Three ways to recognize trauma in your body (and what to do about them)
When you go through traumatic experiences, every fibre of your being—organs, tissue, muscles, and cells—stores the emotional memory if it hasn’t been properly processed.
This can lead to physical, mental, and spiritual challenges that you wouldn’t think were connected.
The good news is your body regularly sends messages on what needs attention. That’s its number one job—maintaining balance and harmony to your system.
Once you know how to recognize these signals, you can then start to release them.
Three ways trauma shows up in the body
Let’s dive into three ways to recognize stored trauma in your body and then we’ll look at three exercises for release so you feel lighter and more at ease.
1. Muscles tightness or inflexibility
We all have tightness somewhere. But did you know this tightness is likely linked to stressful events or even old wounds from past lives? The tighter it is, the deeper and heavier the emotional memory (older memories tend to be stored in the hips and glutes btw). Pay close attention to where you regularly feel tight. Your body is likely telling you something.
2. Consistent, heavy emotions
Heavy emotions such as grief, anxiety, and loneliness eventually show up physically. If you have chronic pain in your body or consistently feel down, you might be carrying around deep traumatic wounds. The sneaky thing is, most of it is subconscious, so just because you don’t feel sad in every moment, chronic back pain could be a sign of stored emotional trauma.
3. Physical dis-ease
In holistic health, there’s a reason why we call it dis-ease rather than disease. It’s because disruption to our energy field leads to physical symptoms. Whether it’s autoimmune, digestive issues, or even infertility, your illness may be intrinsically linked to a traumatic experience causing energetic imbalances in your body’s natural systems.
How to release stored trauma
Now that you know three ways to recognize your body’s signals, let’s get into three practices to help release it.
1. Physical Stretching & Movement
Movement is a great way to manually release tension. When we set intentions for release before and during physical movement, this practice gets powerful. Attend a yoga class (I highly recommend yin yoga) or quiet your space and flow with your body. Tap into your intuition and allow it to guide you to areas that need release. This can also be done through dance or a combination of both.
2. Nutrition & supplements
Physical support helps nurture emotional support. I recommend working with professionals like a naturopath, holistic nutritionist, or Ayurvedic specialist to ensure you’re receiving adequate nutrition and proper supplements for your symptoms.
3. Spiritual & energy healing
Call me biased, but this is my number one recommended approach. Reach out to energy practitioners like shiatsu, reiki, hypnosis therapy, or a spiritual energy specialist (aka me). They will help uproot stagnant energy for easier release. To me, this is the missing link in most people’s healing journey.
Recognizing trauma in the body is the first step (and a very powerful one). You’re the master of your energy field. Step into that power and know that anything is possible!