As a way to bring physical activities back to the Center for Healthy Living since the pandemic, NET Health is collaborating with Kiara Smothers, Trauma Release And Peace (TRAP) Yoga owner and yoga teacher. The center gives people the chance to try yoga for free.
“It's all inclusive,” said Joy Johnson, Program Manager of the Center for Healthy Living. “So all walks of life are welcome. Once you step through the doors, it really doesn't matter what you do for a living, how much money you make.”
The one-hour classes are held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays in June, July and August.
How TRAP started
Smothers said she was often one of the few people of color — or the only one — in yoga when she started taking classes in Tyler in 2018. After taking classes for a bit, she got the desire to get certified as a yoga teacher. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and finding out she was pregnant with her rainbow baby, she had to wait.
After having her baby, she returned to work. But all of 2021, she felt she needed to go forward with getting certified. In 2022, got certified online at Yogamu Institute.
After getting her certification, Smothers considered starting her own practice but felt she needed to learn more first. She applied for 15 to 20 studios in Tyler and Longview and heard back from two. Luci Davis, a yoga therapist at Living Well Tyler, contacted her and told her she was happy to see a woman of color teaching yoga.
She learned about trauma-informed yoga through scrolling on TikTok. She realized she wanted to do that and followed the account to learn more about it.
“A lot of people do not know how to release [trauma] so they feel like they can release it best by just sitting on someone's couch and talking to a counselor or talking to a therapist,” Smothers said. “Yes, that can help you but traumatic injury exists and not by ‘oh you broke your arm and you remember it’ but somebody hurt you so much that it hurt you and your spine, that it hurt you in your heart, like it embeds into different parts of your body.”
She started googling to find places in East Texas with people of color teaching these type of classes. She found most places were in bigger cities, not in East Texas.
She got connected to Freedom, Inc. a trauma informed yoga studio in Longview. After doing a demo with them, she said she was hired on the spot. The owner was supportive of her goals and helped her pick out a name, figure out prices and mentor her.
Through her husband, she met Antwanise Jackson who asked her if she wanted to be a part of the Black Wellness Expo in February. She said she was interested but worked for another studio.
She gave it some thought and slept on it for two days.
“I kept dreaming about it,” Smothers said. “I literally was envisioning me doing all of this, me working with individuals, me working with clients.”
Afterward, she messaged Jackson and said she would do it.
On Feb. 17, 2024, Smothers started her own yoga practice. She created her own logo using colors that had meaning to her: purple, her favorite color; green, the color she and her husband chose as their color, and she used the name TRAP “for the culture.”
Smothers went with the tagline, “Let’s heal some trauma.”
“Because we can’t heal it all, but we can heal some,” Smothers said. “I'm here to help others heal as much.”
Having a more inclusive practice
Smothers' goal with her classes is to be inclusive. At both sessions she taught at the Center for Healthy Living this month, the majority have had women of color.
“I've already brought inclusiveness into yoga,” Smothers said. “I've already successfully had three different classes full of Black and Hispanic women. I’ve never had a class or seen anything like it. To see beautiful cultures combined and cultures that never had it in their community before, that's how I know that I can go on this healing journey with everyone else.”
When planning her sequences for yoga classes, she takes into account the emotions in the space.
“I take everyone's emotions and all of their trauma and I feel the room and I feel the space and I'm like, ‘OK, this is what y'all need,’” Smothers said. “I don't always write down my sequences. Sometimes I do it the moment of because I feel the space in the room. I feel what's needed.”
Her first session at Center for Healthy Living was originally scheduled for June 4. However, due to the storms it got rescheduled to June 11. For the second session on June 17, she decided to do a Juneteenth practice.
Discovering her history
Recently, Smothers, who is Mexican and Black, looked into her family lineage and discovered where her Black ancestors came from. She found out her ancestors came from Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Congo. When she talks about healing generational trauma, she is talking about her ancestors who “were doing everything they could to get free.” This is why Juneteenth is important to her.
“Juneteenth is such an embodiment to me because East Texas, in general, was the very last part of the state to let slaves go,” Smothers said. “Here we are still dealing with a lot of discrimination. Can't nobody tell that me we're not, yeah we are. I see it and I feel it and I know it."
Through her efforts, she is a leader in the community by owning a Black yoga practice and being inclusive to others.
"... I wouldn't be the first to do this if it wasn't for my generation of people going along with letting go of the segregation, doing the best they can to be a part of this world and a part of this life outside of slavery," Smothers said.
During her practice she included meaningful songs to the Black experience. “Stand Up” by Cynthia Erivo, from the movie Harriet, which talked about standing up against slavery. “Glory” from Selma, “Lift Me Up” by Rihanna from Black Panther, James Brown who sang about being Black and proud and “I’ll Rise Up” by Andra Day.
“I rose up from a lot of different stuff I dealt with,” Smothers said. “A lot of different people telling me 'you can't do it.' A lot of people telling me, I'm never going to be nothing. A lot of different people telling me you're less of.”
Helping people feel peace
People describe feeling at peace after doing her yoga classes. When she conducts individual sessions, she allows the person to take a break if needed. During group sessions, she reminds people to listen to their bodies.
“The only way to keep that peace is by continually using this tool to help you by helping you release more of that trauma because sometimes it will come back,” Smothers said. “Sometimes it will stay, you've got to allow your body to feel trauma.”
Attendees ranged in ages and ethnicities, including NET Health CEO George Roberts. Tyler resident Makayla Johnson, 22, went to the TRAP yoga class for the first time Tuesday. She loved taking the class because she did not feel pressure to copy the poses. In the past, she has done yoga and felt pressured to do so.
“I feel like it's just kind of doing yoga with a friend even though it's like a group setting," Makayla said. “It felt very, very fun, very light hearted but also very relaxing and very detailed and guided.”
As a mom of a 3-year-old, being able to do the yoga class for free was needed. The session helped relive some tension and her neck and shoulders.
Makayla, a Black woman, often uses YouTube videos to do yoga and said she enjoyed being able to have a Black yoga instructor. It is important to release that trauma specially for Black people who have faced generational trauma, Makayla said. She celebrated Juneteenth with friends on Wednesday.
“There is a lot of pain in the Black community,” Makayla said. “So whenever we have opportunities to just be happy, just be joyous — and Black people are some of the most joyful and loving and just fun people to be around, despite all of the trauma — it's absolutely beautiful.”
For those interested in participating in the free yoga classes, you can RSVP at by calling the Center for Healthy Living at (903) 593-7474 or by emailing Joy at JJohnson@netphd.org.
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