It wasn’t until her first year of college that Liz Jordon felt she could truly breathe for the first time.
Jordon is a freelance, trauma-informed yoga instructor who teaches Take Back Your Body Yoga and partners with Lehigh’s Break the Silence for various events. She’s also collaborated with the Gryphon Society and taught 5x10s, programming events that help connect first-year students to Lehigh.
Growing up the youngest of five in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, Jordon experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father. Throughout high school, she said she developed an exterior persona to appear “normal,” while internally feeling “damaged, dirty and broken.”
In her first year of college, Jordon took an elective yoga class — not knowing it would open the door to her lifelong healing journey. In a breathwork class halfway through the semester, she said she became dizzy and unable to breathe.
“I had been breathing short my whole life and didn’t know it,” she said. “I was trauma-breathing and had no clue.”
That experience led Jordon to attend a yoga retreat, which she said was eye-opening. There, she said she was able to release the negativity that shaped her self-image and realized she’s composed of love and meant to exist in the world “vibrantly.”
Mindfulness wasn’t always central to her career, but it remained a healing practice on the sidelines while she worked as an EMT for 20 years, in a chiropractic office and as a ghostwriter for a coaching business.
It wasn’t until her late 40s that Jordon transitioned to yoga full-time. The decision came after a conversation with her son, where she expressed her passion for the practice and he encouraged her to “go all in” and quit her job.
“The switch was very scary,” Jordon said. “I made less money and there were business aspects I needed help with, but I love it. I’ve been doing it for so long that I can’t see doing it any other way.”
Despite initial uncertainty about teaching, she decided the teaching path was the best way for her to learn the practice “deeply.” She completed more than 700 hours of training to become certified.
In 2017, Jordon was teaching at Broughal Middle School when she connected with an intern working with Brooke DeSipio — director of the Office of Survivor Support and Intimacy Education and adviser to Break the Silence.
At the time, DeSipio was developing Take Back Your Body Yoga and asked Jordon to teach the weekly trauma-informed class.
DeSipio said Jordon’s expertise on trauma, her understanding of the science behind it and her ability to interrupt a trauma response and help individuals support themselves were evident immediately.
“(Jordon) is very open and transparent which shines through in everything she does,” she said. “She deeply cares about other people and making the world a better place — she is an incredible human.”
Jordon said classes typically have eight to 10 students and aren’t focused on athleticism, but on slowing down. Sessions begin with a guided “shavasana,” a resting and restorative pose, to find stillness and practice breathwork, followed by movement through yoga designed to release tension.
She said participants often experience strong emotions such as sadness and anger, as the practice aims to access areas where traumatic experiences are stored.
“Using the strength of breath influences our bodies,” Jordon said. “You are the best teacher in the room when you listen to your own body.”
Caitlyn Kratzer, ‘26, has worked with Jordon through Break the Silence and attended multiple classes.
“(Jordon) is very free-spirited, nobody can tell her what to do,” she said. “But at the same time, she is very calm and will always make you feel better.”
Kratzer said she left classes feeling stress-relieved and rejuvenated.
In 2015, after extensive training, Jordon auditioned and was selected to give a TEDx talk in the Lehigh Valley titled “Chaos to Cartwheels,” where she spoke about the obstacles in her healing journey and how she overcame them with love.
She said she initially resisted speaking publicly about her sexual trauma, but ultimately felt called to do so, as if the universe was telling her to do it.
“I follow my body, and my heart was telling me I needed to start talking about this publicly,” Jordon said.
Currently, her primary project is Clearpath Wellness Lehigh Valley, an organization she founded with her two sisters. The group has offered holistic retreats for 10 years and became a nonprofit during COVID. It provides services such as energy medicine workshops, counseling and heart rhythm meditation.
Its main event is a four-night holistic beach retreat in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. To support the program, the organization hosts annual fundraisers, which have been co-sponsored by Break the Silence for the past two years.
The goal, Jordon said, is to inspire healing and provide resources.
“You can’t heal anything if your body is in flight or fight mode,” she said. “Teaching these resources and calming the nervous system is the key.”
Throughout her journey, finding her breath has reshaped Jordon’s perspective on her past. She referenced singer Leonard Cohen, saying “the cracks are where the light shines through.”
She said the quote reflects a choice: to see oneself as broken or to recognize the light within those cracks.
“I took what happened to me, and decided it was for me,” Jordon said. “ I evaluated what I could do with the energy of that (mindset) to shift, change and have a life, and I realized I could do anything.”