Pain Body

You’re a slave to your mind 
But you are not your mind 
You are not your pain 

(Happiness is the road – Marillion)

Pain and Awakening 


For a short video on the pain body you can click here.

Around 2010 I “found” Eckhart Tolle on the internet. His approach of the painbody was spot on for me, as I always had these tantrums whenever something “went wrong”. Since then the painbody played an important part in my awakening. Instead of my unconscious reaction of judging myself I saw the opportunity offered to me. My painbody can still be very active, but its lifespan gets shorter and shorter whenever it arises. Eckhart Tolle descibes the painbody as a semi-autonomous psychic entity. If it is helpful for you, you might imagine the painbody as a cloud-like black creature. The painbody is the accumulated old emotional pain that almost all people carry in their energy field. It consists of negative emotions which leave a residue of emotional pain in the cells of the body. The painbody has a dormant and an active stage. Periodically it becomes activated, and when it does, it seeks more suffering to feed on. It takes over your mind and feeds on negative thinking as well as negative experiences. That is the active stage. Also referred to as “feeding time”. During the dormant stage things are fine again for a while.  The painbody can be dissolved by conciously facing it, as opposed to our conditioned reaction: fight or flight. It is a disturbing as well as an epiphanic experience when we realize that we are unconsciously addicted to pain.

How does the painbody manifest?
I’ll give you some examples.

The PB in relationships
Eckhart Tolle explains that when people “fall in love” it might very well be that actually the painbodies are attracted to each other. “He really understands me and knows how I feel,” etc. Does that sound familiar? Here’s a nice PB to periodically feed on. From my own experience I can say that the PB might just arise by a neutral remark that is misinterpreted by my wife or v.v. It happens in an instant and you feel the unease in your body. There is an unconscious urge to react immediately and before you know it, you do. You find yourself in an argument “about nothing”. Once you start to recognize this mechanism you can consciously choose not to react, though the feeling in the body is there and it doesn ’t feel pleasant. You become still and observe. Your mind will tell you all kinds of stuff about being right etc. Just watch it and don ’t react. I must admit that I’m not always able to refrain from action, but if I do the PB loses energy. Even if the realization occurs afterwards. Do never blame “yourself” if you fail for then you are doing the opposite: feeding.  

The pain body and clumsiness 
I regularly unintentionally drop or destroy things. You might also call this clumsiness. You’re getting a plate from the cupboard and somehow you drop something in the process. That always triggers my vulcanic anger: within a second the PB is fully fledged and it is very difficult not to react. It is like your on fire and it’s extremely disagreeable. Your mind will tell you something like: ”There you go again, you clumsy fool.” 

The pain body and depression
Negative thinking energizes the painbody and the painbody gives rise to negative thinking. So either you watch your thoughts or you observe your emotions and bodily sensations. Thoughts are mostly based on “not being good enough”. That is one of the ego’s favourites. Failure, not loveable, too stupid etc. … and deserving to be unhappy or to be in pain. Suicide often seems a very good option, because then the pain will stop according to your psychological mind.

The pain body and self-mutilation
We all know people who physically hurt themselves, don’t we? Who is triggering this self-destructive behaviour? The same patterns apply. Not being good enough, not feeling alive without this pain etc. A lot of negative thinking: “When I’m in pain, at least I feel alive.”  

The pain body and heaviness
Sometimes I just feel heaviness in my energy field. There is no cause. The mind will immediatelly start looking for one, because there must be a reason, a trigger. Well, actually, very often there isn‘t. However we tend to “make one up”. In A Course in Miracles there is a very helpful pointer: “I‘m never upset for the reason I think.”  You may realize that this heavy feeling is very familiar to you and you ‘ve felt it many times before. So it is not this specific situation, but the situation triggers this old, recurring sensation. By using this situation though you have found an entrance to this heavy energy you’ve carried for so long. 

The pain body and physical pain
There might be physical pain or an ailment like tightness in the chest, head aches, etc. You visit your doctor, but he can’t find anything. Still you’re in pain. These symptoms can often be regarded as fever: you don’t feel good, but what actually happens, is that “Fremdkörper” (foreign bodies) are being removed. Once the fever goes down, you feel reborn. The most important thing is not to resist and to abide in the non-reactive state. 

The pain body and electronic devices
While working with computers or other electronic devices the PB might creep in to sabotage. You can certainly relate to that. How much time and effort do we spend making sure that these devices work properly? And how does it make you feel?

There are certainly more PB manifestations and if you feel like sharing your experiences, feel free to do so.

ABRAHAM (Hicks) has a somewhat different approach. Abraham also speaks of “cellular memory”, but emphasizes that it is not so much about dissolving these negative charges, but that it is more useful to choose the “path of least resistance”. By being aware of your emotions and your thoughts, then deliberately choosing good feeling thoughts, you can eventually just leave it to the Law of Attraction. By doing so more positive thoughts will be attracted and as a result of that your frequency will rise. Thus you’ll transcend your pain body, because its frequency is lower. You’ll be aligned with your Inner Being, which is guiding you to your “path of least resistance”.
A PB-manifestation is of course also subject to the Law of Attraction:more and more low vibrating energy is attracted which is then being discharged.
Don’t blame yourself if you find yourself in a manifestation: if the LoA has begun and negative energy has gathered momentum, you won’t be able to step out of it. Next time you might be able to nip the arising negative current in the bud.