Pain is a common feeling for people in a crisis to experience. As I mentioned earlier, the most natural response to pain is to resist it. Unfortunately, resistance only serves to create more pain. Sometimes the best response to physical pain is to experience it completely. Listed below is a technique that might assist you in dealing with your pain.

Exercise: Being present with my pain

• Find a quiet place and time to do this exercise.
• Close your eyes and allow yourself to experience your pain.
• Do not resist it, allow yourself to experience it as completely as possible.
• Imagine the pain has a color. What color would it be?
• Try to soften the edges of your pain.
• Imagine you can move the pain away from your body.
• Imagine you can move inside the pain.
• Imagine you can make it smaller or larger.
• Imagine you can add light to the pain. How does the light change your experience of the pain?
• Experiment with changing the size, color, or location of your pain.
• Shift your awareness to that part of you that is observing the pain, letting the observer relax behind the pain.
• Explore the experience of your pain in as many ways as you can imagine
• Imagine that you can surround your pain with love. 
• Do this for as long as it feels appropriate to you.

Record your experiences in your journal.

Reverend Marty Varnadoe Dow, MSW

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