Chronic Pain & Emotional Holding Patterns: When Your Body Remembers What You've Tried to Forget

Your Pain Is Real — Even When Doctors Can't Find a Cause

You've been to specialists. You've had the scans, the blood work, the physical therapy. Maybe you've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, or tension headaches, or "nonspecific" back pain. Or maybe you've been told there's nothing physically wrong.

And yet: your body hurts.

The neck tension that never fully releases. The jaw pain that wakes you up at night. The tightness in your chest that makes it hard to breathe deeply. The chronic muscle pain that has no clear origin.

If you're highly sensitive, neurodivergent, or someone who's experienced trauma, there's something crucial your doctors might have missed:

Your body doesn't just hold physical tension. It holds emotional experiences, memories, and stress that you've never fully processed.

As a somatic therapist in Brooklyn who specializes in chronic pain and emotional holding patterns, I want you to know: your pain is not "all in your head." It's in your body — and there's a reason for that.

What Are Emotional Holding Patterns?

Your body is not separate from your emotional life. When you experience something overwhelming — grief, fear, rage, shame — and you can't fully express or process it, your body holds it for you.

This isn't metaphorical. This is physiology.

Your muscles contract to brace against difficult emotions. Your fascia (connective tissue) tightens to create a felt sense of protection. Your nervous system stays activated to keep you ready for the next threat.

Over time, these temporary protective responses become chronic holding patterns.

Common Areas Where Emotions Get Stored:

Jaw and Face

• Clenching from unexpressed anger or holding back words

• TMJ dysfunction from chronic stress or feeling unsafe to speak

• Facial tension from masking emotions or "holding it together"

Neck and Shoulders

• "Carrying the weight of the world" — responsibility, burden, obligation

• Tension from hypervigilance (constantly scanning for threats)

• Holding yourself up when you feel unsupported

Chest and Diaphragm

• Restricted breathing from suppressed grief or fear

• Tightness from protecting your heart after hurt

• Shallow breathing from anxiety or panic

Lower Back and Hips

• Emotional holding related to safety, security, and support

• Tension from sexual trauma or boundary violations

• "Holding yourself together" when you feel like falling apart

Stomach and Abdomen

• Digestive issues connected to anxiety, fear, or unprocessed emotions

• "Gut feelings" that were ignored or invalidated

• Core tension from feeling unsafe or ungrounded

The Body Keeps the Score: Trauma and Chronic Pain

If you've read Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score, you already know: trauma lives in the body.

But it's not just "big T" trauma (abuse, violence, disasters). "Small t" trauma — chronic stress, emotional neglect, growing up in an unpredictable home, being invalidated or gaslit — also gets stored somatically.

Why Trauma Causes Physical Pain:

When you experience something overwhelming, your body goes into survival mode: fight, flight, or freeze.

Fight — muscles tense, ready for action
Flight — body prepares to run, heart races, muscles contract
Freeze — body locks up, holding tension to stay still and safe

In a healthy nervous system, once the threat passes, your body releases this tension. You shake, cry, breathe deeply, or move — and the activation completes.

But if:

• The threat didn't pass (chronic stress, ongoing trauma)

• You couldn't complete the stress response (had to "hold it together")

• It wasn't safe to express emotion (punished for crying, shamed for anger)

• You learned to disconnect from your body (dissociation as survival)

...then that tension never releases. It becomes chronic. It becomes pain.

Highly Sensitive People and Chronic Pain

If you're a highly sensitive person (HSP), you're more likely to experience chronic pain for several reasons:

1. You Process Everything More Deeply

Your nervous system is constantly taking in more information — sensory, emotional, environmental. This creates more activation that needs to be processed and released.

2. You Feel Emotions in Your Body Intensely

HSPs often experience emotions as physical sensations first. Joy, sadness, anxiety, love — you feel these in your muscles, your chest, your stomach.

3. You Absorb Others' Stress

If you grew up in a chaotic, stressful, or emotionally intense household, your body might still be holding the tension you absorbed from others.

4. You've Likely Had to Mask

Highly sensitive children are often told they're "too much" or "too sensitive." You learned to suppress your natural responses — which means your body has been holding that suppression for years.

Chronic Pain as a Messenger: What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You

Here's a paradigm shift that might change everything:

What if your pain isn't the problem? What if it's the messenger?

Your body is trying to get your attention. The pain is saying:

• "We never processed what happened back then"

• "You're still living in fight-or-flight mode"

• "This emotion needs to be felt"

• "You're not safe yet"

• "Something needs to change"

Chronic pain is often your body's last resort to make you stop, slow down, and pay attention.

Common Messages Behind Chronic Pain:

Neck and shoulder pain: "You're carrying too much. You need support."

Jaw clenching: "There are words you need to say. Boundaries you need to set."

Lower back pain: "You don't feel supported or safe."

Chest tightness: "You're protecting your heart. There's grief here."

Digestive issues: "You're processing too much (emotionally). You need to release what's not yours."

Why Medical Treatment Alone Often Doesn't Work

Don't get me wrong — medical care is important. Pain medication, physical therapy, and medical diagnosis have their place.

But if your chronic pain is rooted in emotional holding patterns, treating only the physical symptoms won't resolve the root cause.

You might experience:

• Temporary relief that doesn't last

• Pain that moves around your body

• Symptoms that worsen during stressful periods

• Doctors saying "there's nothing wrong" or "it's stress"

• Frustration that nothing seems to help

This is where somatic therapy comes in.

Somatic Therapy for Chronic Pain: Working with the Body

Somatic therapy doesn't just talk about your pain — it works directly with the sensations, emotions, and nervous system patterns creating it.

What We Do in Somatic Pain Therapy:

Track sensations — We notice where you feel pain, tightness, or tension in your body, and what emotions or memories are connected to it

Release incomplete stress responses — We help your body complete the fight/flight/freeze responses that got stuck

Process stored emotions — We create safe space for emotions that your body has been holding (anger, grief, fear) to finally move through

Regulate your nervous system — We teach your body that it's safe to release the chronic bracing and hypervigilance

Reconnect you with your body — Many people with chronic pain have disconnected from their bodies (understandably). We rebuild that relationship with compassion.

Somatic Techniques for Releasing Emotional Holding Patterns

Here are some body-based practices I use in therapy sessions. These aren't "mind over matter" — they're working with your nervous system's natural healing capacity:

1. Pendulation (Moving Between Sensation)

We gently move your attention between the area of pain and an area of comfort or neutrality. This teaches your nervous system that pain isn't permanent and all-consuming.

2. Titration (Working in Small Doses)

Instead of diving into overwhelming emotions or sensations, we work in tiny, manageable amounts. This prevents retraumatization and builds your capacity to be with discomfort.

3. Body Dialogue

We have a conversation with the part of your body that hurts. What does your jaw want to say? What is your back carrying? If your pain had a voice, what would it tell you?

4. Gentle Movement and Stretching

Movement releases stored tension. We might explore what happens when you slowly stretch, twist, or gesture in the direction your body wants to move.

5. Breath Work

Chronic pain often correlates with restricted breathing. We work with your breath to release the diaphragm, chest, and belly — creating more space in your body.

6. Resourcing

We build your capacity to feel safe and supported in your body by connecting with internal and external resources (safe places, supportive relationships, positive memories).

Art Therapy for Chronic Pain

As an art therapist, I also work with chronic pain through creative expression.

This is particularly powerful for people who:

• Struggle to put their pain into words

• Are visual or kinesthetic thinkers

• Find talk therapy too activating

• Want to externalize and observe their pain from a different perspective

How We Use Art in Pain Therapy:

Pain mapping — Drawing or painting where pain lives in your body and what it looks like, creating visual representation

Emotion color-coding — Assigning colors to different emotions stored in your body (red for anger, blue for sadness, etc.) and seeing what emerges

Clay work — Using clay to express tension, anger, or holding — the physical act of squeezing, pounding, or shaping can release stored energy

Symbolic representation — Creating images of what the pain feels like (a weight, a cage, a knot) and then transforming it

Body outline work — Tracing your body and marking where you hold stress, pain, or emotion — making the invisible visible

Parts Work (IFS) for Chronic Pain

Often, chronic pain involves different "parts" of you in conflict:

• The pain part — The part that hurts and needs attention

• The protector part — The part that might be creating pain to keep you from doing something unsafe or overwhelming

• The achiever part — The part that's frustrated by the pain and just wants you to "push through"

• The caretaker part — The part that ignores your pain to take care of others

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we help these parts communicate and work together instead of against each other.

We might discover:

• Your pain is protecting you from something (burnout, a toxic job, a difficult relationship)

• A young part of you is holding pain from childhood

• The pain increases when you ignore your needs

• Releasing the pain means acknowledging something you've been avoiding

EMDR for Trauma-Related Chronic Pain

If your chronic pain is connected to trauma (abuse, accidents, medical trauma, childhood experiences), EMDR therapy can be remarkably effective.

EMDR helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories that are still "stuck" in your nervous system — which often directly reduces or eliminates chronic pain.

I've seen clients with:

• Years of unexplained back pain resolve after processing a childhood trauma

• Chronic migraines decrease after working through relational trauma

• Jaw tension release after processing experiences where they couldn't speak up

• Digestive issues improve after addressing anxiety and fear

Chronic Pain and Highly Sensitive Nervous Systems

If you're highly sensitive, your pain threshold might be different, and your pain experience might be more intense.

This doesn't mean you're "overreacting" — it means your nervous system processes sensation more deeply.

What Helps HSPs with Chronic Pain:

Environment matters — Reducing sensory overload (noise, light, chaos) can decrease overall nervous system activation and pain

Emotional processing — HSPs need more time to process emotions; when you don't get that time, your body holds it as tension

Boundary work — Learning to say no, protect your energy, and stop taking on others' stress reduces the load your body is carrying

Nervous system regulation — Daily practices that help your system return to baseline (grounding, breath work, gentle movement)

When to Seek Therapy for Chronic Pain

Consider somatic therapy if:

• Medical treatment hasn't resolved your pain

• Your pain worsens during stressful periods

• You have a history of trauma or chronic stress

• You're highly sensitive or neurodivergent

• You suspect your pain is connected to emotions

• You feel disconnected from your body

• You're tired of being told "it's just stress" without real support

• You're ready to explore what your body is trying to tell you

Chronic Pain Therapy Across New York State (Virtual Sessions)

Somatic therapy for chronic pain isn't about "positive thinking" or "mind over matter." It's about:

✓ Validating that your pain is real
✓ Understanding the nervous system patterns creating it
✓ Processing the emotions your body has been holding
✓ Releasing incomplete stress responses
✓ Building a compassionate relationship with your body
✓ Creating sustainable change, not just temporary relief

I offer virtual somatic therapy, art therapy, EMDR, and parts work for chronic pain throughout New York State.

My approach is trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming, and honors the wisdom of your body — all accessible from wherever you feel safest.

Your Body Isn't Punishing You — It's Protecting You

I know chronic pain is exhausting. I know it feels unfair. I know you've tried everything.

But here's what I want you to know: your body isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe.

The pain is asking you to listen.

And when you finally do — with support, with compassion, with someone who understands — your body can finally release what it's been holding.

Ready to Listen to What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You?

I specialize in virtual somatic therapy for chronic pain, emotional holding patterns, and highly sensitive nervous systems across New York State.

Your pain isn't just physical — and your healing doesn't have to be either. Through somatic work, art therapy, EMDR, and parts-based approaches, we can work with what your body has been holding.

Your next step: Book your free 20-minute consultation call — we'll discuss your pain experience, what you've already tried, and whether my body-centered approach feels right for you. This is a real conversation, not a sales pitch.

You don't have to live with this pain forever. Let's find out what it's trying to say.

Next in the "Living in a Sensitive Body" series: Week 3: Sensory Overload Survival for Neurodivergent Folks — When the world feels like too much

Irene Maropakis is a licensed therapist in New York specializing in virtual somatic therapy, art therapy, and EMDR for chronic pain, trauma, and highly sensitive individuals throughout New York State.