The Missing Piece in Your Gut Healing Protocol: Emotional Processing

Guest Blog by: Andrea Sawatzky, RTT Practitioner

If you've ever felt something “in your gut,” that wasn’t just a metaphor — it was biology, nervous system wiring and emotional energy speaking through your digestive system.

We now know that the body doesn’t just respond to emotions… It stores the ones we don’t process.

Emotions aren’t just “feelings” in the mind; they are biochemical signals carried through the body by neuropeptides and their receptors. These emotional molecules live in the organs, fascia, immune system, and the digestive system— which is why emotional patterns can create real physical symptoms.

Let’s go deeper into how this works!

Your Gut Is Your Emotional Second Brain

Your gut contains over 500 million neurons — more than your spinal cord — and an enormous concentration of emotional receptors, allowing it to “feel” and respond emotionally just as much as your brain does.

This is why:

• Stress shuts down digestion

• Overwhelm triggers bloating or nausea

• Fear feels like a ‘pit’ in your stomach

• Suppressed anger can show up as IBS, reflux, constipation

• Feeling “unsupported” or “unable to digest life” mirrors digestive symptoms
  

The gut is where the body interprets emotional danger before you even consciously know what you’re feeling. And when emotions stay unprocessed? The gut stays in a chronic state of tension, alertness and inflammation.

Common Physical Symptoms that may Result from Stored Emotions

Different emotions tend to show up in different gut-related ways:

• Fear → diarrhea, urgency, IBS

• Shame → nausea, appetite loss, stomach knots

• Anger → reflux, burning, tightening of the diaphragm

• Powerlessness → bloating, sluggish digestion

• Unworthiness → overeating or undereating patterns

• “I have to hold everything together” → constipation, abdominal cramping

These are not random symptoms. They are emotional patterns the body learned a long time ago — usually in childhood — and is still trying to resolve. Familiar emotional chemistry feels “normal” to the body — even if it’s not healthy.

Where Can Emotions get Stored in the Body?

Emotions are energetic and physiological experiences. Each organ responds uniquely to specific emotional patterns:

• The Stomach — worry, dread, overthinking :

  When you “stomach” emotions, suppress needs, or carry anticipatory stress, the stomach becomes the first place tension sits.

• The Small Intestine — boundaries:

  This area relates to absorption:
  What do I take in? What do I reject? What is too much for me to handle?

  People with loose or rigid boundaries often struggle with IBS-like symptoms.

• The Colon — letting go:

  Difficulty releasing emotions often mirrors constipation, bloating or irregularity.

• The Liver — anger, self-criticism, pressure:

  The liver is tied to processing — both physical and emotional. Unprocessed anger, resentment, or frustration often appears here.

• The Throat — unspoken emotions:

  A lump in the throat, chronic tightness, sighing or difficulty expressing needs often points to suppressed voice or childhood moments where speaking up felt unsafe. When emotions stay stuck here, the diaphragm tightens, which directly restricts digestion and vagus nerve function.

How Stored Emotions Drive Gut Issues

Unprocessed emotions continue firing through the nervous system long after the original event has passed. When the nervous system perceives emotional danger:

• blood flow moves away from digestion

• the gut microbiome shifts toward “stress chemistry”

• the vagus nerve becomes dysregulated

• peristalsis slows or speeds up unpredictably

• inflammation increases

• food sensitivities appear that weren’t there before

• healing stalls because the body is in protection mode

You can take all the supplements, follow all the gut protocols, and eat nutritious foods but if the emotional alarm is still going off inside the body…

The gut can’t fully heal.

This is why so many women say:

“I’ve tried everything, but nothing changes.”

It’s because the root emotion — the old belief — has not been released and their nervous system is stuck in fight or flight.

RTT: Releasing the Emotional Root So The Body Can Heal

RTT works because it changes the meaning of the old emotional memory — and when meaning changes, the biochemical pattern dissolves.

RTT helps you uncover:

• where that meaning was formed

• why your mind decided that reaction kept you safe

• what belief your body has been protecting you from ever since

For example, a child who felt criticized or not good enough may later develop:

• chronic stomach tension

• bloating

• a gut that “tightens” under pressure

• perfectionism

• people-pleasing

Because their body learned that mistakes = danger and danger is first felt in the gut.

RTT helps release the memory, clear the old belief and rewire the emotional response so the body no longer reacts as if that old moment is still happening.

What RTT does for the body:

• Identifies the exact moment the subconscious formed the meaning

• Releases the emotion the body never got to finish

• Interrupts the old survival response

• Reprograms the belief that drives the physical symptom

• Creates new emotional patterns that feel safe and supportive

• Sends a new message to the nervous system: “You are safe now.”

When the meaning changes —the emotional charge releases —and the body finally relaxes enough to heal.

It is not uncommon for clients to experience:

• immediate reduction in tension

• improved digestion

• calmer breathing

• fewer flare-ups

• less bloating

• improved bowel regularity

• deeper sleep

• reduced anxiety

• a feeling of “lightness” or space in their chest or stomach

Because the body is no longer protecting you from an emotion you're not actually experiencing anymore.

Your Gut Isn’t Broken — It’s Communicating

Your symptoms aren’t random or “just stress.”

They are meaningful messages from a body that has been trying to protect you.

When you approach healing from both the conscious and subconscious level, your body shifts quickly — because the emotional load it’s been carrying finally releases.

RTT gives your mind and body the safety, understanding and permission they need to let go of the emotional patterns that were never yours to hold in the first place.

If this resonates with you click below to learn more about how RTT can help you overcome your digestive symptoms.

By Andrea Sawatzky, RTT Practitioner

January 2026