"Here, stretch out your hand.. like this" she said. (a forward action like reaching for something in front). Now do this with the other hand. Look into the mirror. She pointed at how my left shoulder simultaneously raised itself frontward when i reached forward with my left hand.
Relax your shoulders. Do it again.
I couldn't believe my eyes. But the wall size gym mirror was not lying. My other shoulder (right) remained (still) when i performed the same action with the right hand, while my left hand would inadvertently cause my left shoulder to lift up / forward every time.
Whaat? I guess I didn't know my body as well as I thought.
Apparently there are a few groups of muscles which hold and allow function of the shoulder /arm. When the correct muscles are engage the motion is free and easy. There are the 'dominant' set of muscles and there are 'subservient' which support the dominant ones. But in my case, the the reverse seem to be true. The susposedly 'stronger' dominant group of muscles are weak(er) and overly compensated by another group ( which are normally subservient) , and this role-reversal causes my left shoulder to lift-forward when I reach in front. The dominance of this wrong muscle group around my back/shoulder is also the reason causing a constant discomfort and ache along the neck and shoulder the last 28 YEARS!!!
(and that simple experiment with my left arm uncovered WHY this persistent pain in the left neck/shoulder region the past 3 decades ).
I guess 'pain' is a good clue our body is telling us something is not quite dandy.
"It's just something your body auto adjust without you even being aware of it" she said. A phenomena called "muscle memory" remembers this wrong pattern of muscle use whenever the arm moves forward. Thus a self perpetuating problem.
Not only I have to work on strengthening this particular set of muscle but I have to also program a new pecking order to these shoulder muscles. The weaker muscles (as they strengthen) will need to learn to become dominant in order to correct the situation. ( oh life.. complicated..)
Quite a revelation for me that all these years, my left arm forward movement has been somewhat 'cacat'
Anyway, as I ponder my predicament I cannot help but wonder the parallel applications in the area of our minds/thoughts.
Quite easily we can get so entrench in certain patterns of thinking as result of growing up dealing with issues it reinforces a certain view of ourselves ( and the resultant knee-jerk response (choices) to life circumstances that we don't even ever realize our reasoning could be off-tangent or just plain flawed.
Frankly, I think this problem is more prevalent than we care to admit.
(I guess that's where the head shrink comes in)
It s especially challenging when some things (bad) in our life have always been , and we come to accept that it will 'continue' to be the same, but i truly believe if we allow another trusted person to help us, together we can examine really why we tick a certain way; But first we need ask some hard honest questions about ourselves and tock about it ( couldn't help the pun). Yeah help comes only when we talk about these things.
Well if there is a consistent (and persistent) pattern to our lives that brings pain/discomfort, you can be sure that is the 'clue' that certain things are not quite right. Illusions can be so real sometimes we don't really figure what is real or what is not. ( er, care for the red pill or the blue pill - hello Matrix). We can be easily caught in a fog where black can seem white and vice versa.
But you get what I mean.
No I'm not telling to engage in destructive self introspection, but if you have been your own victim and suffering the discomfort, just be open to what God* is saying.
Well that's all folks (actually I don't know why I penned all of this down).
Until next time.. Ta.
* if you are a Christian, then you might be interested to know about Dr. Henry Wright.
In his book "A More Exellent Way" he goes on to link many of the common diseases like arthritis and even cancers to areas of bitterness and unforgiveness in our hearts/minds.
Certainly, psychosomatic disorders (the mind/body/spirit link) is more pervasive and penetrates deeper than we think.
The apostle Paul exhorted us to "renew our minds". We just need to be open to hear what the Holy Spirit saying to us.
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