BY JACLYN RENEE VELARDO
“80% of autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body, are found in women,” said Canadian physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté in a recent interview. He explains, “This is specifically because they put the needs of others before themselves and often suppress anger, fear, and worry to uphold a strong facade for those around them.”
Countless women bear this silent burden. They project a protective shell to those around them, all while selflessly prioritizing the needs of others over their own. With each unspoken emotion and suppressed feeling, their burdens grow heavier, making life increasingly challenging. This heaviness that women feel often stems from “trapped emotions.” This term was coined by Dr. Bradley Nelson, a holistic physician who treated many patients suffering from conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, cancer, and other chronic illnesses. He found that a single trapped emotion can contribute to physical and emotional issues. Because these emotions are not expressed and remain unresolved, they become pressurized in the body, causing energetic blockages.
I personally suffered for a long time with my own debilitating gut issues and hormonal imbalance. After years of no answers, I went back to school at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition to become a women’s holistic health coach. I was able to find freedom on my gut healing journey and go on to help hundreds of female clients break free from bloat, acne, fatigue, and weight loss resistance over the last decade.
However, a year after losing my mother, I started experiencing debilitating full-body pain, along with cystic acne, a constant state of depression, and major gut issues all over again. I told myself that I should be past most of the grief by then — but the truth was that I had altogether avoided the pain and emotion of losing her, leaving my emotions to manifest into crippling pain and sadness. I tried everything. Yoga, journaling, talk therapy, herbal supplements to reduce inflammation — but nothing moved the needle.
I knew I could not rely on my own understanding of what was happening — this was bigger than me. I turned to my higher power (for me, that is Jesus) and prayed for an answer, which came quickly: Move my body and express myself loudly. At first, it felt awkward and challenging since I had been taught to suppress my emotions for so long, but then I started to feel lighter. As I started to feel more comfortable with it, I started expressing myself in bigger movements — jumping around, kicking, and screaming. It truly felt like I was throwing an adult temper tantrum. Eventually, after about a month of full expression, I felt liberated. The grief turned to peace and acceptance. My skin cleared up, my energy was restored, and my stomach was finally not bloated anymore. I even lost a little weight.
It was then that I knew I had been given a gift. The message was clear: Turn my pain into my purpose and bring this process to my community and clients to help them heal. I started researching somatic movement and putting together a cadence of meditation, journaling, stretches, dance, and expressive movements.
In my work with clients over the years, I’ve used bioenergetic testing, high quality nutrition, and professional-grade supplements to help them break free from much of what they were experiencing — but I knew something was missing. Through the integration of somatic movement and self-expression, my clients have found a faster sense of liberation from symptoms like chronic illness, pain, anxiety, and even resistance to weight loss. These techniques have offered a path to shedding physical and emotional weight, empowering women to reclaim their vitality and freedom, which for some, has translated into a pure sense of joy and peace within their own bodies.
If you’re one of the many women (or men) who find yourself holding onto an array of emotions that are causing you to feel heavy, these are the tools I most often implement with my clients:
PUT IT ON PAPER
The first one is a journaling technique I learned from my grief counselor — I call it intentional emotional dumping. So often throughout the day, our thoughts bombard our everyday tasks. These intrusive thoughts happen because we don’t allow proper space to process emotions. Try this to give your brain a break: Take out your journal and set a timer for 15 minutes.
Write down everything that feels present to you, even if it hurts or feels uncomfortable. This is your sacred time to grieve, be angry or sad, or to acknowledge whatever feelings come up for you. Now that you’ve offloaded the thoughts, you’ll feel lighter throughout the day.
THROW A TANTRUM
Secondly, and my personal favorite, is what I call an adult temper tantrum. One of the emotions that women suppress most is anger, and when I feel anger rising in my body, I know that it is me avoiding an emotion that needs to come out. When you feel this within yourself, it’s important to create a safe space for yourself to let it go. Close yourself in a
room where no one else is around, turn on some loud music, grab a pillow, and start punching. If that’s not your style, try jumping on the bed and screaming like a child. Within your safe space, kicking, yelling, flailing your body about — any of these techniques can be incredibly liberating, and you just might shock yourself in discovering how much you needed to let go of. Once you feel that you’ve finished, you always want to regulate
and come down from big emotions. Sit down, cross your arms across your chest, and hold yourself while rocking gently back and forth until you feel calm, peaceful, and regulated.
DANCE IT OUT
Finally, one technique that I use most days is to dance. It is an underrated form of self-expression and healing, and it’s a great way to shift your mood — especially if you throw on your favorite song and open the windows. It can be an instant attitude adjustment.
For all of these techniques, it’s important to note that while processing big emotions, you might feel a little raw afterward. Give yourself some time to let the emotions process and flow through you. Make yourself a promise not to make any big decisions or have life-altering conversations for at least 24 hours after feeling your big feelings.
Although somatic movement seems to be having a bit of a trendy moment, the methods have been around for decades. Thomas Hanna, a professor and theorist who coined the term “somatics” in 1976, says, “Somatic exercises can change how we live our lives, how we believe that our minds and bodies interrelate, how powerful we think we are in controlling our lives, and how responsible we should be in taking care of our total being.”
The bottom line is that, in order for us to be healthy and empowered, our emotions must be expressed and felt, not bottled up and stored away. I have learned first hand how powerfully healing somatic movement can be. And nothing brings me more joy than watching my clients completely relieve the anxiety that has been ailing them for years, to finally be able to sleep through the night, or heal their gut after being bounced around from doctor to doctor without answers.
Being vulnerable enough to acknowledge your feelings can be challenging. Still, the relief you can feel on the other side is worth the challenge, allowing you to finally feel comfortable in your own skin, liberated from the heaviness of trapped emotions.
