Meditation for Chronic Pain Management - The Frustrating Paradox That You MUST Master!

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Meditation for Chronic Pain Management - the frustrating paradox that you must deal with!

In 2018, I hit rock bottom in my chronic pain healing journey. I had just graduated PT school and even with a doctoral level degree and more than 8 years of one-on-one training experience, I was still suffering with chronic pain. And honestly things were as bad as they’d been. I was desperate for relief, so I finally took my girlfriend's advice and tried meditation.

Like most people in chronic pain, I got some initial results. I felt myself shift from anxious and stressed to calm and relaxed. Oh my god, I had finally found the answer. Right? Wrong!!

Over the next several months I’d go hard on meditation, sometimes doing 40-60 minutes of practice every day. And while initially it seemed helpful, it never quite seemed to transfer into my day-to-day life. I’d feel better for a short time after but then I’d get pulled back into my usual state of pain and stress.

Now eventually, I took the pressure off of my practice, and continued to practice without any specific intention or outcome in mind. All of a sudden, my experience started to shift. I became a more calm and relaxed person and pain subsided.

What the hell????

See this is the paradox of meditation for chronic pain that everyone must deal with.

We start out getting drawn to meditation with the “in order to” mind. We meditate for the purpose of not having pain. We do it to try to control our experience of pain. We meditate in order to make it go away.

But meditation is not about changing your state per se, but rather noticing your state without judgment and allowing it to change, which it always does. Now if you don’t notice a change in state, then chances are that you are thinking without realizing it and maintaining some level of struggle.

Let’s talk about what this struggle is…

The ego is a part of everyone that was initially developed to be a protective function. The ego’s job is to feel separate from the rest of the world to act as a boundary. While this is useful when we are in actual danger, if the brain learns to perceive threat during every waking moment, chronic pain and ego identification are the likely outcome. We begin to feel like we are our ego rather than the ego just being a part of us.

See the problem isn’t the ego itself, but rather the feeling that we are one and the same as it.

So when we are in this state of identification with the ego and then we try to meditate, we have an inherent conflict between the two goals.

The goal of meditation is to notice the contents of our experience, first and foremost, and then to be able to notice awareness itself. This changes our view and allows us to glimpse a non-conceptual way of knowing that is impossible to identify or describe in words. It can only be felt through a process of inference rather than definition.

When this happens, the center spontaneously drops from experience. We notice that the self is an illusion and from this we notice that we are in fact not separate, but all interconnected through the one human consciousness.

Now this is a real problem for the ego because the ego has completely contradictory goals. It wants to put up a boundary, to make us feel separate, and to maintain this appearance of a solid self.

What happens when we try to meditate from the point of view of the ego?

So when we begin meditation from this ego identified place, the outcome ends up being struggle. We try to define what cannot be defined. We try to cling in order to let go. We try to achieve a state of conscious awareness rather than to notice that it is always already there.

Now here’s where the paradox comes in. If you want to meditate to alleviate chronic pain, you need to enter without the intention of meditating in order to alleviate chronic pain.

If you can actually just meditate for the purpose of meditating, you will relieve chronic pain. But the second you are dependent on the outcome, the ego will be activated and strengthened, and the likely outcome is struggle in your practice and minimal lasting change in your everyday experience.

At the end of the day, this comes down to acceptance and letting go. So to leave you, I want you to play with this statement. Say to yourself “I could accept living with this pain for the rest of my life.”

See what it feels like to not have to change your experience. See what it feels like to actually play with feeling of letting go.

It won’t be natural at first, but over time, you’ll learn to practice with outcome independence, which paradoxically will give you the outcome that you want.

[maryjomagar]

I had much the same experience as you with meditation. Your metaphysical videos are always so thoughtful. Thank you.

[deathbombs]

Thanks for sharing your journey! I feel like this unique perspective is so underrated compared to all the exercises anybody could recommend

[matthewbeumer]

The process of meditation is awareness a deeper awareness. Whilst doing Aikido with an extraordinary teacher I understood this. Meditation should facilitate release. Release should increase awareness which helps to calm the body and then perhaps less pain. Yes experiment meditation is control! Matt the pilates teacher.

[FreshAgenda]

Good stuff... all about feeling that resistance

[tishguerrero]

It’s great to hear you speak of meditation practices and approaches. Thank you so much Greg for introducing me into this wonderful journey and having a better understanding how my body works & trust again.😊

[daveschnier]

Your meditation practice seems to contain the 12 step practices in Chronic Pain Anonymous. I hear talk there about accepting my body just as it is today. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[paul-ie]

Do you think the pain is there to teach us towards being better people? And maybe even more...