Left shoulder pain: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What left shoulder pain is

Left shoulder pain is pain in or around the left shoulder joint, from the top of the arm to the base of the neck. Most of the time it comes from the shoulder itself: an irritated or torn rotator cuff tendon, bursitis, osteoarthritis, frozen shoulder, or an injury after a fall. A trapped nerve in the neck can also be felt in the shoulder, often with tingling down the arm. For right-handed people the left is the less-used shoulder, so pain there is less often simple overuse, though carrying a bag, a child or a heavy load on that side can be enough.

Left shoulder pain also deserves a second thought, because the heart can send pain there. In a heart attack or angina, pain or pressure in the chest often spreads to the left shoulder and down the left arm, or to the jaw, neck or back. In women, older people and people with diabetes, the signs can be quieter: shoulder or arm discomfort, breathlessness, nausea, sweating or sudden exhaustion, with little chest pain. Sudden left shoulder or arm pain with chest pressure, breathlessness, sweating, nausea, or pain spreading to the arm or jaw needs emergency help at once: call 999 in the UK, 911 in the US or 112 in the EU.

Pain at the very tip of the left shoulder after a blow to the left side of the tummy can come from the spleen, and needs emergency care. Frozen shoulder, which can affect either side, makes the joint painful, then very stiff, over months. Most ordinary shoulder pain improves with relative rest, simple painkillers, gentle movement and physiotherapy. The page on shoulder pain covers the condition as a whole.

The emotional meaning of left shoulder pain

Spiritually, the shoulders carry your loads: your joys, your sorrows, your responsibilities and your insecurities. They are also the path along which the energy of the heart travels into the arms and hands, so that what you feel can become what you do. In the map of the left and right sides of the body, the left side carries the receptive, feminine principle, in men and women alike: feeling, creativity, tenderness, receiving, the home, and the women in your life. So the left shoulder tends to carry the loads of the heart.

Emotional insecurity

Shoulder pain on the left is linked above all to affective insecurity: the fear of not being loved enough, of losing someone, of a bond that might not hold. You may carry that fear like a weight you never put down, adjusting yourself to keep the peace and keep people close.

Carrying the happiness of those you love

The load grows heavy when you make the happiness and well-being of the people around you your personal task. On the left, those people are usually family: a partner whose moods you manage, a child whose life you try to smooth, a parent who leans on you. There is always one more need to meet, and it lands on the same shoulder.

The good parent, the good child

Tension in the left shoulder is linked to how you see yourself as a good parent, or as a good son or daughter to your own parents. You may run yourself down in that role, measuring every gap between what you give and what you think you should give. The left shoulder may ask whose standard you are using, and whether it is a fair one.

Under your wing

Behind a sore left shoulder there can be remorse: the feeling that you failed to keep someone you love safe under your wing. Thoughts of "I should have" come back again and again. Guilt and regret add their weight, and fear for the people you love can become so strong that today goes by unlived.

Feelings that do not reach the arms

When the heart's energy cannot travel down into the arms, the shoulders stiffen. On the left, this often means feelings you hold back: affection you do not show, hurt you do not mention, creativity you keep for later. Wearing a cheerful mask to cover worry has the same effect. If raising the arm is what hurts most, the question may be how free you feel to fly with your own wings inside your family.

Receiving a shoulder to lean on

The feminine side is also the side of receiving. In French, to be épaulé, literally "shouldered", is to be supported. A painful left shoulder may ask whether you allow anyone to support you, or whether receiving help, comfort or love feels harder than giving it. For a man, this can touch the difficulty of welcoming emotion from others. For a woman, it can touch a part of her femininity she keeps for others and never for herself.

The other side

Right shoulder pain is linked to material insecurity and to the weight of work, money, authority and having to succeed. The left shoulder asks what you carry for love, the right what you carry to provide and prove yourself. The page on shoulder pain holds both sides.

A gentler way to hold it

• Name the people you carry. Write their names, and next to each, what you have taken on for them.
• Hand back one load. Let one person you love take care of something that is theirs to carry.
• Be a fair judge of yourself. When "I should have" comes up, ask what you could reasonably have done with what you knew then.
• Let the feeling reach your hands. Show one piece of affection, or say one hurt, instead of holding it in the shoulder.
• Accept a shoulder to lean on. Say yes once this week when someone offers help.
• Come back to today. When fear for tomorrow takes over, notice one thing in the present that is all right.
• Move gently. Physiotherapy, warmth and easy movement help the joint while you look at the load.