Tips to help you deal with pain

The tips that follow are aimed at helping you to accept your primary suffering and reduce your secondary suffering.

  • See if you can stay in the present moment as much as you can. Whenever you notice that your mind has wandered off into the future or the past, gently bring it back. This doesn’t mean you can’t think about the past or future, but try not to get too caught up with these thoughts.
  • Investigate the process you call ‘pain’. You will notice it is in fact a mass of sensations, not a thing. Get to know it as actual, felt experience, rather than getting too caught up with thoughts about it. Notice how it is always changing from one sensation to another, no matter how dense and solid it may feel.
  • Move towards the pain. See if you can soften around any resistance you may feel towards it. This is counter-intuitive but if you try to ignore it or push it away, it will just scream louder. Use the breath to help with this (see meditation that follows).
  • Kindness and gentleness are crucial. Treat pain as you’d treat an injured loved one. See if you can find a tender attitude of heart.
  • Once you have gently acknowledged the pain you can then broaden out your field of awareness to look for any pleasure that is also going on in the moment. Notice experiences such as sun on the skin, being with a loved one, noticing flowers by the bed etc. There will always be something pleasurable in your experience, no matter how subtle. Let the pain be just one of several things you are aware of in the moment.
  • With this honest, tender attitude to all the shades of physical, emotional and mental experiences in the present moment you can then choose how you respond to things. This is the point of creativity – how we respond/act in this moment sets up conditions for the next moment. You can always insert a moment of choice no matter how far down the line you’ve gone into distress and anguish.
  • Any moment can be an opportunity for learning if we come back to the actual sensations of the present moment rather than getting lost in thoughts and reactions. See if you can let both pain and pleasure be held within this broad perspective: neither contracting tightly against pain nor clinging tightly to pleasure. Allow all sensations to come into being and pass away moment by moment.

Vidyamala’s CDs of guided meditations — developed as part of her Breathworks pain management program — are available for sale in our online store.

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  • I have very aggressive CMT. My pain is not fleeting nor temporary. It is not a sensation I can externalise. It is neuropathic and intense. I appreciate what you're trying to do here. I appreciate the general Buddhist stream of though, that our bodies are merely electrical conduits and that all of it is transient. It's wise, it's insightful, and it's intelligent.

    But I would like to point out that pontification alone can not ease some burdens. Some suffering is too real, immediate, and constant. So for anyone else for whom this meditative trick didn't work, please go get oxy or something. Force of will can also be a force of ego

  • Hi Brendan many thanks for your comment. I agree that many of us need meds as as meditation. Meditation is complementary, not alternative. I take several different meds for my pain, which includes neuropathic pain and I know my life would be much worse without them. But with mindfulness I manage to take fewer than I would otherwise. The meds get the pain to a level where I have some sort of space in my mind and then mindfulness kicks in as a way to improve quality of life. So thanks for pointing this out as my article may have given the wrong impression that meditation is not compatible with medication. Many of us need both!

  • Yep.. it's all about MOVING TOWARDS YOUR PAIN and DISCOMFORT! :) .. and being mindful of it's existance... to stop trying and wasting so much effort in running from it.

    Thanks,

    Nicely written.

  • Hello,

    I really just wanted to say how impressive you are Vidyamala. I saw you speak in Australia and have watched your videos. I struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis which has caused me years of pain. Until I had a diagnosis, I thought I was going mad and really just felt so alone with the uncertainty of my situation. You have helped enormously and I really appreciate your message and willingness to manage your pain in such an insightful and positive way. Thank you.

  • I suffer from diverticular disease- a bowel disease that causes constant diabolical pain, far worse at night, when I have excruciating wind. After nearly 4 years of being up every night for 4 or 5 hours I've had enough. I have had Fibromyalgia for over 30 years following a bout of cancer when I was 22 ( malignant melanoma ). I had to take early retirement from teaching as I was becoming increasingly unreliable, and no longer 'fit for purpose' as a teacher 7 years ago . I lost my partner, and also a very close friend at around this time, too. Last year I had several sudden bereavements and a period in hospital with a diverticular flareup, and was also treated for fibroids and told I have gallstones. My home has been my sanctuary but new and difficult neighbours have recently torn that from beneath me. I can't move as equity from the sale of my flat would stop me being entitled to council housing, but with the costs of moving -solicitors fees etc. I am not in a position to buy, either. The new neighbours (3 dogs never exercised, and perpetually barking locked up in a one bedroom flat all day, and 3 children, all in a one bedroom flat) shout at me constantly-accusing me of things like 'staring at their dogs'. My own dog -a wonderful companion who has helped keep me strong- will no longer go in the back garden without me, and since these people moved in 4 weeks ago shakes and has taken to weeping everywhere she shouldn't. It is nearly 2 am. As usual At this time of day I am unable to sleep because of wind, finally, my GP has never given up on me, and is always supportive. At the end of last year
    Following more tests I was diagnosed with clinical exhaustion, and now the new neighbours feel like the straw on the camel's back. Last night he stopped mecoming into my flat and told me he was 'an extremist' whatever that means. I am too frightened to go to the police for fear of reprisal. Talks with friends about ways forward have left us all frustrated and feeling pretty much impotent, despite really scratching our heads on this one. I feel terribly alone withal this on a day to day basis. So all round pain of various sorts. I am a practising Buddhist and recently in the early hours have taken to listening to YouTube seminars and talks given by various monks and so on in a bid to find some sense in all of this, but my practise is crumbling, I am unable to attend meditation classes because of my health, andam basically suffering pain, in all it's myriad of forms, mental and physical. I have become a tortured soul, and my GP is aware that I am at the end of my tether. Recent anti depressants upset my tum, and after trying 5 different types my GP has said enough is enough. The waiting list for NHS psychotherapy in my area is 18 months. I am always amazed by how wonderful this life is, but my own set of circumstances and my battered body mean I have become increasingly aware that my burden is too much for me. I long for someone to visit and sit with me and share a cup of tea, but long term friends have become scattered and my nearest good long term friend is now an unbelievable 180 or so miles a way. I'm sure you can hear how bound up I have become in my pain
    - and if I'm honest, how appalled I am by my recent self pity and feelings of anger. Any tips, ways of managing would be marvellous. And thank you for your site - at the very least I have been occupied writing this during another 'dark' night, which must surely be of some help, It all feels unmangeable, and 'me, me, me'. And I used to think I was so strong - a lesson in its self. Thank you.

  • Papas rereading what I wrote I realise that instead of writing that my very upset little dog is weeing in inappropriate places as a result of being scared by the dogs next door, I seem to have typed that she is 'weeping'. A somewhat bizarre and ultimately funny typing error!

  • Sorry, me again. I am not given to using the internet to write like this - This is a bit of a 'one off', and just now rereading what I have written I am appalled by my circumstances - writing it down like this in one big swoop has highlighted just how beaten up I am.

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