Moving Towards Pain Meditation

This meditation helps people who are suffering with physical pain learn to manage their pain by softly moving towards and working with their pain. It helps to untangle the complex relationship between the stress, frustration and anxiety about the pain from the sensation of the physical pain itself. Research shows that this type of "untangling" pain meditation can help reduce the suffering and the intensity of pain experienced.

Transcript

This meditation can be done either sitting or lying down in a place that you feel safe and comfortable.

And it's specifically designed to work with physical pain,

Including migraines,

Recovering from surgeries or chronic pain or any kind of musculoskeletal pain such as shoulder pain,

Knee pain,

Back pain.

It's a good idea to arrange a time and a place where you won't be disturbed.

And it might be useful to put a gentle light covering over you or a pillow under your head so that you feel comfortable.

Beginning by bringing our attention to ourselves in the room,

Noticing where you are in the room,

Acknowledging the day and the time that you are doing and spending time with yourself with this meditation.

And also bringing your attention to the room itself,

The room,

The door,

The window,

And then the place where you've chosen to do this meditation,

The bed,

The yoga mat or the chair,

Wherever else you might have chosen.

And then starting by just gently seeing if it's possible to connect with your body by tapping your hands on your body,

Starting at the top of your head,

Your forehead,

Your cheeks,

Your chin,

Nose,

Neck,

Chest,

Diaphragm area,

Tummy.

And then just gently pressing down with one or both of your hands with the gentle pressure,

Giving yourself a type of a hug or a comforting embrace,

Feeling your body as you find it in this present moment.

And then taking three deep breaths through the nose,

In breath,

Out through the mouth on the out breath,

If that feels comforting to you.

Taking the deep breaths can sometimes settle the nervous system and activate the relaxation system and what we call the parasympathetic nervous system.

So sometimes it's a helpful way to seem,

It just seems to bring a little bit of calm and peace to our bodies physically.

And then beginning the meditation by bringing your attention to your eyes and inviting yourself to close them if that's what you wish to do,

Or if you don't wish to do that,

You can just settle your eyes on something in front of you gently.

And then bringing your attention to the hands,

Noticing where they are,

Where you're finding your hands right now.

Perhaps they're resting on your body,

Perhaps they're slightly outside your body,

Resting on the bed or the mat.

So bringing the attention to the feeling of your hands,

Resting on the fabric of your clothes or the sheets or the yoga mat.

And then also bringing your attention to your feet,

Noticing where they are,

The position that they're in and what they're touching.

Perhaps you sense a grounding of your feet to the floor or to the bed or to the earth below you.

And sensing your feet and your hands as possible anchors of your mind to your body.

And remembering that these can be your anchors at any point and any time during the meditation.

And then seeing if it's possible to bring your attention to your breath,

Noticing where do you find your breath in your body.

Seeing if it's possible to look for your breath without needing to change anything,

Knowing that you are breathing without you needing to do anything to change it.

However,

If you are noticing the urge to change your breath,

Just becoming aware of that.

And then bringing your attention back to the feeling of your breath.

Perhaps you're noticing it in your chest,

Perhaps you're noticing it in your belly or in your nose.

And seeing if it's possible just to stay at that location in your body where you're noticing the breath.

And for some of you,

This might be another place to anchor your mind to your body,

This place where you're noticing your breath.

Then we're going to start doing the turning toward part of the meditation,

Which begins by gently seeing if it's possible to locate a place in your body that you might describe as unpleasant or difficult.

It's almost like you're doing a quick body scan,

Walking through,

It's like walking through a metal detector at the airport and scanning yourself from the top of your head all the way down to your toes and seeing where you might be aware of the sensation of pain.

And how would you describe this feeling,

This sensation?

And seeing if it's possible to do this without calling it pain.

So trying to be as specific as possible.

For example,

It might be sharp,

Cutting,

Dull,

Throbbing,

Burning,

Tight,

Achy.

See if it's possible to notice the size of the area.

How big is it?

How small is it,

This area of discomfort?

See if it's possible to imagine or notice where the edges of the pain or the discomfort is.

Does it have a texture?

Does it have a shape?

And then noticing the boundaries of this discomfort,

The sensation.

Spending a moment at these boundaries and noticing what's beyond the boundaries.

Seeing if you can bring your attention to that area just beyond the boundaries,

Beyond the edge,

Seeing if it's possible to relax and soften the area beyond the boundaries without trying to change the area of the actual discomfort.

So it's just putting your attention to the edges and letting the softening be there.

Noticing if there are any feelings that you can identify about this physical condition.

Are you noticing any emotions or thoughts about this physical condition?

Is there any anger,

Frustration?

Is it feeling unfair?

Perhaps you're noticing that you're thinking about the future and how this pain might be affecting your future,

Worrying that it might not get better or that it will get worse.

Sadness about how it's limiting you,

Confusion.

Seeing if it's possible to use your own words to describe this feeling.

And noticing where in your body you might be feeling this emotion.

And then seeing if you can soften your reaction to the difficulty with gentle breaths or perhaps bringing your attention to your anchors,

Your hands or your feet.

Seeing if you can be with your reaction in the same way that you'd be with a child who is in distress or a pet who you love.

You might even choose to place your hand where in the body you're physically feeling the difficulty the most.

Meeting your experience with kindness and recognizing that this would be difficult or painful or challenging for anybody.

And holding the experience and yourself gently and with compassion.

We're seeing if it's possible to soften our reaction to the feeling that we're having.

Allowing our reactions to be there,

All the while knowing that allowing it doesn't mean to say that we like it.

It's simply an acknowledgement that this is what we are feeling right now.

And then without trying to push the difficult sensations away,

Scanning our body to find or see if there's an area where there's no pain or perhaps a neutral place in your body or even somewhere that's a pleasurable sensation.

Looking in your explorer in you or discoverer in you,

Looking for a hidden treasure in your body.

It could be the sense of warmth in your hands or a comforting tingling in your fingers.

It might be sensing the support of the bed or the mat on your body.

Perhaps you're noticing that there's a small little area somewhere in your body,

Perhaps it's your right big toe or your left tiny toe and that is pain free.

If you're having difficulty finding some place that feels okay,

You might want to gently place your hand somewhere for instance on your shoulder or on your head in the same way that you might want to comfort a child that's in distress.

And sensing into that area.

Or perhaps you might be able to bring your attention to something that's beautiful or pleasant in your immediate environment like your room or a plant in your room or a ray of sunlight or a photograph.

And then finally bringing your awareness to the whole experience like you're panning out in a movie,

Including both the pleasant and the unpleasant.

Seeing if it's possible to create space and room in your awareness,

Space for both the painful and the pleasant sensations and experiences without pushing away the unpleasant or clinging on to the pleasant.

Becoming a bigger container for your experience.

And then finishing off this meditation by bringing your awareness into the room that you're in.

Letting your attention now move to the outside world,

Taking in the sights,

The sounds and the sensations around you.

And when you're ready to open your eyes,

If they were closed,

You may open them.

And re-engaging with the world around you.

Reviews

Empowering, Enlightening, and healing. A curious, kind, approach in turning towards pain and giving it the non judgemental space it deserves. In so doing, it helped me reduce my fear associated with my pain and see it all in a new light, with new space, and hopefully with time, greater wisdom.

Lovely meditation. Thank you so much for these calming minutes