I had a dental checkup.
My experience was basically a result of my attention, and the stories I made up during the hour. How did it go?
What was the story I told to myself is really the question?
Good news,
I got my teeth cleaned.
Bad news,
This is uncomfortable
Good news,
I’m going to spend the time in the chair meditating and dreaming
Bad news,
Dr. found a small cavity that needs filling.
Good news,
Finding it early saves me much pain and possibly losing a tooth later.
Bad news,
It’s going to cost me some money.
Good news,
I got the money so I can afford to pay him.
and so it goes.
Your emotions are largely the result of the kind of story you tell yourself.
Change your story, and you change your emotions.
The experience was the same either way, but how I feel is up to the story I tell myself, believe about it.
As Lizzy went about scraping my teeth, I took it as an opportunity to create my own experience.
Dreaming into awe, wonder, and gratitude
I looked at the instruments she was using and pondered about them. I have a BS degree in mechanical engineering and so have some idea what it takes to build things.
What a marvelous time this is to have all this technology and care for our teeth. I was imagining the history and the hours to develop the tools and technology. Years of discovery and development of materials, tools, science, research, and production to make all this Dental Care possible. Every metal instrument used to scrape my teeth, the mining of the metal, the forging process, the hardening, and the sterilization machine in the backroom, for every use, so it’s clean and no infections are passed along.
The x-ray machine. How long did that take to conceive and create?
Computer records to compare my teeth to previous visits?
The chair reclining back so I was more comfortable.
Lights so she could see into my mouth.
There’s got to be billions of man and woman hours of effort put into the technology, profession, and craft so that I can take better care of my teeth. Just so I can avoid a toothache. So nice. !!!!! So much better today than my parents could ever have
I feel like royalty compared to how people were able to take care of their teeth 100 years ago. Teeth are amazing. They are for us and service to us for a whole lifetime, if we take care of them. They just didn’t know how or have the tools and understanding back then.
Imagining back to the ordeal it must have been 100 years ago. A toothache without any of the anesthetic treatments. Wisdom teeth coming in? What did they do? Having your tooth pulled before the development of anesthesia. Ouch.
Comparison Benchmarks
I find awe, appreciation, and wonder when I compare today’s society and how we lived a hundred years ago. I feel so grateful when I do my comparisons against benchmarks of 100-200 years ago.
When I do my comparisons to how things are going to an ego’s imaginary version of perfection I come out feeling not so good. So I much prefer the narrative where I compare things now to the way things were 100-200 years ago. When I do that way I feel like I’m living like royalty.
We’ve got airplane chariots that will take us through the sky across the globe. We’ve got train chariots to take us across the countryside while we sit back and relax with a snack from the dining car. We have car chariots to take me across town to my favorite restaurant, or dental appointment.
I feel gratitude when I think about the amazing efforts of many in science, technology, and industries to have these advancements so conveniently in our lap.
Self awareness allows you to see the different elements of a story and allows for changing how you feel in these moments. You can not change what you can not see, and self-awareness is what allows you to see within.
Problems or Solutions
Of course, that’s not without some problems
Before 10000 years ago, based on studies of skulls, human teeth were pretty healthy. Rare to have a cavity or lost tooth. So there was nothing that needed to be solved.
An agricultural diet and then added sugar created a lot of cavities, tooth decay, and painful problems.
So it might be that we created these dentistry solutions, but we needed to because we created the dental problems by creating diet “solutions”. And so it goes.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The road to emotional hell is a big topic, and so let’s get to it in small steps.
How do you create your own emotional hell with your narrative stories?
You will be helped if you develop your awareness about this specific element.
What is the benchmark for your minds’ comparisons?
In my dental dreaming, when I measure things against the benchmark of how life was 100 to 500 years ago, I create gratitude, awe, and wonder.
When I take myself into a narrative story and there is a comparison to my ego’s imagined “perfect” scenario there is emotional suffering. The Judge is comparing and then criticizing, and I’m in a victim narrative feeling miserable, frustrated, or annoyed.
The “devil” of suffering is often the belief of this “benchmark” for comparison that the narrative story leverages for comparison.
When the comparison benchmark is my ego’s ideal version of what “should be” happening, I create my emotional suffering.
Awareness Check,
So I ask you, when you are really feeling good about what is going on in some aspect of your day or your life, is your mind comparing it to another possible scenario? If so what is that? A lot of times when things are happy there is a flow and the mind is not telling a story so it’s not always comparing.
And when you are falling down the Judge/Victim narrative story to suffering, is there a comparison going on? If so, what is the mental benchmark structure that reality is being compared against?
Your emotions are largely the result of the kind of story you tell yourself.
Change your story, and you change your emotions.
Of course, you may need to become aware and then do some work on these specific components to change the stories you tell yourself.
IF you want to change the thoughts and emotions running in your head, you can change them at the source of the core beliefs. The Self Mastery course will guide you to identify and help you change these beliefs at the source of your stories. Check it out here.