Hi there, my name is Anna Trezzi and here’s a bit of insight into why I do what I do…

~My passion~

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a passion for working with my body as a form of self expression and healing whether through dance from childhood into early adulthood, or through yoga. Healing can mean many different things, and for me that search began as a child when anxiety became a burden followed by physical limitations from back pain. I learned through yoga how to heal my anxiety attacks, to better regulate my nervous system and to address pain before it worsens. Because of those experiences, I felt equally eager to learn how to address the physical limitations people experience by studying anatomy, physiology and biomechanics, as I did learning how to address our emotional and mental wellbeing through my studies of yoga philosophy, psychology, and trauma theory. Becoming a yoga teacher in 2006 gave me an opportunity to share my discoveries so my students can find the sense of freedom that body-based healing provides.

~My approach~

When we are able to sense the sensations within our body, we can then make a choice about how to address what type of care we need. Some sensations are more obvious, some more subtle, but either way sensations are our body’s way of communicating its needs. As I facilitate opportunities for students to improve awareness of the various sensations they notice, they’re empowered to address and care for their body’s needs ideally while it’s a whisper, before it’s a shout.

Have you heard of a “top-down” or “bottom-up” approach to healing? Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. wrote about this in The Body Keeps the Score.

“If you want to manage your emotions better, your brain gives you two options: you can learn to regulate them from the top down or the bottom up.  Knowing the difference between top down and bottom up regulation is central to understanding and treating traumatic stress.  Top-down regulation involves strengthening the capacity of the watchtower [medical prefrontal cortex] to monitor your body’s sensations.  Mindfulness meditation and yoga can help with this.  Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system [ANS], (which, as we have seen, originates in the brain stem).  We can access the ANS through breath, movement or touch.”

~ Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., (2014, 63-64)

I have found that guiding students through observing their body from both top-down and bottom-up approaches has been helpful. This holistic approach to yoga allows for growth on many levels: whether you’re learning how to address pain by improving awareness of how to move in a more supportive fashion or gaining awareness of the way thought patterns and emotions affect our physicality (and vice versa), or regulating the nervous system to feel more embodied.