emotional holding
feelings in the body
I was pretty late to the game on the importance of feelings.
I'm a Pisces Sun and Cancer Rising, and true to the personality traits, I believe I’m pretty emotive. But it’s definitely in a “still waters run deep” kind of way, where those feelings are way underground, nowhere near the surface.
In 2017, I moved from NYC to Austin, Texas. I jumped on an opportunity, and within weeks I was giving notice to my landlord, packing up my things, and starting a new life.
Right before I left, I got hit with crippling back pain. I was hunched over, and I remember being very worried about how I was going to pull my suitcase through the airport, let alone into the taxi or the overhead bin.
Being in pain like this was unbelievably inconvenient. I needed to really hustle--I was starting a new gig and had to find an apartment, buy a car, get furnishings, and basically be all set up in a very short period--and I could barely walk. It was absurd.
So to add to my list, as soon as I got there, I immediately sought treatment for my back. I set up appointments for massage and physical therapy. Luckily, I stumbled upon an amazing bodyworker. Over our sessions, we explored how the root of my back pain might be emotional holding--unprocessed feelings stuck in the body. She referred me to a therapist who specialized in the mind/body connection so that I could work the emotional processing and physical recovery simultaneously.
Looking back, and related to my last post on ‘the case for a strong goodbye’, I can see that I didn’t give my 13 years in NYC the goodbye they deserved. I had a really rich life and lots of friends, and I rushed through the transition; I was deliberately trying not to feel, but focusing on the future instead.
The unprocessed feelings manifested physically to the point I could barely walk. This was my body’s intervention: I had to slow down.
Stuck feelings don’t disappear. There are many ways they can wile out and cause harm, including:
- physical symptoms (pain, fatigue, illness)
- mental health issues (emotional suppression is linked to anxiety and depression)
- relationship patterns and conflicts
- clouded judgment and impaired decision-making
And on the flip side, being in tune, or aligned, with your inner state helps create greater harmony in your life. My former therapist once said that identifying a feeling is like tapping a tuning fork: it creates a vibration that resonates with what’s happening inside. And that resonance also impacts our external world.
Understanding our feelings is a way to be in dialogue with our inner wisdom--it’s valuable information about what’s working, what’s not, and where to go next. They can reveal things our rational mind can’t access. It’s also how we metabolize our experiences, make meaning, and connect with and relate to each other on a deeper level.
There is a saying, “you have to feel it to heal it,” and that is an ongoing journey. I now have many different techniques for emotional processing, but for me, it all starts with naming the feelings. Of course, this isn’t as straightforward as it might sound.
