si dawson

Ever catch your­self doing some­thing really stu­pid? You watch it hap­pen­ing in slow motion, yet can't seem to stop your­self going right ahead and doing it?

Now, there's a ton of things that fit under the head­ing of 'stu­pid', ahh, and by good­ness, I've done a lot of them.

What I'd like to talk about today is delib­er­ately cre­at­ing pain, in our­selves & in those around us. When we feel auto­mat­i­cally com­pelled to do things that increase suf­fer­ing in the world. Typ­i­cally this is done ver­bally, but in more extreme cases it can esca­late to phys­i­cal violence.

Eck­hart Tolle has a descrip­tion for this phe­nom­e­non, he calls these inter­nal pro­cliv­i­ties "Pain bodies."

It's a use­ful approach. Metaphor­i­cally dis­tanc­ing our­selves, even slightly, can give us power over the behav­iour. See­ing it as some­thing sep­a­rate from our­selves helps us gain control.

Of course, this kind of things fits hand­ily under the head­ing "Self-sabotage." Whereas a lot of forms of self-sabotage can be hap­pily done alone (eg, pro­cras­ti­na­tion), our pain bod­ies gen­er­ally require company.

pic by catb

So what to do about them? Well, Tolle's sug­ges­tion is sim­ply to be as present as pos­si­ble, and this is pretty rea­son­able advice. If you're in the moment, then these occur­rences become quite jar­ring. The behav­iour stands out so starkly You can't help but think (whether it's your­self or another) "Hey, where the hell did that come from?"

To kick Tolle's sug­ges­tion up a notch in terms of effec­tive­ness, I'd also rec­om­mend releas­ing what­ever feel­ings come up.

Ever notice how hard it is to fight some­one who's not respond­ing at all (except with love)? There's a rea­son for that. Your pain body is try­ing to latch onto some­thing, some­thing to feed itself with.. and find­ing noth­ing. This is, of course, pure Aikido at work.

The same thing works in reverse. When some­one near you behaves in a way that is pretty obvi­ously just spoil­ing for a fight, by releas­ing any inter­nal reac­tions inside you, remain­ing calm, and adding noth­ing, the entire sit­u­a­tion defuses in the fastest way possible.

I've exper­i­mented with this exten­sively, & there really is noth­ing good or bad you can say that will calm things down quicker than releas­ing & say­ing as lit­tle as possible.

pic by ladyinpink_1

Of course, in your­self, the same applies. I lose count of the num­ber of times I've felt some­thing ugly or nasty whelling up inside me. By releas­ing the thought, notic­ing it but not attach­ing it & sim­ply let­ting it go, I'm weak­en­ing those pain bod­ies inside me. Not once have I looked back & thought "Gosh, I sure wish I'd said that nasty thing." Nope, every sin­gle time it's been a vari­ant on "Oh man, that would have really hurt some­one I care about."

The more you can release at the time, the weaker the pain body becomes.

In your­self, it's sim­ply a case of let­ting go of the com­pul­sion to hurt those around you. When some­one near you is let­ting their pain body take con­trol, there's two things to release.

First, your reac­tion to what­ever they're say­ing. Yes, it's going to be hurt­ful, painful, ugly. That's the nature of a pain body — to try and pro­voke as extreme a reac­tion from you as pos­si­ble. Sure, that per­son is fully respon­si­ble for any­thing they say, & they shouldn't say it. But that's not the point. Blam­ing them, or hav­ing other neg­a­tive feel­ings towards them is only going to make you feel bad, so let it go. Sec­ondly, & once you've let go of any neg­a­tive reac­tions to their behav­iour, let go of any inter­nal response you may be feel­ing. That's only your pain bod­ies try­ing to get in on the fight.

You could also use EFT or sim­i­lar — if you're able to iden­tify a spe­cific moti­va­tion or drive behind the pain body so you can tune into it & tap later. Start­ing tap­ping in the mid­dle of deal­ing with some­one angry or hurt is likely to just piss them off even fur­ther. Not recommended.

Can you think of any peo­ple who just seem to bring out the worst in you? One minute things are fine, next there's a flam­ing row & you really have no idea how it started? That's what hap­pens when two pain bod­ies get in sync and start feed­ing each other. If either party is able to take even the slight­est amount of con­trol, the whole thing defuses incred­i­bly quickly.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm sug­gest­ing for a sec­ond you should stay in a sit­u­a­tion where some­one is wil­fully try­ing to harm you, whether ver­bally or otherwise.

This isn't about being a mar­tyr, just a lit­tle bet­ter than yesterday.

Even reduc­ing your pain bod­ies by the tini­est amount results in expo­nen­tially more love in the world. Every inter­ac­tion with every per­son for the rest of your life will be just that lit­tle bit bet­ter. Totally worth the effort.