Working on my smile.

posted on 13 July 09 | category: overcome anything

A few practicalities when wearing braces: When I laugh, I have to pull my upper lip back over my teeth again, which – by just reading this sentence again – made me have to perform what I have just written.

Because of the natural positioning of my teeth – the very reason why I’m wearing this metal gear – my lower front teeth would bite of the brackets off my upper front teeth. The dentist took care of that problem by putting some sort of additional filling on top of two of my upper teeth, which does three things for me: it prevents me from biting of the brackets (good!), it makes me look like Dracula’s ugly little nephew (so what else is new?) and it makes chewing something next to impossible (interesting to say the least). There, I just made myself pull my upper lip back down.
The list goes on, but none of the above is really that important, because something else is catching my attention. I considered this braces and the upcoming corrective surgery thing as the mother lode of my list of ten fears. Six months ago I wasn’t even able to bring the subject up. Really, I couldn’t talk about it without choking up. Almost no one knew about it and from the ones that did, almost no one, apart from a very close circle of people, had the slightest notion of how big an impact this has had on my life.

Even my coach and confidant during this journey, Dr. David DeHaven (more about him later), wasn’t allowed to bring it up unless I told him it was OK to do so. It felt the entire subject was like a dam that would burst and wash me away with held back grief and tears never cried. And you know what? It didn’t. At all!

In fact when I look in the mirror, I’m happy with the result already, which objectively is rather strange since my teeth haven’t moved a nanometer since last week. The thing is, I can picture the result now. I can visualize the smile and what’s immeasurably more importantly, I’m starting to see myself differently, or better yet, correctly.

It is as if moving towards your fears makes them tinier as you approach them. You start to see them for what they really are: a part of your way of thinking and being that is yours to do with as you please. If they work for you – although I wouldn’t immediately know how – then that is just fine. Let them be. But if they don’t, do with them as you please. They are a way of thinking about your self, which gives them tremendous power and strips them of all substance at the same time. They are very real AND they don’t exist.

Quite a few people that know me were surprised by the impact I let this chapter of my life have on me and I can see why that is. They know me as someone who doesn’t shy away from things, someone who is confident in what he does and unapologetically outspoken in what he stands for. But as a good friend of mine rightfully pointed out, there is a distinct difference between being self-confident and having a positive self-image. In my case, the healthy former concealed the distorted latter.

The braces and the surgery aren’t that important in itself. They are no longer a goal as such. They are merely the tangible events I somehow needed to set the corrective thinking about myself in motion. They are a point of no return on my way out of the comfort zone that was I until one week ago.

Oh, I’m not there yet, by far, and there will be moments of grief and tears never cried, but that’s OK. They are welcome now, so that the smile I’m working on isn’t just an aesthetic thing, but something that is deeply rooted in my heart and soul.

There…I just did that lip thing again.

Take care,
Karl

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Comments

LadyNorth 18 July 2009

Dear Karl: I gave myself a new smile two years and ago and it still catches me by surprise when I see a photo of myself.
Here is my story: http://wolfraingarden.blogspot.com/2007/01/40-years-long-and-smile-wide_18.html
I am so glad you are doing this now and not having to wait 2o or more years.
Good for you and NO you don't look like Dracula's son!
You are a good looking man and with your new smile you will be dynamite.
Besides..I am so in awe of your skill with the English language and sharing that private part of yourself with us.
Blessings on your journey.

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