Youth Yoga for Feelings
I bounced back from multiple childhood traumas, and that reality has informed my work with BIPOC youth for the past 25 years. In my experience, Black and Brown children need safe spaces and tools to support their mental and emotional health. Communities across the diaspora teach their children to suppress their feelings and stifle safe spaces for self-expression. Teaching emotional intelligence supports holistic development and allows young people to gain a deeper understanding of self and build resilience. Work like this is needed now more so than ever on the heels of the United States surgeon general warning that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects. The impact of the pandemic compounded with the developing adolescent brain, interpersonal relationships, and social media culture are converging into catastrophic results for young people.
This summer I had the opportunity to teach virtual wellness and mindfulness curriculum centered on movement, meditation, and therapeutic art to underserved youth in Newark. I worked with youth participating in the Center for Pre-College Upward Bound Program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. I created a curriculum inclusive of trauma-informed yoga, therapeutic art, and emotional intelligence discourse to support the student's developing emotional intelligence and build resilience to their stressors. Thirty-two students registered for my art journaling elective and ten signed up for the yoga series. They all attended middle school and high school in Newark, NJ, and ranged from 12 to 18 years of age. We worked together for a total of 5 weeks. My goal was to create a safe space where they felt comfortable exploring emotional language and expanding their healthy coping toolbox. By all accounts this series was successful, and I'm pleased and proud of the results. Below is my best attempt to unpack the program and recap our progress.
The class format stayed consistent throughout our 19 sessions together and was set to a specific emotional theme. I used a combination of visual and podcast media, movement, meditation, music, and open discourse to engage the students in every session. I provided the students with a required reading list of more than 100 feeling words to increase their language around feelings and emotions; this created the framework for our emotional intelligence discourse. Each meeting began with a mat chat in which students shared their current state of being from a physical, emotional, or mental standpoint. I forbade them from using non-descriptive words such as "okay, fine, good, or great" and prompted them to try again if they slipped into these comfort zones. They reported feeling relaxed and calm most frequently, but the third most popular response was "tired." Our class was the final session of the day; in some cases, they were experiencing basic burnt-out from being on screen for 8 hours of a summer day. Weather-related fatigue was also a common occurrence driven by several rainy days that drained us all.
Life's little pleasures like birthday celebrations, beach days, and spending time with family and friends left them feeling energized. I documented my student's self-reported feelings every day. Collectively the students shared forty-six different feelings and emotions over the 19 sessions that we had together. I was super impressed by this because many adults are unable to identify this many feelings. The students were present and aware of what was going on in their mental, physical, and emotional space and able to identify the following feelings: relaxed, tired, energized, sweaty, motivated, calm, drained, easeful, focused, distracted, proud, confident, rejuvenated, inspired, happy, excited, lazy, angry, uneasy, anxious, dreadful, comfortable, lavish, stretchy, balmy, satiated, awesome, enthusiastic, stellar, sad, woozy, startled, scared, productive, bored, impatient, hungry, balanced, challenged, frustrated, stressed, ambitious, strong, flexible, extravagant and flustered. They got more creative as the weeks went on, and challenged themselves to choose more descriptive words. In our shared human experience, feelings teach us a lot about ourselves and how we show up in the world. We are in control of our emotions and feelings, and hold the power to shift, adjust and change them at any moment. Our emotional alchemy abilities advance with self-awareness.
I lead our physical movement practice through the lens of a trauma-informed approach. I guided the class through three different types of yoga and somatic movement; we covered beginner-friendly accessible poses from Hatha, Kemetic yoga, and Iyengar styles of yoga. We did a somatic exercise to add some playfulness to our practice and to help the students develop a deeper sense of body awareness. When we are disconnected from our bodies, feelings, and emotions it is impossible to connect with others. Feeling connected is an integral part of healthy social and emotional development.
Another way that we worked on developing connections was through guided breathwork and meditations. We practiced six styles of meditation to add variation to their mindfulness toolboxes. Body scan meditations also aided in building body awareness and self-connection. I introduced them to lion's breath, bumblebee breath, box breathing, and alternate nostril breathing for their relaxing, anti-anxiety effects. Breathwork is one of the most powerful tools we have to manage our mental and emotional health. Our second to the last session was a sound bowl meditation where we got to work with calming vibrational frequencies.
The students' self-care practices spanned playing music and video games to resting, walking in the park, and playing at the beach. Only one had tried yoga before our series. I encouraged them to keep doing the things that bring them joy as life gets more stressful as they prepare to transition from college and into adulthood. I was impressed with the adolescences' presence and participation in each session. It can be intimidating to try new things, but they were actively engaged and eager to contribute to the class. If my students never practice physical asana practice again or never sit for another meditation again, I hope they always remember to show up and be present as their lives continue to unfold.
In researching for this recap, I found that similar programs have been developed in inner cities in the Midwest. Lisa Ellis,a counselor at a high school in Cleveland, developed an eight-week program for first-year students that aims to help reduce the stigma of mental illness. The curriculum includes videos, mental health diagnoses discussions, and healthy coping mechanisms to help students regulate their emotions inside and outside the classroom. Similarly in Chicago, LaVome Robinson, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, created the Success Over Stress study to address the unique set of stressors that challenge inner-city children such as neighborhood violence and food insecurities. Although this work has proven to be effective in improving overall well-being, more resources and research are needed to roll out trauma-informed yoga for youth and other culturally inclusive mental health programs on a wider scale.
