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What does it mean to release "trapped emotions" from your body?
- sophiereyyoga
- May 26
- 6 min read
Hi Friends! Welcome to the blog.
I often hear people say; “I want to release trapped emotions from my body”.
And I thought it would be good to talk about what this means, and how Somatic Coaching could help with this.
So what actually are these 'trapped emotions' and how do they show up?
If you think about the word ‘trapped’, what comes to mind for you?
The idea, concept or feeling that something is stuck... That something wants to be freed perhaps?
Have you ever felt this feeling of an emotion being stuck?
You may notice a physical response, some familiar, or unfamiliar sensations in your body.
Perhaps there’s tightness, some tension, or gripping.
Some pain or discomfort that won't go away.
Perhaps you feel frozen, or like you’re being pulled back or pushed down.
Some of you might have an image such as a knot or a scrunched up ball of paper, or even a thought, or memory.
Your Body's Felt Sense
These are just a few ways in which we can experience this, through our felt sense.
Each of us will have our own unique experience and interpretation of the felt sense, and even the feeling of having 'trapped or stuck emotions'.
Our bodies speak to us through sensations, movements, images, words and thoughts, this being the felt sense, and if we learn to listen, we can become fluent in the language of our body.
Like learning any new language, this takes time, practice, patience and curiosity.
So how do emotions become stuck or trapped in your body?
When something happens in your life, whether big or small, your body reacts in two main ways:
Your nervous system responds (to keep you safe), and
Your emotions respond (based on how the experience feels).
Your body is always scanning your environment, asking, “Am I safe right now?”
If the answer is yes, it relaxes. If the answer is no, it gets ready to protect you - this is part of our survival instinct, going all the way back to the days when we had to watch out for wild animals!
How you react or respond to a situation depends on many different factors which can include...
Most importantly, your overall sense of support and stability from within, which we can refer to as your access to stability, or how wide your window of tolerance is.
Basic functional needs such as how well you slept...
If you're hungry or not...
Where you are in your menstrual cycle...
Your environment...
Your life experiences...
If you have a wide window of tolerance, or have enough access to stability from within, your body most have the chance to fully feel and express the emotion that comes up.
This might look like crying, getting angry, shaking, or needing to move or speak. Once the emotion flows through, your body feels a sense of release - like a wave passing through - allowing you to return to a more grounded, stable or calm state of being. That’s your body saying, “Okay, it’s over now.”
Animals do this naturally in the wild. When they're chased by a bigger animal, if they get away they will end up shaking, to allow the experience to flow through them.
They don't think about whether or not to do this, they just do it!
Experiencing strong emotions is a completely natural and human thing to do, but we're often taught that sharing or showing emotions is bad.
When Emotions Get Stuck
If you're trying to hold it together, or someone told you not to show how you feel, your body holds onto that emotional response.
It doesn’t get to finish the process it naturally wants to complete, and this leaves behind what some Somatic practitioners, like Dr. Sarah Coxon (a teacher I’ve trained with), call “Somatic Residue.”
We can think of this like emotional leftovers - unfinished experiences that your body hasn’t been able to fully digest.
What Happens Next?
That residue stays in your body. Later on, when something happens that feels similar (even if it's not dangerous), your nervous system might react as if the old situation is happening again.
That’s why you might feel triggered, overwhelmed, or confused by your own reactions, because your body is still carrying past, unprocessed emotions.
"It ́s the way that we metabolise the events, or don't, that determines whether they linger in our system as unprocessed material... That ́s why two people can experience the exact same thing and one is deeply affected and the other is not....."
Kimberly Ann Johnson (2021), Call of the Wild
Why the Same Event Affects People Differently
As Kimberly Ann Johnson explains in her book Call of the Wild, it’s not just what happens to us that matters - it’s how our body is able to process the event, that makes the difference.
When something stressful or traumatic happens, your nervous system tries to respond and move through it. If it can do that fully (whether in the moment or later on), we’re more likely to move on. But if the experience is too much for our system to handle, if it gets stuck or isn’t processed properly, it can stay with us, sometimes for a long time.
This could result in PTSD or C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), which can show up as flashbacks, nightmares, feeling startled, emotional outbursts which may cause harm, and reckless behaviour, and can have a severe impact on your life.
That’s why two people can go through the exact same situation, but come out of it feeling completely different.
Let’s say two people are in a car accident together. One might feel shaken but is able to get back into a car and drive again. The other might feel terrified and find it nearly impossible to drive or even be a passenger.
I once worked with a client who was in a car accident with her young son. Afterwards, she felt so anxious and unsafe in the car, and was becoming overly protective of her son, that she came to me for Somatic Coaching, where I helped her process what happened, widen her access to stability and feel safe enough to get back in the car.
How Your Body Remembers
When someone hasn't had the chance to fully process an experience like this, their body might stay on high alert, even when there's no danger. For example, they might flinch when a car pulls out suddenly, or grip the door handle tightly every time the car brakes. These reactions aren’t conscious - they’re your body’s way of remembering what it went through.
You're Not Broken
It’s really important to understand: there is nothing wrong with you if this happens. Your nervous system is doing its best to protect you, based on what it’s experienced before. If you didn’t feel safe or supported at the time, your body may have held onto the experience instead of letting it move through and release.
With the right support, it's absolutely possible to help your system feel safe enough again and process what’s been stuck.
How Can Somatic Coaching Support You?
Working with a Somatic practitioner provides the time and space for undigested life experiences which have imprinted on our system to be fully witnessed, and over time allow it to move through, digest and feel a sense of completion.
Depending on your personal circumstances, you may also benefit from seeing a therapist or counsellor, or seek other mental health support if it is having a severe impact on your life.
As a Somatic Coach, my role is to help you reconnect with your body in a gentle, supportive way. Together, we explore the internal signals your body is sending - often quiet, subtle messages that have gone unheard for years.
Through this process, we don’t push or force anything. We listen. We create space. We allow your body to guide the way forward, at a pace that feels safe and manageable for your nervous system.
The goal isn’t to “fix” you - because you’re not broken. Your body has been doing exactly what it needed to do to keep you safe.
But now, you might feel like something needs to shift.
Maybe you’re tired of feeling overwhelmed.
Maybe you’re frustrated by patterns that don’t serve you anymore.
Maybe you want to set clearer boundaries or feel more confident in how you show up, but something inside still holds you back.
That’s where this work comes in.
By building inner stability and slowly expanding your capacity to feel and process what’s happening inside, your body begins to trust that it’s safe again. And when that trust grows, so does your ability to move through life with more ease, clarity, and resilience.
Are You Ready to Begin?
If you’re curious about what your body has to say, and you’re ready to gently explore the stuckness or emotional weight you've been carrying - I invite you to work with me 1-1.
Somatic coaching isn’t about pushing through. It’s about coming home to yourself, with compassion and care.
✨ Let’s start the conversation;
🌿 Visit my website....
🌿 Book a 1-1 Connection Call for FREE...
🌿 Join the Monthly Somatic Reset Ritual...
I hope to connect with you soon.
With Gratitude, Sophie xx
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