01/12/2025
Unresolved emotional trauma can deeply alter the body’s stress patterns, leaving the nervous system stuck in an extended period of survival mode. This can come from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system via chronic fight, flight, freeze or shutdown responses. (Or even a mix of them)
Harvard research shows that long-term stress and trauma can make the nervous system hypersensitive, so that ordinary sensations are experienced as discomfort or pain. Over time, this heightened state can create chronic muscle tension and inflammation even when no clear medical issue is present. These are essentially bracing patterns within muscle and fascia that are storing emotion or unresolved responses to traumatic events like being yelled at, not having needs met, an accident, constant overriding and hustling to meet the needs of the modern world etc.
When inner wounds remain unhealed, the body often speaks the truth the mind isn’t ready to articulate.
Starting to work with this involves first building awareness of our body and how we feel. I've left an exercise in the comments if you want to check it out.