This practice can help us create distance between ourselves and any unhelpful thoughts we have about our pain and illness. Unhelpful can include just dwelling on the fact that these occur for us (that often contribute to anxiety and depression).
Hope this helps you to keep making the most of it!
Meditation has been shown to help a lot with physical health and mental health. It can help with pain, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and more. It’s also difficult for most of us to get into a meditation habit. That’s why I created this 30 day challenge where we only practice for 5 minutes each day (and if you miss a day, that’s also okay). I’d love to hear how it goes for you and what you notice by the end. Full playlist here.
Just another way we can keep making the most of it!
One of the most effective practices I do in order to better cope with physical pain and other sensations of chronic illness is the body scan. The research also supports it being helpful. Interestingly it’s also been used as a meditative practice for hundreds of years (possibly longer) to help cope with physical sensations. While it can be a bit scary for chronic pain/illness warriors to go inside, the benefits can be well worth it. This practice is also great because you can totally do it lying down (as long as you’re not at risk of falling asleep). This versions is half an hour long, so if you’re not quite up to doing it that long yet, check out my meditation channel for the shorter version.
Keep making the most of it!
Sadness and grief are common emotions to experience when dealing with chronic pain and illness. Illness grief consists of grief of the loss we once had. (Here’s a podcast episode about it). When sadness is particularly strong, depression can set in. Finding effective coping strategies is important for all chronic pain/illness warriors. This meditation is one that can be quite helpful.
Keep on making the most of it!
This type of practice can be deep and quite healing when you have chronic pain and illness. I do highly recommend you only do this if you have strong grounding skills and preferably if you’ve done this type of practice before and/or are able to debrief this with a licensed mental health professional in your area. For other mindfulness practices, check out my YouTube channel.
Keep making the most of it.
When we learn to make room for our difficult emotions, we give ourselves the opportunity to react in different ways. Often with anger we yell, swear, throw things (including punches), etc. and typically don’t act in ways that align with our values. When we make space for anger we can clearly communicate that we are upset without doing any of those things.
Follow my YouTube channel for more meditations (updated weekly).
As always, keep making the most of it!
Grounding practices can be so helpful, for pain, for intense emotions. I personally love them and use them all the time with my clients. This grounding practice uses visualization. For more meditations and mindfulness practices, check out my YouTube channel.
Keep making the most of it!
Making room for our emotions (like our sensations) can be difficult to do, mostly because we spend most of our time doing the opposite – pushing them away. If you watched my video from January 9 on The Struggle Switch, I explain how doing the opposite – allowing/accepting/making room for difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations – actually makes them less powerful and have less control over us. This meditation is one way we can learn to do it.
Let me know how it goes and keep making the most of it!
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Mindfulness is a skill we want to develop because it can help so much with chronic pain and a lot of mental health issues. Meditation is the best exercise for that muscle. Looking back, I wish I had started practicing meditation when I was much, much younger. However, I’m glad I did start because there have been so many improvements for my overall wellbeing.
Be mindful, and keep making the most of it!
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This week’s mindfulness activity is a guided meditation that uses imagery of light to help us centre, ground, and sometimes it can even be relaxing. Notice what comes up for you while you do this practice. For more guided meditations, subscribe to my YouTube channel.
I appreciate any support you have for my content on Patreon.
Chronically Living 