Mindful Fear

This fear is not real.

This thought is what got me through a recent root canal. I was not a happy person at all when the dental surgeon leaned the chair back more than 180 degrees, put a block on one side of my mouth to prop it open, and covered my throat passage with a thick piece of latex to catch any stray infection as it came out.

The thoughts that filled my mind were of a panicky nature.

• I had no control.
• I had to trust that I could still breathe through the hole they showed me in the latex.
• I had to believe they put in enough freezing.
• I had to do nothing but lay there.

As I breathed slowly, I realized my mind was not a good place to be. This is when I turned to my body and started a body scan. I lingered at each body part from the top of my head to my eyelashes to my spleen to the very last baby toe. I breathed into each area for a count of four and out for a count of four.

As I scanned through and calmed my body with breath, my mind started to calm down. I realized I was just having thoughts and that I was actually very safe – in the hands of a trained specialist with state of the art tools. Seeing that fear made room for an insight.

It was then I thought of people around the world who needed a root canal or dental work and could not get it. Lives that were disrupted in Ukraine. Perhaps state of the art dental offices like the one I was in bombed by Russia. I thought of people in underserved countries, even Canada, who could not travel to the dentist. I thought of people who could not afford paying a $2000 dental bill for three little roots to be drained of infection.

The feeling of gratitude, and compassion for those suffering dental pain all over the world at that very moment, filled my body and mind and I became mindful of the privilege I had.

It would so very easy to complain about getting a root canal. But, I had transformed my aversion at the beginning of the procedure to a deep feeling of joy.

I appreciated the training my endodontist had taken. I appreciated the compassion of his assistant who held my hand and told me stories of missing her home in the Philippines while we waited for the freezing to take effect. I appreciated the technology and medical inventions that made all of this possible from x-ray machines to the drills that were used.

Becoming mindful is not at all an unproductive activity.

The feelings of gratitude I generated in those forty-five minutes have stayed with me every day since the procedure. I notice that when I start to complain I quickly change my attitude to appreciation instead. That is truly the power of the practice – to enjoy life no matter where you are and what is happening.