This blog post covers the same information as two of my short YouTube videos, which you can find here and here if you prefer.
As part of our energetic anatomy, at each shoulder we have a shoulder chakras. The Sanskrit name is Skandha chakra. The quantity and quality of any chakra's energy can influence the physical aspects of the area it governs (bones, tendons, muscles, ligaments, nerves and blood supply), and there are emotional and metaphysical correspondences as well. The shoulder chakra usually relates to giving and receiving support.
In a client session, I check for imbalances in the quantities of chakra energy taken in and expressed outwardly. Is the energy enough, too much or too little? Is the imbalance due to someone's inner dynamics, or is it a response to something outside themselves?
A shoulder chakra imbalance may present as physical tension or discomfort in the shoulder area. This is not to say every shoulder problem is down to chakras: the actual cause may be injury, structural issues, hormones, posture and so on, with or without some chakra energy involvement. In some cases, the client may not feel anything is physically wrong with their shoulders and I might still find a chakra imbalance, such as an energy block related to that topic of 'support'.
This will make more sense when I discuss the case study later in this post, but here are a few examples of shoulder chakra imbalances that are based in emotions or beliefs.
- a client who suffers from a lack of support from others at work, even when they ask for help
- someone who others might label 'needy'
- a person who wants to support a beloved family member who lives far away, but they can't provide as much support as they want to
- someone who wants to help everyone, and tends to burn themselves out doing so
- someone who feels trapped by a sense of responsibility at work
- a person who may benefit from the support of others but they don't ask (maybe they don't want to ask, or they don't know they can, or they don't know how)
CASE STUDIES
Every client session is unique, so these two shoulder chakra case studies only represent a small sample of possible factors. These case details have been shared with permission and the clients' names have been changed for privacy reasons.
CASE STUDY 1: SANDRA
Sandra kept hurting her
neck and upper back whenever she did certain types of shoulder exercises. Even when she tried using very light weights to be careful, the movements could suddenly trigger muscle tension and headaches.
I checked for chakra involvement and found a shoulder chakra imbalance - in her case not enough energy was going into the back of her shoulder chakras. This means that Sandra's ‘environment’ (other people or things outside her) were not supporting her in some way. This obviously isn’t the first kind of thing you’d think of with a mild sports injury, but kinesiology does find connections like this sometimes!
In discussion with her about this, Sandra explained that she couldn’t receive support from others. The session revealed she was holding this belief unconsciously - it was a blind spot where she automatically assumed something seemingly benign, like: "Oh, I like being independent, so I need to do this all by myself". It imbalanced her in this situation, even though it had come from positive intentions, and her body was giving her a message via the physical pain.
Sandra didn’t consciously think that needing support was ‘bad’, but she was simply trying to do more things on her own and didn’t particularly like to lean on others. She actually didn’t feel like she had a problem asking when she thought she needed help, but she was usually trying to do most things on her own.
Continuing through the shoulder chakra protocol with Sandra, I did also find some
energetic stresses around physical structures like tendons, ligaments, some nerves in the neck and upper
back, and in one of the muscles related to the shoulder blade.
After clearing those blocks with energy healing, she very quickly reported
that the muscle tension eased noticeably. Sandra said it physically felt like someone had rubbed a
menthol balm on her neck - even though I had done no such thing (it was a distance healing session)!
Based on our session, there are probably other functional issues for her shoulders as well (which are out of my scope to address) but the energetic part of what I did helped ease her physical symptoms, and it made her aware of the belief that was 'hurting' her sometimes. She has since commented (months later) that she hasn't had the same type of injury/pain recurring.
CASE STUDY 2: KITTY CAT
I have also done some chakra work on a client's cat. The owner knew she wanted to support
her elderly cat, but she wasn’t sure what to do (remember, the theme of this chakra is giving/receiving
support). Kitty Cat can't speak, so I can't elaborate much, but I found a few things needing rebalancing when I went through the shoulder chakra protocol for this cat - there is a list of physical and metaphysical things I check and clear as I go.
Smaller shoulder chakra energy imbalances do still come up sometimes for this cat, but she has a chronic, age-related condition so we do mini-sessions for her fairly often to manage things. In this case, her owner notices Kitty Cat's erratic appetite and thirst as a sign to schedule an energy healing session (and a balanced appetite as a sign the session has worked).