Dissolving The ‘Pain Body’ With Presence.
How the power of presence and consciousness address unresourceful emotions.
This past week I was incredibly humbled by a feeling I thought I had mastered — overwhelm. I was overwhelmed by dark and fury-filled emotions. The current state and energy of the collective consciousness is buzzing with pain, anger, sadness and grief. As an empath and someone who has worked tremendously hard over the past few years to open myself up to the greater oneness of this world (the idea that we’re all connected as “one”) and our collective experience in earth school, I became overwhelmed by the weight of it all last week reaching a tipping point. So much so that a simple conflict between my husband and I sent me spiralling into a tornado of frustration, fear, and confusion. The contents of the argument are irrelevant, my reaction and trigger is what is relevant. In the moment, I felt like everyone in my life was telling me what I should do. How I should react, take action, occupy my time, grow, and expand even more. I felt trapped in the void or groundlessness — a space in which having been trained my whole life to be fully in-body, is not super comfortable for me (to be out-of-body or without ground).
During this humbling experience, I was reminded of a concept I recently came across in Eckhart Tolle’s work, the “pain body”, described as old emotional pain living inside of you. It may have accumulated from past traumatic experiences and sticks around because these painful experiences were not fully faced and accepted the moment they arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain, and comes together with other energy forms from other instances. Eckhart says, “Usually it’s the pain body when the emotional reaction is out of proportion to the triggering event…so a relatively minor thing triggers an enormous amount of unhappiness in whatever form.” That is what happened to me last week, a stacking of small triggers opened my ‘pain body’ or perhaps described as the emotional aspect of egoic consciousness. “The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it.” Only when I was able to become conscious of the emotions arising, fully present to and accepting them, was I able to reground myself and appreciate the trigger.
Rather than identifying myself with this aspect of my ‘pain body’, presence and consciousness allowed me to become an active observer of my emotional state, ultimately releasing the ‘pain body’’s power. It needs to get its ‘food’ through you, and will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, fear, grief, emotional drama and violence. You must therefore learn how to recognize the ‘pain body’ as it arises. It can arise when you are triggered by a negative encounter with someone or when an event happens that reminds you of a past experience that was painful. Given its potential strength though, how do we notice it as it’s arising and before it overwhelms us?
As often as you can, check-in with yourself by asking; What am I feeling? How expansive is my consciousness right now? How present am I? You can also do a mental and emotional data dump on paper, as our brains need cleaning like anything else. Once you bring consciousness into the body through questioning or journaling, you can more easily feel an arising emotion (deep sadness, intense fear, anger, etc.). From there, you’re able to recognize the arising as the beginning of the ‘pain body’. As long as you know this is the ‘pain body’, you are not identified with it. The knowing is the awareness and from this state the ‘pain body’ cannot control your thinking because you’re shining the light of consciousness on it. It therefore cannot creep into your mind and suddenly make your mind think what it wants to think. Remain there as the awareness for it, then it cannot renew itself and cannot control your actions. You have contained it there, through your presence.
Eckhart advises, “Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it — don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”
The energy of the world is intense right now, there is a lot at state and it’s important to welcome the intensity and to become present to all of the associated emotions in whatever way feels safe and supportive for you. ‘Pain body’ or otherwise, become present to how much you’re carrying and do not try to resist or ignore the weight of it all. Remember ‘whatever you resist persists’. So, do some self-inquiry, journaling, movement, and with your presence and consciousness you’ll release the ‘pain body’’s power. Become the active observer and bare witness to this beautiful depth of the human experience. Consciously choose what emotions and feelings you’d like to experience today and in each moment. You cannot control the world’s circumstances, but you can control your emotions in reaction to the circumstances.
Today, I fully welcome and accept overwhelm but I consciously choose joy and gratitude.
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