Are you fond of your first-of-the-morning cup of coffee…that bitter, rich, deep flavor?
Do you look forward to the scent of lilacs in the springtime?
Does gazing at cloud formations invoke a feeling of expansiveness?
Senses are “a faculty by which our body perceives an external stimulus” and can be something we take for granted – until we don’t have them!
It was on Day Three of my journey with Covid when I lost my sense of taste and smell. Coffee became a hot beverage whose warmth brought comfort, but whose taste was missing. The blooming lilac bush at my front door? I couldn’t smell a thing. My garden’s early colorful blossoms were something I saw, but whose beauty didn’t fully register consciously because of my brain fog.
Along with this diminishment of my senses, I felt unwell enough that reaching out and calling friends, even conversing with my husband, took effort and energy I didn’t have.
I was withdrawn physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It was rather bleak.
A few weeks into my recovery, I began to improve.
I could tell that I was getting a bit better when my husband and I took a short walk in our neighborhood. As we walked, I realized I was able to register the day’s beauty, to receive and let in – and even enjoy – a little of the spring colors and textures I was seeing.
An improvement, yes, but I noted that I could still only let in a fraction of my usual sensory experience. Also, my sense of taste and smell continued to be compromised.
I had a way to go to get back to my senses.
At a certain point, still coughing and feeling “off,” I scheduled an appointment with a holistic practitioner, Maegan.
When I meet with Maegan, I always cover the physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual aspects of what’s going on with me. In this session, first and foremost, I told Maegan about my physical issues – cough, fatigue. I reported that my sense of taste and smell were improved, but not fully returned. She asked some questions and made some notes.
We moved on to the mental/emotional/spiritual bodies. In considering how I was engaging with the world, with my environment, I told her I was still feeling somewhat removed, not fully present. I felt isolated, yet had trouble being up to reaching out to people. Overall, I didn’t feel like I was enjoying my usual level of richness and depth in my connection with my life.
In explaining to her how I was doing, I recognized that I felt “dulled” – not only in my taste and smell senses, but in my relationship to others, to the world at large.
My holistic practitioner got an “Ah ha” look in her eyes as I talked.
Maegan put it all together, explaining that the nervous system, which houses our sensory stimulators and processors, had been impacted by Covid.
My dulled level of connection was systemic, within my nervous system, and was affecting not only my physical senses, but my sense of engagement, my sense of wholeness and well-being. Feeling withdrawn from interactions with friends had a parallel to not being able to smell the lilacs and take in my outer, natural environment.
Recognizing that dullness was a theme for not only my physical senses, but also my mental fogginess and my spiritual withdrawal from others, was a turning point in my recovery.
I learned that “The nervous system must receive and process information about the outside in order to react, communicate, and keep the body healthy and safe.”
At this point, my nervous system needed to heal and re-boot in order to help me re-engage physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Fortunately, my holistic practitioner had tinctures she recommended to help heal the nervous system so that I could return to normal functioning and interaction physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
As a holistic practitioner myself, I’m no stranger to the idea of an interconnectedness in the body, mind, and spirit. I’ve connected the dots between feeling anxious (which is emotional) with maybe having high blood pressure.
If a client has chronic headaches, they might be due to a physical cause like eye strain; or they might be due to holding in unexpressed anger.
If one is feeling depressed, they might have a clinical diagnosis of depression – or you might be feeling “dis-spirited” and need to address their spiritually.
Through my Covid experience with sensory suppression, what I learned – or had reinforced – was the knowing of how integrated a unit our systems are. We truly are a Body, Mind, Spirit paradigm that is interrelated.
This is information we can all remember and use to understand what’s going on in our systems. What appears to be physical might have a spiritual component, what’s going on emotionally might connect with a physical issue. I encourage each of us to consider whether any issues we’re experiencing might have an aspect that is related to another part of us.
I can’t say that I missed the aftertaste of coffee – that “coffee breath” taste that prompts us to quickly brush our teeth after the coffee’s been drunk! However, I did greatly miss the fullness and depth of my senses – the classic senses of taste, smell, sight, and so on – and also the sense of reaching out and connecting with my environment, of connecting within myself.
Through this process, as I came back to my senses, I came into a deeper appreciation of the integration that is the whole creation of who I am, who we each are.
May we all dig deeply into the rich, sensory experience that this life offers.
May we extend our antennae out into the world and take into ourselves what is out there! The signals we receive and process serve to remind us how alive we truly are.