Pain and meditation

My left hip has been aching and hurting for the last few days. It also seems to be a bit swollen in comparison with the right hip which is something I hadn't noticed before.

I'm not quite sure why the pain has been so bad over the weekend but I suspect that the seats in the movie theatre had something to do with it. The seats we sat in for each movie aren't in very good shape because they've had a lot of use over the years. We like to sit in the center up high enough so we're a couple of levels below the top of the screen and so that the screen completely fills our vision. These seats are very popular and get a lot of use, so the seats themselves are kind of broken.

Even though the pain was very, very bad through last night, it's gone now and I think I have meditation to thank for that.

This meditation session, we're working on ways to be aware of what our brains are thinking. I don't know if you've tried meditation before, but if you have, then you probably know that while you're trying to focus on your breathing or whatever your brain has a tendency to go off on other tangents.

It isn't just the brain that does its own thing, of course. Sitting (or lying) in one place can cause some discomfort as well, which is distracting. So today in meditation class, we *looked* for discomfort or pain in our bodies (instead of waiting for it to distract us) and sort of breathed through the pain, trying to soften the muscles around it. We repeated this process several times over the course of five or ten minutes.

And surprise! The pain lessened! By this afternoon, it was way better!! Yay :) This is something that I will keep in mind next time the pain is bad.