The benefits of yoga are profound. The physical benefits of increased flexibility and strength are immediate. This is an exercise that can somehow reduce stress and also reduce inflammation. At best, you can promote mindfulness through daily techniques and benefit your quality of life.
However, yoga studios in America are generally associated with wealthy neighborhoods, and certain communities may not have access or the funds to participate. That’s why in this week’s issue, joybeat, GBH’s Taking everything into account is celebrating Hands to Heart Center – Yoga for people.
This nonprofit brings the art of yoga to those grappling with addiction, poverty, and trauma by offering free classes in low-income and underserved areas of the Boston metropolitan area. . To date, Hands to Heart Center has offered more than 5,600 free yoga classes.
Susan Lovett, Founder of Hands to Heart Center and Nominee of the Week joybeatcombine Taking everything into account Host Arun Rath as we discuss bringing yoga to the people. The following is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation.
Arun Rath: Before we get into it, I also want to make sure you list everything you’re doing. Because not just the Hands to Heart Center, which is good enough, but you’re a licensed clinical social worker, you’re a K-12 teacher, and of course you’re a yoga teacher. and teaches part-time at Boston University School of Social Work.
Susan Lovett: Yes, that’s pretty much it. In addition to that, I am also a facilitator of this practice called TCTSY (TCTSY for short). The long name is “trauma-centered, trauma-sensitive yoga,” and it is an evidence-based practice with a very specific teaching method.
The only federally funded yoga study focuses on TCTSY, with evidence showing the practice can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, increase performance, and increase resilience. It is obtained. As a social worker, these are all skills I look for in my students and clients.
This type of yoga is based on many options for the student and some suggestions as to where the student may notice sensations in his or her body. The big difference from in-studio instruction is that the teacher often says, “Stretch your right arm up and out to the left.” Don’t you think it feels great? ”
We’re not telling people how their bodies feel. We never touch our students. We’re on the mat in front of the room and we’re very clear about that. We guide people, suggest forms and poses, and let them choose whether to follow that guidance or do something of their own.
It offers many options and for those who have experienced trauma, it can prove to be truly healing. In trauma, we say people didn’t have a choice, or their choices didn’t matter. Therefore, this type of yoga leaves the choice in the hands of the students.
All Hands to Heart Center classes are free. They are customized and all trauma sensitive.
Russ: This is fascinating. It sounds like yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a method of outcome-based approach that can be really beneficial for people in this line of work.
Lovett: That’s really true. Again, this was shown in a federally funded study that divided women with complex traumas such as child abuse, domestic violence, and emotional abuse into two groups. .
That’s true because one group was doing cognitive behavioral therapy. The other group did it with her TCTSY. The second group had greater symptom relief, so their symptoms decreased and the decrease lasted longer.
Yoga can be done by anyone, anywhere. Young people may do this in their own rooms or hallways, even if they live with their abuser. Incarcerated people can do this in solitary confinement. If you are not at home, you can do this from anywhere. Therefore, we recommend people to use it in life.
As you mentioned, this has a positive effect on fitness, but it’s also a coping skill, a strategy. People say they can feel the difference in their bodies. In my more than 30 years of working with young people as a social worker in Boston, I have never encountered an intervention that worked so quickly. This is when someone over the age of 50 or 60 comes into the room feeling excited or feeling physically unsafe. After a few minutes of practice, people report feeling calmer, as their heart rate slows down and they feel more prepared and able to cope with what comes next.
We also do it at school. We attend many impoverished schools in Boston. We do it in prisons and jails across Massachusetts. We are in domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, and residential treatment programs.
Our students typically have never stepped on a yoga mat before and may not think that practicing yoga is for them. Because we commonly see images of young, white, thin women doing advanced yoga practices, we often think they can’t do it. So most people would look at this and say, “I can’t do yoga.” If that’s what yoga is, I can’t do that. ”
Russ: The great thing about Hands to Heart, and you’ve probably heard this before, is that for a lot of Indians and people of Indian descent, yoga in the United States is very much geared toward the elite, so it’s kind of a balance. It looks like it’s falling apart. The idea that someone can’t afford to start yoga seems crazy in a way. You’re doing the work and getting it to the people who need it most, where it’s needed.
Lovett: Yes, that is exactly why we exist. I live in low-income communities of color in Boston like Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan because I’m in a place where people don’t have a lot of access to resources, but people don’t know that I’m a yoga teacher. I did. I was asked to teach a class.
Honestly, I didn’t want to tell you. I prefer being a student, but I was asked to teach a class for mothers of murder victims. Then, at the school I worked at in Dorchester, a teacher asked me to work with a student in a wheelchair. These were all very high demands, but what I ended up doing was talking to a few yoga instructors I know and saying, “Are you interested in volunteering?” I can introduce you to people. ”
Every yoga teacher I spoke to not only said yes, but responded enthusiastically, as if they had been waiting for the question. I have one foot in the yoga world and one foot in this social work environment, and I can be that bridge. We offer this program to people who don’t feel comfortable going into a yoga studio, or who literally can’t walk into a yoga studio. It was a great success.
I always say I don’t just throw my used mat in the basement and say, “Hey, I have a yoga class.” We are remodeling this space to feel luxurious. It doesn’t feel like a community organization cafeteria, and this model has proven to be really effective. There is no shortage of yoga teachers, and no shortage of organizations wanting to offer yoga to their clients, students, and residents.
