#hEALMETOO Podcast HOME > S3 E4: Julie Fernandez of Exhale to Inhale

#HealMeToo Podcast S3 e4:

Why Yoga & Movement Help You Feel Better—Exhale to Inhale

Discover the amazing Exhale to Inhale, a nonprofit that teaches trauma-informed yoga for free to survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence. Our guest is Julie Fernandez, lead trainer at Exhale to Inhale, and the primary trauma therapist with the Hope Integrative Psychiatry team.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Julie’s personal story of regaining comfort with her body and breath through yoga and embodied practices (after hating yoga to start with!)

• The anxiety and insomnia Julie is observing in clients right now, whether that’s due to the menace of COVID or the long-suppressed racial trauma that is now surfacing in order to heal through the Movement for Black Lives and a deeper reckoning with White Supremacist culture.

• How body-based work can gradually help us feel more comfortable within discomfort, something so many people need in this time of disruption, danger and stress

• Why Exhale to Inhale is different from other yoga practices, from its welcoming affirmation of Black and Brown participants and every body shape, to its emphasis on the experience of choice for survivors that pervades every exercise

• How yoga and other embodied work may help survivors to sit with and gradually lessen the discomfort and heal the disconnections between our body, emotions, heart and mind that can stem from trauma

• The research and theories that explain why embodied practices like Exhale to Inhale can help survivors reclaim their feelings of agency and power

• Short movement and meditation practices led by Julie

• How all of Julie’s work is intended to help clients feel safe in their bodies, comfortable in the world, and embodied, integrated and whole.

Tune in throughout the summer for new #HealMeToo #AtHome episodes on Apple and all the usual podcast platforms as well as our new YouTube channel as we continue Season 3: #HealMeToo At-Home—insights, art and activism to meet the needs of now.

Experience Exhale to Inhale:

• Visit their website at exhaletoinhale.org

• Attend free weekly sessions through A Space to Breathe, their online class offering 

• Host a donation-based class through their Movement for Meaning campaign

• Help Exhale to Inhale continue offering their classes for free to survivors with a donation of any amount, or join a special group of supporters by making a monthly donation.

The #HealMeToo Podcast is hosted and edited by Hope Singsen, the artist, creativity researcher and survivor-activist who founded the #HealMeToo Festival and Podcast in NYC in the Spring of 2019. 

S3 E4 Music Credits: Lead vocal: Jovan Martinez, sampling "It's a Love Thing" by The Whispers, in a Choral Improvisation recorded live at a #HealMeToo Festival & Podcast event, led by: Katie Down, Bonita Oliver, Jessica Lurie & Vanessa Marie.

S3 Xtra 4 Music Credits: "Love Is Rising" written by Vanessa Marie Milanesi & Helga Kaefer, performed by Vanessa Marie (@vanessamariemusic)

Guest Bios

Exhale to Inhale was founded in 2013 by Zoë LePage, while a senior at Barnard College. Someone she loved deeply was a long-ago survivor of domestic violence, and in college several of her close friends were sexually assaulted. Witnessing the trauma her loved ones struggled with - long after the physical effects of the violence had faded - Zoë felt compelled to do something. Since yoga had served as a therapeutic tool for her, she suspected it would be helpful for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Zoë knew intuitively what research has since proven - that yoga can reduce many of the symptoms of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She founded Exhale to Inhale to honor her loved ones and named it based on the idea that sometimes we have to let go of that which is no longer serving us, in order to inhale new possibilities.

Julie Fernandez is the Lead Trainer at Exhale to Inhale, as well as the Primary Trauma Therapist with the Hope Integrative Psychiatry team, where she helps clients feel safe in their bodies, comfortable in the world, and embodied, integrated and whole.

Julie has experience working with at-risk teenage girls, disadvantaged youth in inner city schools, at eating disorder centers, as well as domestic violence shelters and rape-crisis centers.

Julie discovered yoga after struggling with abuse that led to anxiety, depression, self-harm and disordered eating. Through yoga, she found strength to begin her journey toward healing her relationship with her body and her Self, and has been sharing yoga ever since.

Using tools and techniques from yoga, breathwork, mindfulness, and Somatic Experiencing, Julie encourages students to access their inner guidance and natural wisdom to reclaim their bodies and cultivate healing.