I was sitting in the dentist’s chair for a routine cleaning, bracing myself for the discomfort I knew was coming. Strangely enough, that cleaning hurt more than the root canal I had recently had. Maybe my teeth are just sensitive, but it was genuinely painful.
At one point, I looked down and noticed something: My toes were pointed, my back was arched, and my hands were locked together in a death grip. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I was holding on to the tension — as if being tense would somehow make the pain less painful.
It didn’t. It never does.
So right there, I decided to experiment.
Could I be totally calm in this moment?
I relaxed my shoulders. I unclenched my hands. I took a slow breath and let myself melt into the chair.
The pain didn’t instantly stop — but something surprising happened:
I stopped holding on to the pain emotionally.
The moment passed, and it didn’t echo in my mind. I wasn’t thinking, “This is awful. I hate this. When will it end?” Instead, I shifted my focus to how good it would feel to walk out of there knowing I was taking care of myself — maybe even avoiding dentures one day.
That shift felt powerful.
And then I had this realization: If I can relax in a moment like that, what about all the smaller tense moments in life?
Traffic stress.Work stress. Technology not cooperating causes stress.
Those everyday stresses are tiny compared to a dentist’s drill. And if we can train ourselves to soften our reaction — not remove discomfort, but release our resistance to it — we gain something incredibly valuable.
Author James Clear once wrote: “Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state.”
When we stop fighting every uncomfortable moment and instead allow it to be what it is, we find a kind of peace that isn’t dependent on circumstances.
Try this: The next time you catch yourself tense — in a meeting, in traffic, or at the computer — pause, breathe, relax your body, and see what happens.
You may discover a new level of control you didn’t know you had.