Gina Roch understands trauma, having dealt with the emotional impact of an abusive relationship and the physical pain of a car accident that left her bed bound for months. During her healing process, she not only achieved balance but also discovered an opportunity for personal empowerment that resulted in a now-burgeoning business-focused trauma-informed yoga sessions.
Roch named the business Written Purpose Wellness because the act of writing was central to its founding.
“Writing has truly been a huge part of my life and a big part of my healing journey,”Roch said. “As long as I could remember, I would journal to process my feelings, my emotions, things that upset me. I realized that I was kind of writing my own story.”
“It may sound cheesy,”Roch added, “but through my writing I realized that you don’t learn your purpose— you live your purpose.”
Roch described writing and yoga as acts of self-discovery. One is more physical and the other more mental, but both can be deeply emotional and require participants to turn inwards to develop a greater understanding of their limits and inner workings.
“You take inventory of your self-care through the written word, and afterwards is the embodiment portion where you’re exploring that in your body. That’s how it ties together.”
The main distinction between a typical yoga course and trauma-informed yoga is a much higher level of attention paid to individual needs. While yoga can be healing for many people, certain aspects of a standard class could be upsetting to those recovering from different types of traumas.
“Last week, I went to a yoga studio, and as I was getting into a pose the teacher walks over and touches me, presses her hand on my body to make it go more into the shape,”she recalled. “That right there is an absolute no-no in trauma-informed yoga.”
She explained that for people recovering from sexual abuse, being touched unexpectedly could potentially be quite upsetting and counter-productive, so she carefully works with students to understand what sorts of physical contact are acceptable and what will put them on edge. Aspects of the studio might require additional attention, such as musical choices that some people might associate with unpleasant situations.
Growing the business has largely come through word of mouth, Roch said. In the early days of the pandemic when her work teaching incarcerated individuals at a detention center in the Bronx was interrupted by lockdown orders, she wound up working with an organization that provides services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“It was through that program where I started reaching clients, virtually teaching them trauma-informed yoga at shelters,”she stated.
From there, she built up a list of clients and partnered with other organizations that seek to help people use yoga to overcome trauma. Among her most prominent clients is Yale University’s Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education (SHARE) program, which runs eight-week courses for affected members of the Yale community.
Roch is a native of Stamford who currently lives in Fairfield, where her business is registered, although for the moment Written Purpose Wellness is somewhat nomadic. She does not have her own studio, but partners with other teachers and organizations to bring her services to the public. This also lets her work across not just Fairfield County but the entire state.
“It is really exciting, this is the place where I started my healing journey,”Roch said. “I learned all these new tools and I just want to bring it back to my home state. It’s near and dear to me because I know what I was like as an adolescent, dealing with my trauma, dealing with my depression, and I didn’t have the resources to deal with that. It’s really important that I’m able to bring this practice here.”
