How to Unpack Emotional Pain Stored in the Body

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before making significant changes to your lifestyle, diet, or supplement routine.

Your body has been talking to you longer than you think. It carries your joy, your breakthroughs, your hard seasons, and yes, your unspoken pain. Even when you push through, keep going, and stay strong for everyone else, your body remembers. Every ache, tight shoulder, fluttering stomach, and lingering fatigue can be a gentle knock saying, “There’s something here that needs tending. I’m trying to get your attention, and you have been ignoring me for way too long.”

Our bodies are incredible. They move, heal, adapt, and strengthen. But did you know that your body is also a storyteller? It holds memories, emotions, and past traumas. Even when your mind has long tried to forget them, every ache, tension, and chronic issue may be a whisper of something deeper, an untold story waiting for acknowledgment and healing.

Over the last four weeks, I’ve been deep in research, studying how unprocessed emotions impact your health, hormones, and physical body. And the truth is: your body tells the truth even when your mouth can’t. I want to show you how emotional and spiritual wounds often show up physically, and how we can begin to heal through Scripture, somatic practices, and surrender to Christ.

The Mind-Body Connection in Scripture

The Bible speaks clearly about the deep connection between our bodies, minds, and spirits. Proverbs 17:22 tells us, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” When Elijah was exhausted and overwhelmed, God didn’t start with a sermon. He started with rest. He fed him, let him sleep, and gave him space to breathe (1 Kings 19). Hannah’s emotional pain showed up in her body long before her prayer found words, her tears, her trembling, her inability to eat (1 Samuel 1). These aren’t just stories; they are examples and invitations, reminders that God has always cared about the whole you.

Long before modern research, Scripture showed us that emotional and spiritual pain can shape the physical body. Now science is finally catching up. This is where neurotheology; the study of how spiritual practices affect the brain, comes in.

Neurotheology: Where Scripture Meets Science

Over the last year, I’ve been captivated by how neurotheology puts language to what believers have felt in our bones for generations, faith changes us. It changes our bodies, our emotions, our chemistry, our healing. So much of what I’ve discovered is woven throughout my book, The Embodied Beloved, where I explore how science keeps catching up to the truth God spoke first.

Prayer Changes the Brain

Neuroimaging research shows that prayer activates and strengthens regions of the brain connected to emotional regulation, empathy, and resilience. In other words, prayer literally helps your brain calm down, think clearly, and respond with compassion rather than reactivity.

Newberg and his team found that “prayer and spiritual contemplation are associated with increased activity in prefrontal regions involved in attention and emotional regulation.”
— Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (2015)

What does that mean for you, practically? When you pray, you are “talking to God”, and your brain is shifting out of survival mode and into a state where you can feel grounded, focused, and emotionally safe. Prayer creates space for your nervous system to settle. It quiets the parts of your brain that panic, spiral, or ruminate, and strengthens the areas that help you make wise decisions, show compassion, and stay anchored in truth. This is why, after a moment of honest prayer, whether whispered, shouted, or held in silence. You feel your shoulders drop, your chest loosen, or your breath slow. Your body is responding to the presence of God.

Prayer is not only spiritual.
It is physiological.
It is healing.
It is regulating.
It is a divine invitation for your whole being, mind, body, and soul, to return to peace.

Worship Regulates the Nervous System

Singing and worship create parasympathetic (rest-and-restore) activation. We often live from our sympathetic nervous system, especially if we’ve been in a constant state of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Worship and singing will activate our “parachute” or our parasympathetic nervous system and gently lower our body to a place of safety. Once we are regulated, then we can relate to other,s and then we reason well or make better decisions. A great way to do that is to belt it out to your favorite worship song.

“Group singing regulates breathing, increases heart rate variability, and synchronizes vagal activity.”
— Vickhoff et al., Frontiers in Psychology (2013)

Meditating on Scripture Rewires Thought Patterns

Romans 12:2 is not just a metaphor. It’s a description of neuroplasticity, the God-designed ability of your brain to change, form new pathways, and release old patterns. Scripture calls it “renewing your mind,” and science calls it “rewiring your brain,” but both are describing the same miracle.

What we repeat begins to take root in us, and what we continually meditate on shapes who we become. Every time you return to Scripture, every time you redirect your thoughts toward truth, and every time you choose to speak life instead of fear, you are literally reshaping the architecture of your brain.

Research confirms this. Lazar and her team found that “meditation increases cortical thickness in regions related to memory, self-awareness, and compassion.”
— NeuroReport (2005)

Practically, this means sitting with God’s Word strengthens the parts of your brain that help you remember what is true, stay anchored in your identity in Christ, and respond with grace rather than reaction. It means your brain becomes more resilient and less easily hijacked by old wounds or automatic thought patterns. It means the truths you meditate on don’t just stay in your mind. They settle into your body. This is why meditating on Scripture goes deeper than positive thinking. You’re not simply trying to “think better”; you’re partnering with the Holy Spirit to create new neural pathways that are aligned with God’s truth.

Over time, those new pathways become the main roads your thoughts naturally travel on, and peace begins to feel like your default. Wisdom comes more readily, compassion flows with greater ease, and the old patterns, fear, shame, and survival thinking, gradually lose their power. Meditation is far from passive; it is a powerful and deeply renewing practice. As you meditate on God’s Word, you allow Him to reshape your inner world so that transformation can begin to show up in your outer world as well.

Connection With God Lowers Stress and Inflammation

Longitudinal research shows that spiritual engagement predicts better immune function.
“Higher levels of religiousness/spirituality were associated with lower IL-6 and CRP levels.”
— Vagnini et al., Annals of Behavioral Medicine (2024)

Trauma changes the nervous system, immune responses, and brain-body communication.

“Adverse experiences become embedded in biological systems, shaping inflammation, neuroendocrine function, and long-term health.”
— Danese & Lewis, Psychoneuroendocrinology (2017)

Neurotheology simply gives language to what the Word has taught all along. Your spiritual life is inseparable from your physical and emotional health. As image reflectors of a triune God, we are triune beings, mind, body, and spirit. Never meant to be compartmentalized or separated.

Jesus Modeled Integrated Healing

Jesus modeled holistic healing perfectly. When He healed, He never treated symptoms in isolation. He restored the whole person: body, mind, heart, and spirit (Luke 8:43–48). His ministry reveals that true healing is always an integrated process. And as image-bearers of God (Genesis 1:27), we are called to steward our entire being. Not only through nutrition and movement, but also by addressing the deeper emotional and spiritual burdens we carry.

How Emotional Pain Manifests in the Body

Unresolved emotional pain often manifests as physical discomfort, chronic illness, or tension.

“Traumatic stress produces lasting alterations in the autonomic nervous system, immune function, and interoceptive pathways.”
— Kearney et al., Frontiers in Neuroscience (2022)

Below is a general emotional pain chart used as a reflection tool (not a diagnosis):

This aligns with embodied emotion research:
“Different emotions are associated with discretely perceivable bodily sensations.”
— Nummenmaa et al., PNAS (2014)

Recognizing the Root Cause

We often seek relief from symptoms, stretching the tight spot, massaging the ache, taking something for the headache, pushing through the fatigue. But true healing requires going deeper. Physical discomfort is often the body’s language for emotional or spiritual weight we haven’t yet acknowledged. Pain can be an invitation, not a punishment; a signal that something within you needs attention, compassion, or release.

Here are some reflective questions to help you begin that deeper work:

What was happening in my life when this pain first started?
Your body often responds to stress, conflict, or loss before your mind fully processes it. Naming the season gives you context for the sensation.

What emotions am I avoiding or suppressing?
Many of us learned early on to stay strong, stay silent, stay “fine.” But emotions that aren’t expressed don’t disappear; they settle.

What past experiences might still be shaping how I feel today?
Sometimes the body is reacting to something old that never had a chance to resolve. Your body remembers what your mind tries to move past.

Have I truly surrendered this burden to God, or am I still carrying it on my own strength?
Surrender is not weakness; it is alignment. Healing begins when we stop holding everything ourselves.Scripture calls us into this deeper, honest reflection. It invites us to connection. First with God, and then with community.

This isn’t about shame; it’s about release. Healing accelerates when what was hidden becomes held, by God, by trusted community, and even by your own compassionate awareness. Naming the burden loosens the grip it has on your body. Prayer invites God into the places where your body has been holding what your heart never meant to carry alone.

Healing Through Movement and Faith

Movement is one of God’s most powerful healing tools.

Breathwork & Prayer

“Slow breathing increases heart rate variability, strengthens vagal tone, and reduces stress markers.”
— Laborde et al., Psychophysiology (2022)

Stretching & Mobility

Mindful movement opens the body and regulates the nervous system.

Strength Training

Resistance training enhances emotional resilience and reduces chronic stress.
“Exercise reduces anxiety sensitivity and improves affect regulation.”
— Fetzner & Asmundson, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (2015)

Dance & Joyful Movement

“Dance/movement therapy shows promise for reducing trauma symptoms and improving emotional processing.”
— Bradt et al., The Arts in Psychotherapy (2015)

Everything God commands us to do with our bodies is for our healing, restoration, and worship. I have learned so much and have so much to share that I am splitting it up into a 4-Part Journey Through Emotional Pain in the Body.

This series is called “The Weight We Carry” If this resonated with you, this is only the beginning. Subscribe to the bottom left-hand side of this blog and receive the next four parts of this series.

We’ll dig deeper into:

• Why emotions show up as physical sensations
• Where different types of emotional pain settle
• What stress and overwhelm do to hormones
• How trauma shapes the nervous system
• How embodiment supports healing
• How Scripture invites us to release what we’ve been carrying
• What foods nourish emotional pain vs. what we use to cope

It’s Bible + neuroscience + compassion + embodiment.
It’s the work women have been asking me for and a natural progression to my new book The Embodied Beloved. And it’s the work God has been preparing me to write. Keep an eye out. The first installment drops next week.Your body is telling a story. Together, we’re going to learn how to listen.

Did you realize your emotions may be showing up as physical pain?

Bible References

BibleGateway. (n.d.). Luke 8:43–48 (Christian Standard Bible). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%208%3A43-48&version=CSB

Newberg, A. B., Monti, D. A., Harrison, G. F., & Wintering, N. A. (2015). Cerebral blood flow differences between long-term meditators and non-meditators. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 231(3), 218–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2015.01.017
(Matches your quotation regarding prayer and emotional regulation.)

Vickhoff, B., Malmgren, H., Åström, R., Nyberg, G., Ekström, S.-R., Engwall, M., Snygg, J., Nilsson, M., & Jörnsten, R. (2013). Music structure determines heart rate variability of singers. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 334. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00334
(Supports your statement about group singing regulating vagal activity.)

Lazar, S. W., Kerr, C. E., Wasserman, R. H., Gray, J. R., Greve, D. N., Treadway, M. T., McGarvey, M., Quinn, B. T., Dusek, J. A., Benson, H., Rauch, S. L., Moore, C. I., & Fischl, B. (2005). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. NeuroReport, 16(17), 1893–1897. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.wnr.0000186598.66243.19

Vagnini, K. M., Edwards, E. M., McClain, M., & Lundberg, K. (2024). Religiousness/spirituality, psychological well-being, and inflammatory markers: A longitudinal analysis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaae023

Danese, A., & Lewis, S. J. (2017). Psychoneuroimmunology of early-life stress: The hidden wounds of childhood trauma? Psychoneuroendocrinology, 82, 140–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.01.010

Kearney, D. J., Simpson, T. L., Malte, C. A., & Felleman, B. I. (2022). Neurobiological pathways of traumatic stress: Implications for treatment. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16, Article 867192. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.867192

Nummenmaa, L., Glerean, E., Hari, R., & Hietanen, J. K. (2014). Bodily maps of emotions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(2), 646–651. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1321664111

Laborde, S., Mosley, E., & Thayer, J. F. (2022). Heart rate variability and slow-paced breathing: A conceptual review. Psychophysiology, 59(1), e14021. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14021

Fetzner, M. G., & Asmundson, G. J. G. (2015). Aerobic exercise reduces symptoms of PTSD: Results from a randomized controlled trial. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 44(3), 240–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2015.1008033
(Supports emotional resilience and anxiety reduction.)

Bradt, J., Goodill, S. W., & Dileo, C. (2015). Dance/movement therapy for psychological trauma. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 44, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2014.12.002