I did something last week that I haven’t done in years. It was one of the hard days with my Chronic Fatigue and I just had no energy to make supper. So I ordered pizza. And not just pizza: pasta and dessert. (You have to buy three items to get the coupon.) With careful management, I don’t have to think about lunches or dinners for 4 days! And as a bonus, every time I open the refrigerator, the smells take me to my happy place.
Smell is one of our most powerful senses. The sensory cells in the back of the nose connect directly to the brain. (Do you think that is because being able to smell bad/rotted food helps keep us from poisoning ourselves?) Odors can trigger both positive and negative emotions since aromas can be associated with specific memories. (Yay! Pizza!)
“Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached
through the sense of smell than through any other channel.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Smell can conjure up emotions and influence mood. And smell, like sight and hearing, transcends Chronic Fatigue. One of my difficulties with Chronic Fatigue is shallow breathing. Maybe there are ways to harness smell to combat that tendency. The smell of pizza only goes so far, as does the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking. After all, how many cookies can you bake? (Don’t answer that!) I need a non-food way to fill my home with scent.
Years ago I had a large collection of scented candles. The pine-scented ones actually fooled people into thinking our Christmas tree was as real as it looked. Over time, however, I’d gotten out of the habit.
But I still have a vanilla candle. I will light that one, and add other fragrances to my collection. And Dollar Tree (another one of my happy places) has candles for $1. A good price to experiment with scent.
So today, I’ll “stop and smell the roses,”
breathing deeply the wonderful scents around me.
And I will be grateful.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Psalm 150:6 New International Version