Mindfulness for Healing Chronic Pain

The current medical and clinical research on chronic pain indicates that while biological factors like tissue damage, inflammation, and system dysfunction generate pain, there are multiple factors that influence how much and for how long we experience it. They include our emotions; our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations; our past experiences and memories; and the context (where we are, whom we are with, and what is happening in the moment). In other words, pain is a very complex and dynamic phenomenon that is both physical and emotional.

Drawing from the latest advances in neuroscience research and millennia-old mindfulness practices, this five-week course offers a step-by-step approach to healing chronic pain. 

In this course, you will learn:

• What is pain, why we have it, and how it works.
• How to distinguish the physical and emotional aspects of pain.
• How to identify and monitor the conditions that tend to increase and decrease pain throughout the day.
• How to observe thoughts and emotions, in particular those related to fear, as they affect the intensity and duration of pain.
• How to be aware of unpleasant experiences in general, not only the experience of pain, as they tend to trigger a sense of aversion in the mind.
• How to transform our relationship to pain, that is, how to move from reacting to pain to healing pain with understanding, care, and compassion.