Sometimes It Seems So Simple but I Need to Be Reminded

Last night I spoke to a good friend of mine, someone I hadn't talked to in a while.  He does energy work, like Reiki, and we were able to schedule a time to get together for him to do some work with me next weekend.  I am so grateful, because honestly, that's been the one thing that has helped my back pain the most.  And it's been quite a while since we've had the opportunity to do any energy work together.

After we scheduled the time to get together next weekended, though, I asked, somewhat desperately, I think, "But what should I do until then?  Can you suggest something?  Please?"  Because a week is not that long, but it can seem like an eternity when you're in a lot of pain.

So he starts naming stuff.  Mostly really basic, simple stuff.  Stuff that I should have known, but mostly stuff I hadn't even thought of in the past few days when I was in so much pain.  "Breathe.  Stretch.  Do some yoga.  Massage the area, if you can reach it.  Things that relax the muscles," he told me.

"Incense," he said.  Ooh, aromatherapy!  That sounded good.  I asked what scent he would recommend.  "Whatever you like," he said.  "Whatever relaxes you.  A lot of people like sandalwood but I think it smells like mothballs."

I have sandalwood incense.  Actually, it's sandalwood, sage and lavender.  I do not think it smells like mothballs at all.  I like it.  I lit some.

"Music," he said.  "Spa-type music."  I knew what he meant.  I found the yoga station on Pandora.

I had my windows open and it was raining outside.  In addition to the smell of my incense, which was nothing like mothballs, I could smell the rain.  In addition to the sound of the yoga music, I could hear the rain and the wind.  It was really relaxing.  How much of my pain is just tension?  I wouldn't have thought that much, but seriously, I was much more relaxed and feeling much less pain.  Still some pain, yeah, but much less.