What Does It Mean To Have A Somatic Release?
If you’ve ever heard that “trauma is stored in the hips” and wondered what that means, you’re not alone. Even I, as a 200-hour certified yoga teacher with six years of teaching experience, have wondered about the mechanics, science, and psychology behind this.
“I’ll teach a pose in class, maybe a hip opener like pigeon, or maybe a heart opener like supported fish pose, or even savasana, and one of my students begins to cry.”
I’ve seen it play out in real time over and over again — I’ll teach a pose in class, maybe a hip opener like pigeon, or maybe a heart opener like supported fish pose, or even savasana, and one of my students begins to cry. And while sometimes the student stands up to leave or excuses themself to the restroom, most of the time they lean into it. They stay put, letting the tears run their course, wanting to see it through.
There is something satisfying about this kind of release, even when it happens unexpectedly in a class with other people all around. I’ve had students come up to me after crying in class to tell me, “I really needed that” or “That was such a good cry.”
Our bodies and our emotions are extremely connected, this much is clear. But how does this connection work? And how can we explore it with more intention? I spoke with Brianna Hawk, LMHC, a therapist and yoga teacher, about this. She said, “Our bodies store emotions, especially unprocessed or repressed ones, in our nervous system, muscles, and fascia. When we hold yoga poses or stretches for a long duration of time, like in Yin or Restorative Yoga, there is time for the fascia to feel a release, which can then lead to an expression of emotion or a resurgence of memory.” The fascia is a thin, sheet-like connective tissue that surrounds and supports muscles, bones, nerves, and blood vessels.
“Our bodies and our emotions are extremely connected, this much is clear. But how does this connection work?”
She continues, “When a specific movement or pose in yoga stimulates a part of the body that holds emotions, it can trigger an emotional release. That’s because these movements or poses stimulate parts of the autonomic nervous system which controls involuntary body functions — basically, the stuff your body does automatically without you thinking about it. When a stored emotion is then accessed, the limbic system — emotional brain — gets activated. The result of this can be crying, trembling, sighing, or a wave of emotions releasing from our bodies. Our bodies are always aiming for homeostasis and healing. So when movement or a pose breaks a pattern of tension in the body or somatic holding, it creates an opportunity for the nervous system to discharge and flush out what has been stuck.”
“When movement or a pose breaks a pattern of tension in the body or somatic holding, it creates an opportunity for the nervous system to discharge and flush out what has been stuck.”
This might explain why emotional releases happen when we’re holding poses for prolonged periods of time, and why one might experience “smaller” forms of release, like sighing or trembling through various poses and movements throughout a practice.
I personally find it important throughout any yoga practice to notice the sensations of the physical body and the emotional landscape as they coexist, whether a movement is bringing up tears, energy, or something else entirely.
I spoke with Dr. Joe Hinds, MRes, DPhil, PGDip, MSc, Senior Lecturer in Counseling at University of Greenwich about this, and he said, “We can be alerted to something within us [via] embodied sensations[.] Human nature is, by some accounts, always striving for completeness. The unconscious part of ourselves is looking for integration into the conscious part of the psyche so that we achieve some degree of wholeness (‘healing’). What is of importance is what the conscious mind chooses to do with the ‘signals’ it receives — we can avoid these signals and carry on as usual or become curious about them to foster growth and development by connecting the various disparate strands of self.”
The body can be like a bridge of integration of the conscious and unconscious. So, experiencing a somatic emotional release can pave the way for more exploration in both the mind and the body. It isn’t the end — in fact, it’s just the beginning of many deep, important conversations you can have with yourself. While the term “release” makes sense given the physical sensation of crying and the release of sound, tears, and breath, which can feel like letting something go, I think of these experiences as an opening. Something has been cracked open, giving you the space to go deeper.
Why do we hold feelings in our hips?
One of the most common places that people experience as the origin of a somatic release is the hips. While, unfortunately, I have hypermobile hips and have yet to experience the magic of a pigeon-pose-cry myself, it’s by far the pose in which most of my students experience tears, and the most intense ones. And while we often say that “trauma is stored in the hips,” I was still curious to unpack exactly what that meant, and why.
“When the body goes into the sympathetic nervous system response… [it] is preparing to literally run, fight, or curl up, all actions that heavily involve the functioning of the hip area.”
– Brianna Hawk, LMHC
Naturally, I wanted to dig into this with Hawk. When I asked her about this, she said, “The hips are a large, complex, deeply rooted area. In yoga, we often refer to the hips and pelvis as the ‘sacral chakra’. This area in the body is often referred to as an emotional ‘storage locker’. When we experience fear, stress, or trauma, the body often contracts as a protective measure through the tightening of muscles, shortening of breath, and getting into a defensive posture. If the body does not feel safe to resolve this tension, these contraction patterns can become habitual. We quite literally mold our physical posture around our emotional world. The hips are a central point of movement and stability. So when the body goes into the sympathetic nervous system response — fight/flight/freeze — the body is preparing to literally run, fight, or curl up, all actions that heavily involve the functioning of the hip area.”
“Furthermore, the sacral chakra which is located near the pelvis, is associated with emotions, sexuality, and creativity. Trauma in this region can often be linked with shame, guilt, or feeling disconnected with the body and its desires. The hips are far away from the face or the heart, so the body often can find it ‘more safe’ to store deep emotions like grief or fear in this area of the body. That’s why pigeon pose in yoga can be so emotional for many students, because it’s creating an opportunity to enter into the sacral chakra and work through whatever is stuck there.”
So the fact that the hips are deep and integral to our movement and our structure, while also being far away from the heart and the face creates a sort of perfect storm — they can hold a lot, and for many of us, that means our bodies take the opportunity to store a lot there.
How to experience somatic release
WARM UP
So, what do you do if you feel like something is stuck, physically or emotionally, and you want to open up? The first important thing to do is warm yourself up.
Most of the time, students experience a somatic release towards the end of a yoga practice, after they’ve moved their bodies and explored the mind-body connection. Plopping down into pigeon pose might sound like the fastest and easiest way to get there, but without warming up physically and getting into a clearer mental state, those emotions might actually be less accessible.
“Without warming up physically and getting into a clearer mental state, those emotions might actually be less accessible.”
These things can take time, and it’s different for everyone, but I’d suggest taking up a regular yoga or movement practice (if you’re not a yoga person, I’d probably suggest other energetically explorative forms of movement like dance or tai chi). Get familiar with the feeling of being warm, present in your body, and comfortable with your movement. And if you feel like you’re already connected with your body through movement or yoga, that’s amazing! Onto the next step for you!
PAY ATTENTION TO BLOCKAGES
“Spend some time throughout your daily life paying attention to the places in your body where you feel the most tension or blockages.”
While I do think that the next step can be to begin exploring poses that frequently offer somatic release like pigeon or malasana or supta baddha konasana, I would actually suggest taking a quick pause before this. Instead of taking a grand tour of everything to see what sticks, I would meditate, or even spend some time throughout your daily life paying attention to the places in your body where you feel the most tension or blockages. Yes, it might be the hips, because it’s the hips for many people, but other common areas that many people hold onto emotion include the lower back, the throat, and the jaw. And it can be (and often is) more than one place! You may be holding something in your chest and shoulders, or maybe the stomach.
I would spend some time attending to the question, When I feel upset, what does my body do? Do you notice an intense constriction in the chest, a knot in the lower back, a pain in your neck? Maybe when you meditate on it, when the body is calm and still, you’ll notice the quiet sensation of tightness or blockages coming from somewhere in the body, and you can begin to follow that in your movement practice.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
If you’ve already had a somatic release, or you’re in a phase of your life where they’re naturally coming up often, what now? Like any intense experience, it’s important to care for yourself following a somatic release. In the immediate, that probably means being in a safe space, not overwhelming your nervous system, drinking water, and being somewhere quiet.
“Like any intense experience, it’s important to care for yourself following a somatic release.”
If you’ve had a somatic emotional release in a yoga class, don’t be afraid to stick around for a little while before stepping out into the world again. Sit with it. You can hang out on your mat for a few extra minutes if you need and take some deep breaths. You can even talk with the teacher about your experience if you feel comfortable doing so!
If you’re home, you can make yourself a cup of tea, cozy up on the couch, and maybe grab your journal for a bit of reflection if that feels right to you.
EXPLORE WHAT COMES UP IN THERAPY
In the long term, exploring the emotions that you’ve opened up is a good next step, and therapy or psychoanalysis is a great place to do this. The combination of psychological and somatic exploration can be extremely transformative. When it comes to specific modalities and techniques that can assist in this exploration, Hawk recommends Internal Family Systems (IFS) or parts work.
“Exploring the emotions that you’ve opened up is a good next step, and therapy or psychoanalysis is a great place to do this.”
Hawk says, “IFS was developed by Family Therapist, Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., and helps clients understand and work with the different ‘parts’ of themselves. It is based on the idea that the mind is made up of sub-personalities, or “parts”, each with its own viewpoint, memories, and role. The idea here is that the state of self and homeostasis occurs when our parts understand how to better communicate and understand one another in a more compassionate and respectful manner, rather than beating them down through shame, guilt, and dismissive or negative self-talk.”
“IFS is somatic in essence because we guide clients to locate a specific part in the body — for example, ‘Where do you feel that anxious part?’ Or ‘Can you sense where that fear is?’. This grounds the work in bodily and somatic awareness. Parts work can feel stabilizing for some clients because instead of thinking of their entire self as ashamed, unworthy, bad, etc., they can separate these core beliefs from the self, and get to know the part of them that holds these core beliefs or emotions more intimately without drowning in them.”
More resources for exploring somatic release on your own
If you’re curious to explore somatic release in the privacy of your own home, I’ve compiled some helpful videos to get you started.
Somatic Yoga for Repressed Emotions
Let us know in the comments if you have other helpful resources that have worked for you!
Jamie Kahn is a writer and yoga teacher based in New York. Her work has been featured in Glamour, Brooklyn Magazine, Epiphany, The Evergreen Review, and others.
