186 • Part III: YOGa FOr EDUCatING FOr SELF-rEGULatION aND ENGaGEMENt CHaPtEr 9: YOGa aS EMBODIED SELF-rEGULatION aND ENGaGEMENt • 187
So what does the body uncanny mean? Svenaeus (2013) explains the term uncanny citing
the German etymology of the word and Sigmund Freud. From this perspective, the term
uncanny refers to something being fearful and not feeling like home (Svenaeus, 2013).
Throughout out the many years I have worked on prevention of eating disorders and
the enhancement of embodied self-regulation via my research, private practice, and yoga
teaching, I have a sense that many of us, kids to adults, feel this way about our bodies.
In today’s culture, bodies are objectified, judged, measured, weighed, and undervalued in
terms of their function and overvalued in terms of their appearance. Further, chronic stress
creates a sensation of constant tension and agitation, triggering efforts to leave the embodied
self through distraction and addiction (Cook-Cottone, 2015). Our bodies are objectified or
seen as machines (Horton, 2012). In the past, work and life tasks demonstrated that we must
be in our bodies (Horton, 2012). In contemporary society, we must carve out time to spend
there (Horton, 2012).
When I teach yoga, I watch as yoga students, from the early elementary years to all
ages of adults, shift back into a settled sense of themselves. I watch how their bodies shift
from places of uncanny objectification to their safe, settled, and empowered home. In this
way, yoga is a pathway to embodied self-regulation, to “I can.” Self-regulation is the skill
of engaging in thoughts and behaviors that allow you to be effective in your life. Embodied
self-regulation is doing that while staying attuned to your physiological and emotional
experience of self. Essentially, you work toward effectiveness in your life while honoring
your body and your feelings. You can. You not only think you can, your lived, physical
experience shows you that you can. It is embodied self-regulation. Gard, Noggle, Park,
Vago, and Wilson (2014) describe it this way:... yoga may function through top-down and bottom-up mechanisms for the regulation
of cognition, emotions, behaviors, and peripheral physiology, as well as for improving
efficiency and integration of the processes that subserve self-regulation. (p. 77)
This chapter covers the definition of yoga, traditional forms and structures of yoga, and
addresses general considerations related to the provision of yoga in schools. To provide
context, the traditional view of yoga and connection with yoga’s historical roots are reviewed.
This also includes a discussion on the provision of secular yoga in schools and a brief discus-
sion of the Encinitas lawsuit in which a group of parents sued the Encinitas Union School
District (EUSD) purporting that yoga is a religion and therefore not appropriate for schools.
Last, a trauma-sensitive approach to schools and the utility of yoga practice as trauma-
informed tools for the classroom are introduced. The chapter provides school personnel
with the context needed to discuss the historical roots of yoga, the secular approach, and
the larger context of yoga practices in schools. The specific formal and informal practices
of yoga as well as the body of research on yoga in schools are reviewed in Chapters 10, 11,
and 12, respectively.WHat IS YOGa?
In a traditional sense, yoga is a philosophy, a way of understanding the fundamental
nature of human existence. Yoga philosophy views the experience of self as inhabiting two
domains: an inner experience of thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and an outer experience