I was sitting in the reclined chair at the dentist wondering, “Is anybody seeing this?” As the dental hygienist aggressively flossed my teeth. Despite being super soft spoken, it felt like the man had a vendetta against my gums.

So I’m stuck in this chair, unbelievably uncomfortable, desperately wanting the whole experience to be over with, when I remembered a little exercise for lessening discomfort in the present moment. It’s an exercise in what Buddhists call “Non-attachment.” 

Non-attachment can enhance all the good times in your life, but also make the bad times pass by more quickly and easily.

Research shows that non-attachment is related to reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, plus increased empathy, kindness, wisdom and self-actualization.

I originally saw the non-attachment exercise on one of Martha Beck’s “Gathering Room” Facebook Lives earlier this year.

She says, “If you’re not attached to any kind of experience in the body, and you’re not attached to a past or a future, the sensation you’re feeling in the moment becomes much more tolerable, and it’s gone like this *snaps fingers*.”

In other words, often our anticipation (thinking about something beforehand) or rumination (thinking about something after the fact) of negative or uncomfortable experiences makes them feel much more unpleasant than they need to be.

For example, so many people cringe and hesitate as they think about ripping a band-aid off. When they do this, they lengthen the experience and find themselves uncomfortable for minutes before peeling it off slowly because they think ripping it off will hurt more.

Rookie mistake. 

Not only is the peeling of the band-aid unpleasant, but all the time you spent thinking about it is an uncomfortable experience too. 

So what could have been a few seconds of light and fleeting pain becomes minutes of mental, emotional, and physical discomfort. 

If we become mentally attached to wanting something negative to end, it tends to get worse and last longer. 

So our best shot at shortening and easing discomfort is to become detached from (or stop focusing on) the wanting/mental desire to make it stop. 

The Non-Attachment Exercise

The quick/easy trick to non-attachment is to become focused on the present moment. So instead of anticipating or ruminating, we spend our mental energy taking in only “the now.” 

So as I reclined in the dental chair, having my gums attacked, I did two things. 

1. Make note of the simple details in my environment
2. Reconnect myself to “now”

Step 1: Make Note of Simple Details

If you can occupy your mind with neutral details, then it takes some of your focus away from the anticipation and rumination, therefore forcing a loosening of your attachment to the negative experience. 

Some people naturally resort to this tactic when they are under high levels of stress, as this is a great way to get a release/find a small piece of comfort in a negative moment. 

A few ways to do this are to assess your surroundings or anything that feels neutral to you. For example, notice the color of the walls, the temperature of the room, if there’s a window, what can you see outside? Is it shining, raining, snowing? Are there any shadows hitting the wall or floor? Are you holding anything in your hands? What is it? What clothes did you choose to wear today? What colors are they? Are your shoes laced or zipped or slip on? 

Quite literally anything you can notice/fixate on besides the discomfort can aid it in passing. 

Step 2: Reconnect to Now

The way I’ve seen other coaches do this in a simple repeatable way is to literally say in your mind “Now… Now… Now…” almost like a chant. Saying this serves two functions. One: it reminds me that staying in the present will help the discomfort pass faster. And two: the act of repeating the word takes up space in my mind and leaves less room for getting caught up in my thoughts and overthinking the experience. 

In summary

Although these two exercises are unbelievably simple, if you really commit to doing them, they make uncomfortable experiences a hell of a lot more bearable. So if you ever want to metaphorically rip off the band-aid, now you know exactly what to do. 

If you would like to learn more about non-attachment, check out this article “What is Non-Attachment?” which covers some of the research demonstrating psychological benefits of it.

Thanks so much for reading, I’ll catch ya again in two weeks!

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Cheers, 

Morgan Rita Barbret