Chronic pain

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam,

 

In a couple of months from now I and some other Kundalini Yoga teachers

in the Netherlands will organize a workshop for people with chronic

pain. The goal is to introduce them to techniques from Kundalini Yoga,

so they may experience how it can make a difference for their lives. It

is not for a specific type of pain, since we would like to include

everyone. Topics for the program of the day that come to mind are

breath, meditation and chanting.

 

Does anyone have a suggestion for suitable yogasets for such a day?

 

If you have personal experience with chronic pain, what kind of

exercises were most helpful to you?

 

Bless you,

 

Rai Singh

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam Rai Singh,

I worked in a pain clinic so have some experience in this area. Since

there are many causes of chronic pain there's no one magic formula

that will work for everyone. Breath, meditating and chanting can all

be ways to help people suffering chronic pain to manage their pain.

Though, of course, chronic pain offers the meditator a very real and

difficult challenge that should not be underestimated.

 

Personally I would rarely use a kundalini yoga kriya for anything but

very minor cases of sporadic chronic pain for a number of reasons too

long to go into here (since there are too many reasons that are

dependent upon individual conditions). Please be very careful since

many kundalini sets entirely contradict what someone with certain

injuries or physical limitations should be doing (I worked in

conjunction with physiotherapists to define what each client was

individually capable of doing and which movements would be beneficial

and which would be harmful. There were also medical doctors and

psychologists on the team.) What I found benefited almost everyone was

gentle pranayama, visualisation and focusing on relaxation. It's very

important to stay away from vigorous "keep up"kinds of teaching when

dealing with people suffering from chronic pain due to the fact that a

common psychological aspect of chronic pain is that sufferers tend to

overdo and not know or respect their physical limitations.

 

Are any of the teachers involved in the workshops experienced in

working with people with chronic pain? What is your understanding of

chronic pain? I ask not to be critical but simply because my

experience leads me to understand just how vulnerable and desperate

people living with chronic pain can be. It's not that I don't think

yoga can be very helpful, I know it can be. It's just that yoga can

also be harmful and even potentially dangerous for someone suffering

from an injury that causes chronic pain. Chronic pain that's a result

of fibromyalgia also comes with it's own set of issues that need to be

addressed from a number of different avenues. Once again, gentle yoga

can be very helpful but only when it's in conjunction with specific

considerations and approaches. It's also useful to know why certain

things work and others don't, and to be able to explain this to the

client so that they can evolve their own methods to manage their pain.

 

Good luck with your workshop and gathering more information. Please

keep in mind that though there are general techniques that work for

most people that chronic pain is actually a condition that requires

individual treatment so what works for one person may actually be

dangerous for another, and that chronic pain brings with it its own

set of challenges emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically.

blessings

ovasoul

 

 

Kundaliniyoga, "Wieger Wesselink" <wieger

wrote:

>

> Sat Nam,

>

> In a couple of months from now I and some other Kundalini Yoga teachers

> in the Netherlands will organize a workshop for people with chronic

> pain. The goal is to introduce them to techniques from Kundalini Yoga,

> so they may experience how it can make a difference for their lives. It

> is not for a specific type of pain, since we would like to include

> everyone. Topics for the program of the day that come to mind are

> breath, meditation and chanting.

>

> Does anyone have a suggestion for suitable yogasets for such a day?

>

> If you have personal experience with chronic pain, what kind of

> exercises were most helpful to you?

>

> Bless you,

>

> Rai Singh

>