I’m on tonight
You know my hips don’t lie (no fighting)
And I’m starting to feel it’s right
All the attraction, the tension
Don’t you see, baby, this is perfection?
– “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira
Those lyrics from the popular song by hip-gyrating Spanish singer Shakira, couldn’t be more true. Your hips, in fact, don’t lie about your emotions–Yes, your emotions.
To truly understand the link between the hips and emotions, we first have to look at how the mind and body are truly connected.
When you’re stressed, your emotional and physical health can both suffer. People with trauma or other mental health conditions like anxiety and depression often experience physical symptoms as well.
Through it all, there may just be a common link: the hips.
Of course, each body is different. Where one person holds stress in their body may not be exactly the same for another.
However, neuroscience and somatics point to the hips as a potential storage vessel of emotions. They also offer a window into emotional healing. Here’s how.
What Your Hips Are Saying
To look at how the hips can store emotions, it’s important to first understand their function and anatomy.
The hip is the area on each side of the pelvis. The joint itself is one of the largest and most unique joints in the human body, responsible for bearing weight, stabilizing the core, and moving the upper leg.
The tighter your hips are, the less mobility your body has. This can result in pain and hinder daily activities like walking and climbing stairs. Tight hips can also cause an anterior tilt of the pelvis which results in poor posture and misalignment of the head and neck.
What Tight Hips Are Trying to Tell You
You are fearful of relationships.
The hips are also a place where we store relationships of all kinds, argues Simmons. They’re especially linked to our romantic relationships. If you have tight hips you may be more skittish when it comes to falling in love. But we don’t just hold romantic energy in our hips, we hold business relationships there too. Having trouble at work? You may be holding that negative energy in your hips.
You have unresolved emotional or physical trauma.
Women who have recently gone through pregnancy and birth tend to have tight hips because it’s a place of physical and sometimes emotional trauma, says Simmons. The hips can take a beating during childbirth and as a result, afterwards, they tighten up. If something traumatic happens to you to cause tight hips, you may also be storing that negative energy in your hips.
You may be holding onto the past.
While the front of the hips indicate a fear of the future, the back of the hips are linked to the past and our inability to let go of it. The back of the hips, which may include a tight lower back and glutes, mean that you may be too focused on the past, according to Simmons.
Hip Surgery and Mental Health
Think tight hips are the only connection? There’s actually more evidence of a mental health connection with those who have hip surgery.
People with psychiatric illnesses are more likely to have complications after hip replacement surgery, according to