Welcome,
My name is Celia Roberts and I'm the founder of the Biomedical Institute of Yoga and Meditation.
Today we're looking at meditation for back pain.
So you might like to practice seated or lying down.
If you're seated make sure your hips are higher than your knees so you're well supported by a cushion underneath your sit bones.
Bring your attention gently into your breath.
Notice the breath in as many parts of the body you possibly can.
Your chest,
Your nostrils,
Your belly,
Your back body.
Notice the arising and the passing of each breath.
When we pay attention to the breath we see blood flow move to the prefrontal cortex.
Inspect scans.
This helps build our concentration and attention.
Keep focusing on that breath and start to bring your attention down into the lower back and breathe into the lower back.
Use the breath to expand and contract that region of your body.
Move your attention now to the mid-back.
Bring your attention and breath to the mid-back region.
Notice if you can how your breath gently expands and contracts this region of your body.
Now moving your attention to your upper back and again noticing how the breath expands and contracts this region of the body but also enhances the length of your spine as you inhale and how there's a gentle contraction or shortening of the spine on the exhale.
Upper back and length of spine.
Wherever you're experiencing pain,
Perceived pain in your back,
Bring your attention to this region now.
Feel any sensations,
Strong sensations,
Minor sensations,
Changing sensations.
Feel every sensation you possibly can.
Break down the sensations so if there's a gross sensation you want to break it down so you want to feel all the minor sensations as you pay attention with deep concentration and regard for the body and breath in this moment.
As you start to identify different sensations underneath the gross sensation,
Challenge your experience of pain if possible.
Pain is memorized and anticipated.
Pain is memorized and anticipated and when it comes to pain,
The research shows us that pain is about protection.
So that leads us into this moment.
If we're truly here now,
What do we need to protect our body from?
Gateways into presence,
A breath and mindfulness.
Breath and mindfulness of body.
Mindfulness of breath and body.
Breath,
Body.
Breath,
Body.
Bring your attention to the pain this time and using this pain as your teacher.
How is the pain guiding you?
What is it showing you?
What is it asking of you?
Can you sit with it without wanting to change it,
Without wanting to make it go away?
Can you accept the pain fully?
Can you surrender into this experience without resistance,
Without fear or needing to protect?
This requires your full attention and presence.
Surrender.
This is when the blood flow starts to move away from the frontal lobes as seen in SPECT imaging in the brain.
And that immediate movement away from the frontal lobes is where we start to see someone enter that state of surrender and deep acceptance for exactly what is.
Breathing to the pain,
This improves vagal tone,
Reduces the size of the amygdala,
Improves heart rate variability and improves your immune response.
The moment we elicit the relaxation response,
We even flip the genes,
The switch on the genes that affect disease.
So right down to the epigenome,
You're creating change.
Stay fully in the sensations in your back.
Allow them to be there without resistance.
Stay with the notion of complete surrender to this experience without the need to change or fix it.
Feel into the deeper sensations.
Feel as deeply as you can into the pain.
And when that depth is with you,
Question the existence of the pain.
Is this pain as real as I think it is?
If you can be with it now,
Does the change,
Shift,
Disappear?
The yogis tell us we are not the mind and we are not the body.
And to remind us not to attach heavily to the experience of mind or body because we are so much more than this.
Come back to any shifting or changing sensations and recognize that as we meditate,
Blood flow also moves away from the parietal lobes,
Changing our sense of self,
Our experience in space and time and our experience of mind and body.
So take this time to have freedom from what is always remembered,
The body,
Our thoughts,
Our pain and let go of anticipation,
Protection,
Fear of what might happen.
Be here now.
Be here now.
Use the pain to ground you into this moment.
Here and now.
The pain is your teacher.
It is the guru,
The bringer of light.
We'll breathe into the pain one last time and recognize the transformative power of your mind.
Because the mind creates the body and the body creates the mind,
Referring here to the science of psychoneuroimmunology,
We can work through the body to change our experience,
Our thoughts.
We can change our thoughts to experience deep physiological shift and change.
Bring a deep sense of presence to pain.
Bring the breath to anywhere in your body where you experience pain.
Bring the breath now to a soft and gentle close.
So the breath is soft,
Gentle,
Traveling just very gently through the nostrils and you're aware of the continuum of breath and just noticing any state change that you've experienced in your form,
Your body,
From the practice of meditation.
