Being in pain makes being present extra challenging.

On a physical level, being in the present moment while our body is in pain is often extremely unpleasant. There is a part of us, understandably, that wishes we could escape from it entirely.

At the same time, the experience of pain itself can be overwhelming—to our senses, our thoughts, our emotions. It can feel like drowning, when what we long for is just a moment of peace to rest in.

In today's guided meditation, longtime meditation teacher and pain expert Vidyamala Burch offers a tender practice to find a middle way—one that doesn't lean into denial or give in to overwhelm, but rather allows all that is happening to be gently met, as Vidyamala says, with "wholeness, integration, and kindliness."

This meditation is part of our Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement series, where we're sharing guided practices from the women featured in our 2025 special edition of Mindful magazine.

If you'd like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week.

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Show Notes

Find more from Vidyamala Burch here.

You can learn more about Vidyamala's story and how she came to be a leader in the mindfulness movement on Mindful.org, where we interviewed her for our 2025 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement feature.

And more from Mindful here:

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