Breathing into your pain.

Pain was never a huge part of my life, maybe just a really heavy menstruation cycle, where I got on well with loads of painkillers and after 5 days it was all over...until the next month.

For 6 weeks now pain is a part of my daily life and I wanted to talk about mindfulness And pain.

Finding out that I got scoliosis (unnatural spine curve Which places an abnormal strain onto the spine causing pain) really got me by surprise and a lot of frustration as I've always been an active individual who cannot sit still if not studying or meditating, and that was a real test of how mindfulness can help me.

In the past my believe was that it is impossible to be mindful in the times of crisis or pain, how could you? It's painful, it's hard, you don't want to be in the present moment but back to happy, easy times - but yet, article after article, various research and studies, shows how mindfulness is helpful with chronic pain, cancer, and other extremely hard and challenging situations.

I couldn't get it, how?

Well, now where I am in this situation I might as well dig deeper and understand. From my findings I see that mindfulness is not taking your pain away, but you are befriending your pain, and you learn how to accept it - changing a narrative in your brain about this situation.

I've decided to use mindfulness to be able to feel better specially knowing that this pain might stay with me untill the rest of my life... Things I've noticed and work on at the moment:

1. My first step was to acknowledge how I feel about all of this, not to sound like a victim but more to hear myself out how it is for me, not to pretend I'm all OK - it's new and it's uncomfortable for me and also my family who always seen me super energetic and enthusiastic...

2. Finding small joys in simple everyday life - it's super easy to just let it become all of you, focusing on the things that cannot be done, instead trying to find small joys like smelling the flowers, seeing the light dancing in the kitchen, tasting delicious cake, observing a smile of your child.

3. Knowing and trusting that this is happening for a reason, as hard as that is to accept I know that everything that is happening for us is for something. Maybe I was comparing myself too much to others on my yoga journey and by having this specific condition I cannot do that anymore as my spine can only do certain variations of the poses.

4. It is teaching me that actually I was doing a lot, but never seen it myself until I couldn't do those things (eg, around the house) and appreciating what I can do instead - it's asking me to slow down even if my brain doesn't want that - and that's beautiful.

5. Breathing to my pain is incredible to stay with it, first time I've heard about this was on my yoga session - teacher always would say "breathe into the discomfort, breathe to the muscle that feels really tense" and I couldn't understand that until I was in real pain of a period I've tried to take an inhale and imagine it's going to that pain, at first it's hard to get a hang of it but when it click in your head how it's helping it will made a lot of sense. Only by practicing we can use it as helpful tool.

6. You are not your thoughts! That one came to me when I was having that negative inner chatter "how can your back hurt you are young, you are probably just making it up, oh stop being so dramatic" etc, and then I've decided not to believe in those thoughts - they just are passing by, and I can choose not to get into this chatter, acknowledge them and let them go.

I hope that post will help you some way and if you are struggling with accepting your pain, I see you - it's incredibly hard and even if I practice those different techniques and mindful approach i do have days that I am absolutely sick of it all, rashes from the painkillers, nausea, dizziness and pain if I won't take the tablet on time, my son asking me to play with him when I can't stand up - but even then I am forgiving myself to feel this way because I am only human - and so are you so don't be too harsh on yourself ❤️

Sending loads of love,

Greta.

www.littlemindfullife.co.uk