The Body Knows What the Mind Avoids

There is a reason certain emotions don’t simply “pass” when we ignore them.

As The Body Keeps the Score famously points out, what we are not consciously aware of does not disappear—it is remembered by the body. Sensations, tensions, contractions, and patterns of holding quietly accumulate, even when the mind insists everything is fine.

This doesn’t only happen with trauma in the obvious sense.
It happens with everyday emotions that are resisted, minimized, or over-identified with.

Anger that was never allowed.
Sadness that felt inconvenient.
Fear that had no space to move.

All of it has energy. And that energy needs somewhere to go.

The Splinter We Ignore

Imagine getting a small splinter in your finger.

At first it’s barely noticeable. Easy to dismiss. But if it’s never removed, the body reacts. Inflammation sets in. The area becomes sensitive. Over time, what was once small begins to throb, restrict movement, and demand attention.

Unacknowledged emotion works the same way.

Whether we suppress emotions (“I shouldn’t feel this”) or over-identify with them (“I am angry”, or “I am awful” rather than “anger is here” or “sensations of worthlessness are here”, the result is similar: the emotional energy has nowhere to complete itself.

So it lodges in the body.

Over time, that lodged energy can show up as:

• chronic tension

• fatigue

• anxiety

• irritability

• pain with no clear medical cause

The body isn’t betraying us.
It’s signaling that something needs to be felt. Recognized. Honored exactly as it. Just “what’s here”.

Why Suppression and Over-Identification Both Hurt

Most people toggle between two default responses to unpleasant emotions:

1. Suppression / avoidance
   Pushing feelings away. Distracting. Minimizing. Staying functional at all costs.

2. Over-identification
   Merging with the emotion. Building identity and story around it. Letting it define who we are.

While these look opposite, they share the same problem:
neither allows the emotion to move.

Suppression traps it.
Over-identification freezes it in narrative.

In both cases, the emotional energy remains unresolved in the body.

The Third Way: Presence Without Judgment

There is another option—one that feels counterintuitive at first.

Instead of pushing the emotion away,
and instead of becoming the emotion,

we practice non-judgmental observation.

Not:

• Why am I like this?

• How do I get rid of this?

But:

• Anger is here.

• Sadness is here.

• Fear is here.

• Shame is here, etc.

This subtle shift creates distance/space from the story while staying present with the sensation.

The body feels the difference immediately.

When an emotion is acknowledged without resistance or dramatization, its energy begins to soften. Not because it’s forced to, but because it’s finally being met.

Emotion Is Energy — and Energy Wants to Move

Every emotion carries an energetic charge.
Some light and pleasant.
Some neutral (it’s neither good or bad, just is)
Some dense and unpleasant. Some a bit of all three.

The denser the emotion, the more likely it is to lodge in the system if left unattended.

Your body already knows how to heal this. But it requires presence first, and movement second.

Once awareness has softened the grip of the emotion, the body often initiates its own release mechanisms:

• shaking

• trembling

• yawning

• crying

• sighing

• spontaneous movement

This is not something to suppress.
It’s the nervous system completing a cycle that was interrupted (by either the suppression or over-identification).

Practices like trauma-release shaking, somatic experiencing (Peter Levin’s work), Core Energetics, walking, yoga, gentle movement, or even air-boxing can act as a pressure-release valve, allowing the stored energy to discharge safely.

You don’t have to choose the “right” method.
You only need to listen to what the body is asking for in that moment. Then do it, to the best of your ability, as many times as the body needs.

Healing Is Not Forcing — It’s Allowing

The body does not need to be fixed.
It needs to be trusted. It has an innate healing sense. It requires presence of being with what is, to ‘sense’ what it’s asking for. Even if you guess wrong, the fact that are sending non-judgmental attention to it, just watching it without maximizing or minimizing, is the path to healing. Can’t heal what is not in awareness.

When presence is consistent and release is allowed, the emotional splinter begins to work its way out. Slowly. Naturally. Without violence.

What once hurt becomes informative.
What once overwhelmed becomes workable.

This is not a one-time event.
It’s a cultivatable skill. That you will practice, many times, across the span of a lifetime.

And like any skill, it must be practiced—especially because it runs counter to deeply conditioned habits of suppression and over-identification.

In Simple Terms: The Process

Here is the sequence, summarized clearly:

1. Notice
   Become aware of emotional sensations in the body.

2. Name Without Identity
   “Anger is here.” “Sadness is here.”
   Not “I AM angry.” (This simple reframe in wording can provide that bit of space to feel into what’s true for your body in that moment).

3. Stay Present Without Judgment
   No fixing. No story. Just acknowledgment.

4. Allow Softening
   Let awareness reduce the density of the sensation.

5. Let the Body Move
   Shaking, crying, yawning, walking, stretching—whatever arises.

6. Release and Rest
   Energy discharges. The system settles.

This is how the body heals what the mind could not resolve alone.

Closing Reflection

What we resist doesn’t leave.
It waits.

But when the body is met with presence,
and emotions are allowed to move,
healing stops being something we do
and becomes something that happens through us.