This spring season at Jennifer Eubank Yoga we are focusing on organ meridian theory, which is based on ancient Chinese ideas that the organs are not stand alone entities, rather, they are interconnected through energetic channels and this dynamic relationship creates an animated flow within the body. When we practice yoga, through breath and movement, we clear blockages in these pathways by providing the body with oxygen and space, promoting overall optimal health. Many of these meridians begin or end in the feet and because it is my tradition to start with the feet in many yoga semester sessions, why not again? Feet first! Seconds, anyone?
As I ponder my feet, and painstakingly so, their history becomes more clear to me. Over the years I have really taken my feet for granted and they have certainly borne the brunt of that neglect. I’m not alone. People like me have kept Dr. Scholl’s in business for decades! And while they rely on us a little too much for us to rely on them, I don’t knock ‘em, that’s for sure, for I’ve bought many of their products, all with an eye towards resolving foot issues without the interference of more drastic remedial measures, like surgery. Still, it took growing foot pain and discomfort for me to really take notice of my feet. And it took yoga for me to more mindfully mind my feet and take better care of them.
In my teenage years my mother and I noticed that I, too, had developed the bunions that both she and her mother had. I was one of nine kids and to my knowledge, I’m the only one who has had major issues with bunions. They got so bad that in my second summer after college, I had the dreaded double bunionectomy. In my naïveté and inexperience and my undying faith in doctors, I went for it. Damn! That surgery hurt. I had never experienced such pain and discomfort. And my feet have never been the same. The summer from hell.
That operation ruined my entire break. I wasn’t able to do much but recuperate and get ready for the fall semester. The surgeon broke both big toes and put splints in between each big and second toes and stopped short of putting in metal pins to train the metatarsals, the bones leading to the toes, to better position themselves. Like many who have had this procedure, the effects were short-lived.
Though I was pretty sensible in the shoes I wore after surgery and though I rarely had a job where I was on my feet the majority of my time, they came back. With a vengeance. For I wasn’t just suffering from the pain and discomfort of the condition itself, but also from surgery scar tissue pain. And admittedly, I wasn’t perfect in my shoe choices, though I tried. But it really is difficult finding sensible shoes, at least it was in the 70s and 80s! (Remember Dr. Scholl’s exercise sandals?!) My new and improved feet continued to deteriorate during the change from collegehood to motherhood.
Until I embraced yoga. A couple of years into a more serious home and studio practice I realized that my feet were beginning to change. My knowledge and understanding of them expanded and as I spent more time on the mat, and hence on bare feet, the muscles became more defined, more at the ready to ground and steady my bodily structure as I stand, walk, pose, or whatever. Balance no longer eluded me. Trees and Dancer’s pose and the like were difficult for me, as my bunions got so bad that they were pulling the metatarsals out, misaligning my feet, throwing my foundation off, and creating an imbalance in the very roots of my Trees. As my muscles have become more strong, as the foot enjoys more space and wideness to ground, my metatarsals are actually pulling back into proper alignment, easing my sense of balance. They aren’t perfect, but markedly better and most important, less painful. And I continue to refine. But it took and will take more work, practice and patience.
The muscles main job is to move bones, to propel the skeletal frame. As we spend countless hours in shoes, crowding the feet, neither the bones nor the muscles get the space they need to articulate. Time on the mat gave me the opportunity to give back to my feet, freeing them up to really develop on their own, without the so-called support of shoes or the interference of shoe inserts or of doctors wanting to cut into them and “fix them”. Sometimes these measures are needed, I understand, but not nearly as much as we may think.
I once took a workshop on the feet and it was a fabulous experience. There I learned that each foot has 26 bones, a total of 52 between the two of them, that’s one quarter of the body’s total 206 bones, that says a lot right there! Each foot also has 33 joints with a total of 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments and the average person utilizes this team of elements to take about 8 to 10 thousand steps per day. Usually confined in shoes. And don’t get me wrong, we need our shoes to protect our feet from city life and the environment, but it is my belief that shoes and all the carefully paved sidewalks, floors and roads have actually created many of the foot problems we face today. As we rely more on artificial structures, like shoes and orthopedics, and as we traverse even ground, we break down our foot’s ability to utilize and articulate, leading to conditions like bunions, hammer toes, arch issues, corns, and plantar fasciitis. And as we wear the wrong shoes, usually women in heels, or sandals and flip flops, we compound our foot issues. I have found that the more I walk on bare feet, the stronger they have become and the large bunions on each foot have actually become smaller and my metatarsals are better aligned. My formerly deformed foot structure has greatly improved. My feet have gone from ugly to not so ugly! And my posture, my breathing and my outlook and hence, my health, have all improved.
Now, there are dangers to going barefoot. The obvious ones, like sharp and uneven edges, and dirt and grime and the yuck of the streets, so we wear shoes. And as much as I love going barefoot, I have experienced problems associated with it. For instance, lately I developed a plantar wart on the bottom of my right foot. This wart is a very stubborn one that imbeds itself deep in the foot plantar, the thick tissue protecting the foot’s sole. I’ve had one before, and like that one, I developed this one walking barefoot at a gym. The first time it was from showering in bare feet (never again in public!); this time it was from walking on the gym floor itself. Due to COVID restrictions, we had to move from our nice clean and rarely traversed yoga room floor to the gym floor, the polar opposite, and in my efforts to set a good example and wear no socks as we practice yoga, so we can really connect to the floor on which we stabilize, I was careless and stepped off my mat onto the gym floor too many times. Even though I washed my feet upon returning home each time, I still developed another wart. Though the source was similar, the gym, my response to each was totally different.
The first time I went to a dermatologist for treatment; the doctor froze it with liquid nitrogen. After 6 trips, she wanted to surgically remove it, but I was just as stubborn as the wart. I’d have no part of surgery. I wore duct tape on it every day, which helped dig out the little seeds a plantar wart leaves in the foot, planting the spread, and why they are so hard to remedy. Yes, it’s true! Duct tape fixes just about everything. It kept the wart’s size in control so that each time I went to the doctor, the freezing process would take more effect. I persevered and it finally went away. It took a total of 10 trips. But I had escaped surgery.
This time, I wanted to avoid doctors all together. After all, with COVID upon us, we are less likely to go out and with more time on our hands, we’ve become a bit more resourceful. Surely I can get rid of this thing on my own. To remedy the situation, I did some research on the best essential oils to treat a plantar wart. I had already had great success getting rid of a very stubborn corn on my pinky toe with essential oil and lo and behold, like with that foot issue, I learned that oregano oil is the perfect response to tackling plantar warts. After applying it directly to the wart several times over the next few weeks, that bad boy is long gone! Considerably cheaper and less time consuming than going to a doctor multiple times for painful treatments. And all on my own. (If it is your first time using oils, as always, to be safe, carefully research and test your response to each oil and perhaps dilute with a carrier oil, like coconut oil and consult someone familiar with essential oils. Oregano oil is especially strong.)
There’s an old yogic saying out there that death starts in the feet. This might seem a bit drastic, yet at the same time, it seems rather plausible. I think of the many folks who have lost their feet, and then their lives, to diabetes. I hope I’ve added years to my life by really taking notice and taking better care of my feet. And my health. And not just by building more muscle and promoting better energetic flow to the feet, I pamper them. I give myself foot baths and pedicures and I massage them regularly. In our Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) studies we’ve learned that there are thousands of nerve endings in our feet leading energetically up the body all the way up to the head, so as we stimulate movement and love in the feet, we stimulate positive energy throughout the entire body. For those of you who love to get professional pedicures and foot massages, don’t ever feel guilty about this so-called indulgence, it’s needleless acupuncture and it is in all reality a necessity for helping to cultivate better foot health and hence, better overall health. There’s no guarantee of course, but it’s always nice to stop and smell the roses, so why not take some time and make your feet feel and smell like beautiful roses? Moses supposes, his toeses are roses…….(NOT so erroneously, eh?!).