How Meditation Can Help with Physical Pain

Susan Brumbaugh
5 min readAug 5, 2021

Pain-Focused Meditation

Photo by Mitchell Hollander on Unsplash

When we’re experiencing pain, it can be counter-intuitive to focus on that pain during meditation. Sometimes it is all we can notice, and sometimes it’s just a small little thing. When we explore physical pain mindfully, we can begin to notice the thoughts that arise that can sometimes intensify the pain and pay more attention to what’s actually happening. We can also explore places in the body where there is no pain. Wherever your pain is now, I hope that this meditation will help you to take a different perspective on pain and perhaps perceive it and notice it in a different way.

I’m a licensed mental health counselor who enjoys sharing mindful meditations and information about mindfulness. Below is a transcript of a meditation I led on this topic, and at the end of the article, you’ll find a link to the meditation video. Give it a try and see what happens.

Meditation Transcript

So to transition into a time of meditation, I like to start with a little bit of movement, to stretch anything that might be tight, just listening to the body a little bit to see if something needs some attention.

Allowing any thoughts that are lingering from whatever has already happened today to move into the background and likewise with any thoughts of…

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Susan Brumbaugh

Susan Brumbaugh is a criminal justice researcher who telecommutes, a licensed counselor, a mindfulness meditation practitioner, and a perpetual learner.