Feeling Your Feelings: 5 Somatic Therapy Exercises to Connect with Emotions in the Body
- jaseneberzlcsw
- Sep 3, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 29, 2025
We often talk about emotions as if they live only in our minds—“I feel anxious,” “I feel sad,” “I feel angry.” But emotions are not just thoughts. They are whole-body experiences. Somatic psychotherapy focuses on this connection, helping us tune into where emotions actually show up in our physical bodies. By learning to notice sensations, we can better understand, process, and release our feelings instead of getting stuck in them.
Here are five simple somatic therapy exercises you can try to start exploring where emotions live in your body.
1. Body Scan with Emotion Labeling
Take a few slow breaths, then gently bring your awareness to the top of your head. Begin scanning downward through your body, pausing at each area. Ask yourself:
What sensations do I notice here? (tightness, warmth, heaviness, tingling, etc.)
If this sensation had an emotion, what might it be?
This exercise encourages curiosity without judgment and helps connect physical sensations with emotional meaning.
2. Emotion–Sensation Mapping
Grab a blank outline of a body (you can find free ones online or sketch one yourself). Think about a recent emotional experience—joy, sadness, anger, or even calm. On the body outline, color or mark where you felt that emotion.
Do this for a few different emotions and compare your maps. Over time, you may begin to notice patterns—for example, tension in the jaw when angry or heaviness in the chest when sad.
3. Movement Amplification
When we feel emotions, they often show up as small, unconscious movements—clenched fists, tightened shoulders, shifting posture. Try this: recall a mild emotional memory and notice what your body wants to do. Then, exaggerate that movement just a little.
As you amplify it, notice what happens in your body and what emotion is connected to it. Sometimes, giving the body permission to move deepens our awareness of what we’re really feeling.
4. Breath Tracking with Emotion Check-In
Our breath is one of the clearest mirrors of emotion. Notice your breathing for a moment. Where do you feel it most—your chest, your belly, your throat? Is it shallow, deep, fast, or slow?
Ask yourself: What emotion might be linked to this breathing pattern? Shallow breaths may point to anxiety, while deep, heavy breaths may signal sadness or exhaustion.
5. Grounding and Sensation Anchoring
Place your feet firmly on the floor and notice the solid contact beneath you. Now, gently recall an emotion you’ve felt recently. Where does it arise in your body? What qualities does it have—temperature, movement, pressure?
Then, shift your attention back to the steady feeling of your feet on the ground. This practice helps you distinguish between emotion-driven sensations and calming, neutral body anchors you can return to when emotions feel overwhelming.
Why This Matters
Emotions live in the body. By practicing these exercises, you give yourself the tools to recognize, name, and understand your feelings in a deeper way. Over time, this builds greater emotional awareness, self-compassion, and resilience.
USE THIS PDF AS YOUR OWN WORK ALONG GUIDES.
This form goes with this post!
This is a separate and more in-depth process of identifying where in your body you are experiencing the physical symptoms of your emotions.
A form that you can use to to color, highlight or keep track of where you experience these emotions.
Here is a really good resource to start the practice of the body Scan
References
Damasio, A. R. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. Harcourt.
Mehling, W. E., Price, C., Daubenmier, J., Acree, M., Bartmess, E., & Stewart, A. (2012). The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA). PLOS ONE, 7(11), e48230. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048230
Fogel, A. (2013). Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness. W. W. Norton & Company.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
Comments