If you’ve ever been told “it’s all in your head,” you know how invalidating that can feel.
Here’s the truth:
Pain is real. And it’s also created by the brain.
This isn’t about imagining pain—it’s about understanding the pain neuromatrix: the complex network of brain regions that process and generate the pain experience.
🧠 Meet Your Pain Neuromatrix
When you stub your toe, pull a muscle, or experience chronic pain, it’s not just your tissues reacting. Your brain receives input from your body and interprets it through multiple centers, including:
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The somatosensory cortex (physical sensation)
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The anterior cingulate cortex (emotional suffering)
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The prefrontal cortex (meaning, anticipation)
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The insula (internal body awareness)
Together, these regions make up the pain neuromatrix—a kind of "neural committee" that decides what you’ll actually feel. And the brain activity in each of these centers differs from person to person, shaped uniquely for each of us based on a multitude of factors.
The longer pain sticks around, the more sensitive and reactive this network can become—even when there’s no ongoing tissue damage.
🧘♀️ Where Mindfulness Comes In
Here’s the exciting part:
Mindfulness changes brain activity in the pain neuromatrix.
Research shows that regular mindfulness practice:
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Decreases activity in emotional centers of the brain during pain (especially the anterior cingulate cortex)
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Reduces the intensity of pain that’s felt—without numbing or suppressing it
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Dampens activity in areas related to pain anticipation, which can be a huge driver of chronic pain
And here’s the kicker: these changes happen even if the pain is still present.
In other words, the pain might still be there, but the suffering doesn’t have to be.
🌀 Mindfulness Doesn’t Eliminate Pain—It Changes the Relationship
Mindfulness isn’t about pretending pain doesn’t exist.
It’s about stepping back from the mental and emotional swirl around it—the fear, the future-tripping, the self-blame—and learning to meet pain with clarity, softness, and even curiosity.
With practice, you start to rewire how your brain processes discomfort. You become less reactive. Less fused to the pain story.
And over time, that can mean less pain—or a lot more life around the pain.
Your brain is adaptable. Your nervous system is listening.
And each moment of mindful awareness is a vote for change.
With you in the rewiring,
If you're ready to dive into the types of practices that can drive this rewiring, check out my course, Pain in Panorama. It's here to guide you!
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