You Are Not Your Pain: Using Mindfulness to Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Restore Well-Being – An Eight-Week Program by Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman. I first started listening to this audio book when I was suffering from insomnia due to a severe sinus problem. For a meditator this type of disease is the biggest pain in the neck possible because breath is such an important part of the practice. I found this book to be an absolutely golden resource in helping me to deal constructively with my pain and insomnia symptoms. The authors stress the difference between primary and secondary pain. Primary pain is the rock bottom pain that is a necessary consequence of your physical symptoms. However, many of us magnify it by making the most of all our options for creating secondary pain: catastrophization (this pain will NEVER go away), anger (why ME God!), self-blame (I deserve this because…). This book was a huge comfort to me as I waiting to get treated. Like the other eight week course this book proposes that you can make a start by practicing meditation for about 20 minutes a day for eight weeks.
Because the narrator has changed her English sounding first name to the Buddhist Vidyamala I was expecting to find the promotion of Buddhist ideas in the text but I appreciated the fact that the text steered clear of religion so I would be happy to recommend this to anyone. Good job!