10/20/2025
When something overwhelming happens and isn’t fully processed, your system adapts. That adaptation may look like bracing or rigidity in the annamaya kosha, shortness of breath in pranamaya kosha, collapse or withdrawal into the manomaya kosha, or disconnection, a disturbance in vijnanamaya and/or anandamaya kosha. Over time, these adaptations become deeply ingrained patterns—chronic tension, shallow breathing, gripping, or numbness in certain areas.
Because the hips are a central hub for stability, mobility, and emotional expression, those protective patterns often surface there. But this doesn’t mean trauma is “stored” in the hips—it means the hips are participating in a conditioned response loop.
So when your hips release and you become tearful, shaky, or vulnerable, it’s not trauma leaking out like poison. It’s your nervous system saying: This feels familiar—are we safe now?
And this is the space where yoga therapy supports healing: not by trying to “get rid” of something, but by meeting the body with ahimsā (non-harm), breath regulation (prānāyāma), and compassionate awareness. Here, you invite the nervous system to choose a new response.
💡 When we say “I store trauma in my hips,” we unintentionally pathologize a wise, adaptive process.
👉 It frames the body as broken rather than intelligent.
👉 It pushes us toward expelling trauma from one region instead of cultivating equanimity across the system.
This mindset often creates aversion toward the hips—when in truth, they are just a messenger.