Pain Support Exercise

Whether physical or mental, pain is a part of life, for some people way more than others. No matter where on the spectrum you sit we all need space to hear and honour our pain with intention and attention. This is a gentle meditation for when you are in the pain.

Transcript

Welcome to this guided meditation and visualization for when you are experiencing physical or mental pain.

In this meditation I invite you to find a safe,

Quiet and calm place to sit or lie down making sure you are warm and comfortable or move your body into a position that feels most comfortable for how it feels in this moment.

If you are lying down and you can do it have your arms either side of you or on your knees if you are sitting.

If at any point in this meditation the pain is too much for you either bring yourself back to the breathing pattern we will do at the beginning or do whatever would feel best to support you in this moment.

We are going to begin by slowing down our breath to an in count of four holding the air in our lungs for four and then slowly exhaling out for four.

So I'm going to lead you through this breath.

So we are going to inhale two,

Three,

Four and pause two,

Three,

Four and out two,

Three,

Four and in two,

Three,

Four pausing two,

Three,

Four and out two,

Three,

Four and in two,

Three,

Four and pause two,

Three,

Four and out two,

Three,

Four.

Final one in two,

Three,

Four pause two,

Three,

Four and out two,

Three,

Four and just return back to a comfortable breath.

Allow your body to just exhale from that motion of breathing and on those exhales feeling your body just relaxing just melting into the position you're in and even if the pain is very present just taking in not just the pain but all the rest of your body and how it feels.

Often our desire is to focus away from the pain to push it as far away as we can and spend a small amount of energy on actually listening in and paying attention.

When we become aware and we're trying not to pull away and instead of doing that we allow ourselves to look at and feel what is actually going in our body it can be quite beneficial without needing to change or control what we feel.

So in this moment I invite you with gentle attention obviously take this with as much focus and intent as you can and do not push yourself if the pain is too strong but if you feel comfortable allow yourself to pay attention to the pain or discomfort no matter where it feels in your body become aware of how it's painful is it waves or consistent is it getting stronger or slowly changing as you do this maintain a steady calm breath if you can.

Allow yourself to speak kindly to yourself as you feel this pain acknowledge it and as you do so allow yourself to take space to appreciate how this is affecting you.

Does the pain go from one point to another point is the rest of your body responding in form to it do you feel yourself wanting to curl up or stretch out?

Now as we keep our breath really steady bring our attention back a little bit to our breath and now as we breathe in we visualize that the air coming in directs itself to our pain point and as you breathe out the pain begins to be released out the air is almost removing the pain from your body beginning to dampen the intensity of what you're experiencing it's almost like the air is reaching in and taking that pain and as we breathe out it slowly removes it from our body your body if it feels it can begin to gently just relax as the air removes parts of the discomfort as you breathe out and release the pain from yourself using the breath as the focus point and as we keep the intention that our breath is moving releasing softening just quietening that discomfort within our body I'd invite you to think about your day ahead of you or maybe tomorrow with awareness to the discomfort that you are experiencing and how can you bring gentleness into that day how can you make things a little easier for yourself what would a slow gentle day look like for you and what purpose would you draw from creating that day for your experience to be slow with yourself walking yourself through the day and seeing what could help support you during this experience what would feel good at the end of tomorrow to have done for yourself pain and discomfort is a fact of life but that doesn't mean that you have to treat yourself with hard lines or rules because other people experience pain as well you don't have to compare your pain and you do not have to justify it in this moment know that you can set boundaries and block out time to look after yourself just like everyone else can as well really consider what would make the rest of today or tomorrow feel just that little bit better how would supporting your body look like as we do this I like you to think about the end of the day really how you would feel going to bed closing your eyes and knowing that you took that time that space that route that mindset whatever it is that you think would support you as you move forward and so I invite you to take some deep breaths in exhaling out through your mouth with a nice big sigh doing two more of these allowing yourself to roll your shoulders taking some final deep breaths doing some big sighs if you need to wiggling your toes and your fingers taking as long as you want and need to crack open your eyes this is the end of the meditation and I am wishing you a peaceful day.

Reviews

Thank you

Gentle meditation thst recognizes the genuine limitations that pain may put on the s.

I was in so much pain and tense before I started this meditation and now I feel more relaxed and less pain. Thank you! 🙏🏻

Amazing. I fell hard on my mountain bike yesterday and injured my shoulder. This was extremely helpful today. As an active athlete who deals with regular pain and daily meditator, I’m stoked to have found this one and I’m adding it to my “Healing Pain” playlist.

This was very powerful for me. I have been avoiding my pain, and to connect with it brought up so much grief. Thank you for helping me be present for myself. ❤️

I've just done been this one. I've been struggling with pain for the past two years. Pain has become part of my everyday life, but sometimes it's excruciating. Your guided meditation has been very helpful, your tone of voice, the energy you send to whoever listens to you. Thank you!

Calming and releasing my pain! Thank you so much for your softening voice!

Taking an edge off the pain.

Wow. I love it—the voice, the message, the breathing technique. Going to have to bookmark this one... also nice to hear someone who is a little bit younger on here talking about pain... makes me feel not so alone🤍💜❤️

Thank you 🌺🌺🌺for the wonderful and helpful meditation 🙏Namaste

Ahhhh...Nice :)

Fantastic meditation! Really helped me breathe into the pain. Thanks!

Lovely breath work and it really helped soothe my pain . The encouragement to honor our own experience of pain and do what we need to do to take care of ourselves thank you for this .

Thank you for this excellent exercise! I experience a great deal of physical pain, and the encouragement and direction offered here is both insightful and compassionate. I adapted the breath to include a 4 count pause at the base of the breath for my own comfort. Otherwise, I found it to be absolutely lovely!

I loved many things about this meditation. I appreciated in the beginning the explaining what the breath pattern would be. I liked the exploration of the pain. And of the visualization for the future. The only tiny suggestion would be to not have the final bell quite so loud. I can’t thank you enough for this meditation because I have fibromyalgia. I look forward to hearing more from this teacher. And I have bookmarked. 💛

Very nice. Thank you!