Wednesday 29/07/2026
Photo: Katarina Wolnik Vera
Text: Daniella Espidel
We have all experienced a knot in our stomach before an important conversation. A racing heart before receiving life-changing news. A tightening in our throat when we try to hold back tears. Or tense shoulders after a particularly difficult week.
These experiences are so familiar that we rarely stop to think about them. Yet they all have one thing in common: they remind us that emotions are not only something we think about, they are also something we experience through our bodies.
But what exactly is an emotion?
In the late nineteenth century, psychologist William James proposed an idea that continues to inspire much of today’s research on emotions: what we call an emotion is deeply connected to the changes that occur in our bodies. As he famously stated, “Our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion“ (James, 1884, as discussed in Prinz, 2004). In other words, we do not simply cry because we are sad or feel our heart race because we are afraid. Our emotional experience is also shaped by the way we perceive these bodily changes.
This means that an emotion does not arise simply because our heart beats faster or because we feel a knot in our stomach. As Prinz (2004) explains, these bodily sensations acquire meaning because our body is responding to something significant in our lives, a loss, a threat, a conflict, a separation, or any situation that affects our well-being. In this sense, the body does not merely react; it also provides valuable information about how we are experiencing the world around us.
In other words, emotions are not just something we feel “inside.” They also leave traces in our bodies, offering clues about our needs, our relationships, and the way we are experiencing what is happening in our lives. Learning to recognize these signals is an important part of understanding our emotional world.
When Listening to the Body Is Not Easy
If emotions are experienced through the body, then recognizing them involves more than simply putting a name to what we feel. It also requires developing the ability to listen to and understand the signals our own body is sending us.
However, this ability is not always easy. There are times when we know that “something isn’t right,” but we cannot identify exactly what we are feeling. At other times, we notice only fatigue, muscle tension, digestive discomfort, or a persistent sense of unease, without fully understanding which emotion lies beneath those sensations.
Why does this happen?
Part of the answer lies in a capacity known as interoception, which refers to our ability to perceive and interpret the body’s internal signals, such as our heartbeat, breathing, hunger, or muscle tension. These sensations are not simply physiological changes; they are an important source of information about our emotional state (Bastoni et al., 2024).
When it is difficult to connect with these bodily signals, it may also become harder to identify what we are feeling. In fact, research has found that people who have greater difficulty recognizing and describing their emotions, a phenomenon known as alexithymia, also tend to show lower awareness of bodily signals and greater difficulties regulating their emotions (Bastoni et al., 2024).
This does not mean that every physical sensation should be interpreted as an emotion, nor that there is only one “correct” way to listen to the body. Rather, it reminds us that paying attention to our inner experiences with curiosity and without judgment can help us better understand our emotional lives.
The Body That Communicates
So far, we have explored how the body helps us experience our emotions. However, emotions do not serve only an internal function; they also play an essential social role.
From the moment we are born, even before we learn to speak, our bodies already express what we are feeling. A baby cannot say they are afraid, that they need comfort, or that they feel frustrated. Instead, they communicate through crying, body tension, facial expressions, or the way they seek closeness with their caregiver.
Likewise, as adults, we constantly communicate our emotional world. Our posture, our gaze, the pace of our speech, our breathing, and even our silence all provide information about how we are feeling. Very often, our bodies express what we have not yet been able to put into words (Reed et al., 2020).
Research shows that humans are remarkably sensitive to these bodily signals. In fact, by observing another person’s body, we are often able to recognize many of their emotions without hearing a single word (Reed et al., 2020).
Understanding Emotions Happens in Relationship With Others
However, expressing an emotion is only part of the process. Emotions not only need to be expressed, they also need to be recognized and understood.
From our earliest years, we learn to understand our emotional world through the way our caregivers respond to our emotional expressions. When an adult recognizes a child’s fear, puts words to their sadness, or responds calmly to their anger, they are not simply offering comfort. They are also helping the child organize and make sense of that emotional experience (Fonagy et al., 2018).
Gradually, these repeated experiences become the foundation upon which we learn to recognize and regulate our own emotions. In many ways, we come to understand ourselves because, first, someone else understood us.
This process continues throughout adulthood. When someone listens to our experiences with curiosity, validates what we are feeling, or helps us put words to emotions that still seem confusing, they also help us better understand ourselves (Bateman & Fonagy, 2019).
We might therefore say that emotions are born in the body, but they find meaning within relationships.
A Space to Listen to What the Body Is Trying to Say
We live in a culture that often teaches us to look at the body in terms of how it looks, how it functions, or how it should be. Yet we are rarely encouraged to ask what it might be trying to communicate.
Throughout this article, we have seen that emotions do not exist only in the mind. They are also experienced through the body, expressed through it, and ultimately find meaning through the relationships we build with others.
Perhaps, then, the question is not only, “What am I feeling?” but also, “What is my body trying to tell me about what I am going through?“
Approaching this question with curiosity rather than judgment or self-criticism can help us develop a kinder relationship with ourselves. Listening to the body does not mean interpreting every physical sensation as a psychological problem. Instead, it means recognizing that our emotional experiences also have a bodily and relational dimension.
At Proyecto ART, we believe that understanding our emotions begins with developing a more curious and compassionate relationship with ourselves. As we learn to listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us and find spaces where those experiences can be understood, we also begin to build a more integrated understanding of who we are.
References:
- Bastoni, I., Guerrini Usubini, A., Gobetti, M., Sanna, M., Pagnoncelli, G., Uboldi, L., … & Mendolicchio, L. (2023). Let the body talk: preliminary data of an open trial of dance movement therapy for eating disorders. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 13(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/ jcm13010005
- Bateman, A. W., & Fonagy, P. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of mentalizing in mental health practice. American Psychiatric Pub.
- Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., & Jurist, E. L. (2018). Affect regulation, mentalization and the development of the self. Routledge.
- James, William (1884): What is an emotion?, in: Mind 9, S. 188-205.
- Prinz, J. (2004). Embodied emotions. Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions, 44-58.
- Reed, C. L., Moody, E. J., Mgrublian, K., Assaad, S., Schey, A., & McIntosh, D. N. (2020). Body matters in emotion: restricted body movement and posture affect expression and recognition of status-related emotions. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1961. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01961