Meditation: To Overcome Pain

Pain is simply the way we come to know about damage to the body’s tissues, and the feeling it produces differs according to how the brain interprets it. Our brains can present the knowledge as anything from intensely unpleasant to just another piece of sensory information.

Pain meditation

Meditation can help you dissociate yourself from pain. Even if it’s there, you don’t have to suffer too much. Experiment the techniques to find which works best for you, here are four options;

• Concentrate on your breathing. Take long, deep inhalations and focus on the feeling of each one.

• Focus on a part of the body distant from the pain: if the pain is in your right side, focus on the left; if it’s in the head, focus on your feet.

• Close your eyes and imagine you are in some beautiful, peaceful place where there is no pain.

• If the pain is so overwhelming that you cannot focus on anything else, try this little self-induced dissociation.

"Close your eyes, and imagine your pain as a physical object. Concentrate on exactly where the pain is, measuring its dimensions and shape. When its form is clear in your mind, imagine wrapping it up in brown paper and tying some string around it. Then imagine taking this ‘parcel’ out of your body, and placing it a long way away. Place it on the ground. Then walk away from it."

These types of mind control may sound too simple to be effective, but with practice they really can work. If you succeed, you will find that the feeling of pain, although still there, ceases to bother you as much as before.