In this episode, we explore mindfulness and pain management with Dr. Christiane Wolf, an internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and Insight meditation.

More about Dr. Christiane Wolf:

Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD is a former physician, internationally known mindfulness and Insight (Vipassana) meditation teacher. She is board certified as an OB/GYN and holds a PhD in psychosomatic medicine from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. 

For over a decade Dr. Wolf was the lead-consultant and teacher trainer for the National Mindfulness Facilitator Training at the US Department of Veteran Affairs.

She is the author Outsmart Your Pain: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind and the co-author of the bestselling training manual for mindfulness teachers A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness.

Originally from Berlin, Germany, she is a senior teacher at InsightLA in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband. 

A full episode transcript is available below or on Buzzsprout.

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Episode Transcript

Quick Navigation (click the linked text below to jump to a new section)

• Intro
• Dr. Wolf’s personal and professional background
• Dr. Wolf’s career change from medicine to mindfulness
• What drew her to mindfulness
• Dr. Wolf and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training
• Dr. Wolf discussing her personal mindfulness practice
• What led her to write about mindfulness
• What pain are you referring to? How to distinguish between the different types of pain when applying mindfulness.
• Dr. Wolf talks about the “pain box” and the emotions and thoughts around the physical pain
• Why self-compassion is so critical in a mindfulness practice
• Dr. Wolf’s advice for individuals who are interested in mindfulness for managing pain
• Dr. Wolf discussing her future work and her final thoughts

*Edited for clarity*

Host 00:03

This is Wellness, Health and Everything Else: a NCHPAD Podcast.

Welcome to Wellness, Health and Everything Else: a NCHPAD Podcast. NCHPAD is the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability – the nation’s premier center dedicated to promoting the health and wellness of everyone. In each episode, we explore topics at the intersection of health, wellness and mobility limitations. If you have an idea for a topic, would like to learn more about a topic or are interested in our free resources, programs and partnership opportunities, email us at nchpad@uab.edu, give us a call at 866-866-8896 or check out our website at nchpad.org.

In this episode, we discuss mindfulness and pain management with Dr. Christiane Wolf, an internationally recognized mindfulness and Insight meditation teacher. For over a decade, Dr. Wolf served as the lead consultant and teacher trainer for the National Mindfulness Facilitator Training at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

She is the author of Outsmart Your Pain: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind and the co-author of the bestselling training manual for mindfulness teachers, A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness.

To get the episode started, here is Dr. Wolf discussing her personal and professional background.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 01:25

So, I have, I think, quite an unusual background. So, as you might hear, I have an accent, so I’m not a native English speaker, and the accent is German. And so, I grew up in Germany, went to medical school there and became a gynecologist, and worked in oncological gynecology. And that’s part of the story. My husband had the great idea to work in the U.S. for a year, and we had our first baby during that time. And I said, “Sure, let’s go to Los Angeles.” I was not particularly interested in leaving my job in Berlin, nor leaving the country, and I definitely had no intention to immigrate to the U.S. and actually never go fully back into medicine, but that’s how it turned out.

When I was a teenager, I discovered meditation, and I discovered meditation in something that we now call mindfulness. Back then, it wasn’t called that because secular mindfulness didn’t exist, so it was embedded in a particular brand of Buddhism. And I started practicing that, but I never taught that, because obviously that was my spiritual practice, and that had no place in the hospital back then. And so, when I came here, I was thinking about [whether] I wanted to go back into medicine. And there are lots of different reasons why I decided against that. But I was thinking about training as a mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher, which is probably the most famous mindfulness class, which was founded by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) in 1979, so I learned about that, and it made a lot of sense for me to teach that to my patients. That was at a point where I still thought we would go back to Germany. So I trained as a teacher in that, and I completely fell in love with what it can do for people who are not on a spiritual quest, who are not interested in Buddhism, who just struggle and suffer and are stressed out, and I was just amazed at how people take this initiative to do something for themselves, instead of just thinking, oh, the doctor needs to do it, or the doctor is the expert. That was just amazing. And so, this is how this whole shift happened for me. And there, of course, are [many] more details, but that’s it in a nutshell.

Host 04:33

Dr. Wolf discussed what led to her career change from medicine to mindfulness.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 04:38

I mean, some of the challenges… First of all, you don’t just leave medicine behind. So, I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was 15, and I spent a lot of time training for that, being in university, being in medical school, and doing my residency. So, I had no intention to actually leave my profession. There was a really long, difficult, and slow process over time. And for a long time, I still thought I would go back into medicine. But then, really, this mindfulness thing was suddenly something that I was really good at, I already had a lot of experience in, and was really in high demand. That was on one side, and on the other side was that, at that point, I had three children under the age of five, and I did not want to do another residency. So that would have been part of the package for me here as a foreign-trained medical graduate. And I decided, with the whole life and family balance, I will try to see if I can really make a living from being a mindfulness teacher and a mindfulness trainer, and that just turned out to work out pretty well. And the interesting thing in the end is that I still work so much in the medical field. This is why I’m here, because I have this background in medicine. So, for me, it still brings these two elements together, but without me actually having to be in the whole system of Western medicine, if that makes sense.

Host 06:32

We asked Dr. Wolf what drew her to mindfulness.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 06:35

Yeah, so how I got into mindfulness… For me, I was looking for, I would say, a spiritual path as a teenager. So, I grew up in a non-religious family, and I think I was always a seeker, and I always knew there was something more, and I wanted to experience more than what meets the eye. And so, I was really on a quest and reading different books. And eventually, I actually came across a group of people who practiced Buddhism, which was really interesting. So, it was not about a book or something I read, but I met people who were putting that into practice. What the teachings meant to them. I was barely 19, and I perked up, and something in me said, “You need to pay attention to this.” I don’t know if other people maybe had that, where it’s just like you meet a person, and you know, there’s just something about them, and then you learn they’re following this path, or they’re following this philosophy, or they’re following this religion, and it’s not about the letter on the page, but what it does to them. I was a very free spirit and very inquisitive and curious. One of the core teachings of Buddhism was that the Buddha said you don’t have to believe anything because somebody tells you it is the truth, but put it into practice and see if it works for you. And that worked for me.

So, I had a lot of doubt, and I could put things into practice. I’ll do this, and I’ll see if this works. And it did, and that gave me trust in the practice and in the teachings. So, in my years during medical school, I really threw myself into studying and practicing these teachings as best as I could, being in medical school. That was quite challenging, but, again, it never really occurred to me that these teachings could be made available to all people everywhere. What is really important, and I want to make this very, very clear, is that mindfulness is not self-Buddhism. Sometimes we hear that people are concerned that we’re just doing a backdoor Buddhist teaching, but we have to be very, very clear that Buddhism actually is a non-theistic religion. That means there’s no God in Buddhism. So, Buddha wasn’t a god. He was a human being. He had an amazing insight into how the human mind, or, as we would say, the human brain, works. It’s actually quite amazing. Why mindfulness works, or has become so popular, or works so well, is because we have quite a lot of research at this point showing the brain changes when we practice mindfulness. Behavior changes when we practice mindfulness. So, depression rates go down, and anxiety rates go down when we practice mindfulness. People become happier. But this is not because it’s a religion. It is because it’s a particular way, and sometimes people practice it as a tool. But when people do it for a longer period of time, it becomes a way of living; this is how I show up in the world. It can be deeply transformational.

Host 10:45

We asked Dr. Wolf what led her to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 10:52

When I first heard about MBSR, I wasn’t really interested in it because I thought, oh, mindfulness is not powerful enough. I was practicing this bandwidth of different practices, and I really loved it, as I said, in the Buddhist tradition. And then when I heard about mindfulness, I thought, What’s that about? But then, my teacher and friend here in L.A., Trudy Goodman, said, “Yeah, well, but you have patience, and you can teach what you’re practicing to your patients, but this is a method of how you could actually do that. Wouldn’t that be interesting to you?” And I said, “Yes, that is very convincing! I would do that.” I would learn to become a teacher so I could share that with other people.

So, I started teaching that, and I was amazed at how people can change in an eight-week format. I’ve seen people dabbling with meditation for years. We have practice groups. You come together once a week, you meditate together, and you talk a little bit together about the practices, but nothing has changed much. And then if you put people into something like a pressure cooker and say, “Okay, you have eight weeks, and we ask you to do like a home practice every day for about half an hour to 45 minutes.” That’s a huge ask, huge. Sometimes I have therapists telling me, “I can’t even get my patients, or my clients, to do something for five minutes, something new per day, and you ask them to meditate for half an hour or 45 minutes. How is that possible?” Of course, not everybody does that, but when people do that, just like with everything that we’re learning, we get better at it. If you want to learn to play the guitar or learn a language, if you put in time, you reap the benefits of that. And so, it was just amazing how people could change in that format. That was really convincing for me.

Out of that, I first certified in it, and then I also became a teacher trainer. And then eventually I started offering these classes, or was invited to offer these classes at our local VA Hospital here in Los Angeles, with the idea of cultural transformation. That’s a big ask for a big system like the Veterans Administration. And we started that, I think, in 2010. And then from there, we were asked to train clinicians in the system, because the vets were asking for mindfulness training. So, the word had gotten out that there was some good research. And their alternative treatments were really something that the veterans wanted. So, acupuncture and meditation and yoga, and tai chi. So, I started to develop a course, but then what we found was that the MBSR format is quite a lot, and our attention span is diminishing, especially with the use of our phones. So, it might be too much to ask people to practice for 45 minutes now, because they can barely—I can see that with my kids—they can barely pay attention to anything that is longer than a TikTok reel or something. I’m exaggerating a little bit, but the drift is definitely there. And so, we developed a program that was a little bit shorter and fitted better into a clinical schedule. So, MBSR is usually eight weeks, two and a half hours once a week, and then you have a full six or seven-hour day on a weekend on top of that. So that’s a lot of practice. And so, we developed it just to make it more adaptable for the VA or for a clinical setting. We adapted it, and then out of that, eventually my colleague, Dr. Greg Serpa, and I wrote a book about it, because we just kept getting asked the same question, “Have you written this down somewhere?” And we said, “No, we haven’t.” And then at some point, I was like, “Okay, we’ll write it down, and we’ll make a book out of it so that other people can benefit and learn how to teach mindfulness.”

Host 15:46

Here is Dr. Wolf discussing her personal mindfulness practice and how she incorporates it into her life.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 15:51

It feels these days, at least if you live in L.A., that might not be everywhere in the country, but if you live in L.A., it feels almost like everybody is meditating or has some form of meditation practice these days. But meditation is not specific at all. So, when people say, “Oh, meditating, that is just for me,” as if somebody said, “Oh, I work out,” that’s great, but what is that? What do you do? Do you go to the gym? Do you run? Do you bike? Do you swim? And so, with meditation, it’s very similar. And so, what we do is called mindfulness meditation. So, there are other meditations where the goal is to either relax or to stop thinking. Mindfulness is not like that. Mindfulness is really paying attention to what is here in this moment, just for this moment, and noticing when we’re actually not present, which is unfortunately most of the time. We learn to say, “Oh, I’m actually not here. And when I’m not here, I’m missing a lot, because that means, if I’m not here, my mind is on autopilot.” I can ask our listeners, where’s your mind when it’s not here? It’s either in the past or in the future. We say “rehashing” or “rehearsing.” And this is particularly important. I know the listeners here; they [may] struggle with chronic illness, or they struggle with disability. And so, the mind goes into the past. What was it like back then? What was it like before? What happened? Were there mistakes? Were there regrets? All of that. And that makes me feel a particular way. But the past is over. Right now, I’m here, and of course, we’re learning from the past. But the mind unfortunately has a tendency to ruminate and loop into going over the same thoughts over and over, and that often makes us feel bad. And then it does the same when it worries about the future, in particular, about a health condition. It does that because it’s worrisome, but actually, it is not helpful most of the time.

And we’re not saying you don’t have to plan or anything, but just right now, in this moment, is it helpful when the mind loops or worries about the future? The idea really is we train to be here right now. So right now, I’m on this podcast with you. I’m not in the past. I’m not in the future. And I noticed, I feel alive, I see you smile, so this is in the present moment. But I could also go totally on autopilot and just rattle something off, but that wouldn’t feel connected, and that is something that we can start to feel. So, we’re training to be more present, and then it is not about the meditation. So, the meditation is almost more like a lab where I learn about my mind, like, oh, this is what my mind keeps thinking about. Oh, I actually don’t have to stick with it. I actually am allowed, or I am capable of stepping out of that thinking loop right now and coming back to say, “Oh, what’s here right now? I’m here.” And that is a skill that is so helpful in everyday life. So, it is helpful for me in how I show up with my kids, how I show up with my partner, how I show up with my colleagues, and how I show up when I go grocery shopping. Do I see the cashier? Or is it just like a background? Then I’m just moving on autopilot. And we all know how important it is to have these little moments of connection, to feel seen for a moment, and to really feel heard for a moment. And that makes me feel more connected, of course. And then, of course, what we’re also learning in the practice is how do I work with challenging emotions? How do I work with difficult body sensations? Because of all of these things we are learning, our brain has a particular habit of how it deals with that, but it is often—I mean, sometimes it’s helpful—but very often, when it’s just on autopilot, we’re not getting in new information. How right now might be different. So, I use it all the time, and do I forget it? Of course, right? Because we cannot be mindful all the time. But this is why, in the meditation, we’re learning that now I’m here, and then at some point I notice, oh, I’m lost in thoughts; I’m not here. And then not be hard on myself, because the moment I notice I’m not present, I’m present again.

Host 21:02

We asked Dr. Wolf what led her to write about mindfulness.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 21:07

Yeah, so I already mentioned a little bit about how the book, Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness, came about. We just gave up with being asked all the time if we had that in writing. I had no intention of becoming a writer. Honestly, it really came out of that necessity. Actually, writing that book was pretty easy. Because all we did was write down what we have been saying so many times before. And in a way that was really joyful, because the book has become pretty successful; people learn how to become a mindfulness teacher, regardless of whether they’re clinicians or not. We have a lot of experience training people, and of course, when we get asked the same questions over and over, for people to have that in a book, I think it was really helpful.

And in the other book, Outsmart Your Pain, this will actually come out as a paperback with a new title in the new year. I love the title, Outsmart Your Pain. Some people say, “Oh, this is so negative,” but it’s really outsmarting your own brain. This is really what it is about. But it will come out under the title of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Chronic Pain. So very straightforward, because people, if they hear the title, Outsmart Your Pain, might not necessarily know what that is about. But how that one really came about was that I could see I had been working with people with chronic illness and chronic pain for quite a long time, and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot in the process of applying these teachings to people who have chronic illness or chronic pain. And I just noticed that in the healthcare system, not a lot of physicians, nurses, or the people who interact with people with chronic pain even know how useful mindfulness can be. And so, my original idea was not to write a book but to put together a pamphlet that says this is what mindfulness is. This is what self-compassion is. Here’s how it can help with chronic pain and how it can help with any chronic health symptoms. And then out of that, it just became more because I was also thinking, for the people who struggle, it might be helpful to have a very straightforward guideline, or guidebook, I should say. So, it has a short introduction to a topic. Then it has a guided meditation, which is written down as a script, but people can also download a version of me guiding the practice. So, I wanted to make it really easy for people to learn the practices. That’s how that came about.

Host 24:16

“Pain” can be a broad term. We asked Dr. Wolf what type of pain she is referring to and how to distinguish between the different types of pain when applying mindfulness.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 24:27

So, traditionally, we think about chronic pain as painful sensations that last longer than three months. That’s a very broad container, and it’s not very specific, but what is actually quite interesting is that there has been a lot of research about how the brain processes pain over the last decade. So, from when I went to medical school to where we are now, our thinking around pain, in particular chronic pain, has completely changed. And so, I want to share a definition with you, which I will read. And this is from the International Association for the Study of Pain, one big body [made up of] pain doctors, psychologists, and researchers who work with pain. They say that chronic pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling being associated with, actual or potential tissue damage. So, what this means is that pain is a personal experience that is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. This is not how we used to think about pain. Chronic pain in particular. We thought chronic pain was just something that, for whatever reason, isn’t completely healed. There’s still something wrong. So that’s usually what we think about pain. If there’s pain, there must be something wrong. And then we get really worried or scared about it, and we have a lot of resistance against it.

So, this is totally automatic; we know that nobody likes pain. We want to get away from it, and we get very nervous. But what we are learning, really, is that the way that pain is processed in the body has to do mainly with your brain’s interpretation of the pain or of the sensations that come up to a point where the brain can make pain out of memory. People find that very curious, and I’ll give an example, but before I give an example, I want to make sure that we’re not saying you’re making up pain. This is really important. So, back in the day, there was often this idea that if you are in pain, you go to the doctor, the doctor can’t find something, and says, “Oh, go see a pain psychologist.” And basically, the message that the patient got was, “Oh, I’m making this up. Or the doctor thinks I’m crazy.” No, all pain is real. This is really important. All pain is real. There is no imagined pain. But now, let’s come back to the image.

So, what could be something where the brain makes pain out of memory? An example that everybody knows is phantom limb pain. So, people know it can be one of the worst pains if we lose a limb. The brain creates pain in the limb that we don’t have anymore. On some level, you think that doesn’t make any sense. Brain, what’s wrong with you? You can see the finger is missing or something. But if you think about it, our brain’s main job is to keep us safe. And how does the brain keep us safe? It keeps us safe through the information that it gets from our body parts. And if it gets no information from a body part, or weird information from a body part, or information that is threatening, that is very scary for the brain. It’s very threatening for the brain. And so, the fact that suddenly there used to be information from that area, and now you don’t get any—I’m talking about the brain not getting any information—is super threatening for the brain. So, one explanation of how they think phantom limb pain works is the brain creates a huge output of pain, basically getting your, the brain’s owner’s, attention to say there’s something deeply wrong in that area; pay attention to that. And we do pay attention to that, because nothing gets our attention like pain does. I’m spending a little bit more time with that because I just want people to understand or break this idea that the more pain there is, the more tissue damage there must be. Actually, what we know now is that the brain decides how much pain it creates, and that has so many different factors playing into that, including emotional, social, societal, and whatever else is going on in the body. What is stressful for us will influence our levels of pain. And that is something that people with chronic pain say: “Oh yeah, when I’m stressed, pain levels go up quite a bit.”

Then, unfortunately, our brain tries to get better at detecting pain, so it gets more and more sensitive. It’s almost like a car alarm that goes off at the wrong time. You drive by on a motorcycle, and the whole street goes off in alarms. So that’s a little bit of how we think about what the brain is doing. Sensory information that is in the neighborhood of pain can now be experienced as pain. And mindfulness is one way we are, and this comes back to Outsmart Your Pain, or outsmart your brain, retraining the brain to not make it worse, and ideally, in some cases, even stopping the pain altogether.

Host 31:21

In her writing, Dr. Wolf talks about the pain box and the emotions and thoughts around the physical pain. We wanted to know why it is helpful to break the pain box into pieces and look at each piece separately.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 31:33

To work with this image of the pain box, that’s just something I have found, or when I taught, that people found is really helpful. So, when we have pain, it is almost like there’s this big box that we call pain, and we try not to get close to it. And there’s actually some research that shows that when we have chronic pain, we try to avoid feeling or sensing the body altogether, which sounds weird, because we go, “Well, I feel the pain?” But no, the pain can almost be something that happens over here. But we are not coming back to the autopilot that I mentioned earlier; we’re not checking in. What do I feel in this moment? There are actually areas in the brain that are responsible for sensing or feeling the body that are shrinking for people with chronic pain, because we’re not using them anymore. It’s very fascinating.

And so, part of the mindfulness training is getting back into our body, which for a lot of people with chronic health issues or body issues is really, really difficult. So that’s a path. We go very slowly. We practice self-compassion. So, there’s a whole method behind that. But what I wanted to share here with the box is we have the saying that in our experience, at any given moment, we have body sensations, and then we have what we call emotions. So how do I feel about this right now? And then we have what we call thoughts or the story. When you’re feeling the pain, let’s say, in my lower back, or wherever the pain is. That’s a sensation. And then I’m really frustrated because I thought I wanted to go for a walk with a friend later today, but now the pain is there. So, I’m frustrated about the pain, and then I have this whole story that’s going on in my head, like, I can’t believe that it was so good the last few days, and what did I do wrong? Going over all the things that I did yesterday, I worry, how long will it last? And that’s the story. These are three different areas. And usually, we’re not aware that those are three different areas. Usually, we just think, Ugh, it’s the pain, and I hate it, and I want to get rid of it.

One of the qualities of mindfulness is just to be curious. And so instead of being on autopilot, I say, “What’s actually happening here?” instead of being immediately judgmental. And so, we turn towards the experience and say, “What is actually here?” So right now, I’m turning towards that pain box and saying, “Okay, so out of these three, the sensations, the emotions, and the story, what’s actually the most difficult to be with right now?” And you’d be surprised how often people say, “Oh, the most difficult thing to be with right now is a story.” The sensations are actual, and again, of course, it changes, and it’s individual, but very often, when I do this in classes, people say, “Oh, right now the story is the problem.” The sensation triggers the emotions and the story. So [it’s important] to see this, as right now the sensations might not be the main problem, but the story is, and there are mindfulness practices on how I can work with the story, or how I can work with emotions. And then, of course, how can I work with sensations, and how can I turn back and actually be present with sensations that my brain labels as pain?

Host 35:52

Dr. Wolf discussed why self-compassion is so critical in a mindfulness practice, particularly when you are working with pain.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 36:01

So self-compassion is something that has gotten a little bit more attention over the last few years in the press. And there’s more research, which is really great, because I think, again, this buffers people’s trust that these methods actually work. But traditionally, we’re not a culture that is great in self-compassion, and a lot of people are very critical or suspicious or even afraid. So, we’re pretty good, or really good, at being compassionate with other people, but not with ourselves. So, this has often been shunned. I remember one of our veterans we taught in this Mindful Self-Compassion class exclaimed, “Why did nobody ever tell me I could be kind to myself?” Something as simple as that. And I hope we’re doing a better job with our children now, but back in the day, like nobody said, “Oh, be kind to yourself.” That didn’t happen. Just toughen up, or it’s not that bad, or other people have it worse. This is often well-intended, because what people often confuse it with is self-pity. Woe is me. Poor me. This is terrible. This isn’t fair, all of this, and yes, it probably isn’t fair. But what self-pity actually does is isolate us and separate us from feeling connected. And that is something that people who have suffered from a chronic health condition and chronic pain already experience so much. So, we know that the rates of feeling isolated and feeling alone for a bunch of different reasons are very high for people with chronic health conditions, and self-pity makes it worse.

Self-compassion is actually an antidote to that. So, it kind of has three parts. So, the first part is, can we just state that, yes, this is a difficult moment? So instead of deflecting like I just said, “Oh, it’s not so bad, or get it together,” we can just pause for a moment, or sometimes, we actually use supportive touch. So, when a friend hugs us when we have a hard time, we know this is very helpful. And so supportive touch is so slight; you can just put a hand on your chest and go, “Wow, this is hard right now. This is a tough moment.”  So again, in mindfulness, we’re stating just the facts, and we know, again, if we go to a friend and we just say, “I’m having such a hard time today,” and the friend says, “Wow, this is really hard for you,” and sometimes something in us goes, Yes, thank you for saying that. And then we can see that, okay, kindness works. We can learn to do that for ourselves.

And then the second step is what we call shared humanity. That is in contrast to self-pity, where it’s just, “Oh, this is just me.” And we’re learning to realize that, regardless of what I’m experiencing right now, there are other people who know exactly what that feels like. And I might not even know a person personally who has it exactly the same, but there are enough humans on the planet for me to know there are actually a lot of other people who also have to deal with this, who know exactly how hard, how painful, how frustrating it is, how ignorant other people are, and how difficult the medical system is to navigate. This is not just a unique experience for me. And this is not to diminish it, but it’s to say you are not alone with this. This is one of the reasons why support groups work so well. Of course, we share information, but that’s just a part of it. But honestly, just knowing there are other people who have to go through this is very helpful. The worst thing that we can feel is feeling isolated. I’m the only person on this planet who suffers like this, and again, we know intellectually that’s not true, but it can feel that way, and self-compassion really counterbalances that.

And then the third step is really just being kind to yourself. May I be kind to myself? May I include myself in this circle of compassion? May I learn to give the same kind of compassion that I so freely and easily give to the people around me? May I include myself in that? And it’s a very powerful practice. Because sometimes it’s just hard, and we can’t fix it, and we can’t change it. It’s just really, really hard right now, and then, if we learn and train self-compassion, we can help ourselves through these rough moments.

Host 41:31

Here is Dr. Wolf’s advice for individuals who are interested in mindfulness for managing pain.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 41:37

I mean, first of all, we like to say, start with baby steps. Baby steps are really helpful. A lot of people these days start with an app. There are a bunch of different apps that offer an introduction or even introductory courses to mindfulness. So, Inside Timer, for example, or the Calm app, a lot of people know that, or 10% Happier. Those are just some that come to mind right now, and so they can just see what it’s like to listen to a guided meditation just for five minutes. And there are also now a bunch of guided meditations on chronic pain or on difficult emotions. So, start to get some experience to see if that’s something that you’re interested in. So those are very low-hanging fruit. And then, the best way, honestly, is to join a group in person. Sometimes there are—depending on where people are—local groups. So, you can Google mindfulness in your area and see if there are practice groups that you could join. Sometimes there are groups online. Then, of course, getting my book would also be a good way to get more acquainted with that. I also offer classes a few times a year, in-person and online classes (in-person meaning like live classes), and I also have a recorded six-week class, which can also be found on my website, if people want to just get started with that.

Host 43:17

Here is Dr. Wolf discussing her future work and her final thoughts.

Dr. Christiane Wolf 43:21

I’m not working on a new book right now. I have some ideas, but that is still kind of percolating. I teach silent meditation retreats, which are, for most people, a step up after they have been practicing for a while, to go a little bit deeper into their experience. I teach classes, sometimes for a day, or sometimes, four, five, or six-week classes, and if people are interested, they could join me. And it’s found on my website, which is my name, so it’s www.christianewolf.com.

Host 44:03

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