A valuable lesson

Recently I had an infection in one of my teeth and the dentist needed to check out the nerves (which apparently means remove them or as its more familiarly known root canal, still there, good) which meant 'exposing them' and he found a 'hot nerve' which he proceeded to remove! I can safely say it pinched a little and after a while it was reasonably sore.

That was mid-December and on the 22/12/2016 I had to go back for the work to be finished. Now you might think I had a little trepidation following the previous experience and you would be exactly right! To be honest, even though he had assured me that it wouldn't be 'as painful' it may still hurt. So with growing trepidation I assumed the position in the chair and he went to work. After 40 minutes I left the surgery with not a single thing having been felt.

So, what I hear you all cry? Well the so what is that your state and your thinking directly affect your approach to the events that the future holds. Now you might still say so what and for some this will be second nature; for me and people like me it's simply a revelation. I haven't ever seen myself as a pessimist, a worrier certainly, thinking about what could go wrong quite a lot of the time, but a pessimist, well I suppose that could be the tag that I have. In my defence, I just want it all to go well and no one get hurt, almost impossible.

I always try to be positive and yet mostly see the negative, or in simpler terms what might happen. The facts of course are that I have no idea what might happen (no pain in root canal) I can and should only react to the events which unfold. Only when an issue becomes apparent can we take any actions to resolve it. As an example, I am a Private Pilot Licence (PPL) holder and I simply love flying. However, I also quite regularly self-sabotage when i’m looking to go flying; I do this because I begin to go through the various ‘what if’ scenarios. What if the wind changes and I can’t land back at home (proceed to diversion / alternative airfield), what if the engine fails (force land in a field), what if I get lost (call the emergency frequency and get some help). There are others which I won’t bore you with; however, the main thing is that they all have resolution associated with them and I know that. Can I therefore fix this self-sabotage? Yes of course I can in fact I have been doing just that, managing my state and more importantly getting some coaching around the issue.

The lessons as usual are known by some, not by others and of no interest to others. For me the lesson is that my state needs constant managing and I will need to force myself to see those positives. It's not a journey I'm looking forward to, it is one that I need to take!