The Day After the Fire, She Could No Longer Raise Her Arm

Last year, I held workshops in Los Angeles.

In August and again in October.

I went to Los Angeles twice.

When I went in August, I held not only a workshop, but also a bodywork session.

Many people came.

Americans, and people from other countries as well.

Among them, there was one person I still remember clearly.

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If I were to describe her symptoms, it was frozen shoulder.

She could not raise her left arm.

Just hearing that, it sounds like a common shoulder problem.

But when I listened to her story, I had to pause for a moment.

She had experienced the large fire in Los Angeles.

Her house itself did not burn.

But the water stopped working, and she had to leave her home for a while.

To lose, even temporarily, the place where you live.

To no longer be able to stay in your own home.

That alone must have placed a great burden on her body.

And from the day after the fire, she could no longer raise her left arm at all.

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The body is strange.

A fire and a shoulder.

Evacuation and frozen shoulder.

At first, they seem unrelated.

But when you look at the body, things are not always so easy to separate.

The heart is on the left side.

Of course, I am not saying this was the direct medical cause.

But when a person receives a strong shock, some part of the body can freeze.

The chest freezes.

The breath stops.

The shoulder goes into protection.

The arm stops moving.

Things like this do happen.

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When she first came, her left arm really would not go up.

I watched the body’s responses carefully and proceeded little by little.

It did not change dramatically right away.

It took time.

After about an hour, her arm finally began to rise quite a bit.

I still remember that moment clearly.

It was as if the body was remembering something, and movement slowly returned.

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When I went back to Los Angeles in October, she came to see me again.

The second time was much faster.

In about fifteen or twenty minutes, her arm lifted considerably.

Of course, it was not as if everything had completely returned to normal.

But she seemed satisfied.

At the end, she smiled and said,

“Thank you.”

Then she left.

Seeing her expression, I felt a little relieved too.

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The body remembers events.

Even things the mind has not yet organized can be received by the body in another form.

Fear.

Shock.

Anxiety.

Having to leave the place where you live.

Having your daily life suddenly shaken.

These things enter the body before they become words.

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What a person has experienced.

What kind of place they were in.

What surprised them.

What they tried to protect.

The body responds to all of these things.

A fire and frozen shoulder.

Two things that seem far apart can sometimes be connected inside the body.