Bruises: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What bruises are

A bruise (contusion) is a patch of discoloured skin that appears when small blood vessels under the skin break, usually after a knock or a fall, and blood leaks into the surrounding tissue. It often starts red or purple, turns blue or black, then green and yellow as the body clears the blood, and usually fades within two weeks.

Most bruises are harmless and heal with time; a cold compress early on and raising the limb can ease swelling. Some people bruise more easily, for instance older adults whose skin is thinner, and people taking blood thinners, aspirin or steroids. Bruising easily or for no clear reason can also be a sign of a low platelet count, a clotting problem, a vitamin deficiency, liver disease or, rarely, a blood disorder, so it deserves a doctor's check. Unexplained bleeding can go with anaemia.

The emotional meaning of bruises

Spiritually, a bruise is read as a pain that shows on the outside because it was not expressed on the inside: a mental pain or a deep anguish that you have not put into words. Aggression that found no outlet may turn back against yourself.

When you are off-centre

Bruises can come at times of great fatigue, when you are not centred. You may be running away from your emotions and feel as if you are nothing, lost in the crowd. In another sense you are "elsewhere", with your mind far from where your body is going.

Giving away your authority

The spiritual interpretation of bruises raises the question of your real power over your life and its events. You may feel like a servant to others, unsure which place is yours, and leave to them the authority you could express through your own words and actions. That sense of weakness can be deeply irritating.

Guilt and self-punishment

Bruises can sit with guilt, whatever its reason, and with an urge to punish yourself. The object you bump into is usually still, so it is you who go towards it. The question this invites is gentle: do you look where you are going? Do you move through life softly, or do you tend to act abruptly? Are you attentive enough to carry on, or too tired and worn by inner hurts that now show on the body? Feeling like a victim of events you must endure, and pitying your lot, can be part of the picture too.

Trying too hard to be loved

You may want so much to do things well, to be loved and appreciated, that all your attention goes to the task and you no longer see what is coming towards you. Or you keep "banging your nose", in French, against questions that seem to have no answer, and become stubborn instead of persevering.

Feeling black and blue

Bruises can also speak of needing love and affection and receiving instead hard knocks and low blows. In French, to be "blue with anger" means furious, and in Quebec French "having the blues" is a low, gloomy mood close to depression, as it is in English. If you feel that you must fight life and deserve no better, that belief is worth questioning with someone you trust. If someone is actually hurting you, the first step is to get to safety and get help.

A gentler way to hold it

The closing movement is about taking control of your life with care and respect for yourself.

• Say the pain. Put one unspoken worry or hurt into words, on paper or to someone you trust.
• Slow down. Notice when you rush, act abruptly or are "elsewhere", and come back to where you are.
• Take back your authority. Choose one decision you have been leaving to others and make it yourself, in line with who you are.
• Drop the self-punishment. Ask whether the guilt you carry is fair, and what you would say to a friend in your place.
• Look after yourself. You deserve to be happy and cared for, not hurt, by others or by yourself.
• Stay flexible. Review your positions when they keep running you into the same obstacles, and let your plans adapt to what life offers.