Hello and welcome to this meditation to help manage pain.
My name is Jasmine and I'm really happy that you're here with me today,
Even if there is a part of you,
Maybe physically,
Maybe even emotionally or mentally,
That is experiencing pain right now.
Pain is an inevitable part of the human experience and while challenging and uncomfortable and draining,
It is something that many of us,
If not all of us,
Are not going to escape from in this lifetime.
And this experience today is here to not pretend like you're not in pain,
It is not to minimize your experience,
It is to perhaps create a little bit of space from your suffering.
And so I invite you to go into this experience with an open mind and with no expectations.
So we won't put any pressure on this needing to be or needing to create some sort of outcome for you.
You are just here to pause and to be with your experience for the next short while.
So finding either a comfortable place where you can sit or lie down,
Maybe allowing the eyes to take in your surroundings for a few moments,
Taking a deep breath in and as you breathe out,
Either relaxing or closing down the eyes.
And I invite you to travel to the place within you that feels painful right now.
So if it were a migraine,
We might journey up into the head and the face,
Base of the neck.
If it's emotional pain,
Perhaps you can explore where that emotion might live in your body.
And when you are with that space,
That sensation,
That feeling,
I'd like you to score it from a scale of 1 to 10,
1 being no pain at all and 10 being the most severe pain you've ever experienced in your life.
And once you've given it a number,
You can park that number for a moment and return to that sensation of pain in your body.
And see if you can be with the pain without any stories that might live around that pain.
So it doesn't determine who you are as a human being,
It does not define you,
But instead we can really be with and feel and experience that area of pain.
And for many of us,
Just doing this alone can bring about emotional discomfort,
Sometimes even resistance,
Like we don't want to go there.
And that's really normal.
Don't worry,
We won't be here for too much longer.
Let's take a gentle breath in and a gentle breath out.
And then allowing your awareness to float somewhere else in your body,
Somewhere that in contrast feels either open,
Free,
Maybe even pleasurable,
A space within you that is free from pain and feels quite good.
It could be as subtle as the tips of your fingers or the regular beating of your heart.
And once you've found this place,
See if you can really be there,
Breathe there.
And we're going to refer to this place as the area of ease.
And we're going to pendulate our awareness from this area of ease into your area of pain.
So when you're ready,
Floating your awareness back into that space of pain,
Noticing how you physically or emotionally respond by sending your awareness there.
And then in your own time,
Allowing your awareness to drift once again into that area of ease.
Notice how it feels in contrast.
And then floating back into your area of pain.
And drifting back into that area of ease.
And as you keep doing this in your own time,
Moving from the pain,
Moving back to the ease,
Know that as with any meditative process,
Your mind may very well venture elsewhere completely.
You may go into your to-do list,
You may go into stories or beliefs or ideas,
Memories,
Plans,
Projections,
And as with any meditative process,
There is always an anchor for you to focus on.
So any time that you do feel yourself wandering away,
Come back to the experience in your body and continue to oscillate between the area of pain and the area of ease.
Keeping your breath as steady as possible.
And I'm going to leave you here for the next minute for you to explore this journey all on your own.
Noticing what arises,
What you notice.
And as we allow your awareness to float back one final time into that space of pain within you,
I invite you to notice the intensity of it now.
Once again scoring it on a scale between one and ten.
And notice if it has shifted on this scale.
Often we can notice that it goes down at least one if not a few on the scale.
And then scanning outwards from that area of pain and coming to acknowledge your whole body here in this space.
Acknowledging a whole range of sensations that are within you.
And it can be very tempting,
It is actually simply human nature for us to fixate on our problems,
Our pain,
Our struggles.
And yet as you have just experienced,
You can train your brain,
You can train the muscle of your mind to focus on something else and to focus on perhaps the bigger picture.
So you can acknowledge all parts of your experience.
As we close off today's meditation,
I invite you to bring a hand to rest over your heart or onto any other area in your body.
And I invite you to say the words either silently or out loud,
I am defined by so much more than my pain.
I am defined by so much more than my pain.
I am defined by so much more than my pain.
Thank you so much for leaning into this exploration with me today.
I know it can be a challenging one and I really see you,
I really feel you in your bravery.
Thank you for being here.
My name is Jasmine and until next time.
