MIND MOVES:Opening up to pain is the first step to healing, writes TONY BATES
I MISSED the arrival of the new year because of an infected root canal. Pain can be exhausting. And when you add in the cumulative effect of 24 hours worth of over-the-counter pain medication, it is no surprise I missed the fireworks.
It made the business of a new year’s resolution very simple: get to a dentist as soon as possible. Luckily I got to see two great guys within a week. One made the diagnosis and the other performed a root canal treatment a day later.
My sense of relief was so great that on my way to the surgery I shared my ordeal with the taxi driver. He felt that I would be better off getting it done on the cheap in the North.
Maybe he had a point. But I told him that I had reached a place where I would have traded my right arm for pain relief, and I wasn’t in the mood to shop around.
I needed a dentist I could trust too. And I knew that I could trust this one. A few years back, he had opened up his office at 10 one evening to dig me out of a gruesome place when I was in the throes of a similar crisis. A consummate professional, he did what needed to be done with respect and consideration, and he was thorough. I was looking forward to seeing him again.
On my arrival, I was escorted to the chair. It overlooked a small garden complete with bird feeders.
He greeted me like an old friend and got down to business. Digital x-rays revealed an abscess in the lower jaw. He told me the procedure might be complicated. I lay back and braced myself for that dreaded first hurdle: the needle.
A shiver of fear swept through my body and my shoulders rose as he took aim. He told me to relax and to breathe. I took a deep slow breath, consciously relaxed my contracted muscles and silently intoned the warrior mantra: Bring it on.
The root went straight down into my jaw, where it took a sharp right turn. The infection was lodged in this “side road” and proved hard to reach. It took longer than usual. As he moved closer to the problem, the risk of pain increased. My instinctive reaction was to close down and shut out the pain. But to do so made the whole ordeal more difficult.
At one point, he stopped and apologised for the obvious discomfort I was experiencing. But he also explained firmly that unless we got to the root of the problem (my pun), we would both be in deep trouble.
I focused on letting the drill go deeper and accepting whatever happened. It seemed to take forever. My mind drifted off to something that I had read years ago about, “openness to experience”. Apparently it’s one of the defining criteria of positive mental health.
When I first read that, I interpreted it as meaning that we should be open to change, to novelty and to the wonders of life that can easily pass us by. Listening to the whirling drill in my mouth and looking into his determined eyes, I realised it also includes opening ourselves to realities that can be hard to take.
This dentist was asking something of me that every therapist asks of their clients: to open themselves to what they believe to be unbearable.
Because to change the way we feel, first we have to acknowledge painful feelings and let them in. Only then do our natural healing resources become mobilised.
Sitting in that chair, making moment-to-moment choices to be open to pain was possible because I trusted this physician’s expertise. His expertise, in turn, required my openness. Although it might not have looked like it to an onlooker, this was teamwork.
My story has a happy ending. I am now completely pain-free. As I left the surgery, I thought of so many people who reach out for help but don’t get the relief they seek. How sometimes they cannot open themselves to what is troubling them because there is simply not enough trust between them and the professional they meet.
How sometimes what they see in the eyes looking back at them is benign sympathy, when what they need to see is a determination to make things right, even if that means going the extra mile.
Tony Bates is founder director of Headstrong (headstrong.ie)
