You’ve probably heard the popular adage before: “Emotion is just energy in motion.” It sounds poetic, even intuitive. But it’s not the whole story. And for many of us, it confuses things rather than clearing them up.
The concept that emotions are just stuck energy isn't based on neuroscience, it's based on some catchy word play from a famous self-help author.
Emotions aren’t just forces moving through you like a current that needs to be discharged. They’re brain-generated interpretations of what's happening inside you and around you — shaped by context, personal history, and brain state. Sometimes they need movement, sometimes they don’t.
This matters, because if we believe emotions are just “energy that needs to move,” we might chase ineffective solutions — thinking we simply need to "release" something, or just dance it out, or exercise harder. But real emotional mastery comes from understanding how emotions truly work.
Let’s break it down:
💡 5 Reasons This Myth Needs to Go:
❌ 1. Emotions aren’t forces that need to “move.”
The brain doesn’t just store emotions like a battery holding a charge. It activates an experience of them in real time, based on our reaction(s) to stimulus, our emotional concepts, our personal history, and the stories we tell. Emotions are dynamic experiences that help us conserve our resources and make meaning, not stagnant energy just waiting to be pushed through.
❌ 2. Survival mode blocks emotional awareness.
When our nervous system goes into Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease, it doesn’t say, “Let’s process some emotions!”. Instead, it prioritizes immediate survival — which means shutting down emotional processing for our protection. If emotions were just energy, we’d always experience them in the same way, but we don't. Sometimes we're not present to them at all...
❌ 3. Stillness doesn’t erase emotion.
If motion were necessary for emotion, stillness would mean no emotions. But anyone who has ever been frozen in grief, spiraled into anxious thoughts while lying in bed, or felt numb but not at peace knows — motion isn’t the determining factor. Our emotional experience depends on what our brain constructs, not our level of movement.
❌ 4. You don’t always need to “release” emotions for them to resolve.
While emotions can build up and max out our capacity to process them, the answer to that build-up is not always dumping. According to contemporary neuroscience, emotions shift when our brain updates its predictions. Sometimes, the right input — safety, context, or connection — is all that’s needed for an emotion to change.
❌ 5. “Stuck emotions” aren’t just trapped energy — they’re trauma.
Trauma doesn't stay unresolved because energy is trapped — it’s because the brain hasn’t updated its safety map. When heightened reactivity and sensitivity persist, it’s usually because the nervous system is still perceiving threat, even when the threat is gone. The solution isn’t just to move energy — it’s to correct the prediction and rewire the adaptation.
✨ A More Accurate View of Emotion:
Emotions aren’t just something to move through — they’re experiences your brain constructs based on state, perception, and safety. They don’t simply flow; they emerge, shift, and resolve when the nervous system gets the right information.
So yes, movement can help. But it’s not about just “getting rid of energy”. It’s about giving your brain what it needs to feel safe enough to process.
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