Congestion in the Body

Something is no longer flowing. That is the first truth of every congestion — whether in your head, your liver, your sinuses, or your lungs. Where blood backs up, where secretion thickens, where pressure builds, a stream has lost its momentum. Something that should be in motion is standing still. Something that wanted to flow out is being held.

Perhaps you feel it as a pressure behind your forehead that will not yield. As a dull throbbing beneath the rib arch, where the liver sits. As a tightness in the sinuses that makes every breath heavier. As mucus that collects in the bronchial tubes and lies there like a stone that is too heavy. Each of these images tells the same story in a different language: somewhere in you something has backed up — and the body has stopped compensating for it imperceptibly.