By Sasha Sigel (interview with Shannon Crow, The Connected Yoga Teacher)
This week, my (first!) podcast interview dropped– I spoke with Shannon Crow, host of The Connected Yoga Teacher about abortion and yoga. Shannon is a skilled and compassionate facilitator, and I’ve listened to her show for years. In our conversation, we talked about “how yoga intersects with reproductive justice and how we can lean on the foundational values of yoga to guide us in supporting people through their reproductive choices.” Another focus is “the barriers many people face when accessing care, how community doulas and yoga teachers can safely show up, and why normalizing abortion as a part of human healthcare is a crucial part of our work as compassionate spaceholders”
We explore “how yoga is more than just movement – it is a liberatory practice that can offer space for validation, rest, and healing, especially for those who’ve experienced abortion or miscarriage.” Below, I’ll share some excerpts from the conversation.
You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
How can yoga teachers offfer abortion support?
First things first– how does yoga relate to abortion support? A fair question!
“I always like to zoom out and know that we're not talking only about asana (or the physical component of yoga)… but also we're looking at, for example, satya (truthfulness, truth telling) and we're in a place right now where there is so much misinformation and propaganda about what kind of health care is available to folks.
And so part of our practice is finding the truth and knowing how to communicate with people and give them accurate resources… And also, the sense that yoga is a liberatory practice and reproductive justice and health care is something that's under attack right now in terms of folks having agency over their own body.”
I also shared this perspective from a lens that includes specific asana and pranayama practices to include when working with someone who has recently had an abortion:
“[As a] yoga teacher, firstly, we can know that if a student or client tells us that they have recently had an abortion or a miscarriage, that technically they are postpartum. So we can tailor the asana, the pranayama, all of the practices to meet their body where it is.
[One] thing that I love to think about is tailoring or building a practice around apana vayu… the vayus are the directions of energy, the direction of wind. So of course, for preparing for an abortion, we are going to be looking at the downward and outward direction of energy, apana vayu.
So we can focus on the hips, the low back, the pelvic floor muscles, what are ways that we can create more circulation, more blood flow, how can we relax and lengthen the muscles both before and after an abortion. [That] could be anything from pelvic tilts, pelvic floor drops with breath…[and] the Supta Padangusthasana series can be really helpful to lengthen out inner, outer, hip muscles, and hamstrings.
And then we would, for example, not do core work right now. We would not do inverted asanas right now. And it could also be a great time to incorporate mudras (the energetic seals we make with our hands.) How can we help bring in that apana value through apana mudra?
And then what might someone need afterwards? Nervous system regulation, techniques, restorative postures to rest and calm the body.”
What the heck is an abortion doula?
“[As an] abortion doula, one thing that I do is [support] people who are coming into New York to receive abortion care... these are folks who need to arrange child care for their current children, take time off work, make an appointment in a state they've never been to, travel there, and the costs can be exorbitant… All of these things that are practical and logistical challenges that, me living in New York, I know how to do the subway or call an Uber… but for someone who's in a really challenging and perhaps emotional situation, it makes a world of difference to have someone accompanying you through this process.”
Emotional Support
While many of these examples are specific to supporting people experiencing abortion or miscarriage, these practices can be used in countless situations.
“Use non-assumptive, non-judgmental language. We don’t know why this person got an abortion. We don’t know what their experience was. So our main role is going to be listening to whatever information they do give us.
We want to use reflective language. So if, for example, they say ‘fetus’, you say ‘fetus.’ If they say ‘ended a pregnancy’, you say ‘ended a pregnancy.’”
[One time I] shared a car ride home after this person had their procedure, and they said, ‘I would actually love to just be in silence.’ And so we were quiet. And then at the end, they said, ‘I know that that was just a silent car ride, but it meant so much to me. It helped me. It gave me what I needed.’
So I really try to let the other person take the lead. And I'll say that. I'll say, ‘You take the lead. If you want to talk, we'll talk. If you want to hold hands, we'll hold hands. If you want to FaceTime your family or listen to a podcast, fine.’ So each person is just so very different in how they're experiencing it. And [I’m] doing my best to really respond in the moment with that person.”
Facilitating Non-Traumatic Experiences
“The one other thing that I feel really passionate about is, whether it's through the role of an abortion doula and very direct involvement– or like you said, we're constantly teaching to folks who have had abortions or will have an abortion– that part of our role can be to actually make this not a traumatic experience. It doesn't have to be a traumatic experience.
…The shame and the stigma is not from the experience itself. It's being put upon us by others. And so I find it really, really meaningful to allow someone to have their own experience with it. And for example… sometimes I'll pick someone up from the clinic and they're feeling okay. So we go grab a slice of New York pizza. It's the first New York pizza they've ever had. We go sit on a bench, or we watch a movie, and maybe not right at that moment, but perhaps by the end of the evening, they're able to have an enjoyable end to the day and feel okay in their body and feel supported.
And that makes a huge, huge difference in how their body and their brain processes abortion care. And then how we talk about it to others– from there it continues on and on. So I really love this possibility of making it not a traumatic experience.
How Can I Get Involved?
“[There's] three buckets, or three areas, where people can provide support. One is practical support, and that's what we've talked a lot about, of accurate information. Language translation is a big one. Having Spanish speakers be able to fully understand what's happening throughout their abortion experience. Setting up appointments, transportation, child care, to all of those practical components are in one bucket.
[Emotional] support would be in another bucket of listening and validating, helping with either like distraction tools or calming tools.
And then the third bucket would be physical support, which is about nourishment and water and rest and maybe herbal support, if people are interested in that.
So once a yoga teacher has a sense of, do you want to do all of those things? One of those things? What's your capacity?
An option would be to do an abortion doula training. And I would recommend Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings. It's a Black-owned, queer-run, training group. And there’s Holistic Abortions– they work with decolonized models of community care, and that's a great way to learn about herbal support before, during, and after abortions.
So, you'll get a really good scope of what the possibilities are with a training like that. And then I think it's a matter of reaching out and doing, honestly, a lot of research about who's in your area who's already doing this. Who are the doula collectives that already exist? Are there yoga teachers who already talk about perhaps postnatal care or miscarriage support or abortion support and contacting them and asking, you know, how can I support you doing the work?”
Final Thoughts
“I think the one thing that gives me hope is that people resist and people connect and start talking and finding ways to take care of each other. So I'm sorry that we have to do that, but I'm glad that we can do that together.
Listen to the full episode here and check out the rest of Shannon’s work! If you or someone you know is seeking abortion support, you can contact me here. I support folks seeking abortions of all genders and sexualities. This page also has resources for finding in clinic procedures, medication abortion, and legal information.
I also offer education to groups seeking to demystify abortions and learn how to get involved in reproductive justice. If you’d like to host an info-sharing night or bring me to your organization, please contact me here.