Free somatic tool
Where do you feel it in your body?
Emotions are not just thoughts — they live in the body. Anger tightens a jaw, fear flutters a stomach, grief sits heavy on a chest. Learning to notice where and how a feeling shows up in your body — psychologists call this interoception — is one of the most direct paths to understanding and regulating it.
Pick the feeling you're exploring, choose a sensation word, and tap the places on the body where you notice it. Your map builds as you go.
Completely private: everything happens on this page, in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or stored by us.
1 · What feeling are you exploring?
These marks were made for “.” or .
2 · Pick a sensation, then tap the body
Choose the word that fits, then tap everywhere you notice it — front or back view. Tap a marked spot with the same word to remove it. Prefer the keyboard? Tab moves through the body areas and Enter marks the one you're on.
Figure from The Healing Trauma Workbook (Wong, 2023)
Your map
Nothing marked yet — pick a word and tap the body.
Your body map
Many people bring their body map to their next therapy session — it gives you and your therapist a shared, concrete starting point that words alone often miss. Tracking how the same feeling moves and softens over weeks is powerful evidence of your work.
Optional: deeper reflection — guided prompts from The Healing Trauma Workbook
These prompts (Practice 15, "Mapping Trauma in Your Body") go one layer deeper — how stress and difficult experiences live in your body over time. Answer any that speak to you; whatever you write is included in your downloaded map and stays in your browser like everything else here.
Why the body?
When a feeling is vague and overwhelming, the fastest way to get traction on it is often not to analyze it but to locate it. Naming the sensation ("tight," "hollow," "buzzing") and finding its place ("chest," "throat," "stomach") turns something formless into something workable — research on affect labeling shows that simply putting feelings into words calms the nervous system's alarm response. This is a foundational practice in somatic psychology, and a skill anyone can build.
This exercise is for reflection and psychoeducation; it is not a diagnosis or a substitute for professional care. Persistent or alarming physical sensations deserve medical attention — this tool maps the felt sense of emotion, not medical symptoms.
Common questions
What is a body map of emotions?
A body map is a simple picture of where a feeling lives in your body. You pick the emotion you’re exploring, choose a sensation word that fits — tight, hollow, buzzing, heavy — and tap the places where you notice it. Locating and naming a feeling this way builds interoception, the skill of sensing what’s happening inside you, and it often makes a vague, overwhelming emotion feel workable.
Is what I enter private?
Yes. Everything happens on this page, in your browser — nothing you type or mark is sent anywhere or stored by us. The image and PDF downloads are generated on your own device, and they only go where you choose to send them.
What if I don’t notice any sensations?
That’s a real and common answer, not a failure. Many people — especially after stress or trauma — feel numb or disconnected from parts of their body, which is why “numb,” “hollow,” and “empty” are on the palette. If nothing shows up, go slowly: pick one area, rest your attention there for a few breaths, and mark whatever is true, even if it’s absence.
Can a body map diagnose what’s wrong with me?
No. This is a reflection and psychoeducation exercise, not an assessment — it maps the felt sense of emotion, not medical symptoms, and it can’t tell you what condition you have. Persistent or alarming physical sensations deserve medical attention, and if what comes up feels overwhelming, bring your map to a therapist rather than working through it alone.
For therapists: bringing somatic language into your notes — somatic language for trauma-informed notes. Running this exercise on paper? — the figure, the sensation word bank, and the guided prompts with room to write.
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