Flu and Cold

Flu and Cold

Dear Friends,

Fall is here, and the leaf colours are fantastic everywhere. I hope it’s just as beautiful for you wherever you are.

It’s a funny thing – or is it ? - that in the Northern Hemisphere as autumn ends the flu and cold season begins. I have been wondering why this is. There are lots of theories about the physical reasons for this. Cold stressing the body – more bugs with the damp – people inside more with closer contact - etc. But what is going on with the mind:body connection ?

I have been working with some ideas. In winter we have less light and it is wetter. Water is a metaphor for emotion, so there is more emotion within us and around us. We spend more time indoors - perhaps we go inward more, bringing issues up for clearing. Both cold and flu are about moving emotion and, at some level, we have become overwhelmed.

One of the best ways through emotional overwhelm is to simply feel our feelings. We can take a little time (and a warm place) and just feel our feelings, whatever feelings they are, as deeply as we can. At the beginning of winter these feelings can often start with sadness.

Another way to handle emotional overwhelm is to ask Spirit for help and to move into our centre.

I’m approaching winter in a new way: welcoming it as a natural time for grounding and slowing down, welcoming the time to look inward. We can clear ourselves by:-

• Asking Spirit for help
  
• Centering
  
• Feeling our feelings
  
• Bringing in light instead of looking for it outside of ourselves
  
• Seeing that even the wettest, darkest and bleakest-seeming winter has it’s own natural grace and beauty.

I am changing my mind about the onset of Winter . . Thanks for being inspiring !

With Love

Janie

from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Here are our Metaphors for Cold and Flu from the book , Healing the Body Through Mind and Metaphor by Chuck Spezzano and Janie Ticehurst.

Cold

This is a virus infection of the upper respiratory tract. A cold is showing us that we are sad and are holding on to someone or something, because of our fear of moving forward. We have losses that we have not finished mourning.

Influenza ('Flu)

The flu is a systemic viral infection, which reflects a strong feeling of being victimized. Sometimes there is a strong feeling that something is ending, and we don’t see a new beginning. We feel assaulted, exhausted emotionally and physically, and want to shrink away. We are knotting ourselves up over something and feeling a bit overwhelmed. As with all illnesses, but especially with the flu, we need to rest or slowdown, to reintegrate and re-center, and once more become willing to move forward. The flu represents how we are trying to escape the present situation and fly away.

Chuck Spezzano and Janie Ticehurst's eBook
Healing the Body Through Mind and Metaphor
is available on the website
http://www.healingkeys.com/healingbodyebook.htm