A few weeks ago I went away to the east coast of the UK for a long weekend.

On the day of our departure, having started off the day with my normal routine of a run, I noticed that as the day progressed, I felt steadily worse and worse and worse.

The feeling I experienced, reminded me of one of the key moments in one of my all time favourite action movies, Die-Hard 4*, when Bruce Willis and Justin Long discover that the villain, Timothy Olyphant has directed all the gas from the North Eastern states of the US to their location at a West Virginia power station.

There is this moment when they sense a deep foreboding and then react as they realise the force which is at that very moment travelling at an unstoppable pace to attempt to eliminate them.

In my case, the deep foreboding and unsettled state, took its course by first of all making me feel very tired and unsettled and anxious. During the night I woke up with a horrible sore throat and over the next few days the full force of the virus showed itself in a streaming nose and eyes, a headache, lethargy.

The common cold comes and goes, its one of life’s little treats, but I do think it has the effect of clearing out the build up of stress and anxiety because the common cold causes you to rest.

While I was away on my short break, I was at least able to rest and sleep and nurture the parts of me that needed space in a hectic period of my life.

The feeling I am most interested in, is the intensity of the feelings I had, before the cold took hold, those few hours before I realised I was coming down with a common cold.

I sensed into the awakening of my mind, to the situation in my body, that something was stirring, something was coming, something was going to require me to respond to its demand for my attention by resting, enduring, and recovering.

I think this feeling translates to the call of the mind to address our troubles, our challenges and our own self belief and our relationships, because the tension builds up and the hard part is determining what it is, that is calling from within.

In those times, I see a correlation with my response to the common cold, rest, be still, listen, moan a bit (perhaps inwardly) and emerge stronger, clearer and safer to face the path you decide to take.

My next blog will be: Being an Observer

William Defoe

 

*Die Hard 4 Film Synopsis

As the nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day, veteran cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) carries out another routine assignment: bringing in a computer hacker (Justin Long) for questioning. Meanwhile, a tech-savvy villain named Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) launches an attack on America’s computer infrastructure. As chaos descends around him, McClane must use old-fashioned methods to fight the high-tech threat.