How to release trauma stored in the hips? Exercise – Whether or not there is an emotional connection to the tension in the hips, physical relief is often needed to alleviate the pain and discomfort. Light walking, yoga or swimming will get the muscles and joints moving and promote circulation and healing in the area.
What emotions are stored in your hips? Our hip region is also associated with our sacral chakra which processes emotions like fear, sadness, frustration, loss and worry. As we clench and tense up when we are faced with these emotions, we lock and store them into our hips.
If you think of your pelvis as the center point for your body to work off of when trying to get away from trauma, and your body's response to trauma includes making your muscles tense, it makes sense that your hips tend to store a lot of tension."
Hips; Hips represent decisions in Life, especially decisions about moving forward. Pain in the hips is a sign of being 'stuck', unable to make a decision, or see clearly what is needed to be done next.
The hips are located at the second chakra, also known as Svadhisthana.
Why do hip openers release emotions? Hip-opening poses activate Svadhisthana, the second or sacral chakra, located within the pelvis along the spine. This chakra energy center is about self-expression and creativity, and is located near the bladder, womb and ovaries. It is the source of sexual energy and passion.
Starting on all fours, walk the knees out wide, turn the feet out and let the hips sink downward until you feel the stretch in your groin. Keep the spine long and lengthen through the neck. Exhale, and while engaging your core, lower down to your forearms, keep the elbows below the shoulders.
“The hip area is associated with your sacral chakra, which holds our creative and sexual energy,” described Sarah Donner, a holistic health coach and founder of Siva Wellness. “Your sacral chakra is believed to be a big part of our emotional world and how we relate to others.
Stretching the hip muscles causes a release; pent-up emotions may resurface, suppressed memories may arise, unconscious tension still held onto from a traumatic event may bubble up. All of which may unleash a seemingly inexplicable barrage of tears.
The hips are an important storage vessel of emotional stress because of the psoas' link to the adrenal glands and the location of the sacral chakra.
Some may have a fight-or-flight type of response, which may include muscle tension, heart pounding and sweating because their body "believes it needs to activate," she explains. Others maybe experience a freeze response, which can look like someone who struggles to move or get out of bed.
Emotional information is stored through “packages” in our organs, tissues, skin, and muscles. These “packages” allow the emotional information to stay in our body parts until we can “release” it. Negative emotions in particular have a long-lasting effect on the body.
Mentally, blocked sacral energy can manifest as issues such as co-dependency or feeling overwhelmed by our emotions. Other signs your sacral chakra might be blocked: Overindulgence in sexual fantasy. Lack of interest in sex all together.
In addition to the benefits of improved range of motion and circulation and decreased back pain, opening the hips can create an energetic shift or release as well. Yogic tradition holds the hips as a storage ground for negative feelings and pent-up emotions, especially ones related to control in our lives.
Ever since people's responses to overwhelming experiences have been systematically explored, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
The energy of the trauma is stored in our bodies' tissues (primarily muscles and fascia) until it can be released. This stored trauma typically leads to pain and progressively erodes a body's health.
Massage therapy, the manual manipulation of soft body tissue to promote health and well-being, can provide relief from physical, emotional, and mental stress, and decrease levels of depression, anxiety, irritability, and other symptoms associated with trauma exposure (Collinge, Kahn, & Soltysik, 2012).
Storing trauma in our bodies comes into play when the untethered release of stress hormones over and over again at higher than normal levels begins to impact our mental and physical health. Eventually, this causes damage to our bodies.
The hips are an important storage vessel of emotional stress because of the psoas' link to the adrenal glands and the location of the sacral chakra. Next time you're in yoga class doing hip-opening postures, you might just notice that there's a lot more going on than just a simple stretch.
You may ask “What does trauma blocking behavior look like? Trauma blocking is excessive use of social media and compulsive mindless scrolling. Binge drinking every weekend because you are off from work. Compulsive exercising to reach a goal you are never satisfied with.