Turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones. The domino effect(revisited)

8 degrees outside today. Ridiculous!

So I’m hoping that today is the beginning of a new me. I’m hoping that today, over 23 years of a bad habit will be broken, I’m hoping that I can handle and deal with my problems in such a way that makes me “normal”.

I hope today is the day I stop chewing on my fingernails.

It’s a disgusting habit, and today I hope it’s done for good. I had a hypnosis session to help with that and I’m optimistic that it worked. I guess we’ll see here pretty soon. So I went with a friend of mine, she too has the same problem, and as we discussed before the session began all of the issues we had and such. We were asked such questions if we were bottle fed, breast fed, if we were born prematurely and such. When she asked us these questions I was somewhat taken back. What did this have to do with me chewing my fingernails? Well come to find out, apparently babies before the age of 6 months have a suckling need. One that makes them feel safe and secure(such as breast feeding). Another question was the premature issue. I wasn’t premature, which is good in that if by chance I was, the tubes they would have used may(or may not) have caused a oral fixation after the 6 month mark. She later explained that at the age of 6 months, they immediately drop the suckling need and if a baby after 6 months still continues to suckle, it does so by it’s own free will.

None of the first scenario really matched me or my friend’s.

She asked a series of questions, such as, what time of the day is it the worst. What would be most miss when we do stop chewing our nails. Why do we chew our nails and so on. I think it was unanimous. We chew our nails because of anxiety, nervousness and stress among many. Of course those were the subjects that dominated the conversation. People deal with all of these issues in their own way, mostly deal with them in a positive way, others not so positive. Deep breathing, counting backwards from 10, going for a walk, immediately spending “me” time to sort and figure them out, all represent “positive” ways of dealing with stress, nervousness or anxiety. Of course, going “postal”, smoking, pulling out one’s hair,slashing oneself, even chewing on ones fingernails are all “negative” ways of dealing with these issues. Some worse than others. She explained it’s done in such a way that when we cause physical pain to ourselves, our body releases endorphins. Once these endorphins are released, we are then able to obtain “mental” clarity, if even for a moment. She even went on to say that it’s even possible for our minds to create problems that are bigger than they really are(or even problems that don’t exist), as if to create a false sense of stress, just so we can create the pain caused by the action of the habit and obtain the extra amount of endorphins. After 23 years of this … the simple act of chewing my nails is no longer considered “pain”(unless blood is drawn, but that’s neither here nor there),  and although my mind doesn’t register it as pain, somewhere in my body it registers as pain and *POOF*,  endorphins city.

My own personal reward system.

I’m hoping that tonight my reward system will be rewarded with positive re-enforcements, and no longer nail chewing.

I don’t remember much, but she did state at some point that by taking back control of my life, even if it’s as insignificant as nail biting, that one thing will lead to another in domino effect. Hopefully it’ll help with me dealing with anxiety, stress and nervousness. Once the first domino falls, so will the rest. Another thing she said that struck a chord was to never use the word try, try means at one point you’ve failed, instead say that your “working” on it.

Most importantly she said, Turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. It’s a good philosophy to live by.

Hopefully one that I can start using today on ….

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Tags: Hypnosis, nail biting, life’s lesson