How the yoga community can be hard to navigate for neurodivergent people
- amynairne
- Mar 28
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 15
(Text has been colour coded to help dyslexic readers, title couldn't be included)
T.W: Trauma, addiction, suicidal ideations, medical neglect
When I first came into the yoga community back in 2022 it was a whirlwind of information, neuronormativity, expectations and fear. The yoga community seemed completely alien to me.
Who am I?
If you don't already know who I am my name is Amy Nairne, I go by they/them/she/her pronouns , I am a yoga teacher, I am neurodivergent person (Autistic, ADHD + C-PTSD) I am queer and non binary, I love all things yoga and neurodiversity, and I am on a personal mission to make the yoga community more accessible for neurodivergent folks.
My experience coming into the yoga community
Before starting yoga I had lived a life of trauma and addiction (I am still a recovering addict), I was in and out of hospital appointments, therapy appointments and having terrible mental breakdowns. My mental health was at an all time low and I didn't want to be alive. On top of all of this I was an undiagnosed neurodivergent person with very little support or understanding of myself or my brain.
When I first came into the yoga community I had just stopped therapy after experiencing medical neglect from my therapist at the time and had little trust around other people. I had just started to go down the path to seek an autism diagnosis and I truly had no idea where my life was heading, who I was and what I wanted/needed in life. My therapist had suggested I try yoga nidra (an ancient relaxation technique) , so I started by downloading insighttimer which is a free meditation app and would do meditations in the bath.
I hated yoga to begin with! All these random people telling me to calm my mind and let go, like my neurodivergent brain knew how to do this (it didn't). After a while I found some teachers and practices that worked for me, and they did help me to relax, but something was missing. It's like these people spoke a different language and they all seemed to perfectly know how to relax their nervous systems whilst mine felt erratic and uncontrollable.
Navigating the yoga community
The yoga community at first to me seemed very 'woo woo', competitive and a massive comparison game. All I saw online was 'highly' spiritual people who dressed in lululemon's, had perfect bodies and where completely mentally in check all while doing the splits in some beautiful nature spot. I started to feel like yoga wasn't for people like me.
As a result I started to mask and copy those in the yoga community like this. I would constantly worry about trying to create the most extreme pose and capturing it in a photo or in a reel. This is the danger for neurodivergent folks like myself who heavily mask and copy the behaviour of those around us. If you don't find a safe space, its very easy to get mixed up or taken advantage of. This is why finding a community that suits you is SO important!
In 2022 I received my autism diagnosis and everything made sense. Not only why I struggled so much in my everyday life to cope and why I was subject to so much abuse, but also why I struggled so much with practicing yoga.
Now as a freshly diagnosed neurodivergent person I had a new perspective on yoga and why it helped me so much as a neurodivergent person and I wanted to start sharing that with the world. However, it was incredibly difficult still to navigate the yoga world as a neurodivergent person. I avoided any in person studios out of fear of judgement and was so hesitant to do any yoga that wasn't on YouTube.
In 2023 I decided to make the very daunting decision to become a yoga teacher, despite the barriers and traits I experience when it comes to my neurodivergence. I saw just how inaccessible the yoga community is for people like me and wanted to change that!
Why the yoga community needs to be more accessible
Most yoga spaces are created by
and for the neuromajority (neurological state majority of human beings have). All yoga spaces should be neurodivergent-friendly and affirming but they aren't. This will impact neurodivergent people massively in finding the care and support they need through yoga. We just want to be included!
The neurodivergent community has high levels of unemployment, a range of mental health issues and high rates of suicide. Neurodivergent people are not being educated on how they can regulate their unique nervous system and cope with their intense emotions, when they are the people who could most benefit from it.
There is still little education done on neurological conditions (although time is proving to change this) and there is even less therapeutic treatments on offer. I still to this day have not found a single therapist under the NHS here in the UK who will work with me because of my complex needs and trauma.
How yoga helps neurodivergent folks
Yoga practices can help neurodivergent people cope with the traits they experience and accept themselves as neurodivergent person in a society built for neurotypical people. It can help to regulate the nervous system, help ease burnout, sensory overload and regulate emotions. Not to mention the thousands of other physical and mental benefits it has for neurodivergent individuals, just speak to any neurodivergent person who practices yoga, they will tell you how much it has changed their life for the better.
This is why I want to make the yoga community more accessible for neurodivergent people, because they deserve access to this supportive practice which has been passed down for thousands of years and has been proven to be unbelievably helpful in humans lives, especially in todays society.
From fear to a new sense of self
I wish I had found accessible and neurodiversity-affirming yoga when I first joined the community. I wish I knew that there were spaces, teachers and people just like me who had a passion for yoga. The neurodivergent yoga community although small is steadily growing and now I know many teachers who are either neurodivergent themselves or an ally who wants to help make the yoga community more neurodivergent-friendly. Yoga for neurodivergent people does exist!
Now I understand that I am allowed show up in the yoga community in my own way and that there are spaces catered to me (even if mostly are online at the moment). I feel a sense of relief and an understanding that it's okay to be different, it's okay to be neurodivergent and it's okay to be disabled in both the yoga community and the world at large.
Like Nick Walker once said, "Neurodiversity is not about changing people; it's about changing the environment to fit the person." So lets change the yoga community to fit neurodivergent and disabled individuals not make them change for it.
So proud of you for getting this out! I love how you’re creating a safe space for neurodiverse people to explore yoga in a way that is actually inclusive and accommodating, rather than just pretending to be :)
So glad you are on this planet with me! I love the quote from Nick Walker. It reminds me of the phrase in yoga about adapting the pose to the person, not adapting the person to the pose. Thank you for the work you are doing.