Thinking Through Pain

As every person evolves in this life he/she goes through varying degrees of pain. Some have greater pain than others for a variety of reasons. There are those that have pain due to illness, others experience pain because of injury, yet a few experience pain due to a very serious chronic problem.


Pain as a whole is the malady of age. The older one gets the more aches and pains he/she suffers. This kind of pain is generally accepted as the generational norm. The older we get finds us waking each morning with new grunts and groans erupting from us often amusing others that are within ear shot. This kind of pain is easily dealt with using over the counter medications such as Tylenol or ibuprofen, or if you are a student of the old school, by ignoring it. This is the first stage in thinking through your pain.

There are those individuals for whom medications and ignorance alone aren’t enough and it is to these suffers I’m writing to.

Pain is the effect of a stimulus outside or inside the body that is having a negative impact upon it. When that pain reaches a certain threshold it will become intolerable and not be controlled by medications. Here is a technique I use myself that may or may not help the sufferer. It works in varying degrees depending on the amount of practice you put into it.

Instead of ignoring the pain you take a few moments and focus entirely on that pain. Breathing in the nose and out the mouth you relax as much as possible and mentally locate the exact spot or origin of the pain. Keep breathing as rhythmically as you can and focus your entire concentration on the pain in question. When you have it located and in your minds eye you concentrate on the pain thinking about it totally. During this whole process you’re breathing in the nose and out the mouth.

When you’ve become practiced at focusing on the pain in question by using your own will you can begin to manipulate the pain. I know you’re reading this and saying to yourself, “That ole John has lost his mind and doesn’t know what he’s saying,” but I am a sufferer of chronic pain myself and this technique works very well for me.

Through some practice you will be able to change the pain making it more tolerable and less chronic. Here’s the deal, this kind of pain never goes away completely. What your doing is training yourself to deal with the pain by being the one in control. That’s a big deal.

Add this technique to some minor meditation and personal prayer and you too may feel some relief from your chronic pain. Good luck with the practice and don’t give up.

Peace and Balance,

John