veterans and there's an awful lot of them coming home from iraq and afghanistan and what we're trying to do those who are trying to do the best that we can for them my guests today is whitney teach to folks with trauma and p t s d and mostly to veterans and first responders which are also veterans in most cases really you know one of it comes to you  i don't think my bones could do it but these are these guys and girls that have been trained in combat and they're pretty strong i imagine how do you get them flexible how do you get them to want to do this that's interesting i actually i support a lot of programs that ask for a yoga teacher because they know the benefits of yoga for veterans and  don't usually get a willing crowd and i usually for instance i'll go in and support a retreat up in vermont and the part of the retreat is that i teach them yoga every morning and you're right most folks have numerous injuries i teach a lot of vietnam veterans they're very much excited about getting help that they never got you know as you know when they came off the planes from vietnam really changed their clothes and got into civies right away because they weren't well received and there wasn't a lot of help out there for them so my my actually my best proponents for yoga are the vietnam veterans and they get the younger kids coming there are substantial injuries in particular when i teach in vermont i teach a chair yoga class and like i said i never get a willing subject generally but i am funny and very creative and i also have the symptoms of p t s d myself so i know how it is to feel like your body has betrayed you and i know how to articulate really what i think that they will gain from a yoga practice so they may not be willing but i quickly win them over in the first about fifteen minutes of the practice and what i'm teaching them is not rocket science it's really just about how to regulate their own bodies i have friend who is n veteran and what he does is he fixes my car and what he also does is if i sit down and he's given me the bill well he'll start to talk about angry and he keeps telling me about when he came home on the ship and they left the ship and people were spitting at them right and because they didn't believe in that war but still they didn't have to take it out on our guys and i can understand an anger and i met a lot of your subjects are not only angry but they're probably missing limbs that's true yeah so i teach i've been trained through the i'm i have yoga certification i was trained in yoga when we were living in texas and my significant other was overseas and i had no intention of actually teaching yoga but i just wanted to know more because i knew how i felt and i couldn't quite articulate it i just i just wanted to know more about the practice and why it was having such a an amazing effect on myself so the other training that i have is that i went through the trauma center to yoga training at the trauma center at the justice resource institute right here in brookline mass with a well known doctor named bessel van der kolk who actually worked at the boston v a when vietnam veterans were coming home so they have a very extensive program that talks about how it helps both the physical the body and then also helps the brain and the mind and really rates the symptoms of p t s d and trauma in addition i went through something called the warriors ladies training warrior training is specific if for they train yoga teachers to teach in a military setting in a military setting you wouldn't think there was a bridge between yoga and the military but we vet the warrior vets yoga instructors and teaches them how to teach to the military there are some very particular concerns we like to keep some of the out of the yoga teaching not a lot of burning incense not a lot of yoga music that might be triggering to folks and a lot of the verbiage that might be triggering so they get them interested in teaching to veterans but that first there's a part one where it's an introduction to a military climate and what the differences and during that first training you basically figure out whether you feel like you want to teach to veterans or you don't it's a nice vetting process where you really i happen to have come from a fit my grandfather was a world war two veteran and a pilot i had been to the manchester v a most of my life while he was sick in manchester new hampshire so i spent a lot of time around better ns and also i had a significant other that was deployed to afghanistan so i had been around that culture in it was familiar to me  i wasn't so familiar with yoga so the rest of the warriors eddy's training is a part to where you learn how to teach two different injuries whether it's a traumatic brain injury which you need to know certain things about also physical injuries teaching to folks with missing limbs or amputees amputees or they're funny because if they are and they have a great sense of humor you'll come around they'll take their yoga which helps the principles of helps the symptoms of p t s d and also to teach to the different injuries and usually my first my first order of business as a yoga teacher in specifically in vermont  they they have a laundry list of issues that i have to be aware of and when you're teaching trauma sensitive yoga you have to remember to keep everything in a pain free range know that there's no place to get to the the floor or the toes are the goal the idea is to feel the stretch you want to reiterate this more often with veterans because of the nature i mean they're going to just do more go further go faster because that's how they've been trained they haven't been trained to really take care itself when you link posed to pose it's a moving meditation and even the civilian world do yoga is really the gate way to a more meditative sitting practice which is the harder when we are in motion and this is what i found out when i was a kid i was a kid and i had i didn't discover i had p t s d until i was forty four and i had it it's kind of a strange thing to find out that you have that at forty four and it's not just quick i read a book actually when i knew that my significant other was having his last deployment i read a book called  a warrior always a warrior that was written by a psychiatrist in the army retired colonel hoshi and the first page when i sat down sadly he said the book to him like he was going to have plenty of time to read it i have some was a little irrational at the time but i read it myself and the very first page as i was reading goes over the this was a transition book home actually it had the symptoms of p d it talked a little bit about what to expect from your person when they came home a little bit about for families some information and then this little sliver of yoga which was interesting to me so that very first page that i opened up had all the symptoms of p t s d and i was looking at the symptoms and it was interesting i was reading them and i said i do that i did that five minutes ago i'm doing that right now i do this every day i was looking at the symptoms and i really just sort of diagnosed my own self with p t s d and then sort of didn't think too much of it prior to that i had been texas a place that i never thought i would visit let alone live no offense to texas they're actually really lovely folks and they were the warmest kindest loving people for when i was there by myself while he was gone but i ended up getting my teaching certificate i'm an art teacher but my my mast license didn't transfer and there was going to cost more money and there happened to be a yoga studio in texas that had a training and i it didn't necessarily i didn't even think about teaching yoga i just wanted to know more so as a kid i was an athlete it turns out that i had some really good skills and i had really great intuition when i was in motion and when i was a verb i felt better of course i couldn't articulate any of this i didn't know that it was helping my p t s d and helping me survive a lot of stuff  the reason for entering that yoga instruction in texas i got certified and based on a small fifteen minute demonstration of tripos which my lips were dry and i was sweating like the guy in the airplane and i'm not really a person that thought they would stand in front of people and talk about anything let alone be here quite like you but based on her yeah based on that little fifteen minute demonstration of tripos they offered me a job teaching yoga and since i was desperate at the time and i had no i didn't know anybody there and i agreed to teach yoga and i did get paid for and i i ended up teaching a lot of classes there and i ended up teaching in a studio in houston downtown houston in a very busy studio and ended up teaching a lot of norwegians how to paint and draw too so i ended up making a living we had moved home back to massachusetts and i started and it's all i had i had been out of the loop of teaching for so long he was on i think his second or third deployment at that point and i just started teaching because i had nothing else i could do and in two thousand and ten he was coming home this is when i read that book and discovered my own symptoms and he ended up not staying he  realized he had a lot of i was trying to be helpful but people only come to this when they're ready and desperate but the good thing that came out of this was it was the worst thing that happened to me basically and also the best i discovered my own p d and from that moment on and i also discovered that there was the reason i really took to yoga it was because of what i felt and i matched these two things together so i was able the first yoga class i took was when we were living in upstate new york and i was older like i said i was an athlete but you know i didn't want to end up in the aisle at c v s getting the ice packs and the heat  and the bandages and i tried to go to a gym but i didn't i just couldn't stand a gym and i know now why because there's a lot of chaos and edge and there's lots of tv's going on there's weights clanking they have like a child care in there and the first yoga class i took was in upstate new york on this a little bit of wood in the back of the small little studio for pull out these and yoga and it was at that time that the i was taking that class it was the most chaotic class had ever been in but it was the most peaceful place i'd ever been at that time and i couldn't quite articulate it but what i found after going through the training in texas and reading this book i realized this is where i found my way home so what yoga is is about bringing you back to your body bringing you back to your home so the benefit for me i never have really willing subjects and i really a lot of people yoga and they say or they call it yoga or yogurt or but there are some real yeah i think i call it all kinds of things and i said i don't care what you call this but i when i do my sales pitch and i have to be a sales person when i teach i teach at the bedford v a i teach mostly for the domicile larry and they're actually forced to come they get a choice to choose different things but they're sort of forced by the program to come because they're coming from the dom but i do get some public people but when i when i teach this my sales pitch is you're already doing things there already things in your life that you do that you love that bring you into the present moment where you lose all sense of time and space where you are at one with yourself and for me it was sports i was a soccer player and when i was a and i was like a black lab and just trying to get the ball that was when i was at my best there was no thought i was just in motion and that really helps you or your nervous system it helps ameliorate the symptoms there was a lot of good qualities there so i asked them to think about what it is that they love and rosey grier needed a lot of folks do sharpshooting or trap shooting or a lot of folks like to ride their bike or play or whatever it is that brings you into the present moment is not anything different than yoga so if they feel more comfortable of thinking in those terms and and i also think that if you are desperate enough you will try anything and and i happened to stumble upon yoga and then i just followed the thread when we're in motion when we do physical things than we are helping our bodies reregulate what happens from trauma is that you dysregulat your whole body for prolonged trauma being in a war zone or you've you've really switched on everything to the point where you can't switch it off on your own what i find interesting is that including myself you can wander this earth as a human being in thinking that you are the only one on the planet that is a mass or is out of sorts and i find it i find it  i find it sad i just really do that we just don't we don't think of it we we isolate ourselves and that's one of the things that happens with veterans they isolate they don't ask for help here they were this this perfect machine trained by the military and when they come home they don't get a lot of what they need and i think that yoga is one of those it's not the only thing i think there's medicine that can help certain things i think that there is  physical movement definitely does and i think talk therapy and i think there's some validity to i've done are not everything is for everybody including yoga not it might not resonate but the always all good ways to modify a yoga practice i use a chair and that's a pretty feisty practice and again like i said i keep everything in a pain free range and that i reiterate and keep a very safe environment for folks to that's what they need to say it's true everybody wants to feel safe and secure and everybody wants to feel at home in their own bodies and it takes work to get there but the work is good that they haven't felt safe since they went over there when they come home you mentioned the the the mode that they are in over there is a combat mode right when they come home is that hard to switch it off i think it is you know i'm not a veteran but i think in watching folks i think it would be very hard to be in a highly stressed environment where you're switches i call  it spy i'm old enough to know remember spinal tap you know when you put it on eleven so so if you're on eleven all the time and you come home everything seems boring i think i mean there's no activity there's nothing to do and you're just sitting loose around the house and that's when you start to probably notice you're you're your symptoms and then that's when your body starts to betray you i mean you and you can't figure out how to make it stop and there are ways there are ways to help a lot of these kids when they come home they commit suicide that's true the suicide rate is appalling it's the way it hits and it has been for a prolonged period since the beginning of iraq and then obviously the suicide rate was i think pretty great during vietnam is there anything that you can think of that you know when they get off the plane or by shi as far as being indoctrinated back into society that we might be able to help them before they even start thinking of suicide to get their mind going back into the way it used to be well tell you the thoughts that i had when i read that book when i knew that i wasn't probably going to get the same person back that that left and i didn't get an opportunity to do anything for that person but what started going through my head is that and i've been working towards this is that i really would like to have a camp a full on camp soup to nuts  where you you come home and you just start working on doing things that you love being a verb being in motion having opportunities like i said not a not just one choice but many choices  so maybe i have actually started a small little wellness clinic sorry i'm a little all over the map but as soon as i got trained at the trauma center in brookline i went to my local outreach center which is in massachusetts and i went straight to the man there named john rocca and i told him who i was what my training was and what i'd like to do and fortunately for me he said yes to me right away and bought me yoga equipment and gave me a space in the basement of this outreach center and i've been teaching i got trained in june of two thousand and eleven and july fourteenth of twenty eleven i started a yoga class at this outreach center every thursday from one to two anybody is welcome that is a veteran so there's been a steady class there i've never been alone but i've also brought in sort of a bigger population there's a lot of communication coming from bedford to this outreach center on top of it i've expanded it to have had a chiropractor who put together three other chiropractors so they come in and donate their time on thursdays as well so there's a free clinic where folks can get chiropractic reiki and reflexology so these body based modellers i think are incredibly helpful so my bigger picture idea is what i've kept on the forefront of my head is that i have this place a transition camp is what i called in my head there overnight can't imaginary and in my head at the moment but when i was reading that book once a warrior always a warrior and discovered my own p t s d i knew what i wanted i had and i ha moment so that class that i taught when i for fifteen minutes and became a yoga instructor and i had been of at loose ends you know i was out of the loop for teaching in the art programs have been cut in trying to put together work and my significant other was coming home and when i was reading this book i had this epiphany first of all this is exactly what i am supposed to do on earth which is a huge gift you know people talk about at that moment or they they know what they're supposed to do when i read that little piece in that man's book i knew that this is what i was supposed to do with my work and my time is to teach yoga and i for some reason no matter how at my worst while i was trying to heal myself from  the relationship dissolving and discovering that i had p t s d i could be in dire straits but walk in teacher yoga class be perfectly fine walk out and fall apart but for some reason  when this was my gift that i got for myself that no matter what was going on in my life that i could do this and i happened to be really talented at teaching to folks that have i teach regular classes too but i teach to folks with sexual trauma specifically just for them and for their environment for their needs and their concerns i teach my own class in bury that is just i have a couple of veterans but i also have regular people doing other people d i don't know a thing about yoga but i imagine something that is so it's structured and you're being talked through all the moves morning till nine fifteen on thursdays and i have a mixed group so it's a chair yoga class i have an eighty year old world war two veteran i have a seventy four year old veteran of a big mixture of folks and of course you know seniors have all kinds of arthritis they've had surgeries they're recovering from all kinds of stuff so we have a good little group we keep everything in a pain free range i tell people that i'm  y not the boss of anybody so if something that doesn't sound really like a good idea from my description then they don't have to do what i say you sound like you've found your niche in life i feel like i have a feeling  feel like there's more to do so that transition can buy my big vision that under full yeah i have partnered up with a good friend of mine dan badger he runs badger wilderness guides and i am his  person i am the director of wellness programs for badger wilderness guides and what we're hoping to do and it's a nonprofit if anybody wants to throw some money our way we're going to be vendors for the bedford v a at some point soon rebuild the challenge you hopefully be able to bring some of this stuff to to you in addition to the yoga but what we both want to do is have a place maybe up in maine where folks can kind of come in so you've come home from from war you spend and get reconnected with your family and family members and kids would be welcome at this camp so that you're not overwhelmed with the day to days of being a parent again and you can slowly transition into being a parent  a spouse and a dad or mom where you could go kayaking or white water rafting do some hikes being outdoors is incredibly healing where you can learn to do yoga or get reiki or acupuncture acupuncture has a really nice year protocol for p t s d as well as balancing the body but soup to nuts this is what i would like to do and were the two of us are working on that talk more about veterans benefits and that's it for now b