a free nail trim

It occurs to me that you haven't heard the funniest benefit of my experience with reiki.

When I was little, I chewed my nails. All. The. Time. People would offer me money to quit. I couldn't. I remember my grandparents offering me some large (to little me) sum. I still couldn't quit. A while after that offer, I suddenly stopped, without any effort whatsoever.

Except I didn't really stop. Instead, I started chewing my nails in my sleep. (Yes, in my sleep. I know. How odd.) And how on earth do you stop something that you are not even awake when you are doing, I ask you.

Well, I tried everything. Gloves. Tape. That gross-tasting stuff. Nothing worked. I finally gave up trying and resigned myself to a life of nail-biting.

A while after I started practicing reiki, I noticed that my nails were growing. And growing. And growing. I had to cut them. (A miracle! The only thing I used my nail clippers for prior to this was to try to fix my nails the morning after a round of nibbling.) Then, I had to cut them again. Then again.

Now, there is really only one time that I still chew them. If I look at them and think, "Wow, they're getting really long. I should cut them.", and I don't, I'll wake up the next morning with a few of them gone. It's as if part of me is saying, "Here, let me help you with that."

I suspect that the reason I was chewing them all those years was likely related to anxiety and stress. And that since I was very out-of-touch with my emotions and thought I had no stress, nail biting happened to be the way my body attempted to deal with it. So it makes sense that practicing reiki - which has helped me get in touch with my body and emotions and relieved anxiety and stress in general - would change things.

But it still makes me chuckle that I chewed my nails in my sleep. I mean, in my sleep? Seriously.

Comments

[marilyn]

i love this post. so funny how thee things happen. i still suffer from nail biting binges (asleep and awake) sometimes.

[Josiane]

Interesting story... That reminds me of my brother who used to talk in his sleep when we were kids; he'd usually in French, but sometimes in a language unknown to us that sounded like Swedish or something like that - go figure! Oh, the things that people do in their sleep! :)

[elizabeth @ the blue lotus]

@Josiane: That is funny! I wonder what language it was. (And too bad he couldn't make use of it in the daytime.)

@Marilyn: Ha. Binges. That's the perfect description of it. I hope sometimes isn't very often. :)

[Julie M.]

Lol! "Just try and stop me..." Our subconcious is powerful, hey?

[elizabeth --]

@Julie M: very powerful.