Pain

            Pain, be it physical or emotional, is a symptom. Something is wrong. If we don’t think we need medical attention, then we tend to react to pain by reaching for relief - pills for physical pain, distraction for emotional pain (getting our mind off things). We may indeed need pills, and it may indeed be time to do something to get our mind off things. However, we may bypass an important middle step. That step is to ask ourself: What is this symptom trying to tell me? Is there a problem I should be addressing instead of hiding it under pain relief?

            Mindfulness can be of help here. What we do is to make pain the focus of our attention, and we tune in to the experience of that pain. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his book Full Catastrophe Living,[1] describes it this way: 

We do this in a particular way, which might be called giving [symptoms] wise attention. Wise attention involves bringing the stability and calm of mindfulness to our symptoms and to our reactions to them. We call it “wise” to distinguish it from the usual type of attention we pay to our problems and crises.

. . . . .

                The way of mindfulness is to accept ourselves right now, as we are, symptoms or no symptoms, pain or no pain, fear or no fear. Instead of rejecting our experience as undesirable, we ask, “What is this symptom saying, what is it telling me about my body and my mind right now?” We allow ourselves, for a moment at least, to go right into the full-blown feeling of the symptom. This takes a certain amount of courage, especially if the symptom involves pain or a chronic illness, or fear of death. But you can at least “dip your toe in” by trying it just a little, say for ten seconds, just to move in a little closer for a clearer look.

                As we do this we may also become aware of our feelings about the symptoms as they emerge. If there is anger or rejection or fear or despair or resignation, we look at that as well, as dispassionately as possible. Why? For no other reason than it is here now. It is already part of our experience. To move to greater levels of health and well-being, we have to start from where we actually are today, in this moment, not from where we would like to be. Movement toward greater health is only possible because of now, because of where we are. So looking closely at our symptoms and our feelings about them and coming to accept them as they are is of utmost importance. 

            Pain is a messenger. Most of us would prefer to shoot the messenger, but listening in this case is the better course of action. This involves: 

·        non-judging (avoiding “This is awful” or “I wish this would go away” and so on);

·        trust (“My mixed-up emotions are telling me the truth about something that it would be good to know” as opposed to “I’m just a basket case these days”);

·        beginner’s mind (take the label off your pain; if it had no name like “headache” or “fear” or “upset” or “heartburn”, how would you describe this pain experience?);

·        patience (observing for a few moments before rushing off to fix the pain); and

·        non-striving (not trying to chase the pain off right away, but receiving it and looking at it for a bit). 

As you look at your experience of pain, you may notice that some of that experience is your reaction to the actual pain event. It is thoughts about how badly you feel and how you need the pain to go away, or “Oh, no, not again”. Or it’s emotions - fear about what might be wrong, dread that the pain may get worse, depression over your lack of healing, etc. In other words, your experience of pain has an added component that you create yourself in reaction to the pain. And, if you can create that component, which generally only adds to your suffering, you can stop it as well and thus decrease your suffering even though your actual pain may not change. 

exercises 

Days 35 and 36 

Do the body scan meditation each day. If pain surfaces, or you encounter anxious thoughts about problems in your life, or you feel emotions like worry, fear, shame, and so on, then look at those things but, before letting them go, receive them as part of your meditation experience. Allow them to fully enter your awareness, without resistance held up against them. Then, rather than pushing them out the door of your awareness, let them be, to go their way as they will, and redirect your attention to the focus. 

Day 37 

Do the 20-minute breathing meditation.  

Then take 10 minutes to focus mindfully on a life problem. The problem could be your own physical, emotional, mental or spiritual pain. It could be a family, financial, work or other kind of personal problem. Restrict yourself to something that is impacting your life right now.  

Without trying to change the problem or think of ways to fix it, just look at it - curiously, from all angles. If judgments come, note them, then let them go. Note any other kinds of personal reaction - blaming, guilt, fear, stress, etc. - then, having noted them, let them go, too. Keep watching as if you had never seen this problem before. What does it look like? Feel like? Sound like? Taste like (bile in the throat, for example)? Smell like? Look deeply. Is there anything under the problem that is attached to it or that feeds it? Don’t go digging; that would be to step out of non-striving. Just look. If there’s nothing to see when you look under the pain, leave it at that. 

As you observe, do you have any sense that the “you” who is observing isn’t entangled in this problem? If you do, this is your core of calm in the midst of life’s difficulties. This is where you want to take refuge in times of upset and distress. Note where this place in your heart is and what it feels like to be there. If you have no sense of this, don’t worry about it. Just keep observing the problem until the end of the 10 minutes. 

At the end of 10 minutes, take two minutes to evaluate your experience: 

·        What did you learn about this problem that you didn’t know before?

·        Has your reaction to it changed in any way as a result of taking time to really see it?

·        Do you have any ideas about what you might need to do that you didn’t have before?

·        Does your problem now seem simpler, more complex, or about the same?

·        In what way can you see that taking time to mindfully look at a problem might be a useful thing to do before deciding a course of action or reacting?