Recently I found myself in a terrifying spot—the dentist’s chair about to have wisdom teeth pulled. I started my visit with my heart beat increasing and tears welling in my eyes all before the dentist walked in.
When he finally did walk in and confirmed that he would not be putting me “under” but simply inserting needles (GIANT needles to me) full of local anesthesia into the roof and base of my mouth, the tears that had been welling up started to pour out and I had to tell the dentist that I was terrified of the pain and of hearing him pulling out my teeth. Someone in my cell had actually warned me the night before about the ‘CRACK’ that I would surely hear while in the dentist’s chair.
The dentist was not pleased with my fear and was frankly pretty upset. He told me directly that I would simply need to calm down or leave. He said that all my “freaking out” would accomplish is that the teeth would probably be harder to pull out and that the local anesthesia would wear off faster, thus I would cause myself more pain unless I calmed down.
He left the room to let me try and pull myself together. I slipped on my cheap headphones purchased for $5 on a recent flight. One of the earphones didn’t work so I knew that I would still be able to hear the CRACK, if there was one. I knew that I had to pull myself together, but I wasn’t sure how.
Then I remembered that people in my cell were most likely praying for me right at that moment and that enabled me to pray for strength and for peace right in that moment. But how the heck was I supposed to do that with tears running down my face and my heart still racing?? Then I remembered a simple breathing technique that we’ve done at Circle many times. Breathe In—JESUS, Breathe Out—SAVES. I then changed it to Breathe In—JESUS, Breathe Out—PROTECTS ME.
After saying that little mantra over and over and over, I finally felt my heart slow down and the tears drying on my cheeks. I was ready for the dentist.
Thinking about it now, no wonder the dentist was upset, I was basically saying with my tears and racing heart that I didn’t trust him. I am certain that I do this with God all the time. Trusting that He is taking care of me and not being afraid of putting myself out there to be vulnerable is so hard to do. I guess in the end, I end up causing myself more pain by trying to handle fears by myself then trusting in God to carry me through it.
I’ve been with Circle Venture as the treasurer since May, but I still find it terrifying in many ways. Hopefully the experience on the dentist chair will remind me to trust in God and remember that simple breathing exercises are a big way to connect to God.
Trusting in God for strength may be working. Four months ago when I was asked to blog I conveniently had some excuse, but now I felt like I should just do it. Trusting in God—one step at a time. Breathe In—JESUS, Breathe Out—PROTECTS ME.
Your adventure in dentistry reminds me of my own anxieties regarding dentistry, pain and a whole parcel of other stuff. What you did in the dentist office sounds familiar to me. I believe that you practiced meditation and mental prayer.
I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which makes me like Charlie Brown, afraid of everything, but I have certain triggers that cause me to panic. One is pain and the near occasion of pain, which is a reasonably accurate description of visiting the dentist.
Recovering from a back injury, my doctor refused to prescribe decent pain killers. Stuff like Percocet has no effect for me, but he’d give me nothing stronger. I suffered greatly for at least a month, feeling overwhelmed by the pain and my frantic, anxious reactions to it. I contemplated suicide and became extremely depressed as well.
At a crisis point, a friend taught me a meditation method he learned while taking a martial arts course. My body was twitching uncontrollably from a medication reaction and I was freaking out. He told me to think of a candle, concentrating on exactly what the flame looked like, the black wick, the oranges, yellows, reds of the flame and then, most importantly, that little bit of blue near the wick. Meanwhile, I was supposed to take deep breaths, feeding thoughts that interrupted my concentration into the flame. To my amazement, it worked.
Then a friend of mine who is a pagan expanded the method to go beyond the flame and imagine it’s light flowing through me and into the earth, meeting the roots of trees all around and being taken up by them. That made me feel at one with nature.
Then I became a Christian and a Quaker. In the silence of Quaker liturgy, many Quakers meditate. So I began doing meditative prayer and contemplation of my conscience or a scripture passage while meditating. I also began reading Christian books and discovered one called New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, a renegade Catholic monk of sorts who protested the Vietnam War and spent a year or so with Buddhist monks in an ecuminical experiment. Neither pleased the Catholic Church, which is why he apparently was never made a saint.
I had stumbled on mental prayer, the kind monks and nuns have used for centuries in Catholicism. Meditation and mental prayer, I found, was an ancient spiritual discipline. It is a spiritual tool that can help you quiet racing thoughts, distractions, and even anxiey to open your heart and mind to the Spirit. Some people told me Catholics had withheld this kind of prayer from lay people until after the Vatican II reforms of the 1960s. Even then, some worried about strange spirits or evil things getting into people’s heads through this method. Nonsense!
In my experience, meditation and mental prayer are a path to quieting the mind, relaxation, and a kind of prayer beyond words. Prayer of feelings and those groanings of the spirit that are beyond words. Prayer that bears the conscience and also forces you to face your own sins and failings. It’s not all sweetness and light.
Still, meditation freed me from the prison of my own fears. At last I felt I had a method to control my anxieties, racing thoughts, and mental reaction to things like dentists. It is no miracle pain-preventer, but it can help you control your feelings and thus your behavior in REACTION to the pain or other stressful situations in your life. It is truly empowering.
What a shame most Protestants in the days of the Reformation gave up this form of prayer. There is really nothing Roman Catholic about it. It is an ancient spiritual tool, found everywhere from the Buddhism of the Orient to the vision quests of the Native Americans.
I hope the emerging church will embrace this mental discipline and the associated mental prayer as an option for believers. Surely, it is a gift of God!
Peace,
Dan
Kathy,
You are so practical! With Jesus in the Dentist chair ; I’m going to remember this.
Art
I will use the breathing technique next time I’m in a stressful or scary situation. Thanks for sharing.