The below excerpt from Tricycle Magazine about dealing mindfully and skillfully with physical pain can be done with emotional pain too and in fact is closely related to what Jayme shares here in healing her own mental distress.
One night when I was still new to meditation, I lay awake for hours in agony from a badly sprained ankle. Finally I decided to see what would happen if I meditated with the pain as my object. The result astounded me.
I recalled a teacher’s suggestion: “Get curious about your experience.” I had never before stayed with pain long enough to be curious about it, much less to investigate it. Whenever my knees or back hurt during meditation, I escaped into counting breaths or repeating my koan. I might notice when the pain stopped, but I noticed nothing of its nature. Was it burning, stabbing, throbbing, dull? Was it steady or intermittent? Were my muscles clenched or relaxed? What thoughts did the pain trigger?
Lying in the dark that night, I greeted the pain as a sensation I’d never met before, and explored each flutter and twinge. In time, the pain eased, and I drifted off to sleep.
– Joan Duncan Oliver, “Do I Mind?” (Summer 2007)
Click here to read the complete article.
More on this idea of embracing the full spectrum of our emotional inheritance as human beings. The foundation of healing mental ills and of becoming a mature human adult
Discover more from Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry
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