An alternative pain management strategy that has played a huge role in my life and in my healing is meditation.

I was first introduced to meditation when I attended a two-day course for yoga for chronic pain. I attended this course both for personal and professional reasons. At that time, I was working as a physiotherapist while also managing my own pain. The morning of the first day of the workshop I flared up my back while bending over to brush my teeth. I was so angry. I was all excited for the workshop and now was thinking things like “Ugh now I’m not going to be able to enjoy this workshop” and “I won’t get the most out of this course because I have to deal with my pain.” I was extremely frustrated. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to fully participate in the course and wouldn’t be able to get the most out of the course and enjoy the experience because of my pain.

On day one of the course the instructor asked us to journal our responses to a question. Which was along the lines of “What is pain to you? How do you view pain? How does pain make you feel?” Journaling on this was very easy for me to answer. I felt anger and frustration. After we had time to journal on this topic there was an opportunity to share what came up for us. At the end of this exercise the instructor shared past participants’ descriptions of pain as a friend and a teacher. This blew my mind! I had never thought of pain as a friend or a teacher. I was in awe of the people that viewed pain as something positive and powerful. I wanted to know how they got to that point. I was all ears for what I was going to learn in this course.

Throughout the duration of this course, we learned different breathing techniques and how to initiate movement with the breath. We practiced tuning into our bodies and how to listen and respect our bodies. This was all new to me. I was so used to pushing through pain and forcing my body to do what I wanted it to do. After being introduced to the importance of breath control and body awareness we were taught meditation.

Prior to this course, I knew nothing about meditation. I thought meditation was about clearing your mind. In other words, having no thoughts. I had the stereotypical images of people sitting cross legged meditating and monks meditating up in the mountains. Meditation was explained to me as the ability to recognize when your mind has wandered and returning to the present moment. An analogy I learned that helped me better understand meditation was viewing anytime your mind wanders, whether that’s thoughts, sensations or emotions, that is when you are doing the “exercise.” When your mind wanders it’s like it’s going through all the machines for different muscle groups at the gym. Then when you come back to the present moment you have completed the “exercise”.

Now, meditation is not only about coming back to the present moment. It also matters how you come back to the present moment. For example, do you beat yourself up because you are not “doing it right.” A cue I liked was every time you recognized your mind had wandered was to celebrate this awareness, such as a smile. Therefore, in meditation not only are you practicing how to come back to the present moment, you are also retraining how you respond as you come back to the present moment.

At the course, the main tool or cue we used to return to the present moment when our minds had wandered was returning to our breath. Being inspired by this course I began exploring building my own meditation practice. It was fascinating to see how starting this practice I began to see the skills transfer to my daily life. One of my profound experiences is when I had a back flare at work. This was, if not the first, one of the first times I became aware of my thoughts, feelings, and treatment of myself when I was in pain. I was so mean to myself. I blamed myself as being the cause of my pain. I was beating myself up with negative thoughts like, “It’s all my fault I’m in pain. My day is now ruined because of the pain. I can’t enjoy my day because of the pain. I’ve made the injury worse. Now I’m gonna have to stop all of my activity and wait weeks before it gets better!” These spiraling thoughts and emotions would continue. Meditation allowed me to become aware of these thoughts and emotions. Which then allowed me to choose to start to change them. The practice of meditation has helped me become aware of my thoughts and emotions when I am in pain along with being kind and gentle to myself when I am in pain.

Meditation has helped me with a huge mindset shift in how I treat myself when I am in pain. I believe how we treat ourselves when we are in pain plays a big role in our pain experience and healing. When I am in pain I am now able to quickly recognize my thoughts and emotions and let them be. I can be kind to myself and bring myself to a calm state very quickly. As well as be accepting when I am in pain. I am able to give myself permission to change what I’m going to do that day without judgment. Along with the permission to take the time to take care of myself and my body. I have found because of this change in how I manage my pain I recover much quicker from a pain flare and can experience less pain than typical when I get a flare.

Meditation has become a very important practice in my life as a way to take better care of myself. My practice continues to grow and evolve. I look forward to seeing where it goes next. 

Thank you for reading and I invite you to ask yourself, “how do you treat yourself when you are in pain?”

With Love,

Steph