What’s your pain icon? What this question means is what is the picture in your mind that is associated with pain? Let’s be more specific. What is your pain icon related to your feet?

 

My pain icon is high heels. All I have to do is look at a pair of stilettos and I’ll get first the idea of how great they look, followed by the sensation of pain that I would feel after wearing them. Stilettos are my pain icon.

 

One of my friends has a pain icon of shoes that are non-Birkenstock shoes. Another friend has perfect feet and doesn’t have any type of pain icon associated with any type of shoes. She wears them all and has a whole shoe closet full of all types of interesting shoes – some expensive, some not, many high heels, many flats, all types of sandals, hiking boots, athletic shoes and snow boots as well.

 

It’s good to connect with your thoughts on what shoes don’t do you any good so that you don’t repeat history and cause yourself any unnecessary pain. Shoes that are too tight, pointy shoes, shoes that have absolutely no support inside them (and ones where you don’t wear insoles in them or orthotics for that matter), shoes that are too small for your feet or too big for your feet – all these are shoes that could be your pain icon.

 

It’s also a good idea to go through your shoe closet and remove any pair that immediately reminds you of foot pain or foot fatigue, no matter how good they look. If they didn’t fit you before, they aren’t going to fit you now! If they caused you pain before, they will cause you pain in the future.

 

As we all get older, we come to our senses about shoes and what shoes we can and should not wear. It’s good to come to your senses as early in life as you can – imagine the savings of suffering if you followed good shoe philosophy from your 20s on rather than waiting until you are in your 40s and have already damaged your feet.

 

Some people seem to think they’re immune to the damage from offending shoes but as long as you have human feet, the response of them in bad shoes is going to be predictable. Think about what happened to Oriental women who had to bind their feet from the time they were young. The repeated action cut off circulation to the growing feet and legs and left them in a state where they were disabled and totally dependent on others to take care of them. Shoes that bind should send off a pain icon in any woman’s mind.

 

There’s a new type of shoe found on www.TheInsoleStore.com called the Cobian Black Zoe Wedge. It’s a very cute type of thong with a raised one inch to one and a half inch platform and then a heel height of a total of three inches. The Cobian Wedge looks cute, but the question always to ask yourself first is this:  Is there anything about this shoe that associates with my shoe pain icon in my head?

 

The answer to that question gives you the answer to whether or not you should buy the Cobian Wedge. Then try the shoe on. You’ll feel the built-in arch support and the anatomically-designed footbed and the cushioning. That brings up the second question to ask yourself before you buy it:  how does it make my foot feel?

 

Use the pain icon idea in the future. You’ll save yourself money and suffering.