The Be Here Now Guest Podcast presents a talk from Stephen Levine that explores how we relate to mental and physical pain.
What Is Pain?
Even though we have experienced pain numerous times, we don’t really know what pain is. Stephen explores the many ways that pain is experienced. He looks at the possibility that what we are suffering from most in these experiences of pain is the resistance to pain itself.
“What we have come to see, in working with people who often have what has been considered unbearable pain, is that most of what people call pain is actually resistance. Resistance amplifies pain.” – Stephen Levine
Working With Pain (5:50)
How can we soften our relationship with pain? Stephen speaks about the strategies available for working with pain, instead of resisting it.
“People think pain is unworkable, not so. There is nothing in life that is unworkable.” – Stephen Levine
Healing From The Heart (19:15)
The suffering we experience through pain can be a teacher that opens our heart to the spectrum of suffering experienced by other beings. Stephen looks and the quality of balance between heart and mind that comes with the healing process. He closes with a 20-minute meditation practice that shows us how to work with pain, instead of pushing it away.
“My sense, on another level of what healing is, is that healing is the balancing of the heart and mind. Really, healing occurs in the heart. The mind is already so rabid, so much jumping around. I think the heart work quiets it down – it makes room for that tension.” – Stephen Levine