The Spiritual Meaning of High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure can point to deep life stress, unprocessed trauma, or the pressures of living as a racialized person. Learn more.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is incredibly common, affecting about half of all American adults. The cause is not always clear, but we do know that stress, genetics, and lifestyle factors all play a role. It’s important to monitor your blood pressure and take other steps (including using medication) to manage this condition in accordance with the advice of your doctor. For now, let’s take a deeper look at the spiritual and emotional resonance of high blood pressure.
Living Under Pressure
Hypertension happens when your blood consistently puts too much pressure against the walls of your arteries. Let’s consider the following questions related to other forms of “pressure” you might be experiencing:
Are you under pressure in some way?
What was happening in your life when you were first diagnosed with high blood pressure?
Do you feel responsible for someone or something in a way that feels scary or overwhelming?
Are you facing tight deadlines?
Do you feel that too many people are relying on you?
Do you feel “squeezed” in some part of your life—having to give more than you have?
Stagnant Life Force
With hypertension, blood doesn’t easily circulate throughout the body. Metaphorically, it’s as if the blood, which should be as clear as water, is sticky and thick like mud.
In medieval medicine, blood was one of the four humors along with phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. When someone had an abundance of blood, they were considered sanguine: energetic and optimistic. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), blood is the substance that moves the qi, the life force energy, throughout the body.
Consider these questions:
What is your relationship to your vitality?
Do you experience joy easily?
Do you have enough energy to spend on the things you love?
Is there something happening in your life that should be flowing easily like water, but instead feels sticky and thick like mud?
Is there something you are having to force or push through right now?
Heart Work
High blood pressure means the heart is working harder than it should. With time, this can result in the arteries hardening to defend against the constant pressure, increasing the risk of a heart attack.
In the chakra system, the heart governs the fourth chakra, anahata, which is all about love, community, connection, and a place of belonging.
Consider these questions:
Do you tend to work and live from your heart, from a place of authenticity and genuine care?
Do you feel genuinely cared for by your loved ones and your community?
Do you feel you have to work to be loved, to belong?
Could you relax into who you really are and still feel loved and connected?
If your heart could speak for itself, what would it say?
Intergenerational and Racial Pressures
High blood pressure is often passed down genetically. When an illness is hereditary, it’s worth considering the larger picture of what might be happening in one’s family system, as well as the culture at large.
Sometimes our health struggles don’t originate within our own lifetime but stem from the burdens of trauma, anxiety, and stress in our family line. Though high blood pressure can be inherited, in the case of Black adults, the cause of high blood pressure might also be rooted in the trauma of slavery and the present-day pressures of everyday racism. Social determinants of health, non-medical factors that affect one’s well-being (e.g. where you are born, where you live, your access to quality healthcare, etc.), can also trigger high blood pressure.
When we consider the problem systemically and how it relates to social, racial, and familial concerns, we can approach our healing from a different perspective.
Consider these questions:
Who else in your family has high blood pressure?
What are their stories, their temperaments, and their patterns?
What do you have in common with those in your family who also have high blood pressure?
What historical or social pressures and experiences tend to raise your stress levels?
Is anti-Black racism a part of your family, history, and/or daily life? If so, how does it affect you in the present moment?
How has high blood pressure affected your parents, their parents, and their parents before them?
Silenced Emotions and Secrets
High blood pressure is often asymptomatic. Many people don’t know they have it, and it can take years for health issues to emerge. Hypertension that remains untreated over time can become very serious, even fatal.
This pattern of high blood pressure represents issues, secrets, memories, or traumas that live deep within us, ignored and unseen. Something we choose not to acknowledge within us (or within our family system) can live underground for years before it suddenly blooms into a very big problem.
Consider the following questions:
Do you tend to suppress big emotions, using distraction or other methods to hide how you feel?
Are you known by your friends as someone who always looks on the bright side and never engages with the darker aspects of life?
Did you grow up in a household where emotions were avoided, unspoken, or hidden away?
Is there something that’s happened at any point in your life that remains unprocessed?
Are there secrets in your life or hidden within your family that no one talks about?
Though high blood pressure can be treated with medication, it also responds well to self-care practices. These can include exercising, practicing good nutrition, and managing your stress—perhaps by sitting with the spiritual inquiries presented here, either on your own or with a qualified therapist. Contemplate these questions and be honest with yourself to see if something needs further attention on a deeper level, and take care of yourself, your heart, and your blood.
by Julie Peters
