It seems to be a very safe environment to leave the house and go be in.

I hope this is helpful.

Danny

I looooooooOOOOOooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOve yoga.

I have been going for the past 2 weeks and it has been amazing.

As I am frugal, I currently attend 11th step yoga, there is free yoga in Runyon Canyon (in Los Angeles).

I am also told that there is some complimentary yoga if you belong to a gym, and also yoga at the ymca if you belong to it. A friend does YMCA for $30 a month and if that gives you yoga classes, it's a good deal.

I second the yoga nomination!!!

Yeah, I'm not a macho gym guy (yet?)...yoga works perfectly for me.

I love yoga, but doing exercises with girls surrounding me, makes me anxious for some reason. Maybe, because I have never had a girlfriend or maybe because I am a virgin yet. Anyhow, I practice yoga at home and gives me peace and some physical exercise.

I recently read a book about yoga specifically for people with PTSD, i liked the book overall(Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body: David Emerson and Elizabeth Hooper). Good book and it has well illustrated exercises specific to relieve some of the PTSD symptoms most of us have.

Yeah, the girls could definitely be an issue for me, but I am sober in SLAA so I am largely unhooked from fantasy, I just see them as other people who want to have a good yoga session.

However the other night, there was a particularly needy actor girl who sort of initiated conversation that I started obsessing over- but that is rare. Usually people just go in, do their session, and leave...Everyone just wants to do their deal (usually, in my experience).

Yoga is both a bliss and an agony for me, and the boundary between them is thin.

My issues are somewhat different than those I am reading. I don’t like being touched by the instructor, especially if male. If I am touched in session, I just breathe through held memories and try not to cry afterwards, but often will--even hours later. I break down, knowing that it is my body I have to return to.

I am very fit, and lucky to have my health, but I hate the memories that my body carries with it, and deeply resent my beauty. It is a paradox that I have no power over. Even after years of yoga, I still leave the studio feeling exposed and threatened from all sides.

Still, I do it.

Om...,

Hi Lenz,

I understand what you go through in yoga sessions. I feel that when it comes to getting in touch with our bodies, we need a slightly different approach to yoga than the regular folk(whole physical boundaries were never violated). One approach i learned from the book i mentioned is this: If you ever feel spaced out or triggering, we have many options:
(a) Get up and leave the session, you might feel empowered. When the instructor touches you and you feel triggered - in some sense this is recreating the dynamics of trauma we went through and at that time we were powerless and couldn't get out. Now, if you stand up and get out - you are training your mind that you have "control" over things and you will feel stronger. Later on you can tell the instructor, that you felt uncomfortable with the touch.
(b) If you dont feel too triggered, you can feel the part of your body that touches the ground. This is usually very centering for me.

I got both these strategies from the book i mentioned in the last post.

Have a great day !

I really enjoy yoga as well. I can agree with the discomfort of the instructor touching me. Usually I do okay with it, since I am usually so focused on whatever pose we're doing. But, sometimes I get triggered by it and have to take prolonged breaks in "child pose" to clear my head.

Thanks for these contributions.

Another unexpected benefit remains: it is not strength so much as diligence, DAWN. The move from absolute darkness to the light blue sky and the sense of a city, pulling itself out of the same darkness and lining itself up for that house of mirrors in which all of the other people meet in a steep and unflattering balance of exchanges where one equals one, only to be degraded - this is something I do more often than I'd like.

Being out or up all night begets this true salute to the sun which exposes the soul to its own anonymous origins. It is much like this process in yoga of finding myself amid a crowd of parts and then pulling myself together into some likeness of a person.