"In modern medicine the emphasis on finding a cure for whatever is affecting your health is wonderful if your condition can be cured, but it's less well equipped to deal with incurable conditions that bring chronic pain and illness. When Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman, was paralyzed from the neck down in a riding accident, he used his celebrity to promote research into curing spinal-cord injuries (SCI), and he became a leading figure in this search. Until his death in 2005, he worked tirelessly at his rehab so that his muscles would remain in good condition for when science had found a cure for paralysis. His efforts led to major developments in the understanding of SCI, but the publicity surrounding the new research also encouraged some newly injured people to believe that a cure was just around the corner; they saw no point in becoming proficient wheelchair users and didn't work at their rehab. Passively waiting for a cure meant that their lives were, in fact, more diminished than they would have been had they learned to make the best of the situation by adapting to an active life in a wheelchair.

"Of course it's important that researchers do all they can to develop scientific understanding and make new treatments available. But those of us with chronic conditions also need strategies to help us live well in the here and now, and many people in medicine and psychology who work in pain management recognize the importance of acceptance in learning to live with pain. Mindfulness can play a vital role in this process. While it might not cure your condition, it can be part of a profound process of healing.

"Mindfulness and healing are both concerned with becoming more integrated and whole. Even if you can't be whole physically because of damage, surgery, or disease, you can still experience a healthy and whole relationship between your body and your mind, between yourself and the world. These connections can even be sacred: the words healing, health, holy, and wholeness all come from the same etymological root. Wholeness in this sense is the real key to happiness and inner peace.

"Integration is another word connected with wholeness and comes from the Latin integratio, which means 'renewal' or 'restoration to wholeness.' In my experience, moments of mindful wholeness feel like a homecoming, in which something that I intuitively recognize as healthy and true is restored. . . . Mindfulness practice is a journey to wholeness."