Day 278 - The History of a Nail Biter

Continued from Day 277 - Expansion and Growth

Yesterday, I opened up a few new perspectives to what's going on behind my nail biting habit. Today, I'm going to explore the major components as memories in my past that supported the nail biting character.

Going back to my past there are a few moments that stand out in relation to my decision to chew my nails. The most prominent memory was seeing my brother's fingernail get ripped off in a screen door accident.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shape who I am through a fear of pain from having my fingernail ripped off.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to bite my nails even since I've realized that I repeatedly manifesting the nail pain that I fear through biting/clipping my fingernails too short.

The second memory that stands out is a vague remembrance of the thought that long fingernails are are feminine/girly and that was a risk to my social status. Striving to be cool and accepted back in elementary school was a challenge point that has largely shaped my socialization process throughout my life thus far.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how others might judge me if I were to have long fingernails, not realizing that I am actually judging myself within this.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being perceived as feminine, and in this compromising my reputation and ability to be accepted and liked by others, particularly females.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear and create a relationship of dislike toward the image of having long fingernails as a male.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by the picture representation of myself.
• I realize that I've constructed an archive of pictures connected to meanings within my mind for the purpose of comparison and positioning myself as ego.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare my physical image to others, not realizing that the only purpose herein is to serve my ego by relative self-definition.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my ego-self-definition is 

The third significant component to my nail biting was a personality I created through backchat of comparative spite toward my brother. In our younger years, one of his key defenses against me was scratching me. I absolutely hated when he did it. Exactly why, I do not know, but definitely in part because I couldn't make it fair by scratching him back. Within this, a need for things to be fair between us was an internal reality that I enforced to the extent of my ability. Back then, I didn't care to be honest with myself about how unfairly I was treating him. I would throw a fit when he would get the best of me, I digress. I would also ridicule him in the context of the above (2nd memory) point to attempt to control him, to validate my fear/perspective. So, this was just a point I would think about that contributed to justification of biting my nails. It served primarily to increase the separation between my brother and I so I could build my ego up. Shucks.

• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to put myself before my brother in such a way that I would construct a false confidence within me by putting him down and separating myself from him.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lie to myself and not consider the consequences of my words and actions from his shoes.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that the way I treated him was okay because "I only wanted the best for him" and would try to induce behavior change in him with derogatory insults.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails through a belief/backchat that it would make me superior to my brother.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define long fingernails as negative and worthy of ridicule within myself and with-out into my world.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fuel my nail biting habit to achieve a mental superiority complex, not realizing how I am compromising myself, my brother, and our relationship.

The fourth and final point that comes up when I think back to why I originally started this habit is convenience. It was more convenient to just bite my nails, rather than go through the process of manicuring myself.

• I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to define my relationship to self-maintenance and hygiene within difficulty.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails as a shortcut to practical hygiene, not realizing in self-honesty that this form of substitution is actually rather unhygienic.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to prefer shortcuts and compromise to being thorough and honest with myself.

This post is an excavation of the historical justifications that I used while implementing the nail biting behavior. There is still more to be investigated within this point. As I walk this process of stopping my fingernail snacking through writing, I am strengthening my awareness of when I start to bite. I'm not going to make the same miss-take as I had before by imposing an expectation of myself of which I can fail and go into a depressive state of giving up on myself. I breathe, I walk. I develop self-honesty and stability as I sort myself out and apply myself to change myself.

I realize that there is nothing inherently wrong with biting fingernails. I have automated this behavior and infused anxiety such that it had become an unconscious outlet of my anxious state. I commit myself to persist in uprooting this nail biting habit to reveal to myself the nature of my mental programming. With this information, I commit myself to apply it practically through self-forgiveness and the process of thorough self-change.

Average appearance for over a decade

P.S. Yesterday, I also mentioned the relationship to nail biting as a potential alternate form of the thumb sucking habit that I "stopped"earlier on. Re-investigate this point later on.

Thanks reader!

Day 229 - Self-initiated post about Nail Biting

In my past blog posts about nail biting, I was reacting to my nail biting. It was kinda of a self-anger that pushed me to write so that I could stop. The curious thing here is that I have always cycled between desire to pull away a thread of nail with my teeth (I know, weird), and the frustration of pain when I've take too much. From the physical pain or the pity pain from looking at my unattractive nails, I move into self-anger, and a desire to change / a frustration that I haven't or won't or can't.

So, with this post I am writing about nails on my own will. I realize that there are a ton of points within nail biting that contribute to this addiction, so I must disentangle the net gradually. But if I don't write, I won't build the foundation that I need to stop this cycle between enjoyment/desire of biting vs. anger/pain of biting too much.

Haha, as if! - flickr cred

And begin:

I realize that there are layers to nail biting and that this habit is much more than just nail biting. Sometimes it's merely an outlet for anxiety, and what triggers that anxiety require their own, yet integrated, investigation. Sometimes I commence a chewing motion because I feel roughness or even just feeling the length of my nails causes a reaction within me. It's interesting how strong this reaction is, that even when I am conscious, I will still consciously move my hand to my mouth to "fix" the problem.

That last sentence brings up two points: 1) I often begin biting my nails within a reaction that seems to skip my conscious awareness. 2) I believe that I can fix my nail roughness/impurity, by biting. When in reality, it is the biting that causes the roughness/impurity.

Both very interesting dynamics. They're like riddles that I comprehend, but haven't yet solved. It really does often seem like I just suddenly become aware that I am biting my nails after 5-40 seconds of doing so, but common sense tells me that I am my body and I am aware of me. So in order to not consciously aware of the nail biting movement, I must be suppressing a subtle moment of decision. And this moment has become subtle through my repetitive participation. It's very much like I have encoded myself, and the decision to bite is already made. That leads me to consider if this internal battle to stop biting my nails is even real.

This interview Only this ONE last Time... on EQAFE was my first exposure to the perspective of that internal battle/friction that arises when trying to stop a habit. I recommend it to anyone addicted to anything that's trying to stop. There is a lot of additional perspective I have received through all of the Desteni material and from the community on the forums. The concept of self-honesty is widely applicable and quite the challenge to master. The goal of this entire Journey to Life is to build self-trust and become self-honest within every breath. From there, common sense (that which is Best for All) is more easily applied.

My nail biting habit requires dishonesty because my starting point is not pure. I have all kinds of reactions and suppression that are buried within it. And it's not so much that the nail biting in itself is 'bad.' One of the more helpful realizations I picked up from Desteni and keep coming back to is:

It's not what you do, it's who you are within it.

So the challenge of self-honesty is accepted. And through self-forgiveness, I will unravel and reveal my decision processes that I have suppressed into my subconscious. With an accumulated perspective, insight, awareness of self, I move myself through and into self-change.

Okay. I have found my ground, and will begin to dig in the posts to come. The nail biting point is going to be walked thoroughly because I'm serious. It's time to start working with the character dimensions :)

Day 95 - Continuing with my nails

I woke up this morning considering how pointless it is to bite my nails, and so I took a breath and said no more...

to my own disappointment  I nibbled throughout the day and while watching an action-adventure film, right back into a full blown nail biting frenzy. So there are several dimension of mind coming into play, and by nature of so many different factors I'd have to consider to completely unwrap my nail biting tendency, I've delayed facing this point for too long. And so I write.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delay facing my self within the relationship to my nail biting habit out of fear that I will not be able to stop.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become disappointed with myself for having fallen...AGAIN. I realize that this disappointment is an energetic release that cycles and so aids in the bind of this addiction. I commit myself to stop and breathe when I see myself experiencing frustration or disappointment with regards to biting my nails. With the lens of common sense, I see that I must stop. Stop the nail biting. Stop the reaction. Just stop, and proceed according to common sense. This should be easy...my how the mind is complex.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get so involved within an action film that as tensions rise in the movie, my tensions rise, leading to the familiar tension outlet of nail biting. It's becoming more and more clear how this habit lives off fear. If I'm not lost in a fear-base thought when my hand goes to my mouth, I am lost in the movie, taking on artificial fear/anxiety as my reaction is bite nails.

^ As I wrote that, I recalled how I have been using this pattern of hand to mouth for comfort since I was really, really young.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suck on my thumb for comfort when I was little and that I have, in a sense, upgraded to chewing off little bits of nail and numb skin.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to realize that this habit is very deeply ingrained and that I must face each and every point behind the addiction to be able to stand stable, here, as my breath. They say it can be done in one breath, I have been unable to stop this habit in one breath, and so have lived in the definition of powerlessness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as powerless when I fail to achieve, especially in comparison and desire to be the best or better than my comparison points.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up when I see that I can not be the best, better, faster, stronger. I commit myself to a steadfast walk, a patient walk. And I will not stop until it is done. I commit myself to stopping the addiction of comfort from nail biting.

I commit myself to realize why and how I have begun the movement from hand to mouth, and to delete the thought and charge with self-forgiveness. Doesn't matter how many times I fall. If I keep getting up, nothing and no one can stop me.

cc

Related articles

• Day 34 - Finger Nail Biting Update
• Day 94 - Nails and Fears
• Day 35 - Dodging the discomfort of delay