Vidyamala Burch has suffered from chronic back pain for more than 30 years due to a congenital weakness, a car accident, and multiple surgeries. She is a cofounder of the well-respected Breathworks organization which assists people experiencing chronic pain, illness, and stress in managing their condition through meditation, body awareness, and creative life approaches. In this up-tempo paperback, Burch offers a holistic mindfulness-based pain management program. She shows how this Buddhist spiritual practice can help you break the cycle of blocking and drowning; first you soften the resistance and include the pain in your field of awareness and then you broaden your perspective to encompass elements of your experience other than the pain. These two strategies change your relationship with pain.
Burch explores five steps for developing mindfulness: (1) awareness, (2) move toward the unpleasant, (e) seek the pleasant, (4) broaden awareness to become a bigger container and cultivate equanimity, and (5) learn to respond rather than react. In chapters on "Coming Home to the Body," she describes body awareness as rehabilitation, the value of full-body breathing, and mindful movement. In a section on "Introducing Meditation," she focuses on this practice as a training for life, a pathway to human being, and a way to work with intense physical pain and discomfort. The "Meditation Practice" section covers the body scan, managing thoughts and emotions, and kindly awareness. The last chapter, "Mindfulness at All Times," demonstrates the relevance of this spiritual practice in all arenas of life.
With its practical suggestions and masterful overviews, Living Well With Pain and Illness provides help and healing for those who need it most.
