Day 078 – Invisible Aligners

Welcome to Day 078!

After having the break yesterday, it seems that my productivity went up.  Perhaps not on the webpage 🥴.  There must have been something refreshing about sitting with a wheat pack on my neck all day.  When tackling personal growth, if your body and mind is a reflection of your spirit (soul) than when you embark on personal growth, you’re most likely going to encounter some physical side-effects.  

The idea I’m toying with at the moment, like a cat playing with a toy, is whether back in October 2020 when I decided to straighten the bottom row of my teeth, the ankle break was in some way related to the decision.   On a metaphysical level, this is not beyond the realms of possibility.  That is, if everything is connected.  Annette Noontil in The Body is the Barometer of the Soul, and Louise L Hay in You Can Heal Your Life both link physical parts and ailments to states of mind.

Did you know that your teeth can move forward as you get older, depending upon the shape of your jaw and how your teeth connect?  Apparently, they can.  This is what was happening to me.  There’s the bottom right canine that was starting to move forward and outward.  This tooth is important to my mouth’s tooth/ teeth structure.  Having seen this tooth go missing in both my parents and seen the repercussions, I wanted to prevent the repercussions and now felt like a good time.

In Noontil’s book the right side is the physical, and the lower canine tooth (p. 45) is planning and organising.  According to Hay, the break in the ankle is about “inflexibility and guilt” and “represent the ability to receive pleasure” (p.178).  Makes sense, when you think of planning and organising for my future physical direction (work or retirement).  Also, coupled with the pleasure of a lovely weekend coming to an end, when we still had another night up our sleeve.   Well, the broken ankle certainly ended my ability to receive pleasure for many weeks to come 🤕!  

If you take the concept of making big changes, there’s the potential for a domino effect on the rest of the body.  To use an analogy, it’s the case of cleaning up the cupboard in the spare room.  In order to clean out the cupboard, the spare room needs cleaning first, for the spare room to become decluttered, the garage needs space, for the garage to be cleaned, it requires throwing things out – some of which don’t have definitive keep or throw out decisions yet.  Of course, the spare room could be clean and then becomes messy as the cupboard gets emptied out before everything goes back in in an organised manner.     

In project management circles, an-activity-dependent-upon-activity chain is known as the critical path.  Not every action is part of the critical path.  There are things in the cupboard that can be removed without cleaning or messing up the spare room. Depending upon what the cupboard looks like everything may need to come out, just to be reassessed.   

The process for straightening my teeth back to their original state, by comparison to the time it took for them to become crooked, was/ is relatively fast (five to six months versus years).  Like those small additions thrown into the cupboard over time, when it comes to cleaning, you’re likely to do it faster than the months/ years it took to fill the cupboard. It’s pulling a piece of thread from the hem of a piece of clothing and suddenly realising there’s no more thread and no more hem. It’s at this point where I may have broken my ankle.   

The shifts in my consciousness or awareness dawning, triggered by everyone around me speaking of retirement plans and realising they’re my age!  Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah… that story’s in early Days 19 to 30 (ish). Obviously, the majority of people aligning their teeth will not break an ankle or even a fingernail.  Having a smooth and happy transition. This situation, like everyone’s is unique to me/ them.   

It looks like the invisible aligners were doing more aligning that just the teeth.  Much of my right side has been undergoing some form of shift.  My right index finger, right knee, right hip, lower back, right shoulder, to headache and potentially a slight cough to top it off – not COVID.   Is it any wonder, the headache was present?  According to Hay, headaches are “invalidating the self and/ or self-criticism and fear” (p.196).  Again, makes sense, change can do that.   

Let’s see what the cards have to say!