Let It All Go: Why It’s Okay to Yawn, Burp, and Fart in TherapyNo masks.

No manners. Just messy, human truth.

Sometimes healing looks less like perfection and more like being your real, messy self—just ask Shrek.

The first time a client farted in the middle of our session, they froze. Their eyes widened, face flushed, and a reflexive, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” tumbled out before they could breathe.

Only a moment earlier, their body had begun to soften during some deep grief work. But in an instant, they clenched again, like a trap snapping shut. I smiled gently and said, “It’s okay. Your body is doing something it couldn’t do before… it’s a sign that something’s shifting.”

As the moment passed and we continued the session, I could tell they reclaimed something: the right to be human, without apology.

Therapy culture (and wider culture, frankly) often unconsciously promotes the myth of the “good client.” The tidy, articulate, emotionally available but not too emotional client. Expressive, but never messy. But anyone who has been in therapy would know that this is near impossible. In my 15 years of practice, I’ve learned to embrace that messiness; it’s all a part of the healing process.

God forbid you yawn, burp, or fart in the sacred therapy space. That would be disrespectful. Or so we’ve been taught.

But the human body has its own truth-telling language. And in my experience — as a therapist and a person who’s done her own long-haul work in the chair — those small, embarrassing, inconvenient bodily outbursts often mark a turning point in their healing journeys. They say: I’m real. I’m alive. And I don’t want to hold this in anymore.

Yawning: Signs of Safety Returning

Yawns show up often in my practice. Not the bored, disengaged kind — I mean the sudden, full-body, jaw-stretching yawns that seem to come out of nowhere, often after someone has touched on something hard.

In Gestalt and somatic therapies, we know that yawning is a sign of the parasympathetic nervous system kicking in — the rest-and-digest mode. It can mean that something in the system is starting to relax, often for the first time in a long while.

I remember working with Jay, who came to therapy completely locked up in his shoulders and gut. Ex-army, he sat bolt upright, barely breathing, always apologising when his voice broke. One day, after he allowed himself to say through gritted teeth, “I wasn’t okay over there,” he let out the loudest yawn I’ve ever heard. Then another. And another. He looked startled. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m doing that.”

I said, “That’s your body saying thank you.” It became a running joke in our work: his yawns were our progress report. If he wasn’t yawning, we weren’t getting to the real stuff.

Burping: A Somatic Exhale

Burping is often seen as rude, but it’s that short, unexpected upward release that signals that the body is metabolising emotion or tension.

When I explain this to clients, and even to friends and family, I often see the incredulous shock on their faces. But let’s break it down. When you burp, your diaphragm is softening. Your diaphragm sits right underneath the ribcage, holding emotional tension like a pressure valve. Even in my own experience, deep burps have arrived during breathwork, trauma resolution sessions, and even after a particularly difficult conversation. Something trapped deep inside finally dislodges and travels to the surface for me to expel. It would be counterintuitive and even unproductive to hold it in.

One of my clients, Leila, had spent years swallowing her rage. Every time she tried to express frustration, she’d redirect it with humour or politeness. During a piece of work where she finally allowed herself to say, “I hate how much I’ve had to hold,” she paused, hand on her chest, and let out a burp that surprised both of us. It seemed like a well-timed joke her body was telling. She immediately looked mortified. I grinned. “Your stomach agrees,” I said. She laughed, hand still resting on her gut. “I didn’t even know that was there.”

Farting: The Final Frontier

Let’s be real — this is the one no one wants to talk about. But it happens. And when it does, people panic. I’ve had clients go pale, burst out laughing, or try to deny it altogether.

And I get it because I’ve been there too. Many years ago, when I was going through a painful divorce and working through the trauma of this relationship breakdown, I farted in my own therapy session. I remember the shock of it, the heat rising to my cheeks, the instinct to apologise and disappear into the floor. But my therapist simply looked at me with warmth and said nothing, just stayed present with me. And something extraordinary happened: I felt lighter. Once I moved past the shame, something in me had been holding on so tightly — to my grief, my shame, my need to appear “okay.” That little bodily outburst was my system finally letting go, in a way words alone couldn’t. It was awkward, yes, but also strangely funny and deeply relieving.

Digestion is one of the first things to shut down when we’re in survival mode. People with complex trauma often present with gut issues: IBS, bloating, constipation, holding tension deep in the pelvic bowl. When the system begins to regulate, when a person begins to feel safe enough, the gut starts to move again. And sometimes it speaks. Healing, it turns out, doesn’t always smell like incense.

There’s a saying that’s been floating around the internet for a few years now: “Hot girls have IBS.” But this isn’t just a funny meme. As National Geographic reports, women have higher rates of chronic stress.

Billboard ad for BelliWelli, Los Angeles

“When you’re in a constant state of fight or flight, your gut stops moving consistently,” says Berzin of the downstream effects of stress on the gut. That can result in constipation, bloating, acid reflux, and SIBO (a frequent cause of IBS, which can also manifest on the skin as rosacea).

Trauma In the Body: Holding What the Mind Can’t

It’s not just the gut that carries unprocessed stress and trauma — the hips are one of the body’s main storage vaults for everything we push down and don’t express.

This concept sounds very “woo-woo” but stick with me, and let’s break this down: the hips are central to how we move through the world. They stabilise us, support us, carry our weight. But they can also store some of our most overwhelming emotions. Women, in particular, often feel pressure to look “fine,” to keep functioning, to smooth over the messy truth of how they feel. But those unexpressed emotions often find their way into the hips and pelvic floor.

Science backs this up. The psoas muscle — sometimes called the “muscle of the soul” — links the lower spine to the hips and is deeply tied to our stress response. When trauma is unresolved, the psoas contracts like it’s preparing to run or hide (one of the many physical manifestations of fight or flight) and it can stay clenched for years. This chronic contraction can create hip pain, pelvic tension, and even digestive problems.

The hips don’t just hold us up — they often hold our unspoken stories, too.

When someone goes to therapy, a sense of safety returns, softening those muscles and relieving that trapped tension. Sometimes that comes as a stretch or a sigh. Sometimes as tears. And sometimes, yes — as a fart.

I once worked with a woman in her sixties, Maggie, who had never told anyone about her childhood abuse. Not a single soul. She carried it in her body — you could see it in the rigidity of her spine, the tightness of her mouth. After months of slowly building trust, she shared one of the pivotal memories. As she spoke, she gripped the edge of the couch. And when she finished, a long, unmistakable fart escaped her. She froze. “Oh Christ,” she said.

I said nothing for a moment. Then softly: “That needed to come out too.” There was a mixture of laughter and tears. “I’m relieved for you,” I gently told her. It wasn’t funny. It was sacred. Her body had finally let go of something it had been holding for decades.

This is the beauty of somatic release: the body remembers, but it also knows how to free itself — sometimes in the simplest, most human ways. So when a client farts in therapy, I don’t see it as disrespectful. I see it as sacred. A release. A sign that the body is speaking in the language it knows best.

What These Moments Teach Us

The human body performs all kinds of human functions — both basic and extraordinary — and over time, some of those functions have been deemed rude or inappropriate, much like our emotions. But what if healing includes letting those functions return? What if regulation is not about stillness or silence, but movement — even noisy, messy movement? It’s not a failure of etiquette; it’s a sign that it’s finally okay to unclench, unfurl, and take up more space — fully, unapologetically.

I often say to new clients: If you cry, yawn, laugh, swear, burp, fart, shake, go silent, or need to curl into a ball — all of it is welcome. Nothing is too much.

So if it happens (and it might), let it. That yawn could be your nervous system stretching its limbs. That burp might be your diaphragm saying, “Finally.” That fart could be your gut releasing what’s no longer yours to carry.

It might feel awkward. It might be funny. It might break the tension. Or it might deepen it. Whatever happens, your body is speaking. And in therapy, we listen.

A Note to Therapists

If you’re a therapist reading this: your comfort with your own body will directly affect what your clients feel permission to bring. If you can hold space for awkwardness, gurgles, and giggles — if you can meet those moments with groundedness and zero shame — you’re doing far more than helping someone “regulate.” You’re dismantling lifetimes of embodied suppression.

Our clients are not brains in jars. They are breathing, pulsing, gas-releasing human beings. And so are we.

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