No More Nail Biting

I mean that literally. For more than 30 years of my life, I was a nail biter. More accurately, I was a nail tearer. On some regular basis, I would tear at my nails, each time taking one or more of them well below the quick.

(As an aside... It doesn't really hurt much at the time of the tearing. But when the exposed nail bed gets wet or starts healing the next day, then it surely does let you know that it's unhappy! Nail bed anatomy and physiology is quite fascinating!)

It sounds bad, but there's no long-term damage. And, I wasn't hurting anyone else. It was just a relatively harmless habit, something that happened unconsciously when I was bored or stressed, and generally while my mind was occupied in a meeting or a classroom.

Still, it wasn't a habit that I was proud of. I'd try to hide the exposed nail beds for a few days until they healed, no longer red and angry-looking. I'd tell myself that I should stop doing this, and I'd decide that I wouldn't do it any more. And then sometime later, there I'd be, in a meeting or classroom, and, well.... I couldn't help it.

Then one day, five to ten years ago, I had a flash of insight. For some reason, I became aware of the moment when a session of nail tearing was starting.

The nail under attack had caught my unconscious attention because it had a corner. Not a sharp corner, but just a normal corner--one that happens when a nail grows a bit beyond the nail bed. To something in my personality, that corner was irritating and it had to be rounded off, immediately.

My unconscious solution was to round it by tearing off the corner, using a fingernail on the other hand. But then that tear resulted in a jagged edge, which needed to be smoothed. So I made another tear to smooth it, which then created a slanted nail, which needed to be straightened. Etc., etc., until the nail was smooth and straight across simply because the nail bed doesn't let go easily once it's exposed by a third or more.

It was a monumental "aha!" for me to recognize the irritation at the root of the issue, and to see my undesirable behavior as a solution to that irritation. That awareness gave me an opening to find an alternate solution: I started carrying a pair of nail clippers with me all the time. Pairs, really, as I had one in my car, one at the office, one in the bedroom, one in the den, etc.

Since then, I have never torn a nail to the quick. Rather, whenever a nail grows to the point of having a corner, I simply use a pair of nail clippers to round it off.

Bringing awareness to the minutiae of this behavior allowed me to find a better solution. I feel so fortunate to have had the flash of awareness that led to shifting this life-long habit!

Other habits, such as disempowering beliefs and thought patterns, are less tangible. We often don't even know that there's a habit to be shifted; we just know that we don't like the results we're getting in daily life. When I'm ready to shift one of these, it can make all the difference to have a good coach, an external observer to help me gain awareness and see alternate possibilities.

Awareness leads to choice. Choice leads to new opportunities. Blessed be!