Do not ever Google "adult loose tooth". Even if you've reached into your mouth to check out an achy molar and discovered that it's a little, um, jiggly and want to know what that means about the general health of your mouth.
Don't. Do. It.
Actually, don't--no matter what is bothering you, in what area of your mind or body--don't google it. And never, never ever ever, go to WebMD.
Once, a few years ago, I was having weird heartburn (which I never get) and at the same moment in time I just happened to be having squeezey tingly pain in my arm, and I decided to WebMD my symptoms:
Heart Attack.
Over and over again...WebMD told me I was having a heart attack. And though I KNEW with every fiber of my being that I was not, in no way shape or form having a heart attack...it still gave me the willies all day long.
Likewise, having googled "adult loose teeth", I found out, much to my horror, that I apparently have late-stage serious gum disease, and or some kind of major infection in my jaw that I could just feel was, at that moment, spreading to my brain, just waiting to kill me in my sleep.
And so, realizing that I had a full-fledged actual toothache on my hands, complete with loose and therefore life-threatening molar, I went into the following downward spiral:
1. This is going to cost me a lot of money, whatever it is.
2. Of course this would happen to me just as I'm getting a hold on all my finances and trying to squirrel away money for my upcoming wedding. Of course.
3. Why is this happening? What have I done to deserve this?
4. Oh my god, what if it's something really awful? What if I have to have a tooth removed and walk around looking like a homeless person?
5. I should have known this was coming. I've just been ignoring this...I should have gone to the dentist months ago.
6. Well, THAT'S obviously WHY this is happening. The universe is trying to show me that I can't ignore things without them blowing up in my face.
7. Oh my god, what else have I been ignoring?!
8. I'm a bad person.
(Okay, I know that jump from #7 to #8 seems like a big one, but somehow in my mind this all seemed like a perfectly logical and obviously TRUE train of thought.) And this is when the D-R-E-A-D set in. For reals.
Luckily, I was not alone (or this could have escalated into full-scale Lia vs. Lia fight to the death) and my very wise (and very understanding) fiance advised me to, um, chill. And likewise advised me to just take logical adult action like, I don't know...finding a dentist?
But you see, Shanti-towners, I had a moment, even while he was telling me these very reasonable, logical things...I had a moment where I just felt like, "no, you don't GET it. I knooooow how these things work. I know how the body and the mind are linked. I know that illness and physical wack-a-doo-ness has a symbolic meaning! So, you just don't get it, man who loves me...something is WRONG not with my tooth, but with ME!"
And then I took a moment. And, I paused. And I asked myself, very simply: is this a helpful way of thinking about this?
I thought about my future children, the ones I hope to have someday, and I asked myself, are these the kinds of lessons I want to pass on? Do I want my poor hapless children to get an ear infection and, taking after their mommy, assume that it's some kind of blemish on their character?!
Um, noooo.
Do I actually believe that the connection between my emotional and mental life and my physical one should be wielded as a weapon? Just one more reason for me to feel BADLY about myself? No, no, and no.
So, okay. So I dropped it. I dropped it, I popped some advil, and I sat down in front of my computer to figure out how to get myself into a dentist's chair that very day. (As I still wasn't totally convinced that I didn't have a deadly brain infection). I called on some friends for recommendations, I called on Yelp for some recommendations, I called on 1-800-DENTIST for some recommendations and by 2pm I was in a chair, being shown x-rays of my throbbing tooth by a very sweet and lovely dentist who informed me that my tooth wasn't loose...the crown on my tooth was loose, and that yes, I had an infection, but no, it wasn't in my brain.
And the dentist was so NICE, and the receptionist was so NICE, and the guy at the pharmacy when I went to pick up my kill-the-infection drugs was so NICE and everyone, all day, was so helpful and encouraging that by the end of the day, not only did I not feel like my toothache was a curse, I was totally convinced it was a BLESSING.
My tooth will get fixed, which obviously needed to be done. I've found a dentist who I really like (whose dad, the senior dentist in the office, has been doing yoga all his life, fun fact). I'm finally going to get some low-cost dental insurance for me and my man, which is definitely something that needed to be done but which in no way would I have gotten it together to do had it NOT been for my achy face.
All good things.
And so it turns out, that if my sudden toothache had any message at all, it may not have been: you're a bad person who is ignoring things and this is your punishment, but instead: here is a gift, what will you do with it?
Here is a gift of a throbby tooth...how will you handle it? Will you freak out and decide that rotten tooth = rotten you, or will you cup it in your hands, thank the forces that be for this unexpected present, and squeeze from it all the goodness it can possibly yield?
From here on out, I will try to remember to take option #2, thank you very much.
Yours, the responsible and newly-dentist-ed,
YogaLia
