If it is possible to relieve mental anguish by transforming one's mind, how can this process be applied to physical suffering? How do we crippling virtually intolerable pain? here again we should distinguish between two types of sufferings: Psychological Pain and the Mental and Emotional suffering it unleashes. There are certain a number of ways to experience the same pain with more of less intensity.
Neurologically, we know, emotional reactions to pain vary significantly from person to person, And a considerable percentage of pain sensation is linked to the anxious desire to suppress it. If we allow that anxiety to overwhelm our mind, the most benign pain soon become unbearable. So our assessment of pain also depends on our mind. It is the mind that reacts to pain with fear, rejection, despondency, or a feeling powerlessness, instead to being subjected to a single agony we accumulate a host of them.
Having come to grips with this idea, how do we learn to control pain instead of being its victim? since we cannot escape it, it is better to embrace it than to try to reject it. The pain persist whether we succumb to rejection or hold on to our resilience and desire to live, but in the later case we maintain our dignity and self confidence, and that makes a big difference.
There are various methods to achieve to that end. Once method uses mental imagery; another lets us transform pain by awakening ourselves to love and compassion, a third involves developing inner strength.
