Trauma is stored in the hips

I gotta tell you, it's not easy liking both yoga and science nowadays. There are so many insane claims floating around on the internet...

Something that comes up very often is the idea that traumas are stored in the hips. And that doing "hip opening" postures can help release this trauma.

You don't say.

Who needs therapy when you have Pigeon pose?

Now, I do love a good hip opener, but I'm not sure how my abandonment issues from childhood ended up stuck in my groin.

What I think my colleagues are trying to say though, is that emotions aren't just cerebral events.

When we feel anger, our fists and jaw clench. When we are anxious, we get a knot in the pit of our stomach. When we're happy, our entire body lights up. And when we're depressed, everything seems to shut down.

I'm not making this up, this is what a Finnish study from 2014 found out. Nummenmaa and his team asked 700 people from all over the world to colour in the regions of a body silhouette where they felt sensations increase or decrease for each emotion.

And the results were striking: we all seem to "sense" emotions in the same way, even across very different cultures.

So even if I wouldn't say that trauma is stored in the hips, I think it's fair to say that emotions are embodied, they don't just happen in the brain.

And we could imagine that strong emotions - or emotions that have been felt repeatedly - can leave an imprint. After all, we know our body adapts to what it does the most.

This is why mindful somatic practices such as yoga can be so potent. Through body movement and relaxation, we can work on these imprints and indirectly work on the emotion itself.

Maybe that's what these influencers are trying to say. That's what makes sense to me anyay. What do you think?

Clem

Yoga with Clem

La Madeleine, France

For more info, resources and ways to work with me, please have a look at my website.