Where Do Emotions Live in the Body? (And Why Yin Yoga Helps You Feel Them)

Have you ever been in a yin pose, say, butterfly or saddle, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you feel a lump in your throat? A wave of sadness? A strange, unnameable emotion rising up from somewhere deep inside?

You're not broken. You're not weird. You’re just being human. And you’ve landed in one of yin yoga’s most powerful truths: the body remembers everything.

In Western anatomy, we don’t always talk about emotion as something physical. But Traditional Chinese Medicine, somatic therapy, and trauma-informed yoga all agree that feelings live in the tissues. Fear in the kidneys. Grief in the lungs. Anger in the liver. Joy in the heart. These aren’t metaphors. They’re energetic imprints, held quietly in our fascia, our organs, our breath.

Yin yoga gives us space to meet those emotions. It’s not about fixing or forcing. It’s about staying. Breathing. Softening. Letting the body tell the truth it’s been holding on to for years.

This is why yin feels so different. It’s not just about stretching—it’s about remembering. And releasing.

As Gabor Maté, a renowned physician and trauma expert, says: “The body keeps the score. The mind may forget, but the body remembers.” This is what makes yin yoga so profound. It helps us connect with the deep, often forgotten parts of ourselves, the emotional experiences we’ve held onto, sometimes without even knowing it. When we slow down enough to listen, our bodies start to speak.

In our teacher training, we explore how to hold space for this kind of work. How to guide students through big sensations without rushing them. How to honour their process—and your own—with clarity and care. We learn to recognize when something is shifting below the surface and how to support it safely.

Because yes, you’ll learn about fascia and meridians and postures. But you’ll also learn how to hold space for healing. For feeling. For being human. That’s the kind of teaching the world needs more of.

Yin Yoga 2025