My Experience with Chronic Pain: Minding The Way to Relief

For a long time, I lived with debilitating chronic back pain. I couldn’t sit still. My body was constantly tense, and I relied heavily on massage therapy just to get through the day.

Like many people, I explored a wide range of treatments—medications, stretching, yoga, swimming, and other physical approaches. While some offered temporary relief, the pain always returned.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time was how deeply my mind and body were connected.

Through therapy, I began to notice something I had never paid attention to before: the constant stream of automatic thoughts running through my mind. Self-critical, anxious, and often harsh—these thoughts were so frequent they felt almost invisible, like blinking.

But my body was responding to them.

That constant internal pressure showed up physically as muscle tension, tightness, and pain.

In therapy, I started to slow this process down. I learned to identify these thoughts in real time and gently challenge them. Using approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), I was able to process not just the thoughts themselves, but the experiences and patterns behind them.

Over time, something shifted.

As my internal dialogue became less critical and more balanced, my body began to soften. The tension reduced. The pain that once felt constant started to ease.

An important part of maintaining this progress was to become mindful of my mental “real estate” - what is occupying it, what effects it negatively or positively, is it fair to me that this is what is there today, etc.

This experience shaped how I understand chronic pain today.

While physical treatments can be important, for many individuals, pain is also deeply influenced by emotional and psychological factors. Addressing both can be a meaningful part of recovery.

If you’re living with chronic pain, you’re not alone—and there may be more than one pathway toward relief.