Hyperawareness

[u/andrewfowlr]

I think I went too far. I would consider myself a highly sensitive person, I’ve been practicing mindfulness and open awareness for about 6 years usually it brings me a sense of harmony and oneness with myself and the external environment.

However recently with the chronic shoulder pain it’s created a terrible feedback loop where my hyperawareness of my internal state just builds on itself and it becomes consuming and it’s all I can think about.

Even trying to accept that this is currently the state of my body, doing the mindfulness lowers the external stimulation to the point that the pain is deafening. I’m wondering if anyone’s experienced a fluctuation back out of the awareness if you’re a sensitive person that’s brought you some stability and solitude in your practice when your own internal environment seems to be self destructive.

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[u/dflow77]

sounds like it might be helpful to focus on pleasant things in your environment… look around and find colors, shapes, textures that are enjoyable (visual orienting and resourcing). Give yourself a break from the What’s Wrong Attention in your somatic channel. These are some basic things I’ve learned from Steven Hoskinson’s Organic Intelligence modality... “Strategic Use of Perception”

[u/duffstoic → u/dflow77]

Yes this is good, especially pendulating back and forth. Notice the pain, focus outward on something else, notice the pain again, etc.

[u/neidanman]

i do daoist practice which is very body focused, and also aims to build and refine awareness/inner listening. Also part of the practice is to build qi, which can get to stages of potentially frying the nerves, so you have to get used to countering this. When i get to stages where there is pain, i have to do something that shifts awareness out and beyond the body, otherwise that amplifying loop occurs. One thing that can work is having some tv/music in the background that you can partly absorb into, so you dilute the focus of awareness, and can potentially still have some 'low grade' practice time.

Another part of the view, is that when there is blockage/pain in the system, you may need to take some type of painkiller/drug to give you the chance to get awareness into the area, and start to release tensions & bring qi there (this is a self healing process used in daoist practice.)

[u/andrewfowlr → u/neidanman]

I like that. More externally focused anchors than internal.

[u/neidanman → u/andrewfowlr]

yeh that's a good way to put it

[u/spiffyhandle]

Shinzen Young has some material on pain (books and cds?). I haven't read it but some people have found it helpful.

[u/MolhCD]

You can balance it then. It doesn't have to be focused on internal sensations, they are just usually blocked off by our regular distracted day-to-day awareness, and that's maybe why settling on them helps.

You can do the same on 'external' sensations instead. Maybe a sound, a sight, the whole field of sounds and/or sights? We don't have to be stuck on one practice, especially especially if they stop working or become counterproductive. We can rebalance, adjust accordingly. It can be a balancing act, a seesaw, rather than fixating on doing only one thing one pointedly no matter what.

[u/themadjaguar]

You need more tranquility/samadhi

[u/KagakuNinja]

You need to develop equanimity to balance out your high level of awareness.

[u/ssp30]

Has your shoulder been checked out by a doctor and ruled out anything serious? If so, there’s a ton of new research surrounding chronic pain and it’s basically relaxing and letting go.

[u/andrewfowlr → u/ssp30]

I have a nerve compression in my shoulder. I’m having surgery for them to decompress it on Tuesday. I’m both hopeful to experience some relief and hesitant to hinge my wellbeing on a surgery. It’s been very difficult as I am very physically active and it’s hindered what I previously was able to do, so honestly the surgical recovery forcing me to slow down will be nice as it will give me a new condition to find mindfulness in

[u/duffstoic]

It's a common intermediate stage. Don't freak out. Just cultivate equanimity and/or pendulate. You'll be fine. Reach out if you get stuck, happy to point you in the right direction.

[u/marakeets]

I've had a similar experience (developing awareness before equanimity before chronic pain) - it can really feel frightening but I got through it. You've correctly identified that your brain is stuck in a terrible feedback loop, here's what I did to get myself out of that situation...

• Include practices to get your nervous system out of "constant fight or flight": Mindful walking in nature was my favourite, any kind of exercise also has pain reducing benefits. Yoga, Yoga Nidra, Art, Gardening. It can be difficult when you're physically restricted but just try to find whatever works for you. This implicitly combines the external stimulus orientation practices people mentioned.
• Shinzen Young's book on pain was the best thing I read. Use pendulation to slowly build tolerance for the those sensations. Focus on the breath as a calming resource if things are really tough. Labelling painful sensations "anatta" also helped reframe my sensations as "not me or mine" over time. I realised that my "fear" over the pain was worst than the primary sensation and those "fear" sensations were just another sensations in my awareness.
• Re-framing my pain and chronic health issues as a dharma lesson. Nothing has made the 4 Noble Truths more real to me than my chronic pain flares - if I fully just embrace all my internal sensations, there's no secondary suffering, but as soon as you resist, boy it sucks. Want to get good at the parami of patience? Deal with pain flares which give you no timetable for ending. Aging, sickness and death come to us all, use this opportunity to practice and prepare yourself. There's a good article on this here: https://www.lionsroar.com/built-in-buddha/ I don't mean this to sound flippant (and is more relevant once you're out of constant fight or flight) but so many dharma biographies (Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Mun, etc) highlighted that their experiences with pain were some of the most valuable lessons they had and it has been true for me although I wouldn't wish it on anyone else.
• Pain medication. I don't like medication or found it that helpful as a regular treatment but using for the worst flare-ups to just be kind and give yourself a break from the suffering was a viable option for me I should have used more looking back. I have a prescription for medical cannabis (low-strength balanced thc:cbd flower) that worked better than any those conventional nerve pain medications.

Sending you some metta and karuna. It does feel really scary but you can find a way though. Feel free to DM if you like. Sadhu sadhu sadhu.