Yona Circle
Moonday
Magick & Medicine

By this point in our practices, we are adept at regular meditation and understand the importance of that energy we are all a part of. We also understand the importance of thought and the ability to reason as being some of the most powerful human assets.

We now ask, have you ever tried to meditate to heal pain? The process is quite simple and there is scientific evidence to back it up. Many Practitioners have found this meditation to be very useful in certain situations. Especially if you find yourself nowhere near a place to garner relief from your physical pain. Medically speaking, we do have naturally occurring opioids, or pain antagonists, that form in our bodies. Research does show that meditation uses the neural pathways that make the brain less sensitive to interpretation of pain and increases the use of the brain's own pain-reducing opioids that we mentioned. If you are a Practitioner that has chronic pain, MINDFULNESS meditation is worth looking at.

Stress reduction expert Jon Kabat-Zinn recommends the body scan mindfulness exercise as the best form of Mindfulness Meditation for pain conditions.

He advises practicing it every day for 45 minutes, even if it seems boring or doesn't seem to be helping. "You don't have to like it, you just have to do it," he explains in his book. "Whether you find the body scan to be very relaxing and interesting or difficult and uncomfortable or exasperating is irrelevant to whether it will serve you well."

The purpose of this exercise is NOT to “relieve” the pain completely, but to learn it, know it, to fully Experience it in order to be able to manage it.

PRACTITIONER TIP:
DO NOT wait until you are already in excruciating pain to try this exercise UNLESS you have just had an accident and are biding your time for help, for example. Rather, do it before bed. Do it before leaving bed. Do it at some point when you have little or no pain and the results will build with the ability to see them in a few short weeks.

MINDFUL MEDITATION METHOD STEPS (Compare your presonal Mindful practices. Do you see differences in technique?)

• Lie down on your back or in any comfortable, outstretched position.

• Close your eyes and focus on your breathing, listen, count and feel your belly expanding gently when you inhale …and receding when you exhale.

• Begin focus on your left foot. Feel any and all sensations in this area, including pain. Try to recede a little more into the floor, or bed,  every time you exhale.

• When your mind wanders, observe where it has gone and gently return your focus to the foot without judging yourself.

• If you notice pain, acknowledge it and any thoughts or emotions that accompany it, and gently breathe through it. See if by carefully observing the discomfort, you can help your body to relax. DO NOT expect the pain to abate at this moment; just watch it with a mindful but non-judging mind.

• Gradually, let go of the focus on your left foot completely—even if any pain there hasn't gone away or has intensified—and move on to the left ankle and repeat the process. Slowly and patiently, proceed this way throughout the entire body.
  

  This is an Experience in mindfulness towards healing the body and triggering its natural ability to heal itself. Doing this exercise regularly will help defend your body from the damages that can be brought on by chronic inflammation due to pain or injury, even if it is small or low-grade. The time you spend healing Self should be equal to your energetic output of Self or you will FALL OUT of spiritual homeostasis. This spiritual homeostasis is needed to help our magick flow forth more freely and unencumbered.