Yoga as Reclamation: An Indigenous Perspective
Yoga for Indigenous Healing: A Personal Story of Reclamation
When I first came to yoga, I didn’t see myself reflected in the space. The studios, the teachers, the culture it didn’t feel like it was made for someone like me, an Indigenous person carrying both ancestral strength and intergenerational wounds. Yet, something kept calling me back. Over time, I realized that yoga wasn’t about fitting into a space it was about reclaiming my own.
Indigenous Wellness and Yoga
For Indigenous peoples, wellness has always been part of who we are. Our ancestors knew how to breathe with the land, move with the seasons, and listen to the body as a guide. Colonization tried to sever those connections, replacing them with systems that separated us from our bodies, our spirit, and each other.
Yoga, which means union, offers another path of reconnection. When I step onto my mat, I feel like I’m stepping into ceremony. My breath becomes prayer, movement becomes medicine, and I remember that I am part of something bigger, my community, my ancestors, and the land.
Healing From Intergenerational Trauma
Many Indigenous folks carry intergenerational trauma in the body, stress, grief, and survival patterns passed down through generations. Yoga has given me tools to release some of that weight.
Breathwork (pranayama) calms my nervous system.
Movement (asana) builds strength and creates space in my body for energy to flow.
Meditation grounds me in the present moment.
These practices don’t erase the past, but they help me carry it with more ease. Yoga becomes a way of saying: I deserve wellness. I deserve healing.
Yoga as a Path of Reclamation
For me, practicing yoga as an Indigenous person is an act of reclamation. While yoga comes from South Asian traditions, Indigenous peoples have always had our own ways of moving, breathing, and connecting. Yoga doesn’t take me away from who I am it brings me back. It reminds me that I have the right to balance, rest, and joy.
When I share yoga with other Indigenous folks, it becomes even more powerful. Together, we create circles of safety and collective healing. We laugh, breathe, move, and sometimes sit i n silence. In those moments, yoga becomes more than a practice it becomes community medicine.
Walking in Two Worlds
As Indigenous peoples, we are always walking in two worlds our ancestral teachings and the modern world around us. Yoga has become a bridge for me, a way to weave together Indigenous wellness practices and trauma-informed yoga in a way that feels authentic.
This path has shown me that healing isn’t about choosing one tradition over another it’s about creating bridges that bring us home to ourselves.
Yoga didn’t erase my Indigeneity it deepened it. It gave me another way to heal, to reclaim wellness, and to step back into my full power.
If you’re an Indigenous person looking for a safe, trauma-informed yoga space, I invite you to join me for class. Together, we can explore yoga as healing, reconnect with our bodies, and reclaim balance—one breath at a time.