There is such a thing as old emotional pain living inside you. It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain. It comes together with other energy forms from other instances, and so after some years you have a "painbody," an energy entity consisting of old emotion.
It lives in human beings, and it is the emotional aspect of egoic consciousness. When the ego is amplified by the emotion of the painbody, the ego has enormous strength still -- particularly at those times. It requires very great presence so that you can be there as the space also for your painbody, when it arises.
That is everybody's job here -- to be there, to recognize the painbody when it shifts from dormant to active, when something triggers a very strong emotional reaction. At that moment, when it does take over your mind, the internal dialogue, which is dysfunctional at the best of times, now becomes the voice of the painbody talking to you internally. Everything it says is deeply colored by the old, painful emotion of the painbody. Every interpretation, everything it says, every judgment about your life, about other people, about a situation you are in, will be totally distorted by the old emotional pain.
If you are not there as the space for it, you are identified with the painbody and you believe every negative thought that it is telling you. If you are alone, the painbody will feed on every negative thought that arises, and get more energy. That's why it's become active -- after it does that for a while, you can't stop thinking, at night, or whenever it is. The painbody is feeding, and after a few hours, it's had enough. You feel a little depleted. And then it happens again a few weeks later, or few days later.
The painbody would feel even better if it could feed on somebody else's reaction. Your partner would be a favorite person. And it will, if there is somebody around, or family situations. Our pain bodies love families. And it will just provoke this person, your partner or whoever it is. The painbody knows exactly what the thing is that will trigger a negative response. Then it says the thing that is going to really hurt you. And of course, if you are not absolutely present in that moment, then immediately you will react. And the painbody loves it! Give me more drama, please!
Both painbodies are now awake, and feeding on each other. Then, a few hours later, or the next day, the painbodies no longer need it. They are full, they have replenished themselves. And you can look at each other and say, "What was that all about?" In some cases, you may not even remember how it all started. This huge drama started somewhere, and then one thing led to another. Wasn't it the same two weeks ago?
Can we be present and see if next time we can catch it at its early stage, so that we don't get drawn in totally?
Can we both endeavor to be present for each other, and for ourselves?
See if we can see the first signs of the painbody -- either in ourselves, or in the other. Immediately realize it, be the space for it, and if possible -- even voice it to your partner and say "My painbody got triggered when you said that."
Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them. Whether or not you can tell your partner that his or her painbody has become activated depends on the degree to which your partner has already been taken over by it. If you catch it at a very early stage, then some remnant of Consciousness will still be there in your partner and that remnant will be hearing you when you say, "Could that be your painbody?" It has to be phrased very carefully. You may want to add, "Do you remember our agreement?"
If there is still a remnant of Consciousness then that will be listening to you, and your partner will be able to be there as the space for his or her painbody. If there is no remnant of Consciousness in your partner, you will be talking to the painbody, and the painbody does not like to hear about the painbody. Of course, it will deny any such thing. "My painbody? Look at yours!"
So, what do you do? Can I be the space for that? While the partner is there, be the space for that. When you are the space for something, it does not necessarily mean that you have to stay there. You can be the space, and then remove yourself. Self observation - this is why being in the body is an important part of this. Feel the inner body as often as you can. When an old emotion arises, it will be easier to be present as it arises.
If you are present, the painbody cannot feed anymore on your thoughts, or on other people's reactions. You can simply observe it, and be the witness, be the space for it. Then gradually, its energy will decrease.
Living in Presence : An Evening With Eckhart Tolle
See Eckhart LIVE in NYC tonight! October 6th at 8pm at Riverside Church
For more details and Tickets please visit www.eckharttolletv.com
Eckhart Tolle Spiritual Teacher and Author was born in Germany. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Power of Now (translated into 33 languages) and the highly acclaimed follow-up A New Earth, which are widely regarded as two of the most influential spiritual books of our time.
Lisa Arie: What's Your Emotional Reaction to Chaos?
Isha Judd: What Is Missing in This Moment?
I got hooked on it when Oprah did the first webcast with Eckhart and I've read A New Earth 4 times. I was living in Switzerland at the time and bought the french and english versions. Chapter 4 changed my life or more accurately turned my emotional world upside down and I've never been the same since - no exaggeration.
Interestingly enough, I lost both marked up and battered books between Europe and the USA so I guess they'll end up in someone else's needy hands.
What a fabulous teacher is Eckhart Tolle!
That's really great. I've read it probably 3 times, then I bought the CD and listened in my car. I first heard about it on Oprah, too. I'm not surprised that it changed your life ... I'll have to check out chapter 4 again!
Every time I've read/listened to it I feel like it's a totally different book and I read something new that creates a shift in my way of thinking that makes it easier to live my life. One thing that comes to mind is that if we ask ourselves, "why is this happening to me," for any given situation ... the answer is, "Because it is." So simple, but powerful. Helps me to relax into my reality. Acceptance.
I agree that Tolle is a great teacher. Others might argue that this is not new info., but I think that teachers are born in each generation that speak the our language. I definitely "get it" as Tolle presents it well.
"Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind." (Pg. 186)
Tolle is rather like the Krishnamurti of this generation. He would chide his groupies that kept returning to hear and see him, that they had already heard his message and should be out in the world living it, not returning over and over grasping for more. At the end of his life, he lamented that regardless of his effort no one seemed to understand, but that he wasn't too disappointed, after all there is only 1 recorded disciple that "got" Buddha in concert live. A flower, confused silence, a slight smile, Betrayed!
It's interesting (if not frustrating) to watch people not ready for Tolle fall literally unconscious after only a few minutes of listening to him. Afterwards they might complain they were just tired, or that he was soo boring; but i found the effect reproducible experimenting with certain friends :)
I remember the first time listening to PoN years ago, electrified, feeling/sensing/thinking, "This is it! Why hasn't anybody said it like this! This is so simple and direct!" It felt like something broke open, i laughed and cried simultaneously, i was embarrassed that somebody might see me, but i also didn't care. I "experienced" a tree!!! lol
I didn't understand everything on that tape, even after multiple listenings, so it seems to me this small snippet on the pain body doesn't do justice, not enough spaciousness :)
www.bruisedandbattered.com
The problem with the idea that its possible to live without pain for me is my own self-blame and guilt for not being able to do what others tell me I should, just because my feelings make them uncomfortable with parts of themselves and they want to make it better. There is no making it better. It feelings seem to be always changing though, at least for me, one way or the other. To me it only hurts when the feelings get stuck...so maybe in my mind and body its not living without pain, its being able to move through all emotions without labeling some as good and some as bad and consquentially myself for having those emotions to begin with. Just because emotions like grief make lots of people uncomfortable doesn't mean there is anything that needs fixed.
They are basically blockages of energy. Everything is energy and, in a healthy human organism, energy flows freely and abundantly. When an emotional trauma is held onto, the muscles contract and there is a blockage. It is both mental and physical so that the state of the body reflects the mental state of the person.
A skilled person can tell the mental health of a person by observing his body posture and his movements.
You can release these blockages through many body/mind exercises such as Reiki, Tai Chi, qigong, etc. combined with a meditation practice. This slowly and gently disolves the blockages and emotional wellness and balance follows.
Most people are totally unaware of their bodies and when an uncomfortable sensation or feeling arises, instead of staying with it, exploring it, and working on it, they simply take a pill to repress it. Continued repression over time eventually leads to more extreme manifestation such as arthritis, heart disease, ulcers, cancer, etc.
Of course large pharma bombards us with advertising and brainwashing to seek relief from pain with their drugs. A pill and a drug for everything. They even invent new diseases to sell new drugs. As a result, America is over-medicated, drugged up, and still quite unhealthy. Mental illness, obesity, diabates, heart disease, depression, etc. are rampant.
I hestitate to call the pain body "emotional trauma." Trauma has such a negative connotation. Calling it that can create fear and prevent people from being able to face it in my own personal experience.
Energy flow is abundant in all organisms...different organisms can flow differently. A healthy flow is developed and adjusted and different for everyone. To me a healthy flow is one that keeps us alive, and technically everyone has that. I try to refrain from labeling the mental health of a person by anything but what I receive from them empathically...it makes it hard to say anyone is mentally unstable. They are they way they are because they're trying to have some semblance of keeping it together.
I agree with much of what you're saying. You seem hard on those industries...everyone needs to make a living and society isn't at the same place of growth that a good deal of individuals are who are just beginning to deal with their pain bodies. The cultural pain body is still in the closet.
They take advantage of people's fears, scaring them with alarmist TV ads to get them to buy their drugs. Many of these drugs are either unnecessary or downright dangerous. They try to get them approved for marketing as fast as the FDA will allow; they lobby to speed up approval and bypass safety tests.
I think perhaps 90% of the drugs people are taking are probably unnecessary. They sell their drugs the same way corporations sell alcohol and cars . They don't encourage people to find and cure the disease, they simply sell you drugs to mask the symptoms. It's as if they want people to remain sick so they can keep buying the drugs. Certainly there is a place for western pharmacology, but corporations are "pushing" their drugs like drug dealers for profit.
If you really pay attention to the potential side effects, they are quite horrid. The reason is the body rebels against these drugs that are an assault on the body. They wreak havoc on the body/mind/spirit.
This is unique to western allopathic medicine. Ancient eastern traditions such as Ayurvedic medicine are holistic, see the person as a total human being and do not seek to make financial profits by perpetuating dependence on expensive drugs.
He might as well call it "that thing". It's essentially a suggestion that particular emotions and thinking can be viewed as not overwhelming. This makes his discussion extremely popular. And it's not such a bad concept...but it's nothing new. He's basically saying, "Here's that thing that we can identify. By doing it appears less overwhelming."
It doesn't go far enough, and is flawed if taken at the level he's suggesting. A further problem is that his advice can easily mask the very emotions and thinking he refers to.
I'm well aware that he emphasizes sitting with one's emotions, and I'm aware of the value of doing so and of the limitations of spinning out into non-productive or destructive expressions of one's pain & distress. But Tolle's emphasis lacks discussion of what is *contained* in painful emotions & thoughts. His advice really sets the reader up to avoid emotions -- a flaw. His generalization of a "painbody" attempts to create a manageable entity, but little is suggested about penetrating into these emotions and patterns of thinking for the information they contain. I see a lot in what he says that is about avoiding emotions & thoughts. I view the path he suggests as limiting potential development of insight.
I'm not sure what level you think he is suggesting. I feel, and have experienced. That when we work through stuck emotions with a partner they are often easier to face and feel fully and integrating.
"That thing" implies an unfamiliarity and a certain negativity...like its so bad we can't even give it a name...how is that helping to dispell fear about fully feeling and experiencing past emotions and events that live in our current body and effect our actions?
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to this article. It has definitely been the impetus to insight for me.
Buddhism and Zen advise us to replace lower vibes, such as pain, with slightly higher ones--a very long process, but realistic. Modern psychology is based on the same concept.
Our 'Christian' system basically is about self-improvement, a growing into something better, i.e., getting rid of or tranforming pain. Buddhism, however, says we are already perfect or whole, and we need only wash the mud off the jewel. This jewel, being part of duality, will contain equal parts pain and pleasure, of necessity.
However, Sartre says that pain, or any bad event, is only a fact, not a destiny. At any time we can access the old 'physical' pain and choose to see it in a new 'mental' light, making a new future. The pain thus remains 'in' consciousness, but the pain itself is not changed. Tolle may be either literalizing consciousness or sublimating pain--both are errors.
You said, "...you will realize what you need to know by experiencing your pain body with all of your attention." A lot of people sit with their pain -- very patiently and attentively, I may add -- and don't get out of it, nor get very far at all. Without reasonably correct interpretations of what these feelings or pain represent, just *how* is meaning derived? How is integration achieved?
I'm happy for the relief you have found from anxiety. Gaining some distance from the overwhelming swell of painful emotions is something of value. It is one facet of the overall picture. But for many, it is not the entire picture, and it is insufficient. People have complex experiences and complex narratives that go along with these experiences. Tolle has widely referred to one's "story" as an unreliable manifestation of what he regards as "egoic consciousness". This is troublesome, as it implies that the recurrent pain of past experience is merely an avoidable blip in the line of human thinking. This view invalidates the pain, the emotions, and the stories behind what people have suffered. Once again, the victim is blamed -- here, for not having the ability to blow through the pain.
Tolle would probably agree with you.
The purpose of the 'now' exercise is to recognize that consciousness is negation. Imagination is a double negation because we must negate the real world to create a world to imagine (use consciousness) in. When consciousness is seen as negation, then one recognizes there is a Void between us and the object seen (= negated). As a result of the 'now' exercise, one should, hopefully, recognize Sartre's statement: 'Man is he by whom negation comes into the world'. The shift is then from that of me, as negated by the look of the other, to myself as the negator of others by my look.
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Re Tolle’s Power of Now, see Lit. Of Possibility, Barnes.” In so far as it is possible, we may say that his life may have VALUE, but Camus is right in declaring that it does not have MEANING. Meaning signifies at the very least a reference to something beyond the immediate sensation. But is it possible for a consciousness to live entirely in the present? Sartre and de Beauvoir’s say ‘no’”, p. 174.
“For if consciousness is undetermined and free, then there is, in reality, no present self; there is a past self which has been and a future self which one must make, but that is all. Even the future self, of course, never exists save as the outlined project of a present consciousness,” p. 33 (I paraphrased this from memory yesterday).
Sensuous-aesthetic enjoyment is not enough to fill even our succession of presents”, p. 193.
“He cannot live isolated and meaning pieces of experience along with the constant awareness that he and all other existents are de trop, unnecessary. TIME is nothing more than a haphazard relating of events without significance” p. 199.
“Fromm, Escape from Freedom, ‘There is only one meaning of life; the act of living itself” p. 309.
Thus Tolle’s book on ‘Now’ seems profound, but isn’t.
It"feeds" off you , it awakens , it replenishes.. It seems different than just old emotional scars - it sounds like it has a life of its own.
Good article. Thanks.
is an ongoing process.
Good thing I can feel deeply.
A lot of people are stuck in their heads