Comments on: Finding Peace in the Dentist Chair http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/ A safe place to explore and express God's love. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:10:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Jonny Rashid http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/comment-page-1/#comment-486 Jonny Rashid Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:09:56 +0000 http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/#comment-486 I will use the breathing technique next time I'm in a stressful or scary situation. Thanks for sharing. I will use the breathing technique next time I’m in a stressful or scary situation. Thanks for sharing.

]]> By: Art Bucher http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/comment-page-1/#comment-483 Art Bucher Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:23:41 +0000 http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/#comment-483 Kathy, You are so practical! With Jesus in the Dentist chair ; I'm going to remember this. Art Kathy,

You are so practical! With Jesus in the Dentist chair ; I’m going to remember this.

Art

]]> By: Daniel Wittig http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/comment-page-1/#comment-482 Daniel Wittig Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:05:23 +0000 http://circleofhope.net/blog/2008/03/24/finding-peace-in-the-dentist-chair/#comment-482 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 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

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