Key Elements of the AHHAH Method
Understanding Trauma
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Trauma affects the mind and body in a myriad of ways. Knowing how and why trauma affects the body is the basis for healing.
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Creating a Safe Space |
ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) make it difficult for children to feel safe. We will provide you the tools to create these spaces for your school and organization.
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Psychology and Physiology |
Our practices engage both the body and the mind in the healing process. Mindful movement and expressive arts help to decrease the life-long effects of trauma on the body.
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Centering Voices of the Oppressed |
Everyone has unique life experiences. Honoring that universal truth and centering voices of the oppressed is integral to how we teach.
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Proactive & Reactive Programming |
We offer a wide range of services to our community in an effort to improve literacy benchmarks and family communication. Our programming targets literacy, mindfulness, and communication across a wide variety of activities and age groups in an effort to build stronger support systems for our youth and their families.
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Adaptability |
Working with adjudicated and incarcerated youth requires a level of flexibility in planning and personality. These same lessons carry into all of our work.
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Creative Expression & Healing |
A major part of the process of healing trauma is reclaiming one's voice. Expressive Arts workshops help our student participants learn to advocate for themselves and their needs.
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What is Trauma?
Trauma is not something foreign that only touches an “other,” it is something that each and every one of us, and each and every one of our students have come in contact with in some form throughout their lives, no matter the setting we teach in. It is important to have a foundation of trauma sensitive facilitation techniques so that we may hold the space for our students to come into contact with their own highest capacities for healing and being in a safe/ “safe enough” and supportive space.
When facilitating any class we must be aware of how to best support our students. Living in a world where our senses are constantly over-stimulated, our attention is drawn from one thing to the next at a rapid pace, and we live to work instead of working to live, yoga and mindfulness can provide space, time, and support to bring our senses inward. We live in a world where gaining scars from oppressive and dualistic systems is not uncommon. We carry these wounds in our psyche, in our ego, in our bodies and out on our mats. Yoga comes to many of us for different reasons, and yet many of us find peace, healing, and transformation within our bodies. It is this same healing that we seek to facilitate through yoga service.
In order to understand the place that trauma can hold in our classroom, we can begin by understanding the Spectrum of Trauma, definition of trauma, and effects of trauma on the body. “From the individual to the globalized world, the impacts of trauma may be experienced by all people. From a single acute traumatic event to wide spread insidious trauma, few people are left unaffected."
When facilitating any class we must be aware of how to best support our students. Living in a world where our senses are constantly over-stimulated, our attention is drawn from one thing to the next at a rapid pace, and we live to work instead of working to live, yoga and mindfulness can provide space, time, and support to bring our senses inward. We live in a world where gaining scars from oppressive and dualistic systems is not uncommon. We carry these wounds in our psyche, in our ego, in our bodies and out on our mats. Yoga comes to many of us for different reasons, and yet many of us find peace, healing, and transformation within our bodies. It is this same healing that we seek to facilitate through yoga service.
In order to understand the place that trauma can hold in our classroom, we can begin by understanding the Spectrum of Trauma, definition of trauma, and effects of trauma on the body. “From the individual to the globalized world, the impacts of trauma may be experienced by all people. From a single acute traumatic event to wide spread insidious trauma, few people are left unaffected."