This is a guided meditation on radical acceptance of pain.
Any physical suffering that presents is pointing to resistance and offering an invitation to release,
To surrender,
To allow.
We cultivate radical acceptance of pain by relaxing our resistance to unpleasant sensations and meeting them with a non-reactive awareness.
This meditation is especially useful if you're presently distressed by physical pain.
Please know that if at any point the pain feels like too much,
With mindfulness and kindness,
Turn your attention to whatever will ease and soothe you.
Then when you're ready,
You can return to this direct practice of presence with unpleasant sensations.
Begin by finding a comfortable position,
Sitting or lying down.
Take a few moments to become still,
Relaxing with the natural rhythm of your breath.
You might let the inflow of the breath be a message to relax open,
To receive,
And the outflow an opportunity to let go.
Now gently begin scanning through your body,
Relaxing your brow,
Your jaw,
Dropping the shoulders some,
Softening through your hands.
Try not to create any unnecessary tension in your body.
Sense if there's an area of strong discomfort or pain that's calling your attention.
If so,
Bring a gentle receptive attention directly to the unpleasant sensations in that part of your body.
Notice what happens as you begin to bring attention to pain.
Is there an attempt,
However subtle,
To push the pain away?
To cut it off?
Block it?
To pull away?
Is there fear?
Let your intention be to remain present,
Allowing the unpleasant sensations,
And if there's fear,
The presence of fear to be just as it is.
A full healing presence involves both openness and clear contact with what's happening.
To establish openness,
You might imagine a great blue sky and let the mind mingle with that vastness.
Open your senses to include sounds,
Listening with a full receptive attention.
Sense the natural connecting with openness as you listen,
The space that's here.
As you listen to sounds,
Begin including in your awareness areas in your body that have neutral or even pleasant sensations.
This might be the sensations in your hands or your feet,
Perhaps the sensations in your cheeks,
The area around your eyes.
Now,
Feel your whole body's awareness,
The whole field of sensations,
And let your attention gently begin to include the place or places where sensations are most intense or unpleasant.
Listen to and feel what is here.
Experience your awareness as a soft,
Open space that surrounds the pain and allow the unpleasant sensations to float in this awareness.
Resting in this openness,
Notice if you can stay connected with a sense of spaciousness and at the same time be intimate with the changing sensations in the area of pain.
Open awareness and direct contact.
If it helps to guide your attention there by feeling your breath with the area that's uncomfortable,
Let the breath be part of what helps you be present with what's arising.
What is the experience actually like?
Do you feel burning,
Aching,
Twisting,
Throbbing,
Tearing,
Stabbing?
Does the unpleasantness feel like a knot or a constricting band?
Does the area feel as if it's being pressed down or crushed by a great weight?
Are the unpleasant sensations diffuse or focused in their intensity?
How do they change as you observe them?
Investigate what's actually happening with interest,
With kindness,
With a non-reactive,
Soft attention.
You might find that the sensations that feel like a solid block of pain,
Unfold and move as your attention becomes more soft and present.
Notice their natural dance of change.
It's natural for resistance to re-arise,
Physical tightening,
Judgment,
Fear.
When you notice this,
Just allow it.
Relaxing,
Open again to sense the space that's here.
Listening to sounds.
Feeling your entire body,
Including the areas that aren't painful.
And with this sense of openness and space,
There's plenty of room for unpleasant sensations to arise and dissolve,
To fade and intensify,
To move and change.
No holding,
No tension.
Explore what it means to have a surrendering presence,
Releasing resistance over and over.
Discover how you can inhabit the sea of awareness.
Letting any painful sensations float in an open and tender space of being.
