Restoring Neuromuscular Connection After Trauma: My Journey with T1D & Yoga
Traumatic events profoundly impact the nervous system, often in ways that are not immediately apparent. The nervous system is a complex network connecting the brain and spinal cord to every cell in the body, playing a crucial role in movement, sensation, and overall well-being. When I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) at 11 years old, I experienced a deep and lasting disruption in my neuromuscular connection—though I didn’t fully understand it at the time. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I began practicing yoga, that I felt a powerful reawakening of these lost connections.
The Impact of Trauma on the Nervous System
Trauma, whether seen (physical) or unseen (mental, emotional) disrupts the autonomic nervous system (ANS). In the case of a T1D diagnosis, the body experiences a sudden and profound stress response, triggering the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn reactions. This prolonged stress can dysregulate the nervous system, leading to:
Autonomic Nervous System Dysregulation – A state of chronic stress in managing diabetes + how to afford life with diabetes that affects muscle function, coordination, and proprioception (body awareness).
Chronic Inflammation & Neuropathy Risk – Blood sugar fluctuations and autoimmune activity can contribute to nerve dysfunction, impairing neuromuscular control.
Dissociation from the Body – The trauma of medical interventions, fear of complications, and unstable blood sugars can create a disconnect from bodily sensations, making it harder to engage muscles effectively.
Suppressed Energy Pathways (Prana or Chi) – In holistic traditions, trauma is understood as stored energy that can block movement, flexibility, and emotional resilience.
Yoga and the use of CGM technology became a turning point in my healing journey. I vividly remember finishing classes and telling my instructors that I felt as though dormant neuromuscular pathways were being reactivated. I even had colorful, very detailed visions of this happening —an image of an electrical impulse traveling along the axon of a neuron, reaching the synapse, converting into a chemical signal, with neurotransmitters binding to receptors on the next neuron triggering the new electrical impulse. I saw this within my mind as I was experiencing the sensations within. My fascination and physiology studies in college likely contributed to this imagery, but still, the imagery coupled with the internal sensations that I was feeling was alivening!
This is what I now describe as conscious neuromuscular reconnection—feeling engagement in muscles and a deep connection with my body that had been absent for years.
Releasing Suppressed Energy Through Movement
In those moments of practice, I could feel revitalized energy pathways coming back to life. It felt as if energy—prana or chi—was moving freely again after being blocked for so long. Interestingly, the word "suppressed" means pushed out of awareness.
I’ve heard it said that healing is the process of making the subconscious conscious—which I consider to be a process of both art and science. This is the essence of somatic movement, where the focus is on internal sensations rather than external appearance. Through conscious breath, movement, and observation, I found myself rehabilitating my neuromuscular connection—healing from within.
Eyes Closed, Awareness Opened
Many times, I practiced yoga with my eyes closed to connect more deeply with my internal sensations. I didn’t know why at the time—I just knew it felt like I was coming alive again.
Trauma is energy, and as the Law of Conservation of Energy states, energy cannot be created or destroyed—it can only be transformed. When trauma occurs, it often gets suppressed as a protection mechanism, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Cory Muscara, a mindfulness teacher, defines trauma as:
"Too much, too soon, too fast."
He emphasizes that healing must happen at a sustainable pace, or it risks retraumatization. Feeling is healing only when it feels safe to do so. Finally, with CGM technology and yoga philosophy as my foundation, I was ready to experience healing.
Reconnecting with “Home Base”
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the Self.” – Bhagavad Gita
Yoga has been my map, my how, a pathway and foundation for healing. Yoga helped me to reconnect with my mind, body, and heart as home base through movement and philosophy.
During my 200-hour yoga teacher training, I immersed myself in yoga philosophy, journaled extensively, practiced yoga as somatic movement, and found a supportive community.
This idea of titration—processing emotional pain in manageable doses—was a key lesson. Instead of diving headfirst into past trauma, yoga helped me to pendulate between discomfort and safety, ensuring that healing was gentle and sustainable.
Yoga, Trauma, and Autoimmune Healing
In one of my previous blog posts, Healing the Trauma Within Our Cells: An Integrative Approach to T1D Management & Healthcare Reform, I posed a profound question:
What if the root cause of autoimmune conditions like Type 1 diabetes is stored trauma within the body?
Not just trauma from our own lifetime, but inherited trauma—a silent legacy encoded in our DNA.
Epigenetics, the study of how behaviors and environments influence gene expression, has shown that subconscious experiences can alter our DNA. This suggests that trauma we cannot consciously access may manifest as energetic discord, disconnecting the body from its sense of “self” and potentially contributing to autoimmune conditions.
Autoimmune Conditions & The Loss of “Self”
At its core, an autoimmune condition is the body being unable to recognize itself—it mistakenly attacks its own tissues.
If trauma can be passed down through generations—so can healing.
I believe that for any scientific cure for T1D or other autoimmune conditions to be sustainable, it must include the energetic component—the unseen aspect of healing.
Nikola Tesla once said:
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
The Role of Somatic Movement in Neuromuscular Restoration
As I deepened my practice, I could feel energy channels opening, suppressed trauma being released, and my body regaining strength. Yoga helped restore neuromuscular function in several key ways:
✅ Activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System (Rest & Digest) – Counteracting the chronic stress response and allowing the body to heal.
✅ Enhancing Proprioception & Interoception – Improving awareness of movement and bodily sensations.
✅ Encouraging Energy Flow & Circulation – Releasing stagnation and restoring vitality to muscles and nerves.
✅ Balancing Blood Sugar & Insulin Sensitivity – Increasing insulin sensitivity, reducing inflammation, and improving overall neuromuscular function.
✅ Creating a Framework for the Unseen – Yoga philosophy gave me tools to understand, experience, and manage emotional and mental energy.
Healing the Relationship With My Body
Yoga also helped me shift my perspective from working against diabetes to partnership with diabetes.
It’s common for people with T1D to feel like their bodies are betraying them:
❌ "My body is trying to kill me."
❌ "My pancreas is broken."
❌ "I won’t let diabetes get in the way of me living my best life."
But through yoga, I was able to experience what I can only describe as forgiveness and reconciliation with my body, heart, and mind. It made sense to me that even after 15 years of living with diabetes and mentally feeling as though I had processed the emotions of living with T1D and reached a point of acceptance, the perspective I held of not letting diabetes get in my way, not only served as a baseline of "needing control,” but also held a resonance of conflict rather than collaboration. I began to see diabetes not as an enemy, but as a lifelong “roommate” per se. Like other roommates, family members, peers, and colleagues can sometimes feel like a pain in the ass, same with diabetes. Still, it’s a lot easier (less energy expenditure) to work with someone or something rather than constantly working against, especially if the relationship is lifelong… don’t you think?
In the book Survival of the Sickest, the author, Sharon Moalem, an evolutionary biologist and neurogeneticist, theorizes how chronic conditions may have developed not as a mistake, but as a protection mechanism. I love this powerful perspective:
Why would the human body harm itself—unless there was an underlying evolutionary reason — a more immediate threat in time past?
This perspective, combined with what the scientific community is discovering about epigenetics and the reality that we still don’t fully understand autoimmunity, helped me to connect with the possibility that maybe my body wasn’t out to get me, and that perhaps I could help re-establish safety within my body for it to recognize itself.
Through forgiveness and reconciliation with myself and my body, space freed in my heart for grateful awareness of all of the processes that are, in fact, “working” and occurring within our bodies — even in this very moment for you to read and process this information, for you to breathe, and experience life. That is magic.
All of this has taught me that while it is important to validate recurring emotions from the experience of living with diabetes, it is just as important for health and wellbeing to acknowledge
A Holistic Approach to Healing
Healing is multidimensional. It is not just about managing blood sugar levels—it’s about reconnecting with the body in a profound way.
Through yoga, breathwork, and mindful movement, I have regained a sense of connection that I once thought was lost.
For those living with T1D or other chronic conditions, I encourage exploring somatic healing practices like:
🧘♀️ Yoga – Movement & nervous system regulation
🫁 Breathwork – Conscious breathing for energy flow
🧠 Meditation – Deepening mind-body awareness
The body holds onto trauma, but it also holds the capacity for healing. By creating space for movement and awareness, we can rewire our nervous systems, restore lost connections, and cultivate vitality—possibly not just in our lifetimes but in generations to come.
Conclusion
The journey of living with T1D is not just about survival—it’s about reclaiming vitality, strength, and connection to self.
If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your body due to chronic illness or trauma, know this:
Healing is possible.
The pathways may be blocked, but with time, practice, and compassion, they can be reopened.
And perhaps, if we begin to integrate both science and the unseen into autoimmune research, we may one day find a cure—not just for T1D, but for the many conditions where the body has forgotten how to recognize itself.
