When Emotions Get Trapped in the Body: What Your Pain Is Trying to Tell You

Have you ever felt a heaviness in your chest that no amount of deep breathing could lift? A knot in your stomach that appeared for no clear reason? Or tension in your shoulders that seems to whisper, It's time to let some of this go?

These sensations are not random. 

They are your body’s language.

Our emotions don’t just live in our minds. They move through our bodies. And when that movement is interrupted, when we suppress or rush past what we feel, those emotions can become trapped, lingering in our tissues as energy that wants to complete its cycle.

Proof that the Body Remembers What the Mind Tries to Forget

For years, I didn’t realize how much my body was holding.

I thought I had ‘moved on’. I told myself I was strong.

But strength, I later learned, can sometimes be another name for Survival, with a capital S.

The truth is, my body had been carrying stories I never spoke out loud.

The fear from my childhood, when war was the background music for years. Sirens and silence teaching me to hold my breath.

The heartbreak and confusion from a toxic relationship that taught me love could hurt, and that my needs were too much.

The loneliness that followed every major life change, moving countries, starting over, losing pieces of myself I didn’t know how to grieve.

And all the moments I smiled through pain, saying I’m fine, when my body was actually screaming, You’re not.

For years, those unspoken emotions built quiet homes inside me, particularly behind my ribs, in my lower belly, across my throat. They hardened into patterns I thought were a normal part of adulthood: tight shoulders, shallow breathing, fatigue that no rest could ease.

I didn’t yet understand that my body was not betraying me. It was holding me. It was keeping what I wasn’t ready to feel safe enough to release.

Have You Ever Wondered Where Emotions Live in the Body?

Even though every body is unique, emotions often settle in places common to us all. Traditional Chinese Medicine and modern somatic work show us where trapped emotions usually live in our bodies. For example, anger can ignite in the liver, chest, or head. Grief lingers in the lungs and heart while fear curls up in the kidneys or lower belly. Shame often hides in the face and chest, while joy flows freely throughout the whole body, with the exception of overjoy . . . but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. 

When I began to listen, I noticed the patterns.

The pressure in my chest was the grief I hadn’t let myself cry out.

The heaviness in my stomach was fear. Fear of instability, of loss, of the unknown.

And the tension in my jaw? All the words I’d swallowed to keep the peace.

The body never lies. It keeps score, but it also holds the keys to your liberation.

How to Let the Emotions Flow Again

For me, the healing began when I stopped trying to fix my body and started listening to it.

When I placed a hand on my heart and whispered, I’m here now. 

When I trembled and allowed the floodgates to open, layer by layer.

Healing is never linear and I’ve had plenty of chances to learn that. Some days, the emotions surface like waves. Other days, they rest quietly beneath.

But every time I choose to meet what comes up with softness instead of judgment, I reclaim a little more of myself.

Here are a few practices that helped me reopen those channels of flow that I’m certain will have a positive impact on you, too:

BREATHWORK

Deep, conscious breathing reminds the body that it’s safe to feel again. 

MOVEMENT 

Dancing barefoot, shaking, stretching, walking helps the body express what words cannot.

SOUND 

Humming, sighing, moaning, singing. The vibration moves emotion through the throat which is the bridge between silence and truth.

JOURNALING

Writing freely without holding back. 

SOMATIC AND ENERGY HEALING

Receiving support from safe hands and frequencies that guide the body back to trust and flow.

Whichever one calls to you, do it. 

Every emotion I once feared to feel has become a teacher. Anger showed me where my boundaries live. Grief revealed the depth of my love. Fear taught me the courage to move anyway.

The pain I carried was never the enemy. It was my compass. Each ache pointed me back to something unhealed and unseen. And as I learned to listen, the energy that once felt trapped began to transform into power that radiates from within.

If you sense that something within you feels stuck, if your body is speaking through tightness, and recurring pain, please pause. You don’t need to fight your body. Know that every sensation and every emotion you’ve tucked away is simply trying to guide you home. Trust it.