Tired, sick and grateful

We have been in Switzerland for a week now. The trip here was long and tedious with our first flight being cancelled, forcing us to rebook everything else behind it, but nevertheless we all made it, including the luggage, so no harm done.

However less than 24 hours after arriving I woke up with a bad case of torticollis (stiff neck) combined with a cold. This only got worse over the following day, so finally my brother got me an osteopathic appointment. In the true fashion of things needing to get worse before they get better, after the one hour treatment where the lady did all she could, I am sure, it got to the point where I could barely walk and not extend my arms or turn my head at all.

Now, four days later, it is definitely on the mend. My cold is still here, and I am trying to limit my medication intake, only taking Neo-Citran in late evenings when I can just pass out afterwards. The neck is a bit better, I can now move relatively freely, only turning my head represents a bit of a problem.

I went to see my normal osteopath this morning (she was not available on Friday, unfortunately) and she told me that she could sense all the stress in me. In her words "We had to get rid of that armour that you put all around you. There was lots of stress but there is also lots of vitality, so you must be doing something right." How nice is that?

Also, yesterday Vince and I went into Nature et Decouvertes which is one of my favourite shops, selling natural products, toys, camping gear, anything really to reconnect with Nature. Before we went to Sudan, I was quite a bit into natural, hollistic and homeopathic things. With Sudan bringing things back to the lowest level of the Maslow pyramid, I let go of all that and focused on the here and now. That "survival" perspective obscured my other aspirations. Walking around in the zen section of the shop, I picked up a Nomadic Essential Oils Diffuser working with either two batteries or on a USB cable, along with some nice mixes of essential oils. What an absolute treat... It is now gently humming beside my computer, diffusing a mixture of ylang-ylang, sweet orange and lavender. Even with my nose slightly blocked, it does have a positive effect on my general mood.

Tomorrow we are heading to Scotland. I need to pack and organise things. But I am so incredibly grateful to be able to reconnect with stuff deep inside of me that I had forgotten about.