Meditation for Managing Pain

Hello, welcome back, and thank you for joining me in this Meditation to Manage Pain. This meditation was inspired by the work of Peter Levine, Maggie Phillips, and PYI faculty member Dr. Chris Walling. This meditation you can do any way you're comfortable, seated like I am, reclining or lying down is more of a contemplative practice. Now I have to say that I don't know what brings you to your practice today, but I want to commend you for showing up. Showing up sends a very powerful message to the nervous system that you're serious about changing your relationship to your pain, okay?

The philosophy says that we are not our pain, we are not our pain. We're something far more eternal and interesting and complex and optimistic than that. We're people who sometimes have painful experiences, and like every experience, this one can change. Let's begin. I'm comfortable, as comfortable as you can.

I'd so appreciate it if you closed your eyes, however, if that doesn't feel good for you today, it's also totally fine to calm your gaze and look down in front of you about six to eight feet. You can also always look up and see me if you like. Mostly what I'll be doing is describing our meditation. Let's begin. Upon settling your eyes, try to bring your awareness to the breath at the navel center, at the belly.

When we're managing a sensation, this can sometimes be challenging. Just become curious, see if you can feel the belly move a little bit when you breathe. Now bring your awareness to a part of the body that is free of pain, a part of your body that is completely pain free. It could just be the tip of your nose. If there's any sensation in this area, it's good, it's pleasant, or perhaps it's sensation free, feeling open, spacious.

Receive yourself in that feeling. And now guide your awareness to the part of the body that is experiencing negative sensation like pain, and look for the borders of this feeling. Where's the top of that sensation in your body, and where's the bottom? Where's the inside, and where's the outside? I'm very interested in the borders of that sensation.

Are they jagged? Do they have a color? Define the borders of the negative sensation. And now move your awareness back to the part of the body that feels open and free. Immerse yourself in that feeling.

See that openness and freedom spreading throughout all the cells. Does this openness and freedom, does it have a color? Does it have a texture, or a movement, or a vibration? Or does it just feel good? Now guiding the awareness back to the part of the body with the negative sensation, seek out the borders of the sensation immediately.

Are they changed? Are they more filmy, less defined? Sometimes pain moves or travels. This is normal. Pain has a way of messing with our brain's interpretation and perception of it.

And to define the borders, the front and back, the top and bottom, and the sides. Now make your way back to that open sensation. Feel it, see it. Has it expanded? Can you expand it?

Can you allow it to move throughout neighboring tissues and areas? Does the open spacious feeling move freely? What about when you guide it? Will it expand? Kindly directing your awareness one last time to that part of the body that had painful sensation, and if it's there, what's going on with the borders?

Define the borders. We're turning now to our open spacious area, our open spacious feeling, that free feeling, that peaceful feeling. And it teaches us that this peaceful feeling is our true, natural state, and everything else is temporary. Feel that openness and peacefulness, honor that, identify with that, come back to that anytime during your day or night, reminding yourself of that peaceful feeling. When it's time to close your meditation, it's valuable to place the hands together, coming back to our tactile body and experience.

Thank you so much for practicing. Namaste.