In her book, “small bites: mindfulness for everyday use”, Annabelle Ziner wrote,
“Most of us have never been taught how to deal with physical pain in a positive way. (I agree with Annabelle) Emotional pain often arises as a result of physical pain, and this can cause us to suffer. We suffer because our mind builds a resistance against the unpleasant feeling of physical pain. The mind says that this pain shouldn’t be there…No one can escape this fact. The body is not set up to exclusively produce pleasant feelings; there will also be unpleasant feelings…Adopting an open, compassionate attitude toward pain is one of the most important steps you can take toward suffering less….After you’ve carefully investigated pain, you can move your attention to a different or more distant area in your body where there neutral or pleasant sensations. For example, when you’re experiencing a headache you can focus instead on the sensations in your feet or hands. This helps enlarge your field of perception; the pain is no longer the only thing in your mind. You allow the pain a wide space in which it can exist with other sensations…At the end of the practice, you should be aware of feeling your entire body one more time and smile at it kindly…”
When we went to a dental clinic for teeth cleaning and filing, I used this method to cope with my pain. My head hurt a lot when I was suffering from COVID, the practice of this method in a mindful way helped me not only cope with the pain but also had the energy to take care of the other three people in the same house.