How to heal your emotional triggers
by Maria Toso, author of Heal What Hurts: How to Heal Emotional Triggers (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2025)
You know that awful, hollow feeling; the one that grips your chest when you look and look and still no text. When that certain someone says the totally wrong thing, or nothing at all. When an invitation doesn’t arrive, when you feel left out and not important, not understood, not heard. In an instant, your breath shortens, your chest tightens, your body contracts. A frozen knot of old unprocessed emotional energy reawakens in the field of the body.
These moments feel unbearable because they touch the deepest human ache; the fear of not being loved, not being safe, or not belonging. Beneath every trigger lives one of these feelings, contracted inside the nervous system. When this pain arises, most of us instinctively try to escape it. We go “out” rather than “in.” We lash out; blaming, criticising, or trying to control the other to ease our discomfort. We numb out; reaching for alcohol, sugar, screens, shopping, or any substance that dulls the edge. Or we check out; retreating into the intellect, mentally analysing the situation until the feeling in the body disappears beneath a layer of logic. Each of these “outs” temporarily relieves the discomfort but strengthens and further contracts the underlying pattern. In yogic philosophy, this reactive pattern is known as a samskara; a groove in the subtle body created by repeated reactions. Each time we go out instead of in, the groove deepens, and the next time the trigger appears, the pull toward reactivity is even stronger. Yoga offers another way. When a contraction arises, we can train ourselves to go in instead of out. Rather than abandoning the body, we can turn towards it. We can bring the light of our awareness; the loving presence of Purusha, our Divine true essence; into the dense, painful energy that has surfaced. This is where transformation begins. To go in means to stay with the somatic sensation rather than the story. It means really feeling the contracted knot in the belly, the lump in the throat, or the ache in the heart without rushing to make it go away. You might place a hand on your body and breathe, saying softly: “I’m here. I love you. I’ve got you.” As you stay present, you may notice the contraction start to reveal its deeper message. Within it lies an old, often very old, emotional imprint; perhaps from childhood; of not feeling loved, safe, or like you belonged. This energy has been waiting, sometimes for decades, for your conscious loving attention. When you meet it with tenderness instead of avoidance, it begins to soften and release. This is not an intellectual process; it is energetic and spiritual. You are bringing the light of awareness; the Divine Light; into the dark corners of your being. From a yogic perspective, this is the deeper purpose of our practice. The postures are not ends in themselves; they are doorways to presence. Through the body, we awaken awareness. When we bring the warmth of our loving presence to our emotional contractions, the frozen energy begins to melt and move. Like a thawing creek in the spring. Breath returns, prana (life force) flows freely again, and what once felt like pain transforms into light.
This is yoga in its truest sense; the union of awareness and embodiment. Over time, the body learns that it is safe to feel because we stay. The heart learns that it is safe to open. What once triggered defensiveness or despair becomes a moment of awakening. Each time we choose presence, we are rewriting the samskaric pattern that once bound us to suffering. We must begin to see emotional healing as integral to yoga itself. Just as we stretch and strengthen the muscles through our asana practice, we can soften and purify the emotional knots through awareness. When we make healing our emotional triggers as central to our practice as the postures, our bodies start to change from the inside out. They become clearer, lighter, and more attuned to the Divine. The subtle channels open, allowing Purusha; the radiant eternal Self; to shine through unimpeded. This inner work doesn’t just free us from personal suffering; it makes us luminous. The more we allow Divine Light to move through our bodies, the more we become part of the solution to the darkness of the world. Healing our own contractions becomes a quiet act of service. In the book, Heal What Hurts, you are guided through this yogic process step by step; you learn to bring awareness, breath, and Divine Light into the contracted energies of the body so that prana can flow freely once more. It is a method of healing rooted not in analysis, but in embodied presence. As we practise going in instead of out, our nervous system begins to stabilise. The emotional storms still come, but they no longer capsize us. We feel them, breathe through them, and allow them to pass. This gentle discipline of staying present; of turning inwards with love; gradually transforms us. The body becomes more transparent, the heart more tender, the mind clearer. We begin to radiate a quiet peace that others can feel. We start to glow, not because life is free of challenge, but because we have learned to meet the inevitable challenges with the light of consciousness.
This is how personal healing becomes collective healing. Each time we bring light into our own contractions, we contribute to the illumination of the whole. Every time we choose to go in instead of out, we reclaim a fragment of our wholeness. The energy that once curled around fear and shame becomes infused with light. The old grooves of reactivity begin to dissolve, and our natural state; clarity, steadiness, love; emerges from beneath the layers. This is the essence of the Heal What Hurts process; not escaping the experience of our triggers, but meeting them as sacred doorways back to our true nature. Through this practice, we become living embodiments of peace; beings whose inner light quietly transforms everything it touches. The Divine Light lies within. When we learn to dwell there, our very presence becomes healing.
About the Author Maria Toso is a U.S. based, Danish-born yoga teacher, somatic healing coach, and author of Heal What Hurts: How to Heal Emotional Triggers (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2025). She runs a Somatic Coaching practice, teaches Yoga Teacher Training at Minneapolis College, and leads international retreats and Heal What Hurts online circles. Find her at [www.mariatoso.com](https://www.mariatoso.com) and on Instagram and Facebook [@maria.toso](https://www.facebook.com/maria.toso).