Feel the Burn
During my leg workout today, (that’s not me in the pic) I experienced a painful burn and wanted to stop. I usually avoid pain, but I remembered Jon Kabat-Zinn's teachings on mindfulness and pain. In his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR), he emphasizes the importance of acknowledging pain without suppressing or avoiding it. By approaching pain with openness and curiosity, we can observe it more skillfully and respond effectively.
"Wherever you go, there you are. Your pain follows you. But so do joy and peace, if you are willing to notice." - Jon Kabat-Zinn
Instead of trying to push the pain away, which is really impossible without stopping the exercise, I welcomed it in. I stopped fighting it and got curious about it. I contemplated the biological process that was causing this sensation. What is pain anyway? This was totally counter-intuitive and the opposite of what I wanted to do.
I’m not sure if the pain subsided, but I do know that I felt more comfortable with it. I was reminded of something that Justin Michael Williams said in our recent meditation class: “Instead of slaying your dragons, make friends with them.”
What if we responded to our emotional pain in the same way? What if we made friends with the varying degrees of emotional pain we feel, from being stuck in a traffic jam, to losing a loved one?