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Chronic Pain
Are You Willing to Have Chronic Pain?
A willingness to accept chronic pain frees up time and energy and creates choice.
Posted September 14, 2024 Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Key points
- Willingness makes room for pain and the reality that pain is present, while resisting may make things worse.
- Acceptance decreases suffering and creates opportunities, as energy is not directed toward resisting pain.
- Practice willingness with "the three A's": Acknowledge, Allow, and Accommodate.
My first Psychology Today blog post was on the helpfulness of radically accepting chronic pain. In this post, I want to talk more about how being willing to have chronic pain is critical to doing what is meaningful to you when living with pain.
In general terms, pain is an unpleasant sensory experience that can be influenced by many factors, such as injury or damage to our bodies; our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors; and our environment. Most of us don’t like the feeling of pain, yet it is possible to be in pain and not experience suffering. Suffering arises when we do not accept pain and respond to pain with resistance. This creates a struggle with pain that can lead to becoming stuck in it.
When we feel stuck, we can resist more, creating even more pain and suffering. Before we know it, we are caught in an endless and unwinnable cycle. One way we can resist chronic pain is by using control strategies—any strategy used to get rid of or avoid pain. If used excessively, however, control strategies can take over our lives, make life smaller, and move us away from what we care about most.
If you realize that resisting pain is making your life worse—if you feel stuck, exhausted, and far removed from what is meaningful to you—it is helpful to shift from resistance to willingness. Willingness is another term for acceptance. Willingness is not about liking pain. It is about opening up, making room for pain, and letting it be there. It is embracing the reality that in this moment pain is present and resisting it makes things worse.
By practicing willingness skills you can decrease a sense of suffering and create opportunities and possibilities, leaving you with more time to devote to meaningful pursuits, as you are not using your energy and time resisting pain. The pain is still there, yet now you have more choice and freedom about what you do with your energy.
Willingness is about allowing your whole experience, including pain. It is focused on how you live your life now, not what you may do in a future where pain isn’t present. Life happens now, not in the future. When you wait for the pain to be gone to do what is important to you, you give pain control and dominance over your life.
One way to practice willingness is to focus on "the three A's":
- Acknowledge: Notice pain with curiosity and name it in a nonjudgmental manner.
Example: “Right now my back hurts” or “I’m feeling a sharp pain in my back” vs. “Right now my back hurts and it’s horrible!” or “I’m feeling a sharp pain in my back and I can’t stand it!”
- Allow: Give pain permission to be there, letting it be. You don’t have to like it, just allow it.
Self-talk is helpful here: “I don’t like how this feels and I will allow it” or “I don’t want this pain and I am going to let it be.”
Note that the two example statements above use the words “and” instead of “but.” “And” allows for acknowledgment of full experience (both can be true); substituting “and” for “but” is a helpful skill.
- Accommodate: Actively make room for pain, give it space, and let it stay for as long as it is present.
Think of pain as a houseguest. It may be an annoying guest, and you don’t have to like it, and it's there, so make room for it and let it stay.
Another way to practice willingness is to intentionally welcome pain. Again, welcoming does not mean you like it. It simply means you are allowing it to be, without resistance. Welcoming pain is a way to breathe into it and make room for it.
You can practice this by settling into a comfortable position and focusing on the sensation of your breathing for a couple of minutes. Notice the sensation of the air moving in and out of your body. After a couple of minutes of simply noticing your breath, on the inhale breath, say to yourself, “Welcome, pain,” and as you exhale say, “My old friend.”
Calling your pain “old friend” is an acknowledgment that pain is present and may have been present for a long time, like a (bothersome) friend of sorts. The phrase can cultivate a stance of welcoming, which is one of openness. It is the opposite of struggling with pain.
So, the next time you notice you are caught in an ongoing struggle with your pain, pause, take a breath, practice the three A's, and welcome your pain. Doing so may reduce the dominance chronic pain has in your life and create space for moving toward your values.
