MEDITATION TIP OF THE WEEK
…IS A SERIES OF SHORT, EASY TO REMEMBER, AND BASIC TIPS ON HOW TO MEDITATE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK, IS IT HELPFUL?
Meditation in Pain!
In my last post, Meditate When You’re Broken, I shared why I feel that meditation can be a powerful ally in learning how to meditate even in our most desperate moments. It seems fitting then that just one week after writing that post, I should end up with an infection in my tooth and an emergency root canal. Talk about having to meditate on what scares you!
How To Meditate in Pain
Have you ever had a a pain in your body that you just couldn’t turn your attention away from? Perhaps a toothache, a pimple on your face, a surgical wound, or an ache somewhere that took your attention away from everything else?
I don’t imagine that anyone “enjoys” pain or looks forward to its presence in one’s life, but is there a way to work with pain, to use pain to live fully in one’s life?
When I woke up with throbbing in my mouth, I knew that I had to visit my dentist. By the end of the day, not only had I visited my dentist, I’d had over 7 injections into my mouth and gum to take care of the pain and I’d had a root canal surgery! And, when the pain medication wore off, it was time to practice meditation.
Please understand, I used the pain medication as much as I could. Whenever it was time to take another pain-pill, I took it! However, there were times…hours, when the medication wasn’t working and when I was left with unbearable stabbing pains in my mouth, jaw…even radiating up to my eye and ear. The pain was such that at times there were tears streaming from my eyes and all that I could do was to lean over the sink and let drool pour out of my mouth. It was as if the circumstances were forcing me to meditate!
To meditate while my body was experiencing pain, what I had to do was to rest my attention and focus my mind on my breath and on the present moment. I had to leave the feeling of pain where it was, not focusing on it or on the many sensations that were arising because of it. And doing this was bloody difficult!
So many times my attention and focus wandered back to my pain, and when it did, my perception of the pain increased and – in a strange way – so did the pain!
Don’t Focus On Your Pain
The temptation to focus on pain is huge! When we’re in pain, that’s what our focus is on. Pain can be so distracting, that it takes all of our attention. But, what if we don’t become distracted by our pain, what it we take our attention away from the intensity of the pain and bring it back to the present moment and our breath, so that we’re not giving in to the pain? Does it even “exist?”
In Meditation, Pain Can Cease to Exist
What I find is that when I’m practicing meditation, other things in my life, the “four distractions” in my mind, become less solid and less real. Here’s the magic, the mind-blowing thing about meditation and attention; when I was in pain and I was really within my meditation, and my mind was undistracted by the pain, it was as if the pain wasn’t there! It’s almost as if when I was meditating, because I wasn’t distracted by the pain, the pain itself didn’t exist!
What I found was that the pain was only “there” when I turned my focus on it to see if it was there. What? It was as if, when my mind was focused on remaining present, just “being” in the present and with the natural flow of the breath, the pain occupied its own space, a space that I wasn’t bringing my attention to. I could turn my attention to my pain, and there it was. But if I remained simply present, without becoming distracted, the pain was a “side show,” something going on just outside of my attention. I hope that this makes sense.
Getting to the point where the pain “ceased to exist” wasn’t something that I was trying to do. Why? Because if you meditate on “making your pain go away,” all that you’re doing is giving more “existence” to the pain. Instead, what we need to do is to continue to practice meditation even though the pain exists, but not lose our attention to it. In that case, less of our “mindspace” is being taken up with the perception of pain.
This Blog is Your Community
I’d like to encourage you to comment here and to share your thoughts on this post as well as other posts. Do you find that you can meditate even when you’re in pain? Or does pain distract you from the moment so much that it’s all that you can do just to keep on going? Comment below, share your thoughts and your experience.
How To Meditate
Learning how to deal with pain while meditating requires that you first know how to meditate. That’s what this site is about, learning how to meditate and gain stability in your meditation practice.
In order to take the methods that are presented on this site into your life, you need to do two things. First, you need to practice; that goes without saying. The second thing that you need to do is to take your meditation into your daily life…even practicing meditation as you go through your day-to-day activities.
In order to share what I’ve learned from my meditation teachers on how to use these practices in my life, I’m working on a new ebook titled, Meditate Out of the Box! It will be a real “How To” book on learning to practice in whatever situation or environment you find yourself in. I’ll let you know when it’s coming out.
In the meantime, read through this site, it’s got a lot to offer. If you haven’t downloaded the two free ebooks, Can Meditation Change the Way That You View Your World?, and How To Work With the Four Distractions to Meditation, please do so. I’ve presented a lot of information in these two books that can support you in your practice.
Maybe you’ve already got a meditation practice. If that’s the case, great! Keep it up. And feel free to use all of the content from this site to support you in your efforts, and please let me know if you’d like me to discuss anything that can support – or turbo-charge! – your practice.
Meditation Book for Anyone
Even though my book was written with nurses in mind, I continue to get feedback from those who have bought it who aren’t nurses that they find it useful in their lives. So, check out the book, Minding the Bedside: Nursing from the Heart of the Awakened Mind. You can even buy it in a Kindle version! It’s really written for anyone. If you buy the book and find that you can’t apply it to your own life, let me know.
Thanks for visiting and have a mindful day.
Dear Jerome,
I have tried to meditate with pain before. It can go away if you focus on your breath. However, sometimes I have made pain my focus and the main lesson I learned is that it is impermanent, it comes and goes. This can be a relief also. Anyway, thanks for the article.
Sincerely,
Barb
Hi Barb – Thanks for the comment. Excellent point! Indeed, meditating on pain can be just as important as meditating in pain. Thanks for adding that point, I hope that other readers will benefit from it. Take care, Jerome
For me, this brings to mind the experience of childbirth. Getting to a place where I could separate my “SELF” from the pain was a surprising discovery for me. I didn’t attend any childbirth classes and had never meditated before, but I discovered, in the midst of labor, what I now realize is a rudimentary form of meditation, and I did it purely by chance or grace or whatever you choose to call it. That discovery has served me well in many instances of both physical and emotional pain through the years, and I have learned that, as with most things in life, practice is vital to increased effectiveness.
Hi Terra – Thanks for sharing your discovery and how you were able to distinguish between the experience of pain and you “SELF.” I’ve found that the ongoing practice of meditation helps me to do the same, really differentiate between the subjective experience of pain and my objective interpretation of it. Keep up the good work and, as always, return to this site for support on how to meditate. Also, always feel free to drop me a note if you want additional information or support. Take care, Jerome