The Clenching and the Cause
El apretar y la causa
A question about lifelong teeth clenching and the fear that physical symptoms will never resolve, leading to a discussion about distinguishing the underlying emotional wound from its bodily expression.
The Clenching and the Cause
A question about lifelong teeth clenching and the fear that physical symptoms will never resolve, leading to a discussion about distinguishing the underlying emotional wound from its bodily expression.
I wanted to bring something up. My whole life I've clenched and ground my teeth, and for the past six years it's gotten much worse. When I went back to Argentina in 2018, that's when I first started using a mouth guard because my teeth were chipping. Sometimes I'll have ear ringing and pain, and it fluctuates over the months, sometimes worse than others.
I've been searching for people who've had success treating this kind of thing, and a lot of them, even after getting all the appliances, braces, and splints, still clench. So I feel like there's something deeper happening. I just wanted to bring it to the group to see if you had anything to say or any ideas.
It's similar to what I was saying earlier: explore everything, and also know that it's probably a lifelong thing to manage, because it's the conditioning of the body and the mind. Some patterns can always be helped and improved, but some are simply part of being embodied, having a body. The body and the mind will have conditioning, will have patterns.
What I can say is that it can come to a point where it's no longer a problem. It can be improved a great deal, and then it becomes just something you manage. But often it's a sign that something deeper is happening. A lot of those shifts I was describing earlier were not isolated from facing a great deal of pain, doing shadow work, trauma work. It was both things combined.
I think the emotional pain is in wanting to get rid of it and not being able to, and then thinking, "I'm going to be suffering my whole life." It's a terrifying story.
The narrative around the symptom
That's exactly why I'm saying it could be something you manage all your life and yet not be a problem, not be a source of suffering or pain. When you associate it with something that will cause pain for the rest of your life, that's just fear. And if that becomes your reality, it's a belief.
You could have a mouth guard, a clenched jaw, all of that happening, and have no pain around it. Just some tension once in a while, some nights where you sleep with more tension. The emotional narrative around it is something else entirely.
Sometimes we think the government needs to change, or we need to change the relationship, the partner, the job, the jaw, the clenching. And then that becomes the thing that's the problem: "Unless that is solved, I will be suffering for the rest of my life." That's not true. You could wear a mouth guard at night for the rest of your life and have no problem with it.
I know it's a belief, because I'm fighting what you're saying really hard. I feel like I haven't had a good night's sleep in years. I always wake up feeling tired, and I associate it with not sleeping deeply because I'm clenching.
Clenching is the symptom, not the cause
I understand. But it's not the cause. The clenching is the consequence. It's the symptom.
But if I always have the symptom, then isn't the cause always there? If I clench my whole life...
You don't solve it by stopping the clenching. For the sake of dental health, muscular and bone health, you manage it. But the cause isn't some strange neuron in your brain that decides to clench and just needs to be removed. There's an emotional aspect.
Sometimes it is physiological, and something needs to be addressed physiologically. That's why I was saying: see doctors, go to practitioners. In my case, there were molars that needed to be removed because they were restricting the motion of my jaw, which exacerbated the tension I had. But that wasn't the cause.
I can tell you, I was an insomniac. Two hours a night, pretty much every night, for a long time. And then, almost from one day to the next, what changed was an energetic and emotional shift. There were medical and physiological aspects that needed to be addressed, but ultimately it was a heart thing, a healing thing. There's fear, there's pain, and the clenching is a reaction to that. Over time it does become a habit of the body and the mind, and that can be addressed to help unlock it. Sometimes it's a very deep thing, and you need a deeper practitioner who takes more risk.
I thought you were saying it's something that will always be there, and that it can't be healed with an energetic shift. That I just need to come to terms with how things are right now.
What can be healed and what remains as habit
What I'm saying is this: the habit of clenching most likely will be a pattern you manage for the rest of your life. But what can be healed is the underlying cause of it, and all of the pain and suffering that comes from that cause.
There's a conditioning that's happened in the body and the mind because of the cause. Let's call it a wounding. That wound can be addressed and healed, and doing so would alleviate the clenching. But there's also a muscular, physiological habit. It's become part of the way the nervous system is conditioned. That can be alleviated and improved, but most likely not one hundred percent. It will become a habit that needs to be managed. It will get better, probably not go away fully, but it will no longer be a problem.
The relationship analogy
It's like this with everything. There could be pain at the ending of a relationship. That's naturally painful. But there could also be a sense of, "I'm going to die if this relationship ends," and then the relationship ends and you feel like you're dying. That's the thing that can stop. The relationship ends and it's sad, there's pain. What we don't realize is that ninety-nine percent of the problem is the whole "I'm going to die if this relationship ends." If all of that is gone, then the relationship ending could be excruciatingly painful, but there could be no problem with it. It's just grieving.
This is similar to what I'm saying. Physiologically, there's a conditioning that's happened. Currently the underlying cause is still active, which is why it's getting worse. That can be resolved. Then the conditioning is likely going to improve gradually over time.
Managing without suffering
It can reach the point where it simply doesn't matter. I've had sleep apnea, I've had clenching, all of that. The sleep apnea is, I think, completely gone. I used to wake up gasping for air. That's stopped. I used to have a really hard night and a really hard day if I didn't sleep with a mouth guard. Now I can go weeks without one and actually often sleep better without it. After several weeks I start to develop tension and think, "Ah, it helps if I use it," so I put it back in for a while. I'm on and off, managing what works best.
Do I sleep less without it? No. Do I have a difficult day? Zero. I can sleep eight hours with or without it. I have a great day with or without it. Is there still some conditioning, some tension, some grinding? I'm sure that's still happening a bit. But am I waking up gasping for air? Am I feeling anxious that if I don't have my mouth guard with me I can't sleep? About fourteen years ago, I was in despair: I'd left it at home, I was in a hotel, I didn't have my mouth guard, and I was convinced I'd have a horrible night and that the next day would be worse. That was how my life was. But that's gone.