Arms and hands: emotional and spiritual meaning

The arm runs from the shoulder to the hand. The shoulder carries, the elbow bends, the hand grasps, and the fingers do the fine work. A break, a dislocation, a deep cut and a sudden loss of strength are medical events. Sudden weakness of one arm, with trouble speaking, is an emergency.

In the emotional reading, the arms are how you embrace life, give and receive, and pass into action. They sit close to the heart, and the source says love and energy are felt to come from the heart when you are open. The hands carry that further: they take, they give, they do the work, and they can also make a fist.

Arms, elbows and shoulders

The arms represent your ease in embracing life, in welcoming new experiences, and in acting. You use them to touch and to hold, to express creativity, the potential for action, and love. You come closer to people, or you show them that you love them. You also do your work and meet your obligations with them. Crossed arms are read as protection: you close yourself to feelings that do not suit you. Opening the heart and the arms is the acceptance the entry describes.

The elbows are freedom of movement. They are the flexible joint that lets you change direction, transfer a desire into an act, and welcome a new idea. Pain or stiffness means a lack of flexibility, and the fear of feeling trapped in an unpleasant situation. You may judge people whose way of doing things questions your habits. When the routine is "unstitched", the elbows react. You can fear being incompetent in a domain you care about, and then being unable to support your family. You resist a new direction by blocking, without knowing it, the energy of the heart on its way to this joint. You feel obliged to do things against your will, to "use your elbows". You fold in on yourself because you distrust the world, and you stay on your positions.

The shoulders are the capacity to carry a load: joys, sorrows, responsibilities and insecurities. If you make yourself responsible for other people's happiness, the weight increases and the shoulders hurt. You have too much to do. Things are imposed, or you are not helped, and you feel blocked. The source distinguishes affective insecurity, placed on the left shoulder, from material insecurity, placed on the right. You do not feel supported. You are so afraid of tomorrow that you forget to live today. The responsibility of having to create, to do and to succeed can crush you. Throwing the shoulders back to prove you can face things is read as a front. The back behind them is the part the entry calls weak and twisted by the weight.

Hands and fingers

The hands are the capacity to take, to give or to receive. They realise the act and carry out the work. When they are damaged you feel powerless, because the power of touch is so great. The left hand is the hand of the heart: it receives. The right hand is the will and the power: it acts and affirms. Between your hands are the situations of the day. Their state shows how far you grasp your reality, how you express love as well as hate in the form of a fist, and how you "manipulate" events or people.

Cold hands are read as an emotional withdrawal from a situation or a relationship. You may also be refusing to look after your basic needs. Clammy hands are an excess of anxiety and nervousness. You are overwhelmed. You want to put the fire out yourself. Pain or cramps mean you refuse to be flexible.

The fingers are the prolongation of the hands. They are action in the present moment, the details of the day, dexterity. A hurt finger is read as trying to do too much, clinging to details, going too far or too fast. Your attention is on too many things. You are impatient about gestures you feel you must perform. The French doigt, finger, sits next to devoir, duty, and the source uses that closeness. Guilt makes you fear being rapped on the knuckles, or biting your fingers over something you said. A crushed finger raises the question of who, or what, is crushing you, and the fear of losing what you have.

Caring for the arms from the inside

Injury, nerve entrapment, arthritis and heart disease can all declare themselves in the arm. The emotional perspective adds a question: what am I holding, and what am I unwilling either to give or to receive?

• Notice crossed arms. Protection is useful. A permanent closure is the reading's warning.
• Ask whose happiness is on your shoulders. A load that is not yours is what makes them hurt in this picture.
• Separate left and right. Receiving and acting are the two hands. One without the other is incomplete.
• Look at the detail you are gripping. Impatience about a small gesture is the finger's theme.
• Change one direction. A stiff elbow is the fear of being trapped in the old way.
• Treat chest pain and sudden weakness as medical. An emotional reading never waits out a possible stroke or heart attack.