3 Simple shifts in mindset to reduce suffering
and tools to be aware of
How we react is what shapes us
We naturally link pain with suffering, however suffering is a pain linked to worry. We tend to react to pain and suffering in a similar and unpleasant way, but we don’t need to.
Here are some tools to help you understand your symptoms that will hopefully bring you comfort.
1) Learn to trust yourself
Trusting your body is an important first step, by becoming intuitive of your being. No one else can feel or experience this but you. Listen carefully to what your body is saying. Are the feelings sharp or deep, emotionally attached, tight and so on.
Ignoring pain can add to the layers of suffering for a prolonged recovery. It is important to open up to the pain, so you can invite the healing process from the route rather than the surface of pain if continue to suppress.
Being mindful helps you separate the physical feelings from the emotional feelings. Describing the sensation of each physical and emotional feeling helps you to become truly aware.
However long you have been suffering just take a few moments now to sit with your eyes closed and feel into the sensations you relate to pain.
Try not to link the frustration and negative thoughts and judgement you have had in the past to it, try as if the slate is wiped clean.
The simple change in perspective, that you then start believing helps you regain control and enables you to feel relief from the ‘feelings’ you created and therefore had.
2) Make time and take notice
Taking notice of the exact sensations you feel like tingling, cold, heat, pressure and so on will enable you to understand the patterns of your pain and so you can start to break it down.
Aswell as to acknowledge the feelings you have, take note of how you speak to people about it… Do you tend to moan and say you’ll never recover or you are broken… This will regulate a negative thought pattern and thus a self fulfilling prophecy. The healing will not come until you start to shift your mindset.
“Every thought and every breath is a breath
and a thought occurring in awareness;
And we are that awareness,
That thought-less and breath-less awareness”
Mooji Baba
You may not realise yet but you perhaps have become rather attached to the pain, sometimes even addicted and added it to one of your personality traits.
Be ready to let go and listen to what your body is telling you.
3) Grounding
This step should not be overlooked, especially if your dosha is Vata like me.
By leading a grounded life allows you to feel safer in your environment and therefore your own skin. Mindfulness includes examining the pain when in the present moment.
Try activities that can allow you to get to know yourself better, who you really are when everything else is stripped away. By focusing on what is happening within can ignite your perception of how you deal with pain or an unusual or uncomfortable situation. Perhaps try yoga, meditation, colouring, walking and feel the joy that flows through you when you practice these – and notice where the pain goes when you do.
These kinds of activities also remind us what we actually only need at each present moment.
Where the mind goes, energy flows.
Let your attention go on the sensations of your inhales and exhales, can you elongate the breathes – doing so will engage your parasympathetic nervous system which will induce a calming and slowing response.
You may not feel this way now but pain can be a great teacher. Enabling you to become insightful of your unique human experience. It is crucial not to idealise pain, but use it as a tool. Wonderful feelings are much greater teachers. There are many lessons in life; and pain is just one.
“The strength of a tree lies in it’s ability to bend.”
Zen Proverb
