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Pain Management Tips

WARNING: Folks with a history of mental illness, trauma, or panic are urged not to use these techniques without a trained energy therapist. If you decide to do these processes you will agree to absolve the webmaster, his server, and Steve Mensing of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of these processes. Although there are many safety features built into these processes and they have been tested and evaluated, there is always in any process the fraction of possibility that someone could experience some discomfort. So proceed with this warning.


What is pain?

A physical sensation, pain often involves thought, imagination, perception, emotion, behavior, energetic blockages, and even our relationships with others. Pain is a valuable signal that something is amiss in our bodies. This signal appears to result from the stimulation of pain receptors or nerve endings located in our body tissues. Often we experience pain in an injury. Pain gives us a warning that requires our attention. Pain that is severe or of long duration better be medically evaluated.

Pain is influenced by the way we evaluate it. We may fire up its intensity by horribilizing about it, by practicing "I can't stand it-itis", by viewing it as a never ending process, and by direly needing relief from it. Pain is further influenced by how much attention we pay to it or by how much we resist feeling it. We know when we are absorbed in interesting activities the pain is forgotten or becomes remote. We lose awareness of some physical sensations as we might might be doing right now. Perhaps we have lost some awarness of the pressure on our buttocks or maybe we are not experiencing any sensations from our feet or arms. During daydreaming or being vitally absorbed in our work we may forget all about pain--even intense pain. Boxers are well known for absorbing punishment, yet often report a failure to notice pain during a contest. Likely they are focused on fighting, defending, their opponent's leads and parries.

People appear to respond in different ways to pain. People have the same injuries will not always respond in the same manner. Some folks cope with an injury in a detached way and experience their pain as being "over there". Other people may not share the same labels or focus for their pain experience. What one person calls excruciating and horrible another person might label pressure and bothersome. Their beliefs influence the intensity and duration of their pain.

Folks experiencing anxiety about their pain, keep dragging their attention back to their pain and thus heighten it. This anxiety also makes them tense. The muscle tension can create additional pain and energetic blockages in the area.

People in pain often act in pain. They complain, walk awkwardly, hold an injury, and even avoid potentially interesting activity. These actions become signals for pain and attract attention to the pain which may be reisted. This resisting serves to intensify the pain.

Here are some of the more familiar kinds of pain. One variety is "time-limited" pain or pain that lasts less than 6 months. Examples of this sort of pain are dental, postsurgical, and childbirth pain. "Time-limited" pain generally declines in intensity over time. This sort of pain is open to revision through various perceptual and cognitive exercises. Energy processes also work here.

A second style of pain is "intense & intermittent" pain. Migraines exemplify this variety of pain. Although often having physical causes, "intense & intermittant" pain can be intensified by our evaluations, imagination, and focus. Energy work, perceptual shifting, cognitive exploration, and changes in focus may benefit folks bothered by this sort of pain. Further just knowing this pain is time-limited can prove helpful for its sufferers.

A third style of pain is "ongoing variable" pain. Present most of the time and varying in intensity, "ongoing variable" pain may be witnessed in lower back pain and arthritis. Relaxation, perceptual shifting and cognitive alteration, hypnosis, and imagery work can be helpful here. Those persons, coping with kind of pain, better be aware of their motivation to lessoen "ongoing variable" pain. Learning to cope with this pain can be blocked by the rewards of attention from others, benefit compensation, and not having to work at a job they don't enjoy.

A fourth style of pain is "ongoing progressive" pain. Just about always present and often growing in intensity, "ongoing progressive" pain may be seen in some cancers and nerve diseases. Detachment, energy processes, imagery, hypnoisis, alteration in focus, and perceptual shifting and cognitive alteration can help here.

It is also important to recognize that some pains may be created by the unconscious to distract us from various emotions. These pains are quite real and are seen in certain psychosomatic pain syndromes. Some lower back pain and fibromyalgia appear to fall into this category.

TIPS ON PAIN MANAGEMENT

*WARNING: Never attempt to treat a medical problem without the advice of a medical professional.

* Some relabels or redefinitions of pain might be: (1) Excrciating might be called pressure. (2) Burning might be called warm. (3) Horrible might be called manageable.

* We can make the pain of a severe injury seem distant by thinking of it as "over there", "distant", "apart from" Detachment can be deepened with imagery practice. During fevers we sometimes experience this detachment or dissociation and feel like we are slightly outside of ourselves. However, before you detach from a feeling, see what you can do by first feeling it and altering all the perceptual and cognitive overlays that might be firing it up or intensifying it.

* In some instances imagining another feeling in the place of pain can be useful. Example: the numbness of ice or novocaine. Use a relaxation exercise and the following imagery: "Can you imagine a large hypodermic filled with chilled novocaine...Can you experience this icy cold novocaine being comfortably injected directly into your sensations...Can you experience the chilling and numbing spreading all through the formerly sensative area...Can you feel it...See it...Hear it...Can you experience deep numbness there as long as you want...Can you experience the numbness spreading deeper and deeper and the sensations growing weaker and weaker...Can you feel the pleasant relief spreading more and more...(When you no longer require the numb feeling, allow yourself to fully experience the area of the former injury--really feel it.
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*Practicing relaxation techniques may produce beta-endorphins which are the body's natural pain killers. Beta-endorphins may also be produced by vigorous exercise (if possible) and daydreaming about beauftiful and peaceful places.

* Let go of "never" "forever" and "always" from your pain vocabulary and replace them with "some of the time", "frequently", or "infrequently".

*Let go of complaining about your pain. Complaining draws resisted attention to your pain. You don't completely feel your pain when you complain so you can't process your pain's emotional and evaluative elements.

*Hobbies and work can be helpful pain relief.

* Some pain can continue long after an injury has healed because the habitual imagining here has anchored a pain trance here. This may be the cause of phantom limb pain (Someone's lost a leg, yet they still feel pain where there is no flesh or bone.)

*Many pains can be transformed into warmth, gentle pressure, tingling, or numbness. Through our imagination we can move pain to more convenient locations.

*Hot water bottle are great for back pain.

PAIN EXERCISE I

(1) Allow your physical pain to be there with no intention of getting rid of it or keeping it. Pay full attention to it and completely feel it.
(a) Say hello to your pain and than it for it's valuable message.
(b) Focus on your pain and breathe through your left nostril, while gently pinching the right nostril shut.
Breathe deeply and fully. Bring your attention to the pain and continue to observe it. Label it "energy".
What do you notice after 5 minutes? 10 minutes?

PAIN EXERCISE II

Fully feel your physical pain and make it the focus of one of these processes from the tech page:

(a) The Meridian Grasp in the energy mode or the feelings mode.

(b) The Circuit Breaker.

(c) The Vortex.

(d) Active Feeling (the steps version)

(e) Accept This, Love That

PAIN EXERCISE III

Hold painful area with left palm while holding right palm over the heart beat region. Fully feel pain sensations with no intention of getting rid of them or keeping them. Occaisionaly remove palm from heart region and slowly and gently tap with your palm on the area just above your thymus. If any images appear to come out of the pain region while you are paying attention to it, simply observe them and watch them peacefully blip out of awareness.

PAIN EXERCISE IV

(1) After you've tuned into your pain sensations, ask your pain directly if any emotions are contributing to it being there. If any emotions or feelings pop up, fully feel them with no intention of getting rid of them or keeping them.

(2) Ask your pain the following questions and wait for an intuitive reply:

(a) Can I stand my painful sensations of 2 million dollars? Can I stand it for some extremely valuable reward? If you answer yes, you can assume you can stand it for no other reward than the valuable one of just standing it.

(b) What part of your pain is easiest to experience? What part of your pain is most difficult to experience?
Can I bring my attention back and forth between the easiest and the most difficult? What do you notice?

(c) Looking back from 2 years in the future, how will the site of the former painful area feel then? How might I describe it to others? What will be totally different? Will I be happy that it's done with? Or will I have forgotten much about it?

(d) What does the pain feel like right in the middle of it? What does it feel like a few inches away? What does the pain feel like 10 yards away? Repeat these questions for 3 cycles. After you've completed the exercise what do you notice?

(e) Can you allow the sensations to migrate to various areas of your body? What do you notice?

(f) Fully feel the pain. What is the opposite sensation of your painful feeling? Feel the pain.
Now feel the opposite sensation. Feel the pain. Now feel the opposite sensation. Do this 5 times. What do you notice?

(g) Fully tune into your pain. Now describe it outloud. Describe it's:

(1) Color
(2) Temperature
(3) Density
(4) Weight
(5) Size
(6) Sound
(7) Frequency of occurence
(8) Intensity
(9) Wet or dry
(10)If it could talk, what would it say?
(11) Convenience or inconvenience
(12) Absorbing or not absorbing
(13) Energized or sleepy

Now go over your list and make its description more comforting. Feel the pain after the exercise--what do you notice?

(h) What would the pain feel like if you loved it?

(i)What distracts you from that pain, can you do that now?

(j)If you knew for a fact that a madman was in the next room with a sharpened ax and he was calling out your name, how would your pain feel then?
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TRANSFORMATIONAL QUESTIONS FOR PAIN

Ask yourself the following questions and respond to them with what you will do and feel. If pain has been a challenge, you may want to ask yourself these questions either twice in the morning or twice in the evening at a time you set. Steady practice with these questions may bring about the relief you desire.

(1) When you interpret pain sensations as a signal, what will you do?

(2)After you seek medical attention if required, how might you feel differently?

(3)As soon as you saw your pain as a valuable, yet inconvenient signal, how might your unconscious view pain in a more comforting way?

(4) When you are pained, yet involved in absorbing pursuits, where will you be and what will you be doing?

(5) When you recognize your pain will end sometime in the fute, what will you feel?

(6) If you are pained and daydreaming, what might you be imagining?

(7)If the pain becomes intense and you begin to experience it as "over there", what would make those sensations feel even further away?

(8) After you let go and relax, what will allow you to feel even more comfortable?

(9) The instant you call your sensations a more positive name, what will y6ou call it?

(10) When you recognize your relief subtly growing, what will you feel?

(11) After your unconscious provides comfortable ways of experiencing your sensations, will your sensation's names change or will you imagine them in even more comfortable ways?

(12)When you experience your sensations as sometimes or everyonce in awhile, who might you tell?

(13) As soon as you converse with others, how will you know what time it is or will time not matter?

(14) After you look back at the site of your former sensations 10 years from now, how will you recall the sensations lessening or even vanishing?

(15) After you dreamed of your sensations magically transforming into their opposite, what did you dream next?

(16) The moment you realized relief was a reality, where might you plan a vacation or would you rather just read a book or play on the internet?

(17) After you review the vast learnings you have acquired during a lifetime of developing anesthesias throughout your body, what part of your body did you most recently forget about?


Copyright Steve Mensing