True to form, I ended the year/began the year wrestling with a cold. I say ‘wrestling,’ because I’m not sure we’re ‘fighting’…but we’re definitely ‘wrestling.’ I’ve been able to keep it at bay with various oils, vitamin C, rest, water, etc, and have not had to take medicine. This morning as I was driving to work with a headache, I thought about how it might be easier to just ‘take something to make the pain go away.’
And isn’t that true in life? It’s so tempting to jump to the easiest, quickest, most convenient solution to avoid pain. But often the deeper growth happens when we sit with the discomfort a minute, and find ways to invest in our natural capacity to heal. Often the deeper growth happens when we investigate the core causes of the pain/discomfort, and adjust at that level–rather than resorting to the easy solutions that may be masking the pain rather than healing it.
Sure–there are oils that are natural decongestants that are helping me get through this cold. But I find myself more consciously aware of how my body is feeling as I try to find a good balance between eliminating pain and supporting healing. I’m all about supporting healing. It’s eliminating pain and discomfort just for the sake of the easy/quick fix that oils are helping me reconsider.