Mediation & Self-Compassion: Suffering is Optional

I keep talking about how my migraines have improved, though my migraine diary for December appears to tell a different story. I had at least a level 7 migraine 17 of the first 18 days of the month. Those can be explained by bad weather, Botox injection aftermath, and more bad weather. Just when the weather stabilized, I came down with some lingering low-level virus that has kicked up the migraines, made me nauseated, and drained all my energy. That appears to have finally lifted, so I hope I’m on the upswing. All this and I still say I feel better. Partly this is relative — it doesn’t take much to improve on the migraine hell I was in — but it is more that I have learned how to limit how much I suffer from migraine.

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” Through meditation, the simple truth of this statement has woven itself into my life: Suffering is not in the pain itself, but in how we react to pain. Understanding these words and truly embracing their meaning take much practice. I have only just begun this practice, but the relief it has brought me is tremendous.

Since I began meditating in earnest in April, I’ve learned to just be with my illness instead of constantly thinking about it and evaluating it. I’ve learned to turn off the critical internal dialogue that has always accompanied migraines, the one that tells me I’m faking it for attention and letting other people down. I finally learned that I am worthy of the love and understanding I so readily give others; that self-compassion is, in fact, a necessary foundation for caring for others.

To figure all this out, I set aside my aversion to all things spiritual/religious and listened to guided meditations and Buddhist teachings and read about applying Buddhist concepts to chronic illness. (So far, Buddhism feels more like psychology than religion to me.) I’ve culled resources from all over the internet and from multiple libraries. The most accessible and helpful (for me) include:

• Guided Meditations for Self-Healing, by Jack Kornfield
• Radical Self-Acceptance, by Tara Brach
• Meditations for Emotional Healing, by Tara Brach
• How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers, by Toni Bernhard

I recommend the first three as audiobooks. I have listened to each one multiple times, often during a migraine. They are calming and easy to fall asleep to. I like to think that my mind is mulling over the concepts while I sleep. Those are good general approaches to healing. How to Be Sick is an invaluable resource for learning to minimize the suffering of chronic illness. It includes detailed examples of how to apply different principles to particular difficult situations common to people with chronic illness (like losing friends and feeling isolated or dealing with the disappointment of failed treatments).

Have you found meditation to be helpful in dealing with your own migraines or headaches? What other techniques helped you accept your illness?