Fiction Writing and Sleuthing the Emotions Behind My Neck Pain

The following is a free-form writing exercise I used this morning. What started as a tug to write some fiction morphed into energetic sleuthing to uncover the emotional source of some neck pain I’ve had. I started out by pulling up a blank page in Word and writing whatever came … as if I were writing a novel about someone else. What I discovered was that this exercise helped tremendously. Perhaps it will give you some ideas for how you can process your own emotions.

She looked out her second story window across the property. The sky was a cloudy gray, and the naked shagbark hickories were sporadically adorned with squirrel’s nests and mistletoe clumps. It had been drizzling that morning, but by 10:00 a.m. it had stopped, leaving puddles on the dirt driveway.

She’d had a massage appointment scheduled that morning to work a crick out of her neck, but her masseuse had a family emergency and rescheduled. This meant she had the morning free to do something else. Her client appointments didn’t start until two. Why not write? she thought. It had been over a year since she released her last novel. While she had no new ideas percolating, she felt the familiar stirring, the deep desire to write fiction.

Fiction sent her mind into another world for months. It was an escape from reality to step into the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the 1920’s, or into a dystopian future. To write fiction, she immersed herself in the period. Her characters became real people to her. In many ways fiction-writing was a means of escape. In the past, escaping reality kept her sane and happy. These days, her life was as close to ideal as she’d ever dreamed, so there was no constant pull into another time and place.

Yet, the tug to write fiction still stirred within her. Perhaps it was a call to flex her creative muscles. Was that what was lodged in her neck? Had her creativity knotted up in her neck? Or was it the people who’d been a “pain in her neck” a couple weeks ago?

She’d already had one massage the week before and her masseuse told her that the trouble wasn’t so much the neck as some knotted muscles on her left side a few inches below her armpit. Many times, the source of our pain isn’t where the problem is. It’s really in another location. More importantly, the ultimate source of our pain is usually emotional. Stress, tension, unresolved emotions can cause knots which radiate pain out to other places – like the neck.

The first massage had eased her pain significantly, yet it was still there. She’d worked through her emotional issues and eased up on her workout routine for a few days, yet whenever she stretched or turned her neck to the left or right, there was that stabbing pain toward the base of her skull.

Emotions and Beliefs Behind the Pain

She looked up “neck problems” in her copy of “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die” book:

Moving under pressure
Want to let feelings out but don’t dare
Inflexible state of mind
Not wanting to yield to opinions you think are wrong
Non-acceptance and rejection of others.

All these related to that “pain in the neck” situation. Yet, she’d resolved that. She’d processed that. She addressed some deep emotional pain that had resurfaced with the situation. Why did the neck pain remain?

What about muscles in general? What did the book have to say about that?

Feelings of guilt
Not performing to your standard
Unable to “own” something you have or have not done

She used kinesiology (muscle testing) to see which one fit, but she knew it before she even tested it: “Not performing to your standard.” Why did that one give a little tug at her solar plexus?

She’d been quite successful in business in the past. She’d published over thirty books. Yet, these days she felt drawn in a different direction. Her quest was more about being than doing – more about spiritual exploration than monetary pursuits.

She and her husband ran a business and she enjoyed working with their clients. Their clients seemed happy and satisfied. She didn’t care about building a large, time-consuming business anymore. She loved her life the way it was – simple with lots of time for gardening, landscaping, creativity, writing, learning, and traveling with her husband.

Yet, why did she feel like she wasn’t performing to her own standard? Why did she feel like she was capable of being so much more? She wasn’t even sure what more looked like. She played the piano and created her own music. It was “pretty good,” but not as great as she’d like it to be. She still had a lot to learn. She loved to learn, so that’s a good thing – right? Lots of room to learn and grow is a good thing.

She enjoyed writing books, but she hadn’t written an Amazon bestseller in several years. Was that her “standard?” Amazon bestsellers? Meh…

Her marriage was great. Finances were okay and improving. Was she still measuring her value by her ability to make money? Uggh! Couldn’t she get past that? She’d been working on releasing her money-making ability from her identity for four years.

Left Side Vs Right Side Symbolism

Hmm… the pain in her neck and the knot were on the left side. Left side represents spiritual direction, feminine side, or the protecting, receiving, taking side. If it was finances, it would usually be on the right which is the masculine side, the fighting, giving, releasing, providing side.

Maybe she wasn’t living up to her spiritual standard? She muscle-tested to see if she was living up to that standard. No. Feminine standard? No. Protecting standard? No. Receiving standard? No. Taking standard? Yes. What the heck were her standards on these things?

Articulating a “Spiritual Standard”

The only one of these that had any standards in her mind was a spiritual standard. The typical Sunday School answers of read your scriptures, say your prayers, go to church came to mind. She could use a better daily scripture study, but she prayed a lot throughout the day and even at night when she lay there unable to go back to sleep. She went to church regularly, etc.

This was something else… not Sunday School answers. It was a feeling that she needed to BE more loving, more compassionate, slower to judge herself or others. She wanted to spend more time in her core divine self – that eternal spirit part of her that didn’t let other people’s words or actions trigger her, didn’t let the world’s nonsense rattle her.

Somewhere over the last year of studying books on being enlightened, awakened, Christ-like and compassionate, she’d set a standard for herself. The last conflict she’d had with others proved that she had not made the progress she’d hoped to have made. She still hadn’t “awakened” to a more “enlightened” state where she let those types of conflicts roll off her back and continued to feel unconditional compassion. She still let other people’s words make her angry.

Darn it! She was still very, very human. She wasn’t “receiving” whatever life or others tossed her way and instantly looking for the good. She could get to a relaxed acceptance after some processing and releasing, but it wasn’t instant. She wasn’t yet the “wise old woman” she envisioned herself being as she landscaped their property. She hadn’t achieved her “feminine standard.”

Protecting Others

As for a “protecting standard,” what was that? Her energy said she wasn’t feeling it, whatever it was. It felt like it had to do with protecting her husband. She felt a great ineptitude in protecting him from other people’s false accusations or ridicule.

Why did people have to be so mean? Why were people so quick to judge someone they never took the time to know or understand? Why couldn’t she protect him from the pain their words and actions inevitably brought him?

Why wasn’t her love enough to shield him from that pain? Why wasn’t she spiritual or loving or feminine enough to make his world emotionally safe from other people’s judgement?

Knowing What Is Ours to Manage

Hmmm, was that even her job? She was still figuring out how to do that for herself. Wouldn’t that be his responsibility to figure out how to not let others hurt his feelings? He would say it was. Why was she owning it?

She’d already resigned herself to the fact that she couldn’t control other people. Everyone has their own freedom to choose … even if they choose to self-destruct. What made her think she could control the feelings and emotions her husband had when he thought people were mean to him?

As she thought about what she’d uncovered, she had a few affirmations come to mind for herself:

I am living in my divine feminine.
I release the need to protect other people from their emotions or the pain of their own healing journey.
I accept life as it is and look for the good.
I release my attachment to life or circumstances looking or being a certain way.
I see the challenge and support in any event or situation and embrace and feel gratitude for the support.
I am compassionate, loving and accepting.
I release the need to be perfect and show myself compassion along my journey of self-development.
My journey is unfolding perfectly; everything is happening for my highest and best soul development.
I own that I am a feminine, loving woman, and I receive the love being shown to me by God and others.
I offer acceptance, connection, and community to others.
My journey to greater connection to the Divine blesses my life and the lives of those who associate with me.
I am enough.

Summary

After doing this exercise, I noticed a significant lessening of pain in my neck. There’s still a bit of a twinge when I do a deep stretch to either side, but I anticipate it will continue to lessen from here. I also have my massage rescheduled for next week. Even though clearing the root emotions is important, the body still may need things addressed on a physical level as well.

Here is a summary of the process I used:

Start with a blank page and write. When I began, I had no idea what I wanted to write or where writing would lead.
Remain open to possibilities. I simply starting writing on a blank page whatever came to mind. In this instance, I documented what I was seeing out my window.
I wrote about myself in the third person as if I were writing about a character in a novel. If this isn’t comfortable for you, you don’t have to do it that way. You could write first person. All my novels are in 3rd person. Third person helps me step back from myself and see my situation objectively.
Write down whatever comes to mind.
Lookup messages from the body. If a part of my body came to mind or if I felt something in my body, I looked up the emotions related to that body part in the Feelings Buried Alive Never Die book (actually, I used the “Feelings” app for the book on my iPhone).
Muscle-testing can help you sleuth faster. I used muscle-testing to pinpoint whether something from the book had a high or low vibration for me.
Pay attention to which side of the body a pain or sensation is on. This gave me a clue as to whether what I was finding was related to masculine or feminine traits or giving or receiving characteristics.
Document what you uncover.
Create positive affirmations. I created some positive affirmations and used SimplyALIGN™ to infuse those affirmations into my energy system. The way SimplyALIGN™ works is if you pour in the light, the darkness leaves. When you pour in a higher vibration, positive affirmations, any conflicting, lower vibration, limiting beliefs leave.

I hope this documentation of my own emotional sleuthing gives you some ideas for your own. If you need some help sleuthing the emotional source of pain in your life, click here to book a SimplyALIGN™ session with me.