Shock and Smell the Roses

I’m in Tokyo, in a fancy board room at the top of a fancy hotel meeting with a group of five influential, fancy women. A stately elderly woman sat directly across from me peering over the wide expanse of an expensive oak table. Behind her was about twenty feet of open space that led to a serving table where an efficient-looking waitress dressed in a formal Kimono was quietly pouring us some coffee.

Suddenly, the stately elderly woman’s face across from me changed to one of great shock and surprise. Her demeanor was that of confusion and uncertainty. Eyes wide in shock, she stood up and began to spew out a torrent of Japanese words tinged with anxiety. The other four women all join in on the cacophony of incomprehensible chatter, all looking at her, then at me, and back again. I sat there in confusion, wondering if a spider had bitten her. Did she see a mouse? What?! Then I thought, am I in trouble?

As it turns out, this regal woman had lost her sense of smell over 30 years ago, and immediately after putting on the Pendant I had given her just a few seconds earlier, she could distinctly smell the coffee silently being poured behind her, on the other side of the room. Her friends, knowing her well, were just as surprised. They all began spontaneous experiments, pulling out perfumes to see if she could smell them—which she did. Oh, and the waitress almost had a heart attack from all the focused attention.

I have since met with this same group several times over the years and we always speak of this ah-ha moment and confirm that she can still smell, not as well as most, mind you, but to her it was and is a life-changer. Throughout the couple decades of doing this I’ve had a few people express to me similar stories… not so dramatic, but parallel stories of regaining some of their sense of smell. That is so cool. I have my theories as to why this happened but no provable explanations. Perhaps I wouldn’t have believed it had I not been there myself. Any theories?