By Jouri Al-Houti

KUWAIT: Interest in Pilates as a form of somatic exercise has been steadily growing in Kuwait and around the world. During Pilates sessions, people may experience moments of intense emotional release, often finding themselves unexpectedly crying or overwhelmed by waves of sadness. These emotions are seemingly provoked by specific movements and positions which trainers guide participants through during the sessions. To better understand this phenomenon and explore the mind-body dynamics within Pilates, Kuwait Times sat down with Pilates trainer and mind-body awareness coach, Nerina Cardozo.

“Present emotions often stem from past experiences when a solution to a problem wasn’t available. In these moments, a person may suppress their feelings, storing them in their body. Later, these unresolved emotions resurface, blending with current experiences,” Cardozo explained. Certain movements in Pilates can help release these stored emotions. During a session, some people may feel the urge to cry, as their bodies respond to the emotional release they need.

“For women in particular, a lot of their emotions are held in their pelvic floor, their hips and their stomachs,” said Cardozo. “When the hips are allowed movement, they help the body release emotions. Many women also hold tension in their upper bodies: the upper part of their backs, their necks and particularly one of their shoulders.”

How we store emotions

“One of the most important aspects of the mind-body dynamic and the first place we go to to help us understand emotional release is a region of the brain known as the primitive brain.” Cardozo explains. “This part of the brain is responsible for handling survival-based functions in the body, like heart rate, breathing, fight-or-flight responses and instinctual behaviors.”

What happens when the part of our body responsible for survival perceives a threat in its environment? It reacts by sending a signal to the body to respond in one of three ways: Fight (confronting or engaging with the threat directly), flight (escaping from the danger), or freeze (becoming immobile in response to fear, often as a survival mechanism to avoid detection or overwhelm).

This signal from the brain commands all the muscles in our body, which are meant to protect us, to come into action. Those muscles get in tension and stay in tension for a long time, not easing until we let our body know that it’s safe, and we do that by allowing it the time and space to release. This is how the brain is connected to the rest of the body and how the body stores emotions. “You can understand and see what people are going through, without knowing anything about their personal lives, through the muscles in their body,” said Cardozo.

Complexity of pent-up emotions

When emotions are stored in the body, they can become layered and interconnected in complex ways. For example, a person might feel sad without knowing why. They may later realize that it stems from an unmet expectation. Beneath that sadness, there could be a layer of frustration, and further still, anger may arise because they couldn’t achieve what they wanted.

When anger is suppressed — perhaps because the person feels it’s inappropriate to express it — it can create even more frustration, trapping the individual in a cycle of unresolved emotions.

So, how can we release these stored emotions? There are natural, instinctual ways for our bodies to release emotions, like the emotional release found in responses like crying and screaming. Allowing ourselves the space to cry, scream and release in healthy ways is crucial. Moving our bodies intentionally, using methods found in Pilates, yoga, martial arts and dancing, are also other ways to let go of pent-up emotions, allowing for healing.

‘It’s important to cry’

In professional somatic sessions, the role of the practitioner is to create a safe space for the client, which helps ease the tension in their body. Sessions include doing breathing exercises that help relax the body and “poke” a person into releasing their emotions. Relaxation then brings up the stronger, deeper emotions, till the client is eventually able to cry. “Sometimes, out of fear that we’ll burden people, we hold on to our pain, and many people struggle because they think that if they cry, they’re weak, but it requires a lot of courage and strength to cry in front of someone.

It’s so important to cry, for both men and women,” said Cardozo. “Although the source of our emotions may be different, when it comes down to it, everyone feels the same way.” Releasing emotions is a natural human instinct and it is one of the ways our body is able to naturally heal itself. Our bodies behave in miraculous ways to keep us safe, we only need to give ourselves the time and space to understand them.