Left jaw pain: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What left jaw pain is

Left jaw pain is pain felt in the left side of the lower or upper jaw, the chewing muscles, or the left temporomandibular joint, the hinge just in front of the left ear. Most of the time it is mechanical. A temporomandibular disorder (TMD) can affect one side more than the other, especially if you chew mainly on that side, sleep on it, rest your chin on your left hand, or clench and grind your teeth. It shows as an ache in the jaw or cheek, pain around the ear, clicking, and difficulty opening wide.

Dental causes are common on one side: a decayed or cracked tooth, a tooth abscess, or a wisdom tooth coming through at the back of the lower left jaw. Sinusitis can make the upper teeth and jaw ache. An ear infection can be felt in the jaw. Trigeminal neuralgia causes brief, severe, electric-shock pains on one side of the face.

The left jaw also matters for a more serious reason. Pain from the heart, in angina or a heart attack, can spread to the jaw, and it is classically felt on the left. In women, older people and people with diabetes, jaw pain, breathlessness, nausea or unusual tiredness may be the main signs, with little chest pain. Sudden left jaw pain with chest pressure, breathlessness, sweating, nausea, or pain spreading to the arm needs emergency help at once: call 999 in the UK, 911 in the US or 112 in the EU. In people over 50, pain in the jaw muscles when chewing, with a new headache at the temple, can be giant cell arteritis, which needs urgent treatment to protect the eyesight.

Ordinary TMD usually improves with soft food, warmth, gentle jaw exercises, relaxation, painkillers and sometimes a dentist-made night guard. The page on jaw pain covers the wider picture.

The emotional meaning of left jaw pain

Spiritually, the jaws are where you begin to take in and digest what life brings you, food and reality alike. They show how much you can swallow, physically and emotionally, and they stand for your inner power: to open up to someone, to speak, to face opposition. 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, tenderness, intuition, receiving, the home, and the women in your life. On the left, the jaw tends to hold what you feel rather than what you think.

What you are asked to swallow

Some realities are hard to swallow, and on the left they are usually emotional ones: a loss, a family situation that hurts, a partner's choice, a distance that grew between you and someone dear. The mouth is also linked to words that wounded you, and to words you longed to hear that were never said. When explanations never came, you may keep chewing the same moment over, looking for a meaning you cannot get on your own.

A cry held in

Jaw trouble is read as appearing when you clench to stop something coming out. On the right, that is often anger. On the left, it may just as well be a cry of inner pain, tears you will not let fall, or sorrow you think nobody would want to hear. A left jaw that clicks can sit with avoiding any confrontation, and with the habit of swallowing your tears instead.

Muzzled at home

Some people feel muzzled: unable to express their real sorrow, even if their remarks to others come out sharp. On the left, this is often a family matter. Tension or inequality between your parents may have troubled you, and you wanted to answer back but felt too uncomfortable, or the moment never came. Perhaps you were told to be quiet as a child, and quietly concluded that your feelings did not count. The left jaw may still be holding that conclusion.

The lower jaw and the mother

The two jaws are each given a parent: the upper jaw the father, the lower jaw the mother. When the ache sits low on the left, both meanings point the same way, towards your relationship with your mother and with the feminine. The question may be what you never said to her, what you needed to hear from her, or what she taught you about whether feelings were safe to show.

Tenderness without words

The feminine side is also the side of comfort and receiving. Can you say "I love you" or "I am hurting"? Are you at ease when someone comforts you? A tight left jaw may ask whether tenderness, given or received, gets stuck on the way out. For a man, it may touch the difficulty of voicing or welcoming emotion. For a woman, it may touch a part of her femininity she keeps quiet.

The other side

Right jaw pain is linked to speech in action: anger kept behind the teeth in a power struggle, the fear of contradicting an authority, and the gap between what you think and what you dare say at work. The left jaw asks which feeling you swallow, the right which firm sentence you hold back. The page on jaw pain holds both.

A gentler way to hold it

• Unclench and listen. When you notice your jaw tight, ask what you were about to feel, not only what you were about to say.
• Say one feeling aloud. Alone, to a friend, or in a letter you do not send.
• Let tears come when they come. Crying is a way of speaking too.
• Ask for the words you need. If you are waiting for an explanation or a kind word, consider asking for it plainly.
• Look at the old rule. If you learnt as a child that feelings were too much, ask whether that rule still serves you.
• Welcome comfort. Let someone look after you once this week, and notice how it feels.
• Rest the jaw. Soft food, warmth and slow breathing help the muscles let go.