Two Techniques to Relieve Headaches

One of the most frequent peripheral issues my clients bring to our sessions is their history of debilitating headaches, either regular of high-octane migraine. I can offer here two methods that have proven very effective for most of them. In sessions, we can do a fw things that remove them forever for most sufferers. i know, because in the past I suffered with incredible head-splitters! Thankfully, they are a thing of the past.

Either of these methods could succeed right now if you let yourself imagine that what I suggest here were true.When you imagine that all the things I share with you can indeed be real for you, in your own particular way, you may find relief. If at first you discover only a small improvement, this is surely better than nothing and certainly better than the complications from most drugs. These methods work best if you can allow yourself to be curious enough to watch the effect of your imagination on your body. My request to find the color, quality or texture of your pain has a purpose. Proceed as if your headache has a color, quality and texture, whatever that might be. It is often different for each headache, strangely enough. You should be sure to sense some particular correspondence between the qualities that you imagine and the pain itself.

For example, when you do get into feeling out what it might be like if your headache had any particular physical quality, if the substance of your headache appears to be so annoying that its color couldn't be anything but mucky gray and brittle, then that's perfectly fine for your pain under the xircumstances.

All of my techniques are designed to suit an individual's particular situation and thereby increase their effectiveness. I caution you, however, that if you simply can't find it in you to pretend or maybe have even forgotten how, you may resign yourself to a lifetime of pain, suffering and endless sick time and medications. Help yourself and remember what it was like when you were a child and could pretend that you were in the middle of alligator infested waters in your family's living room, hopping among pieces of furniture to avoid being devoured. Maybe that's too self-revealing, but you know what I mean; you can remember how easy it was to imagine the most amazing things if you like! The imagination is an extremely underutilized powerful tool if focused properly.

The First Technique

Spend a moment to get in touch with the headache. I know it sounds weird, but when we attempt to avoid the actual feelings involved in the headache this fuels it. Shining the light of consciousness on a dilemma is often the first step toward release and improvement. Once you're in touch with it, notice exactly how and where you feel it inside your head; where it is, what it's doing, how it's doing it. Notice if it's pounding, pulsing, sharp, piercing, in the back, front, more to one side, the left backside, etc. Begin to just tenderly locate it as specifically as possible, in some specific physical way in your head.

Pretend you have a lump of child's clay, play dough, or silly putty in your hands, and make it any color you think matches the pain of the headache. This moldable clay is your headache. As we go through this "pretending", let it take on any texture or even have a sound.

Change the clay into a color that's just like this headache if you could really pull it out of your head and look at it. It can be all one color, many colors, or be changing in dullness, shininess, or brightness as well.

Imagine that your headache has a smell. Just notice it. You may be surprised by the smell. Notice any sound. Sometimes people have said it has a wheezing or whining sound, sometimes a pounding or clanging, sometimes a crying or whimpering or yelling sound. Whatever it is, don't worry, we'll take care of ending it all in a moment. Persist and watch what happens. If you're like me, you like pleasant surprises. Be a good sport and let's see how well it works for you.

Once you have the color, texture, smell and sound of this darn thing within your hands, slowly press it smaller, changing the size and shape of the clay, noticing as you do this if it had lumps, sharp edges, bumps, pinpoints, large spikes, holes, or whatever. Make it feel smaller in your hands, as if it is evaporating, dissolving, or just disappearing somewhow. Notice whether it feels hot or cool, damp or dry, rough or smooth to the touch. Does it throb, ooze, or move in your hands? Does some of the clay fall on the floor where you can stomp it out or just dissolves like smoke, fading away, leaving nor a stain or residue anywhere, like melting snow or maybe a small ring from dissolving bath bubbles? You can actually remove some of the clay a bit at a time to reduce its size if you like, noticing that headache diminishing each time you do so. Take all the time you need in the next few minutes to do this in your own way, making it work for you. Watch the color and sound fade away, watch it shrink and dissolve as you smush it smaller or break it into smaller pieces that get thrown away into a bottomless little hole or burn up at the earth's core, anything at all that works. Notice how the smell may be receding, the sound is dying out too. If it is not dissolving fast enough for you, pretend that you can do anything you need to, to shrink that color, texture, smell and sound, anything at all. Throw it into infinity, burn it with a flamethrower, anything. Yeah, like that, that's right. Kill it dead! Yeah!

If it's not yet gone already, pay attention to how it may be disappearing as you mold, move, and shrink this dwindling mass of clay. Where are the sounds, how soft are they now, what lower pitch or modulation are they, and do they actually shrink by themselves as they die out while you hold or throw this stuff away from your head?

Gradually soften the color and lessen the brightness, making that headache insignificant, helpless and powerless, like a toy without a battery. Then throw the old toy away. Eliminate any sharp corners into rounded ones, lessening the length or sharpness of any spikes, pins or cracks. And then begin to slow down any movement it has so that it's immobilized, and slow any throbbing down until it's absolutely and completely shrunken and lifeless. With your hands and imagination working together, change the texture to make it more peaceful and restful. As it fades, notice how the pain recedes farther qnd farther away. Even if you don't notice any major chaages yet, keep shrinking it, because it may take your physiology some time to flow through and connect with what you're doing sooner.

Allow yourself to notice that the sounds may have become quieter, more muffled as they become soothed in the palms of your hands.

Allow yourself to continue shrinking the evaporating material in your fingers, smaller and smaller, nearly so small that it's a speck small enough to hold between your thumb and forefinger. Now just flick it away like a piece of dirt! Way, way over the horizon, too far to bother anyone at all any further.

Technique Two

With the location of the pain inside your head in mind, imagine that you have a kind of submarine periscope device or bomber site targeting that has cross hairs on it that lets you pinpoint exactly its position, looking for the precise center of the most intense part of the pain. Focus that precision periscope right in to locate that central point of intensity, and notice that outside that central point is a huge area free from any pain. Keep pinpointing the central point, moving that periscope until you can't find any of the intense pain anymore, then look for the lesser painful targets, one by one, finding their central points, noticing how much less pain is outside that central part, until they're all gone. Notice how different the inside of your head feels now. When you pinpoint the area of intense pain, you notice more of the vast area of nerves that feel better than that small pin point.

Once at a conference a very pleasant person appeared to be in painful distress and I discovered that she was experiencing a full-blown migraine. With her permission, I guided her through this technique that you are using just before lunch. She went through it like a good sport even though she could not concentrate at all. Basically, the only thing she could do was listen and not even be committed. But we agreed that just listening to my words evoked the images in her mind, so we went ahead. She was willing to try a jackhammer if she could find one, so I guess this didn't sound so crazy at the moment! After we took those few minutes, she did notice a slight reduction of the migraine, but not much. Then she went off to get some water and sit quietly and I lost track of her. After she returned, she and I were speaking and I asked her how she felt. She looked at me strangely, until she realized that she had completely forgotten about her headache until my question reminded her and she laughed in pleasant surprise, saying she felt great!

Please share this technique if you feel it has even a small amount of value. I know this works because I used it for myself out of sheer desperation. I had spent over twenty years with such severe migraines that once very few weeks, like clockwork, I simply had to crawl into an absolutely pitch dark room with my head covered with fifty heating pads and no one or no thing could disturb me for an extended period, often a full day or more. My lost work time and productivity was only rivaled by the precious lost time with my family and friends. I have not had even one headache that lasts more than a few minutes since I developed this technique. You need to let go enough to let it work. I wonder how useful you'll find this next time.

Dr. Jaz would appreciate any feedback or questions you may have. Call 914-960-2882 or email at yesdrjaz@mail.com. Feel free to share these techniques with friends and family, and please credit Dr. Jaz when you do. With blessings to all.