You may or may not know what causes it, but pain, intense, excruciating and severe, takes you to the point where nothing else matters. And yet there is no easy way of eliminating pain
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
• Try to remain calm, focus on your
pain. When thoughts or feelings
come up in your mind, don't ignore them or suppress them, do not analyze
or judge their content. The goal is to be more in touch with life,
with whatever is happening in your own body and mind—in the present
moment.
• Resist the impulse to try to escape the unpleasantness or the
sensation of
pain, instead see it clearly, as it is.
Ultimately, mindfulness is best thought of as a way of being, rather
that as a technique.
• The three basic formal
meditation practices include the body
scan, sitting
meditation and sequences of
hatha yoga postures
done slowly, gently and mindfully.
• For those with chronic back
pain, mindfulness reduces
the degree of suffering. You also learn by watching the painful
sensations.
• Over time, mindfulness can help you to see your discomfort
as physical
sensation separate from the negative
emotions and
interpretations, it generates.
• We often say: "This
pain is killing me" or "I can't
go on if this keeps up". But if we stop and ask ourselves: "Is the
pain really killing?" The answer is usually: "no." In other
words,
pain becomes worse if accompanied by the fear that it
will continue unabated.
• This understanding is usually enough to help us develop effective
strategies for living with chronic
pain and disallowing it
to erode the quality of our lives.
