Springboards

The Dentist’s Chair

I was sitting in the dentist’s chair yesterday for a total of 90 minutes.  I realised I could think of it as an unusually ‘intimate’ sort of relationship.  I was lying down with this person’s face only inches from mine and his fingers were in my mouth. From time to time he would mutter reassuring words. 

I realised I could also look at it in another way, as a stressful event where I was vulnerable, exposed, at someone else’s mercy. I could wind it up a step further even and think of a visit to the dentist with horror, bordering on the traumatic. The dentist used to be called ‘the murder house’ or ‘the torture chamber’.  These days of course we have injections to numb the pain and even gel to numb the area of the injection to numb the pain.  Yet for many, a visit to the dentist is still something viewed with fear. 

What makes the difference is how we represent it to ourselves, in other words what we say to ourselves and picture in our head.  Mmmm … how can I use that more effectively for my next visit?