It's field trip season in Washington DC. I do NOT miss being a teenager. No way!
Over the holiday season, I mistreated my poor, valiant, noble body. I worked too much, didn't stretch enough, ate too much, didn't receive bodywork often enough. All that stupid negligence injured my shoulder. I could feel something bad was going on, but I just kept pushing pushing pushing without seeking treatments to help me heal. Some days it manifested as a terrible stiff neck, other days my shoulder hurt, sometimes both. I kept ignoring it until I was in so much pain I finally broke down and went to see the osteopath.
That was a few weeks ago. Since that first visit I've been diligent about getting top notch therapeutic massage and osteopathic treatment. I've been walking around more, remembering to stretch between sessions at work.
I've also been taking internal arnica, that homeopathic stuff I usually use in the form of a creme or gel smoothed over sore, stiff muscles. When I place the arnica tabs under my tongue, I imagine its essence finding its way into the heart of the injury (wherever that is) and subsequently working its way out to the surface. My mantra is from the inside out.
The arnica has pushed not only the deepest essence of the injury out to the surface, but also a rather monumental cache of emotional injuries I have unconsciously (and inadvertently) stored at the deepest levels of my skeletal structure. Old grudges I've held (without even knowing about them) have arisen into consciousness, people I've been pissed at for years have appeared in dreams and visions, seemingly from out of the nowhere.
I'm a bodyworker so I should know better than to ignore physical pain, yes? I say yes. But sometimes humans ignore pain, I'm not the first and I won't be the last. We always have our reasons, don't we? In working through the healing process, perhaps we are able to access wounds on many levels, as I am at this moment. I'm unclear I would have known there was so much submerged grudginess if I hadn't ignored my shoulder for so long.
I am impatient with clients who don't attend to their pain, but I'm thinking I've been wrong to insist they address what's going on as soon as possible. Maybe they, too, are working through something so deeply ingrained that there's no other way to heal it than to just hurt for awhile.
My shoulder is much better, and I am experiencing forgiveness at a profound level as well. All I can say is: wow.
13 comments:
Perhaps I also have some deep seated injuries. It seems events and people have been popping into my head, things I thought I let go of long ago. Why is this stuff returning? I'm done with it.
I thought I was done, but apparently not. But I'm letting go, letting these people off the hook. Onwards & upwards.
Reading this reminded me of our conversation about grief this weekend. I think that grief is not the only emotional response that's messy, unpredictable, and handled in as many different ways are there are humans.
Adrianne you are so RIGHT! Is it too much to say that EVERY emotion is a big ole non-rational, non-linear mess?
Yep, I think they all fit into that category.
Yikes, you've touched quite a nerve in me today :) I swear Reya, if I was one of your patients, you'd have a freakin' field day with me and my pains and all my surgeries and my great ability to ignore them.
Sometimes you have to ignore symptoms. Maybe the key to this kind of deep healing comes from the timing of when people decide to address what's going on, and how they go about it, and whether or not they're willing to listen to the pain after all is said and done.
Jeanette I would LOVE to get you on my treatment table. It would be so much fun - for us both, I think.
So glad you are feeling better.
I really think massage is the answer to almost everything, and I definitely believe inner conflicts manifest themselves in bodily ills.
Sounds like the cobbler's son goes barefoot, if you ignore pain....... However, I rarely practice what I preach --which is why I'm light on preachiness......
and when are you coming to New York?
Bolt bus is very fabulous and I have a gazillion photos of Maroc
Glad you're feeling better. (Gosh, I hated being a teenager, too!)
I am of the firm belief that we all hold negative emotions in our bodies, and that these negative emotions are harmful to us, attacking our organs, muscles, skeletons, and vascular system on a cellular level.
Anything we can do to release these negative emotions will improve our health and boost our immune systems.
I've found, though, that even as I release negative emotions, they sometimes are triggered to return until I find what that trigger is. It might be worth the added effort to find the trigger that forces you to return to these hurts.
Or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Much love and healing thoughts headed your way today, dear one.
so true. so true...! inside to outside. . . oh yeah. x j
Hey, Jude, the movement you need is in your shoulder.
Getting rid of that old chip on my shoulder. Hey Jude!!
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