Healing Meditation for Illness ✨ Fall Asleep Without Stress

[00:00:10] Hi there, and welcome to the Sleep Wave Podcast. I'm your host, Karissa, and tonight we have a truly transformative meditation to help in times of illness or pain. Before we get to it though, I wanted to let you know a listener requested the topic of this episode. We are here to serve this community, so if there's a topic you'd like to have us discuss on the show, please feel free to let us know. And while you're at it, if you could leave us a review so others struggling to rest can find us too, we'd really love to know.

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[00:01:44] If you're here, you probably know meditation is one of those things that can help us live a healthier life. The process of watching your thoughts, your breath, of being still can have innumerable benefits that maintain your health, including helping you sleep. But sometimes it can be hard to sit with ourselves. It could be for multiple reasons, like the lack of time or space or illness or pain in our bodies.

[00:02:11] When we're sick or in pain, the last thing we want to do is become more aware of the discomfort. A few years ago, I had a back injury. I was in so much pain, I couldn't sleep most nights, and I had very limited movement during the day. Even though the pain was intense, it was my thoughts about the pain that caused me the most distress. Thoughts like, is it going to be this way forever? What if this gets worse?

[00:02:40] Would swirl in a loop as I struggled to sleep. It was actually then that I first started meditating before sleep, to help give the feelings of overwhelm and fear some space so I could rest. I was absolutely amazed to find that slowing down my mind and breathing into the pain, instead of resisting it, was the only thing that gave me relief. That relief helped me feel more empowered to move through it.

[00:03:08] I had a similar experience shortly after my cancer diagnosis. It was my fearful and overwhelmed thoughts about the surgeries and treatment to come that really kept me up at night. And so I recommitted to my meditation practice like I hadn't in years. When I was sick from chemo or in pain from surgery, I was able to slow down enough to surrender to the experience. I credit my meditation practice with getting me through some of the most challenging times of my life.

[00:03:37] If you are ill tonight with something as simple as the common cold or as complex as a scary diagnosis, this meditation Billy has created for us will help bring you some surrender and peace. And if you're not ill or in pain, it will help reinforce some skills to help keep you healthy and move through challenging things easier next time you need to. So get cozy. You're safe here.

[00:04:05] Let's meditate together. Meditation is always about meeting yourself where you are in this moment. When things are going well, that may be easy enough. But when you are sick or in pain, the only place you want to be is anywhere but where you are.

[00:04:34] That's not a bug. It's a feature of pain. Many times, pain or symptoms of illness are actually the body's way of healing. That runny nose is not just a miserable malfunction. It's your body flushing out pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and allergens. It's how your antibodies attack invaders before they can go deeper into the body.

[00:05:03] It's hydrating your nasal tissues and regulating inflammation. And perhaps most importantly, it's signaling to your body that you need to rest and recover and avoid social contact so as to give your immune system the upper hand. After you injure your ankle, the swelling and heat are not just torture.

[00:05:28] The blood vessels in the area are becoming permeable, allowing fluid to leak into those tissues, delivering immune cells and other immune factors that help contain the damage and form a barrier around the injury. It delivers nutrients and oxygen and growth factors to coordinate tissue repair.

[00:05:53] The pressure and tenderness make you instinctively avoid using the joint, enforcing rest while healing is happening. The increased blood flow, which causes the heat and redness, speeds up enzymatic reactions for healing. It's your body's built-in first aid kit.

[00:06:18] As challenging as it may seem, pain and illness are actually a gift. Of course, when someone is suffering, these words seem hollow. But the fact remains that the manifestations of pain or illness are an alarm going off saying, stop, pay attention.

[00:06:42] It disrupts the flow of everyday life because something about everyday life is off. This is why an illness or an injury can become such a powerful instrument for change. Still, change is, in itself, stressful. It's much more comfortable to remain in the status quo.

[00:07:09] At least it's predictable, if not agonizing. Therein lies the gift. Without pain or illness, most of us would persist in our routines. Unless and until we learn to honor the gift of pain or illness, we stay caught in the loop. And this is often how pain and illness can spiral.

[00:07:35] If you are not in pain or experiencing an illness tonight, that is also a gift. The truth, however, is that everyone will experience pain and illness at some point. This is the meaning of the story of the Buddha's four sights. The Buddha's four sights refer to the transformative experiences

[00:08:02] that led Prince Siddhartha to renounce his life of luxury and begin his spiritual quest. Sheltered in his palace since birth, he had been protected from the harsh realities of the world. But on a rare journey outside the palace walls, he encountered four sights that would change his life forever.

[00:08:29] First, he saw an old man and for the first time realized that aging is inescapable. Next, he saw a sick person and became aware that illness afflicts all beings regardless of status or strength.

[00:08:54] Then, he saw a corpse, which revealed the stark reality of death and the impermanence of life. Finally, he saw a wandering ascetic, peaceful and detached from worldly concerns, and was struck by the possibility that there might be a path beyond suffering.

[00:09:18] These sights awakened him to the universal nature of human suffering and ignited his pursuit of enlightenment. Settle in. Give yourself space to make any final adjustments and try to be still. If you have to move, that's okay.

[00:09:46] But try to be still for the duration of this meditation and be conscious of any movements. Let your body find its natural rhythm. You're not doing it. The breath is breathing you. Go on listening to your breath.

[00:10:16] Be gentle with yourself. And let any thoughts come and go. As though there is a swinging door in your brain, thoughts can enter easily. And they can leave just as easily. Breathe in.

[00:10:47] Breathe in. Breathe in. Continue on.

[00:12:07] Notice the sense of space around your thoughts as you gently favor the breath with your awareness. When thoughts go, the mind is like the wind and changeable. This is the nature of the mind.

[00:12:37] There's no need to judge yourself for not being able to quiet the mind any more than you judge yourself for not being able to calm the wind. The mind, when left alone, has a natural ability to quiet itself. It's our tendency to comment on our thoughts,

[00:13:04] to become entwined with thoughts, that keeps the mind active. Don't allow the wind to carry you away.

[00:13:22] Remain anchored in the breath is the background. It's the page upon which thoughts are written, or the screen that the mind projects upon with its images, memories, plans, and stories.

[00:13:52] It's the space in which thoughts arises, is like the sky. Thoughts, the weather comes and goes, the sky is always there.

[00:14:25] Practicing the art of presence allows us to return to our true nature, which is calm and peaceful. Pain or illness can be very distracting. But in the same way that thought appears on the backdrop of awareness, all sensory phenomena have that same quality.

[00:14:55] Even pain and discomfort, they are temporary states that ebb and flow. The practice of meditation prepares us to accept and surrender these temporary states and return to the quiet, gentle space of awareness.

[00:15:27] If you are feeling relatively well tonight, then this is a wonderful time to practice this. It's much easier to access this state when you are feeling good. If you are in pain or discomfort, either mentally or physically, you are not alone.

[00:15:56] Acknowledge that pain or discomfort with compassion. Breathe with compassion for yourself for some time.

[00:18:15] The Sufi poet, Rumi, has a poem called Cry Out in Your Weakness. One line from the poem says, Where lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure. A nursing mother,

[00:18:43] all she does is wait to hear her child. Just a beginning whimper, and she's there. He says, Don't be stolid and silent with your pain. Lament, and let the milk of loving flow into you. It's a powerful poem

[00:19:13] that invites us to acknowledge our longing, our suffering, our heartache, our pain. There is, indeed, something healing in this vulnerability. Tears contain cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Crying can release these hormones and help regulate stress.

[00:19:43] It releases emotional tension, slows the breath rate, and the heart rate. This is the poetry of the body itself. Body has its own remarkable healing ability.

[00:20:17] This is the return to spacious awareness. The body may still hurt. The thoughts may still write. But you are not those thoughts. You are the one watching

[00:20:46] and listening. The one holding it all in the cradle of awareness. Right now, in this breath, you are seen,

[00:21:14] not by anyone outside of you, by your own presence. Let yourself feel what you feel. Let yourself be what you are. If tears come, let them come.

[00:21:45] If nothing come, let that be okay. And just be present with what is for some attention

[00:25:04] to any area of discomfort in your body. Perhaps it is subtle. Perhaps it pulses or aches run from it. Don't reach to fix it. Simply notice it. Let it be.

[00:25:32] There is no need to name it. No need to attach the label that the mind so often insists on. There is a tendency in us to give everything a name, a story, a history, my pain, my injury,

[00:26:02] my illness, my diagnosis. In medicine, a diagnosis is not the illness itself. It's a mental model used to understand and respond to the condition of the body.

[00:26:32] In other words, a diagnosis is also thought, an interpretive frame. You are not a diagnosis. You are not a label. You are not a problem to be solved.

[00:27:03] You are this pure awareness here, now. Breathe with that pure awareness for some time.

[00:29:24] Mind may want to analyze, to resist, to protest. That is okay. That is its habit. But tonight, you are practicing a different kind of medicine. Somewhere deep inside, you may

[00:29:54] notice a shift, a quiet opening, opening. Not a solution, but a softening, a loosening of the grip. Picture a warm light gathering at the center of your chest. It is not trying to fix you.

[00:30:24] It is simply here, like a friend, like love itself. Let that light grow with each breath. Let it pour into any areas of your body that feel sore, cold, or dull. Breathe with that

[00:30:53] light for some time.

[00:32:57] With each breath, let this light reach further, to the corners of your body that ache, to the places where you have judged yourself. Let it reach into memories, into wounds.

[00:33:27] This light remind you, you are whole, even when you feel broken. You are complete, even when things feel undone. thoughts will come from time to time. No matter, let them come.

[00:33:58] As you let go of the need to resist what's arising in the moment, you feel a deep surrender. The body is already repairing itself. This sensation, this thought, this feeling is a movement of

[00:34:27] energy that rises is the nature of energy to flow. Let the energy of healing trust that you are whole in this moment.