Lately,
I’ve been thinking about this tightness in my right shoulder.
What is this pain trying to tell me?
What if it’s not just discomfort,
but a quiet sign saying, “notice me.”
As a physical therapist,
I’ve seen many people living with different kinds of pain.
Most of them just want the pain to go away.
But when it comes to why the pain started—
especially when it’s not from an injury or an accident—
very few people have ever really thought about it.
When I feel pain or discomfort,
I can’t help but feel that
something, somewhere, is slightly out of sync.
Just a small misalignment.
Maybe that’s just how I see it.
But the body feels more honest,
more sincere than we are sometimes.
So maybe it’s trying to say,
“something isn’t quite right,”
“maybe pause for a moment.”
Not loudly—
but quietly, and persistently.
When I look back at myself recently,
I realize I’ve been a little restless.
This feeling comes and goes.
I want to change the way I live.
I want to feel, from the bottom of my heart,
that I am truly living my own life.
And because of that,
I feel like I need to change right now.
Like something is missing.
Like if I just had that one thing.
That sense of lack
has been rising from deep inside me,
like a wave.
Even at night, when I got into bed,
I wasn’t thinking,
“today was a good day,”
or
“I did my best.”
Instead,
my mind was filled with thoughts like
“I’m not making progress,”
or
“another day has passed.”
Maybe I wasn’t really paying attention to my body at all.
And when I noticed that,
I wondered—
maybe this tightness in my right shoulder
isn’t just “stiffness.”
Maybe it’s trying to tell me something.