Healing Trauma and the True Purpose of Yoga
Most people think yoga is about flexibility. Some believe it’s about stress relief. But real yoga begins when you confront what’s been buried. Not perform it. Not escape it. Face it. And breathe into it until it lets go.
In the Hatha Yoga tradition, healing isn’t accidental. It’s the result of method. The Gheranda Samhita calls yoga “the path of purification.” Not purification through rituals. Purification through the restructuring of prana, the energy behind every thought, every emotion, every wound.
Trauma lives in the nervous system. But deeper than that, it lives in the subtle body. You can talk about your childhood for ten years, and the pain might still be there. Because until the energy is moved, the story remains active.
The yogis knew this. That’s why they trained the breath. That’s why they worked with bandha and mudra. These were not spiritual theatrics. They were tools to redirect the energy patterns that keep trauma stuck in the body.
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika says:
“Where there is breath, there is mind. Where there is no breath, there is no mind.”
And where there is no breath, trauma hides. It cuts the breath. It locks the diaphragm. It freezes the body. And the mind keeps looping through past pain without resolution.
What I teach is not yoga for performance. It’s yoga as energetic restoration. You work with the body not to master it, but to reveal it. You breathe not to feel calm, but to locate where you stopped breathing years ago and begin again.
Bandha is not just a physical lock. It’s a seal to direct prana where it needs to go. To break open what’s been shut. When taught correctly, these practices bring up what you’ve suppressed. Emotion rises. Tension releases. Sometimes tears come. Sometimes stillness does.
This is the real work. Not yoga to forget, but yoga to remember. Not to bypass, but to pass through.
The Shiva Samhita teaches:
“When the nadis are purified, the mind becomes calm, and the breath flows freely.”
That’s the goal. Clear channels. Steady breath. A mind that doesn’t react the way it used to. A nervous system that doesn’t brace. A body that stops armoring against the past.
You don’t heal by talking about trauma forever. You heal by inhabiting the places that trauma made you leave. Slowly. With breath. With precision. With patience. And with the fire of practice behind you.
If you want real transformation, don’t chase comfort. Chase truth. Yoga will give you that. But only if you stop treating it like exercise and start treating it like a path.