|
Channeling emotions and finding release in movement Long before words, there was movement. As kids, we didn’t sit with our emotions - we flowed with instinctive expression. As adults, we have lost that connection replacing movement with (over)thinking, structure, responsibilities. This deeply felt post by Navatman member, Dolonchapa Chakraborty, explores why movement is not a luxury but rather the very core of how we process emotion. The body remembers what the mind tends to forget.
Childhood: Before emotion had language Hobbies and extracurriculars: Two words that mean something very different when you hear them as a child versus when you live them as an adult. As a kid, especially if you grew up in an environment where structure was non-negotiable, extracurriculars weren’t optional. They weren’t something you “fit in when you had time.” You made time. Period. And more than that, they weren’t just activities. They were movement. Expression. A way for emotion, energy, and discipline to have somewhere to go. I still remember my dance teacher once looking at me and saying, very simply: Did you brush your teeth? Yes. Did you eat breakfast? Yes. Then why didn’t you practice dance? For context, I had an SAT-equivalent math test that day. But in that moment, I remember feeling something very specific: not rebellion, not anger — just shame. Like I had misunderstood what was supposed to matter more. And I never missed another class again. That’s the part that stays with me. Because looking back, what I was learning — without having the language for it — was something simple but physical: emotion doesn’t stay still. And for a long time, the body was where it went. You ran, you danced, you played, you showed up. With less inhibition and a smaller vocabulary, emotion had a direct route out — through movement — before it ever became something you could explain. Adulthood: When everything became structured Then you grow up. And everything becomes a hobby, or a side gig, or “something for your mental health,” or a passion project you get to only when life allows it. These are all very adult words. Negotiated words. Words that sit behind the “real” work of the day job.  Now, I actually like what I do. I’ve maybe had six months in my life where I didn’t. But even when you enjoy your work, adulthood often turns everything into structure and deadlines. You move from one deliverable to the next, one meeting to the next, one fire drill to the next. And slowly, the space where emotion used to move freely starts getting compressed into whatever time is left. So creativity becomes something you schedule. Not something you inhabit. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently — especially with AI, automation, and agents taking over more of the execution layer of work. Less time formatting slides, aligning boxes, fixing decks. In theory, that should create space. But space is not the same as expression. Because if the body is not part of the process anymore, then what fills that space is often more thinking. More optimizing. More managing. And emotion — unless it is given somewhere to go — doesn’t disappear. It just stays in quieter, unprocessed ways. The body remembers first Neuroscience increasingly supports what many people intuitively already feel: emotional states are not purely mental events. They are physiological. The autonomic nervous system shifts heart rate, breathing patterns, muscle tension, and hormonal activity in response to stress, grief, anger, or anxiety. The mind may interpret the experience, but the body carries it first. This is why emotion can feel stuck — not because we haven’t thought enough about it, but because thinking alone does not complete the cycle.  A tight chest before you’ve named why. A heaviness in the shoulders with no clear origin. A restlessness that doesn’t resolve through thinking harder, planning better, or explaining it more logically. And yet, we are often taught — directly or indirectly — that emotions are something to understand first. Name them. Analyze them. Reframe them. Solve them. But not all emotional experiences begin in language. Some begin in the body, long before they become words. This is why emotion feels embodied even before it is understood. Because the body doesn’t wait for language. It reacts first. Movement as emotional completion Movement is one of the most direct ways the nervous system regulates itself. Not in a symbolic sense, but a biological one. Yoga shifts breathing patterns. Shaking releases muscular tension. Dancing integrates breath, coordination, and sensory input in a way that changes internal arousal states. Even simple repetitive motion — walking, pacing, stretching — helps the body move from activation toward regulation. But most of this is already familiar, even without explanation. A walk that unknots a thought you couldn’t solve sitting still. Dancing alone in a room until something shifts without explanation. Running until the noise in your head finally softens. In these moments, movement is not performance or exercise. It is translation — turning something internal and dense into something physical that can pass through. The body is not separate from emotional life. It is where emotional life unfolds.  And yet modern life pulls us away from that. We are trained to sit through discomfort, think our way through tension, optimize response instead of inhabiting sensation. Even rest becomes structured. Even recovery becomes another task. So emotion doesn’t disappear. It accumulates differently — less as rupture, more as noise. A subtle distance from the body. A sense of being more in thought than in experience. Movement interrupts that loop: not by explaining emotion, but by moving it. By restoring circulation — of breath, attention, and sensation. You don’t need to do it correctly. There is no method that matters more than the act itself. Often it is something small: a change in pace, a shift in rhythm, a return from interpretation to sensation. Because movement is not something added to emotional processing. It is part of the processing itself. Emotion was never meant to stay in thought alone. And the body was never meant to be separate from how we feel. We tend to think of movement as something that comes after emotion — after clarity, after readiness, after control. But more often, it is what makes feeling possible in the first place. In childhood, emotion moved before it had language. In adulthood, language arrives first — and movement is forgotten. So maybe the question isn’t how to add more hobbies, or how to optimize creativity, or how to fit “self-expression” into a full calendar. Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s remembering what we already knew before we had language for it: Emotion doesn’t stay still. It moves. And when it doesn’t, the body holds it until we finally do. Movement was never separate from emotion. It was where emotion went. And movement is not what we do after life is “handled”. It is one of the ways life gets “handled” in the first place. Be Moved We invite you to Baila Society x Navatman Season 2026 Our June program brings together Salsa, Latin Hustle, Bharatanatyam, and Kathak under one original score, performed live, only in NYC. For one weekend, be part of a grassroots movement breaking barriers, connecting communities. Watch a clip from Roots of Resilience About us
Navatman and Baila Society joined forces in 2024 for a uniquely New York City experience: a place where two women-led arts organizations based in the cultural traditions of Afro-Latinx arts (Salsa, Latin Hustle, Afro-Cuban) and Indian arts (Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Hindustani and Carnatic music) come together. In this shared space, we explore how the force of artists and students working together can promote, define, and create a sense of stability and strength, joy and love within communities at large - particularly through artistic endeavors. Written by Dolonchapa Chakraborty
1 Comment
Johann
5/1/2026 10:54:25 am
Fully inhabiting creativity requires "a room of one's own", income-security in other words. This seems to be the structural material counterpart to this plea to just allow oneself to be physical and a challenge for arts orgs like Navatman or Baila Society.. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorsPriya Narayan Archives
May 2026
Categories |
RSS Feed
|
Email: [email protected]
Address: 38W 32nd street #300 3rd floor New York NY 10001 We do not have a phone :) please email us |