Embodying Joy

A trauma-informed exploration of joy, safety, and the nervous system

Understanding why joy can feel difficult, and learning how capacity gently expands, lays important groundwork. But healing doesn’t happen through understanding alone.

The body needs experience.

This is where yoga and somatic practices become so powerful — not just for processing trauma, but for increasing our capacity to hold both stress and joy.

Trauma research has shown us that trauma lives in the body, not just the story we tell about it. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk speaks extensively about how talk therapy alone often isn’t enough, and how practices like yoga help people reconnect with their bodies in ways that feel safer and more regulated.

Yoga works because it doesn’t ask the nervous system to explain or relive what happened. It works directly with sensation, breath, rhythm, and awareness — the same pathways through which trauma and regulation live.

This matters because both stress and joy create activation in the nervous system.

Most people understand that we need capacity to hold stress. What’s less understood is that we also need capacity to hold joy.

Excitement, pleasure, connection, and contentment all bring energy into the body. For nervous systems shaped by trauma, that energy can feel just as overwhelming as stress. Without enough capacity, the system may shut down joy the same way it shuts down threat.

Yoga helps build capacity for both.

Through slow, intentional movement, the nervous system practices tolerating sensation without becoming overwhelmed. Through breath, the body experiences regulation from the inside out. Through repetition, the system learns that activation can rise and fall without danger.

This is how the body learns resilience.

Somatic practices also help restore something trauma often disrupts choice.

In yoga, you choose how much sensation to feel, when to pause, when to rest, and when to continue. That sense of agency teaches the nervous system that it doesn’t have to brace, comply, or push through. It can listen and respond.

Choice creates safety.

Safety creates openness.

Over time, this changes how the body relates not only to stress, but to pleasure and joy.

Research has shown that yoga supports nervous system regulation, reduces stress hormones, and improves emotional regulation. When the body learns that it can experience sensation and return to balance, it becomes easier to stay present — whether the sensation is challenging or pleasant.

This is why yoga can feel grounding one day and unexpectedly emotional another. The body is learning to stay connected instead of shutting down.

Joy, in this context, doesn’t have to look like happiness or excitement. Sometimes joy shows up as steadiness. Sometimes it’s ease. Sometimes it’s simply feeling at home in your body for a moment. This is one way building capacity can show up, through small, steady experiences the body learns it can stay with.

Learning to recognize these experiences is part of building capacity. One of the things I love about Live Free is their commitment to supporting trauma- informed Yoga practices that honor the nervous system and the lived experience of each individual.

This is the essence of embodying joy, learning what feels safe, nourishing, and true in the body. It's also why Live Free is so passionate about trauma-informed teaching. By supporting both teachers and students in honoring the nervous system, Live Free helps cultivate spaces where joy can be embodied naturally, without pressure or expectation.

Joy grows where safety is practiced, and safety is something we can build together.

With Love

Carrie Payne