How releasing tension in the shoulders can impact your life!

Are you one of the many of us who tend to carry our tension in the shoulders?

It’s common for the shoulders to hunch up towards the ears a little when we feel rushed, anxious, busy or stressed. They can do the same when we are met with feelings of fear, guilt or shame. Conversely they can droop forward and round down when we feel dull, depressed, sad or lethargic. 

These feelings, thoughts, and life situations present themselves to us all the time. As the Buddhists wisely tell us, life is suffering. Our job is not to place further suffering on the difficulties we already face, but instead to accept the moment and soften into it. We practice acceptance of what is and we add on to that an element of compassion, of softness, of consciously relaxing at will, regardless of the external circumstances. 

In Mindfulness they tell us the key to being present and minimising this suffering is to feel what we are feeling in the body. How appropriate, then, for us to practice tuning into the sensations in the shoulder area and using that awareness to move from the busy, noisy, thoughts of the mind to the mode of simply being. Being with what is. 

The shoulder joint is one of the most interesting and complex in terms of mobility and range of motion. In yoga we explore this; we take the shoulder joint through it’s full range of motion to explore freedom of movement and to notice the sensations when we feel a little stuck. By breathing, moving gently and consciously relaxing the tension naturally melts a little. It feels good. When we are feeling this we are practicing mindfulness; mind and body get to relax. 

We can practice our ability to relax the shoulders and soften at will. Try it now, on an inhale lift your shoulders up towards your ears and on an exhale allow them to soften and fall. Try that three times. Make your exhales big and deep and noisy if you’d like - the out-breath is releasing. We can do circles with the shoulders or move the arms out wide and in for a self-hug to find full range of motion.

The interesting part happens, with practice, when we fine-tune our ability to turn the attention to sensations in the body - we notice. That is our moment of mindfulness. In noticing in quiet practice we develop the skill of noticing in life. In learning to relax the shoulders as we sit to practice meditation, we learn to relax in life, consciously relaxing at will, regardless of the external circumstances. 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Victor Frankl.