I woke up this morning in a pleasantly uplifted mood.
I had been up late last night writing creatively and went to sleep joyful, awakening refreshed and looking forward to my day.
And then something triggered a painful memory of an event from the previous month and I felt the hurt all over again.
As I sat in my chair, I fell into despair – feeling the sting from being hurt by someone I dearly loved. I thought I had already released this – but there it was.
As I relived the event – again – in my mind, my body grew tense.
I opened my journal and wrote my morning pages – as described in the Artists Way.
Most mornings it’s difficult to fill the required three pages, but this morning the pen flowed across the pages until I found that I was quickly at the bottom of the third page and – according to the morning pages rule – I put the pen down.
I had not fully released the despair. I sat back in my chair and I said a prayer, “Dear God, I don’t want to start my day off this way. I do not want to carry this pain all day – help me.”
I closed my eyes and became conscious of a very noisy bird outside my window. He chirped louder than I can remember hearing him before. I laughed – only Divine Response could have timed it so perfectly.
And then in my mind flashed the cover of Eckart Tolle’s book The Power of Now. I retrieved the book and let it fall open – opening to page 36: “Past Pain – Dissolving the Pain Body”.
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 body. This, of course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world into which you were born…. anything can trigger it (the pain body), particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past…. unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself….” ~ Eckart Tolle, The Power of Now
Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.” ~ St. Paul
By hearing the bird’s loud call, I became aware of the present moment – entered into the Now and broke the spell of the pain body.
From this level, I could easily see how last month’s event held such a sting – - it resided with an accumulation of a lifetime of perceived slights and hurts resonating within the emotional pain body.
The bird’s loud warble awakened me to the Now moment – breaking me free of the emotional pain of the past ~ ah relief!
To be present in the Now can break the hold that the pain body has over you, relieving emotional pain and feeling freedom from our past.
If you find yourself feeling emotionally charged and overwhelmed – the emotional pain body was likely triggered.
Take a breath - center in the Now – and feel relief.
