When Your Heart and Body Are In Different Places

I’m a warm weather woman with a passion for the sea. As a child, my first glimpse of the ocean was from the backseat of my parent's car. My head hung out the window, the salty air whipping my hair into my open, smiling mouth. I was lifted to a new level of contentment that increases every time I step into the surf. My current passion is ocean kayaking, but I live in the Rocky Mountains and there are no imminent change-of-venue plans.

On a recent return home from the sea, I unpacked my damp wetsuit, swimsuit, hat and fins. I laid them out to dry on the sun-filled west facing deck. As I looked out my kitchen window I thought “what a beautiful sight.” I could imagine that I used the swimsuit and fins in my own backyard,--that I swam up to the dock, took off my wetsuit and hung it on the deck on my way in to make dinner. It was wishful imagining and in the morning I was jolted to reality. I looked out the window to the deck and my ocean playclothes were surrounded by snow. The contrast brought sadness and I realized that my soul and my physical presence were in two different places.

With the practice of yoga, I have learned that the right side of my body is stronger than my left. I strive each week to balance as I find my body leaning to or depending on the strength of the right. I’ve tried to become more conscious of combining these two halves into one whole. Working together I will be stronger and more balanced. The effort has already improved my skiing, my posture and my mind/body awareness. When I think of my heart longing for the ocean and my physical reality in the cold dry mountains, I sense that I am spiritually divided and therefore spiritually and physically weaker.

When I realized the division in my heart and body, I recommitted to gratitude: thankfulness for the eyes to see the sea, thankfulness for the ocean itself, thankfulness for a husband and children I love and live with. Gratitude helps me see the abundance and not the lack. My second goal is to enjoy my presence. When I am home, I will embrace the details and security that enrich my life. When I am paddling in the sea, I will savor the seal that surfaces unexpectedly, the salty taste on my lips and the laughter after cutting through a wave.

Foremost, I am comforted and encouraged by what I saw painted, in French, on the wall of a home I visited. Translated, it is a familiar phrase: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Mattthew 6:21