What does tension in your shoulder reveal?

Our shoulders like the wings of a bird

Tension in your shoulder isn’t necessarily due to poor posture, too much lifting, repetitive hand movements at a keyboard or painting, it might be linked to protecting your heart. This means tightness may be due to emotions which you have needed in the past, to protect yourself. Do you still need to protect yourself in this way now? And, if not, can you release these layers of protection so you can open up to new ways of being?

I just posted a video on YouTube showing some ideas of how to work with the shoulder through touch.

I love working with the image of our shoulders being like our wings which extend out into our arms and hands. As we open out our wings, our arms, we open out our heart. As we draw them back together we draw in from those around us but, with our arms crossed, we can also protect ourselves. This image has come to me through working with the Yang Linking (Wei) Vessel, one of the powerful Extraordinary Vessels of Chinese Medicine. These Vessels are more important than the 12 commonly known meridians of Chinese medicine. The 12 meridians regulate our daily cycles but the Extraordinary Vessels regulate the 12 meridians and form the foundation of our being, guiding our growth, fertility and aging. The Linking Vessels (Yin and Yang) are about how we accumulate memories and patterns in our bodies as we live our lives. Working to release tension in them can help free emotional patterns as well as physical ones.

The shoulder is a complex area. There are many muscles and meridians here. Which to choose either when doing exercises or when giving massage or shiatsu? The Yang Linking Vessel combines some of the important release points found in the shoulder like Gall Bladder 21 (trapezius release point), Small Intestine 10 (under bone of spine of shoulder), Triple Heater 15 (behind GB21 on the trapezius and against the bone of the spine of the shoulder) and Large Intestine 14 (tip of the deltoid). I usually combine it with the Yin Linking Vessel, its pair. In the arm this is working on the inner aspect of the arm. We can include movements and stretches of the shoulder, easing out tension in the muscles and the meridians, but if someone has an injury, movement is not always possible. This is when I love working the different combinations of points of the Linking Vessel and especially using the image of the shoulder as being like our wings with our finger tips being the tips of the wings. Then the work becomes a journey of exploration on many levels, both physical and emotional. In Chinese medicine we never isolate parts of the body, so the Linking Vessels also connect into the legs. Feel your legs light, like those of a bird. Feel your bird like nature and your connection the infinite potential of space.