“I was at a conference last week and overheard one woman telling another about her ‘frozen shoulder’. She said it had frozen up six months ago and she had just had a procedure done at great expense where doctors manipulated her shoulder while she was under general anesthetic. She had tried everything but nothing gave her relief. At this point I interrupted her, asked her if she had 15 minutes to spare and we walked off into a relatively quiet part of the hotel lobby. I asked her what was happening in her life when her shoulder “froze.” After asking her about 5 questions it appeared that she had locked away into that shoulder, anger she felt she had no right to express. She started to cry and said her daughter enlisted in one of the armed forces and left right before Christmas leaving her two children for Mom and Dad to take care of. Her level of discomfort was a “10.” I asked her to tap and start moving her shoulder and say…”Even though I am angry with my daughter for risking her life and leaving me with this burden, I deeply love and accept myself and all of my feelings. Even though I am supposed to be nice and cooperative and helpful and anger is NOT an acceptable emotion, I deeply and completely love and acknowledge my right to my feelings.” She kept rotating her shoulder with increasing range of motion as she said, “I give myself permission to acknowledge and express my anger in an acceptable way – I have the right to be angry and to say so.” We stopped there because we had limited time. She had recovered about 50% of her normal range of motion and her discomfort level fell to about a 2 or 3. All this within 15 minutes.
