Like most people, I have suffered from quite a few fears. Heck, I still have fears poppin’ up here and there! However, my Yoga practice has helped me to face and overcome the biggest fear in my life.
Trivial as it may sound, I have been scared to death of dentists ever since I was a little girl. I grew up with two parents who both have that same fear and they transferred it straight onto me. Our family dentist also happened to be more like a butcher than a dentist, which only fueled our fear. The end result? My family stopped getting checkups when I was about 13 years old.
In the time between then and about two months ago (at 28), I only visited a dentist 3 times. Every time I was bawling like a baby before I even called to make an appointment. By the time the appointment came I was a nervous wreck. While in the dentist chair I must have looked a lot like the girl from ‘the exorcist’. And the pain I experienced during the procedures were excruciating to me.
The past year has been a year of transformation for me. A year of letting go of the old, the negative and the fearful and welcoming the new, the positive and the courageous. The whole time I was actively working on getting myself and my life together, I knew in the back of my mind that it also meant I had to visit a dentist to take care of my teeth.
Before my first appointment I made the conscious decision to stay calm. Yoga has taught me to mind my breath, that as long as my breath is calm my mind and body will stay calm as well. On the way to the dentist I kept my focus on the breath and in the dentist office I listened to a guided meditation to block out the sounds that would usually scare me senseless.
And who would’ve guessed, I stayed calm during the whole appointment and that’s not even all….. By now I have had my teeth cleaned, got a filling and even had a tooth extraction. The best part of all of this? Each and every time I walked out of there with a big smile on my face and now it’s safe to say I am fully cured of my fear for the dentist!
So how did Yoga help me with overcoming this fear?
Well, my Yoga practice isn’t always comfortable. During asana practice, every practitioner is confronted with discomforts arising. My Yoga teacher always says;
‘If you experience any discomfort, focus on it with loving attention, send your breath there and feel it soften and become bearable.’
It is exactly that advice that I applied during my procedures. When the dentist was working on my teeth I’d focus with loving attention, while maintaining a calm and steady breath. While paying attention to what was happening, I realized that the procedures themselves didn’t hurt at all. That it was my mind, my fear, that had made my previous experiences so extremely painful and traumatizing.
My lesson? When you don’t allow your mind to run with you. When you stop feeding into thoughts that perpetuate fear. When you focus on your breath and are fully present in the here and now with evenness of mind, absolutely nothing is as bad as it seems.
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