#WeLift 

The goal of TIWL is to promote and facilitate healing for trauma-impacted individuals and groups through the act of weight lifting. 

Weight lifting, when approached in a trauma-informed manner, aims to:

• Foster resilience
• Increase a felt sense of agency and empowerment
• Cultivate healthy nervous system functioning
• Facilitate positive relational connections to self and others

TIWL posits that using external forms of resistance can facilitate healing and recovery through engagement of the proprioceptive and vestibular systems, while supporting individuals in developing greater interoceptive awareness, vagal tone and parasympathetic nervous system recruitment. 

Additionally, it is believed that the physical strength developed in weight lifting is a manifestation of self-trust as one learns to bring a sense of curiosity to the process of attempting both new and familiar movements under increased resistance.

TIWL can be a solitary or community based activity conducted in a relational environment with a coach or trainer and in some cases, with other weightlifters - it aims to directly combat the isolating and dividing nature of trauma.