When Trauma Becomes Physical: Understanding Somatic Pain

Many of us are taught to see symptoms as isolated issues — a sore neck, digestive issues, pelvic pain, fatigue — each with its own diagnosis and fix. But in holistic health, we often see something deeper: the body expressing what hasn’t yet been resolved emotionally.

This is the world of somatic pain — physical discomfort that arises from stored emotional trauma, often without any clear medical cause.

What Happens in the Body After Trauma?

When we experience trauma — whether it’s a major event or a series of smaller, overwhelming experiences — our nervous system goes into survival mode: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. If that trauma isn’t processed, the stress response gets stuck “on”, and the body never gets the signal that it's safe again.

In an ideal world, we would release that energy through movement, breath, voice, or tears — as our body is naturally designed to do. But often, that doesn’t happen. Sometimes the trauma is too overwhelming, or we’ve never been taught how to express it. We may have been silenced, shamed, or emotionally abandoned. In more extreme cases — such as abuse or ongoing trauma — people can even experience depersonalisation, disconnecting from the body completely as a way to survive.

When this happens, the trauma doesn’t disappear — it gets stored in the body. In the muscles, tissues, fascia, gut, and even the jaw, hips, or womb.

Where and How Somatic Pain Shows Up:

• Neck and shoulder tension – unspoken words, emotional weight, vigilance

• Jaw pain or grinding – repressed anger, needing to “hold it in”

• Pelvic pain – sexual trauma, boundary violations, shame

• IBS or bloating – gut-brain disconnection, unresolved fear

• Fatigue or heaviness – freeze response, deep exhaustion from years of “coping”

• Chest tightness or breathlessness – anxiety, grief, uncried tears

You might go for scans, blood tests, even physical therapy — and still feel like something’s being missed. That’s because there’s nothing mechanically wrong — the pain is real, but its roots are emotional and neurological, not structural.

The Body Is Trying to Talk

Somatic pain is the body saying, “There’s something here we haven’t dealt with yet.” It’s not trying to punish or trap you — it’s trying to keep you safe, by holding onto the stress that was too much to feel at the time. The pain becomes a messenger.

How Healing Happens

Healing this kind of pain is not just about medication or stretching — it’s about creating safety in the body again. This may include:

• Yoga and breathwork – to gently reconnect you with your physical self

• Naturopathic nutrition – to support the nervous system and lower inflammation

• Holistic therapy – to help you explore and process the emotional roots

• Somatic practices – like movement, shaking, humming, or body awareness techniques

• Journalling – as you’ve experienced yourself, this is powerful for releasing held emotion

The aim is to help the body complete the survival response it never got to finish — so it can finally exhale and let go.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been living with unexplained pain, symptoms that come and go, or fatigue that doesn’t make sense — you’re not imagining it. Your body remembers what your mind has tucked away. But it’s also capable of incredible healing when we work with it, not against it.

You don’t need to relive the trauma to release it. You just need the right space, the right tools, and the right kind of listening.

For advice and guidance schedule a free discovery call.