Methods For Living With Pain And Illness - by Vidyamala Burch

COURSE

Methods For Living With Pain And Illness

With Vidyamala Burch

Guided by Vidyamala Burch, an internationally renowned specialist in mindfulness for pain, this 10 day course provides multiple tools to help you free your mind, even if your body is hurting. Immensely practical, you will learn a variety of mindfulness methods and approaches to reduce your suffering and get your life back on track.

SecularConcentrationRecovery & HealingPainSecular MindfulnessMindfulnessBreathing Meditation

Meet your Teacher

Vidyamala Burch
Manchester UK

Vidyamala sustained life-changing spinal injuries in her teens. She has been using mindfulness and meditation to help manage her pain and disability for over 30 years and is recognized as an international leader in this field. In 2001 she founded the international Breathworks organization that has grown to offer Mindfuness-based Pain Management programmes (MBPM) in over 25 countries. She is co-author of the best-selling Mindfulness for Health (published as You are Not Your Pain in the USA). In 2014 this won first prize in the British Medical Association book awards. In 2008 she wrote Living well with Pain and and in 2016 she co-authored Mindfulness for Women.

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10 Days

12.1k students

4.9 stars

16 min / day

Recovery & Healing

English

Lesson 1

Vidyamala’s Story – Using Mindfulness to Manage Severe Spinal Pain

In this session we will hear Vidyamala’s story of using mindfulness to live well with life-changing spinal injuries that she sustained in her teens. She will share the major insights gained over more than three decades of mindfulness practice and the central role of breath awareness as a way to ease pain and release tension. She includes the helpful slogan “when in doubt, breathe out!” as a rule for living. This session also includes a guided Breathing Anchor meditation.

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Lesson 2

Letting Go of the Struggle

In this session we will learn how to use awareness to divide pain, or whatever symptom or difficulty we are experiencing, into two components: 1. Primary Suffering - the unpleasant feelings in the body 2. Secondary Suffering - the extra suffering that arises from resistance and reactivity. We’ll learn how to accept the primary suffering; to soften resistance; and reduce secondary suffering, thus reducing the overall burden of suffering. This session also includes a guided Body Scan meditation.

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Lesson 3

Get a Handle on Your Thoughts

In this session we will learn how to manage our thoughts and emotions about our pain or illness. Many of us feel our minds are out of control, like a monkey leaping about a tree, which adds to our torment and distress. Mindfulness can help us radically change our relationship to our minds and develop perspective and calm. We can develop a mind like an elephant – stable, dignified and steady. We’ll practice a Breathing Anchor meditation to develop this skill.

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Lesson 4

Moving with Your Breath

In this session we will practice some very gentle mindful movements to help get an experience of moving with a soft breath and with balanced, appropriate effort. This will help us experience a more gentle way of moving so we can then take that attitude into the various movements of everyday life. Instructions are given on how to adapt this session if your physical ability to move is limited in any way, making the session appropriate for all.

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Lesson 5

From Resistance to Acceptance

In this session we will learn how to come into a more caring relationship with ourselves – to respond to our own difficulty the way we would naturally respond to a loved one who was hurting. Many of us oscillate between denying our experience on the one hand or being overwhelmed by it on the other. With mindfulness we can find a middle way of deeper acceptance and kindness. We’ll practice a Compassionate Acceptance meditation to help cultivate this.

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Lesson 6

The Treasure of Pleasure

In this session we will learn how to appreciate and enjoy pleasant experience that is always present, waiting to be noticed, alongside pain and difficulty. Mindfulness opens us to everything more deeply: accepting difficulty as we did in Day 5, and in this session becoming more sensitive to simple pleasures such as the light shining through the window, warm hands etc. This session includes a Treasure of Pleasure meditation to help cultivate this skill.

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Lesson 7

Go with the Flow

In this session we will learn how to cultivate a stable and open awareness as we reflect on the nature of life. We will see how everything is more fluid than we normally realise - including our experience of pain or illness. We will learn how to rest within this sense of flow with calm and depth, rather than pushing away painful experiences and clinging onto pleasant ones which is our more normal, unsatisfactory, mode of living. This session includes an Open Heart meditation.

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Lesson 8

You Are Not Alone

In this session we will learn how to use the self-awareness cultivated so far on the course as an opportunity to feel empathy with others. By getting to know ourselves more deeply, by inference we get to know humanity. Pain and illness can be isolating and we can feel very alone and separate. But using reflection we can profoundly shift our perspective and imaginatively connect with others on the basis of commonality rather than difference. This session includes the Connection meditation.

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Lesson 9

Daily Life Practice

In this session we will learn how to take our mindfulness practice into daily life. If we are to live well with our pain or illness it is essential to maintain mindfulness as often as possible throughout the day, not just when we are meditating. We do this by learning to find the middle way between ‘Booming’ and ‘Busting’, and achieve more harmony and ease in the midst of normal activities. This session includes the Three Step Breathing Space meditation.

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Lesson 10

Welcome to the Rest of Your Life

In this session we will summarise all the key points from the previous nine days to embed the learning of the course. It has been a systematic and thorough programme providing mindfulness and compassion skills for anyone living with pain and/or illness. This session ends with the tantalizing image of becoming a warrior with a soft heart - embodying boldness and courage as well as tenderness and compassion. This session ends with a Compassionate Body Scan meditation.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 389 community questions and 135 audio replies from Vidyamala Burch. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

389

4.9 (1187)

Recent Reviews

Paula

January 27, 2026

This was so helpful for developing skills in living with my pain. I am going through cancer treatment and I use these strategies and it gets me through moment by moment

Karen

January 24, 2026

I found this course really helpful, thank you.

Maureen

September 19, 2025

This course allowed me to be in the moment. It has taught me to be grateful for the good things in life and to be more positive. I'm going to do this course again. Thank you

Dan

August 6, 2025

What a wonderful course! Thank you for this kind, insightful and incredibly helpful teaching 🙏🏼

Radhe

July 30, 2025

Excellent course on working with pain

Paulette

July 28, 2025

Many thanks for your guidance on cultivating acceptance and kindness. I am finding my way to the middle way.

Tomi

June 5, 2025

Instructive, compassionate Ava nice rhythm with meditation. Thank you very much-I’ll be sharing this with friends.

amanda

April 22, 2025

Thanks so much. Beautiful yet practical course presented with tangible grace and genuine care. Life changing

Donna

April 20, 2025

This is my second time going through this course. It was so incredibly helpful with managing my pain. Thank you.

Emily

March 24, 2025

Very helpful and compassionate. Thank you.

Laura

February 2, 2025

Thank you Vidyamala! I’m reading your book mindfulness for health, so I was delighted when I came across your tracks and courses on this app. I’m benefiting greatly from your guidance and I’m extremely grateful to you for sharing your skills so generously.

Olivia

January 29, 2025

Excellent course with actions and mindfulness I will carry forward in my life and journey with a chronic situation. So helpful and lovely voice and guidance. Thank you! Namaste 🙏🏻☺️

Sherene

January 15, 2025

Very helpful and specific to this problem

Mary

December 11, 2024

Ms Burch is so warmly wise. I plan to do this whole course over again right away. May we all be strong and serene.

Karen

December 11, 2024

What a beautiful course! Acknowledging and observing physical and emotional pain instead of resisting pain. Creating acceptance and balance in life and experience. Very cool, thank you.!

Ellen

October 19, 2024

This 10 day course really helped me shift my relationship with the chronic pain of my body. So many tools, so clearly and kindly given. Thank you!

Brandi

August 13, 2024

Extremely useful for someone battling daily chronic pain. I want to start the course all over again. Thank you for creating this 🙏I’ve been waiting for something like this. ❤️

Paul

June 24, 2024

A great short course.

Kate

June 8, 2024

An excellent course. Thank you so very much your wisdom and experience are invaluable. I shall return to the course many times. Wishing you well.

Penny

May 17, 2024

I love Vidyamala. Such a lovely calm friendly voice and wisdom

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