An unhealed case of traumatic fibroma and emotional trauma..

This morning, I found a swelling nestled within the buccal mucosa, likely a consequence of relentless friction from a misaligned tooth. It throbbed with a quiet insistence, and with it came a familiar unease. My mind, ever the overzealous protector, spiraled into a dozen possible outcomes, each more unsettling than the last.

But then, something shifted, not in the swelling, but in me. I moved. Not toward a solution, but into the flow of my day. I chose to carry on, to fold clothes, to wash dishes, to simply live.

And a curious thing happened.

The swelling didn’t recede. But the discomfort and the awareness of it began to dissolve. The pain, once front and center, receded quietly into the background. I had almost forgotten it was there.

Isn’t that how many of our troubles work? We believe they demand our attention, our analysis, our constant rumination. We circle them endlessly, trying to solve what cannot be solved in this moment, as if worry alone could will things into healing.

But like this likely traumatic fibroma, I’ll see the dentist tomorrow, of course—most issues are not made better by our mental poking and prodding. If anything, like physical swellings, they tend to grow when we prod them too often, inspect them too frequently, fret over them too much.

We often think we must heal first, resolve everything, fix every broken edge before we can resume living. But in truth, much of our healing happens precisely through living. Life, with its small, mundane rhythms, has its own quiet medicine.

So perhaps the next time a worry flares, don’t fight it. Don’t feed it. Let it be. Move gently through your day, and you might just find it no longer bothers you the way it did.