When 'pain' becomes part of our identity

I have been doing some research this week about learning to deal with feelings of emotional pain. It seems to me to be very difficult to deal with pain in a 'mindful' way (letting it be, watching, accepting) because it is so overwhelming and seems to take over the mind and the body.

I came across this quote from Eckhart Tolle. It could apply to physical pain too:

"As long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free from it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious." 'The Power of Now', E. Tolle (pg 140) 

In many ways I can completely see what Tolle is talking about here. It makes sense, I think, that we can be in danger of creating an identity out of that pain. It can become our way of defining ourselves and we can become attached to it - as something familiar. But would we really resist or sabotage attempts to heal the pain? This seems absurd! 

At the same time, there is something quite optimistic about this in that it is something that we have the power to change. And it is an interesting challenge about how much we are letting pain become who we are....

Hmm...the big question for me is - will quotes like this make dealing with pain any easier in practice? Let's see!