Acute Trauma - Self Care

Changing the Face of Yoga Podcast

Diana Tokaji Part 2

Self-Care during Acute Trauma

1:00 Wrote a book “Six Women in a Cell” of her experience with assault by police. It isn’t a yoga therapy how-to, tells stories of the womens’ experience. Reader and listener share the experience. Story of what it takes to survive. It’s for any survivor and those that work with survivors.

5:20 Diana’s assault occurred three years ago. This time frame has allowed her to start speaking publicly. This and working with clients with similar problems requires a lot of self-care, emotional rebalancing and release.

7:00 Self Care Tips: what restores each of us comes from what we love. Soon after the assault took up boxing – contact, rhythm – really helped. She dances, moves, shares. Recommends that yoga therapists learn re-evaluation counselling where the counsellor is trained to be present, a quality listener to another person. Yoga therapists should be available to each other using this technique.

10:50 Presence is being sware of what the body is asking or trying to do. Learning what it really takes to be present. It is the best gift you can give anybody. In a session, visiting different scenes of Diana’s assault, I knew nobody wanted to hear about the assault, or what I went through. When the therapists described the defeat she saw in me, the dam broke and I talked about it. The yoga therapists held the space while those scenes replayed.

16:03 Diana’s book Six Women in a Cell telling the story of her assault experience is written with only a few edits remaining. Then she will be looking for an agent and publisher. The performance based on the book is another avenue for the story. Perfomance was a carrot for Diana’s GoFundMe site to fund writing the book. The GoFundMe has been successful in providing funds. (See resources for the finding the site if you would like to donate.)

21:30 The physical aspect in yoga therapy (e.g., mudras) are very helpful. Pull, press, push the hands and the being registers the courage needed in life. Creates a sense of tone; translates to the mental and emotional states. The physical practices are equally important.

Contacts

[e-mail]

FB: Diana.tokaji.1

Resources:

Yoga Therapy Today, Diana Tokaji, “ Yoga Therapy as Early Intervention for the Acute Stage Following Assault or Trauma: Highlights from a Self-Case Report”, Winter, 2018, p.42

www.GoFundMe.com search for Diana Tokaji