Over the years, I’ve marveled at how tension mounts in the same places in people’s bodies. Without fail, there’s a stubborn knot where the neck meets the shoulders on the right side.
Image Credit: ID 58121001 © Studio Grand Web | Dreamstime.com
I call this junction of neck and shoulders the Crossroads of Mind and Body. A lot of nerves pass through that narrow intersection, converting signals from body to brain and brain to body.
I used to wonder, “Why the right side?”
The left hemisphere of our brain controls the right side of the body, and the left hemisphere is responsible for very masculine activities. Ambition, linear logic, language, abstract thought, number skills, and scientific skills.
The right hemisphere controls more feminine energies, like emotion, imagination, putting language into context, social cues, and music.
Left brain sees chaos and imposes order. Right brain sees structure and wants freedom.
As your devoted massage therapist, I see both and want them to make amazing things happen – without getting tangled up in muscle knots.
My Educated Guess is a Working Theory
I’ve developed a working theory that I share with clients. Since our world is so driven by science, technology, and ambition, I believe that spot on the right side of the neck is overstimulated and stressed to the max. We spend a tremendous amount of our time and energy solving problems and making things orderly. Our right brain gets neglected and doesn’t come out to play as often as it needs.
Something anyone can do
Sometimes I give clients homework. It’s worth a try, especially if you catch yourself with your shoulders hunched up.
Get a giant crayon, chalk, marker, or anything that’ll make a mark. Get something big to draw on – construction paper, a massive canvas, or anything you don’t mind making a mess on.
Hold the crayon, paintbrush, chalk, or marker in your non-dominant hand and just let loose. Make marks. Try not to fixate on what you’re going to represent with your artwork. It doesn’t have to be anything “real”. It could be, but it doesn’t have to be.
Make wide motions with your arm. Hold the crayon loosely without gripping it tight. Keep your wrist loose and fluid. If you drop the crayon, so much the better. You’re staying loose and getting closer to being in flow.
Fill in the page or canvas from top to bottom and side to side.
Give yourself permission
Give yourself permission to lose control. Surrender to the colors and freedom of the motion. Shake out your shoulders from time to time, step back and wiggle your hips.
No one (including you) is allowed to judge you one way or another for how this process goes or what it’s supposed to achieve.
Think of the end goal as open-ended. You’re dumping as much of that pent up tension out of your body as possible. How it gets done is nobody’s business.
That tension got pent up by holding on too tightly to life’s goings-on.
It gets evicted by loosening up all the societal restrictions we place on ourselves. F*ck ‘em. There’s a time and place for societal niceties and PC behavior.
There’s a time and place for leaving it all aside. Structure and order vs. freedom and chaos. We really don’t spend enough time embracing freedom and unstructured activities.
See if that stubborn knot where the neck meets the shoulders on the right side starts to let go and unwind.
Give it a go and let me know in the comments how it felt to shrug off the pressure for a while.
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