The Body Speaks: What Your Posture and Pain Reveal About Your Emotion

Let me share one of the many experiences I’ve had in the gym.

I remember a client who, every time she got into a car, felt like she lost her balance and began experiencing panic attacks. What was surprising is that the same thing happened in the gym: every time we worked on a BOSU or an unstable platform, her body reacted in the exact same way.

The car, the BOSU, any elevated surface would trigger a physical-emotional reaction that didn’t seem to have a logical explanation.

Until one day, while we were training, I calmly asked her:

“When was the first time you felt like you lost contact with the ground, with your base?”

She then started crying and said:

“My brother feels the same... I lost contact with the ground when my mother died.”

That was the moment of connection. Her system had associated the loss of her mother —her emotional base— with the sensation of not having solid ground. From that day on, the symptom never appeared again.

50% of the symptom is deactivated through awareness.

The rest is the internal work of accepting what we’ve lived, so the experience no longer needs to scream through the body.

Posture reveals how we inhabit the world.

And movement can help us transform it.

There’s a lot of talk about biomechanics, muscles, and how to move properly. But we rarely stop to think that the body also holds emotions. And that those emotions, when they’re not expressed or have been held for too long, will find a way to manifest through the body.

Have you ever asked yourself why you always carry tension in the same place? Why one side of your body reacts differently than the other? Or why some pains return over and over again, even after rest or physical treatment?

What we call “physical imbalance” is often the result of a sustained emotional pattern.

I’ve seen many people with one hip higher than the other, with inward or outward-turned feet, with collapsed or stiff postures. And yes, there may be a structural or genetic reason. But there can also be an emotional story behind it.

The hips, for example, are full of symbolism: they relate to movement, forward motion, and support. When there’s fear, excess control, or insecurity, the body tends to freeze. Muscles tense up, mobility reduces, and this affects how we walk, sit, and stand.

It’s not about blaming the emotion, but integrating it. Understanding that the body is not separate from what we feel. That by working on the body, we can also release emotional weight. And that by looking at our emotions, we can help heal the body.

I invite you to look at your training from another perspective.

Not just as physical work, but as a chance to listen to yourself, discover yourself, and reconnect with what your body has to tell you.