A Visualisation To Reduce Pain

In this session we explore a visualization practice found in Eion Colfer's 'The Supernaturalist' to reduce pain - we extended upon the practice, enabling it to be used for both physical and psychological ailments. We also dissect how and why it works.

This track is taken from my course, 'Finding Enlightenment Through Fiction', available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session,

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself nice and comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

So in this session we're going to be looking at a practice found in the book The Supernaturalist by Eon Colfer.

This practice is a way to reduce pain,

Physical but also mental.

In the book the character is experiencing some pain and what they do is they close down the eyes and meditate on the pain and develop a sort of mind map of that pain.

Then through visualizations they imagine the map of that pain reducing and reducing and reducing until they've sort of discovered the pinprick point of the pain but the realization quickly comes that since they were able to visualize and reduce the pain down to that pinprick they are then able to let go of all of the pain and just release it.

Now we're going to apply this practice to physical pain but also to emotional pain and other blockages we find in the body but just a little bit of a caveat before we get into it.

If you are experiencing pain I do encourage you to listen to any expert advice.

This is a meditation practice I want you to try safely and in a way that doesn't cause any additional harm.

If you're in pain seek help but in relation to this practice we can extend it beyond physical pain to our emotionality,

To the blockages we find in the body.

If you just close down the eyes and do a body scan you might realize that there is tension in the body,

Maybe you need to drop the jaw or relax the shoulders or unclench your belly.

I know when I scan my body I feel a bit of constriction and contraction in my left shoulder and in my belly.

I've long held past traumas there,

Long held emotionality that have been repressed there and when I do a body scan I get this sort of visualization of a blackness or a darkness or an emptiness,

Something there that shouldn't be right,

A lack of a flow.

I can use this meditation as a way to clear that flow.

So we've got a physical application,

We've got a clearing,

Clarifying,

Healing application but we can also do this with emotions.

If you've got a strong emotion in your mind,

Initially at least it can feel like your total mental state but if you take a breath and detach you start to see where you are relative to where that mental phenomena is.

You feel angry but then you take a little step back and detach and you see that anger is present.

It might be quite large,

It might be almost all encompassing but there's a little bit of space.

What if you could breathe into that space,

Expand that space,

Acknowledge and allow the anger in this case to be there but just to keep expanding the space around it so that the anger reduces or you expand because either way that anger will relatively become smaller and smaller and smaller until it's a pinprick and then eventually until it disappears.

We're not fighting against the pain or the emotionality or the blockages,

We're just visualizing them reducing,

We're just visualizing the space around them expanding.

So with that in mind,

Take another slow deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and settle into this practice.

You can choose a physical pain,

A blockage somewhere in the body or an emotion of the mind.

Just take a moment to visually encompass the totality of that feeling and then begin to expand the presence and the space around it or to visually reduce that feeling smaller and smaller and smaller still until you can release the feeling entirely.

Let's sit with that and give it a try.

So this practice is an interesting one because it embodies and invites you to use visualization.

The mind is a powerful tool and whilst the actual practical or physical methods or impacts that we're doing by doing this visualization might be a bit unclear,

What is true is that the mind and visualizations do have a statistically significant impact upon the body.

If you were told that something will be hard,

You will find it harder.

If you're told that something will be easier,

You will find it easier,

Even if it's the same thing.

If you're told something is going to hurt,

It will hurt more than if you're told it's not going to hurt.

Visualizations sending healing energy may be a practice of woo-woo spiritual magic,

Maybe,

Depending on your worldview,

You'll believe or not believe.

Or it may be the reconnecting of long unused neural pathways,

I don't know,

It could be the gentle encouragement of a mental state shift,

Or it could just be a placebo.

But really the methodology behind it doesn't quite matter,

Because even if it is a placebo,

If the pain reduces,

What does it matter?

I'm going to say that again because it's important.

If you discover a practice that seems like a placebo but it's working for you,

Then that means it's working,

And you might benefit from continuing it.

So yes,

This practice invites you to close down the eyes,

To visualize the physical pain,

The emotional pain,

The blockages,

And then reduce those feelings to a pinprick,

And then eventually letting it go completely,

Or alternatively,

Expanding into that space and growing the space around the pain until that pain is relatively small.

Either way,

What you're doing there is showing yourself that there is more to you than just the pain.

When you're in extreme pain,

Extreme emotionality,

Or like stuck in that trauma block,

It can feel like you as a totality are that pain,

That there is nothing of you but it.

But if you were to step back,

You know,

You start off going,

I'm angry,

You take a breath,

You detach,

And you go,

I notice anger,

You take a step back from that,

I'm noticing that I'm noticing anger,

Take a step back from that,

Anger is present.

In this process of detachment that I just talked you through,

It's the sort of the word-based example of this visualization.

It's a level of detachment,

It's playing with concepts,

It's all a mind game,

But it can work.

So I invite you once again to take a seat,

Close down the eyes,

Take a deep slow breath,

And just gently visualize some physical or emotional pain or a blockage,

And for the next minute or so,

Visualize that pain reducing,

Or the space around it expanding,

And just see what happens.

So,

How did you go?

I invite you to share your experiences,

Or any questions,

In the classroom.

Make sure to use the word visualization,

So we all know which session you were referring to.

I will share my responses,

And I invite other people to share their responses as well,

Because in this way we will develop a synergy,

In which we're each teaching one another,

Advancing each other's practices,

And helping each other strive towards the goal of attainment,

And peace,

And healing,

And connection.

So thank you,

And I look forward to seeing you there.

This track was taken from the course,

Finding Enlightenment Through Fiction.

It's out now via my profile on Insightama,

And I invite you to check it out.

Reviews

Visualization:
I will put this into play. Thank you.