Shrink Your Pain Body to Enjoy the Present

A New Earth: Chapter 6 – The Pain Body

You can’t get rid of the pain-body. You can’t kill it. You can’t run away from it. Pain-bodies will always exist as long as there’s the mind. However, there is a way to control it, and even use it to strengthen your spiritual journey.

In the previous chapter, we learned ways to identify the pain-body whenever it arises. Just acknowledging and identifying it is a huge first step. The very act of recognizing it as another entity separate from you tells your mind that it’s no longer part of who you are.

The very first step in shrinking your pain body is to be aware of it.

It’s simple, but certainly not easy. Getting into the habit of catching the pain-body when it arises takes time, but as with anything in life, it’s all about practice and patience. As you get used to monitoring your feelings and how you react to them, you’ll become more aware of the types of triggers that elicit emotional pain.

When you feel something bubbling up inside, getting stronger and feel like you are losing control, this is the time to be aware.

When you feel fearful or angry at something that’s not causing any physical harm, when you look around and see no physical threat, yet your muscles are tense and heart is racing, this is the time to be aware. It’s your pain-body that’s reacting to the event. It’s an illusion of threat.

When you feel a bit of glee when hearing about a misfortune of someone you don’t particularly like, this is the time to be aware.

When someone says something inappropriate or hurtful, and you feel the urge to snap back or feel pity for yourself, this is the time to be aware. It’s also a time to become aware of the other person’s pain-body, and even see it as an opportunity to show presence. It’s easier to see the pain-body in others than it is in yourself because once you’re in it, you don’t know you’re in it!

Accept that these emotions are rising within you. Don’t try to run from it. Don’t try to resist. What you resist, persists. Wanting something to be different than it actually is only strengthens the pain-body, because the pain-body loves the frustration and drama.

Feel it. Accept it. Become aware and choose presence.

The next step is to become present.

It is being present that breaks your identification with the pain body. Remember, that it’s not the existence of the pain-body that’s causing pain. Rather, it’s your identification with the pain-body.

When you break the identification with the pain-body, it can no longer control your thinking. Remember that the pain-body feeds and strengthens itself on your thoughts: once it’s severed from this source, the negative energy will dissipate.

The practical steps are similar to the ones you used to be present with thought-forms. With the pain-body, you only need to be more patient because they can creep up out of nowhere.

Breathe. Feel the air flowing through your nose and into your body. Feel how it soothes, despite the negative emotions that the body was trying to absorb. Tell yourself that right now, the breath is the only thing that is real.

Don’t label the feeling. Don’t try to understand why you’re feeling this way. Labeling and questioning only takes you away from the consciousness and lead you back to false illusions. Be present with the breath and body. Feel the emotions directly, not filtered by your unhappy thoughts. Don’t feel you need to do anything. Don’t judge it. Don’t resist it. Don’t label it. Just watch. Be a silent witness.

There’s a difference between “you” and the “unhappiness within you.”

Pain-bodies can be a blessing.

When you’re experiencing presence, something remarkable happens: the energy that was trapped in the pain-body then changes its vibrational frequency and is transmuted into Presence. The pain-body becomes fuel for consciousness!

In a way, the pain-body is a blessing, it can actually benefit your spiritual journey. The energy is never destroyed. Energy in its essence cannot be destroyed, but only changes form. It’s like a perpetual recycling system of the universe!

The emotional pain for some goes far beyond the pain that is natural for seemingly unimportant situations. You can tell when relatively insignificant things that a person would typically shrug off or not even notice become the cause of intense unhappiness. This is one sign of a heavy pain-body. Throughout the years and decades, the pain-body had grown and the person had identified with it for so long. As a result, he or she may constantly be feeling intense anguish, long-lasting, incapacitating depression, or obsessive anger.

This is why many of the wisest, most enlightened people in our history once had a heavy pain-body: the heavier the pain-body, the more energy got transmuted back to Presence. Rather than a force that pulls them into being unconscious, the pain-body had become an awakener, the decisive moment that forces them to presence.

We learn from our past mistakes. We learn from past failures. And we can learn from pain-bodies.

How long will it take to break free?

It depends on the heaviness of the pain-body, but if you ask the question in a more clear way, it can be in no time at all. Remember that it’s the identification with the pain body, not the pain-body itself, that’s causing suffering, making you relive the past over and over. So a more accurate question would be: how long will it take to become free of the identification with the pain-body?

And the answer is, it can happen now, at the very moment you feel the pain-body rising in you. Become aware of it. This awareness is all that’s needed to break the identification with it. The transmutation can now begin. Become present: feel whatever you’re feeling and be the witness to yourself, become a part of the Is-ness of Now.

Embrace your true nature, one that’s whole and free.

Take this Lesson with You

Acceptance can guide our journey of understanding emotions. The vast array of emotions we experience can overpower our consciousness or help us to grow. With this in mind, consider the thoughts that coast through your mind each day and the emotions that rise along with thoughts. In your visualizations allow them to float right past you without attachment.

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