Emotional Reaction to Pain: I’m in pain and its hard for me to maintain

A. First, take note of the moods you’ve experienced.

I suffer from chronic pain in my feet, due to a medical condition. It really makes me feel sad, frustrated, angry and at times depressed, because it hinders me from being doing activities and being as productive as I would like to be.

B. Assess your overall level of anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10.

I tend not to be very anxious, however managing my school work studying and trying maintaining my day to day needs that are equally as important as my education, i would say my level of anxiety has been a bit more elevated -like an 8.

C. Assess the level of physical tension in your body- where do you notice the tension? Try rating your overall tension on a scale of 1 to 10.

the obvious physical tension in my body are my feet, as well as in my chest.

III. After you have finished your meditation, re-asses your state of mind and body.
A. Reassess your mood on the chart.
B. Reassess your level of anxiety from 1 to 10.
C. Reasses your level of physical tension and rate it from 1 to 10.

When I was done meditating my mind felt clear and fresh and my body felt a bit relaxed, but I still was in pain. My mood was calm and I didn’t feel anxious at all nor was there any tension in my chest.

IV. Describe the experience– What type of meditation did you choose? Describe what was going on in your mind and your body, what kind of thoughts and sensations did you experience during the meditation? Were there any challenging or frustrating aspects of the experience, and if so, what were they? Would you try this again in the future? Why or why not?

I chose to do the emotional reaction to pain exercise. The experience was very relaxing, almost too relaxing that if it went on for a few more minutes I would have fallen asleep. My mind was focused on my breathing and just trying to direct my thoughts back on my breath when other thought popped up in my head. I was also trying to follow the instructions given on this exercise. The main challenges  were blocking all the thoughts in my mind,the background noise in my house and not to focus on the physical pain that I was in. This mediation exercise felt like II just woke up or had been given some sort of drug that pretty much reset my mind, so yes I would try this again. However this might have not been the right  exercise  to help me better cope with the physical pain it was worth it.