A COMMUNITY MEMBER SHARED A PAIN BODY EXPERIENCE, AND ANOTHER MEMBER SHARED THIS WITH THE COMMUNITY. WE HOPE ECKHART TOLLE'S RESPONSE WILL BE HELPFUL TO OTHERS WHO VISIT THIS SPACE. What works for you when DEALING WITH PAIN BODIES?
Question: When you know a certain person or situation is likely to trigger your Pain Body, is it better to avoid them altogether, or is it helpful to the development of Consciousness to stay with them and observe your Pain Bodies?
Eckhart Tolle: There is no clear answer to that - it depends on the situation. In some situations you cannot even walk away, and all you can do is be present with your Pain Body (like at work). In other situations it may be better to walk out instead of being engaged in useless argumentation or conflict. No right or wrong answer, you have to take individual situations and feel what is right to do.
There is no way of avoiding the Pain Body altogether. If you live in this world, there will always be situations in your life [that trigger it], unless you are a complete hermit. Even if you are a complete hermit, it may happen because your own Pain Body may arise as a result of certain thoughts that may trigger it. Your spiritual practice will have to be a heightening of Presence as soon as you notice somebody close to you who is being drawn into that deep unconsciousness that is the identification with the Pain Body.
The intensity of Presence needs to arise so that you can counteract the deep, powerful pull of unconsciousness of the other person’s Pain body, that wants your Pain Body to react - it wants an emotional reaction from you. You need to turn the dimmer switch up so that you become intensely present while the other person’s Pain Body is trying to get some kind of reaction from you. It’s a very subtle thing, it can easily be confused with closing down or shutting yourself off from the other person.
When I talk about intense Presence, it has nothing to do with closing yourself to the other person or shutting down . With intensification of Presence, there is a complete openness toward your surroundings, toward the Other, but there is that high degree of alertness, and that alertness is open towards what is. After a while you will find that you do that automatically; it’s not a decision-making process.
Whenever there is a pull of unconsciousness in a situation, you find yourself becoming more alert and awake. When you find yourself being challenged, you will find yourself becoming more alert – like the light is being turned up. That’s wonderful, because then it means that whatever the challenge may be, its function is to push you into intensified Presence. That’s the only way you can not be drawn into somebody else Pain Body.
Once you realize that this is possible, you will find in situations the intensity of Presence inside you will vary. It becomes very intense the moment you are challenged by a difficult situation. Immediately you find, rather than being pulled into unconsciousness by a challenge, which is the case for most people, you intensify your presence.
Below is a very helpful video on PAINBODY ATTACKS (on Eckhart Tolle TV--click on link below). The lady addresses the issue of pain bodies with her parents and the difficult challenge she is having with this, but, this can be used with any challenge one may have with others.
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