I came across a great blog on meditation and self-improvement through a writing project at Daily Blog Tips, and asked one of the writers his thoughts on pain.  Tejvan Pettinger lives in Oxford, England where he works as a teacher.  He practices meditation and offers free meditation classes on behalf of the Sri Chinmoy Centre.  Tejvan enjoys writing on topics of self improvement and blogs at Sri Chinmoy Inspiration.  He writes:

Pain is something that we never invite into our life.  But if we do experience pain, what’s the best way of dealing with it?

• Focus on something else
  Physical pain is bad, but even worse than physical pain is the mental depression we can get from feeling sorry for ourselves.  It’s best not to sit around and let negative thoughts enter our mind.  Try to occupy your mind with something else - work, socializing or reading.  If we give all importance to our pain, it’ll magnify the problem.
• Speak to the right people
  It’s good to have a few close friends/doctors who you can talk about your experiences with.  Being able to unburden your frustrations helps to keep them in perspective and is an integral part of overcoming pain.  However, at the same time, this doesn’t mean you should share your pain with everyone you meet.  Sometimes people forget that others are just not interested in your physical ailments.  In fact, there are some neighbors I try to avoid because they always bless me with a detailed run down of their latest medical history.
• Try different techniques for pain relief
  If your current doctor is unable to offer an effective cure, don’t give up.  There are many alternative treatments which are worth trying.  The important thing is not to give up and despair.  If we’re constantly looking for alternative techniques, it can prevent us from feeling despondent if there’s no change in our circumstances.

• Acceptance
  We’ll try everything to alleviate pain, but at the same time we need to be able to accept our current situation.  Acceptance is essential in not allowing our pain to get on top of us.  If we find it difficult to accept the pain, we can try finding other things to be grateful for.  Physical pain is not the only reality in our life, and it’s important to keep it in perspective.
• Meditation
  If you suffer from long-term pain, it’s worth trying out meditation.  Meditation is a simple exercise to try and control your thoughts.  To meditate, we first need to be able to concentrate.  We can practice concentration by focusing on a certain object like a candle or flower.  After we’ve developed our concentration, we can then develop our meditation to stop thoughts entering our mind.  In meditation we are trying to dive deep within.  When we’re successful in our meditation, we no longer identify with our body, but with our inner reality.  When we can feel that we’re not just our thoughts and body, it becomes easier to detach ourselves from our pain.  Even if meditation doesn’t reduce our pain, it can help us to relax and feel more peace of mind.

Thanks very much to Tejvan.  I hope you visit his website… very motivational and interesting.  Thanks to Tejvan also for the photos!