Hip openers like Pigeon Pose, Lizard Pose, Butterfly Stretch, and Happy Baby release emotional tension by stretching deep hip muscles (like the psoas) where stress and trauma are often stored, promoting physical and emotional release, which can manifest as crying, better sleep, or sudden insights, supported by breathwork and mindful awareness in these deep stretches.
Yoga is a powerful tool for releasing trauma from the body. Hip-opening poses, such as pigeon pose, can be a hip trauma release pose that can help release tension and emotions stored in the hips. Practicing yoga can also improve your range of motion and mobility, allowing you to move more freely and comfortably.
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.
Understanding Why Trauma Can Be Stored in the Hips
The hips are central to our posture and movement, so tension here affects many aspects of daily life. Emotional experiences like grief or shame often show up as tightness or resistance in this area.
Energetically, the sacral chakra sits in the lower belly, just below the navel. Physically, it governs the hips, reproductive organs, bladder, kidneys, and lower back. Its color is a rich, warm orange—sunset over water.
It's believed that trauma can be stored in the hips. This refers to holding emotional trauma in the psoas muscle. The body's response to trauma is complex. When a person experiences a traumatic event, the fight, flight, or freeze response is activated.
The hips hold; they carry the literal weight of the upper body and deal with the shock of motion. However, they also seem to carry what we tend to avoid – negative feelings. In yoga practice, it's not so uncommon to find that these postures will evoke emotions without a clear origin.
While the front of the hips indicate a fear of the future, the back of the hips are linked to the past and our inability to let go of it. The back of the hips, which may include a tight lower back and glutes, mean that you may be too focused on the past, according to Simmons.
Releasing trauma from the hips is a gradual process that varies for each person. Some may experience emotional release after a few sessions of hip-opening work, while others may need consistent practice over months. The key is gentle persistence and honoring your body's timeline.
Whenever you experience something shocking, traumatic, or that you (consciously or subconsciously) perceive as a threat, your psoas muscle constricts and 'locks in' the tension in the body. Once the tension energy is contracted into the body it stays there.
But in my experience, emotional healing happens in seven stages: awareness, acceptance, processing, release, growth, integration, and transformation. We don't move through these seven stages in a straight line, but we do pass through them all eventually on the path to healing.
90/90 Hip Stretches
1. Sit on the floor and place one leg in front of you and the other behind, with both your knees bent at 90-degree angles. 2. Lean forward slightly and hold the position for at least 30 seconds—you will most definitely feel your hips stretching and loosening.
But if you have chronic anxiety, irritability, numbness, or emotional overreactions that seem out of proportion to the moment, then this might be your clue. If you notice yourself avoiding deep conversations or feeling disconnected from your own needs, this is another clue that you could have repressed emotions.
The second chakra, known as the sacral chakra or svadhisthana, is associated with the color orange. Almost all back and hip pain along with sciatica resides within this chakra. The reproductive system—ovaries, uterus, gonads and testes—is also included.
Here are five signs that may mean someone is in emotional pain and might need help:
Signs you may have tight hips
The good news is that hip pain is treatable. Dealing with the emotional causes of your pain, such as anxiety or depression, can help prevent future discomfort, but it's critical to release the existing stored tension through movement.
If you are storing trauma in your body and you're having trouble releasing it, you may benefit from chiropractic treatment. With a holistic, patient-centered approach focused on the mind and body connection, chiropractors offer many creative ways to help unravel long-standing physical effects of traumatic experiences.
“There is absolutely truth to the idea that hip-opening yoga classes can make us emotional because we store unmet trauma and emotion in our pelvic space,” explains Meffan.
The hips serve as a storage facility for emotional tension, stress, and trauma. Due to our sedentary lifestyles, poor posture, and emotional suppression, many individuals accumulate tension in the hip region. The hip muscles, particularly the psoas muscle, are notorious for harboring emotional stress.
Your yoga practice has an effect on the sacral chakra. Physical postures that involve fluidity, such as hip openers and spinal twists, can help to stimulate and balance the sacral chakra. Paying attention to the movement of the hips and the fluidity of the spine can also be helpful.
Physical sensations such as tingling, warmth or a sense of energy may occur. Some people experience muscle twitching or shaking as tension is released.
Anecdotally, a movement or stretch has been known to trigger emotional release. Some examples are uttanasana (standing forward bend), back bends like urdhva mukha svanasana (upward facing dog), or hip openers like eko pada rajakapotasana (pigeon pose) or ananda balasana (happy baby).
Crying as a Spiritual Release
Crying is not simply an emotional reaction. It is often your body's way of releasing something your soul has been carrying for far too long. When the pressure to hold everything together becomes too great, crying becomes the outlet that helps you let go.