Pain Away Number 11

Meditators observe pain changing, coming, and going. This program taps your body’s innate ability to remember and recreate its responses to previous stimuli and produce feelings of comfort. If a certain visualization doesn’t resonate, focus on the background music until the next one is introduced. Practice several times intensively and then every once in a while. Pain Away Number 11 along with Observing Your Pain and Editing Your Pain has a cumulative, snowball effect. Not medical advice. Enjoy.

Transcript

Pain Away Number 11 While you are listening to the guided meditation on pain, You may want to relax yourself to give yourself permission and the imagination to flow freely without judging it. We are sometimes perfectionists and we are sometimes so hard on ourselves that we become afraid to imagine. The more relaxed we are, The easier it is for us to imagine, The more vivid the pictures and the clearer the imagined sounds. So if you get frustrated with the meditation, You can turn it off in your mind and listen carefully to the relaxing words and messages on this track. When you feel relaxed again or get bored with this track, You can refocus on my voice, Guiding the visualization or my voice quietly chanting the Medicine Buddha Mantra. There is no one right way. You can always do it again because it's good for you and practice makes perfect. Because you're listening to this program, I assume you're having some chronic pain issues. I've had them myself and I can say that's serious business. Pain management is important. Any reduction in pain is welcome. There are things such as fear, Resistance and stress that can worsen it. So let's take a precious few minutes to turn on your relaxation response. Let one part of you go with the background music and the mantra and another part of you listen to the relaxing sound of my voice and follow my words. Let's start with the breath. Breathe into your belly the words I am and breathe out relaxing. In I am and out comfortably relaxing. In I am and out comfortably and deeply relaxing. In I am and out comfortably and deeply relaxing down in to a state of profound peace and tranquility. This is a time for you to be in your own space, Away from the world, Away from other people's matters, Away from our everyday thoughts, I had a friend who used to escape in her spa-like bathtub. She would imagine this, Reclining into a nice temperature of fresh water with little rose petals and lemon balm leaves floating on top, Listening to the water lapping and the suds bubbling. I don't know which softened first, Her skin or her muscles or mood, But they all eventually relaxed their hold. Her heart and her breath slowed down, Way down and in this bathtub she felt peacefully serene and tranquil. Time slowed down as she soaked up that comfort and here for you listening to me, This is a special place and a special time. There's no place to go, Nothing to do. You can bask in your own peaceful atmosphere, You can let all the muscles in your face relax, I like those Buddhist statues, They sit there or stand there, Some even recline there with a very, Very confident but serene, Quiet, Peaceful look on their faces, Eyes half closed. I like to mimic at them, Letting my jaw loosen, My tongue loosen, Maybe my facial muscles flatten and just drape flatly over my cheeks. Can you imagine your face having that confident, Serene, Peaceful expression? You can make that expression now, Go ahead, Make it confident, Make it serene and peaceful. If you do, Then you might want to look within yourself and if you do, You might discover how wonderful the Buddha feels inside. You might realize what's behind that peaceful little smile. Now breathe in and send all those feelings in your face down through the rest of your body, All the way to the tip of your toes. Each muscle and tendon relaxes, Arms and legs loosen limp like an untied shoelace or an unused rubber band, Limp and heavy like warm wet towels, Body melting like butter in the sun, Soft and easy, Melting into the background as time passes so slowly that it almost seems to stop. As all your cares drift away and you're left open-minded, Open to imagine and dream, A daydream, Half here, Half there, Eyes dreamy, Body creamy, Cradled in love. There's no time for those troublesome thoughts. You can let them all go, Like letting go of a kite in the breeze, Letting them so soar far, Far away, While you tarry here, Serene and tranquil at every level, Enjoying a quiet, Empty but creative state. Nothing else seems to matter or exist but my words and your responses. It may not always seem apparent but no matter what, Peace is always there. All we need to do is locate the parts of our body or some cells that store memories, Peaceful memories inside and breathe into it gently until a memory of a peaceful and quiet and safe natural place you once visited emerges. Now, Surround you 360 degrees, Seeing what you saw and hearing what you heard in living color and 3D and surround sound, Letting yourself be filled with peace, Tranquility and beauty and wonder, Full imagination, The kind that can see things in the clouds, The kind that can fly with the birds, That can follow a leaf that drops out of a tree, Dropping down, Back and forth, Around and down, Dropping down, Up a little bit and then down, Around and down, Way down, Lighting on the surface of a serene pool of water, Sending little ripples outwards on the surface while the waters below, Beneath the surface, Remain undisturbed, Very quiet, Very still, Where little lazy fish sleep with eyes half closed and dream. You too can float in this tranquility feeling free, Free to remember wonderful old things long forgotten, Free to experience new things, To learn, Really learn, With every cell of your body, To experiment freely and safely with nobody around to watch you or laugh at you, Just safely here, Only with my supportive, Encouraging voice to inspire your imagination and encourage you along. It can be fun to remember some old things which you may think you have forgotten, Like getting on a bicycle the first time in 10 years and realizing, Hey, It's just as easy and natural as it ever was. The body has its own memories. It remembers its responses. It remembers how to get excited with certain sexual thoughts. It remembers to hold your breath when there's smoke. The body remembers to sweat when it's hot, To pucker when something sour, Like a lemon. It also remembers what sensations to turn on and off when certain drugs are taken. Sometimes it doesn't even need the drug. All your body needs is a reminder and it can start the chain of responses. All the old muscle cells and fibers can be reassessed. The same molecules and impulses can be retriggered and hormones and pathways set in motion again. I was amusing the other day about how wonderful it would be if a certain pain medications came in a gaseous or powder form. I dreamed about creating one. I even gave it a name. I called it pain away number 11. Pain away number 11 would be a combination of drugs. One drug that attached like morphine to the opioid receptors, Which could numb you out as numb as a heavy medicine ball. Numb you out like a stone. And one drug that could temporarily interrupt pain signals, Turning off the switch, So to speak, For a heavenly 11 hours. I believe that most people with chronic pain would appreciate a little disconnect or numbing out from time to time. Wouldn't you? Imagine what it would be like if you had sniffed pain away number 11 so many times over two or three years that your body built up a good memory of its responses. If you've ever smoked marijuana you can remember what it's like to take a toke off of a joint. Yeah, The body remembers numbing responses like those elicited by clove oil or novocaine or morphine. And they can remember switch flipping responses, Interrupting connections between a certain area of the body and your awareness. So every time you felt that old pain coming on, A part of you could just sniff the memory through your nose like it used to sniff pain away number 11, Signaling the body to remember and set into motion the chain of responses. Pain away responses to pain away number 11. And following the same steps your pain would just get number and number with every sniff, Number and number and four, Three, Two, None. The nerve pathway would be interrupted, Disconnected for 11 hours so that you can go about your day having comfortable clear-headed talks with friends and loved ones. That's the sniff that dreams are made of. And dreaming is easy when you are in a relaxed meditative state. Feeling serene and tranquil, Comfortable and free. Listening intently to the guided meditation, A meditation that shows you how to not fear your pain but to relax, Become friendly and pain playful with it. Accept it, Observe it and watch a change. There are so many possibilities when you're so relaxed and comfortable. That long forgotten memories, Useful ones easily return. And you have so many memories, Experiences in your life. Some big ones, Some small ones with important lessons, Some from childhood when you face challenges like learning to walk or to ride a skateboard or a bicycle or to ride or spell. When you met your challenges in a I can do it playful way, Maybe falling, Making a couple of mistakes, Perhaps shedding a couple of tears or laughs. But starting again, As you knew you could do it sooner or later, Everyone else was. You also discovered with delight that when things were not going so well at home or school, You could quickly and easily slip into make believe, Playing a superhero or a comic book character. And leave all those other uncomfortable things behind so that you could have a good time enjoying life. Stretching out the fun times and squeezing an eternity inside 10 minutes and skipping over the not so fun ones like telling someone what you did at school yesterday in a couple of words. You know how to do it. Your body has everything it needs to make you comfortable. When you're ready, You can return to alert wakeful awareness, Go about your daily business and leave these challenges to your playful inner child together with your body to create some new responses that might pleasantly surprise you one of these days when you least expect it. One of these days when you discover you've been so interested in other things that you've totally forgotten others.