AT OASIS CHURCH, Bath, we are trying to adopt an “asset-based” approach: in determining where to put our resources, time, and energy, we want to empower and equip local people to build on their strengths and skills to improve things in their lives and in the area. Our congregation includes a teacher of trauma-informed yoga, Anna Caldwell (www.activestillness.org), who wants to make trauma-informed yoga more accessible to those who might benefit from it.
She is keen to overturn any preconceived idea of what yoga is, and whom it is for, knowing that the skills learned in yoga can be really helpful for traumatised people: “Trauma often causes individuals to disassociate from their internal experience. This could be a way to find safety as someone doesn’t feel safe in their body, or it could be a way to move away from the pain of the present. Trauma can distort our relationship to our bodies. It also leaves us stuck in the protection mode of ‘fight or flight’. Trauma Informed Yoga helps people rebuild a sense of safety and connection within themselves by working gently with the nervous system. It’s less about perfect poses and more about choice, empowerment, and regulating the ‘fight or flight’ response.”
AT THE time of the development of the project, we had existing partnerships with two charities focused on mental health: Focus Counselling, which offers affordable counselling to people in Bath; and Bath Mind, which delivers a range of services in our community, all aimed at improving people’s mental health.
We worked with Focus to identify the parameters of the project: whom it would target, when it would run, and who would deliver it. We decided to run a course of ten hour-long classes on Friday mornings, and to recruit ten participants who would be referred by Focus or Bath Mind. For each session, Focus provided a practitioner who could sit with anyone in distress, as well as signpost the way to other forms of support.
A year later, we received further funding to run the same course. This time, Bath Mind provided a staff member. Working in partnership is important to us anyway, but we knew that with this project we needed to draw on the expertise of others to provide a truly safe space, and to allow Anna to focus on teaching.
At the end of each course, we collected feedback from the participants. We have been utterly astonished by the impact that it has had. One participant who had had some medical trauma in the past was very nervous about having a blood test at their GP surgery. Through the techniques learned at Trauma Informed Yoga, they were able to stay calm, regulate their nervous system, and have the blood test. Others describe the course as “life-changing”, “very empowering”, and “a sacred hour I looked forward to each week”.
WHILE the course has been a wonderful success, I, as a church leader, think that it is important that we don’t just deliver trauma-informed programmes, but are a trauma-informed church. This has involved not big interventions or huge changes, but small additions and amendments here and there, which often go a long way to help someone who has experienced trauma to feel safe and able to participate.
Some small examples of this would be providing content warnings in advance if we are discussing a difficult topic that may be triggering for people, and not always using the same names, metaphors, or pronouns for God, recognising that some may have difficulty with thinking of God as “Father”, or even in male language. We also provide a written service plan at the back of the church for anyone who would value knowing exactly what is happening in the service, giving people a sense of control and the ability to plan for anything that we are doing that they might find hard, such as a discussion with people around them.
Finally, we try to model and speak about our belief that trauma is not the end: because of our belief in a resurrected Jesus, we believe that post-traumatic growth is possible. While we may not be able to be who we were before our trauma, we can remake or reimagine ourselves into something or someone new, and even heal from our trauma, as we find people and places of safety where we can be fully ourselves.
Jo Dolby is Hub Leader at Oasis Church, Bath (www.oasisbath.org).
WORD OF THE MONTH
Transcendence/Immanence: the quality, particularly in relation to God, of existence beyond the created order, and presence within it; from the Latin transcendere (surpassing or rising above) and immanere (to dwell within).
