Release Life’s Burdens – Shoulder Tension Relief Meditation

Let go of the weight you’ve been carrying in this powerful shoulder-focused meditation. The shoulders often hold the burdens of life—stress, responsibility, and emotional heaviness. In this guided practice, you’ll use body awareness and mindful breathing to gently soften and release tightness, helping you feel lighter, freer, and more at ease. Give yourself permission to let it all go—one breath, one moment at a time.

Transcript

My name is Kari.

Thank you for coming to this meditation.

I appreciate you sharing your time with me this morning.

If you haven't done so already,

Make sure that you're sat in a comfortable seated position for this meditation.

Laying down will not do the trick.

You need to be seated for this meditation.

So make sure that your spine is nice and straight.

Whether you're sat on a chair or crisscross applesauce,

Sat on your yoga mat,

Whatever it is,

Make sure that your spine is straight.

That's the most important thing with seated meditation.

Just so we can allow any energy,

Vibration,

Frequencies to travel through the spinal cord.

Do its magic connected to the chakras,

The seven main chakras.

You can rest your hands on your lap or on your knees.

If you feel like being more specific with your hands,

If you open your hands up to receive from the above,

Our guides,

Our angels,

Our masters,

Spirit.

If you need grounding,

If you need to feel more sturdy and focused and just a little bit heavier in your body this morning,

If you're feeling spacey and you need grounding,

Then place your hands down to receive energy from Mother Earth while we meditate.

Start to take longer,

Slower,

Deeper breaths.

Take your breath down deep into your abdomen.

Feel your breath as you breathe in through your nose,

Pull it all the way down through your throat,

Down into your lungs,

Down into your tummy.

And feel the journey of your exhale.

I'd like you to take all of your focus and attention to your shoulders,

Starting with your left shoulder.

Be present with that space,

That part of your body.

So put all of your attention on it,

Just feel it as it is.

Your left shoulder metaphorically represents the female side of your body.

And it's also a metaphorical representation of what you carry in the world.

Think about it,

We put our handbags on our shoulders,

We carry heavy bags,

Any kind of bag on our shoulders,

Backpacks,

Babies,

The world,

We carry the world sometimes on our shoulders.

And when we focus on the left side,

Our left shoulder,

We're specifically focusing on our female energy,

A part of our body,

A part of our energy system,

The yin,

The yang,

We're focusing on the yin energy.

It doesn't matter if you're male or female,

It doesn't matter if you're a unicorn,

Whatever amount of female energy you have in your body is represented on the left side.

And on the left shoulder,

It comes to what you carry,

Your burdens,

The heaviness.

If you take your attention over to the right shoulder,

Just feel.

This is the yang aspect of your male and female energy.

The male side of our body is connected to our male energy,

The males in our life,

And it's connected to the burdens that we carry,

The heaviness that we carry,

Connected to the male energy.

So the left is the female,

The right side is the male.

And then our bodies do a wonderful thing and those energies switch over,

They literally cross over when it comes to the head.

So the head represents something completely different.

The right side of the brain is female and the left side of the brain is male.

Just focus on the feeling across the back of your neck,

The back of your shoulders.

On your next exhale,

See if you can take a nice long,

Slow,

Deep breath.

As you exhale,

Slowly,

Purposefully pull your shoulders down,

Away from your ears.

Making more space.

Relax the back of your neck.

You can allow your chin to just lower slightly towards your chest.

Creating more space at the back of your neck.

Just very subtle changes.

And then feel,

If you can,

Your shoulders,

Like wainscales,

Left and the right.

Notice from body awareness as you sit with this space as part of your being,

If you feel any crunchiness,

Any tightness,

Any heaviness,

You may feel a general feeling in both shoulders or you may feel something more specific.

If you learn to read your body,

You have a whole other insight,

A other language,

Just like your dreams.

It's there for you from your higher self,

Speaking to you.

Your guides,

Whatever you believe in,

Coming through and talking through your body.

So feel your shoulders today.

Your shoulders might feel absolutely amazing.

You may be carrying no burdens right now.

But if your shoulders feel a little bit heavy and you feel tense or tired,

Tightness around your shoulders,

Then you can bet you're carrying some kind of metaphorical burden on your shoulders.

What's heavy in your life right now?

What do you think you're carrying?

Sit with it.

Just feel into it.

Let your body start to talk.

If you allow yourself to get a little bit more cryptic,

Even more investigative,

Investigative,

If that's a word,

Even more investigative,

You'll notice that your shoulders curl in when they're heavy.

The complete opposite would be your shoulders would be raised.

They would feel light.

Your chest would be out and expansive.

Your heart chakra is open,

Singing to the world.

Your throat is exposed.

That's when we feel good.

On the opposite end of that spectrum,

You'll notice that your shoulders curl forward if they're heavy,

Like a protective shield around that vulnerable heart chakra.

Your head might get lower with the heaviness protecting your throat chakra.

What heaviness in which part of your life are you carrying?

And if you can pinpoint something,

Let's start to just breathe into it.

We're not necessarily fixing the problem,

But we are creating space within the body so that we can put it in its place.

So start to take deeper breaths in through your nose,

More powerful breaths,

And pull them into your shoulders.

Expand your lungs as you purposely breathe through your nose with a little bit more power,

Pulling your chest forward when you do that.

Once again,

Feel that function.

If you relax completely and then take a nice big deep breath in through your nose,

Feel the expansion of your ribs.

Allow your shoulders to open and pull back a little bit and breathe out.

Breathe out nice and long and deep as if you're releasing some of that heaviness with your breath.

So we're physically doing something about our emotional heaviness.

We're not trying to fix the emotional problem right now,

But we are changing the vibration and frequency in our body by using the breath and mindfully expanding that area across your shoulders.

Instead of being trapped and tight and heavy,

We're doing the opposite.

So keep breathing nice big deep breaths in through your nose for me.

And every time let your chest expand,

Let your shoulders move back naturally.

Sticking your chest out to the world,

Saying that you can handle whatever comes your way.

Let your body speak.

Let your body start to fill with a little bit more assurance,

Assertiveness and confidence just by changing the posture,

By increasing in the power of your breath through your nose.

These are all subtle movements,

But they make such a big difference.

The way that we carry ourselves,

The way that we hold our body.

Such a simple action,

A simple meditation,

But it may be exactly what we need today.

On the exhale,

Relax your stomach.

The stomach is always a center of emotion.

It's always carrying lots of different emotions.

So if you can push out your chest and on the exhale,

Relax your abdomen.

Let it soften.

Breathe out all the heaviness from your shoulders,

The burden that you might be carrying.

Pay attention to if it's stronger in your female on the left or your male on the right.

Just to take note.

See if you can breathe it out.

On your next inhale,

Pull your shoulders up as high as you can,

Up to your ears and just keep them there tight and squeezed.

And on your exhale,

Release them,

Exaggerate the drop and let them fall.

Take a couple of breaths in between.

And then again on your next inhale,

Squeeze.

Squeeze your shoulders as tight as you can,

Up towards your neck,

Up towards your ears.

Squeeze,

Squeeze,

Squeeze,

Squeeze,

Squeeze.

On the inhale and then on the exhale,

Drop,

Release.

Feel that burn across the back of your neck and around your shoulders.

Let that burn tingle.

Allow the burn to metaphorically burn away any of the burden.

Let's do that one more time.

Pull your shoulders really tight.

Really,

Really tight,

Up around your neck.

Hold it,

Hold it,

Hold it.

So it feels super uncomfortable.

And then on your exhale,

Allow to drop completely.

Feel that rush of blood move into that part of your body.

That tingly,

Warm sensation.

And see it just burning away the burdens,

The heaviness.

With your eyes still closed,

Start to just gently,

Small circles,

Roll your shoulders forward.

So you're starting to just feel the mobility in your shoulders,

Making little circles,

Rolling forward.

Nothing too big,

Just small circles.

And then stop and roll them back,

Opening your chest.

Big,

Deep breath into that space as you roll your shoulders back.

And then you can just open your eyes,

Come back into your space,

Come back into your reality,

Ready for your day.

Feeling more supple,

Less tension,

Less heaviness.

We'll close this meditation with a Namaste,

My friends.

Reviews

Excellent shoulder-focused meditation. Interesting metaphors included.