Why Women Carry Emotion In Their Hips
Usha Anandi. 9 | JULY | 2024
Have you ever been to a Yoga class and had to choke back tears during the hip-opening postures?
Or maybe you’ve felt big emotions like anger or grief manifest as tightness in your hips…
Watch the video below to learn the physical, emotional, and energetic reasons behind why you store so darn much in your hips. Not into videos? Keep reading on to explore the reasons below.
As women, we’ve been left to fend for ourselves in a world of misinformation and disconnection from nature. By reading this blog, you’ve already taken your first steps to help the women around you reclaim their bodies and live a more fearless life.
To continue your journey, join me on July 19th for my free Womb Health Reclamation training. In this 75-minute session, I’ll share our 6-step process to reconnecting with your womb, and so much more that I’ve picked up on my own journey.
Spots are limited – so save yours now! No strings attached.
Nearly a decade ago, I was living in the jungle of Costa Rica. In addition to harvesting fresh turmeric from my garden and staining everything in my wardrobe orange, I spent my time teaching women’s health, anatomy, and nutrition on Yoga Teacher Trainings.
99% of the students in these trainings were female, and I noticed something…
Whenever we’d practice a hip opening asana (posture), at least two-thirds of the class would be wiping away salty tears by the end.
If you’ve been to a yoga class, you’ve probably heard the vague saying, “We hold a lot of emotions in our hips.”
But as a women’s health educator and complete nerd, the vague reference of emotions in the hips isn’t good enough for me.
After this blog, you’ll know exactly why you hold emotions in your hips through the layers of the physical and energetic bodies.
Remember, the mind and the body are one.
In New Age or Western spiritual practices, you’ll see the dissection of the body, mind, and spirit written everywhere. But it’s important to note that these layers of our being are only separated to support mental cognition of the concepts, and not because they’re truly disconnected from one another.
In Eastern medicine like Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, the body and the mind aren’t regarded as separate at all.
In fact, they’re seen as reflections of each another.
Whatever you’re going through emotionally — whether it’s joy, grief, anger, or the like — will impact the tissues of your body and how your organ systems function. The mind and the body are inextricably linked and cannot be separated.
Emotions aren’t only held in your hips, but stored in the body as a whole. They can accumulate anywhere in your body like your feet, jaw, shoulders, or hips depending on your unique system and your holding patterns.
The Physical Reason We Hold Emotions in Our Hips
When your body believes it’s in danger, it sends messages to the major muscle groups responsible for mobilization so we can move away or fight the danger.
Modern women are bombarded with constant signals of stress.
Whereas our primitive ancestors would have to deal with stressors like wild animals or natural disasters… modern women have to deal with so much more, including:
- Climate grief
- Economic stress
- Racism
- Sexism
And guess what… those natural disasters still very much exist. You get the point.
Undigested experiences from the past can also lodge themselves within the nervous system and influence how we react to present-day life.
This stress causes the major muscles of mobilization to tense and prepare for action, which includes hip muscles like the quadriceps, glutes, hip flexors, and psoas, as well as the fascia of the pelvis.
Your body loves you and it holds this sense of urgency within the tissues so you can be ready to move out of danger.
When you open the hip space with asanas (postures) in a yoga class, through stretching at home, or pilates, the residue of stress can be felt.
Remember that building the capacity to feel and sit with what is held in your tissues is a precursor to releasing what is stored there.
When you feel the emotions stored within your body without creating a story or needing to understand why or exactly how they got there, you offer yourself a magnificent and cleansing gift.
The Energetic and Emotional Reasons We Hold Emotions in Our Hips
Through the lens of the Western allopathic medical system, there isn’t much respect for the energy of the body. In the Eastern systems of healing like Yoga, Ayurveda, or Chinese Medicine, however, the utmost importance is placed on maintaining the balance of the energy behind the physiological processes of the body.
For example, in Yoga and Ayurveda, there are seven main centers of energy known as Chakras (pronounced cha-kra, not sha-kra… please!).
The Sanskrit word Chakra means ‘wheel’, which refers to a wheel of energy that spins. The seven main chakras rest along the astral spine, which aligns with the physical spinal cord that we know in the Western system.
Chakras can express imbalance through having either too much vital energy or too little vital energy. Fascinately enough, these chakras are located where nerve plexuses meet biologically, which influence the functions of the organs they connect to.
According to this system of healing, working with these wheels of energy can positively impact the organs associated with these centers. The energetic center connected with the pelvic area and associated organs is called the Svadisthana Chakra — known more commonly as the Sacral Chakra.
In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Svadishtana is translated to “one’s own abode”. Your pelvis is your own abode, a sanctuary. Your womb space is a place you can return to and allow yourself to feel the deep emotions associated with this center.
If you’re always tight in your hips or numbed out to the point that you have no freaking clue what’s going on “down there”…
You’re not alone.
As women, we’ve been left to fend for ourselves in a world of misinformation and disconnection from nature. By reading this blog, you’ve already taken your first steps to help the women around you reclaim their bodies and live a more fearless life.
To continue your journey, join me on July 19th for my Free Womb Health Reclamation Training.
In this 75-minute session, I’ll share our 6-step process to reconnecting with your womb, and so much more that I’ve picked up on my own journey.
Spots are limited – so save yours now! No strings attached.
