A Weight on the Belly

During our most recent breathwork journey earlier this week, a number of the breathers commented on feeling a weight above their belly (solar plexus). For some, that weight stayed present through much of the journey. For others, it moved, shifted, or passed in a form of somatic release.

The journey itself was titled Abundance and Self-Trust.

And it strikes me that a journey like this will often bring us into direct relationship with the very things that sit in the way of those qualities – limiting beliefs, prior emotional imprints, unresolved moments that have quietly shaped and diminished our sense of self-worth.

I found myself journaling on it later that evening, having scrawling the following at the top of the page:

A weight on the belly… pregnant with possibility.

The word somatic comes from the Greek sōma – the body. And breathwork is all about somatic release.

The ancient Greeks, including Hippocrates – the father of modern medicine, didn’t see us as a brain controlling a body, but as a living field – felt through heart, gut, breath, and mind, all at once.

In simple terms, the ancient Greeks may have described the physical form along the lines of:

a unified body (sōma)
animated by life force (psychē)
illuminated by awareness (nous – the ‘mind’)
felt through heart and gut

And within this living field, the body keeps a record.

Energetically, the solar plexus is our seat of personal power, intimately linked to what we commonly refer to as esteem– our sense of worth, our belief in ourselves, our willingness to act, and our capacity to receive.

When this centre is energetically strong, it reveals itself in a quiet strength of stature.
A vibrancy within the body.
A grounded presence.
Often, a natural charisma radiates that requires no performance. 

We find ourselves naturally drawn to such people, as they carry a quiet strength and warmth largely free of egotism.

But when challenged – through fear, guilt, shame, or uncertainty – this same centre will likely bear the imprint.

If you are particularly attuned to feeling, you’ll likely notice how fear often arrives as a subtle ‘ting’, or a gut punch right in the centre of our solar plexus.
It tends to stop us in our tracks.

The body responds instantly – the tailbone tucks, the chin drops, the jaw tightens, and we brace. 

It is a very primal pattern.
The nervous system preparing for threat.

Over time, these moments accumulate.

As our esteem centre, this space begins to reflect our felt sense of worthiness, or lack thereof – 
what we believe we are allowed to receive, how safe it is to be seen, how willing we are to step forward when the moment calls.

Any dents to self-belief – particularly through the sustained harbouring of fear, guilt, or shame – diminish our energetic potential.

You could say they dim our light.

And yet, through breath, we possess the ability to reignite that light.

Not by force.
But by creating the conditions for what has been held… to move.

Resistance, in this sense, is often felt as a weight upon the belly.

Not something wrong – but something held.

When that weight appears, the invitation is not to push it away or override it, but to meet it.

A steady breath rhythm.
A softening of the body.
A curious, detached observation.

Let the breath move through the sensation.

Not to get rid of it – but to allow it to shift.

Because the body – the sōma – knows how to do this.

It knows how to process, to reorganise, to release.

And when we stay present long enough, something begins to change.

The weight softens.
The grip loosens.
The energy moves.

What sits beneath that weight is not limitation.

It is restored capacity.

The capacity to trust.
To act.
To receive.
To stand fully in oneself.

And so, if you experienced that weight during your journey, the invitation is see it not as a barrier or something “wrong” – but as a doorway.

One that, with breath, awareness, and a willingness to stay, begins to open to reveal the best and brightest version of you.