"Absolutely not": A story about refusing help I actually needed

Something crunched in my salad, and by the time I found the piece, flicked it onto the grass, and forgot about it, I had no idea I had just entered another one of my dentist-adjacent spiritual growth spurts. (If you’ve read me for a while, you know this is a pattern).

Let me regale you with yet another tale.

A couple of weekends ago, it was a long weekend. On the Saturday, I was happily eating lunch outside on my beautiful deck in the garden when something crunched in my mouth. Nothing in my salad was that texture, so, as one does, I carefully sifted through the contents of my mouth to avoid crunching it again.

The strange particle was located, and, not being able to identify the non-salad item, I flicked it onto the grass. I barely gave it a second thought until I was enjoying a small square of chocolate after lunch, and a searing pain shot through the left side of my mouth.

I was very confused because, after many months of using LED light therapy on my sensitive gums, I am thrilled to share that my gum health is completely back to normal. No sensitivity to heat, cold, or sweet - hurrah!

Until the crunch.

Then, a synapse fired in my brain and I realized what the mysterious white chunk was… duhn duhn dunnnnnhhhhh (insert ominous sounding music)... it was a filling. That had been covering up an exposed nerve. And was no longer doing its job. Since it was now in the backyard grass.

My heart plummeted into my stomach as I realized I would have to go through another torturous dental visit to get the situation remedied.

Then I cried. For a very long time. Body-wracking sobs. My husband comforted me without saying much, as he listened to my tale of woe with his hand on my back.

I just couldn’t believe that I would have to go through the agony of getting the filling again. Right when my mouth was back to being in tip-top shape. A total travesty.

Then Paul suggested that perhaps I could see a different dentist at the office. And maybe, just maybe, I would consider doing something a little extra for the pain.

“Absolutely not,” was my response.

One of my core foundations is basically: I don’t do drugs. Of any kind. I look for every possible alternative before putting manmade substances (especially of the pharmaceutical sort) into my body. If pain is a result, then I deal with it.

That had been 100% possible to uphold until my gums started receding. Two fillings were needed. My plan was to not get any freezing, but ultimately, it hurt so much that I acquiesced.

It worked reasonably well for my first filling in the top of my mouth, but then, when I got the second filling a week later, the freezing didn’t work at all. Which meant that the dentist drilled extensively on an exposed nerve.

10 out of 10 pain is all I can say about that.

So, of course, I had zero desire to go through it again. (Fun fact: the top filling fell out a few months after getting it, so I had to get that done a second time. And the freezing was less effective on round two.)

Back to the beginning of the long weekend sans filling. Of course, the dentist wouldn’t be back at work until Tuesday, so it gave me four days to consider my options. (And four days of only letting things into the right side of my mouth to avoid the nerve pain.)

I cried some more to my sister and mom. They thought I was being totally ridiculous to A) go back to the same dentist and B) not get some sort of sedation.

“You absolutely don’t need to suffer,” insisted my sister. She looked up new dentist alternatives and gave me recommendations from a friend who was thrilled with her dentist. Silently, I remained adamant that I would stick to my guns.

But then, as the weekend progressed, the tightness that I’d been holding on to started to soften. I can see that it was a long weekend for a reason (thank you Universe!), so that it would give me enough time to release my grip on the steering wheel of life.

I started to ask myself questions like, “Do I really need to suffer? Could there be another way of going through this experience that feels better? Are there solutions I haven’t considered?”

By Tuesday, something had loosened. I wasn’t white-knuckling my way back to the same chair anymore, and I wasn’t digging in on my no-drug stance out of pure stubbornness either. I just asked myself a different question: what if the actual problem was never getting help? What if it was that dentist? I called the second location of our biological dentist group.

As I reflected on the previous filling experiences, it seemed like he had rushed through the procedure. He didn’t wait for the freezing to take hold, and then, when the pain was excruciating and tears were streaming down my face, I let him know that it hurt a lot. He replied, “Well, we’re almost done. I think you can hang in there.”

When I called the second location, I asked if they would be able to redo the filling, and they said yes. I also asked if I would be able to have nitrous oxide, which I had learned was the mildest form of sedation dentistry, and that was a yes as well.

Rather than approaching the appointment with abject terror, I was kind of hopeful after this news. Perhaps I had let go just enough to suffer less (or maybe even not at all).

As I got into the dentist’s chair at the new office, my body still went into full fight-or-flight: trembling, sweaty palms, pounding heart. But I did my conscious breathing, and that helped a lot.

I met the new-to-me dentist, and he asked me why I had come to this office. I explained how my previous fillings had been absolutely horrible. He was sympathetic - already an improvement over the previous guy.

Things just kept getting better from there. The nitrous oxide certainly did take the edge off, so that was a plus. And then I noticed right away that this new dentist put the freezing into at least four spots in my mouth rather than just one. And then - get this - he waited. He waited and waited, and he tested. He poked the tender spot and asked me if I could still feel it, which I could. He waited some more, and he tested it again, and it still hurt, so he waited some more. I was blown away.

I felt so seen and heard. I felt like I mattered. I felt like he really did care about my comfort. He didn’t start until my mouth was fully frozen, and guess what? The whole procedure was a million times better!

And as a special bonus, he did a much better job of making the filling smooth. With the last one, I could definitely feel it on the outside of my molar. It was bumpy, rough, and crude. Now it’s as smooth as my tooth.

All of these miraculous results stemmed from one thing: softening. My mind had let go of whatever it had made up and was clinging to in order to have a new and improved dentist experience.

It’s a good thing I teach this stuff over and over so that when it shows up in my life, I’m receptive to it because I’ve heard it thousands of times (from my own mouth).

A tight mind ensures a contracted experience through life. A mind that’s willing to release and try something different means far less suffering - even in the dentist’s chair.

“How do I soften?” you might ask yourself.

Well, life works to soften us over time, but the thing is, it can take a really long time. For too many people, they might finally soften and let go in the last five minutes of life. That’s far too long for my liking.

I prefer an accelerated experience so I can do less suffering and more thriving.

That’s why I teach what I teach.

When I get on the mat, when I do conscious breathwork, when I do BEST and Spiritual BEST healing sessions, softening isn’t the focus, but it’s a happy byproduct that happens naturally with no effort.

When I first started learning these modalities, the promise was that I would soften. I had absolutely no idea what that meant or why I should even care, but now, many years later, I can see the results of softening. They have changed and positively affected every single part of my life.

And the great news is: there’s always room for more softening, for more surrendering the tightness of the mind to the wisdom of the heart.

That’s what I’m taking away from the Long-Weekend-Dental-Adventure. I apparently needed a really significant experience to catch my attention, to bring up the emotions that were wanting to be acknowledged, and then to soften the tightness of the stories my mind had made up that I was clinging to.

As a result, I have a wonderful new dentist (because of course I’m not going back to the other one), I’m no longer holding onto the stuck energy of those emotions like dread, terror, and stubbornness, and my whole vibration has been upleveled as a result of the softening.

All that goodness from one tiny little filling.

I’ve got a new dentist, a smooth molar, and one more piece of proof that the tight grip was never actually protecting me.

With glowing love and upleveled courage,

Christina

🕺 Creator of Courageous Self-Care

🕺 Going through the finishing touches for the slideshow I’ve been compiling for my dad’s celebration of life that’s coming up this weekend. It’s been such a gift to see a lifetime in photos.

🕺 Paying close attention to cherishing moments with my son Oakley. He’s here for two more weeks and then heading off to do some wwoofing in New Zealand until Christmas. Dramatic changes are afoot.