Welcome to this meditation.
For when chronic pain flares.
This practice is designed to support you through a familiar chronic pain flare.
Alongside any medical care or pain management you use.
If this pain is new,
Unusually severe or different from what you'd normally experience.
Please seek the appropriate medical advice.
For now,
You do not need to make this pain disappear.
We are simply going to create.
Some more support around what your body is already carrying.
Find the position that asks the least of you right now.
Maybe lying down,
Sitting curled on your side.
Or supported by cushions.
There's no correct position for this practice.
Choose what feels most manageable for your body today.
And if you need to move at any point during this meditation,
Please do so.
You do not need to stay still for this meditation.
There's nothing you need to achieve here.
You don't need to breathe in a particular way or relax your whole body.
Or to imagine the pain becoming smaller or fading away.
You've probably spent enough of today trying to manage what you're feeling.
So for these next few minutes,
You're allowed to stop working quite so hard.
Begin by noticing where your body is being supported.
Somewhere that is taking some of your weight.
Perhaps it is the bed beneath your back.
Chair beneath your legs.
Cushion supporting your head.
Or a blanket resting over you.
Choose one point of contact that feels neutral.
And bring your awareness there now.
You don't have to feel safe everywhere in your body to notice that one part of you is being held.
Let your attention rest there lightly now.
Feeling that surface in contact with you.
Noticing whether it's firm or soft.
Warm or cold.
Allow yourself to register that something is supporting you here and now.
Now bring your attention to something outside of you instead.
Sound in the room,
The light behind your eyelids,
The air touching your skin.
My voice.
You are in control of where you place your attention and you can move it whenever you need to.
Pain can make the world feel very small.
It can pull so much of your awareness towards one place,
So that everything else seems to disappear.
There may be fear around it.
Frustration,
Exhaustion,
Anger that you're here against.
Perhaps also disappointment about the things that you wanted or needed to do today.
You don't have to push any of that away.
And you don't have to explore it deeply either.
But now simply acknowledge.
This is difficult.
This is taking something from me.
And I am allowed to need support while I move through it.
See now if you can notice your breathing without changing it.
Your breath may be shallow or uneven.
You may be holding it without realising.
None of that is wrong.
Let your next breath arrive exactly as it arrives and let it leave in its own time.
On your next exhale,
See if you can release a fraction of the effort around your breath.
Some of that work of holding everything so tightly.
Allow that to release gently now.
And on your next exhale,
Imagine setting down one tiny piece of what you've been carrying.
Notice that you can set something down now.
In this moment.
That's it.
When pain flares our body can begin to brace around it.
Our muscles tighten,
Our jaw grips,
Our shoulders lift.
This is the body trying to protect us.
So we are not going to demand that it lets that go.
Instead,
Gently notice.
Where you're able to soften your body even by 1%.
It doesn't have to be the place where you feel the most pain.
It can be somewhere else.
Perhaps your tongue can rest a little heavily in your mouth.
One finger can begin to uncurl.
Maybe the space around your eyes can become less focused.
Or your shoulders can relax instead of holding themselves up by your ears.
Gently notice now that part of your body that is feeling the pain.
Acknowledge how it is protecting you.
Take a deep breath in.
For now.
Then repeat after me these words to that protective part of your body.
I know you are trying to help.
You do not have to change yet.
I am listening.
Allow those words to land in whatever way they can as we say them again.
I know you are trying to help.
You do not have to change yet.
I am listening.
Now bring your awareness to the edges of that pain.
Notice that even when pain feels all consuming,
There can be places where the sensation changes.
As you focus on that edge now.
Notice what has changed what is changing Maybe it's becoming less sharp.
Less hot or heavy.
Or simply different.
If at any time you notice yourself feeling anxious Return to the support beneath you,
A sound in the room.
Know that you don't need to enter the pain to be able to benefit from this practice.
Allow your attention now to move gently between the difficult area and somewhere more neutral.
Briefly acknowledging the pain and then coming back to the support beneath you.
Pain and support.
Without staying with either for too long.
The pain is here and the support is here too.
Your experience contains more than one sensation.
More than one feeling or point of awareness.
You don't have to deny the paint and notice what exists beside it.
Sometimes the hardest part of a flare is not only the sensation but everything that gathers around it.
The thought that it will never end.
Fear of it getting worse.
Pressure to find the right thing to make it stop.
Guilt about cancelling,
Resting or needing help.
Or the memories of every other time this pain has interrupted your life.
A flare can bring all of that into this moment.
I want you to know now that you don't need to solve the future from here.
You only need to be with this breath.
This surface underneath you.
This moment that is already passing,
Even if it is passing slowly.
Say to yourself gently.
I do not need to know how the whole day will unfold.
I am caring for this moment first.
I do not need to make decisions about tomorrow from inside this flare.
I am caring for this moment first.
Responding to your body is not a failing.
Rest is not evidence you have given up.
Your capacity today does not determine your worth.
Being present in this moment with your body.
Is a gift you can give right now.
You are still you on the days when your world becomes smaller.
You are still deserving of care when you cannot be productive.
You are still allowed to have needs even when those needs are inconvenient.
See now if you can allow these words to reach you.
You don't have to believe all of it immediately.
Just allow that other voice to exist alongside the others.
Your capacity today does not determine your worth.
And if there are emotions here now.
Allow them to flow.
And if there aren't you don't need to force them.
Whatever is present can be present.
There's room here for your honest experience.
Now place a hand somewhere comfortable on your body.
It doesn't have to be where the pain resides.
Let this be a point of contact with your body.
Feel the warmth and weight of your hands.
And imagine your hand saying to your body.
I am here.
I am not leaving you alone in this.
You don't have to work everything out right now.
We can take this one moment at a time.
I am here.
We can take this one moment at a time.
Notice again now the surface that's supporting you.
Allowing it to take the weight.
You do not need to hold yourself.
Allow yourself to give it a little more of your weight.
Let that chair,
Bed,
Floor hold you Notice its steadiness beneath you.
For these next few breaths,
You don't have to hold yourself up alone.
Notice your body now There may still be pain.
And this practice hasn't failed if that's so.
The intention is not to force your body into silence.
To meet it with a little less fear.
A little less pressure.
And a little more companionship.
With this connection with your body now.
Ask yourself gently.
What would support me after this meditation.
Allow your body to give you the answer.
You don't need to have found the perfect answer.
Maybe it was water,
Change of position.
Warmth,
Coolness,
Food.
Why yet?
Sending someone a message.
Cancelling something.
Asking for help or simply staying where you are for a while longer.
Notice the support beneath you.
The sounds around you.
The space beyond your body.
There's no need to rush back.
Start to bring some gentle movement into your body.
Moving your fingers gently adjusting your position.
As you leave this practice,
Carry these words with you.
I do not have to solve the whole flare at once.
I do not have to fight my body in order to care for it.
My pain is real.
My needs are allowed.
And I can meet this moment one breath at a time.
One choice and one act of support at a time.
Be gentle with yourself.
