There are moments in this work when the reach of what we've built becomes visible in a way that stops you in your tracks. This is one of them.

On July 29th, the New York Post published a feature on the healing potential of weightlifting for trauma survivors — and at the center of it are two people who represent exactly what CFTE has spent more than two decades building toward.

Read the full article here →

Candace Liger, on what strength training does for survivors:

TIWL Director Candace Liger was asked to speak to the clinical and embodied case for trauma-informed weightlifting — and she did what she always does, which is say the precise and true thing.

"Witnessing the body become stronger through consistent training can reshape deeply held beliefs about helplessness," Liger told the Post. "For many, safety and agency have to be felt or even expressed in the body first, before the words can actually form."

And: "Strength becomes felt and observable, and that serves as a reminder to survivors that they aren't simply the sum of the violence against them, but much, much more."

This is not an abstraction. It is the methodology, stated plainly. TIWL was built on exactly this understanding — that the body is not an afterthought in trauma recovery, and that strength training, when delivered within a trauma-informed framework, creates the conditions for something far deeper than physical change.

Taylor Ann Pappas, on what it means to take up space:

Taylor Ann Pappas is a TIWL-certified practitioner, a running and lifting coach, a CFTE scholarship recipient, and a survivor who just shared her story publicly with a clarity and courage that we are immensely proud of.

Her words on what lifting gave her — "There's something really symbolic about choosing to lift a weight and then put it back down. It begs the question of — well, what else are you holding on to?" — are as good a description of this work as we've ever read.

She earned her TIWL certification in 2023. She now trains other survivors. She tells her clients to scream if they need to. She says their anger is as sacred as their joy. She is exactly the kind of practitioner this program was designed to create, and we couldn't be more grateful she is in this community.

On Elizabeth Smart:

We would be remiss not to acknowledge what it means to see Elizabeth Smart's name in this conversation.

Smart — child safety activist, kidnapping survivor, and now competitive bodybuilder — has been public about the role that lifting has played in her own healing. Her presence in this piece, and in this growing cultural conversation about embodied recovery, is not something we take lightly.

We built this work for people like her. We built it knowing that trauma reaches everywhere — into every community, every story, every body — and that healing has to be able to reach just as far. When someone with Elizabeth Smart's platform and profile finds their way to this methodology, it is a reminder that there is truly no telling where this work will go, who it will reach, or what it will make possible.

That is not an accident. It is the result of twenty-three years of research, training, and an unshakeable belief that healing belongs everywhere.

The work is reaching further than ever.

TIWL is one of the programs operating within the CFTE ecosystem — alongside TCTSY, TIME, and the Trauma-Informed Physical Therapy certificate — each grounded in peer-reviewed research and delivered by trained, certified practitioners.

The people carrying this work into the world are doing something remarkable. Taylor Ann Pappas is one of them. Candace Liger built the framework that made it possible. And the community of TIWL-certified practitioners growing around the world is proof that this methodology is ready for the moment it's in.

We are proud. We are grateful. And we are just getting started.

Read the full New York Post feature here →

Center for Trauma and Embodiment is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Learn more at healwithcfte.org