Breathwork for Trapped Emotions: Your Guide to Safe, Somatic Release in Therapy

For decades, traditional counseling and talk therapy have offered a space to discuss life’s challenges. Yet, if you are reading this, you may have found yourself running into a fundamental problem: you cannot simply think your way out of a deep feeling.

You might logically understand why you feel anxious or why you react to certain situations, but that insight often fails to stop the physical symptoms—the racing heart, the pit in your stomach, or the sense of being chronically overwhelmed. This disconnect occurs because deeply ingrained emotional patterns and trauma are not stored in the cognitive, thinking part of your brain. They are held in the body, locked within your nervous system as trapped emotions or “old code” that logic cannot reach.

At Inner Summits, we specialize in moving beyond conventional methods. Our approach is rooted in Bottom-Up Therapy, recognizing that true, lasting healing requires accessing the body first. This is where the profound power of therapeutic breathwork comes in. When integrated into a safe, trauma-informed therapeutic setting, conscious breath practices become the most direct pathway to gently and safely release those trapped emotions, allowing you to move from coping with your burdens to being truly free of them.

Why Can’t We Just Think Our Way Out of Feeling Trapped?

To understand the necessity of breathwork, we must recognize where emotional memory resides. Our struggles are often rooted deeper than our conscious awareness. When we experience emotional distress, stress, or trauma, the body records the experience, even if the mind files it away.

The Two Roads of Memory

1. Explicit Memory (The “Top”): This is the story, the narrative, and the logical understanding of what happened. This is where traditional talk therapy operates. It’s helpful for building insight, but insufficient for transformation.
2. Implicit Memory (The “Bottom”): This is the memory of the body—the sensations, the emotional responses, and the ingrained survival patterns. This is where trapped emotions—unprocessed fear, anger, or sadness—live.

When we are overwhelmed, our system defaults to survival. The prefrontal cortex (the thinking brain) goes offline, and the limbic system (the emotional/survival brain) takes over. This is a crucial mechanism, but if the threat passes and the emotional energy (fight, flight, or freeze) is not fully discharged, it gets trapped, leaving the Nervous System chronically activated or shut down.

The Bottom-Up Solution

Bottom-up approaches, like those utilized at Inner Summits, acknowledge that you must engage the body to release what the body holds.

• You cannot reason with a racing heart.
• You cannot negotiate with chronic tension.
• You cannot argue away a panic attack.

Instead, we use experiential, embodied tools to communicate safety to the body first. Breathwork serves as the most accessible and immediate tool to activate this bottom-up processing, helping to update the body’s “old programming” so that true freedom can be achieved.

How Does Breathwork Communicate Safety to the Nervous System?

The efficacy of therapeutic breathwork is grounded in neuroscience, specifically in its direct influence on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS controls involuntary functions like heart rate, digestion, and, crucially, our stress response.

The ANS has two main branches that act like a physiological gas pedal and brake:

1. The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): The “gas pedal” or the fight-or-flight response. This is activated by stress and fear, leading to shallow, rapid breathing, elevated heart rate, and cortisol release. When trapped emotions exist, the SNS is often stuck in the “ON” position.
2. The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS): The “brake” or the rest-and-digest response. This is responsible for calming the body and allowing for healing, repair, and emotional processing.

The Vagus Nerve and Exhale Control

Breathwork operates by intentionally activating the PNS, primarily through the Vagus Nerve.

The Vagus Nerve is the longest cranial nerve, acting as the main line of communication between your brain, heart, lungs, and gut. Stimulating this nerve through controlled breathing signals to the brain that the environment is safe.

Key physiological benefits of conscious breath control:

• Cortisol Reduction: Slow, deep, rhythmic breathing dramatically lowers the circulating levels of the stress hormone cortisol, allowing the body to leave its state of chronic alert.
• Vagal Tone Improvement: Regular practice improves Vagal Tone, which is the functional fitness of the Vagus Nerve. A higher Vagal Tone is directly linked to better emotional regulation, greater resilience, and less inflammation.
• Heart Rate Variability (HRV): Conscious breathing increases Heart Rate Variability (the healthy variation in time between heartbeats). High HRV is a marker of a flexible, resilient nervous system capable of moving between states of stress and calm with ease.

By deliberately using techniques that emphasize a longer exhale than the inhale, we stimulate the Vagus Nerve and signal definitive safety, switching the nervous system from a state of defensive fear to therapeutic ease. This essential state of physiological calm is the only place where the difficult work of processing Trapped Emotions can safely begin.

What Are the Key Phases of Safely Releasing Trapped Emotions with Breathwork?

At Inner Summits, we never rush into deep emotional release. Our process is guided by a clear roadmap to ensure safety, efficacy, and lasting integration. Breathwork is systematically introduced across several phases of this therapeutic journey.

Phase 1: The Warm Up – Restoring Capacity and Regulation

Before attempting to release anything, the system must first build the capacity to handle what comes up.

The initial phase focuses on Nervous System education and regulation skills.

• Skill Building: Clients learn foundational, gentle breath practices (like diaphragmatic breathing or extended exhales) designed specifically to increase PNS activation and establish grounding.
• Creating the Map: We collaboratively map out your activation cycles—how your system goes into fight, flight, or freeze and how you can gently guide it back toward balance.
• The Breath as an Anchor: The client establishes the breath as a reliable anchor, a tool they know they can use anytime to bring themselves back to the present moment if they feel triggered or overwhelmed. This sense of control is foundational to trauma healing.

Phase 2: The Journey – Repair and Release

Once a client has built the capacity and trust necessary, we move into the deeper work of addressing the root causes.

• Accessing the Deep Layers: We may introduce more dynamic or continuous Breathwork Practices (always tailored and guided) that bypass the cognitive defenses and prime the body to access implicit, stored emotional memories.
• Mobilization of Energy: The intentional change in breathing pattern mobilizes the energy of Trapped Emotions. This can manifest as physical shaking, trembling, tears, vocalization, or a release of muscular tension—all healthy signs that the body is finally processing and discharging survival energy.
• The Therapist’s Role: The Therapist maintains the safe container, guiding the client to stay present with the emerging sensations and emotions rather than dissociating or intellectualizing them.

Phase 3: The Summit – Integration and Embodiment

Release is only half the work; the change must be integrated for it to last.

• Rewiring the Narrative: After a cathartic release through breath, the client can often revisit the underlying belief with a new sense of clarity and distance. The “old code” is updated at a visceral level.
• Embodiment Practices: We use continued breathwork and embodiment exercises to solidify the sense of peace, freedom, or newness experienced. This locks in the change, ensuring that the new, regulated patterns become a lasting part of the client’s identity.
• Reclaiming You: This phase is about learning to navigate life with a new, more expansive breath, demonstrating improved resilience and responsiveness to everyday challenges.

This systematic process ensures that we are not merely releasing symptoms, but fundamentally rewiring the Nervous System for sustained well-being, true to the principles of Bottom-Up Therapy.

Which Therapeutic Modalities Support Breathwork for Deep Emotional Release?

Breathwork is exponentially more powerful when it is not a standalone technique, but a seamlessly integrated tool within a broader, trauma-informed framework. The Therapeutic Setting at Inner Summits utilizes multiple experiential modalities that create the ideal conditions for breath-led emotional release.

Somatic Psychotherapy: The Language of the Body

Somatic Psychotherapy is perhaps the closest relational partner to breathwork.

• Connection: Somatic work teaches the Client to tune into their body (the soma). This awareness is essential, as breathwork often brings up intense physical sensations (tingling, heat, vibration) associated with Trapped Emotions.
• Tracking: The therapist uses somatic principles to help the client track these sensations, allowing them to discharge the energy without being overwhelmed. If the breath is the key to the root, somatic tracking is the map that keeps the client grounded during the unlocking process.
• Integration: After deep breathwork, somatic practices help anchor the sense of safety and new regulation back into the physical self, creating a durable foundation for change.

Internal Family Systems (IFS): Working with the Inner Landscape

IFS views the psyche as containing multiple “parts”—the anxious part, the self-critical part, the depressed part.

• Unblending: IFS techniques are often used in The Warm Up phase to help the client “unblend” from an activated state. This creates internal spaciousness and reduces the internal conflict (e.g., anger toward the depressed part).
• Pre-Breathwork Preparation: Before engaging in an intense breath session, IFS can help establish a connection with the Self (the calm, centered core). This ensures that the parts holding the Trapped Emotions feel safe and protected during the release process, minimizing the risk of re-traumatization.
• Integration: IFS is invaluable in the post-breathwork integration phase, allowing the client to offer compassion and understanding to the parts that held the emotional burden for so long, facilitating true emotional healing.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Digesting Past Pain

While breathwork can bring up implicit memories, EMDR helps process specific traumatic memories once they are surfaced.

• Complementary Processing: Following a breath session that may have activated a certain memory or belief (e.g., “I am inadequate”), EMDR can be used to help the brain fully digest and file away the memory, turning a traumatic imprint into a neutral narrative.
• Efficacy: This combination often accelerates the process, as the breathwork has already lowered the client’s overall physiological arousal, making the EMDR processing easier and more tolerable.

By layering these approaches, Inner Summits ensures that the power of breathwork is always harnessed with precision, care, and the deep, individualized support required for significant therapeutic breakthroughs. This commitment to an integrated, neurobiological approach is what sets truly transformative healing apart.

What Are Specific Breath Techniques Used in Trauma-Informed Therapy?

In a Therapeutic Setting, breathwork techniques are selected not for intensity, but for their specific physiological effect and for the client’s current capacity. Safety is the foremost consideration, meaning that highly activating techniques are only ever used with experienced guidance and after significant capacity has been built.

The goal is always to signal safety to the Nervous System and facilitate the slow, safe release of Trapped Emotions.

Here are essential, trauma-informed techniques used in practice:

1. Diaphragmatic or Belly Breathing

• What it does: Directly engages the diaphragm, the primary breathing muscle, which is located near the Vagus Nerve. This type of deep belly breathing is the most fundamental exercise for activating the PNS.
• How to practice: Lie down or sit comfortably. Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Inhale deeply through the nose, allowing the belly hand to rise while keeping the chest hand still. Exhale slowly through the nose or mouth.
• Therapeutic Purpose: This is the bedrock of The Warm Up phase. It helps retrain the shallow breathing patterns common in chronic stress and teaches the body what true relaxation feels like.

2. Coherent or Resonant Breathing

• What it does: This technique involves breathing at a specific, even rhythm—usually five seconds in and five seconds out—for approximately six breaths per minute. This rate is scientifically shown to optimize Heart Rate Variability (HRV).
• How to practice: Inhale slowly and smoothly for a count of 5. Exhale slowly and smoothly for a count of 5. Repeat without pause.
• Therapeutic Purpose: Excellent for reducing mental chatter, improving focus, and achieving a deep sense of internal balance and calm. It is a powerful tool for daily self-regulation and emotional resilience.

3. Extended Exhales (The Physiological Sigh)

• What it does: Emphasizes a much longer exhale than the inhale. It is the body’s natural mechanism for down-regulating the stress response (similar to a sigh of relief).
• How to practice: Inhale through the nose for a count of 2 or 3. Exhale slowly and smoothly through pursed lips for a count of 4 or 6. The exhale must be longer than the inhale.
• Therapeutic Purpose: This is perhaps the fastest tool to interrupt an anxiety or panic spiral. The prolonged exhale forces the Nervous System to shift immediately into a rest state, creating the essential feeling of safety needed to process mild-to-moderate emotional activation.

4. Conscious Connected Breathing (Used with Caution)

• What it does: This is a more intense technique involving continuous, rhythmic breathing with no pause between the inhale and the exhale. It can lead to an altered state of consciousness, bringing deeper stored emotions to the surface (catharsis).
• Safety Precaution: Due to its power to unlock implicit memory and potentially trigger strong emotional catharsis (crying, shaking), this technique is only ever practiced in a professional, trauma-informed Therapeutic Setting with a highly trained Therapist to ensure the client remains grounded and can integrate the release safely.

The careful, intentional, and gradual introduction of these Breathwork Practices within the Bottom-Up Therapy framework is what allows the release of Trapped Emotions to be a deeply healing and sustainable experience, rather than a potentially dysregulating one.

Conclusion: The Path to Inner Freedom Starts with a Breath

The journey to healing Trapped Emotions is not about forcing your way out of pain; it’s about gently creating the conditions for release. True transformation happens when we honor the body’s wisdom and recognize that deep emotional healing is a neurobiological process, not just a cognitive exercise.

By integrating potent Breathwork Practices with the stability and insight provided by modalities like Somatic Psychotherapy and IFS, Inner Summits offers a truly Bottom-Up Therapy approach. We replace the old programming of fear and avoidance with new neural pathways of safety, capacity, and freedom. The breath is your most powerful, immediate, and always-present tool for communicating safety to a system that has been stuck in survival mode.

The mountains inside may look big, but they do not have to block out the sun forever. With a clear roadmap and the power of your own breath, you can begin the journey to repair and reclaim the most authentic, resilient version of yourself.

Are you ready to stop thinking your way out of feelings and start breathing your way to freedom?

If you are seeking a truly lasting change and are ready to experience the power of trauma-informed, bottom-up therapy, reach out to Inner Summits today. Our therapist matching service will connect you with an expert who can safely guide you through our proven roadmap, utilizing breathwork and somatic techniques to heal the root causes of your distress.

Contact Inner Summits now to schedule your initial consultation and begin your journey toward lasting emotional freedom.

FAQ Section

What are “trapped emotions” and how does breathwork release them?

Trapped emotions are unprocessed survival energies (like undischarged fight/flight responses, grief, or shame) that were too overwhelming for the system to handle at the time they occurred. They get stored in the body’s physical tissues and nervous system, leading to chronic tension, anxiety, or emotional numbness. Breathwork releases them by directly influencing the autonomic nervous system, activating the parasympathetic branch. This signal of safety allows the body to finally feel secure enough to let go of the stored survival energy, which is often experienced as a physical catharsis like crying, trembling, or deep sighing.

Is breathwork safe for someone with a history of trauma or anxiety?

When practiced within a professional, trauma-informed therapeutic setting, breathwork is incredibly safe. The critical factor is guidance and capacity building. At Inner Summits, we prioritize gentle, regulatory techniques (like diaphragmatic breathing and extended exhales) in the beginning phase. Intense or activating breathwork is only introduced with the supervision of a trained therapist who can co-regulate the client and interrupt the process if overwhelming emotions or dissociation arise, ensuring the client remains grounded and stable throughout the process.

How is therapeutic breathwork different from mindfulness or meditation?

Mindfulness and meditation primarily focus on observing the breath and thoughts without judgment. While beneficial, they are generally cognitive practices. Therapeutic breathwork, by contrast, is an active, somatic intervention. It involves consciously manipulating the rhythm, depth, and pattern of breathing to directly influence physiological state and activate emotional release. Breathwork actively uses the body to change the state of the mind and nervous system, making it a key Bottom-Up tool, whereas mindfulness is often considered a top-down approach.

How long does it take to see results from breathwork in therapy?

Many clients report an immediate sense of calm and relief—a “lighter chest” or a reduced sense of anxiety—after just a single session of gentle, regulatory breathwork. For deep, lasting release of complex Trapped Emotions and the achievement of true Nervous System resilience, consistent practice within a structured therapeutic roadmap (like the Inner Summits’ 5-step journey) is necessary. Full integration and significant, life-altering change often occur over several months as the body is retrained to feel safe and the old emotional code is replaced.

Why is the “bottom-up” approach better than just talk therapy for deep issues?

Talk therapy (a “top-down” approach) is effective for gaining cognitive insight and changing behavioral patterns. However, it relies on the thinking brain, which often bypasses the root of issues like trauma, which are stored somatically (in the body). The Bottom-Up Therapy approach used by Inner Summits, integrating tools like breathwork, recognizes that emotional pain must be felt and released in the body, not just talked about. By addressing the Nervous System first, we unlock the trapped survival energy that cognitive insight alone cannot touch, leading to more profound and sustainable healing.