(Short Voice) #19 Let me bore your pain away Jason Newland 11th March 2025

Hello and welcome to a very sunny day outside. The windows open because it kind of needs to be really. But there's a lot of lawn mowing action going on and people in the gardens coughing and stuff so just just let you know there's a bit of background sound.

But this is not a sleep recording, this is let me bore your chronic pain away. Number 19 I do believe. So my name is Jason Newland.

I'm sure it sounds like dooland when I new land. My website is jasonnewland.com. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Only listen to this also when you know the cause of the chronic pain and only with the permission from your doctor.

Okay, so let me bore your pain away. It's very similar to the Let Me Bore You To Sleep recordings I do except it's a little bit more focused, slightly more focused. And all I ask is really one question, is it useful? That's all.

Only listen to these recordings if they're useful. So really what I would say is first of all I'm going to ask you to focus on one part of your body that has been causing you physical discomfort and gauge where it is on a scale of zero to ten from being zero to being ten which would be a big ouch, a big yelly ouch. And then you can notice how it feels at the very end of the recording, which may be 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour.

I really don't know at this point. And I'm just going to talk to you about some ideas you could use to change how you feel. And I've become very interested in quantum theory lately.

And just the idea that you know when you really go down when you have a microscope and you really go further and further and further and further and magnification to the point of atoms and all that stuff. It's all invisible to us. But that's what makes our existence.

That's what makes us. Vinnie, stop whining, please, mate. You got your food then, you got your water.

Well, he's just jumped on a settee. He's going to go to sleep, I think. He's been asleep all morning in the bedroom.

I think he probably wants to go for it. W-A-L-K. L-L-K.

So he's, we will do that in a minute, Vinnie. When we finish this, we'll do that thing you like. So when you think that actually this, because you know, if you look at your hand, for example, it's like you can look at it and say, oh, it's a hand.

I mean, what else are you going to say? It's going to be a hand, isn't it? But when you break it down into particles, it's not solid at all. In reality, from a minute perspective, and it's just a bunch of particles. And that gap between, you know, where you are and the wall, or the tree, or wherever you're looking, where it's empty, it's not empty.

It's just as full of particles as we are. It's a strange concept, really. So I'm trying to get my head around it.

I mean, this isn't new stuff. But I've not really given it a lot of thought in the past. But I'm interested in some of the things that may be useful in a sense of helping to change your physical sensations.

And mine as well, to be fair. And that seems like a good use of this information. So when you consider, you know, each body part, it's just a bunch of particles.

Then that physical sensation that you're not particularly wanting to experience anymore, is also just a bunch of particles spinning chaotically. Now you can just imagine as you zero in on that physical sensation. And something weird happens, I noticed this about 25, no, 22 years ago, I think it was.

21 years ago. It's not really that important how long ago it was. It was 2004.

I was meditating. And my knee was really hurting, really hurting. And it's basically just due to the meditation, I was still trying to meditate on a, on a cushion.

And didn't really have the knees or the flexibility to do that. But I kept at it for about two years, three years, in fact, until I just decided I was going to sit on a chair. But what I did is, I think it was on my lunch break, because I was working in a shop downstairs, the Buddhist Center was upstairs.

It was a Buddhist run shop, it's a charity, it's a gift shop called Evolution. So I go upstairs for my lunch break. I've already had my sandwiches during the day anyway, so I didn't need to take that time to eat.

And I'm in the shrine room, meditating. At the time, I was going through a lot of anxiety, panic attacks and stuff, which is why I got involved in the meditation to start with. Back in November 2002.

So I was really there for that reason. But what I noticed is I had this pain in, I'm not going to say my left knee, it could have been my right knee. But one of my knees, it was just, you know, it wasn't like at the top of the scale.

It wasn't like a super ouch, but it was definitely oh, yeah, it was like, maybe four or five. It's like, this is, yeah, this is very uncomfortable. So what I did is, I thought I'm just going to focus on it.

As I'm there with my eyes closed, I might as well, it's a good kind of environment to be focusing on things. And I was probably doing the mindfulness of breathing meditation where you just count the breaths. So I did is I just, you know, I mean, you've got the mindfulness of breathing and you've got a body scan.

And I decided to go back to the body scan and just focus on the knee. And what I noticed, and this is a bit weird is, while I was focusing on the knee, my anxiety just wasn't there. Now, if I didn't know, if I didn't know what was causing the knee to be giving me discomfort, I imagine just knowing how I was, my anxiety would have really gone up.

But I knew simply just because I was crossed my legs. And that's why I was hurting. So I felt quite relaxed.

But at the same time, I had two options, you know, really, sit through it. Well, three options, sit through it, go and sit on a chair or just get up and do something else. Well, actually, there's loads of options I could have laid down or could have just started, got up and started juggling.

But you know, there's lots of different things I could have done. Gone for a run. But I decided just to sit there and focus on that part of your body that's causing the problem.

So I focused on that. And I've never done this before. Because it seemed the opposite to what is normal to do.

You know, I was very much of the mind of distraction. I think that was my, my more. Yeah, that's the way my mind went back then.

Very much do something else to distract from that discomfort. And usually at the time, I was really more dealing with emotional discomfort than physical discomfort. So I'd be distracted myself with things and doing stuff in order to distract myself from the my thoughts and my emotions.

Now, I'm not saying I don't do that anymore, but I do it less than I used to. So distraction was my, I guess, relaxation and distraction were two things that I would use in order to try and calm down. But on this occasion, I thought, I'm just gonna prod, prod it with my mind in a way, just going to explore it.

Because I knew it wasn't anything serious. I knew it's just the knee. I've had issues with my knees, ever since I was a kid, because I used to do karate.

And I think I kind of damaged my knees and my toes a little bit during that period. And I also used to, it's ridiculous. I can't believe I'm telling you this.

When I was eight, I was really into shaken Stevens. He was singer. Now, you might not know who he is.

But he was the most successful recording artist in the 80s in the UK. Like, above everyone. He was the number one record, it's like single recording artist.

Not the biggest band, but the recording artist, shaken Stevens throughout the whole of the 80s. And I loved him. And he was around in the late, you know, in the 70s as well.

I fell in love with him probably in the 70s. And so when I was eight or nine or whatever, I used to have posters of him and he was already famous at that point. But he became like even more famous in the early 80s.

So I used to do his dance. And he was kind of like a our version of Elvis in a way, just it always wear was nice, nice to the helicopter to go past just as we're doing this. Thanks.

He used to wear denim, a bit like I suppose Elvis in Jailhouse Rock. That kind of gets up. So I'd have a denim jacket, tight denim jeans.

I'm not sure if he had blue suede shoes, but he had those kinds of you know, that that kind of stuff. And probably a white t shirt. And he had his hair in a quiff like Elvis did in his early days.

And he was brilliant, loved him. I wasn't the only one, millions of people loved him. And still do.

That love does not end just because he's now 90 or whatever, and I'm 80. No, still still loving the Lord. And there's only one.

There's only one Sagan Stevens. And even though I'm slightly older than I was back then, you know, still got a place in my heart, just like all the other bands and musicians and TV shows from when I was a kid. So he did this thing where he would.

This is the boring part, by the way. You know, in case you're wondering what you you were mildly interested a minute ago now you're talking about shaking dancing. Yes, there's more to come.

So this, this is part of the boring. You're the bottom line is how do you feel? How do you feel different? And how do you feel at the end? That's that's what this is about. I'm going to talk about techniques, but I'm not expecting anyone to do anything.

But something changes. And that's what this is about. And that's why people listen to them, I guess, because people do listen to these recordings, who go figure, I don't know why, but they do.

So I was saying, Oh, yeah, I was at this. I couldn't even tell you what kind of party it was. I think it was a wedding disco.

So we didn't go to the wedding, I don't think but me my family. So I have my two brothers. Maybe my little brother, but he was tiny.

We went to this wedding. And I was dancing. I don't think they played any shaken Stevens.

But that didn't matter because I I danced like shaken Stevens. Regardless of who was playing. I even I'm pretty sure the bride and groom when they got home and maybe went on their honeymoon.

As I sound so romantic. Yeah, so romantic. And I'm so I'm so glad I married you the most beautiful man, you're the most beautiful woman, you know, most beautiful, whatever.

So I'm so glad we got married. And what's the most romantic part for you? I think just seeing you walk down the aisle. That was just nice.

It's just Yeah, just I just knew. I realized I fall in love with you every time I see you. Soppy, soppy, soppy.

And what's your most enjoyable part? What's the most romantic part? Well, I think it's when we had the first dance. And I had you in my arms and I looked into your eyes. And I looked down and I saw this kid doing a shaken Stevens dance.

And yeah, so I'm probably in there in a few photographs on some of the wedding album. I wasn't wearing or denim. But I see I like to go a little bit further.

I wasn't content with shaken Stevens dance. I needed to push it. So he used to go down.

But he'd go quite low down with his knees, and then he'd like spring back up. And he'd be thrusting his hips and moving his knees around. You know, it's very like, you know, jealous rock kind of thing, but a bit more possibly a bit more movement.

So I went further and I dropped to the floor on my knees, like smashed my knees on the floor. And then jumped up and spun around. And I looked around to see if anyone was watching.

There's always occasional person a bit concerned about whether or not I needed an ambulance. But generally, it hurt. But I was a little kid and I didn't care for well, I'm going to suffer for my art.

I might not have actually thought those exact words when I was nine. But did I say nine or 19? Anyway, it went on for a while. Not the wedding, the wedding party didn't go on for 10 years.

That'd be weird. So I think I kind of ruined my knees. And I did that for a few years, constantly dancing and dropping to my knees and smashing them on the floor.

And then yeah. Yeah, it's not good. Another time, I went over had an axe.

This is true. So I don't might sound like I'm making it up. There was a tree at the bottom of the garden.

This is probably when I was about 11, 12. And my dad had us in the garden, cutting down trees and stuff and doing whatever. And so he gave me an axe to cut down that tree.

So the thing is, it wasn't like a sharp axe. It wasn't sharp enough. And it slid off the tree and landed on my knee.

That wasn't sharp enough to cut my knee. But it smashed into money and it was a heavy, heavy thing. So I mean, it's good that it wasn't super sharp.

Although I did have trousers on my jeans on. No, I didn't. Did I? I had shorts on.

So it went right in my knee. But it didn't. Didn't cut it, but it really bruised it.

So that might not have helped. And then there was a time when I fell out of a helicopter. I'm just just joking, making it up.

So but all the other stuff's true. Not relevant, but true. So I kind of knew that it's like just it's a knee thing.

So I'm sitting there. In my attempted cross legged position. And I've got 12345 different cushions, trying to just get comfortable.

I had another friend who was about six foot six. And he would do the same thing. But he needed the cushions because he was so big, his legs were so long.

And we was in a I remember we was in a meditation group. They were all kind of there, probably about 30 people. He fell asleep and he fell off his cushions.

It got a domino effect, like half the half the people fell over, they each other down. That was very funny. And so knowing what it is, like it's just a knee.

There's there's nothing to be concerned about. Which in a way, you know, if you know what it is, you know what the cause is. And you know that it's you don't need that danger signal from your brain, then it almost you could say halves the physical discomfort straight away.

It halves the energy that's not needed. So that was quite nice. So my knee just it did reduce to the point where like, I still would probably want it to go away.

But I was more intrigued, not the knee, but the physical feeling. I was intrigued. And I thought, okay.

I've been enjoying the pigeons. That's all part of the new therapeutic technique I'm using. Some people use really beautiful, you know, background music and I use pigeons.

Oh, well. No, I do have music as well in some of the recordings. So I've got, I'm focusing on my knee.

And I'm thinking, okay. Where is it? Where is that? I search for it, that feeling. And it's the, you know, it's the obvious voice in my head saying, well it's in the knee, isn't it? Like sarcastically.

Okay, yeah, but where is it? It's an old saying, I don't know where it came from, but it's a feeling, but can you hold it in your hands? Can you hold feeling in your hands? You may argue, well, if it's in my hands, I can. But I couldn't hold the feeling that was in my knees in my hands. It wasn't like a physical thing that I could actually hold, like water or dust or a pizza.

It could be an action man figure, lots of different, a bit of coal, headphones, whatever, could be any object. But it was just a feeling. So I thought, I'm just going to observe it.

Let's just see if I can find it. Because then again, the brain went in, of course you can find it, you know where it is, it's there. I said, okay, let's go look for it then.

This is where it went weird. Because the more I looked for it, I noticed it, it's almost like it started to hide from me. Like it was a game of hide and seek, or hide and go seek, whatever you call it.

I never realised, it took years before I realised that my brothers never looked for me. When we did, played hide and seek. Whenever I hid, I thought I was doing really well, because I never got found.

They weren't looking. Honestly, they just leave me for ages. Once I missed a whole Christmas.

So I'm looking for this feeling, realising it's not an actual thing. It's not a physical thing. I don't mean the knee, but the feeling isn't an actual physical thing.

It's just a feeling, just a sensation. And I'm thinking, well, why can't I find it? Because every time I sort of looked, it seemed to move, or transformed a bit. So I decided to go inside the knee.

With my mind, obviously, I don't, you know, I wasn't doing surgery on myself. So I just was looking inside, with my mind, going inside the feeling. And the feeling kept moving.

So I chased the feeling, and I'd follow it. And every time I followed it, that feeling reduced. Eventually, I was able to actually go inside the feeling, right inside it.

And you know what I found? Nothing. There was nothing there. No physical sensations whatsoever.

It was just absent of anything. And the more I looked, the less I found. Maybe that physical sensation's a bit like me as a kid.

The longer I stayed hid, the longer I stayed hid, the less chance of me getting found. I mean, maybe my brothers did look for me for a minute, and then got bored. So either that feeling is so well hid, that we just can't find it anymore.

Or when you go inside it, you realize that there's nothing there. And it was a really weird situation to realize that actually, by, I guess, in my mind, going into the molecules, going into that actual physical feeling, I'm not sure if there was a pigeon in the background singing to me at the time, but it changed. Genuinely changed.

Transformed into something else. But what it transformed into was almost like a nothing. Like it was just... very weird.

It struck me as being a bit strange. So for the next couple of years, probably a few years, I used to play around with this idea, with this technique. And whenever I got a bit of an ache or pain caused by maybe working out or caused by something just... I mean, especially because I've got an injury in my right shoulder, I used to use it in there.

And it would disappear because you get to a point where it's not there anymore. Because what you're looking for, when you go inside, it's not inside. Looking for something you can't actually hold in your hands.

Like verruca powder. I'm just trying to think of an object you can hold in your hands. A bottle of verruca powder is probably a bit weird.

Gerbil feed. Pack of six sellotapes. I don't know.

But you know, I'm just saying something you can hold in your hand. And then you go, it just went. It's like it wasn't there.

It's not like it just like some dramatic... There was no music. And it vanished like a magic trick. It just wasn't there.

It's a bit like the other day, I was searching all around the flat for my dignity. Could not find it. It's long gone.

Any kind of dignity I used to have. But seriously, this is kind of... I found it interesting. So I used to play around with it.

And whether it's the focus, because it's the opposite to what's expected. Because sometimes you could say, well, yeah, the reason it's causing so much discomfort, because you keep thinking about it. Yeah, but it's a different type of thinking, isn't it? It's thinking about it, but not wanting it.

Once you welcome it, once you actually focus on it in a sense of, okay, I'm coming in to visit. And it changes. I found that kind of fascinating.

And I suppose that sort of fits in with the whole quantum energy sort of thing. Because you know, there's the idea of physical sensations as quantum particles spinning chaotically. And then maybe by focusing on it, they start to just spin harmoniously, aligning into a soothing and balanced rhythm that radiates comfort and relaxation.

So it can change how you feel. Just with not just a focus, but a certain type of focus. Maybe a focus of intrigue, interest.

Just, I mean, sometimes that can be the difference that makes a difference. When you go into a situation, you're about to observe something, instead of already having an agenda and already having an opinion, to go with an open mind and to be interested in how that part of your body is going to feel different. And to do something maybe you've never done before is to almost welcome it.

And there's something to be said for thanking that part of your body. When maybe up till now you may have been cursing it. Maybe thanking it for looking after you.

The caring for you. Thanking it for all it's done your whole life for you. And these are just little ideas that may be useful or may just be boring.

Maybe a little bit of both. A little bit of each. But when we look for something, almost like a microscope, the most powerful microscope on the planet, inside your mind.

Realizing that the fact is, we're just molecules. Particles. And there's a gap between all of us.

All the different molecules and particles, there's a gap between them. And you go into that and there's a gap between them and it just goes on and on and on. Something's moving quickly, something's moving slowly.

So I'm going to test this on myself now, on my lower back. Although to be honest, my lower back's feeling, you know, relatively okay. It's sitting down seems to not always do it the best for me when I'm sitting at a desk.

Might be my posture, I don't know. But so I focus on my lower back. And it seems to be a bit of like an attitude thing.

By actually focusing on my lower back with an open mind, with a degree of friendliness towards that part of my body. There seems to be a warmth, a warm feeling arises. Like a warm greeting, maybe.

And what I'm going to do is focus on my lower back and start straight away with the part that has the most physical sensation. You know, maybe it's a pulse, maybe it's a throb, maybe it's just a like a sharp feeling. For yourself that is, but with me it's kind of, I can almost feel that it goes inward.

The feeling. I'm going to go in myself, I'm just going to focus on that one spot in my mind. And also physically, so I'm physically focusing on that spot in my lower back.

I was going to call this fine focused therapy back in 2004. Straight away, it's reduced, it's, I don't know if it's moving. What I do notice is, this is a weird thing that I've noticed happens.

I mean, normally I would do this without talking, so it'd be a bit quicker for me. But I notice sometimes when I focus on it and it's really, really relaxed, it sometimes feels a bit itchy, like inside the skin. Like the feeling is being replaced with a non-itch that necessarily needs to be scratched.

Just a feeling. Like a slight itch, but not irritating, just a comfortable. I suppose an after scratchy itch, like once you scratched it, it's like, oh okay.

Once it's been rewarded. So I'm trying to get the feeling back, but it's not coming back. I'm searching for it, it's almost like it's become, like me as a kid, hiding.

It's a very good hider. Well, I found a lesser feeling, so I'm going to go inside of that lesser feeling and follow, see where that leads me. And just go inside that feeling.

And that's just relaxed my back even more. I'm so relaxed, I feel I can just hear like a plane going past. Oh, and this, oh it is a plane.

And I don't always hear a plane every time I feel relaxed. I mean, that would be weird, unless of course a lift, like near a plane station. Oh, that was quite... So now, what I've noticed is the physical thing that I had, it's now, some of it is tense.

Not the bits are relaxed, the bits are relaxed, just relaxed. But some of the other stuff is just, it's transformed from being discomfort to just being a little bit a little bit tense. So I'm going to focus on that tenseness, on the muscles, the fibres.

And just focus on that for a few seconds. I mean, you can ask, just like, please relax. As you focus on that part of you, please relax.

Or you can just focus on it because it will just automatically relax, become loose. I suppose I could thank my lower back. Thank you for what you do.

Thank you for all that you've done over my life. Always been there for me. And I appreciate you.

And so do the pigeons. That's weird, my lower back's become really relaxed now. I don't know if it was the pigeons that did it.

Maybe the pigeons need to have their own podcast. Relax with Herbert. He's the main pigeon.

He's got his family. There's Gertrude, his wife, and he's got three kids. Paul, Stephen, and Arnold.

But I only really know the father, really. I don't really know the others. Gertrude won't talk to me anymore because... Ridiculous.

I borrowed a frying pan and I didn't return it in the exact same condition as she lent it to me. Pigeons and their frying pans. I said to her, look, you're not supposed to wash up frying pans all the time.

Put salt in them. If you go into any professional kitchen and they put salt in the frying pan, and don't keep washing up water and washing up liquid. See, she knows I'm talking about her.

All right. She was saying, yeah, it's my washing pan, my frying pan. If I want to wash it up with washing up liquid, I can.

It's up to me. If I want to wash, if I want to use stinging nettles, I will. It's up to me.

My frying pan, not yours. I lent it to you with good intention. Blimey, she's still going on.

All right, okay. However, she's willing to forgive me. If, if what? I didn't get that last part.

Oh, well. The one time I actually want the pigeons to start talking to me, nothing. I guess she'll get back to me later.

I hope she doesn't write me another letter. She says, you ever try to read pigeon really hard? So, I think there's something to be said for distractions, a good thing. It can be a really good thing, a distraction technique.

Sometimes I think people listen to me because I'm distracting. Listen to me talking about whatever nonsense comes out of my mouth. And it can be a distraction.

A little bit of a rest, a little bit of a break, a slight holiday. I've run out of vacation. I'm trying to think of other words that mean the same thing.

So, that was a big old bang outside in the garden. I wonder what that was. So, just notice how you feel now.

Zero to ten on the old scale. Where do you feel for that part of your body now? And I'm going to leave this recording. So, thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself. And if it was useful, please let me know. Lots of love.

Bye.