Sarah H

My lived experience as a survivor as well as contemporary trauma theory, attachment theory, neuroscience and a commitment to justice inform my work and I’ve been sharing yoga in diverse settings since 2004.The majority of the people I’ve worked with over the years have been impacted by trauma in its myriad forms. Places I’ve worked include Vancouver Coastal Health Mental Health Teams, the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective, Pacifica Treatment Centre, the BC College of Psychologists, New Dawn recovery home for women, PHS Community Services, YWCA’s Munroe House (Canada’s first second-stage transition house), Burnaby Mental Health & Addiction, Spirit Way (second-stage housing for Indigenous women), a women’s prison and more. As the Director of Programs at Yoga Outreach I oversee delivery of yoga programs in a wide variety of venues across BC with clients living with the impacts of trauma as well as develop, deliver and oversee trainings in trauma-informed yoga and yoga for chronic pain. I began studying Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) at the Trauma Center, Boston, MA in 2010 and am a certified TCTSY facilitator as well as a training faculty member. I’m also a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT). I live as a guest on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded Indigenous territories of the Lkwungen , Wyomilth, and WSÁNEĆ Coast Salish Peoples, a.k.a. Victoria, BC where I offer pre-registered one-to-one and group sessions both in person and online. I hear from so many clients about the greater sense of embodied safety and wellbeing they receive from their practice. In my own recovery, yoga was hugely helpful with self-regulation, re-connection and recovering from a sense of mistrust – of my own embodiment, of other people and of the world around. I’m committed both to increasing access to the benefits of yoga and to understanding and addressing the wider societal injustices that create obstacles to health & wellbeing.