Metaphysical Healing for Teeth and Gums
Metaphysical healing teeth and gums can help boost the effectiveness and sustainability of dental procedures as well as natural approaches to oral such as health herbs or diet, anatomical adjustments to your breath or jaw muscles, optimising your oral hygiene rituals… or a necessary dental procedure.
In this video I lay out some guidelines for applying spiritual healing concepts to teeth and gums. There are strengths and limitations of using existing frameworks of metaphysical meanings to symptoms, which I explain in relation to the four quadrants of your mouth: the upper and lower jaws and the right and left sides. Finally I’ll provide some practical examples of how to work with metaphysical meanings to help with healing your own symptoms.
This video series is all about the metaphysical or non-physical, influences on your oral health, but its important to remember to provide physical support for your teeth. If you have intense or constant pain, or other serious symptoms please visit a dental professional.
Interpreting the quadrants of your mouth
Metaphysically and dentally, you can divide your mouth horizontally into upper jaw (maxilla) and lower jaw (mandible); and vertically into right and left sides.
Upper Jaw
Your upper jaw is about dreams and intentions, it represents what you want and wish for, the upper jaw is where you set goals and visualise the future. Having symptoms concentrated in your upper jaw can indicate a problem with knowing or accepting your dreams or desires.
Lower Jaw
Your lower jaw is about action, speaking your truth, and qualities of courage, authenticity, decisiveness. Symptoms in your lower jaw can suggest you have held back from speaking out or taking action.
TMJ (Temporomandibular Joint)
Your TMJ joint, the hinge between upper and lower jaw, represents the connection between your desires and your actions. It can embody your fears, your impulsiveness or your hesitation. Symptoms such as TMJ disorder, a clicking jaw or teeth grinding can indicate resentment or anger.
In many healing traditions the Right side of the body is associated with masculine energies or your relationship with your father while the Left side is associated with feminine energies or your relationship with your mother.
However, I find it’s not usually helpful to take such a gender-essentialist interpretation of these associations with the sides of your mouth.
Instead, the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang can be more meaningful.
Right side of your mouth
The energy of the right side of your mouth may tend to be more yang: active, outward, professional, career, logical thinking.
Left side of your mouth
The energy of the left side of your mouth may tend to be more yin: inner world, intuitive, family, children, hobbies, creativity.
But knowing the traditional associations with different parts of your mouth is just a starting point for spiritual healing, not a solution or cure in itself .
Have you ever wondered whether there’s more to oral health than regular brushing or avoiding sugar?
Or whether there’s an emotional or spiritual meaning to tooth decay or gum recession?
Or why dental problems sometimes rise and fall with stress?
I wrote The Secret Lives of Teeth: Understanding the emotional influences on oral health to help answer these kinds of questions from spiritual, psychological and energetic perspectives.
Pre-order the paperback or e-book today, along with your choice of bonuses to enhance your reading experience on Kickstarter before 25 November 2022.
Guidelines for spiritual healing
As a holistic oral health coach, I may refer to existing metaphysical frameworks such as Traditional Chinese Medicine’s meridian system, Dr Michele Caffin’s psychosocial system and correlations identified by Louise Hay, Evette Rose and others as starting points for understanding the metaphysical influences on your oral health. These frameworks are most helpful when inspiring what questions to explore, rather being relied on for answers.
Think of these existing associations as story prompts that can help you explore your own childhood and adult experiences, your family patterns and ancestral lineage.
Parts of your unique story might come to you in a dream, or as a memory from a past life.
Your story can emerge from your visioning, or be picked up from the wider culture.
Finding your healing story this way can give you a delicate, imaginative tool for healing.
For the purposes of healing, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether your healing story is true or accurate in order to transform your relationship with your oral health.
However, it can feel intoxicating to finally make sense of your symptoms with a compelling metaphysical interpretation.
That intoxication can lead you to give your healing story more weight than it can hold.
It may not be wise to use your healing story to determine your identity, and you should certainly be very careful before going public with blame or claims.
Before you take your healing story out of the safe space of your healing work, (ie before you share it anywhere beyond your journal or a confidential therapeutic conversation) ensure you have receipts.
Without corroboration, or evidence, going public with your healing story could potentially cause further harm, if not to you, then to others.
Your unique metaphysical meanings
Journalling can be one way to help you develop traditional associations into a healing story that can help you to relieve your symptoms and transform your oral health.
Think of your symptoms as metaphors you can apply to the associations. Make a list of words that describe your symptoms:
eg blocking or eroding or aggravating, deep or shallow, nagging, intermittent, subtle, overwhelming, irritating, invasive, unbalanced, stuck etc…
Once you’ve written down the words that describe your symptoms, reread each word and think about the non-symptom experiences in your life that those words could also be metaphors for. A thesaurus or synonym search might be helpful.
Understanding the metaphysical meaning of your teeth issues can be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with a picture that is mostly blue sky. You have to test many possibilities to find the right fit.
With relaxed curiosity and a playful spirit you can test your symptom’s metaphors against the associations of their placement in your mouth.
A throbbing toothache in your upper left jaw
For example: if you have a throbbing toothache in your left upper jaw… think about anything in your personal life that feels overwhelming, or a nagging desire that remains unfulfilled. Have you had any relationships that feel like this, or felt like this in the past, especially within your family or intimate circle?
A throbbing toothache in your lower right jaw
If the throbbing toothache is taking over your lower right side consider whether your work life is demanding or whether you’ve made a career move you regret. Are you uncomfortable now or in the past with anyone in a position of authority, or anyone in a fatherly role or acting in domineering way?
Keep brainstorming metaphors and experimenting with associations. Don’t be afraid to extend your pool of possible healing stories by drawing on memories, dreams, insights from other people, even song lyrics that catch your ear!
Recognising your own healing story
You won’t always recognise your story right away.
Sometimes you will think: not this old trauma, surely my 20 years of therapy and healing resolved this by now.
Sometimes you will think: that’s too trivial, I don’t have enough emotional attachment for this to explain my symptoms.
Sometimes it can take weeks of chewing on these ideas before you get clarity.
To help speed up the process you can watch my free Listen to your Teeth masterclass where I take you through a guided meditation for listening to your teeth.
Are your teeth trying to tell you something that you can’t quite make sense of?
In this free live Masterclass you’ll learn how to:
- Tell the difference between oral health symptoms and the underlying causes
- Understand the metaphysical meanings of your teeth and gum issues
- Practice a simple way to tune into your teeth that you can use any time
Has a dentist told you that your cavities or receding gums are your fault because you are drinking too much Coke, you don’t floss enough or you need to stop breastfeeding your baby? And you know that isn’t true!
I’m not going to blame you or shame you.
The underlying causes of your oral health issues are not your fault!
Nature or nurture, ancestry or environment, free will or systemic oppression, unconscious emotions or the degraded food system
These are the factors that make your teeth and gums vulnerable to disease.
Even though your tooth decay and gum disease is not your fault, it is within your power to change.
You can turn your oral health around with natural strategies and healthy habits.