February 10, 2025 • 15 mins
In this insightful episode of the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast, Sean Fargo explores how mindfulness can be a powerful tool for alleviating chronic pain. While pain itself is a physical experience, our relationship to it often creates unnecessary suffering. Through mindfulness, we can learn to soften resistance, shift our perception, and cultivate a gentler awareness of the body—offering relief without avoidance.
Whether you experience chronic pain yourself or support others on their healing journey, this episode provides practical tools for using mindfulness to ease suffering and reconnect with the body in a compassionate way.
What You’ll Discover:
- How mindfulness reduces the perception of pain by shifting our awareness.
- The difference between pain and the mental resistance that amplifies suffering.
- Gentle techniques to explore the body with curiosity instead of fear.
- Why softening judgment and resistance can help ease chronic pain.
- Practical steps for integrating mindfulness into pain management.
Sean reminds us that healing is a journey and that small, compassionate steps can make a significant difference in how we experience pain—both physically and emotionally.
Timestamps:
[00:01:00] Mindfulness and Chronic Pain – How mindfulness can help alleviate suffering.
[00:05:00] Why We Resist Pain – Understanding the fear and avoidance cycle.
[00:10:00] Softening Resistance – Using mindfulness to change our relationship with pain.
[00:20:00] Practical Techniques – Guided awareness and breath-based strategies.
[00:30:00] Mindfulness for Healing Trauma – How mindfulness supports deep emotional and physical healing.
[00:40:00] A Lifelong Journey – Integrating mindfulness into everyday life for sustainable relief.
👇 Explore more resources from Sean Fargo and learn how to teach mindfulness with confidence!
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Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification: https://bit.ly/MindfulnessCertify
Trauma-Sensitivity Teaching Certification: https://bit.ly/METraumaSensitiveMindfulnessCourse
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Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
Today we're going to be talking about mindfulness for
alleviating chronic pain.
Mindfulness practice has beenshown to alleviate chronic pain
by up to 93%.
It's not necessarily a cure-all.
It's not meant to say replacemedication per se.
You know, please check withdoctors.
(00:28):
And the doctors I worked with,who are Harvard-trained,
Stanford-trained doctors, didtheir best to treat chronic pain
with mindfulness as much aspossible to reduce the need for
pills and surgery.
I'm not saying that pills andsurgery are necessarily bad, but
(00:49):
they can be avoided in manycases.
More often than not, these pillscan have harmful side effects.
Addiction is very real in thesecircles.
Trauma is very real.
And mindfulness can also be usedto treat the trauma and the
addiction.
So mindfulness can be helpfulfor like alleviating the pain
(01:12):
itself, the suffering, theaddiction to anything that we
cope with to get away from orresist the pain.
When I say addiction, I meansubstance abuse, unhelpful
behaviors of any kind, really,numbing the mind, numbing the
body.
And mindfulness can be uhhelpful for healing the trauma
(01:34):
itself as well, whether it'sphysical trauma related to the
cause of the pain, emotionaltrauma, sexual trauma, all sorts
of different kinds of traumas.
Maybe the most common complaintor skepticism I get is why would
I want to be mindful of the painwhen it's the last thing I want
to be mindful of?
(01:54):
Why would I want to bringawareness to what I'm trying to
get rid of?
Why would I want to bringmindfulness to what's ruining my
life?
I will run the other way or Iwill hurt you if you try to make
me want to welcome what I hate.
So this can be really scary.
Most people will resist this,understandably.
I think it's really helpful tobegin with empathy and to
(02:17):
approach this with as much heartas we can.
This is not about thinking yourway through it or pretending
certain things are different orputting on some neat filter
through your perception orconsciousness.
This is about softening with theheart.
Most people will have lots of umbeliefs.
(02:39):
I should not feel this.
This should be different.
This should never have happened.
That person did this to me.
I did this to me.
So one thing that's often nottalked about is that part of
this work is to notice all thedifferent ways we're resisting,
all the different ways we'rejudging, all the different ways
(03:02):
we're clinging on to something,to acknowledge these areas, to
notice the judgments of good andbad, right and wrong, and to
make concerted efforts towardsmore and more forgiveness.
There's one, say, rule of thumbwith all of this work around
(03:24):
chronic pain that I hope thatmost of you will remember is
that all of this takes babysteps.
The mental, the physical, theemotional, it's all baby steps.
So please don't feel like wehave to do this overnight.
It's not a quick fix.
This is scary for a reason.
This is difficult for a reason.
(03:45):
It takes baby steps, but all ofus can do this.
This is possible.
And this resistance will tell usto stop.
We can say, okay, well, if Icould forgive a little bit more,
or if I could forgive 2%, whatmight that feel like?
If I could notice the judgments2% more, what might I notice?
(04:08):
If I could just soften some ofthese stories 2%, what might
that create space for?
And to journal, talk about it,sense into it.
Vijamala has some wonderfulguided meditations for chronic
pain that you can find online.
That if you do them, you know,five minutes here, five minutes
(04:31):
there, five minutes there, awhole new way of being will
surface bit by bit.
But in general, in myexperience, it's been helpful to
help others to differentiatebetween physical sensations and
the thoughts about thesensations.
Because most people willconflate the two.
(04:51):
It's hard for them todistinguish them as two separate
things.
So to be able to play with thatand explore what is truly
visceral, physical, that I canfeel in my body.
Is it pleasant or unpleasant orneither?
(05:14):
Is it kind of neutral or numb?
Or can I even sense and do it atall?
If it's unpleasant, am Iattaching a story about that
unpleasant sensation as beingbad or wrong, or good or right?
And sometimes it's a mix.
And sometimes we'll be shockedat how we actually relate to the
sensation.
A lot of the times we'll thinkthat unpleasant sensations are
(05:37):
actually right or good.
And sometimes we'll think thatpleasant sensations are wrong or
bad.
I'm not making a case for those,but I'm saying to notice are
these unpleasant sensations.
Am I deeming them to be bad orgood or wrong or right?
And to soften those judgmentsand just come back to the
(06:00):
unpleasantness itself withcuriosity or pleasant sensations
with curiosity and gentleness.
But the point here is todifferentiate between physical
sensations and the judgments.
Usually there's thisunpleasantness or pleasantness
(06:20):
kind of in the middle of thatthat we uh don't explore much.
Typically, when we're exploringthe body and physical
sensations, we typically startin areas that feel safe that are
not in pain.
You know, if I have chronic painin my belly, I'll start with my
feet.
(06:40):
If I have chronic pain in myfeet, I'll start with my hands.
Somewhere else that feels safeand not too close to this
epicenter of pain.
But I'll explore areas of thebody that feel comfortable
enough for me to do that.
And I'll work my way through thebody over time, over days and
(07:01):
weeks, building my capacity tosense and to soften judgments
and to sense into thespaciousness of parts of the
body, to offer a sense of care,compassion for parts of the body
that might feel a little sore, alittle hungry, a little bruised,
(07:23):
a little tingly.
And I'll be able to stay withthose areas more and more.
And I'll be able to stay withareas that feel healthy,
vibrant, staying with thephysical sensations as long as I
can.
And we can play with narrowingour awareness on smaller and
smaller areas of the body andkind of moving around with a
(07:44):
small scope of awareness.
And we can practice increasingour awareness of larger and
larger parts of the body andparts of the body and the space
around those parts of the bodyto get a sense of, say,
spaciousness, context.
The more we stay with thesesensations, we can play with
(08:05):
like noticing how they'rechanging over time, they're not
static.
What happens when I increase myfield of awareness spatially?
What happens when I shrink it?
What happens when I offer careto this area right now?
What happens when I sense intopleasantness or unpleasantness
or neutral?
What happens when I breathedifferent ways?
(08:27):
What happens if I move theseareas just a little bit?
Kind of like feel the energymove a little bit as a move.
There's no right or wrong.
This is a process that each ofus can explore using intuition.
Sometimes we can make it fun.
We can sense into what feelshealing.
(08:49):
We can use that as ourguidepost.
And then over time, as we buildour capacity and our courage, we
can move closer and closer tothe area of chronic pain and
notice what happens going inbaby steps and slowly opening to
those areas that feel a littlemore painful, noticing pleasant,
(09:14):
unpleasant intensity.
Okay, maybe I should back off alittle bit.
Or can I explore the very, very,very outer edges?
You know, how much can I movetowards this?
What happens if I shrink myawareness?
What happens if I open it?
What happens if I bring, youknow, more care?
What happens when I breathe withthis?
Noticing, like, is thereresistance coming up?
(09:36):
And if so, what flavor is that?
What comes up?
And whatever comes up, we canbring mindfulness to that,
whether it's a story or aflare-up or judgment.
Tend not to use the wordacceptance, tend to use the word
say acknowledge, justacknowledge what's here,
acknowledge whatever sensationsare here, what stories are here,
(09:56):
what judgments are here,acknowledge them with a gentle
word.
You can play with words likeallowing this to be here, just
for now.
And if it changes, it changes.
We're just allowing it to behere.
And if that feels triggering, Ican go back to acknowledging.
(10:17):
You can kind of play with thesewords a little bit to see what
comes up.
Like, can I allow this to behere for now?
Some people may or may not likethe word surrender.
Um, in my experience, softeningtends to help a lot because a
lot of chronic pain for a lot ofpeople is amplified by this
(10:40):
resistance that we havementally, emotionally,
physically.
There's a resistance in the bodyand in the mind.
And softening can usually helpto counteract that resistance.
So for some people, the mantra,like softening or gentle, can be
(11:05):
really helpful to help us unwindthese layers of resistance,
these layers of fear softeningallowing.
And when I say the wordsurrender, it's not surrendering
(11:28):
to the pain.
Because we still want a sense oflike self-efficacy, but it's
rather surrendering our ownresistance, surrendering the
fear that's keeping the painaround or that's amplifying the
pain.
Because the fear, as uh FrankHerbert in Dune says, uh is the
(11:52):
mind killer, and fear often uhamplifies this very real
physical pain.
And some in many cases, Ibelieve this fear is what leads
to addiction, cancer, suicide.
So if we can soften, surrenderour resistance and the courage
(12:15):
to be with what's here, with asense of gentleness.
And as teachers, can weencourage this courage?
More than 50% of people havechronic pain or have had chronic
pain at some point.
So this is not like a smallthing.
This is most of humanity dealswith this, and too often people
(12:36):
with chronic pain are forgottenabout or they themselves hide,
or you know, it's not reallytalked about much.
And most of us don't know how todeal with this as a person with
the pain.
A lot of us don't know how todeal with it with when it's in
our family or communities.
(12:58):
So being able to know like a fewhealing practices, or you know,
being able to be sensitivearound this without feeling too
overwhelmed is really helpful.
And you know, we need eachother.
It's this this takes acommunity.
I think too many people withchronic pain isolate, and you
(13:20):
know, we need to learn how toreconnect with ourselves, with
each other.
There's no shame in this, just apart of being human.
We are not our pain.
So thank you for exploring this.
I know a lot of you haveexplored this already and a lot
of nuance.
Um, and hopefully, you know, wecan play a small part in
(13:43):
increasing awareness andmindfulness around chronic pain
as a species.
Thank you for joining us on thisjourney into mindfulness for
chronic pain.
We hope this episode has offeredvaluable insights and practical
tools to bring more awarenessand compassion and relief into
(14:07):
your life, and also the lives ofthe people who you care for.
If today's discussion inspiredyou, and you're ready to deepen
your mindfulness practice, andshare mindfulness with others as
a mindfulness teacher, I inviteyou to check out our
certification program, in whichwe certify people to teach
(14:30):
mindfulness in professionalsettings.
At mindfulness exercises.comslash certify.
But remember, healing is ajourney, a lifelong journey, and
mindfulness is a powerfulcompanion every step of the way.
If you found this episodehelpful, we'd love for you to
(14:53):
share it with others, leave afive-star review, or join the
conversation on our social mediachannels at Mindfulness
Exercises.
Let's keep spreading the messageof mindfulness and self-care.
Thank you for listening.
(15:14):
Until next time, stay present,stay grounded, and continue
showing up with authenticity andcompassion.
Thank you for listening.
Today we're going to be talking about mindfulness for
alleviating chronic pain.
Mindfulness practice has beenshown to alleviate chronic pain
by up to 93%.
It's not necessarily a cure-all.
It's not meant to say replacemedication per se.
You know, please check withdoctors.
(00:28):
And the doctors I worked with,who are Harvard-trained,
Stanford-trained doctors, didtheir best to treat chronic pain
with mindfulness as much aspossible to reduce the need for
pills and surgery.
I'm not saying that pills andsurgery are necessarily bad, but
(00:49):
they can be avoided in manycases.
More often than not, these pillscan have harmful side effects.
Addiction is very real in thesecircles.
Trauma is very real.
And mindfulness can also be usedto treat the trauma and the
addiction.
So mindfulness can be helpfulfor like alleviating the pain
(01:12):
itself, the suffering, theaddiction to anything that we
cope with to get away from orresist the pain.
When I say addiction, I meansubstance abuse, unhelpful
behaviors of any kind, really,numbing the mind, numbing the
body.
And mindfulness can be uhhelpful for healing the trauma
(01:34):
itself as well, whether it'sphysical trauma related to the
cause of the pain, emotionaltrauma, sexual trauma, all sorts
of different kinds of traumas.
Maybe the most common complaintor skepticism I get is why would
I want to be mindful of the painwhen it's the last thing I want
to be mindful of?
(01:54):
Why would I want to bringawareness to what I'm trying to
get rid of?
Why would I want to bringmindfulness to what's ruining my
life?
I will run the other way or Iwill hurt you if you try to make
me want to welcome what I hate.
So this can be really scary.
Most people will resist this,understandably.
I think it's really helpful tobegin with empathy and to
(02:17):
approach this with as much heartas we can.
This is not about thinking yourway through it or pretending
certain things are different orputting on some neat filter
through your perception orconsciousness.
This is about softening with theheart.
Most people will have lots of umbeliefs.
(02:39):
I should not feel this.
This should be different.
This should never have happened.
That person did this to me.
I did this to me.
So one thing that's often nottalked about is that part of
this work is to notice all thedifferent ways we're resisting,
all the different ways we'rejudging, all the different ways
(03:02):
we're clinging on to something,to acknowledge these areas, to
notice the judgments of good andbad, right and wrong, and to
make concerted efforts towardsmore and more forgiveness.
There's one, say, rule of thumbwith all of this work around
(03:24):
chronic pain that I hope thatmost of you will remember is
that all of this takes babysteps.
The mental, the physical, theemotional, it's all baby steps.
So please don't feel like wehave to do this overnight.
It's not a quick fix.
This is scary for a reason.
This is difficult for a reason.
(03:45):
It takes baby steps, but all ofus can do this.
This is possible.
And this resistance will tell usto stop.
We can say, okay, well, if Icould forgive a little bit more,
or if I could forgive 2%, whatmight that feel like?
If I could notice the judgments2% more, what might I notice?
(04:08):
If I could just soften some ofthese stories 2%, what might
that create space for?
And to journal, talk about it,sense into it.
Vijamala has some wonderfulguided meditations for chronic
pain that you can find online.
That if you do them, you know,five minutes here, five minutes
(04:31):
there, five minutes there, awhole new way of being will
surface bit by bit.
But in general, in myexperience, it's been helpful to
help others to differentiatebetween physical sensations and
the thoughts about thesensations.
Because most people willconflate the two.
(04:51):
It's hard for them todistinguish them as two separate
things.
So to be able to play with thatand explore what is truly
visceral, physical, that I canfeel in my body.
Is it pleasant or unpleasant orneither?
(05:14):
Is it kind of neutral or numb?
Or can I even sense and do it atall?
If it's unpleasant, am Iattaching a story about that
unpleasant sensation as beingbad or wrong, or good or right?
And sometimes it's a mix.
And sometimes we'll be shockedat how we actually relate to the
sensation.
A lot of the times we'll thinkthat unpleasant sensations are
(05:37):
actually right or good.
And sometimes we'll think thatpleasant sensations are wrong or
bad.
I'm not making a case for those,but I'm saying to notice are
these unpleasant sensations.
Am I deeming them to be bad orgood or wrong or right?
And to soften those judgmentsand just come back to the
(06:00):
unpleasantness itself withcuriosity or pleasant sensations
with curiosity and gentleness.
But the point here is todifferentiate between physical
sensations and the judgments.
Usually there's thisunpleasantness or pleasantness
(06:20):
kind of in the middle of thatthat we uh don't explore much.
Typically, when we're exploringthe body and physical
sensations, we typically startin areas that feel safe that are
not in pain.
You know, if I have chronic painin my belly, I'll start with my
feet.
(06:40):
If I have chronic pain in myfeet, I'll start with my hands.
Somewhere else that feels safeand not too close to this
epicenter of pain.
But I'll explore areas of thebody that feel comfortable
enough for me to do that.
And I'll work my way through thebody over time, over days and
(07:01):
weeks, building my capacity tosense and to soften judgments
and to sense into thespaciousness of parts of the
body, to offer a sense of care,compassion for parts of the body
that might feel a little sore, alittle hungry, a little bruised,
(07:23):
a little tingly.
And I'll be able to stay withthose areas more and more.
And I'll be able to stay withareas that feel healthy,
vibrant, staying with thephysical sensations as long as I
can.
And we can play with narrowingour awareness on smaller and
smaller areas of the body andkind of moving around with a
(07:44):
small scope of awareness.
And we can practice increasingour awareness of larger and
larger parts of the body andparts of the body and the space
around those parts of the bodyto get a sense of, say,
spaciousness, context.
The more we stay with thesesensations, we can play with
(08:05):
like noticing how they'rechanging over time, they're not
static.
What happens when I increase myfield of awareness spatially?
What happens when I shrink it?
What happens when I offer careto this area right now?
What happens when I sense intopleasantness or unpleasantness
or neutral?
What happens when I breathedifferent ways?
(08:27):
What happens if I move theseareas just a little bit?
Kind of like feel the energymove a little bit as a move.
There's no right or wrong.
This is a process that each ofus can explore using intuition.
Sometimes we can make it fun.
We can sense into what feelshealing.
(08:49):
We can use that as ourguidepost.
And then over time, as we buildour capacity and our courage, we
can move closer and closer tothe area of chronic pain and
notice what happens going inbaby steps and slowly opening to
those areas that feel a littlemore painful, noticing pleasant,
(09:14):
unpleasant intensity.
Okay, maybe I should back off alittle bit.
Or can I explore the very, very,very outer edges?
You know, how much can I movetowards this?
What happens if I shrink myawareness?
What happens if I open it?
What happens if I bring, youknow, more care?
What happens when I breathe withthis?
Noticing, like, is thereresistance coming up?
(09:36):
And if so, what flavor is that?
What comes up?
And whatever comes up, we canbring mindfulness to that,
whether it's a story or aflare-up or judgment.
Tend not to use the wordacceptance, tend to use the word
say acknowledge, justacknowledge what's here,
acknowledge whatever sensationsare here, what stories are here,
(09:56):
what judgments are here,acknowledge them with a gentle
word.
You can play with words likeallowing this to be here, just
for now.
And if it changes, it changes.
We're just allowing it to behere.
And if that feels triggering, Ican go back to acknowledging.
(10:17):
You can kind of play with thesewords a little bit to see what
comes up.
Like, can I allow this to behere for now?
Some people may or may not likethe word surrender.
Um, in my experience, softeningtends to help a lot because a
lot of chronic pain for a lot ofpeople is amplified by this
(10:40):
resistance that we havementally, emotionally,
physically.
There's a resistance in the bodyand in the mind.
And softening can usually helpto counteract that resistance.
So for some people, the mantra,like softening or gentle, can be
(11:05):
really helpful to help us unwindthese layers of resistance,
these layers of fear softeningallowing.
And when I say the wordsurrender, it's not surrendering
(11:28):
to the pain.
Because we still want a sense oflike self-efficacy, but it's
rather surrendering our ownresistance, surrendering the
fear that's keeping the painaround or that's amplifying the
pain.
Because the fear, as uh FrankHerbert in Dune says, uh is the
(11:52):
mind killer, and fear often uhamplifies this very real
physical pain.
And some in many cases, Ibelieve this fear is what leads
to addiction, cancer, suicide.
So if we can soften, surrenderour resistance and the courage
(12:15):
to be with what's here, with asense of gentleness.
And as teachers, can weencourage this courage?
More than 50% of people havechronic pain or have had chronic
pain at some point.
So this is not like a smallthing.
This is most of humanity dealswith this, and too often people
(12:36):
with chronic pain are forgottenabout or they themselves hide,
or you know, it's not reallytalked about much.
And most of us don't know how todeal with this as a person with
the pain.
A lot of us don't know how todeal with it with when it's in
our family or communities.
(12:58):
So being able to know like a fewhealing practices, or you know,
being able to be sensitivearound this without feeling too
overwhelmed is really helpful.
And you know, we need eachother.
It's this this takes acommunity.
I think too many people withchronic pain isolate, and you
(13:20):
know, we need to learn how toreconnect with ourselves, with
each other.
There's no shame in this, just apart of being human.
We are not our pain.
So thank you for exploring this.
I know a lot of you haveexplored this already and a lot
of nuance.
Um, and hopefully, you know, wecan play a small part in
(13:43):
increasing awareness andmindfulness around chronic pain
as a species.
Thank you for joining us on thisjourney into mindfulness for
chronic pain.
We hope this episode has offeredvaluable insights and practical
tools to bring more awarenessand compassion and relief into
(14:07):
your life, and also the lives ofthe people who you care for.
If today's discussion inspiredyou, and you're ready to deepen
your mindfulness practice, andshare mindfulness with others as
a mindfulness teacher, I inviteyou to check out our
certification program, in whichwe certify people to teach
(14:30):
mindfulness in professionalsettings.
At mindfulness exercises.comslash certify.
But remember, healing is ajourney, a lifelong journey, and
mindfulness is a powerfulcompanion every step of the way.
If you found this episodehelpful, we'd love for you to
(14:53):
share it with others, leave afive-star review, or join the
conversation on our social mediachannels at Mindfulness
Exercises.
Let's keep spreading the messageof mindfulness and self-care.
Thank you for listening.
(15:14):
Until next time, stay present,stay grounded, and continue
showing up with authenticity andcompassion.
Thank you for listening.
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