10

Meditation and Mindfulness

The practice of mindfulness and meditation has been growing in popularity since the seventies.  Pioneers such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have proven that mindfulness based programs can have a positive impact on chronic pain as well as many chronic diseases.  Dr.  Peter A.  Levine and Dr.  Maggie Phillips, authors of Freedom from Pain: Discover Your Body's Power to Overcome Physical Pain, have found that people can shift their experience of pain through mindfulness-based practices.

 

Your Relationship with Pain

Many people understand the term “relationship” when it involves another person, but not when it involves different aspects of our body and life.  Believe it or not, you have a relationship with your pain.  The most common relationship pattern is one of avoidance.  Think about it for a minute.  When you feel pain in your body, isn’t it kind of instinctual to try to avoid it?  To try to get rid of it?  To try to distract yourself from it?  To pretend it isn’t there, and try to go on with your daily life?

I guarantee you that, if given the choice, most people would prefer not to be experiencing chronic pain.  So it is inevitable that our minds will do whatever it takes to create a separation between “us” and the pain.  Although it is a natural, instinctive phenomenon, it is the exact opposite that we must do in order to heal it.

Remember that pain in Chinese Medicine translates into blocked energy or low energy flow.  By distracting, ignoring or numbing ourselves from our pain sensations, we literally promote further blockage.  On the other hand, when we pay attention to something, we promote energy flow to that “something”.  There is a Law of Attraction quote that goes, “Where attention goes, energy flows, and results show”.  I love that quote because it is as true in the manifestation of health as it is in wealth and abundance. 

For example, if your attention is focused on scarcity and lack, then you’ll manifest, and notice, more scarcity and lack.  If on the other hand, you focus on what you have and what you are grateful for, you manifest more things to have and be grateful for.  It works like a charm when you turn it into an exercise to heal conflict between two people.  Just to prove it to yourself, choose someone in your life that annoys you.  For thirty days in a row, make a point to write down (and feel) at least ten things you appreciate about this person.  Notice their strong points, not their weaknesses.  If you start noticing their faults, train yourself to let those thoughts pass and re-focus your thoughts on their gifts.  After all, we all have gifts.  You just have to make an effort to look for and appreciate them.  If you do this small exercise in earnest, you’ll witness a dramatic change in the person’s behavior towards you as well as how you feel about them.

In order to heal our pain, we often have to change our relationship with the pain.  In other words, we need to change our perceptions.  If we treat our pain as the “enemy”, what we resist will persist.  Part of mindfulness is learning acceptance rather than resistance for “what is”.

 

What is Mindfulness?

I like what Jon Kabat-Zinn defines as mindfulness.  He says that it is a state of pure awareness of what is, without judgment or reaction.  In addition to the common reaction of avoidance and distraction that comes with experiencing chronic pain, many people end up feeling resignation or victimization.  Mindfulness provides a different choice.  You don’t have to pretend that the pain is not there or try to distract yourself from it using common unconscious activities such as drugs, alcohol, television, and other addictive substances.  On the other hand, you don’t have to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” and just suffer through the pain as if you are in the army.  You don’t have to prove to anyone that you are tough.

Mindfulness invites you to experience yourself and your body in a state of awareness of the present moment without resorting to the common ensuing judgments that we have all learned to have when we’re in discomfort.  Although our minds have been trained well in school when it comes to reading, writing, and math, there is no training in mindfulness.

Although there is no promise that the practice of mindfulness will cure your pain, it can.  You see, when we resist what is, we re-pattern the same pain over and over again in our consciousness, thereby encouraging it to stay.  Nothing really stays the same.  Everything is always changing.  But we can literally make things look and feel the same by thinking the same old thoughts over and over again.  Mindfulness and meditation offer an opportunity to re-wire age-old patterns of resistance into new awareness and openness that can support you immensely in healing not only your body but your life.

 

What is Meditation?

According to Wikipedia, meditation can be defined as “a practice in which an individual trains the mind and/or induces a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit”.  There are many types of meditation practices but they all have one thing in common: training the mind.  Some people use mindfulness and meditation to mean the same thing and others don’t.  The terminology is less important than your willingness to try some degree of mind training.  Our minds are powerful attractors.  We create our experiences through our minds and we are equally as capable of creating nirvana as we are of creating our own hell on earth.  By making the effort to cultivate your mind using meditation, you can shift your entire perspective on life with as little effort as five minutes a day.  Yes, just five minutes a day!

Here’s the good news.  It matters less the length of time you spend in meditation than it does the consistency with which you practice it.  Like all things worthwhile achieving, meditation takes determination and discipline.  I laughed out loud when I heard what Jon Kabat-Zinn says to his patients in his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program: “You don’t have to like the meditations; you just have to do them”.  When the patients in the program actually followed through on the meditation they were taught, they got great clinical results.  Although meditation is not difficult per se, it does indeed require discipline.  Over time, the state of mindfulness, however, can become a moment to moment meditation in the course of your daily life.  That experience can be extremely rewarding and joyful.

 

Re-inhabiting Your Body

Before you start inviting all of your pain to the surface because now you think it is a good idea, allow yourself to first get accustomed to the notion that your attention has been elsewhere.  In fact, it’s been almost everywhere but fully present in your body.  We’ll discuss more about the practice of being present in the Spirit section of this book.  For now, just be open to the possibility that your attention (and thus your energy) is not fully in your body. 

In order for us to even try to encourage the body to self-heal, we need to re-inhabit our bodies.  First, however, we need to feel safe so that we don’t feel overwhelmed by our physical pain.  Meditation and mindfulness practices are excellent ways to start re-inhabiting our bodies and learning to pay attention to ourselves without judgment or agenda.

In my personal experience, it is extremely challenging to stay present when the pain is intense.  I remember trying to fall asleep one night as I experienced intense uterine cramping.  As I paid attention to the pain, interestingly it would shift and even fade, but when it did so, I automatically began thinking of something else.  My mind wouldn’t stay focused on the pain.  When the pain increased, it would remind me to pay attention again.  Because I had refused to take drugs for the intense pain, this experience gave me ample respect for the power of mindfulness and meditation. 

I have a confession to make.  I like “easy”, and I can be a bit lazy. That’s why I use so many of the energy-based tools I’ll be sharing later with you to quickly ease pain.  Years ago, I would have been too embarrassed to admit something “human” like that.  Mindfulness and meditation, however, take discipline and effort, and are not quick fixes by any means.  They take time to learn and master.  On the other hand, they can be really fun because you discover more about yourself in the process.  Being mindful brings with it gifts of joy and clarity.  If someone is extremely depressed or unmotivated due to chronic pain, it can be helpful to first diminish the intensity of the pain using some of the other energy tools in this book, then come back to the meditation and mindfulness practices.

There have been plenty of patients who have tried meditation, yoga and other mindfulness based practices and felt like failures.  They complain that their anxiety is severe and they cannot concentrate.  Thoughts spin in their minds like a whirling dervish and they cannot consciously “be” with them.  Many can’t sleep at night.  They wake up with incessant unwanted thoughts that rule their life.  Thus they feel that their yoga or meditation practices are not useful and they are frustrated with their “lack” of results.

My observation is that 100% of these types of patients have a severe brain imbalance (see Chapter 6).  More and more people are experiencing these issues and it can be incredibly frustrating for the more “enlightened” patient to experience a lack of results from their meditative efforts.  It isn’t that their methods are wrong or useless; it is that their bio-electrical brain chemistry is so out of balance that they can’t achieve the minimum amount of “success” with these beneficial practices.

When I’ve quickly been able to brain balance these patients, usually within a couple of weeks, their meditative practices soar to new heights.  Their natural in-born abilities to pay attention, be present, without judgment, are reignited.  The incessant thoughts are no longer turning in their heads and they can finally sleep at night.  At this point, the meditation and mindfulness based practices are even more powerful.  If someone’s brain has a severe imbalance, it may be necessary to use strong energetic or biologic therapies to rebalance their brain patterns before she can follow through on meditative practices.

Meditation and mindfulness based practices have been a centuries-old strategy to healing mind, body and soul.  In this day and age, we can now integrate more tools to enhance the benefits of this wise practice, especially in cases where severe stress has hampered the brain’s ability to function normally.  I encourage you to try a few of the mindfulness exercises in this chapter to get a feel for these practices and what they can do for your chronic pain and your overall enjoyment of life.  If they resonate with you, I encourage you to pursue further training and study.

 

Mindfulness Meditation #1: Wellspring Meditation

In this meditation, we are going to have you experience (re-inhabit) your body through your breath.  Breath is a common source of focus in yoga, meditation and mindfulness.  I also call this the wellspring Chong ma meditation because you’ll be breathing through the acupuncture channel Chong ma which is the meridian that runs through your central axis.  If you imagine a globe (the kind you’d find in geography class) and spin it, the stake at the center of the globe would be the central axis.  Your body has a meridian running right through the middle of it as well.  In acupuncture, we often needle the points that activate this meridian for people who are energetically depleted.  You can consciously activate this meridian through the breath in this exercise I’m about to teach you.

First, find a quiet place to sit comfortably with your back relatively straight.  You may need a straight-backed chair if you’re not used to supporting your spine in a meditation pose.  Make sure that if you are short, your feet are not dangling from the chair.  Choose a sitting position where your feet can touch the ground.  Alternatively, you may feel comfortable sitting upon a meditation cushion or folded soft blankets in a cross-legged position.  For this exercise it works better if you do not lie down, as the visualization can be a little trickier if you do.  The important thing is to get comfortable, but not too comfortable so that you fall asleep.

If you happen to have some meditation music, you can play it at the same time and it may make this meditation even easier.  Once you get some practice with this, you won’t need extra paraphernalia to help you.  I’ve even done it in the car while I’m stopped at a red light.

Next, once you’re comfortable, close your eyes and focus on your natural breath.  If you’ve never focused on your breath before, you might notice that you’re breathing into your upper chest.  This is a type of nervous breath.  It is a habitual way of breathing that adults have been accustomed to because of stress and trauma.  If you notice your shoulders and upper chest moving a lot while you breathe, see if you can breathe all the way down into your lower belly or pelvis.  We call this belly breathing.  It is also called yogic breathing.  Breathing into your lower belly so that it expands and contracts gently helps you get into a calmer state of mind.  You might wish to put one of your hands over your belly so that you can feel the expansion and contraction of this part of your body.  Breathe slowly but naturally, without force or exertion.

Once you’ve established a natural breathing rhythm, we can now begin.  On your next inhale, visualize that you’re breathing in from the bottom of your tailbone or perineum (the area between the scrotum and the anus in a man or the area between the vagina and the anus in a woman) all the way up the center of your spine until it reaches the top of your head.  When the breath reaches the top of your head, exhale: visualize it bursting out like a bubbling spring and washing over your entire body until it reaches the tips of your fingers and ends of your toes.  Repeat this visualization over and over again with each breath.  Most yoga teachers prefer their students to breathe in and out through their nostrils rather than through their mouths.  If, however, you prefer to breathe out through your mouth, that’s fine.

You may find that you feel energy or tingling throughout your body as you practice this meditation.  That’s great if you do, but don’t be upset with yourself if you don’t.  Often, it takes some practice to “re-inhabit” your body i.e. to be energetically in your body, because chronic pain makes it tempting to “leave”.  You may also find that you get distracted and start thinking of something else.  If you do, just let the thought go and return to focusing on your breathing and visualization. 

During this meditation, our focus is not to specifically pay attention to the painful or non-painful areas of the body, but just to practice training the mind to move energy.  It really is a form of Qi Gong, a healing exercise you’ll learn more about in a later chapter.

As you do this wellspring meditation, you may notice a shift in how your body feels after the meditation.  You may feel calmer or more energetic.  You may feel less discomfort or you may not.  It doesn’t really matter as long as you let go of any preconceived ideas or judgments you may have.  Just experience it.  If you encounter any difficulty, just let it be there and don’t judge it.  Everything you experience is part of mindfulness if you pay attention to it.

 

Mindfulness Meditation #2: Intuitive Healing

This meditation can be done lying or sitting and also involves breath work.  First, begin noticing your breath moving in and out.  See if you can set your intention to breathe all the way down into your deep pelvis.  This breathing pattern alone can be very energizing and healing for many people when done on a regular basis.

After you’ve established belly breathing at a comfortable pace, turn your attention to a body part that feels uncomfortable.  If you have several, just pick one, preferably a spot that is not the most painful.  As you continue to breathe steadily, turn your awareness to the area of discomfort and begin noticing the quality of what you feel there.  If it helps, you can choose words to describe it, such as cold, hot, tight, etc.  You may also note some emotions emanating from that area such as fear, anger, sadness, etc.  Whatever it is, just accept it without judgment.

Intend to just “be” with these sensations for several breaths without trying to changing anything.  Your intuition may suddenly give you additional insights during this time, but don’t force it.  At this point, you may wish to ask the area of discomfort what it needs or wants.  I know it sounds funny asking your hip or your low back, “What do you want?” but you’d be surprised how often an answer just pops out of nowhere into your awareness.  See if you can be open to whatever flows into your consciousness after you ask this question.  Again, intend to accept whatever comes without judgment. 

It never ceases to amaze me that even people who have never done formal meditation before often come up with “answers” to this question fairly quickly.  If you’re struggling or feeling like nothing is coming through, that’s okay too.  Sometimes, you just feel resistance and that in and of itself is telling you something of value.  Examples of what may come up when you ask your painful body part what it wants include: “I want to be loved”, “I want warmth”, “I need rest”, “I want respect”, “I need more attention”, “I need more support” or “I need reassurance that I’m safe”.

Imagine that you’ve established what you think your painful body part is asking for.  Now with the breath, you can extend this particular meditation to “give” that body part what it is asking for energetically.  If your hip, for example, is longing for security, imagine that with the next breath, you could inhale the energy of security.  Imagine what that energy would feel like.  As you exhale, breathe the energy of security into your painful hip.  Repeat over and over again several times.  Notice if anything shifts in how your hip feels.  This breath work may or may not make an appreciable change in how your pain feels in the moment, but with repeated practice, you’d be surprised how often it does.

Your painful body part can give you loads of intuitive information about your life and what may best serve you or make you happy.  Taken in this light, you can infer how your pain may change once you start addressing its needs in your everyday life.  For example, if your shoulder tells you, “I need rest”, check if that feels true to you.  If it does, what choices do you have to honor that request? 

I once had a patient with terrible recurring shoulder pain.  I found out that Petra was doing lots of heavy labor on her property because her husband’s mental illness prevented him from helping out in a meaningful way.  It was obvious to me that her shoulder pain reflected severe resentment she harbored.  Once I pointed out to her what her shoulder was trying to tell her, Petra began to make different choices in her life.  She hired people to take over some of the heavy labor and focused her efforts on things she’d rather be doing instead.  Her shoulder improved as did her outlook on life.  To her surprise, her husband started pitching in with the yard work once she honored her shoulder’s intuitive guidance to stop doing heavy labor.

 

How to Make Mindfulness and Meditation Work

Two of the questions most often asked of meditation or mindfulness practices are, “How long do I have to do this?” and “Do I have to do it every day?” Most mindfulness meditation gurus will instruct their students to do some form of meditation daily.  The minimum time necessary for formal meditation to be effective is felt to be five to ten minutes a day.  Neale Donald Walsch, author of the popular Conversations with God series, feels that ten second meditations done sporadically throughout the day, is more than enough to experience a shift. 

There are huge benefits to a daily meditative practice, one being that your new “skill set” can be transferred to your everyday life in a meaningful way.  Being mindful of your pain in a meditative practice may transfer to being more mindful of your other relationships.  I can attest to experiencing joy and contentment through the practice of mindfulness, whether it is while talking to a friend, doing the dishes or analyzing an emotional reaction.

I encourage you to make a daily commitment to a mindfulness meditation practice for a month and see how that changes your life.  If, for whatever reason it doesn’t resonate with you, then honor it and move onto something that does. 

Next, in the Body section, I’ll give you energy tools and holistic strategies to get quick relief from your chronic pain.  In the Spirit section, I’ll introduce you to some fabulous spiritual practices that can help you create a joyful healing experience.

 

Chapter Summary

         Mindfulness and meditation are tools that can shift your perception of pain and dissolve the pain itself
         Honor your current relationship with pain and learn from it
         Mindfulness is a way you can tap into your intuitive guidance system to ask what your pain needs
         Aside from pain relief, a daily meditation or mindfulness practice can benefit all facets of your life