What Is Your "Pain Body"?

First of all you should know "Pain Body" is A term coined by Eckhart Tolle. Pain Body is a generic term for the part of us that is hidden from our normal consciousness and that causes pain or suffering. In Eckhart Tolle's model there are two basic parts to the pain body. The personal part which consists of repressed painful experiences and the collective part which is the pain and suffering that resides within the collective unconscious of the entire human race.

There are many other models and descriptions that describe this repressed and painful part of your heart & mind. What most of us need to be concerned with is our own personal pain body. Learning how and why you have this hidden aspect of yourself can help you eliminate confusion which can hamper your spiritual growth, personal development or integration.

So what is your pain body more precisely? It's you. It's parts of you that you left behind. It is every painful experience that you were unable to metabolize. Every time you were overwhelmed. Each and every time you suppressed or dissociated something so painful you could not bear to experience it at the time it happened. You could describe this part of you as being emotionally or energetically "wounded" or traumatized. These traumatized parts of you can become triggered by anything they have associated as threatening. This is what produces inappropriate and reactive or defensive feelings or behavior. This hidden part of our composite nature is the root of all types of suffering we experience.

In conclusion, we can see that the term "pain body" is a generic or blanket term that gives a name to a part of human existence that is difficult at best to describe. It can be very helpful for us to come to an understanding of the various ways our repressed pain manifests. Learning about your own system of hidden woundedness and pain body is an art and a science. Taking small steps on a regular basis will bring great rewards.

You can listen to a Talk on this subject in the purple Talk Shoe widget on the right column.