Relieving Pain with Focused Awareness

Cancer patients who have successfully used meditation to manage physical pain demonstrate just how powerful focusing our awareness can be. When I was in practice as a therapist, I adapted the meditation utilized by Stephen Levine in his work with cancer patients and described in his book, Who Dies. I found it useful with patients I saw suffering from physical pain while they were healing from an injury or surgery. It was especially helpful when their pain medication was not enough to ease their suffering.

By simply bringing their awareness to the area of discomfort and then softening the tense muscles around the pain, cancer patients could find pain relief. They could begin to stop tensing against the pain to block it out. Tensing to stop the pain only tends to increase the discomfort. They would then bring their attention to the area of discomfort as it is, without trying to change anything. By going beyond the concepts of pain and pleasure, the patients could experience the area as what it is, namely a mass of moving sensations. We can all manage pain by focusing on not labeling the area as pain, but instead by labeling it as sensation. The experience of the area changes and the pain either disappears, or decreases considerably. It is as if the concepts of pleasure and pain are like a pane of glass that we shatter. Then we are able to touch the true reality of the tingling sensations of the nerves.

• Today, sit or lie down for a few minutes. Focus on the sensation of the air entering your nostrils. Simply focus on feeling the sensations of the air passing over your nasal membranes. Then, as you exhale, focus on the feeling of the air leaving your body. After a few breaths, bring your awareness to any discomfort. Notice the tendency to tense against the pain or discomfort. Focus on softening the area around the pain. It is as if you are opening a closed fist clenching against the pain so that you open your hand and release the tension. Let the pain float free in the spaciousness of your awareness. You can find some relief as you stop fighting the discomfort, and sometimes the discomfort dissolves. Just as the penetrating rays of the sun melt the ice on the sidewalk, the rays of a relaxed spacious awareness melt the tension around your blood vessels increasing blood flow and bringing warmth to the area of discomfort.