Fear and Fingernails

You can judge how emotionally at ease I am by my fingernails. My nails are not something to boast about even if I was in perfect Zen state of mind. I have been “blessed” with my father’s genes when it comes to the thickness and shape. On a good day I can grow my nails to a quarter of an inch. At their worst, I go to reach for something, and my thin nails catch on something and either bend in half on themselves causing a break in the middle of the nail slightly before the nail bed or rip the edge dangerously close to nail bed.

I used to think that my flimsy nails were the reason I had the bad habit of biting them. That was until my partner and I achieved financial stability that brought absolute peace of mind where I wasn’t worried about whether we could really afford something or if we had to wait for the next paycheck to buy something. I found during that time my nails grew the longest they been ever, and they broke on their own instead of my biting. This caused me to really look at my life before that to recognize that while I had relatively happy time periods there was always an insecurity of my finances hanging over my head causing nervous fear in the back of my mind. I could push that fear behind a door in my mind, but it would seep out of the shadowy room in the form of my nail biting.

Now my nail biting, even now, isn’t something that would cause people to stare or wonder. The fact that I have never bitten them to the point they bleed gives me at least some solace that I have at least been willing to acknowledge the anxiousness I feel about money instead of just locking it away in the dark recesses of my mind hoping my subconscious will deal with. Or at least I thought it was only money that caused this. This past week I realized that was a very narrow view of what makes me want to run away mentally while facing challenges and pushing through.

Last weekend I was told someone I considered part of my community of acquaintances had gone missing. He had been having a rough time lately but never came home after leaving his house to get some exercise. There was a sense of helplessness but even more prominent was an almost mantra statement I kept making to myself. I was repeating that this person’s fate was not the same as my partner’s fate. My partner was getting help. My partner was in a better position despite my not knowing if that was true. My thoughts were actively trying to make the connection between these two people in my life while I vigorously was trying to do anything to but think of everything that was happening with my friend’s family members. By Sunday night when his family let us know that he had been found 78 hours after alarm bells were sounded, all I could do was cry.

Cry and look at what a wreck my nails had become. I had already taken most of the week off at work but originally had thought I would log on to a couple of things happening on my days off. Instead, I took stock. I pretended that those days off from work were vacation days where I was flying somewhere that didn’t have cell service. And when that didn’t work, I pretended that I was exactly where I hoped to be someday; in a life that allowed me to not have to work a 9 to 5 type of job and each day I could make my own in a financially secure lifestyle.

And that worked for a few days until life crept back in. By Sunday, my nails were taking some nibbles and I was anxious for the week to come hoping to somehow just wake-up the next morning and magically not have to deal with anything. While this was far from helpful to get myself out of that being stuck feeling, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that before I could tackle the problem, I had to recognize there was a problem and what the triggers were. So, check off the financial insecurity and now add fear of losing someone who stabilizes me to the list of things that turn my bad habit into a compulsive disorder.

So how do I move forward? Well, I could just do the old method of making my nails unpleasant to have in my mouth with a terrible tasting nail polish but that is just treating the symptom which surely will then find another bad habit to erupt from like an ash warning from a volcano. Instead, last night and this afternoon I practiced a type of meditation I was learning at work. It’s a form of mindful mediation that the goal is to focus the mind to quiet the mind.

The first step is to close the eyes and pick a part of your body to focus on. I normally choose something that my skin is feeling pressure against as it’s easier to constantly focus on that pressure and how it feels. I find it I just choose, oh say, my ears or my stomach, my mind instantly tries to take over my concentration by shooting imagery of something I have seen or thought or suddenly am curious about which defeats the purpose of trying to find the calm emotional state I am aiming for. You can listen to music or if you are skilled at this kind of focus, nothing at all but the goal is that by focusing on a body part for a long time your mind grows silent, and your focus then relaxes any body tension or emotional upheaval you may be feeling at that moment. It’s also great for going to sleep when your mind won’t shut off, but you need to sleep.

This won’t solve my root problem but at least it will allow me to focus on the baby steps I need to do in order to fix it.