Eckhart Tolle’s pain-body: How to deal with anxiety and depression

We all know what anxiety is. That feeling that arises when we react to perceived threats.

Some people experience it daily and intensely. Others experience it occasionally.

It is actually a normal and healthy human emotion that can propel us into action. However, the problem is when it can get out of control and become destructive, taking away our quality of life.

The author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has a very useful way of understanding what anxiety is and how to deal with it when it arises.

He refers to the concept of the “pain-body”, which is an 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.

By understanding the pain-body and how to accept your experience in the present moment, you’ll be much better able to deal with anxiety and live a much better life.

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First, what is the pain-body?

According to Eckhart Tolle in his book Power of Now, the pain-body is every emotional pain that you have experienced which leaves behind a residue of pain that lives inside you:

“As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. It merges with the pain from the past, which was already there, and becomes lodged in your mind and body. This, of course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world into which you were born.”

Tolle even suggests that pain-body is an invisible entity in its own right:

This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It’s the emotional pain-body.

Tolle suggests that our pain-body has two modes of being: dormant and active:

“A pain-body may be dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, though, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time.

“Some people live almost entirely through their pain-body, while others may experience it only in certain situations, such as intimate relationships, or situations linked with past loss or abandonment, physical or emotional hurt, and so on.

“Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by someone close to you can activate it.”

Is the pain-body always destructive?

Tolle says that some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless, like a child who won’t stop whining. However, other pain-bodies can be vicious and destructive:

“Some will attack people around you or close to you, while others may attack you, their host. Thoughts and feelings you have about your life then become deeply negative and self-destructive. Illnesses and accidents are often created in this way. Some pain-bodies drive their hosts to suicide.”

“When you thought you knew a person and then you are suddenly confronted with this alien, nasty creature for the first time, you are in for quite a shock.”

“However, it’s more important to observe it in yourself than in someone else. Watch out for any sign of unhappiness in yourself, in whatever form — it may be the awakening pain-body.”

“This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, a need to have some drama in your relationship, and so on. Catch it the moment it awakens from its dormant state.”

The pain-body gets amplified by the ego

According to Tolle, the pain-body lives in human beings and comes from the ego:

“Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both. There isn’t really much difference between the two.

You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.”

“When the ego is amplified by the emotion of the pain-body, the ego has enormous strength still –, particularly at those times. It requires very great presence so that you can be there as space also for your pain-body, when it arises.”

This is everyone’s job in this life. We need to be there and recognize our pain-body when it shifts from dormant to active.

At that moment, when it takes over your mind, the internal dialogue we have – which is dysfunctional at the best of times – now becomes the voice of the pain-body talking to us internally.

Everything it tells us is deeply influenced by the old, painful emotion of the pain-body.

Every interpretation, everything it says, every judgement about your life and what’s happening, will be totally distorted by the old emotional pain.

If you are alone, the pain-body will feed on every negative thought that arises and get more energy. You end up thinking about things for hours, depleting your energy.

Eckhart Tolle explains how we experience emotions like anxiety, stress or anger:

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

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How to catch your pain-body

How can we be present and catch our pain-body at an early stage, so we don’t get drawn into it depleting our energy?

The key is to understand that little situations trigger enormous reactions, and when that happens be present with yourself.

You need to create space inside yourself for the pain-body, and then remove yourself from that space. Be present with yourself, and look at the situation from a detached place.

As Tolle says:

“If you are present, the pain-body 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.”

Tolle says the first step to enlightenment is to be an “observer” of the mind:

“The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness.”

“It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you.

“But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again. The pain-body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence.”

“So the pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for what it is. The moment you observe it, feel its energy field within you, and take your attention into it, the identification is broken. A higher dimension of consciousness has come in. I call it presence. You are now the witness or the watcher of the pain-body. This means that it cannot use you anymore by pretending to be you, and it can no longer replenish itself through you. You have found your own innermost strength. You have accessed the power of Now.”

Eckhart Tolle is spoken before about how the beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the “thinker”:

“The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

Of course, the next question we have to ask is:

How can we go about becoming an “observer of the mind”?

At one of his retreats, Tolle revealed a simple exercise to become an observer of your mind and let go of your thoughts.

Here’s a video of him talking about it:

 

The gentleman asks Eckhart Tolle how to strike a balance between letting go of thoughts in the mind without getting annoyed when the thoughts come back in the mind.

This is a common struggle for many of us, so I think Eckhart’s response is very helpful.

Here’s a summary of his advice for what to do when your mind can’t stop thinking:

1) First, avoid yourself from giving too much input to your mind. A great test is to do this when in conversation with others.

2) When in conversation with someone, try to listen 80% of the time and speak only 20% of the time.

3) While listening, feel your inner body.

4) One strategy to do this is to be aware of the energy you feel in your hands. If possible, try to also feel the energy in your feet.

5) Feel the aliveness in your body, while continuing to listen.

6) This helps you become more aware of your body and the information you’re receiving, as opposed to your thoughts.

I think this is an excellent strategy. In fact, there’s a scientific reason why this works in getting your mind to focus more on the present moment.

Neuroscience explains how to stop overthinking

A 2007 study by professor Norman Farb at the University of Toronto found that humans have two different sets of networks in the brain for dealing with the world.

The first network is for experiencing your experience. This is called “the default network”.

This network is activated when not much is happening and you begin thinking about yourself.

It’s the network involved in planning, daydreaming and ruminating. It holds together our narrative about the world.

The second network is called “direct experience network”.

When the direct experience network is active, it becomes a whole other way of experiencing experience.

When this network is activated, you are not thinking intently about the past or future, other people, or even yourself.

Rather, you are experiencing information coming into your senses.

For example, if you are in the shower, this network is activated when you notice the warmth of the water hitting your body.

The interesting thing is that both these networks are inversely correlated.

If you have an upcoming meeting while washing dishes, you are less likely to notice a cut on your hand, because the network involved in direct experience is less active.

You don’t feel your senses as much.

Fortunately, this works both ways.

When you intentionally focus your attention on incoming sensory data, such as the feeling of the water on your hands while you wash, it reduces activation of the narrative circuitry.

Therefore, whenever you intentionally activate your direct experience network by using your senses, you’re reducing activity in your default network, which is involved in overthinking.

This is why meditation breathing exercises can work when you’re overthinking, because you focus your attention on the sensory experience of your breathe.

This is why Eckhart Tolle’s strategy is so brilliant to reduce getting lost in your thoughts.

In regards to the pain-body, this is how Eckhart Tolle describes to go about it while focusing on your senses:

“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.”

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