The probably most fundamental information about a particle is contained in the matrix elements of its energy momentum tensor (EMT) which are accessible from hard-exclusive reactions via generalized parton distribution functions. The spin decomposition of the nucleon and Ji sum rule are one example. Less prominent but equally important information is encoded in the stress tensor, related to the spatial components of the EMT, which shows in detail how the strong forces inside the nucleon balance to form a bound state. This provides not only unique insights on nucleon structure. It also leads to fascinating new applications to hadron spectroscopy which allow us to formulate new interpretations of the charmonium-nucleon pentaquarks discovered by LHCb. Recent progress is reviewed in this short overview article.