Shoulders and Walls

For a stiff neck and raised shoulders. Wall to wall through the shoulders, floor to ceiling through the neck.

Guided open-attention meditation · about 6 minutes · eyes closed

The player includes recorded narration and adjustable room tone. Start when you are ready. You can pause or end at any point.

About the practice

This is one of the pain series, after the four steps in Les Fehmi's Dissolving Pain. Nothing in it asks you to push into pain or to change any care you are getting; it changes the shape of attention around the sensation, not the sensation itself. The narrated explainer gives the reasoning. The questions invite an experience of space and attention. There is no correct sensation to produce and no score. This player does not measure brainwaves or confirm alpha synchrony.

Transcript

Spoken cues from the session script. The recording leaves space between these lines; pauses are part of the practice.

Settle in and let your eyes close. This session is for a stiff neck, or shoulders that will not come down. Sit so a wall is somewhere behind you, near or far.

There is nothing to achieve. If the shoulders stay exactly where they are, the session still works.

Can you notice the width of your shoulders, from the outside of one to the outside of the other?

Can you imagine the distance from your left shoulder to the wall on your left?

And from your right shoulder to the wall on your right?

Can you imagine one line of open space, from wall to wall, passing straight through both shoulders?

The shoulders are not holding that line up. It passes through them whether they lift or drop.

Now the neck. Can you imagine the openness inside your throat continuing up, into the air above your head?

And the same openness continuing down, through the neck, into the chest, as one unbroken column?

Can you imagine the distance from the back of your neck to the wall behind you?

Can you imagine the distance from your collarbones to the wall in front?

Front wall to back wall, through the neck. Side wall to side wall, through the shoulders. Can you hold both distances at once?

If the shoulders are bracing, you do not need to lower them. Can you imagine the bracing itself as something that can easily fit in this room?

Can you imagine the muscles as porous, with the wall-to-wall distance passing through them as easily as through the air?

Can you let this be effortless? The walls hold the distances. You hold nothing.

Rest here, between the walls.

Before the bell, notice where your shoulders are now. Not better or worse. Just where.

When the bell sounds, open your eyes, and see if the walls can stay as far apart as they are.

Choose another meditation or read about the method and attribution.