I think the difference, growlycat, is that "sitting with" the pain is an expression that my therapist uses when the pain just IS. It isn't fixable. There is nothing I can DO about it. Not being able to fix something or DO something is very hard for me. But the reality is, some things just are not fixable and struggling against that fact only raises my anxiety and my increases my experience of the pain.

It's sort of like when I have a severe physical injury. The injury has been medically addressed. What can be done has been done. There is nothing left to DO except wait for my body to heal. If I sit there and keep worrying about the injury or the fact I'm in pain and keep thinking I need to do something, it really seems to hurt worse. If I can just relax into the situation, acknowledge the pain and breathe through it -- sit with it -- it seems to hurt less.

The analogy to physical pain was really helpful for me. My T knows that I can tolerate huge amounts of physical pain without anxiety, so making that connection was one more way in which I felt like he really "gets" me and then feeling understood makes it all easier as well.