Changing the Color Of Pain

By Donald Pelles, PhD

Pain often has a purpose it is a signal alerting us that something in our body (or our life) needs attention. “Your foot is injured go easy on it,” or “See a doctor, get that arm taken care of!” But sometimes, even after we have received the signal, the darn thing still hurts. You want to say, “Ok, I know about it, I'll get it fixed now stop!” But it's usually not that easy. So here is something to do, with yourself or someone else, to temporarily alleviate this kind of pain (but do get it taken care of).

Say your hip is hurting and you would like for it to feel better, at least for a while. Take yourself inside that hip, where it hurts, and ask, “What color is it in there?” Let's say the answer is “red.” Now ask yourself, or your hip, “What would be a more comfortable color?” Suppose that more comfortable color is “light, watery blue” (the particular colors depend on the individual, sometimes even the body part).

Now begin to change the color inside your hip, moving gradually through the spectrum, from red to red-purple, then to purple, and to blue. Now let that blue slowly fade, to sky-blue, to light blue, and finally to that very comfortable light, watery blue. Let that color swirl around inside the hip, at just the right temperature, turning everything bone, muscles, nerves, and skin to that light, watery blue. Now take a deep breath, let it out, and open your eyes. How does it feel now? Chances are, much better. (If not, there are several other of these mind tricks you can do what works is very individual.)

The principle here is this the pain registers in the kinesthetic sensory system. By asking the color, you move parallel into the visual system. You change the color to something else and this changes the original feeling, relieving the pain, for the time being at least. Amazing, yes!

If it comes back later, do it again.