Psychology Today: Screens, Avocados, And Learning To Deal With Pain

" Your thoughts, feelings, memories, and sensations are like clips of a show on screen. Some of them are joyful, and they make you happy and content. Others are horrifying, and they make you anxious and depressed. And yet, sooner or later, they all pass. And just like screens, awareness itself remains unchanged.

t’s easy to get lost in the events on these screens. And in similar ways, you can get lost in your own experiences, without noticing you are experiencing them. That can be fun when you are watching a movie in a safe place. It can be a nightmare when you are lost in repetitive mental patterns that have become so omnipresent and all-consuming, that you forget that you are an awareness at all.

Imagine Your Pain as an Object

Don’t observe and describe your experiences to dismiss them, nor to believe them – slow down and show up so you can become present to what is. Perhaps you will notice something in your experience that is new or useful, perhaps not. Be open to what you may find.

It often helps to imagine your painful thoughts and feelings as an object. So if your pain had a shape, what shape would it be? What color would it have? Does it have an even surface, or a prickly one? How much does it weigh? And where in your body can you sense it? The more specific, the better. For instance, you can imagine your pain as a gigantic avocado.

As you observe your pain (or in this case, your avocado), breathe out slowly. Continue until your lungs are empty, and then pause for three seconds. Then breathe in slowly again, and imagine your breath flowing into and around your pain (or in this case, around your avocado). Continue breathing in this manner, while opening up and making room.

As you are breathing into your pain, continue observing it. Your avocado might get bigger or it might get smaller. It might stay or it might go. Believe it or not, both are fine. This is not about making your pain disappear, but about learning to be with it, without it dictating your life.

Cultivating A New Technique

Just like any other skill, learning to make room for difficult thoughts and feelings will require practice. It can feel awkward at first, but will become more natural the more often you do it. Every time pain shows up, notice it, name it, and then observe what happens, with an attitude of appreciative curiosity. And once you have it visualized, breathe into it, open up, and make room."

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Reflection:

Would you try this technique? And if you did, how was the experience?

#Pain #Coping #Mindfulness #MentalHealth