Is Your Back Pain Really About Your Back?
- Brainz Magazine
- 53 minutes ago
- 9 min read
An-Marie Ferdinand is a wellness expert and founder of Body By An-Marie, LLC. She blends massage, reflexology, energy work to help clients relieve pain, reduce stress, and restore balance. Her client-centered approach creates a safe, supported space for healing, renewal and personal transformation.
Or is your body holding emotional weight you’re not aware of? Discover what your pain is trying to tell you, and how to finally feel better.
You’ve stretched, adjusted, and medicated, but your lower back still hurts. The reason might not be physical at all. Discover the emotional and energetic roots of back pain your body’s been trying to express.
Each year, nearly 70% of Americans experience back pain, according to the World Health Organization. Most try painkillers, physical therapy, or posture correction, but many still wake up with tightness, soreness, or a deep ache that feels unexplainable.
As a neuro-muscular therapist, reflexologist, intuitive energy healer, and strength coach, I’ve learned one profound truth:
The lower back doesn’t just carry your spine; it carries your unspoken stories.
Could your pain be carrying more than muscle strain?
The lower back is more than bones and tissue. It’s the energetic seat of your Root Chakra, the center of survival, stability, safety, and belonging. When those areas of life are shaken, your back often reflects the weight.
Could your pain be linked to:
Financial stress
Family responsibilities
Unprocessed grief
Childhood wounds
Feeling unsupported or unsafe
Could modern life be weakening your back’s natural support?
Our ancestors walked, climbed, and carried weight daily. Today, many of us sit for hours, weakening the muscles and joints designed to keep the spine strong.
The spine contains 24 vertebrae cushioned by discs that prevent bones from pressing on nerves. When those discs wear down or shift, pain signals travel from your lower back, sometimes down your legs as sciatica.
As a certified strength coach, I see firsthand how weak or imbalanced muscles amplify pain. Key players in your back’s support system include:
Latissimus dorsi: Your “engine” for pulling, twisting, and climbing
Quadratus lumborum: A stabilizer that steps in when the spine falters
Obliques & lower trapezius: Essential for upright posture and twisting
Abdominals: Weak core strength often forces the back to overcompensate
Ankles & feet: These are your true foundation. Limited ankle mobility or collapsed arches shift your hips and overload your lower back.
When we restore foot strength, ankle mobility, and balanced posture, we take pressure off the entire back chain of muscles.
Are your feet silently contributing to your back pain?
When your foundation is unstable, the structure above will struggle. Weak or imbalanced feet affect posture and strain the lower back. Energetically, your feet are connected to the Root Chakra, reflecting stability and groundedness.
Ways to support both feet and the Root Chakra:
Walk barefoot in nature
Strengthen arches with simple toe exercises
Practice ankle mobility drills
Visualize roots grounding you into the earth
When your feet are strong and grounded, your whole body feels more stable.
Could your psoas be storing unprocessed trauma?
The iliopsoas muscle links your spine to your legs. Often called the “muscle of the soul,” it’s one of the first to tighten under stress.
When locked, it pulls on the spine and traps emotional energy like fear, grief, or exhaustion. When released, many clients cry, laugh, or feel as though something heavy has lifted. Even more interesting, a relaxed psoas often allows the lats to release, showing just how connected our emotional and physical bodies truly are.
Is your pain protecting you?
Sometimes pain isn’t an injury; it’s a protective signal. It can be the body’s way of slowing you down, preventing movement until you address what you’ve been avoiding. Listening transforms it from energy to a guide.
Ask yourself:
What am I holding that I haven’t processed?
Where do I feel unsupported or unsafe?
Is this pain protecting me from an emotion I fear to feel?
Could nature help reset your root chakra?
One of the best ways to rebalance your Root Chakra is to reconnect with the natural world. Go for a long walk, breathe deeply, listen to birds, feel the wind, and smell the earth.
Water is especially powerful; swimming or even wading helps ground the lower body and release stored tension.
What gentle practices help release emotional back pain?
Here are small but powerful ways to start:
Breathwork for the psoas
Slow belly breathing softens stress-clocked muscles. Place one hand on your belly, breathe deeply, and exhale slowly to begin softening the nervous system. This helps down-regulate the fight-or-flight response and gently relax the core muscles that support the spine.
Emotional body scanning
Stretch or receive bodywork and notice what emotions arise. Stretch slowly and pause when you feel tension. Ask yourself: What emotion might live here? Your body may respond with an image, a memory, or a simple knowing. Follow it with kindness (continue the stretch through the pain and give yourself some time and space to process the emotion you’re feeling).
Rooting exercises
Beyond nature walks, consider meditations focused on the root chakra, or use grounding crystals like hematite, red jasper, or smoky quartz. You can also visualize roots extending from your feet into the earth, anchoring you into the present moment.
Somatic support
Seek trauma-informed healers who see the whole you. Work with a practitioner who understands that your physical pain might be emotional in origin. Safe, intentional touch can help your body remember what it feels like to relax, release, and restore.
The powerful truth: The transformation wake-up
Pain is not the enemy. It’s the compass. It’s the body’s way of saying, “Pay attention. I’m trying to show you something.” Your back, your muscles, your bones, they’re not broken. They’re communicating, carrying the stories you’ve been too busy, too afraid, or too strong to face.
The truth? Pain may be the only part of your life you haven’t tried listening to. Yet it’s always been there, steady and unrelenting, trying to guide you back to yourself. When you stop resisting and lean into its message, healing happens, not just in the body, but in the heart and spirit too.
The body never lies. And it always wants to heal.
Ready to go deeper? “Your root chakra is calling – are you listening?”
Deep down, your body knows what your mind has been ignoring. Every ache, every tension, every weight in your lower back is a message from your Root Chakra, a call to feel safe, grounded, and fully present in your own life.
It’s the voice of your body saying, “I need support, I need release. I need you to stand strong for yourself.” Ignoring it keeps your muscles tight, your nervous system on edge, and your spirit unanchored.
This is your invitation to pause, breathe, and reconnect, to honor the foundation of your physical and emotional self. When you listen, your body begins to let go. Stability returns. Confidence returns. You return.
How does financial stress show up in the lower back?
The Root Chakra governs survival and financial security. When money feels unstable, the lower back often becomes the "storage space" for that fear. Clients with ongoing financial worries frequently describe tension or stiffness in the spine and hips. It’s as if the body braces itself against the unknown, tightening muscles that are meant to keep you grounded and stable. Addressing finances isn’t just about money; it’s about safety, belonging, and trust.
Is family responsibility weighing you down?
Carrying the emotional load of family, caregiving, or being “the strong one” often reveals itself in the back. The quadratus lumborum (QL) and latissimus dorsi, muscles designed to stabilize and pull, become overworked, mirroring the feeling of carrying everyone else’s burdens. Many people don’t realize their posture reflects this weight: slouched shoulders, tight mid-back, and compressed ribs. Releasing that tension often begins with permission to not carry everything alone.
Could childhood trauma still be stored in your body?
The body remembers what the mind forgets. Early trauma, especially before we learn how to express or process it, embeds itself deep in the pelvic bowl and lower spine. This unresolved energy can reemerge as chronic pain, unexplained tightness, or even a sense of instability. The psoas, the “muscle of the soul”, is often the first to tighten under old survival stress. Healing begins not by ignoring these signals but by gently creating safety for the body to release them.
Do you feel safe where you live or work?
Safety is at the core of the Root Chakra. When your home or workplace doesn’t feel secure, whether due to conflict, instability, or stress, the body registers that instability as physical strain. Muscles that are meant to support movement instead brace in defense. Over time, this “body armor” feels like chronic stiffness or pain in the lower back and hips. Creating environments that support calm and stability can bring immediate relief to both body and mind.
Are your relationships affecting your sense of support?
Relationships form the foundation of our support systems. When those connections feel shaky
, unreliable, or absent, the lower back often mirrors that lack of support. Weakness in the core and fatigue in the stabilizing muscles reflect the emotional truth: we can’t stand strong when we don’t feel held. Healing the back sometimes requires healing boundaries, asking for help, or redefining what true support looks like in your life.
Could anger or resentment be locked in your muscles?
Suppressed anger doesn’t just vanish; it finds a home in the body. The lats, lower traps, and shoulders often tighten in response to unexpressed resentment. This tension can limit movement and create constant discomfort, as if the body is holding back what the mind refuses to release. Learning to express anger in healthy ways, through movement, journaling, or even voice work, can bring surprising relief.
How does grief shape the spine and nervous system?
Grief changes posture. The shoulders round, the chest caves, and the spine compresses under the invisible weight of loss. This physical collapse mirrors the energetic one, where the Root Chakra feels destabilized and unsafe. The nervous system, too, remains on high alert, keeping muscles locked in tension. Gentle breathwork, heart-opening stretches, and compassionate bodywork can help grief move through, rather than stay trapped.
Do your daily habits ground or unbalance you?
Pain isn’t always caused by big traumas; sometimes it’s the small, daily choices. Prolonged sitting, shallow breathing, and lack of movement all weaken the muscles meant to support the spine. The Root Chakra requires grounding, regular routines, physical activity, and contact with nature. When those habits are missing, both body and energy feel unsteady. Reintroducing simple grounding rituals can restore stability from the inside out.
Can breathwork help free the root chakra?
Breath is one of the most direct ways to influence both body and energy. Shallow breathing keeps the psoas and diaphragm tight, locking trauma and tension into the core. Deep, intentional belly breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, signaling safety and release. Each exhale tells the body it’s okay to let go. Over time, breathwork can become a powerful daily tool for Root Chakra balance and pain relief.
How does movement restore energetic stability?
The body was built for flexibility, movement, and alignment as the path to wellness. Without walking, climbing, twisting, reaching, or running, muscles weaken, and the Root Chakra loses its sense of stability. Strength training, yoga, dance, and even barefoot walking all help restore both physical alignment and energetic grounding. Movement doesn’t just build muscle; it teaches the nervous system that you are safe, strong, and capable of standing tall.
Are you listening to your body’s messages, or ignoring them?
Chronic pain is often the body’s last resort to get your attention. When subtle whispers are ignored, the body speaks louder, through stiffness, spasms, or immobility. The Art of Listening to Your Body helps you listen to what your body is telling you.
The Root Chakra asks: Are you listening?
Ignoring pain only deepens the cycle, but listening begins the transformation. When we pause, breathe, and decode the message, pain becomes not an enemy; it becomes a guide toward healing.
By freeing tension, releasing emotional weight, and restoring strength and stability, you reclaim not only your body’s mobility but also your sense of inner balance and belonging.
Healing begins the moment you answer the call within.
Thank you for reading!
Answer the call of your body—it already knows the way home.
Read more from An-Marie Ferdinand
An-Marie Ferdinand, Licensed Massage Therapist
An-Marie Ferdinand is a wellness expert specializing in massage therapy, nutrition, fitness, and holistic healing. She's the founder of Body By An-Marie, LLC, where she helps clients reconnect with their bodies and reclaim their well-being. Her work blends science and intutition, integrating bodywork, reflexology, and energy healing. An-Marie is passionate about supporting others through stress, pain, and emotional fatigue with personalized client-centered care. Her unique approach empowers people to align with their natural healing potential. She creates a safe, nurturing space for transformation and renewal. Whether you're seeking relief, balance, or deeper connection, An-Marie is here to support your wellness journey.
