Corns and calluses: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What corns and calluses are

Corns and calluses are areas of thick, hardened skin that form where the skin is rubbed or pressed again and again. A callus is a broad, flat patch of hard skin, often on the sole or the heel, and it keeps the normal skin lines on its surface. A corn is smaller and deeper, with a hard, often yellowish centre that presses inward and can be painful. Corns usually appear on the tops or sides of the toes, between the toes, or on the sole. A soft corn between the toes can look white and moist.

The usual causes are tight or poorly fitting shoes, high heels, walking or standing a lot, going without socks, and foot shapes such as bunions or hammer toes. Comfortable shoes, cushioning pads, moisturising and gently filing hard skin often help. A podiatrist can safely remove hard skin and look at the cause. People with diabetes or poor circulation should have their feet checked rather than treating corns themselves. A plantar wart can look similar but is caused by a virus.

The emotional meaning of corns and calluses

The feet take you forward. With a corn or callus, something catches a little as you go. Spiritually, the thickening is read as a sign that moving ahead has become effortful, and that the same friction keeps coming back in the same place.

Calluses and apprehension

A callus is linked to an attitude of apprehension about your present life. You may not see all the good things already there, so you do not fully enjoy them. Life can feel hard on a material level, and moving forward takes a great deal of effort. You want to launch yourself towards the future, but you hesitate, and then you either push too hard or not hard enough. The question is simple: what is bothering you so much that you cannot live in the present moment?

Corns and a deeper guilt

A corn hurts more sharply, and the spiritual interpretation sees in it a deeper sense of guilt. It is linked to the fear of walking into the unknown with confidence, and to finding it hard to stay "natural" and do things simply. You may let other people decide for you. In French, cor (a corn) sounds like corps (the body): an inner pain that you avoid expressing ends up showing itself in the body.

Hardening around friction

Hard skin is protection, and protection can turn into hardness. You may notice that you are toughening yourself against someone, perhaps even with a wish for revenge. Your emotions can feel so knotted that they stop you from reaching your goals. Some people feel that their mother is keeping them from living their own life. Rather than take any of this as fact, you can ask:

• Who is a "thorn" in my life at the moment?
• Which situation do I live over and over, with pressure or a great deal of friction?
• Are sadness, sorrow, or the fear of failing behind the difficulty of living today or facing tomorrow?

Having hard skin or a corn removed by a podiatrist is proper care, and it brings real relief. The inner question can be explored alongside it.

Left side or right side?

Spiritually, the left and right sides of the body can add a shade of meaning. The right side is linked to action, logic, decisions and the men in your life. The left side is linked to feelings, intuition, receiving and the women in your life.

• On the right foot, the friction may sit in work, material effort, or a direction you feel pushed to take.
• On the left foot, it may sit in your emotional life, in what you find hard to receive, or in a relationship with your mother or another woman close to you.

A gentler way to hold it

The direction is to look honestly at what bothers you so much that it stops you going forward, and to let the dark thoughts and the guilt go. You are then more "in tune" with life. In French, being en accord with life carries the same sound as cor. Trust in the future can grow from there.

• Name the thorn. Say, at least to yourself, who or what keeps rubbing.
• Notice one good thing in the present. Apprehension makes it easy to miss what is already going well.
• Make one decision yourself. Take back a choice you have been leaving to others.
• Let the pain have words. What is not said tends to harden.
• Look at the guilt. Ask whether it is still deserved, and whether it still helps anyone.
• Change the shoe, too. Easing the physical friction and the inner one can go together.