Yoga Poses to Release Trauma in Hips and Support Emotional Healing
Have you ever been in pigeon pose and suddenly felt like crying? Or noticed that your hips feel impossibly tight, like they're holding onto something you can't quite name?
You’re probably not imagining it.
Yoga teachers often talk about hips as "storage places" for trauma, but the reality is more nuanced than that. Trauma isn't literally stuffed into your hip muscles like your clothes in a closet. What's actually happening is far more fascinating.
Where Trauma Really Lives
According to Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, trauma lives in your nervous system. When your body experiences something overwhelming and can't complete its natural survival responses, fight, flight, or freeze, that activation gets stuck.
Your hips are major players in those survival movements. Running away from danger. Kicking to defend yourself. Curling up small to protect your vital organs. When those responses get interrupted or suppressed, your hip area can become a place where that unfinished energy settles.
This is why hip openers can feel so loaded. Your body remembers.
But yoga can't erase trauma from your tissues. What it can do is create safety, space, and awareness that support your nervous system in gradually letting go of what it no longer needs to hold.
What Emotions Are Tied to the Hips?
People report all kinds of emotions surfacing during hip work: grief, fear, rage, shame, relief, or sometimes just a vague heaviness they can't put words to.
But there's no universal "hip emotion." What comes up for you has everything to do with your body's unique history and how your nervous system adapted to keep you safe.
Instead of expecting a specific feeling or chasing a particular release, try approaching your hips with curiosity. What is your body showing you today? What does it need?
Yoga Poses to Release Trauma in Hips
Think of these poses as gentle invitations, not prescriptions. Your body gets to decide what it's ready for and when.
Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana) This deep hip opener can feel intense. Use as many props as you need: bolsters, blocks, blankets. You can also do pigeon pose reclined on your back. If it feels overwhelming, back off or come out completely. There's no prize for pushing through.
Bound Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana) Sitting with the soles of your feet together, knees wide. If you have them, you can place blocks underneath your knees to offer more support and stability... This encourages grounding through your sit bones and a gentle softening of your inner thighs.
Happy Baby (Ananda Balasana) Lying on your back, holding the outsides of your feet. This playful stretch can ease tension in your inner hips and lower back, often bringing a sense of lightness or even laughter.
Supported Bridge with Block Place a block between your thighs and let your back rest on a bolster. Another option is to place a block at its lowest height underneath your sacrum. This restorative variation is stabilizing and soothing for both your hips and nervous system.
Child's Pose (Balasana) Sometimes the most profound thing you can do is curl inward. This pose provides safety and containment, supporting deep rest and integration. You might wish to warm up your body a bit with a yoga practice before settling into a child's pose.
Remember, this isn't about forcing a stretch or "opening" something that wants to stay closed. It's about listening to your body's cues and giving yourself permission to pause, adjust, or stop whenever you need to.
Restorative Yoga for Emotional Release
Long-held, supported poses can be especially powerful for nervous system healing. When your body feels completely held and safe, it might finally loosen its protective grip.
Restorative practices help signal to your system that it's safe enough to soften. Sometimes that leads to emotional release: tears, shaking, or waves of feeling. Sometimes it just feels calming and grounding.
Both are valuable. Both are working.
Hip Trauma Release Exercises Beyond Yoga
Other practices can complement your yoga practice in supporting nervous system regulation:
Gentle somatic shaking or trembling: Let your body do its natural discharge movements
Walking or slow movement: Simple ways to complete interrupted survival responses
Breathwork focused on expanding your belly: Deep diaphragmatic breathing that signals safety to the body
These don't guarantee "release" (nothing does). They're ways of giving your body safe outlets for whatever energy it's been holding.
How Long Does It Take to Release Trauma from Hips?
This is a common question, and we wish we had a neat answer for you.
For some people, a single yoga session might stir up emotion. For others, the process unfolds over months or years. Some notice subtle shifts in how they move through the world. Others have more dramatic experiences on the mat.
Healing isn't about racing to a finish line. It's about creating consistent, gentle safety so your body doesn't feel like it has to grip so tightly to whatever it's been protecting you from.
A Note Of Compassion If You’re Recovering From Trauma
Your hips aren't filled containers that need to be emptied. You're not failing if you don't have a big emotional release on your mat.
Trauma resolution isn't about prying stuck energy out of your muscles. It's about slowly, tenderly inviting your nervous system to recognize that the danger has passed. That you're safe (enough) now. That it can begin to trust again.
Yoga offers one doorway into that trust: one breath, one pose, one moment of presence at a time.
And if strong emotions do arise? That doesn't mean something is wrong. It means your body is wise enough to have protected you all this time, and intelligent enough to know when it's finally safe to let go.
Your healing happens at exactly the pace it needs to. Your body knows exactly what it's doing.
🧡,
Looking for online yoga classes or yoga classes near me?
Join Abby Albright for FREE yoga classes every Monday morning at 7:00am. Abby is a trauma therapist and yoga teacher who is passionate about helping people reconnect with their bodies through the gentle practice of yoga. Sign up for Abby’s free classes here!