Hi,
This is Morgan and this is a meditation to give you some tools to manage chronic pain.
So I want you to find a position laying on the ground but on something soft,
So like a yoga mat or blanket or a mattress and I get some pillows underneath your knees and maybe even some pillows underneath your arms so that you're experiencing as little pain as possible in some sort of reclined position.
And I'm going to give you a few minutes here to get comfortable before we dive into the meditation.
So take your time gathering your items and every time you think you're comfortable,
Check in and maybe there's like one little movement you can make to get like 10% more comfortable.
As you're figuring that out,
I'm going to give you a little bit of information about the concept of pain as it's understood in the physiological sense.
Pain is the nervous system feeling some sort of change in the body that it thinks is going to cause grievous harm or is actively causing grievous harm.
For example,
If you tear a tendon or a ligament,
All of a sudden the body just can't work as well and it's concerned about that so it tells your brain,
Hey,
Code red down here,
Something's going on,
What are we going to do about this?
Let's stop.
Let's stop everything.
And the brain says,
Okay,
What do we need to do?
It immediately ups your adrenaline.
It gets some endorphins going so that you don't have to feel as much so that it's not as painful,
Especially if you have a really intense accident where you might start to go into shock and actually there's no pain yet because your body just gets so overwhelmed.
It's like,
I can't deal with any of this.
I need to just shut down and completely reboot.
So when you experience something traumatic like that,
It causes not just the physiological damage in your body,
But it causes physiological damage in your brain as well and it creates a syndrome that you might have heard called PTSD,
Post-traumatic stress disorder,
Where essentially the hemispheres of your brain,
The right and left sides of your brain froze in that moment of trauma and didn't process the emotional experience,
Which is essentially the fear response,
The terror of the worst case scenario.
Have been grievously injured.
I might be threatened.
That's that deep evolutionary response.
If you're injured,
That's why it's so strong because if you're injured in a way that you can't move,
That you can't move quickly,
You could be chased down and eaten by something.
So I give you all this background,
All this information to try to separate you from the experience of pain as like a punishment because that's what I often find with my chronic pain patients is it becomes a punishment in the sense that you've trained your body to expect it and even though you suffer through it all day long,
To a certain degree,
Because you've been experiencing it for so long,
It's like you don't know how not to feel it.
And I'm not saying this like it's a choice.
I'm saying this like this is your nervous system that has been trained to say,
Hey,
This hurts still and something's going on.
And that's like the parts of your brain that are trying to communicate through that trauma getting re-triggered every single time.
So you go into just a little bit of that fear response.
Every time you experience that pain and your body kind of gets addicted to it,
Because who doesn't love having that much adrenaline coursing through your system?
Of course,
Until you hit adrenal fatigue because your body has run out of juice and then you end up with much more serious dysfunctions from there.
So my hope is at this point,
You've gotten really,
Really comfortable and maybe a little bit more curious about the neurological effects of pain.
And we're going to dive into the sensory aspect of pain.
So we're going to enter into the meditation now.
So I'm going to ding my gong at the beginning and the end of the meditation.
We'll have many long moments of silence in order for you to really process and integrate the meditation.
But I invite you as well to pause this at any point if you need a longer pause.
So take a scan through your body and notice where you feel the most pain right now.
Just a square inch,
Somewhere in your body,
A little pocket where the nerves are alerting the brain that something's a little off here.
Zero your attention in on that point and give it a sensory word like hot or cold,
Achy,
Stabbing,
Pinching.
Now give that pain,
That pain that you're feeling the most right now,
Rate it on a scale of one to ten.
Just let a number float up.
Don't think about it too much.
Just notice it,
That number of the most pain you're feeling right now in that one little square inch.
And now we're going to take a few minutes to watch the pain.
So the way we do that is with the breath.
Notice if it feels different when you inhale that square inch and if it feels different when you exhale.
Don't try to control the breath here.
Just let the breath come and go.
Occasionally you may notice long pauses between the breath cycles or you may notice deep sighs come over you.
Really watch that pain,
That one square inch.
Watch how it changes.
Don't try to change it.
Just observe it.
And now we're going to take a few minutes to watch the pain.
So the way we do that is with the breath.
And now come back to your body,
Your whole body laying on the support.
Notice if there are any movements your body wants to make to get just a 10% more comfortable.
Take a body scan and find a spot on your body where it feels like the second most painful spot.
Just one little square inch,
Not quite as painful as the first spot we worked with,
But right behind it,
It might even be right next to it.
And if it's the same spot,
That's okay.
Give it a sensory word and rate it on a scale of 1 to 10.
Notice if it's lower,
How much lower it is than the first spot.
Now watch the pain with your breath for about two minutes.
Notice how that square inch of sensory information delivers different information when you inhale.
And it's so different when you exhale.
Notice that evolution.
Your brain is constantly synthesizing that information.
Come back to the experience of your entire body laying on top of its support.
Allow any movement to move through you.
Take about a minute to settle in and we'll repeat this process with one more spot.
Take the time for the body to get really comfortable again.
Let your attention drift toward the third most painful spot in your body.
Not quite as intense as the two before it,
But still something that your body knows is not quite what it used to be.
Something's different.
You haven't gotten used to it yet.
Give that spot a sensory word.
Give the spot a rating on a scale of 1 to 10,
Noticing how much lower it is than the second and first most painful areas.
That little square inch,
Those little pockets,
These little collection of nerves in the yogic world where there's a disconnect.
We call them the nadis.
And we'll spend about two minutes breathing and observing this third most painful spot.
Watching how it changes when you inhale.
Observing gently how it changes when you exhale.
As our body plus our noun.
And bring your attention to the experience of your entire body sitting on its support and notice if there are any movements your body wants to make to get just 10% more comfortable.
Once you've settled in,
Now is the time to pause if you'd like to go through another series of painful areas in your body.
You can do this anywhere from 3 to 10 times.
If you're ready to continue,
Let's go back to that first spot where you're feeling the most pain and notice it and rate it again.
Is it lower or higher on your pain scale than when we started?
Now about that second spot.
Give it another rating.
Is it lower or higher?
And when you first started observing it.
And then that third spot.
Let your attention drift there and give it a rating.
And then note,
Was that number higher or lower than the last time you gave that spot the same level of attention?
Now the goal here is to get all those numbers below a 5.
And ideally,
You know,
A 0 to 1,
But I know for some of you it's just not going to happen.
So for this next stage,
We've got to get those numbers below a 5 to really let it integrate.
So if you are still suffering in the 6,
7,
8,
9,
10 range,
Then I'm going to ask you to repeat the first part of this meditation until those numbers get below a 5.
And this can take minutes,
This can take hours,
This can take lifetimes.
So have some patience with yourself.
This is an observational practice,
Not a goal-based practice.
So if you're joining us to continue on to this next phase of the meditation,
Then I want you to feel your body once again resting down,
The whole thing resting down on its support.
And with that in your background,
I want you to imagine the last time your body felt so good.
And you may have to think far back.
So for me,
If I think about the last time I had a really good massage,
Like my whole body remembers how to relax all of a sudden.
So maybe imagine the last time you had a really good massage.
Picture the room and your body laying on the table.
Any sounds or scents you remember experiencing.
Imagine how your body felt when you first laid down on the table.
Remember how it felt like just halfway through the massage.
And how different it felt all the way at the end of the massage afterwards.
Can you feel that relaxation in your body?
The body remembers how.
Now imagine bottling up that feeling somehow.
You can suck it in with your breath,
Like you're bringing in that feeling through a straw.
Or you could imagine scooping it up with a bucket.
Or you could draw it into a syringe.
And I want you to take that feeling and imagine injecting it into that pain point,
That first one,
Your most painful point.
So you could exhale out like you're blowing out a candle and imagine that feeling going right into that spot.
Or you could dump the bucket of that feeling over that one square inch.
Or you could inject the syringe of that feeling just right into the muscles,
The tendons,
The nervous system.
And that feeling of being totally relaxed,
Really nurtured,
Really cared for.
Allow it to seep into that most painful spot.
We're going to do that same thing again with the second spot.
So whatever visual worked for you,
Gather in that feeling of being totally relaxed.
It's helpful to give it a color.
You can give it a color.
And imagine that relaxation,
That peace,
That calm settling into that second most painful square inch in your body.
Really give it that soothing,
Petting,
Kindness.
And we'll move to that third spot.
So breathe in that feeling of relaxation,
Just like you felt after your last really good massage.
And imagine that feeling settling in and around that third most painful spot.
Come back to the sensation of your entire body resting on top of its support.
Let any gentle movements happen so you can get 10% more comfortable.
If you need to repeat that experience with more of your spots,
You can pause this.
If you're ready to continue with the next phase of the meditation,
Just very briefly scan your attention to that first spot that felt the most painful and give it a rating,
Just the first number that comes to mind.
Into your second most painful spot,
Scan your attention there and give it a rating.
Into your third most painful spot,
Scan your attention there and give it a rating.
And then just make the observation,
Were those numbers higher or lower than what we started with.
Make the observation that the brain,
The nervous system,
You can change it.
You can change it just by giving it your attention.
You can watch it change itself just by paying attention to it.
The nervous system wants to work for you.
Your body wants to work for you.
Pain isn't a punishment.
Pain is a message that you need to be very still and observe.
And what a gift to be still.
Namaste.
