Lung problems: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What lung problems are

The lungs bring oxygen from the air into the blood and carry carbon dioxide back out. "Lung problems" covers many different illnesses. Infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis are the most common. Long-term conditions include asthma, emphysema and COPD and pulmonary fibrosis, in which the lung tissue becomes scarred and stiff. A pulmonary embolism is a blood clot that blocks an artery in the lung, often after a clot in the leg (deep vein thrombosis), and it is an emergency.

Common signs are breathlessness, a cough that will not go away, wheezing, chest pain and coughing up blood. Causes include viruses and bacteria, allergies, genes, dust and fumes at work, air pollution and, above all, smoking. Tobacco smoke damages lung tissue directly. That is well established, and no emotional reading changes it.

A GP can listen to the chest, check oxygen levels, and arrange a chest X-ray, a breathing test or blood tests. Treatment depends on the cause: antibiotics, inhalers, blood thinners, oxygen, rehabilitation or a specialist's care.

The emotional meaning of lung problems

Spiritually, illnesses of the lungs are linked to a very deep fear of suffocating, or of dying. You may be living against your own deeper aspirations, as if your purpose in life were blocked. Facing life feels frightening.

Your territory and your place

In this approach, your "territory" is everything that is yours to live in: your partner, your family, your friends, your work, your home, your ideas. When anxiety is high, you shrink your life down to a small, tightly bounded territory, and even that feels uncertain. You may feel you have lost it, or are about to, and that leaves you cornered. Losing it can feel like dying, like being nothing at all. It then becomes hard to find your place and to manage your relationships with the world around you. You can have the sense of losing yourself.

Swallowed tears

You may tend to choke back your tears. Spiritually, sadness is read as weighing on the lungs. If there is pain or difficulty breathing, the question is whether you feel stifled or oppressed in your life. Do you feel short of air, especially with members of your family? Do you feel limited, or undeserving of happiness? Part of you may want to cry out your distress at the top of your lungs, an expression French and English share.

You may dislike conflict so much that you become too conciliatory, giving way to avoid every dispute. You may feel sad and low. The invitation is to recognise your own worth and to do things that bring you pleasure.

The first breath and breathing on your own

The first breath is the first separation from the mother. Spiritually, if that separation at birth was traumatic, the lungs may keep the memory of it, and changes and separations later in life can feel very hard. A child who felt abandoned, or who lost their parents, may find their trust in life and in adults shaken, and the lungs are read as carrying that inner wound. The lungs are also the organs of autonomy: they are what lets a newborn breathe on its own. The question is whether you can live independently, without always needing someone to do things for you.

Facing what frightens you

When the lungs work less well, oxygen passes less easily into the blood, and that is vital for survival. Spiritually, a lung problem can bring the fear of death into plain view. It may help to make some peace with that fear, gently, instead of running from it.

Pulmonary embolism

A clot in the lung is first a medical emergency, and the signs are listed below. Spiritually, it is read as a break in joy: sadness that has built up and that you keep alive. There is revolt against a sense of powerlessness, as if someone were blocking the way to a project or to a place you wanted to reach, and low mood follows. You may no longer feel at home anywhere. Your feelings and your ideas feel blocked.

Left side or right side?

Spiritually, lung problems are not given a separate meaning for each lung. If only one side is affected, the general key of the left and right sides of the body can add a nuance:

• Right lung: the masculine, active side. It points to action, decisions, work, the territory you defend in the outer world, and your bonds with the men in your life.
• Left lung: the feminine, receptive side. It points to feelings, tears you have held back, what you take in from others, and your bonds with the women in your life.

A gentler way to hold it

• Trust that you are held. You are allowed to feel protected and guided, even when life feels uncertain.
• Look at what you have. Old memories that make you melancholy can deepen the sense of being alone. Turn your attention, for a moment each day, to what is already present and good in your life.
• Claim your territory. You have the right to a place that is yours alone, just as everyone else has theirs. Harmony comes from that, not from giving all your space away.
• Let the tears come. Crying is breath that moves. Let it happen with someone you trust.
• Take back your power. Choose one thing you have been letting others decide, and decide it yourself.
• Breathe life in fully. Slow, easy breaths, as often as you remember, are a small way of saying yes to being here.