Table Of Content“Dr. Jackie’s book provides a holistic approach to help people manage and
cope with their daily pain. The Mindfulness Solution to Pain provides hope to
anyone who is suffering and losing function as a result of constant pain.”
— Sol Stern, MD, chairman of Palliative Care at Halton
Healthcare Services in Oakville, ON, Canada
“The Mindfulness Solution to Pain is a very practical and valuable addition to
the toolbox of strategies for patients living with pain.”
— Roman D. Jovey, MD, past president of the Canadian
Pain Society
“So often, chronic pain can be a life-destroying event that the medical world
seems ill-equipped to manage. This is a wonderful guidebook for those who
want strategies that do not simply make their pain better, but make them-
selves better with their pain.”
— Pam Squire, MD, assistant clinical professor at the
University of British Columbia
the mindfulness
solution to pain
Step-by-Step Techniques for Chronic Pain Management
Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix
with Lucie Costin-Hall, MA
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
contents
foreword by Jon Kabat-Zin v
acknowledgments xi
introduction 1
Chapter 1
getting started on managing your pain: understanding
why you have it 16
Chapter 2
mindfulness: what is it?
getting acquainted with your inner resources (1) 23
Chapter 3
meditation 101:
getting acquainted with your inner resources (2) 31
Chapter 4
mindfulness: checking in on your progress 42
Chapter 5
meditation challenges 49
Chapter 6
searching the brain for clues to pain: turning on that flashlight 56
Chapter 7
reclaiming the parts that hurt: the body scan 77
Chapter 8
reclaiming caring for yourself: your physical needs 103
Chapter 9
people stress 121
Chapter 10
art: see the pain—feel the gain 134
Chapter 11
visualizations and guided imagery 162
Chapter 12
reclaiming your life: with pain or without 174
appendix 190
recommended reading 195
references 197
index 203
iv the mindfulness solution to pain
foreword
Jon Kabat-Zinn
All of us know on some level that pain is an inevitable part of the human
condition, even if we sometimes shun that realization or pretend that we
ourselves are immune to it. What is less well known is that there are many
ways available to us to actually meet chronic or persistent pain and work with
it, such that it does not inevitably have to lead to unending suffering and the
complete erosion of a satisfying life. But when we are actually in the clutches
of pain, whether it be primarily somatic or emotional (and it is invariably a
mix of the two), and traditional medical approaches have not led to reliable
relief, any way to go through the pain to an oasis of respite seems virtually
inconceivable. In such moments, it is all too easy to fall into despair and
depression.
It is for this reason that the book you have in your hands is so impor-
tant. It could metaphorically and literally save your life and give it back to
you, as so many of the people my colleagues and I have worked with in
our mindfulness-based stress reduction clinic have actually told us over the
years, and as you will hear from many of the people featured in this book.
The systematic mindfulness practices offered here by Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix
and her colleague and former patient, Lucie Costin-Hall are based on their
extensive clinical experience gathered over many years of working with people
with very challenging chronic pain conditions. The authors offer a range of
ways to discover for yourself that whatever you may be facing, it is indeed
workable if you are willing to do a certain amount of interior exploring and
adventuring and you are open to finding out how it might be possible to
mobilize your own deep inner resources for learning, growing, healing, and
transformation; resources available to all of us across our lifespan, but often
so obscured or camouflaged that we hardly know they exist. This will be a
part of the learning trajectory you embark upon here.
Often people with chronic pain conditions are told, once all the testing
and diagnosing have been completed, that “You’re going to have to learn to
live with this.” But sadly, that is often also the end of the story. There are
few recommendations for how one goes about acquiring this learning, once
all of the more traditional medical options have been used up. That is the
purpose of this book. Moreover, there are few recommendations for how we
can be supported in the process so that we don’t feel so isolated and alone
and, sometimes, even crazy and misunderstood. That is also the purpose of
this book.
The Mindfulness Solution to Pain is a doorway into the universe of mind-
fulness, a particularly potent way of paying attention in your own life and of
cultivating greater awareness, always starting from where you actually are and
what you are actually experiencing. It is based on Dr. Gardner-Nix’s many
years of clinical experience teaching mindfulness to hundreds of people suf-
fering from chronic pain conditions who were either not being helped by
more traditional medical approaches, or were actually harmed by inappropri-
ate attempts at medical treatment; it is also based on the firsthand experi-
ence of her former patient and now contributing author and colleague, Lucie
Costin-Hall.
You might find yourself inwardly saying at this point, or even exclaim-
ing aloud: “Paying attention? Awareness? I don’t want to pay attention to my
pain. I don’t want to be more aware of it. More intimate with it. I want just
the opposite. I want it to go away.”
This is not an uncommon first reaction to hearing about mindfulness.
And, of course, probably we would all want our pain and suffering just to
magically go away, if only that were possible. But the amazing thing, which
you can find out only by practicing mindfulness fairly regularly over time, is
that paying attention in a particular way to the very sensations, emotions,
and thoughts that together constitute the experience of pain—in the present
moment and as nonjudgmentally as possible (which may be very judgmental
a good deal of the time)—actually has within it the seeds of freedom from
suffering. This is totally counterintuitive I know; nonetheless, it seems to be
the case, as so many of our and Dr. Gardner-Nix’s patients have discovered.
vi the mindfulness solution to pain
Description:Your mood, thoughts, and emotions can affect your perception of pain and even your ability to heal. In fact, your past life experiences influence your current physical challenges: “your biography influences your biology.” While treatments like medication and physical therapy can be enormously be
