Pain is Good News, by Michelle Welch

Pain is Good News, by Michelle Welch

I have a lot of physical conditions that cause pain, including two bad discs in my lower back that really act up during a long sitting. Recently I attended a weekend Level, and during my interview with the meditation instructor, when I sat down in the chair gingerly and bowed with some hesitation, she asked me if I was feeling fragile. My answer surprised both her and me: no, I wasn’t feeling fragile.

On one level – and this was my answer to the MI – physical pain is somewhat easier to deal with than all the rambling in my head. Physical pain is discrete, I can see where the edges are, and I know what I have to handle. I can tune out everything else that would start bouncing around my brain by focusing my attention on the pain, noticing where it is, noticing when it becomes too uncomfortable, determining when and how I have to change positions to provide some relief. It becomes a good mind-training exercise.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that my answer wasn’t just an alternative to feeling fragile – it was actually the opposite of feeling fragile. There’s some debate in the medical community about just what causes the pain of degenerative disc disease, but one theory is that as the problem discs cause instability in the vertebrae, the surrounding muscles overcompensate to stabilize the spine, and that muscle strain is what causes the pain. So what I’m feeling is my back muscles coming to the rescue, doing their job to support me. It doesn’t feel great, but it works. My back is sore but strong.

This is a realization that I’m trying to apply elsewhere in my mind and my life. Things don’t always feel good, but they’re working. My mind and body are doing what they’re supposed to do. I can be strong, and with that realization, I can feel strong.