The Book: Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault, Practices for Healing and Teaching with Compassion
Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault provides a comprehensive overview of how to offer yoga to survivors of sexual assault in a safe, effective, evidence-based, and healing way. Zahabiyah Yamasaki, Program Director of Trauma-Informed Programs at UCLA and founder of Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga, draws upon the framework of trauma-informed care and trauma-informed yoga program development and curriculum, while also weaving in personal narrative and inspiring survivor stories. This book explores practical considerations for yoga teachers, mental health professionals, educators, survivors, and other healing professionals who are interested in integrating trauma-informed yoga into the scope of their work and/or healing.
This book expands the scope and framework for healing and fills a much-needed gap in service delivery for survivors. Yamasaki provides holistic, trauma-informed, body-based, compassionate, and culturally affirming options for survivors as they navigate what is oftentimes a lifelong and nonlinear process of healing.
It is with great excitement that I share that W. W. Norton & Company published my book Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault!
CONCEPT & APPROACH
We are at a critical time in our world where survivors of sexual violence are boldly and courageously speaking their truth. The #MeToo movement has paralleled the trauma-informed yoga movement for some time now, and now more than ever there is a powerful convergence of the two. Stories live inside the bodies of trauma survivors, many of who are not able to vocalize their experiences for a multitude of reasons including their own safety or because they hold marginalized identities.
Sexual violence impacts all aspects of human functioning: the physical, mental, behavioral, social, and spiritual. For years the sexual violence movement has been limited in resources and services, offering talk therapy as one of the only solutions for seeking help in the healing process. While each survivor’s healing process is unique—due to factors such as cultural barriers and stigma around seeking mental health services—it is essential that sexual violence providers and support agencies offer multiple pathways for survivors to heal.
Trauma-informed yoga in particular is a unique and effective way to help survivors heal. The practice helps survivors safely reconnect to their bodies, allowing them to access resources when they are ready. Additionally, survivors have shared that the practice decreased their symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, helped them develop positive coping strategies, empowered them to report what happened to them to law enforcement and/or the campus Title IX office, allowed them to be intimate again with a partner, and supported them in practicing self-compassion, amongst many other benefits (University of California Study, 2018).
This book will show how to offer yoga to survivors of sexual assault in a safe, effective, evidence-based, and healing way. Drawing upon the framework of trauma-informed care and expertise in trauma-informed yoga program development and curriculum, this book explores practical considerations for yoga teachers, mental health professionals, educators, activists, healing professionals, and survivors who are interested in integrating trauma-informed yoga into the scope of their work and/or healing. Filling a much-needed gap in service delivery for survivors, this book will focus on providing trauma-informed education at its intersection with yoga, providing a comprehensive overview of how to work mindfully and compassionately with the sensitive and intentional needs of survivors of sexual assault.
"This is the voice, these are the words, the trauma field has been waiting to hear. Yamasaki’s steady, compassionate and authentic voice offers a comprehensive guidebook for how to navigate the path to trauma healing for survivor and helper alike. The type of text we come to when we want to help others heal, but by the time we are through, we ourselves have been transformed.”
- Nityda Gessel, LCSW
"Zabie Yamasaki has written an incredible book that does so many things at the same time, and all of them marvelously. Teaching and practicing trauma informed care is no easy thing - and she’s managed to gracefully synthesize a book about yoga, trauma, trauma informed teaching, trauma survivors and a yoga toolkit all into one. A must have for anyone teaching, practicing - or seeking - trauma informed yoga today."
- Susanna Barkataki, Author of Embrace Yoga's Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen your Yoga Practice
"Zahabiyah Yamasaki covers entirely new ground and makes a generative contribution to the field of trauma-informed somatics. This powerful book integrates science, psychology, and skillful self-disclosure with practical tools for healing and teaching. With an anti-oppression framework and intersectional lens, this book offers a rare perspective on embodied survivorship. A must-read for anyone engaged in the process of recovering from sexual trauma or helping others to heal."
- Bo Forbes, Psy.D., somatic educator, advocate for body justice, and author of Yoga for Emotional Balance as well as a forthcoming book about embodiment
As a survivor, psychologist, and beneficiary of Zabie's online training program, I am excited to recommend this powerful book on embodied healing through yoga for sexual assault survivors. With clarity, compassion, and generosity of spirit, Zabie provides clear and practical strategies to facilitate healing and empowerment to aid survivors as they seek to reclaim their bodies and their full selves. The wisdom she shares is based on years of experience as a trauma-informed yoga instructor and we benefit from her sharing this powerful and much needed resource." - Dr. Thema Bryant, Psychologist and Author
Zabie Yamasaki has managed to write a book that is a salve of wisdom, compassion and perspective for survivors and an invaluable resource for those supporting survivors to find their way back to their bodies again. Trauma Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault is a comprehensive guide grounded in a nuanced understanding of trauma, psychology, neurobiology and cultural sensitivity. It is a must have for anyone working with survivors in any capacity.”
- Hala Khouri, M.A., SEP, E-RYT author of Peace from Anxiety: Get Grounded, Build Resilience and Stay Connected Amidst the Chaos
"In a world where intentionally safe spaces are often hard to find, Zabie’s book feels like a haven for letting out a deep breath and finally feeling truly seen. Her words are powerful yet gentle, practical yet nuanced, and so deeply validating. I am so touched by the thoughtfulness, fierceness, and tenderness that flow throughout this book, right alongside the incredible amount of research and practical tools available to the reader. This book reminds us that no matter who we are or what we’ve been through, healing is possible for all of us — and that there are so many accessible ways we can create a safer container for others who are on their own healing journey. Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault will be a profound and transformative offering for so many people."
- Lisa Olivera
"This book is wisdom gained from lived experience, rooted in fierce liberation politics, and compassionate to the core. Zabie illuminates countless assumptions made in the way that yoga is often taught- a methodology that pours further salt on the wounds that survivors come to heal. As a queer and trans survivor, this book is a balm; in anticipating my needs and experience, I can rest and feel whole. As a teacher, I have longed for this book for too long. Many trauma-informed yoga books do not attend to social injustice nor locate the author's positionality in systems of oppression. Zabie has all the references and relationships that I need as both a survivor and teacher doing work in social justice. Zabie offers up her own experience as a trauma worker and her intentional practices that allow that work to be sustainable while also illuminating how to adjust yoga practice to be specifically beneficial to survivors of sexual violence-and that same wisdom can be applied to so many of us directly impacted in various ways by the violence of this world."
- Jacoby Ballard, Yoga and Social Justice Teacher and Mentor
"This book means everything to me. And so does the author. As a woman of color I needed a voice I could finally identify with. Zabie is a true leader- transforming the culture of trauma recovery while transforming lives. “Trauma informed” is really LIFE informed. None of us leave here unscathed. We all carry pain onto our yoga mats, and with her guidance our mats can become safe havens for healing and transformation; Our yoga mats can be our way back home. We need this book. We need HER book. Now more than ever."
- Dr. Azita Nahai, Author, Trauma to Dharma
"Zabie has written a rare gift of a book that speaks to each reader with heartfelt compassion, profound mirroring and unwavering respect. From the very first page we know we are in exceptionally capable hands, and provided with the safest, affirming and embodied trauma sensitive container in which to do deep healing work. She can guide the path because she lives it , and she is rooting for our aliveness with all her heart and brilliance. This book deserves to be in the canon of essential reading for survivors, providers and practitioners of trauma sensitive yoga!"
- Anjuli Sherin, LMFT, author of Joyous Resilience
"Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault: Practices for Healing and Teaching with Compassion is a must for all yoga training required reading lists. Written with a depth of knowledge, care, and wisdom this book bravely gives us access to healing tools and strategies to hold sacred space with awareness, responsibility, compassion, and understanding."
- Tracee Stanley, Author. Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity and Empowered Life Self Inquiry Oracle
"As a sexual trauma survivor, I found Zahabiyah Yamasaki's book Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault: Practices for Healing and Teaching with Compassion an incredible book that gives us the tools as yoga practitioners and teachers to foster self-acceptance and self-worth after sexual trauma through the yoga practice. This book helps us to serve our students in a thoughtful and embodied way. There are just so many ways we can apply yoga to our own healing and learning. Thank you for this incredible work which gives us so much insight into trauma-informed healing."
- Dianne Bondy ERYT 500 at Dianne Bondy Yoga
"Zabie Yamasaki reminds us that trauma-informed practice is less about negotiating around the imprints of sexual trauma on our being, and rather, it is a centering of our humanity. For those who've survived the dehumanization of interpersonal violence, for those whose voices and bodies have been rendered invisible by individual and systemic forms of trauma - Zabie's invitation to recognize and honor our inherent wholeness is a counterbalance to pain that transcends language. In "Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault: Practices for Healing and Teaching with Compassion", she offers the reader a pathway to reclaim their body through the holistic practice of yoga, allowing the site of profound violation to become a primary source of recovery."
- Molly Boeder Harris, Founder, The Breathe Network
"Zabie Yamasaki is finally taking the power of yoga and using it for good. This book is a missing link in the great reckoning that is happening within contemporary yoga and wellness spaces. We’re finally addressing the needs of the most marginalized and those that have been abused. It is so refreshing to hear their stories and to consider how their concerns can be addressed so directly. I hope all yoga teachers read this book."
- Jivana Heyman
"This book is necessary reading for survivors and the people who tend to them. Zabie Yamasaki’s offering is a healing salve to any of us who have experienced trauma, suffering and hardship in our lives, which is to say: all of us. This book is medicine; it heals.
- Dr. Allyson Pimentel, Associate Director of Mindful USC and facilitator for UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and Insight LA
"In 2006 Tarana Burke started the #MeToo movement to support survivors of sexual violence, in particular black and brown girls, who suffer from sexual violence at 3 times the rate of white women and girls. In 2017 the #MeToo hashtag went viral when actress Alyssa Milano suggested in a Tweet that women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted respond by writing Me Too. Since then the #MeToo movement has expanded because sexual harassment and sexual assault impact people every day. The mission of the #MeToo movement is to connect survivors of sexual assault to the resources they need in order to heal. Now in 2021 Zabie Yamasaki has provided a much needed resource. Her book, Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault: Practices for Healing and Teaching with Compassion, offers a pathway toward healing the wounds of sexual abuse with trauma informed yoga. An important read."
- Gail Parker, Ph.D., CIAYT, psychologist, educator, and author of Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma, and Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress With Yoga (forthcoming in November 2021)
"Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault is a timely, powerful and a valuable resource for healing and empowerment. I can't recommend it more highly!"
- Melanie Klein, Empowerment Coach, Professor of Sociology and Gender/Women's Studies, co-founder of the Yoga & Body Image Coalition and co- editor of "Yoga & Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery and Loving Your Body."