I have been a chiropractor for over 20 years and know how muscles feel when they are stressed and under trauma. I know how they feel when there is a sports injury. I know how the abdominal muscles feel when there is spasm and gas. I know how the chest muscles feel when there is congestion. I know how the lower back muscles feel when there is a muscle strain, etc.

There is a certain feel to the muscles when one is feeling an emotional trauma too. This particular muscular situation has a very specific sensation. The symptoms one may be feeling in this regard vary, including losing feeling in one’s hands, wrist pain, chest pain, hand pain, lower back pain, swelling in the legs, hips and abdomen, shoulder pain and more. In other words, the symptoms can seem like many other conditions and, in fact, can occur simultaneously with another condition. However, what IS consistent is the feel of the muscles involved. They feel bunched…touchy… sensitive…slightly swollen…and there is usually a highly charged feel to them for the client suffering from the trauma.

Usually, the client isn’t able to relate the trauma they are experiencing to the “trigger” event. Often, they don’t even know that is what is happening. They just know that the pain and discomfort is often unbearable and even scary at times. When I ask them questions regarding their symptoms, they can tell me about when they started, and they can describe and locate the pain for me. What they often aren’t able to do is to pinpoint the emotional trigger associated with the actual physical event(s). They don’t usually even think of an emotional trigger as a possibility in their particular situation until I bring up the possibility.

I bring up the possibility only when the muscles have that specific feel I was describing: bunchy, touchy, sensitive, inflamed, and even unresponsive to usual treatment procedures.  Only then do I bring up the subject of a possible event or words spoken that could be a trigger to an older, unfinished, traumatic event for the client. This can be in their life time as well as a response to unconscious reactions to unresolved trauma in their ancestor’s lives.

On this past Christmas Eve, I got a phone call from my father that there was a problem. My sister was having symptoms that to her resembled a heart attack. My husband and I picked up my father, and we all went over to her house. She was having chest pain, and experiencing pain down her right arm. However, she also was panting in a panic type of breathing, and her neck was very tight and full of spasms. I asked her what happened, and she didn’t know. So, I asked her if she can remember any occasion during the day in which she was pulled, or she bent down and twisted her back in a certain way, or she was lifting something while she turned to look at something, or anything such as that.

She then remembered that she and her son were at the Botanical Garden and he had pulled on her arm just prior to her chest pain, and that she also was experiencing radiating pain into her left ring and middle finger. This fact explained the neck spasms I had felt and then I knew that she had probably pulled her neck muscles, and possibly a muscle in her shoulder, and then she also became panic stricken. She was having a panic attack along with a slight to moderate muscle injury. Her son is very strong.

With her permission, I began to massage her neck and her chest muscles, and to adjust her wrist, elbow, shoulder and neck. Everything was able to re-align after I had worked with her muscles enough for them to release a bit. I could also tell that her chest muscles, neck muscles and possibly an arm muscle were getting ready to spasm again, and noticed her shallow breathing, and the fear in her eyes. I sat in front of her, held her hands, had her look in my eyes, and told her that she wasn’t having a heart attack, and saw her begin to relax and take a deeper breath. Almost as soon as this occurred, she started to get a vague look in her eyes, breathe shallowly and keep breathing out, and told me she was feeling like she was going to pass out and that she was getting sore again.

For the next hour I, along with my father who was watching and helping with talking with her, and with helping her to accept herself, and myself doing the same with different words, we helped her to be back in her body. She still cycled from relaxation and relief to fear and anxiety and wanting to pass out, but she was more often with us and in a state of body awareness than not. I told her to hold a ball (which she could feel and squeeze) in her left hand, which represented the part of her who knew what was going on and who told herself that she was an idiot, and another ball in her right hand that she could also squeeze , which represented her little girl and scared little self.  I then had her cross the balls across her chest as she hugged them (and herself) against her body. This gave her something to actively do and focus on, and helped her to stay in her body and present experience.

We were then able to leave her for the night, knowing she could phone us if she got in trouble again that night. She was reliving two very old traumas in her life. The trigger that day was the sudden pain, and the not knowing what happened or what was going on. That pain revived old memories that were living in her as if they were happening in the here and now. As we spoke about them while I worked with her body, she was able to gain a greater understanding of what was going on, and that those old traumas still had some life in them that were not totally healed or resolved inside of her. In truth, they may not ever be totally resolved but, each time they occur, there is less intensity and more understanding in her whole being.

While I was working with her, her six year old son came up behind me and put his arms around me as if to thank me. I told him his mom was okay now, and that he was okay. too, and that if something like this ever happens again, we will be there and be able to take care of him. His relief was palpable.

In the week since that occurred, I have treated five other people who were experiencing a traumatic trigger in their bodies, and I was able to help them gain a greater understanding of what was happening, as well as help their bodies integrate their new understandings so that their bodies and minds could work together in a more conscious way, and they could know how to work through it themselves, if and when it happens again.

When this occurs, there are symptoms common to every patient; their muscles bunch, get touchy and sensitive, and become unresponsive to traditional treatment. When their muscles and bodies are spoken to, along with the minds and consciousness of the patient, and important truths are spoken, with the identification of the present trigger, and the understanding of the original trigger, a great relief is experienced throughout their total being.

Sometimes this also becomes an entry point into a family constellation in which their blind loyalties to themselves and their family members become seen and understood, and new insights are gained that can change this pattern of pain for the better.

In cases as these, the work we do together I call Body Constellations. Often, the cycles of pain and anxiety are forever broken.

This type of work is very specialized and very powerful. So to break these cycles of pain, anxiety, and chronic pain, a body constellation is often very effective.

I make these sessions available to anyone, and am happy to offer even packages to those who need more than one session, and/or come in from out of town for a very intense, specialized day’s work, or even working two or three days in a row, in the case of those coming in from out of town.

Overcoming physical trauma can be done, and I am always honored by the opportunity to be a small part of the healing process, and awed by the results.

Sometimes the actual one-on-one, hands-on process can be followed up by phone consultations, once the original trauma and triggers are more fully understood and the physical connections are addressed.

Here is to the New Year, and to helping your physical and whole beings soar!

If you would like to know more about body constellations, visit HERE.