#32 5 PIECE JIGSAW PUZZLE - Stress & Pain Relief (Jason Newland)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Stress and Pain Relief Podcast. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Now in the past I have done recordings on this subject where I have used the concept of a jigsaw puzzle.

This is going to be another one of those. So you don't have to like jigsaw puzzles in order to listen to this. I don't mind them but I've not really, jigsaw puzzles have not been an active part of my life, you know, for quite some time.

But as I get older maybe they'll become an active part. My nan used to love jigsaw puzzles. It's very good for concentration apparently, very relaxing as well.

So I'm talking myself into it. Maybe I'm going to get myself a jigsaw puzzle. Anyway, what I'm going to do is, as we all know, a jigsaw puzzle has two sides to it.

There's the flat surface of nothing. There's no picture on the back and there's the surface with the picture. And depending, you know, the jigsaw puzzles can be cut up into, it's basically just a picture that's on cardboard and I don't know why I'm explaining it like this but it's cut up into different shapes.

But it all fits together to make the picture. Now you can have jigsaw puzzles that have hundreds and hundreds of pieces, possibly thousands of pieces. You can have jigsaw puzzles that only have maybe three pieces or five pieces.

They're generally for a younger age. But this jigsaw puzzle that we're going to focus on is going to be one with just ten pieces. Now the reason for that is because, in fact no, five pieces.

Five pieces. One, two, three, four, five, six, it doesn't matter. Let's say five.

Five pieces. And the picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle will change depending on what part of your body you're going to focus on. Okay, so what we're going to do is focus on a part of your body which is either causing tension, stress, anxiety, you know a part of your body which is very stressed or that has chronic pain.

Because this podcast is for both of those things. Because the techniques that can be used to reduce those physical sensations are the same techniques can be used. Which also reduces your emotional response to that physical sensation.

Plus, for those that are listening, because of chronic pain issues, when you relax, the physical feeling changes. So any kind of physical discomfort naturally reduces when you relax. Now people with chronic pain, I'm one of those people, I am a person that has, but it's nothing huge, it's just a back problem.

So chronic pain has a tendency of causing tension. Because it's unpleasant, obviously, it's unpleasant. And I can speak for myself here.

In the past, I've just, I've made it worse by winding myself up. You know, often trying to fight with reality. I shouldn't have this pain, it shouldn't be hurting, shouldn't be hurting now, it should, should be this, should be that, blah, blah, causing stress.

And then there's the, the anger, maybe the anger at it or the, just the like, the emotional pain of physical pain. In fact, the emotional pain sometimes is way worse than the actual physical pain. But the emotional pain increases the physical pain.

So it's very weird kind of setup. But it makes sense that they would affect each other just when you relax your mind, your body relaxes, when your body relaxes, your mind relaxes. It's just a, it's a standard wheel of relaxation.

And the same happens in reverse with pain, or with stress. Even people that don't have chronic pain issues, that maybe have high stress, could find themselves getting cluster headaches, eye strain, pains, you know, aches and pains in the body, problems of digestive system, constipation, or maybe diarrhea, all kinds of things that could be connected to stress. As well as some of the really serious things such as heart conditions and that can be caused by excessive stress over long term.

So it's a good idea to learn to relax. And the one thing I can offer you listening to this is all of my recordings, at the very least, they should be helping you to relax. So if you listen to a sleep recording, okay, maybe you don't fall asleep, but you feel more relaxed than you did before.

And the same as this, maybe the chronic pain, it might not go away completely, but you will feel more relaxed, which means the chronic pain will reduce. Yes, it has to. In order to hold on to chronic pain, and to increase it and to make it strong, you have to be very, very tense in your body.

When you're fully relaxed, it's harder for physical pain to affect you emotionally, the way maybe it did before. So there's lots and lots of benefits health wise, but also in the moment. Of course, lifestyle choices and the way, just the way we live our lives may need to be changed in some ways in order to increase your sense of relaxation.

But that has to be obviously something that you decide. But at the very least, you can have increased comfort when you listen to me, whether it's this podcast or any of my other podcasts that are on my website, and on all the different podcast hosts, such as Spotify and iTunes, Google, etc. At the very least, they're aimed at helping you to just let go, just let go and relax, you know, just because you can.

It gives you some space to just take a break, you know, take a break from the worry. Of course, I've got recordings that address worrying, I say of course, but I do, I have recordings and other recordings that other people do, that address worries and this therapy you can have. But sometimes in the moment, what you need is just, just to take some time away from the issues, the, almost as if when you press the play button on the podcasts, as you listen to me, you kind of take a break.

Taking a break from the world, from existence, just might sound a bit weird, you know, taking a break from existence, philosophical or something like that. But what I mean is just taking a very large step back away from everything. And as you hear my voice, it's almost like there's a cocoon starting to grow around you, sheltering you, protecting you, a barrier that keeps everything else out.

And then that's that feeling of safety, real safety, genuine safety, the kind of safe where you know that you're safe. We all know what it feels to feel not safe and we all know how it feels to feel safe. You can feel safe when you listen to me, you can feel safe when you're just relaxing and letting go of everything.

Because you don't need to do or say or be anything during this time, during this special time that is yours to enjoy. And there's something special about that, something special about you taking control of your own path and choosing from now on to be more relaxed. To no longer allow stress or pain, physical or emotional, any kind of physical or emotional discomfort, to no longer allow that stuff to have any kind of control over you.

Realize that you're the boss and you are in control to a great extent to how you feel. Now of course we can't control everything and nor should we want to. It's not about controlling in a controlling way, it's not about controlling the environment and controlling other people and controlling every aspect of your life.

This is about freeing yourself, it's about realizing that if you wanted to, if you choose to make a change, you can make that change. Because you have the power to make any changes that you decide to focus your mind on when it comes to your life. And sometimes that's enough, there's a safety, a security perhaps in just knowing that you are going to be okay.

A simple example is if you go out on a nice summer's day and you take a little brolly with you, a little umbrella, a foldable one maybe, and it's in your bag. You know that if it rains you're going to be okay because you've got the brolly. That peace of mind where you know that you've got that brolly that you can use to shade yourself from the sun if you choose, and if it rains.

And you no longer need to even think about it. Now that's in some ways a trivial thing, unless of course you're getting soaked through by the rain. Doesn't seem so trivial when it's actually happening.

But that sense of knowing that you have the ability to be in control of your situation if you choose to allow yourself to relax deeply is a choice. How deeply relaxed you decide to just let go of everything in this moment because nothing else requires your attention when you relax deeply. You can focus on a part of your body that maybe needs to feel more relaxed or maybe just to feel looser or more comfortable.

And what you can do is you can just take a photograph of that part of your body, just that part only. And out of that photograph you can produce a jigsaw puzzle with five pieces on your table in front of you, all pieces put together. So it's one, five pieces all connected.

And as you look at that picture, you might start to wonder, well, the feeling that's connected to that jigsaw puzzle, how will that be affected when you remove one of those five pieces? And it can get your mind starting to feel slightly intrigued, maybe mildly interested. Perhaps not excited, but I wonder what would happen to the feeling connected to that jigsaw puzzle picture. The picture that's on the jigsaw puzzle, the feelings connected to that part of your body.

So there's only really one way to find out and that's by removing one of those pieces. It's up to you which piece you remove. There's only five pieces there.

Two pieces at the top, two pieces at the bottom to make the square really, and a piece in the middle to make the fifth piece. So imagine there's like a square jigsaw puzzle. It could be as big or as small as you choose.

Maybe you decided to remove the middle piece of that jigsaw puzzle and just put it down on the table next to the puzzle. Just a little bit of room, just put it there. How does that feel as you look at that picture with that piece missing? Now I want you to imagine a different part of your body.

A part of your body that feels really, really relaxed, like proper, deeply relaxed right now. Maybe it's your eyes, maybe it's your stomach, your shoulders, your hands, your fingers, your legs, your back, your feet. And just focus on that part of your body.

And I'd like you to take another snapshot, another picture, but this time it's going to be in the shape of that piece of the jigsaw puzzle that you've just removed. So you take that picture and what we're going to do is have that jigsaw puzzle shape, that piece of jigsaw puzzle, but with the new picture on. And it's just part of that part of your body, so you can't really necessarily maybe even see what it is.

But it's the same color, it's the same image of the relaxed part of your body, but it's just in the shape of that jigsaw piece, jigsaw puzzle piece. And now as you look at that jigsaw puzzle on the table with the missing piece, noticing how it feels, you can now put this new piece in that fits exactly into the slot. But this is a piece from the relaxed part of your body.

And just put that in now. And just step back and notice how that changes the way you feel. It may feel weird, it may feel strange, but there's something changing.

And you start to notice that actually that new piece that you put in there is active and alive. And that small piece of the picture of that deeply relaxed part of your body, it's in the shape of that jigsaw piece. It's starting to expand into a picture of that part of your body, expanding and changing the picture of the whole jigsaw puzzle.

Covering all five pieces so that the jigsaw puzzle is transformed into a picture of that deeply relaxed part of your body. Notice that connection you have because that jigsaw puzzle is still connected with the original part of your body that needed to feel more comfort and more relaxation. Noticing how you feel right now.

So relaxed, so relaxed. And as you stay with that feeling of comfort, I'm going to count from ten down to one. And that physical relaxation, comfort and stability, stable, deeply relaxed will continue to grow in comfort and relaxation.

With every number. Starting with ten. Relax.

Nine. Relax. Eight.

Relax. Seven. Relax.

Relax. Six. Relax.

Five. Relax. Four.

Relax. Three. Two.

Relax.