When Your Body Says No: Listening To The Wisdom In Your Practice

After more than 25 years of practice and 20 years of teaching, Harmony has found herself in a very different relationship with yoga than the one she started with. In this conversation, she sits down with her friend and co-facilitator, Lindsay Johnson, to talk honestly about what happens when a highly structured, discipline heavy practice stops feeling like home to your body.

They trace the arc from Ashtanga and power vinyasa into somatic yoga, nervous system literacy, trauma sensitivity, and embodied energetics, and how those worlds are coming together in their new 100 hour Somatic Yoga and Embodied Energy Teacher Training at Yoga Passage in Calgary. 

Harmony shares how the dogma and dualism she experienced in traditional Ashtanga left her feeling traumatized and disconnected from her own body’s wisdom, even as she continued to teach. Lindsay talks about growing up with medical trauma, discovering yoga as her first physical practice, and how chasing discipline, shapes, and handstands eventually gave way to a longing for freedom, expression, and true safety in her body.

Together, they explore somatics as “coming home”: feeling instead of performing, building safety before “doing the work,” honouring the nervous system, and allowing movement, sound, and emotion to express in ways that look far less linear and far more like nature. They also speak directly to yoga teachers and long-time practitioners whose bodies are now saying no to old patterns, and how this training is designed as an initiation and a supplement to existing trainings rather than “just another certification.”

If your yoga practice has started to feel like a grind, if your nervous system is already at capacity, or if you are curious about weaving subtle energy work, trauma literacy, and somatic language into the way you teach, this episode is an invitation to reimagine what yoga can be.

In This Episode, You’ll Hear About

• When a beloved practice stops working
  • Harmony’s honest reflection on feeling traumatized by the dogma and indoctrination around Ashtanga.
  • What it is like when your body keeps saying “no” every time you get on your mat.
  • Why so many midlife practitioners walk away from yoga entirely when the old way stops feeling safe.
• Lindsay’s path through discipline into somatics
  • First teacher training at Yoga Passage back in 2005 and years of teaching linear, disciplined styles like power vinyasa and Ashtanga.
  • How a Saturday power class turned into a somatic class the moment she invited everyone to shake, and never went back.
  • The realization that she had been hypervigilant and disconnected from her body for most of her life, and how somatics helped her come home.
• Discipline, structure and their limits
  • Why highly structured systems can initially feel like safety for nervous systems shaped by trauma, chaos, or disorganized families.
  • How discipline taught them to cue, hold space, and show up, yet eventually began to feel like a cage rather than support.
  • The shift from “I need to fix myself and prove my worthiness” to “I am already whole, and the practice is about remembering that.”
• Somatic yoga as nervous system literacy
  • What it means to teach from a felt sense instead of from performance or achievement.
  • Using pendulation, “islands of safety,” and choice to guide students in and out of sensation.
  • Why learning to relax and feel ease is a prerequisite for true regulation and resilience.
• Trauma sensitivity and language in class
  • How somatic language differs from traditional cueing, especially around choice and autonomy.
  • Giving students sovereignty instead of pushing them into “no pain, no gain” territory.
  • Letting go of rigid bilateral rules and allowing asymmetry, ease, and curiosity to lead.
• Feminine energy, Kundalini and non-linear movement
  • Reframing vinyasa and “flow” as something guided by breath and sensation, not just choreography.
  • How Kundalini and Shakti express through spirals, oscillations, and organic movement rather than straight lines.
  • The role of self-touch, oxytocin, and nurturing practices in regulating women’s