My special spot

I have this spot. It's a special spot. You might say it's a life impacting spot.

The thing is, this spot drives me nuts! Now I'm guessing most people have their spot(s). I expect they are different - in different locations. I call my spot my "be with" spot. That's because the only way I can control it; well maybe the word isn't really control, maybe it's more like have some peace with it - the only way I can do anything that works is to "be with it".

 I learned this exercise back in 1979 in the Est training. The example they used to demonstrate this exercise in the training was the example of how to disappear a headache. But my spot isn't a headache. It's an itch.

This itch occurs on the bottom of my left foot, just in front of and to the left of my heal bone. The thing about this itch is that it's not on the surface, as in, on the skin of my foot. It's like under the skin, inside my foot, maybe about say a quarter of an inch in. So it's not your everyday run-of-the-mill kind of itch.

My itch does temporarily respond to scratching, if the scratching is really hard, like using a screw driver, or maybe the bristle pad I have in the garage for cleaning the bottom of my shoes. When I say temporarily, I mean something in the order of maybe 30 seconds or so. Then it's right back under there.

But here's what drives me nuts about the spot. It seems to only happen during the middle of the night, most noticeably when I wake up and have to get up to pee. I come back to bed in a half stupor, hoping I can craw in and drop right back into that great dream I was having, when that dammed itch shows up.

Lest you think this is funny or ridiculous, knock it off. This isn't funny! This nemesis can and has kept me awake for a couple hours. I've sharpened the big toe nail on my right foot to a point so I can use it as a scratchier. I've tried a half dozen different long handled scratchers. And I've gotten up and visited that bristle pad out in the garage.

I went to the doctor to see if maybe they had some sort of magic potion that would grant me itch-freeness. No such invention! Each technique has given me momentary relief, only to be revisited by this deep internal itch shortly thereafter.

So finally, one night a few months back, I found myself doing that disappearing exercise. You know the one : "Locate that itch in your body. What shape is it? What color is it? Is it constant or does it fluctuate? Now be with that itch and begin to shrink it in size. Get it down to the size of a quarter. Now shrink it to the size of a nickel. Then a dime. and finally about the size of pea, or maybe a BB.

And then wallah! My itch has disappeared. Aaaaahhhh. blessed relief.