How to Be With Your Pain Without Letting It Define You

by Noosha Daha, LMFT

Pain Wants to Collapse the Timeline

When we experience pain, it tries to collapse our sense of self into that one chapter.

You’re no longer someone who was abandoned. You become abandoned. You’re no longer someone who has anxiety. You become anxious.
You’re no longer someone who experienced loss. You become grief itself. That’s what trauma and grief do: they try to steal your continuity.
They pull you from your full, living story and trap you on one page.

But healing starts when we remember:
We are more than the worst thing that ever happened to us. We are more than the parts of us that rose to survive. We are more than a diagnosis, a title, or a silence.

This Isn’t Just Philosophy — It’s Neuroscience

The brain stores unprocessed trauma in ways that feel like identity. When your nervous system is dysregulated, the world feels unsafe, and you may feel unworthy, doomed, or stuck. Evidence-based therapies like EMDR, CBT, or somatic work aren’t about erasing pain.
They help the brain integrate what happened, so you can move forward without pretending it didn’t because healing isn’t forgetting.
It’s remembering who you are beyond the wound.

And Then the Grief Becomes Personal

When my mother passed away from cancer a year and a half ago, the loss was profound. It felt like I had lost my ground, but still had to stand.
I was lost and untethered, expected to function in a fundamentally altered world. There were days I moved through water. Nights, I felt her absence like a weight in my chest. And still, I showed up for clients, family, and life.

One of the things my mother used to say was: “If you don’t cry for your mother’s death, then what is there to cry about?” She said it plainly. Not to dramatize pain, but to normalize it. Her words stay with me — a reminder that grief, like breath, is natural.
And yet, it can feel like being torn apart from the inside out.

How to Be With Your Pain (Without Letting It Define You)

You don’t need to pretend you’re fine. But you can practice these:

1. Name It Without Wearing It
“This is grief.” Not: “This is who I am.” Language creates space. Space creates breath. Breath creates healing.

2. Honor the Survival, Don’t Shame the Struggle
Whatever got you through, even if it was messy, had a purpose. Survival isn’t shameful. It’s sacred.

3. Let Witnessing Be the Medicine
Pain held alone gets heavier. Pain held in a safe relationship can soften. Whether with a therapist, a trusted friend, or even your journal
Being seen in your pain changes how it lives in your body.

You Are Becoming

Grief cracked me open, deepened my compassion, sharpened my intuition, and slowed me from rushing anyone’s healing, including mine. You are not your pain. You are the one who carried it, who felt it fully, and who is learning to live alongside it without letting it speak for you.

And I promise:
That is enough.
That is healing.
That is becoming.

If you're ready to begin your healing, not by being “fixed,” but by being deeply witnessed, I’d be honored to walk with you.

Schedule a session or learn more at oakscounselingcenter.org