Unlocking emotional trauma in your hips involves mind-body practices like trauma-informed yoga, somatic experiencing, deep breathing, and rhythmic movement, which release stored tension through gentle stretches (Pigeon, Butterfly), mindfulness, and focused body awareness to help process emotions linked to physical tightness, often in the hip flexors and glutes. Pairing these physical releases with professional support, such as somatic therapy or counseling, can be highly effective for deeper healing, as emotions physically affect muscles and joints.
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.
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.
How to heal and recover after trauma
The hips are a common storage site for emotions related to fear, anxiety, sadness, and trauma. Yoga, with its focus on hip opening and mindfulness, offers a powerful tool for releasing these stored emotions.
How To Release Trauma From Hips
What are the six stages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
While all traumas leave a profound mark on an individual's life, there's a different level of difficulty in recovering from what's called "complex trauma." Unlike single-incident traumas, complex trauma stems from repeated experiences of stressful and traumatic events, usually in environments where there's no escape.
BREAK THE BONDS OF THE PAST
One of the most powerful “feel better fast” techniques to overcome emotional trauma or grief is called “breaking the bonds of the past.” It stems from the belief that negative feelings and behaviors are often based on past memories that are either toxic or misinterpreted.
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.
Stress, fear, and anger are common emotions stored in your hips. This is because when you experience these feelings, it's common to clench your muscles—including your hip muscles—according to Ekhart Yoga. This can result in tight hips until you've begun to heal from your trauma.
Here are five signs that may mean someone is in emotional pain and might need help:
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.
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.
The “90-second rule,” introduced by Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, reveals that an emotional surge in the body lasts only about 90 seconds—unless we mentally keep it alive.
Changes in physical and emotional reactions
It won't rid you of PTSD and your fears, but let your tears flow and you'll maybe feel a little better afterwards. 'Crying for long periods of time releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, otherwise known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals can help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Eight common categories of childhood trauma, often called Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by the CDC and others, include physical/sexual/emotional abuse, neglect, domestic violence, household substance abuse, mental illness in the home, parental separation/divorce, or having a household member imprisoned, all of which significantly impact a child's development and long-term health. These traumatic events teach children that their world is unsafe, affecting their brains, bodies, and ability to form healthy relationships later in life, leading to issues like chronic stress, attachment problems, dissociation, and hypervigilance.
Numerous studies have shown that ignoring emotions can lead to short-term mental and physical reactions too. Anxiety and depression are just some of the consequences of suppressing these underlying, automatic, hard-wired survival emotions, which are biological forces that should not be ignored.
The "3 C's of Trauma" usually refer to Connect, Co-Regulate, and Co-Reflect, a model for trauma-informed care focusing on building safe relationships, helping individuals manage overwhelming emotions (co-regulation), and processing experiences (co-reflection). Other "3 C's" include Comfort, Conversation, and Commitment for children's coping, and Catch, Check, Change from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for challenging negative thoughts in trauma recovery.
Yes, most people recover from emotional trauma. Their symptoms subside as the body heals and recovers. It may take days, weeks, or months. Some people recover on their own, others with the support of family and friends, and some seek professional help.
“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.
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.
7 Clear Signs Your Body Is Releasing Stored Trauma