Trauma Responsive Kundalini Yoga Therapy Training in Conflict Areas

After receiving requests from Kundalini Yoga teachers in areas of conflict for support, in June, 2023, the faculty of the International Kundalini Yoga Therapy Professional Training launched a five-year initiative to bring trauma-responsive yoga therapy training and support to Ukrainian Kundalini Yoga teachers. We are now expanding this to include training in other areas of conflict.

We developed an entirely new 4-day training specific to a war zone and delivered it to 120 Ukrainian Kundalini Yoga teachers. This initial group practiced seven core skills crucial for teaching yoga in environments of acute and complex trauma:

1. Self-regulation to restore a teacher’s calm presence

2. Co-regulation in a group class 

3. Cultivation of student self-regulation

4. Use of trauma-responsive language

5. Design of trauma-responsive classes

6. Application of grounding mudras

7. Returning an activated student to calm presence

Soon after, yoga teacher Olesia Stoyanova, one of the Guru Ram Das Center’s representatives in Ukraine, began leading a rehabilitation protocol daily for troops in a military hospital in Kyiv. The protocol focuses on stabilizing prana through the tattvas, building vitality and stability that can be maintained for months following the classes as these troops return to the front lines. 

Preliminary data from 2 months of daily classes (June–August 2023) confirmed these results: All participants noted improvement in well-being, mood, state of health, and life satisfaction. Most practitioners said they were better able to fall asleep, and that their emotional balance had improved.

The troops were reluctant to practice on the first day, Olesia says. Tuning in, the asanas, the movement, the breathing—it was too unfamiliar. Yet by day five, they were so engaged in the yoga they asked her to come to where they were going: 7 kilometers from the front lines. She is now a trauma-responsive yoga teacher in rotation for their unit.

With the war ongoing  there is an enormous number of people to serve. With your generosity, we can expand these vital trainings through 2024, to an additional 127 yoga teachers in other areas of conflict as well. 

We provide ongoing support for those we train as they bring their skills to soldiers with traumatic brain injury, amputees, special forces, veterans, and wives and partners of deployed. 

Your donation in any size to support the Healing Trauma with Kundalini Yoga initiative ensures these groundbreaking protocols continue to help those impacted by the war to restore stability, endurance, and resilience.

Will you donate today?

Warmly,

Shanti Shanti Kaur