The sixth sign of the year is Gemini. The body parts associated with Gemini are shoulders, arms, hands, lungs, and peripheral nerves. The energetic signatures of Gemini are communicating, dealing with scattered energies, anxiety, duality, and discovering the breath-mind connection.
People who have their sun sign in Gemini often tend to have shallow breathing, shoulder tension, nerve agitation due to being overstimulated or having a scattered focus.
Core Theme: communicating clearly, and learning to be adaptable.
Over the years, here’s what I observed about shoulders, arms, and lungs:
- Assuming responsibility as one’s duty
- All the have to’s, should’s, ought to’s, and obligations
- Initiating connection with another – the desire to connect or unwilling to connect
- Ability to share one’s true feelings
- The willingness or unwillingness to express one’s grief or sadness.
- Anything that one deems unacceptable emotionally – in their past and current life circumstances
Here’s an excerpt from my book, Infinite Body Wisdom, related to Gemini energy.
Rick’s Shoulder Story: Brings Forth an Epiphany
It was in my fourth year of practice that the gift of the onion presented itself in my office. This alchemical moment came when a practice member who had been under my care three years previously called from out of the blue.
In my first year of practice, Rick came in with left shoulder pain. During his initial exam, his head was 3 ½ inches forward of his spine, his right shoulder two inches higher than his left, his right hip elevated, and his left shoulder very painful. Being in my first year of practice, I didn’t understand yet how his shoulder pain could be linked to something happening in his life. I asked him the set of questions we were trained to ask, such as: When did the pain come on? What makes it feel better or worse? On a visual analog scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it (10 being the worst pain imaginable)? How did you injure your shoulder and is the pain constant or intermittent? He responded that it was probably due to repetitive overuse from work, since he was an electrician and pulled heavy cables for commercial jobs. After eight weeks of care, Rick’s left shoulder pain went away. Also at this point, his head went back from 3 ½ inches forward to 2 ½ inches forward – a significant improvement. He noted that sleep was better and overall body aches had diminished. He was very happy with the results, shook my hand, and disappeared.
Correlations Between Body and Life
Three years later, Rick was back in my office. He figured that since I had helped him get rid of his shoulder pain before, the now constant pain in both of his shoulders could also be banished in the same way. I performed a spinal examination and found that although Rick was in a lot of pain, his head was still 2 ½ inches forward from three years ago! His right shoulder and right hip were slightly higher than his left, but nothing else appeared to be amiss. He had mostly full range of motion in his shoulders, with certain movements causing him pain. However, since the time I last saw him, I had begun to observe how body aches and symptoms correlate with what’s happening in a person’s life. So my approach was a little different this time around, I began by asking, “What’s going on in your life?”
He said, “Stress.” I asked, “What kind of stress?”
Rick explained, “Well, my son is getting married.”
I began by asking whether or not he had stressful relations with his son’s fiancée or his son’s future in-laws, and Rick affirmed that there were no problems and they all got along. I asked him if money was an issue and he said “No.” A bit baffled that the key stressors of his son getting married were evidently not among the underlying causes of his intense shoulder pains, I finally asked him, “What is causing you stress?”
He replied, “The stress is due to my ex-wife, who wants me to pay for half of the wedding. And the kicker is, my family and I are not invited to the wedding!”
Shocked by this revelation, it took a while for this information to sink in, but the light bulb went on and I saw why he was in so much pain.
Memories Reveal the Answer
Curiosity prompted me to ask, “Rick, you came to me three years ago with intense left shoulder pain. What was happening in your life back then?”
Rick thought about it for a while and then his eyes got really big.
With a stunned, befuddled expression on his face, he replied, “It’s so bizarre that you ask me that question. Three years ago, my son graduated from college and my ex-wife wanted to throw a graduation party for him. The craziest thing is,” Rick paused to gather his thoughts, “she wanted me to pay for half of the party, and my family and I were not invited!”
After Rick got this “off his chest” (and shoulders), there was a serene look in his eyes and a deeper understanding shone through. I could sense the internal turmoil about what he was facing and the fact that this whole scenario of his life was again being played out. All he could do was shake his head in disbelief as this awareness began to sink in. Upon this realization, both his shoulders got intensely painful and then the pain started to ease up.
The Burden of Decision
The left side of the body represents female energy (Rick’s ex-wife), and the shoulder pain was the burden of anger and indecision he was carrying. Three years later, both shoulders were painful because the weight he was carrying was now even greater, due to the fact that his son was getting married and he still didn’t know what to do. In the end, Rick finally told his ex-wife that he’d be happy to pay for half of the wedding, but only if his family and he were in attendance.
This interaction increased my awareness of the onion’s strategy and gift. First, it demonstrated that when a particular experience is not brought into balance, it has the tendency to express the same or similar symptomatology somewhere down the road – usually with much more intensity. Second, it opened my eyes to observing the telling dynamic of which side of the body is being affected. From that time on, whenever someone had something going on with the left side of their body, I started making correlations with feminine input; the right side of the body expressed masculine energy.
From a clinical chiropractic standpoint, I was blown away by the fact that in the three years he went without chiropractic care, his head still remained 2 ½ inches forward, and did not regress to 3 ½ inches forward, even though he was in more pain than the first time he came in. I realized that the care I was offering truly instilled lifelong strategies for dealing with stress, even if symptoms do return. It just goes to show that once your body lets go of tension, it does not want to return to a posture that creates more.
As I worked on more practice members, I became increasingly aware of a constant, recurring theme. This theme was that when a person was not in a state of ease, a certain body ailment was created. As I went over a person’s history and began to ask specific questions designed to link physical injuries or traumas with what was happening currently in their lives, the more these correlations would appear. Initially when I would ask people what was going on in their life at the time they got into a car accident or when they fell and broke their arm, the usual answer was “nothing.” However, with persistence, eventually I would discover a stressful event at either the exact moment or a few days prior, and even the thoughts they were thinking at the moment they got injured. I received many big-eyed looks from my practice members the moment they recognized the stress they were experiencing concurrent with the incident or trauma. The light in their eyes at the moment of this realization is a beautiful sight! This I feel is the alchemical moment when the seed of their Tree of Life is planted. The recognition and awareness that what is going on in their bodies is a direct reflection of the stress and unbalanced perceptions impacting their lives is always the turning point.
How Can This Apply to You?
Have you ever been put in a position where you felt inferior or disempowered? Close your eyes right now and take a few deep breaths in and out. Remember a time when you gave your power away to someone you felt was stronger, more confident, and more knowledgeable than you. Once you have this memory, hold on to the experience and see if you feel any emotions. Likely you are beginning to feel irritated, and maybe anger is building up. Allow yourself to feel this anger and recognize that although you want to direct it at the seeming culprit, it was you who gave them the power. Feeling your anger and discomfort is necessary for you to create a somatic, body imprint that will remind you not to give away your power. I am not suggesting you get into a fight or create a big drama, but start training yourself in experiencing how it feels when you allow yourself to be disempowered. It is definitely unpleasant, but if you are able to fully experience and “process” it in your body, it is much less likely to return.