The comfort measure that I've found that works the best, and I go back to, time and time again is getting a therapeutic massage. It really works wonders. I have a massage therapist whom I've been seeing for... 8(?) years now. She can read my body like a book, and knows how to give me a massage that will be the most helpful for my pain. Before I get on the table, she'll ask me how my week has been, and she really is interested because how much pain I've been in, and what kind of migraines I've been having will impact how she works my muscles. It's an incredible feeling, when I'm on the table and am suddenly aware of the rest of my body as my muscles relax as they're worked on.
The following is a stream of consciousness that I wrote for my personal blog one Friday evening after my massage:
The following is a stream of consciousness that I wrote for my personal blog one Friday evening after my massage:
There is Pain. That means, that, to such an extent that there can be, there must be No-Pain. This idea is frankly rather foreign to me these days. But as I was laying on the massage table this evening, feeling the Pain in my muscles be worked away, I realized that that the idea of No-Pain is real. After all, what had been in Pain no longer was. Thus the term No-Pain came to strike me.
I spent the rest of the session vacillating between this foreign concept of No-Pain, with analysis, to just a state of becoming intensely aware of the Pain in my head. But the sensory glory that is No-Pain would come back, and I'd wallow in the comfort of my right shoulder being worked on. (Now that I mention the No-Pain in my right shoulder, I naturally feel Pain there, but such is the way of things...)
It's been over 10 years since No-Pain was possible for me, and longer still since it could be the norm (if indeed it ever was). The Pain that came with migraines has never felt foreign to me. No more so than the Pain in my lower back earlier this evening when I first lay on the table, with my muscles as tight as they were.
Pain simply is.
But, while Pain is real for me, that must, I thought, mean that No-Pain is real for others. You have no idea how relieving a thought that that is.
Recently, I think, I've become so burdened down with my own Pain, I've come to perceive Pain as the state that Is for all, and that's not good. Not that No-Pain should be assumed to be the state that Is, because that too would be false.
If only, I thought, there could be a mixture of Pain and No-Pain in everyone, to an extent where there is only sensation, such as I was experiencing on the table. I don't wish for anybody a lack of any sensation, that would be disastrous. That's something else entirely. But, if there could be a state of sensation, of awareness that was neither of Pain or No-Pain, I would imagine that that must be the physical feeling of Buddhist Enlightenment.
On that massage table, there will be Pain. There can be No-Pain. But so too can there my body just be. My nerves receive and give signals, but without judgement, without verdict, condemnation or commendation. The muscles relax and peace comes to my body.
The next question is how do I lay my mind upon the table? Is such a thing even possible? To simply be... is that even possible?
And with that thought, Pain returns, taking the place of No-Pain. Or maybe not, maybe it was simply sensation in its purest, most refined form. I don't know, nor does it matter. But now I am aware of No-Pain in a way that I haven't been for a while.
It gives me something about which to think.
I spent the rest of the session vacillating between this foreign concept of No-Pain, with analysis, to just a state of becoming intensely aware of the Pain in my head. But the sensory glory that is No-Pain would come back, and I'd wallow in the comfort of my right shoulder being worked on. (Now that I mention the No-Pain in my right shoulder, I naturally feel Pain there, but such is the way of things...)
It's been over 10 years since No-Pain was possible for me, and longer still since it could be the norm (if indeed it ever was). The Pain that came with migraines has never felt foreign to me. No more so than the Pain in my lower back earlier this evening when I first lay on the table, with my muscles as tight as they were.
Pain simply is.
But, while Pain is real for me, that must, I thought, mean that No-Pain is real for others. You have no idea how relieving a thought that that is.
Recently, I think, I've become so burdened down with my own Pain, I've come to perceive Pain as the state that Is for all, and that's not good. Not that No-Pain should be assumed to be the state that Is, because that too would be false.
If only, I thought, there could be a mixture of Pain and No-Pain in everyone, to an extent where there is only sensation, such as I was experiencing on the table. I don't wish for anybody a lack of any sensation, that would be disastrous. That's something else entirely. But, if there could be a state of sensation, of awareness that was neither of Pain or No-Pain, I would imagine that that must be the physical feeling of Buddhist Enlightenment.
On that massage table, there will be Pain. There can be No-Pain. But so too can there my body just be. My nerves receive and give signals, but without judgement, without verdict, condemnation or commendation. The muscles relax and peace comes to my body.
The next question is how do I lay my mind upon the table? Is such a thing even possible? To simply be... is that even possible?
And with that thought, Pain returns, taking the place of No-Pain. Or maybe not, maybe it was simply sensation in its purest, most refined form. I don't know, nor does it matter. But now I am aware of No-Pain in a way that I haven't been for a while.
It gives me something about which to think.
I Will have to check out the coconut water thanks for the tip! Interesting article!
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