About Soraya Allison
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga & Somatic Healing
I'm a trauma-sensitive yoga facilitator and somatic guide working online with people around the world and on retreats in Europe.
Hi I’m Soraya…..
I've also walked the long, winding path of healing my own childhood trauma, and that lived experience shapes everything I offer.
I'm happiest immersed in nature, whether in a forest, in the mountains or on a sailboat on the water. I love to create, to dance barefoot, to explore both the inner and outer world, and to connect. Originally from the UK, I'm currently living nomadically, testing what safety and security mean without fixed roots. You can read more about my travels on Substack.
I work one-to-one with people of all genders, and my courses are for women in perimenopause, menopause or a major life transition. Whoever you are, the aim is the same: to step out of the grey and begin to feel the full kaleidoscope of being human, through trauma-sensitive yoga, somatic practice and self-enquiry.
My Journey with Yoga
Some of my childhood memories of my mother are of her practising yoga and trying to mimic her shapes, I was completely fascinated. She died when I was in my early twenties. With no one to guide me through the grief, yoga became my quiet way of staying close to her. It gave me something that felt almost normal in a world that had become so abnormal.
Like many of us, I learned to suppress my emotions and get on with things. Yoga and barefoot dancing became the ways I coped. My relationship with yoga has never been a straight line. When I was pregnant, it was how I got to know my changing body and the small life growing inside me. It became a practice of nurturing us both. Years later, in an emotionally abusive relationship my liife felt heavy and chaotic, and my mat became a small refuge: a rectangle of peace where I could breathe and move freely, for a little while at least.
Looking back, I can see I was also using yoga to escape. I threw myself into fast, flowing vinyasa, chasing the high that would carry me through the day. I didn’t realise it then, but I was dissociating through my practice, using it to sidestep pain I didn’t even realise was there, it was buried so deeply. This was spiritual bypassing, dressed up as wellness.
It took me a long time to see that, and it shapes everything about how I work now. These days I’m far more interested in the practice that helps you stay than the one that helps you leave.The one that invites presence rather than escape.
I believe in slowing down, Feeling fully. Creating space for the truth of what is.
Because that’s where real transformation begins.
Living With Complex Trauma
Back then, I would never have described myself as living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). I just got on with life.
I now realise that I spent much of my life developing complex coping strategies to help me engage with the world and hide my fear.
On the outside, I was semi-successful: stage designer, Silver Gilt Chelsea garden designer, mother of two boys, yoga teacher. But inside, I was living in a cleverly built tower, one that kept me safe by keeping me separate.
I told myself stories about my childhood and the people in it. Stories that made a traumatic upbringing, one that included emotional and sexual abuse, more palatable.
It wasn’t until I began to slow my practice down and face the truth of my life, with the support of my partner, that my body began releasing what had been held for years.
The sludge that had blocked sensitivity.
The armour that had kept me braced.
Gradually, something softened.
Today my body feels more nuanced, more receptive. My mind feels clearer, connected to insight rather than defence. This isn’t a finished state. It’s an ongoing inner journey.
Today my body feels more nuanced, more receptive. My mind feels clearer, connected to insight rather than defence.
This is not a finished state, It is an ongoing inner journey.
My Philosophy
I don't think we ever "heal" from what happened to us, but we can learn not to let it become who we are or stop us doing what we long to do.
It's been a long journey. But through deep self-understanding, I've come to realise that with awareness comes choice. I now have the capacity to respond to life rather than simply react, whether I perceive something as positive or negative. And in that space of choice, my life has begun to shift into one I actually want to live.
For me, this is the heart of embodied healing: recognising habitual patterns, not just in the mind, but in the way I hold my body. Tension, tightness and even pain often come from unconscious ways of bracing against life.
As I've learned to inhabit my body more fully, I've learned that I can choose something different.
I can soften.
I can pause.
I can listen.
Knowing, at a core level, that I always have a choice, in thought, in movement and in emotion, has changed everything. These moments of awareness may seem small, but they are the stepping stones to a more conscious, vibrant life.
To pause. To feel. To make a conscious choice.
Why I do this work
After thirty-five years of yoga practice, I’m only now beginning to understand its deeper truth. Yoga has given me a growing connection to myself, and tools to navigate daily life with more care, authenticity and spontaneity.
My training in Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) in 2021 gave me the gift of interoception, the ability to truly feel into my body, and a deep understanding of choice-making and non-coercive language, both with myself and with others.
Yoga inspires me to be more open.
More real.
More compassionate and truthful.
I don’t always manage it. But yoga allows me to get it wrong, pick myself up and try again. It gives me the structure and foundation to show vulnerability without the old armour and masks: to become authentically me, and to recognise when I’m not.
That’s why I do this work. Not to fix. Not to perfect. But to help others find their own way back to themselves, and to the relief and quiet joy that comes when you can simply be yourself.
To connect.
To inspire and be inspired.
To reveal, so that others feel safe enough to reveal themselves too.
How I Hold Space
My work is rooted in trauma-informed somatic practice and shaped by my training in Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY), an evidence-based approach developed at the Trauma Center in Massachusetts.
It isn't about pushing through, perfecting poses or performing healing. It's about learning how to stay.
To notice what's happening in your body.
To feel safely, at a pace that doesn't overwhelm.
To rebuild trust from the inside out.
I know what it is to live armoured, to look capable while bracing underneath. So I don't rush, fix or force anyone. I create spaces where your body can begin to soften in its own time.
Where choice returns.
Where clarity returns.
Where you remember that sovereignty isn't something you achieve. It's something you uncover.
I walk beside you while you learn to walk inside yourself.
Training and Experience
I'm a senior yoga teacher. I've practised yoga for over 35 years and facilitated for 20, teaching thousands of classes, working with hundreds of people in groups and one-to-one, and hosting workshops and retreats in the UK and Europe.
Core training
300hr Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY), 2021
200hr Yoga Teacher Training: Yogacampus, London (British Wheel of Yoga and Yoga Alliance accredited)
200hr Kirtan Leader Training: Nikki Slade, London (Yoga Alliance accredited)
100hr Tantric Journey Trauma Release Bodywork, London
Additional study (200+ hours)
Yoga Nidra and further trainings: Rod Stryker (ParaYoga)
Yin Yoga: Norman Blair
Relax and Renew Restorative Yoga, Pranayama and Experiential Anatomy: Judith Hanson Lasater
Sound Healing: Anne Malone
Children and Teen Yoga: Jo Manuel (Special Yoga)
Pregnancy Yoga: Uma Dinsmore-Tuli
Super Sleep, yoga for insomnia: Lisa Sanfilippo
DBS Certificate
Fully insured
Whether online or in nature, my intention is simple: to create spaces where your body feels safe enough to remember itself.
Not ready to reach out yet? These might help you understand the work a little more first: