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Living with Pain Without Letting It Define You
Living with chronic pain can be exhausting—physically, emotionally, and mentally. When pain is ongoing, it has a way of weaving itself into every corner of life. It can cloud your thoughts, shape your days, and steal joy from the activities and people you once loved. You might feel like your world has become smaller, your future less certain, and your sense of identity tied up in pain.
Traditional approaches to pain often center around the goal of elimination: finding the right medication, the right surgery, or the right diagnosis to “fix it.” But what happens when the pain doesn’t go away? What happens when, despite your best efforts, chronic pain remains part of your daily life?
At Bydand Therapy, we use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people stop waiting for pain to disappear and instead start living now. ACT doesn’t try to get rid of pain; it helps you create a life that’s rich, full, and aligned with what matters—whether or not the pain is still present.
The Limitations of the “Fix It” Mentality
Most of us are raised in a culture that rewards problem-solving and teaches us that discomfort is something to be eliminated. And for acute pain, this approach often works: a broken bone can be set, an infection can be treated, and healing occurs. But chronic pain is different.
When chronic pain persists, efforts to fight, fix, or control it can become a battle with no end. That battle can drain your energy and leave you feeling stuck—like you’re spending more time fighting pain than living your life. It can increase anxiety, depression, and even intensify the experience of pain itself.
The “fix it” mindset, while understandable, can unintentionally lead to more suffering. ACT offers another way forward. It acknowledges the reality of pain but helps you change your relationship with it so that pain no longer gets to control how you show up in the world.
How ACT Supports Life with Chronic Pain
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy provides six core processes that work together to help you respond to pain with greater psychological flexibility. Here’s how ACT can support your journey:
Acceptance Over Struggle
When pain arises, our first instinct is often to resist it—physically tensing, mentally fighting, emotionally shutting down. But that resistance can create more tension and more suffering.
ACT invites you to create space for pain, to soften your stance toward it. Acceptance isn’t resignation or defeat—it’s a willingness to allow what is already happening without adding more struggle. It’s about conserving your energy for the things that matter most to you. When you stop fighting pain at every turn, you free yourself up to focus on life, relationships, and meaning.
Defusion from Pain-Driven Thoughts
Living with chronic pain often brings a chorus of painful thoughts:
“I can’t do anything anymore.”
“My life is over.”
“No one understands what I’m going through.”
ACT helps you recognize these thoughts for what they are: thoughts—not facts, not prophecies, and not definitions of who you are. Through cognitive defusion, ACT teaches you to observe your thinking patterns without becoming entangled in them. This doesn’t mean ignoring your thoughts—it means noticing them, naming them, and letting them pass like clouds in the sky.
With practice, you gain distance from self-defeating thoughts and become better able to choose how you respond, instead of reacting automatically.
Present-Moment Awareness
Chronic pain often pulls the mind into the past—regretting all that has been lost—or into the future, fearing what may come. This can lead to a life dominated by anxiety, sadness, and a sense of disconnection from the here and now.
ACT uses mindfulness practices to help you come back to the present moment. The present is the only place where life actually happens. When you’re grounded in the now, you can notice beauty, connection, opportunity, and choice—even in the presence of pain.
Mindfulness doesn’t require you to feel calm or peaceful. It simply asks you to be awake and open to this moment, as it is.
Values-Based Living
What makes life worth living? What do you care about deeply, even if pain is part of the picture? ACT guides you to clarify your values—those heart-held qualities that define the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to lead.
Maybe you value kindness, creativity, authenticity, or being a present parent or friend. Even with pain, you can take small steps toward living those values. You don’t need to wait until you feel “better” to start living in alignment with what matters most to you.
This process can be incredibly empowering—it shifts the focus from what you can’t control (pain) to what you can (how you live your life).
Committed Action
Once you’ve connected with your values, ACT helps you take action—even small, gentle steps—in the direction of those values. These actions might be as simple as stepping outside for a few minutes of sunshine, calling a friend, or starting a creative project you’ve been putting off.
Chronic pain can make everything feel hard, so ACT encourages compassionate, realistic action that respects your current capacity. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s movement. Even small steps build momentum and help you feel more in charge of your life again.
You Are Not Your Pain
One of the most painful aspects of chronic pain is how it can consume your identity. You may begin to think of yourself as “just a patient” or “the person who’s always hurting.” The truth is, you are so much more than your pain.
ACT reminds you that while pain may be part of your story, it’s not the whole story. You are still a partner, a friend, a creator, a learner, a person with hopes and humor and values and potential. ACT offers the tools to help you reconnect with the parts of yourself that may have gotten lost along the way.
This approach isn’t about pretending everything’s okay. It’s about facing reality with openness and choosing to live fully—even when life is difficult. It’s about shifting from survival mode into a more engaged, value-driven existence.
Therapy That Honors Your Experience
At Bydand Therapy, we understand the toll chronic pain can take—and we honor your resilience. Our approach is compassionate, trauma-informed, and tailored to your unique journey. We work at your pace and help you develop skills that are practical, flexible, and rooted in your values.
You don’t need to walk this path alone. If you’re ready to stop fighting pain and start building a meaningful life alongside it, ACT may be the right next step.
Let’s Talk
You deserve support that sees all of you—not just your symptoms. If you’re ready to explore a new way of living with chronic pain, let’s connect.
Whether you’re located in Wyoming or California, Bydand Therapy offers convenient, hour-long telehealth psychotherapy sessions to support you through life’s challenges. For those outside this country/these states, we also provide international coaching grounded in Bowen Family Systems—an insightful approach that helps you better understand relationship dynamics, reduce anxiety, and grow in self-awareness. We’d love to connect—reach out to learn more.
Reach out today to schedule a free 15-minute consultation and see how Bydand Therapy can help you live well, even when pain is part of your story.
