Untangling The Pain Knot

This meditation was inspired inspired by the book Outsmart Your Pain by Dr. Christiane Wolf. It gives us a brief taste of ways of being with three components of the pain experience, our thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. By kindly, curiously exploring the threads of these different components the pain can be a bit more manageable, rather than one overwhelming knot which is just too difficult to be with.

Transcript

Hi,

Dr.

Adele Stewart here.

This meditation is called Breaking Down the Pain Experience.

So in this guided meditation we have a brief taste of ways of being with three components of the pain experience.

Our thoughts,

Our emotions and our body sensations.

By kindly and curiously exploring these different components,

The pain can be a bit more manageable rather than that one overwhelming huge lump which is just sometimes too difficult to be with.

At any one time one of these three components might be more prominent and we can use our wisdom to know how best to be with this.

Perhaps moving back and being a mindful observer or perhaps immersing ourselves in the micro detail of the experience and really investigating intimately.

So let's find a comfortable position,

Perhaps sitting on a chair like a dining room chair with the feet flat on the floor,

Perhaps lying on the floor on your back,

And making any subtle movements that you might need to help release any obvious tension.

Taking some time to arrive in your chosen posture,

A sense of settling in,

Taking your attention now to the feeling of your feet in contact with the floor.

If you're sitting with the soles of your feet on the floor,

Really noticing the sensation in the soles of the feet,

Contact with the floor,

Allowing this to be your anchor to the present moment.

Or perhaps you might like to try out using a sense of gravity as your anchor.

Perhaps you might like to try out using a sense of gravity as your anchor,

Noticing the weight of your body where it's contacting surfaces,

The effect of gravity as your anchor.

Or perhaps you might like to use the sensations in your hands as your anchor,

Noticing sensations where the hands are in contact with your legs or a surface or each other,

Noticing any sensations within the hands right to the tips of the fingers.

Or maybe for you,

You'd like your anchor to be your breath.

So if you'd like to try this,

Moving your attention to noticing the felt sense of the breath in the body.

No need to control the breath,

Manipulate it,

No need to visualize it,

Analyze it,

Imagine it.

Simply noticing how it feels,

Wherever it's easiest to notice.

That might be within the nostrils or the rise and fall of the chest or belly or perhaps the whole rhythm of the breath,

Subtly moving the body as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

Spending a little bit of time now with your chosen anchor,

Knowing that it's human nature for the mind to wander,

Just very gently noticing where the mind has wandered,

Allowing it to stay there in the background and bringing the attention to your anchor in the foreground of your awareness.

Turning your awareness now towards the pain,

Noticing what's the sense of the pain right now,

Where is it?

Where is it?

One area,

Several,

Noticing if there's one area that's calling your attention the most.

It may be the most intense one or perhaps not and as you're holding the physical sensations of the pain in your awareness,

Noticing if there are any thoughts related to the pain.

Perhaps noticing if there are thoughts about the past of this pain or maybe the future,

Maybe the near future just after this meditation or maybe tomorrow or much further out and noticing whether there's some emotions around the pain at the moment.

How are you feeling about the pain at the moment?

Checking in which of the three components,

The physical sensations,

The thoughts or the emotions has the most charge to it right now in this moment and knowing that we're going to have a brief exploration of all three and once you're more skilled with this you can choose to maybe go with whatever the three has the most charge to it.

We're going to start today with the thoughts.

Often the thoughts or you might call it the pain story is actually what makes the pain so difficult to be with,

To tolerate and it can really help to not just notice the content of the thought but to spend a little bit of time on thoughts themselves.

So these instructions apply to any thoughts not just ones about pain.

You might spend a little time now just noticing how do you know that you're thinking?

How do thoughts appear for you?

Are they an image or written words or an audio,

Something you can hear?

Do they seem to have a location in your head perhaps,

Behind your eyes,

Somewhere else in the body or actually outside of the body?

Are you able to be aware of the thoughts instead of actually being the thoughts?

Sometimes to help this process it can be useful to give the lightest little label,

As light as a soft whisper.

For example you might say future pain thoughts,

Past pain thoughts,

Planning or just thinking.

It can be very helpful to notice where you become aware of a thought's existence.

Is it usually just afterwards or perhaps as you're having the thought or perhaps even sometimes noticing it emerging?

How does that happen?

Does it flash up or bubble up,

Unfold?

Is it helpful to remind yourself thoughts are mental events,

Not facts,

Even the ones that tell you they are?

Is it helpful to remind yourself just because I think it doesn't make it so?

Is it helpful to remind yourself that thoughts are real but they're a mental representation,

They're not the truth?

You might like to pause the recording at this point and spend a little more time exploring thoughts,

This mindfulness of thoughts,

Either with or without your anchor or otherwise allowing the thoughts now to be in the background of awareness and turning our attention to emotions.

Are you aware of any emotions right now?

Perhaps there might be one major emotion or several minor ones,

Perhaps more of a sense of nothingness or numbness,

Resistance.

You can work with that as well.

It can be helpful like with the thoughts to gently label the emotion,

The really,

Really soft touch and a kind voice.

Maybe fear,

Anger,

Frustration,

Grief,

Overwhelm or something else.

How do you know you're having an emotion?

Can you feel it somewhere in the body?

What does it feel like it's more in the head?

Is it possible to bring awareness to where you experience the emotion the strongest and gently hold it there?

There's no need to change it or make it go away just for a short time.

It might be helpful to breathe around the emotion or through it,

Allowing the emotion to perhaps subtly move in whichever way it needs to move.

Perhaps you can address the emotion directly,

Giving it some reassurance.

For instance,

Frustration.

This is frustration.

This is what humans sometimes feel if they're frustrated,

Avoiding identifying with it.

So avoiding I'm frustrated or I'm a frustrated person.

Seeing if you can notice that this emotion,

A bit like the weather,

Comes and goes.

It's not you.

It's an experience.

And you may like to pause the recording here.

And if there is some big emotion happening,

Care for yourself however you need to.

And perhaps if you have the energy and inclination,

You could explore the difficult emotions guided meditations.

But if it feels okay,

Letting the emotions move into the background now and turning to the actual physical sensations of the pain in the body.

If there's more than one area,

Perhaps allowing your intuition to guide you to the area that feels wants to be worked with right now.

Knowing this is not the only way to work with pain.

So if it's not helpful today,

Just let the words wash over you.

Try it again another time.

So noticing where is the pain located right now?

Big is it?

What's its shape?

Do you get a sense of the texture of the pain?

Can even use a metaphor here like steel or wood or cheese or sponge?

Or perhaps it's more like a gaseous sense or liquid?

Is there a temperature or for a cool?

Is there a movement to it?

Throbbing,

Stabbing,

Vibrating,

Sharp feeling?

Is there a color?

What else do you notice?

What else do you notice?

As though you're a curious scientist from outer space,

Really kindly and curiously investigating this experience of the physical sensations of pain.

Noticing if it's helpful to have some sense of holding the pain gently.

And use the breath to breathe around or through.

Perhaps some other metaphor comes up for you like surrounding the pain with soft cotton wool or a healing balm.

And as much as we all want the pain to go away,

Of course we do.

This is about mindfulness of the pain,

Holding it gently.

Approaching it as best we can.

Can you stay a bit curious?

Maybe even kind?

Some sensing the area of pain like a little whimpering puppy can evoke a kind of,

Oh,

Sense of wanting to comfort the puppy,

The pain.

But other times there might be a real resistance to all this,

A closing off.

And we may have to be gently and curiously with this sense of resistance or blocking.

Perhaps it feels more like an emotion of resentment or anger.

We can turn back to being with an emotion.

Now letting go of awareness of the physical sensations,

Coming back to your anchor,

Feet,

Gravity,

Hands or the breath.

And if you like,

Perhaps giving yourself some appreciation for spending this time getting a little quiet.

And getting a little closer and more curious about that whole pain experience and noticing if there's any subtle shifts as you break down the pain into its components.

Knowing that the meditation is coming to an end,

If your eyes have been closed,

Gently open them,

Keeping a soft gaze and moving the body gently whichever way it needs.

And when you're ready,

Going about your day.