I am writing from my bed, coughing, feverish, achey. Awake. Feeling every symptom coming and going like little weather patterns across the hot afternoon sky. Los Angeles has been experiencing 100F+ temperatures and so am I.
The flu gives me a window into what I am attached to when it comes to wellness. There is so much to let go of when we get sick and it seems that almost no one slows down any more, even when they are ill.
Last night, my husband said, “You should cancel your day tomorrow.” I nodded in agreement. Unbeknownst to me, I was plotting, unconsciously, how I could still work and not take a sick day. I could work via phone. No, I am losing my voice. I would just sit at my desk all day in my home office and get caught up. No, that’s not resting. I will study Google Analytics to see how my website is performing. No, that creates this spooky drive to write ad copy that stimulates the desire to do stealth marketing via Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Flickr, Pinterest, Chictopia — just writing my list of places I could go gives me a taste of the adrenaline I could generate if I were not such a mature and evolved soul. Oh, yes.
Actually, I feel lousy enough to know there are consequences for not resting. But to be mindfully resting? To be aware of the sore throat. To face the sensation with kindness. Coughing hard and feeling the hurt without judging, allowing the hurt with compassion.
It’s easy to do for others, but not so much for ourselves. If you are ill, I am so kind to you. “What can I do for you? Can I pick anything up at the store for you?” But if I’m sick? I do not ask in that same sweet voice, “What can I do for me?”
At least not until the gift of today, the gift of this flu bug. I have surrendered to the symptoms after a week of fighting it off while everyone around me came down with the illness, while I sat with my smug belief that Jizo and I have this immune-system thing locked down and mastered.
Oh, humilty! A-choo! Be kind. Learn to make orange sorbet with stevia in the VitaMix and cuddle the dogs, nap, nap again and watch some television.
No marketing. Wait, I just wrote this blog. Is it cheating to write when I am sick? No, I am passing along the wisdom of the common cold and flu bug syndrome when experienced in with my feet firmly on Jizo Ground, practicing mindfulness. And I am sharing no germs as I tell you my story. Of this I am glad.
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