Greeting Your Pain
I’m currently reading a book entitled Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Although not a book devoted to pain management, he does give an original approach as to how you could deal with your pain.
Greet your pain and treat it with affection as you would a guest in your house. “If you embrace a minor pain with mindfullness, it will be transformed in a few minutes.” (p 30). In my case, the minor pain would be transformed into screaming agony, but I do see his point.
Anticipation and Panic
One of the things Buddhists talk about is mindfulness, which means living in the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or fearing the future. (I know there is a lot more to the concept of mindfullness than that, so to any Buddhists out there, please forgive me). It has long been known that meditation or at least being calm and relaxed can help your pain be less intense.
When you have chronic headaches or migraines, it’s not just the attacks that are fearsome. It’s the time between the attacks, when you are afraid when the next one is going to hit and how severe it’s going to be and how long will you be out of comission and will be able to pay the bills and OHMYGAWD! The fear starts small and then rolls on very quickly to a huge problem.
Being afraid of when the next attack hits puts you in a constant state of stress, which is not goog for healing or to maintain good health. So, your fear can make you more prone to having the very attack you fear. Not being in a constant state of dread can help you in managing your chronic headaches and migraines. It also makes life a lot more comfortable in between attacks.
What To Do
Thich Nhat Hanh gives some suggestions on how to greet your pain with mindfulness. He does not claim to be a doctor and still says you should see a doctor for pain. When you realize a headache or migraine is coming, still take your meds, but also welcome the visit of your pain and even the guest it brings along, Fear.
Say to it, “Hey, how are you? Take a load off. Some weather, huh?” or whatever you would say to a houseguest. Thich Nhat Hanh suggested, “Fear, my old friend, I recognize you.” He also says you should smile at your fear and pain, greeting them as clamly as you can. In this way, they won’t be such bullies.
I’m going to try this approach. It certainly won’t give me any bad side effects.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:38 am
I started a rather hot little debate on this topic some months back on My Migraine Connection at http://forums.healthcentral.com/discussion/migraine/forums/a/tpc/f/7911079/m/31310222, although the article I had read was not from a mindfulness perspective. Many migraineurs felt that to name and make friends with migraine was to empower it. I think the always wise Thich Nhat Hanh is on to something. In coaching clients I often work with them to identify the part of themselves that is afraid, to picture it, name it, and befriend it, reassure it. I know from my own experience this works with pain too.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Rena!
- Megan
September 1st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Kinda makes you wonder what kind of friends those who oppose the mindfulness approach have. But if it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t work for them. Thanks for taking the time to comment, Megan.