This Is How I Reduced Pain With My Mind

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hose broken pieces of me was about the oncoming pain. I was terrified.</p><p id="a8f2">Overcome with fear before my next visit, I tried not to look at his glasses. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I shouldn’t be focusing on a pain-filled future reflected in the dentist’s glasses.</p><p id="38ed">Somewhere I had heard of a riddle that fascinated me. It was this: what is the sound of one hand clapping? I had heard that monks concentrate on this riddle to focus their minds. I decided that it might help take my mind off the pain if I could try to solve this riddle while I was in the dentist's chair.</p><p id="da31">Maybe I had seen too many television shows about people with superpowers. But I thought that if I was in an uncontrollable physical situation, I could use my mind to get out of it.</p><p id="7c44">The next time I sat in the dentist’s chair I tried to answer the riddle while staring at a dot on the ceiling tile. The pain was still there but I wasn’t as frightened and as the drilling sounds faded into the background, it hurt a little less.</p><p id="2730">Years later, I discovered mindfulness meditation and found that it helped me experience the inevitable challenges of the coming years. Painful life experiences, like drilling at the dentist’s office, are not optional. But facing those experiences with or without fear <i>is</i> a choice. And, as I learned by refocusing my attention, pain minus fear is easie

Options

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This Is How I Reduced Pain With My Mind

I was eight years old

The year I was eight I had to have a massive amount of dental work. When I was a few years younger, a case of scarlet fever turned into days of a high fever just as my molars were coming in. As a result, I would need giant fillings in most of those molars.

It was back in the ’60s and there was no such thing as a pediatric dentist. The only dentist in town had no patience for complaints. He didn’t offer comforting words, which at least was honest, because it always hurt a lot.

I watched as the dentist stabbed my mouth with several long novocaine needles and I suffered through the high-pitched buzzing of what seemed like hours of painful drilling. There was so much drilling that little was left of each tooth when the giant hole was filled with a silver-colored substance.

I remember staring at the dentist’s glasses during my first visit. They were covered with particles of my teeth. All I could think about when I saw those broken pieces of me was about the oncoming pain. I was terrified.

Overcome with fear before my next visit, I tried not to look at his glasses. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I shouldn’t be focusing on a pain-filled future reflected in the dentist’s glasses.

Somewhere I had heard of a riddle that fascinated me. It was this: what is the sound of one hand clapping? I had heard that monks concentrate on this riddle to focus their minds. I decided that it might help take my mind off the pain if I could try to solve this riddle while I was in the dentist's chair.

Maybe I had seen too many television shows about people with superpowers. But I thought that if I was in an uncontrollable physical situation, I could use my mind to get out of it.

The next time I sat in the dentist’s chair I tried to answer the riddle while staring at a dot on the ceiling tile. The pain was still there but I wasn’t as frightened and as the drilling sounds faded into the background, it hurt a little less.

Years later, I discovered mindfulness meditation and found that it helped me experience the inevitable challenges of the coming years. Painful life experiences, like drilling at the dentist’s office, are not optional. But facing those experiences with or without fear is a choice. And, as I learned by refocusing my attention, pain minus fear is easier to tolerate.