Last month I strained some of my Rotator Cuff muscles through my left shoulder and back, leaving me in the most agonising, consistent pain I have felt for a very long time, leaving me at a place of re-evaluation and contemplation.

One of my most treasured offerings, as part of my work is Healing with Sound. I love this work, using Crystal Singing Bowls, Koshi Chimes, Tibetan Singing Bowls and Tuning Forks. I offer one on one Sound & Energy Healing, as well as Group Sound Healing Meditations. This means transporting all my gear in and out of my car to my healing spaces, and they are quite heavy. Unfortunately, one day I decided to load up all of my gear, including the linen for the massage table, and carry it back to my house in one trip. I live on a farm, and had to walk about 40m from my car to home, and like everything I pushed through the weight I was carrying with my usual mantra of ‘You can do it! Not far now!’ Of course I did do it, but in the process, overloaded my shoulder and strained some muscles.

The pain didn’t come until the following morning, and I knew something was very wrong. It had aggravated an old injury, and pulled out one of my ribs, a thoracic vertebra and a vertebra in my neck. The pain was excruciating! A stabbing pain on the inside of my scapula, the nerves also affected, as my fingers had gone numb, and searing pain in my elbow, radius, back and whole rotator cuff. I took myself to the chiropractor, but I couldn’t even lie flat, front or back. A few days later it had calmed enough for him to release the misaligned bones, but the intense shoulder and arm pain was relentless, and fingers still numb.

Over the course of 3 weeks, with heat packs, hot water bottles, liniment, and nurofen, I tried desperately to find comfortable positions to sit, or worse try to sleep. I was delirious, I couldn’t concentrate, nor focus, I was nauseous, and in tears. Dragging myself through the chores of each day, trying to release the pain with trigger point, only to find it cycling through each muscle with no relief.

I have a strong connection to my Spirit Guides, I work with angels, and I questioned over and over, what is the medicine? What is the teaching I needed to discover though this pain I had manifest. The pain itself came in waves, forcing me to breathe, to let go. Then it would change to another place and I would cycle through again. It blurred my usual meditative focus and connection, and I spiraled down into crying out Why? I began to empathise with everyone who suffers through chronic pain, and need to turn to any form of pain relief. I’ve never liked taking medication, but to get me through those first few weeks I had to. Then I began to work with the pain, where it had manifest, my left arm, my ribs, my clavicle, my scapula. Right in deep within my shoulder. Taking responsibility.

In Atom Bergstrom’s book, Compendium of Body Language he says: the shoulder relates to the ‘burden of responsibility’, traumas. What you ‘should’ be doing. It got me thinking about the desire to share my gifts with the world, but having to fit it into the business framework, I was losing focus of unique expression, and was taken up with what I should be doing with my business, to fit into the ‘accepted’ framework. I was pushing through, instead of going with the flow. Anticipating the outcome, instead of surrendering and trusting the journey. It was time for me to move through the next phase of my transition, to take responsibility for myself. To be kind and loving to my own vessel, to come back to honouring this amazing physical form that again I had neglected, pushing it too hard.

Then came the break through! My dear friend and her training in traditional chinese medicine, gave me a few sessions of acupuncture attached to electric current. Wow. The muscle behind my scapula was able to release, and so began the slow unwinding of acute tension. I was able for the first time to slow my breathing, yes it was still extremely painful, but the crippling agony and nausea was released. I could finally see a light at the end of a tunnel.

And so began the slow healing journey, putting everything on the back burner to focus on healing, releasing, surrender. It would take a few more weeks, a few more setbacks that came in the form of the winter flu. Inner changes were beginning to precipitate to my outside world, a change in direction, in focus, a lifting of the burden I placed upon myself. Through the end of it all, I could once again reconnect with my spirit guides, trusting in the journey my higher self has chosen for this incarnation.

Drawing on the wisdom of patience and trust.