I talk about my teen years often and there is a very significant reason for this. At the age of 15, I began to become “conscious”. Conscious of the fact that my thoughts and emotions may not be my “truth”. Wow, what a doozy for a teenager to try to navigate on their own. Luckily there was a book store near my house and a deep desire to read my favorite subject (Universal Law) 😉 THIS was the beginning of the path less traveled. I became a full-blown, all-out seeker of TRUTH!
I can literally remember the day in high school that my “pain body” went from being dormant to being AWAKENED. This was the day that has defined my spiritual journey and in many ways . . . my LIFE!
For those of you who are not too familiar with Eckhart Tolle, I will briefly describe his concept of the “pain body” as being the stored emotional pain from our past that we have never fully accepted or faced. This emotional pain continues to live inside of us and can get “triggered” by a situation or comment that resonates with the energy of the past “painful” situation. When this happens it can be “reactivated” in a flash. When this happens it tries its hardest to recreate the old pattern of pain. I became aware of this concept around 2000 and have studied it ever since.
So, everything was going amazingly for me in my junior year and I was excited about life! I started my modeling career, I had some wonderful friends and all the normal teenage “dreams” were in high gear for me. Nowadays I recognize that time as a point when my “pain body” was dormant, it was inactive. The pain body can be dormant most of the time or active most of the time, it all depends on the “triggers”. Mine was dormant and I was feeling light and free.
I will write more posts on this subject in the next few days so we can go deeper and into more detail. But for the purpose of this post, I would like to talk a bit about the experience of our lives when our “pain body” is “active”, and what that looks like, and what we can do about it.
So at that time in high school, I had come to a place where I felt I had understood my childhood and it all made sense. Well, it is one thing to have your Mind understand things but quite another reality for your emotional self to LET IT GO. We can mentally understand things but our emotions, specifically the stored emotions are not hearing what we are saying. It is a completely separate entity and one that is very difficult to deal with. We can not heal our hearts by simply “getting it” we must actually love it back to life.
So I am going along with my awesome day. Feeling so hopeful about my life and all the opportunities in front of me and literally not one second later I hear a comment from someone. Yes, a comment! That one comment “triggered” an ENORMOUS reaction (as pain bodies have) from my emotional self. It was almost TAKING OVER MY BODY. The self DOUBT was growing by the second and hard to contain. I was conscious of it and I could feel what was happening and the more I would listen to what this “pain body” was saying, my thoughts would literally change. It was telling me an old story about my childhood and how I did not deserve the beauty in my life and it was all a lie of course because I did not deserve such goodness. This was a negative OLD story that my pain body was trying to recreate. I felt like I was losing myself to this “story”. I was 15 and could not explain this other than what I was feeling. I went home from school that day and told my Mother. Of course, she told me to just let it go but you see the pain body has such power over us that it literally can “overtake us”. When this happens our actions start to become very ego infused and in a way we revert back to childhood or the time this pain initially occurred. We become negative and reactive and we behave in ways that are dramatic, jealous, and self-harming at times. We literally destroy our lives if we don’t get ahold of this experience.
Well as you could imagine I was at a complete loss, confused beyond belief, and felt I had no one around me to understand what the heck was going on inside me. For a while, I felt I was fighting for my life!!! I wanted to remain in this positive place and I had no idea why this “pain body” was so strong, forceful, and destructive. Was it trying to warn me? Tell me something. Was I to trust it or not? I remember all my dreams I had were slowly one by one becoming nightmares. I truly could NOT understand this voice inside. I also could not determine if it was my ‘intuition” or ego and what was the nature of the ego anyways?. If it was my intuition then I wanted to listen to what it was telling me as I had never heard of a “pain body”. How on earth was I supposed to win this battle?
Here is the ANSWER!
I was identifying with my MIND. I knew this but did not know how to end this. I know how to handle it now because of all the research I have done and the experiences I have had with it. As Eckhart and other spiritual teachers say . . . the more we identify with our mind, the more POWER we give to our mental images and our “pain body”. I wish I would have had this guidance at age 15 but then again I believe I had to learn this through my own experience so that I could have the wisdom that I now share. It is one thing to know something intellectually but a far greater thing to gain Wisdom through experience.
When we are stuck in a spot of “old patterns” or “pain body”, we feel we can not control these OLD, negative thoughts, desires, actions, or confusion. What do we do? We first recognize that this is not REAL. It is not reality but rather a projection our mind is putting onto our reality from the PAST. Then by not “identifying” with this feeling or idea we are not “feeding” it. It can only survive through us and the pain we continue to create through thoughts words or actions. So if we feed it, it will continue. If we buy into the lies it tells us we are prolonging the life of this lie and we are creating more and more pain. In this way, our pattern becomes active and stays that way until we CHOOSE to change.
How did I stop it? It was touch and go for many many years! All through my twenties, I dealt with this “pain body” that would rear its UGLY head and destroy relationships, be mean to myself, and tell me lies about my family and about who I was. It would tell me that I was bad, there was something wrong with me, I am undeserving, and somehow EVERYTHING was my fault. Please don’t underestimate its POWER. But also do not underestimate the power of TRUTH which is its opposite. There are two points that we can get two that will wake you up.
1. Sheer Pain and suffering
2. Understanding the need to get free above all else. You make the life-changing CHOICE to CHOOSE LOVE over FEAR. (once and for all)
BOTH happened to me! I am stubborn but also Willful.
When I got to the point where I was consistently seeing that there really was a choice and I could TRUST that choice, my world changed. How did I see that choice? By choosing LOVE over FEAR. I was at the point where I did not have another option. I was DONE with this exhausting cycle. Did I still feel and experience that FEAR, PAIN BODY and urge to create drama or pain?? YES! I did but instead of giving into it, I consistently chose against it. I consistently heard that little whisper inside that said “NO THIS ISN’T YOU”. I wanted to trust it because after years of buying into the other voice I was getting NOWHERE in the area of inner peace and happiness.
So I started to choose a soft voice time after time. Funny how it was that simple, a CHOICE. Anytime something would come up I would commit to a soft voice that was not harsh or mean. This was scary because I did not know I could trust it. I did not know that THIS was my “inner guidance”, the most BRILLIANT part of myself, my “higher self”. I started to trust it due to constantly choosing it and seeing over and over again that the big bad angry POWERFUL voice actually had far less power. The little voice got a little louder and wiser and stronger. I took two years to do nothing but nurture that voice. I would listen to what it would say, acknowledge any advice, and gradually felt that voice integrates into my being. I was becoming Whole. I was not looking outside for validation of this voice. I was trusting it, not doubting but blindly trusting as the other voice began to come around less often.
This voice I realized lived in my heart because the more I would apply LOVE to myself, the louder this voice would get as if to say “thank you”. I was becoming ONE with my loving. The “separation” that we call PAIN was no longer ALIVE in my body. I was connecting the pieces and becoming WHOLE on my own.
How has my life changed since I started to live IN my heart? DRAMATICALLY but without drama 😉
Friendships are full, beautiful, and mutually healing. Work is not working but instead just something I do for joy. I have followed my heart’s desire to facilitate healing for other people as they awaken to their loving because now I have Mastered it myself 😉 And I live each day open, free, and happy to be me.
I hope this sheds some light! Until next time!
for more info or wholeness coaching
candacevandell@gmail.com
LOVE & LIGHT
