Healing Your Feet: Emotional Causes of Plantar Fasciitis

Your emotions can be a primary cause of plantar fasciitis — and the key to unlocking the healing of your feet

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Are you the ‘shock absorber’ for your family and friends? If so, it’s possible you could develop plantar fasciitis.

The plantar fascia ligament is a fibrous tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes while supporting the arch of the foot. It serves as the ‘shock absorber’ for our feet by holding structures together and keeping them strong. If you strain your plantar fascia, the ligament gets weak, swollen, and irritated (inflamed), causing your heel or the bottom of your foot to hurt when you stand or walk.

When someone becomes the support system for everyone except himself or herself, it can greatly affect this ligament.

Individuals who have plantar fasciitis are prone to absorb the ‘slings and arrows’ of the world around them.

They tend to feel responsible for holding everything together; they take on the job of keeping family, friends, and others around them stable.

A beautiful woman named Joy had tried everything she could think of to get relief from the extreme pain of plantar fasciitis. She came to me for a healing session to release the emotional component of this condition. The first question I asked was this: “Joy, are you being the ‘shock absorber’ for something that’s happening in your life?” She gave me a puzzled look and then confessed, “Yes I am. I have a dear friend who just lost her husband unexpectedly. I got right in there and have been trying to keep everything together for her. I have been the one absorbing the shock of it all.”

What an ‘aha’ moment for Joy.

She also said she was frustrated and angry because she was going through a difficult time with her son. She herself needed support but wasn’t getting it because she was so consumed by taking care of her friend. Joy looked back and saw this as a pattern throughout her life. Deleting that pattern from her life helped to heal her feet, as well as giving her freedom emotionally. Happily, a couple of days after our healing session, she was back to walking normally again…an example of what can happen when the emotional component of an ailment gets released.

Plantar fasciitis is caused by straining the ligament that supports your arch, often causing tiny tears that can lead to pain and swelling. This condition commonly originates from tight calf muscles leading to prolonged and/or high velocity pronation of the foot. This in turn produces repetitive over-stretching of the plantar fascia, leading to possible inflammation and thickening of the ligament. As the fascia thickens, it loses strength and flexibility. Because this ligament is one of the major transmitters of weight across the foot when you walk or run, the stress placed on it is tremendous.

Your body responds to the way you think, feel, and act—the ‘mind/body connection’.

When you are stressed, anxious, or upset, your body tries to tell you that something isn’t right. If you are the ‘shock absorber’ and constantly feel angry or ‘inflamed’, this repeated thought pattern can inflame the plantar fascia, thereby ensuring that you get the message through your body.

If you have plantar fasciitis, chances are you’re not able to exercise until the inflamed tissue heals. You are left to take care of yourself, and until you do, you aren’t able to be there making things okay for everybody else. Think of the stress from being the support for others—the shock absorber—while not getting adequate support for yourself.

Those who have plantar fasciitis are, in effect, exercising self-control. They have a huge fear of what might happen if they surrender control, leaving them feeling frustrated, conflicted, and irritated about what’s happening in their lives. So they sit and seethe.

According to Dr. Michael J. Lincoln who wrote Messages from the Body, the emotional component of calf muscles includes having a dramatic fear of the future along with anxiety leading to immobilization. Specifically, they fear taking action and moving forward, worried that they don’t have what it takes to support themselves. Their attitude is reflected in statements like “leave well enough alone!” and “it’s bad enough as it is without making more trouble.”

The emotional component of plantar fasciitis in the right foot involves having deep conflicts over how to get support, as well as concerns about relationships and commitment. For the left foot, it’s about being handicapped with vulnerability issues, unwilling to receive support, and refusing to allow others to be caretakers.

If you find yourself with this pain, what can be done?

Individuals who struggle with plantar fasciitis can understand its emotional origin through a methodology I’ve derived called the MO (Modus Operandi) Technique — a way to help people release negative emotions out of the subconscious mind. The technique then instills positive emotions into the super conscious mind and reprograms the conscious mind by changing outdated beliefs. It also helps people know they can change their imprinting and outdated belief system by instilling a new one. The MO Technique makes all of that possible.

For anyone with plantar fasciitis, the desired new belief system could be stated like this: “I’m going to support myself in a healthy way by not being responsible to make everything okay and stable for everyone else. I won’t continue to be the ‘shock absorber.’ Instead, I’ll allow others to support me and keep all of this in balance.”

Can you imagine the freedom of not having to be the sole person responsible to make sure everything is stable for others around you? With the right emotional support, the plantar fascia wouldn’t have to be the sole support or lose its flexibility and strength. It could do what it’s meant to do. Allowing yourself to receive the support that’s needed (and craved) will help heal the entire body. The MO Technique shows how to achieve balance and accept support from others—no more sitting and seething.

As a healing practitioner, I help people discover and examine the emotional links that are often missing in standard healing regimens. Disclaimer: Although this article depicts the ‘emotional component’ or ‘thought pattern’ of plantar fasciitis, I believe in a balanced approach to healing all ailments. Because the emotional component isn’t as readily available as traditional remedies, this is my focus here; traditional remedies and treatments are therefore not addressed in this article.

[Note: The psychological meaning of the symptoms, conditions, and disease presented in this article are used with permission from Messages from the Body: Their Psychological Meaning by Michael J. Lincoln Ph.D. Learn more at talkinghearts.net]

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