Meditating Through Pain

Being in pain can make doing the things we need to do feel almost impossible. When we’re in pain, clear thinking becomes challenging. Our focus is fixated on the pain, and we often feel frustrated about not being well.

This is why meditation is particularly crucial when experiencing physical pain. So, how do we meditate in pain?

Recent scientific studies have shown that meditation can actually lessen our experience of pain. So often, it is our resistance, fear, and mental turmoil that prove to be worse than the physical pain itself. This mental distress can also amplify the perception of pain.

Two Types of Pain

There are really two answers to this question. One aspect involves dealing with physical pain, while the other involves addressing pain created by the mind.

This isn’t to imply imagined pain, but rather to highlight that a significant portion of chronic pain, estimated by some doctors to be as high as 97%, is linked to stress and tension.

When our bodies tense up, our breathing becomes shallower, and oxygen supply to our muscles decreases. This deprivation can lead to various forms of physical pain. As muscles contract and our bodies tense, blood vessels constrict, impeding the flow of oxygen-rich blood, resulting in issues like hip, knee, back, neck, and shoulder pain.

Let’s Start the Meditation for Pain

Step 1) Start With Comfort

Anyone experiencing pain and choosing to meditate is making an amazing choice, as it’s not an easy endeavor.

I would encourage anyone in this situation to focus on being comfortable, whether that means lying down with a couple of pillows, propping your head up, or lying flat.

If it’s in your favorite chair or any position that’s comfortable and alleviates your pain the most, go for it. Since we’re constantly either sitting, standing, or lying down, we might as well choose the position that brings us the most relief to get started.

Step 2) Turn Toward the Pain

Once you’ve settled into your chosen position and begin your meditation, direct all your focus onto the spot where you’re feeling pain.

It may sound counterproductive; our first instinct is to look away. Facing the pain is not our immediate inclination; we tend to ignore it, fight through it, or do anything but look at it.

In moments of intense pain, we often even close our eyes, as the body instinctively tries to avoid confronting the source of pain.

But when we look away, we let fear take over. It’s that fear of pain, or that anger toward our pain, that is almost always worse than the pain itself.

When we can look at this region of our body that is creating pain, we can discover that it’s really not so unbearable, that our mind has made it into something bigger. That we can look at it and bring peace and calm to our body.

In eliminating this mental turmoil, we lower what a vast majority of what our pain experience really is.

Step 3) Directing Awareness to Heal

When you direct all of your attention to your pain, you’re signaling to your body that this is the area requiring attention.

You are instructing your body to focus on this region and unleash its wisdom and healing. By channeling so much energy into this spot, which we may have been ignoring for a long time, we can actually facilitate a faster healing process.

You can do this simply by putting all your attention in that area. You may experience a common sensation, tingling, or an energy rush.

When you put all your focus there, you are sending a signal throughout your body to work on this spot, to stay with this spot, to focus on this spot.

We want healing to take place automatically, but we can also support it with intention. By bringing conscious awareness to an area where tension is held, we begin to release that tension.

As awareness increases, resistance decreases. Oxygen can flow, blood can circulate, and the body can begin to relax and heal.

The Mind–Body Connection

There is an incredible amount of medical research on the mind-body connection and how our mind impacts our body.

This is particularly evident in chronic pain, which often shows up in areas where we hold tension, such as the back, shoulders, and neck.

The mind can trick us into believing pain is purely physical because it doesn’t want to be blamed. It doesn’t want to change.

When we are stressed, especially when we are tense, that tension constricts blood flow, shortens breath, and deprives the body of oxygen.

There’s a doctor named John Sarno who treated chronic pain by helping people understand this connection. In many cases, the awareness alone led to the disappearance of pain.

He showed that pain can move around the body, which suggests it is not purely physical.

Think about this: we invest in ergonomic chairs and perfect setups to avoid pain.

But when we go on vacation or sit on a beach chair, which is rarely ergonomic, we often feel fine.

Why? Because stress is low.

Pain often arises in stressful environments when we are not managing stress properly.

When I first started meditating at a strict monastery in India, I begged the instructor to let me sit in a chair because of intense back pain.

He said no.

A few days later, the pain got worse. Then suddenly, it disappeared and never came back.

At first, meditation felt unbearable. But after several days, when I reached a deeper state, the stress disappeared and so did the pain.

Sometimes, pain is a teacher. It shows us what’s happening in the mind.

Dr. Sarno pointed out that the mind is very clever.

If you’ve had a past injury, the mind may place pain in that exact spot so you don’t question it.

He also showed that many people without pain have the same physical “issues” seen on X-rays as those who do have pain.

There is even a placebo effect, when we believe something is physically wrong, pain can increase because the mind allows it.

Releasing Pain Through Awareness

At the end of the day, we are living in an inner environment that affects everything: our mood, our body, and our health.

Whether we’re in pain or not, it’s crucial to release stress through meditation, to breathe into our pain, and to bring full attention to it without resistance or fear.

All problems exist in the mind. It is the mind that says, “This is bad” or “I don’t like this.” In reality, the ego labels and judges, creating unnecessary suffering. Through meditation, we learn to observe sensations without judgment.

Even pain can be experienced without generating suffering. We can say, “I feel pain. Let me observe it. What is its nature?” Instead of resisting pain, we observe it. And in doing so, we stop creating additional suffering.