Thanks to an osteopathic treatment, my body found its way back to feeling like me again this week. That was a relief, albeit for a short while.

The highlight this week was a 20 year reunion with my osteopathic buddies. We graduated together 20 years ago and it was humbling indeed how far so many of them travelled to meet up. Three came from Canada, then others from France, Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Ireland, as well as from all over the UK. To spend time with people who went through the same journey and have created such similar roots, despite not seeing each other for 20 years, the similarities and connections ran deep and felt profound for us all. Despite not being well known, osteopathy in its truest form, is more about how to perceive the world, and the health within it, than it is a bunch of techniques applied to remove pain. All of us at the reunion have taken our training and found our own way with it, but we all retain our deeply connected root: one centred around the love of all.

Osteopathy begins with humility and being non-judgemental which allows us to deeply connect to other human beings and potentially allows us to perceive the multi-layered complexities that exist. With this as a foundation then, it is no wonder that the connections and understandings of us as a group were a joy to behold. A room full of love, compassion, acceptance and trust. Each one of us with a passionate spark in our soul that has been ignited by this perception of the world and goes far beyond the treatment room; so far removed from the majority of society, at least, the one we hear about. I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon this and I am forever grateful to the sequence of events that led me to where I found myself at osteopathic college 24 years ago, not really having a clue what I had signed up for but with a deep knowing that I was in the right place.

Then, another knock as I succumbed to a nasty cold the following day and I still feel rubbish. At least, I console myself, that I must be more relaxed than I was last week when the adrenaline and cortisol would never have allowed me to be ill. As I felt rotten last night and struggled to fall asleep, I tried to embrace the learnings of the reunion and to relax into the virus rather than fight it. Interesting language that we use when we describe illness as we often use aggressive verbs and synonyms of battle which all create a greater amount of tension and struggle within ourselves. Once I accepted that the virus has as much right to be here as I do, my whole body softened and I slept incredibly well. I am still ill, but I feel better about it on the inside. I don’t feel like a victim anymore but rather that I needed to rest and recuperate after the last few weeks which have been emotionally and physically challenging, and this virus has given me the reason to do just that. If anyone had said to me 25 years ago that I would perceive a virus in this way I would have laughed and thought them mad. I don’t think any of us who started that course were any different to the rest of society, but this weekend showed me the power and privilege of living with the paradigm that we are all equally important parts of the whole and that health is always present if we give it the right conditions to thrive. This paradigm has changed us all for the better and I feel honoured and blessed to know such a special group of friends and colleagues whose central tenet is love.