Bunions: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What bunions are

A bunion, or hallux valgus, is a bony lump on the side of the foot at the base of the big toe. The big toe gradually leans towards the second toe, and the joint at its base pushes outwards. The skin over it can become red, swollen and sore, and hard skin, corns and calluses often form where the shoe rubs. The second toe may be pushed into a hammer shape. A smaller version on the little toe is called a bunionette.

Bunions tend to run in families and are more common in women. Tight, narrow or high-heeled shoes do not usually cause them but can make them worse and more painful. Arthritis and very flexible joints add to the risk. A bunion does not go back on its own, and splints sold as correctors do not change its shape. Wide, soft shoes with a low heel, bunion pads, insoles, ice and painkillers ease the pain. A podiatrist can help with the shoes and the skin. When the pain is severe, an operation can realign the toe, with a recovery that takes weeks to months.

The emotional meaning of bunions

Spiritually, the toes stand for the details of the future, and the big toe for your ego, your convictions and your territory. It takes the meaning of the thumb, carried from the hand to the foot: pressure, the need for power, and the strength to act on what you value. The toe pain page covers every toe. Here the focus is the bunion.

A conflict about your values

A bunion is read as a conflict at a very deep level, one that touches your values. Something you hold to be right is being pushed aside, slowly, the way the big toe is pushed out of line. The question is which of your convictions you have stopped defending.

Living next to someone who decides

A bunion often appears while you live in a relationship with a partner or a parent you find very dominant. Letting the other person take the decisions can feel easier. Spiritually, it is also a way of stepping back from the responsibility for your own choices. Nobody can blame you for a direction you did not choose, but you are not walking your own way either.

"Mind your own onions"

In French, oignon means both an onion and a bunion, and mêle-toi de tes oignons, "mind your own onions", means "mind your own business". The pun fits. You may feel that people around you are dealing with your affairs when it is none of their concern. Or you may be reproaching yourself for getting involved, indirectly, in other people's.

When the big toe leans in

When the big toe turns in towards the others, the spiritual interpretation asks whether you feel guilty for being happy. You may be withdrawing into yourself, with the sense of no longer having a place in this world. So much is imposed on you that you want to escape, and yet you do not know which direction to take.

Over or under the second toe

A big toe that rides over the second toe asks whether you feel responsible for a younger brother or sister, or obliged to provide for them. A big toe tucked under the second asks whether you feel you submit to an older brother or sister.

Left side or right side?

Bunions often affect both feet, and one is usually worse. Spiritually, the side adds a shade. The right side carries the masculine, active principle and the left side the feminine, receptive one, in everyone. See the left and right sides of the body.

The big toe has a nuance of its own. When it is affected, the question is whether you are in conflict with obligations, with rules, or with the authority your mother has over you, and whether you feel you must obey it.

Left foot bunion

On the left foot, the mother is a symbolic one: an institution, a set of rules, an employer, a group or a belief that plays a mother's role in your life. The left side also carries feeling and receiving. A left bunion may ask whether you obey such an authority out of guilt or loyalty rather than conviction, and whether you find it hard to let your own feelings guide your steps.

Right foot bunion

On the right foot, the mother is your real mother, and her authority over your choices. The right side also carries action, work and decisions, and the men in your life. A right bunion may ask whether her voice still decides for you, or whether a dominant partner or boss has taken that place. Ask which decision about your future is truly yours, and which one you are making to keep the peace.

A gentler way to hold it

The direction is to stay open and flexible about the future, and to trust yourself in the choices you make.

• Name the value under pressure. Write down what you believe in that feels pushed aside.
• Take back one decision. Choose something small that someone else usually decides, and decide it yourself.
• Mind your own onions, kindly. Notice where others meddle, and where you do, and draw one clear line.
• Question the guilt. If part of you feels it has no right to be happy, ask where that rule came from.
• Check whose authority you obey. Keep the rules you agree with, and look again at the others.
• Move forward with conviction. Taking responsibility for your own steps is how you walk your own way.