Your heart and lungs need to come home

Making meaning out of metaphors

Jun 10, 2023

I was back home in Idaho last week, staying with family, and things always move slowly there. At least while I’m visiting and family is around. This reminds me of my summers in Michigan as a kid, staying with Grama Baird. No matter what we were doing, as soon as wheels hit the gravel of her driveway, everything stopped. The focus was on our guests. Being with my Bergin family always feels like this. Nothing is rushed. And this shift in focus and pace is so very good for my soul.

How do you “take a break”? Is there a place you go where time slows down? Where the focus shifts? Or do you always work on vacations?

Your heart and lungs need to come home.

I made this appointment because my feet and ankles have been giving me some trouble for over two years. Well, I’ve had problems with my feet cramping since I was twenty, but in March 2021, my ankles swelled up for seemingly no reason. And it happens off and on since, accompanied by cramping that has made it difficult to walk on some days and I’ve stopped dancing completely. I’ve seen a bunch of specialists. I don’t have rhumetoid arthritis (this is good news). The sports surgeon and podiatrist didn’t find anything wrong. Sure, there’s a small bit of arthritis in one heel, but not enough to be causing me problems. Various chiropractors have only found the same old stuff. Finally, my primary care physician agreed it could be due to hormones (yes, I am indeed menopausal) but that would require seeing another specialist. At this point, I said no.

I don’t need to see another doctor who doesn’t see ME. Western medicine is great stuff. Without it, we’d be living in the dark ages. But it doesn’t take the whole person into account. Western medicine is too myopic and focuses only pathologies. That is, in fact, the very definition of allopathic medicine: treating the symptoms of disease.

Alternative or what we often call “complimentary” therapies/medicine, along with a very clean diet, have kept me healthy since my late 20’s. Ayurvedic medicine saved my life eight years ago. I honestly believe that. Chinese, chiropractic, and homeopathic medicines, along with therapeutic massage and thirty years of yoga have kept me in overall good shape.

Now this new therapist was telling me that all my years of yoga were contributing to my current symptoms. I am pushing my heart and lungs up and out and they need to settle back, settle down, into my chest. My ankle and foot problems may be due, in part, to respitory and circulatory issues (heart and lungs).

Your heart and lungs need to come home.

Ok, so I’m really into words and metaphors. Words as they become represented in the body. Manifested metaphors. A pain in the neck can stem from a variety of things. Whiplash? Sure. And not just from a car accident or fall. When something happens too quickly and catches you off guard, that can cause a pain in the neck as well. As can “sticking your neck out” repeatedly in a job or ….? Or repeatedly refering to a person to as “a pain in your neck” can, well, do just that. I first became aware of this phenomenon when Bernie Siegal, M.D., documented it in his best-selling book: Love, Medicine, and Miracles. The best example I’ll never forget is from the man who repeatedly referred to his father-in-law as a pain in his ass. His cancer? rectal.

So yeah, I’m thinking about what it means to be told that my heart and lungs need to come home.

According to the therapist, this means I need to drop my breath. Let my heart and lungs settle down and back toward my spine, my spine which needs to stop being so rigid (like a pole) and return to a more fluid curve. This is the result of the yoga—years and years of yoga. All those heart opener positions can actually close the heart from behind. Interesting.

And while all this may be true, I can’t help thinking something else is involved. Something emotional. Something metaphorical. The body, like our dreams, holds wisdom and is always speaking to us. The challenge is to learn the language.

I first needed prescription glasses when I was 24 and had returned to Chicago to take care of my father as he was dying. My distance was blurry. No kidding. I had no idea what the future held.

When I was 28, I participated in the Landmark Forum weekend workshop, immersed in the idea of creating my life from the future instead of pulling from the past. Two months later, I went hiking in Venezuela — the most extensive and challenging hike of my life — and didn’t notice until hours after my return that my feet never cramped, I had no pain at all.

My foot problems flared up again in 2018 when I was selling my home in Idaho. Literally while driving my belongings to the storage space, my right foot spasmed and I almost had to pull over. I couldn’t help but wonder if my body was expressing my confusion about my next steps. Where would I go? How do I move forward?

I moved to Tulsa and the foot pain continued but mostly only when dancing. Hey, I was wearing heels without arch supports. Maybe it was as simple as that.

And then I went to Italy at the beginning of Covid-19. I stayed for four months. This time sealed my dream to move there. It felt like home. For so many reasons, it continues to feel like home.

I came back to the States and hunkered down like everyone else. Nine months later, as the worst of the pandemic seemed to have passed and I was looking for a new way to make a living, contemplating throwing myself back into jobs I had no real desire to do again, my ankles started swelling and my feet were cramping like never before. I wanted to get back to Italy. Every decision was based on this desire. But how? and when?

Louise L Hay wrote a tiny book called, Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them in 1982. I’ve read a lot of books on the emotional-physical connection. This one is too simplistic yet is always a great quick reference.

In short, Hay writes that ankles represent the ability to receive pleasure. (I would ask: What were you doing when you sprained your ankle? Can you trace it back to denying yourself pleasure or feeling guilty about it?) Feet represent our understanding—of ourselves, of life, of others. (What is your next step, where are you headed? At the core, this requires understanding who you are, what you want, where you thrive.) Heart represents [not only] the center of love [but also] security. (Seems obvious) Lungs are the ability to take in life. (Again, pretty obvious. And worth noting that I’ve had breathing problems since I was a small child.)

A big change is coming. Something I didn’t see coming. Something wonderful and yes, I’m still processing. It requires a shift. It requires me to let go of some old ingrained notions about myself. It will mean a huge move forward which I absolutely believe was destined, only I don’t yet know the specifics. It is an incredibly joyous thing and, because I have my own baggage like everyone else, I am mostly side-stepping the joy, cautiously dipping my toes instead of diving in. (I’ll tell you about it soon, I promise.)

Maybe there is something physically wrong with me. That’s definitely a possibility. Or maybe my symptoms have everything to do with metaphors.

My heart and lungs need to come home.

Finding Home

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