Community- Library- Meditation
Guided Meditation: Basic Acceptance of Pain
We cultivate Radical Acceptance of pain by relaxing our resistance to unpleasant sensations and meeting them with non-reactive awareness. This exercise is especially useful if you are presently distressed by physical pain.
Find a comfortable position, sitting or lying down. Take a few moments to become still, relaxing with the natural rhythm of the breath. Gently scan through your body, relaxing your brow and jaw, dropping your shoulders and softening through your hands. Try not to create any unnecessary tension in your body.
Where is the area of strong discomfort or pain that calls your attention?
Bring a receptive attention directly to the unpleasant sensations in that part of your body.
Notice what happens as you begin to be present with this pain.
Is there an attempt, however subtle, to push the pain away?
To cut it off, block it off, pull away?
Is there fear?
You might notice how the body and mind clench like a fist in an attempt to resist pain.
Let your intention be to remain present, allowing the unpleasant sensations to be as they are.
Soften any reaction against the pain, allowing the fist of resistance to unclench and open. The more you can connect with open and spacious awareness, the more you will be able to be present with sensations and allow them to unfold naturally. Experience your awareness as the soft space that surrounds the pain and allow the unpleasant sensations to float in this awareness.
Resting in this openness, now bring a more precise attention to the changing sensations in the area of pain.
What is the experience actually like?
Do you feel burning, aching, twisting, throbbing, tearing, stabbing?
Does the pain feel like a knot, a constricting band?
Does the area feel as if it is being pressed down or crushed by a great weight?
Are the unpleasant sensations diffuse or focused in their intensity?
How do they change as you observe them?
Investigate with a non-reactive, soft attention.
Allow the sensations you may feel as a solid block of pain to unfold and move in their natural dance of change.
When resistance arises, relax again, reestablishing a sense of openness. Be aware of your entire body, including the areas that aren't painful. Let the body become like open space, with plenty of room for unpleasant sensations to arise and dissolve, fade and intensify, move and change. No holding, no tension. Inhabit the sea of awareness, and let any painful sensations float in an accepting openness.
Try not to judge yourself for reacting when pain feels like "just too much:' Take care of yourself in whatever way provides ease and comfort. Over time if you practice mindful presence of pain for even a few moments at a time, equanimity will increase. You will be able to more readily let go of resistance and open to unpleasant sensations.
By Tara Brach, Reprinted with Permission