So I have developed three cardinal rules that I try my best to stick with when I feel triggered and angry about something:

1. Don’t respond right away 
2. Don’t respond via text or email (No matter how hard you try, you’re not going to be able to interpret a person’s tone nor will you be able to understand how a person is 
genuinely feeling.)
3. Don’t respond when I am still feeling angry.

Well, today I broke all three and in the process, I hurt a friend whom I love very dearly. I sat there listening to things coming out my mouth thinking, are you really saying this? It really did feel like an out of body experience. I have listened to Elkhart Tolle for years. One of the things that he teaches about is our emotional pain body. He describes how this is essentially an accumulation of painful life experiences that have become almost like a separate energy living inside us, made up completely of old emotions. Unfortunately, we all have one and it is the reason that we often react so out of character when we are angry, saying things we regret or quite frankly don’t even mean. As Eckhart says every interpretation, every judgment about your life, about other people or the situation you may be in is totally distorted by that old emotional pain that has been triggered from your past.

I have spent quite a few years working on learning to ‘love’ my pain body, so to speak. You can’t really do much more than simply becoming aware of it and to learn not to actively control or resist your negative emotion. More often it is the pain of self- judgment that hurts us the most when our pain body has been activated. We then go down this horrible road of beating ourselves up as we identify our pain body as being ‘us’. As described by Adam Oakley, ‘pure awareness is all that is required to break identification with your pain body. Once you break identification, it loses power over you and begins to weaken.’ (https://www.google.co.za/…/inner-pea…/pain-body%3fformat=amp)

For me, grief felt like living with your pain body 24/7 while you watch helplessly as it calls all the shots. I will never forget after my mum’s first visit to the oncologist we were ushered into the oncology social workers room afterwards. She was very sweet and very kindly provided us with information and support that we might need. The one thing that I clearly remember from that afternoon was her warning us how this would put a strain on our family relationships. While you do so often see this happening in ummmm ‘other’ families I resolutely reassured her that we were very close and supportive family, and that we would be just fine. It has to be said that nothing causes more family friction than the looming prospect of death. Two months later we sat in that same social worker’s room with my brothers while I screamed and swore like I never have in my life before and poor social worker sat staring in wide-eyed disbelief. Frankly, if there was an award for the bridezilla of grief….then I would have won it…hands down. At one point she even said: ‘Um I am not sure what you want me to do here?” To which one of my brothers very kindly replied: “We just need a space to be heard” It was so true. We left her room smiling, laughing and on the same page. It was an amazing feeling that, for me lasted about…mmm 24 hours and then my pain body was back in charge again. It was exhausting…and caused so much shame that I needed to deal with afterwards.

So I am no stranger to my pain body, when she rears her head, at the worst of times she can be truly vicious, (I am pretty sure past ex-boyfriends can vouch for that.) I have also spent years using my writing as a means of getting my frustrations out. It seemed I could never find the words to say…..but ”boy’ could I type them. The truth of the matter is it’s often the people we love and care about the most that can trigger our painbody the most. Maybe its because they know us the best, maybe its because they call us out on our shit, maybe it’s because we hold them to much higher, unfair standards than others…or maybe it’s simply because they are there to help us grow and to become more conscious human beings? I honestly don’t really have the answer to that question. I do however like to think I have become a lot more accepting and understanding of my own internal pain body. Meditation has helped, therapy has helped, self-forgiveness, forgiveness and learning to love myself (pain body and all) have all helped. But then you have days like today that remind me that I still have a lot more work to do.

So for my lovely friend. I love you dearly…. and I hope that you will forgive me for overreacting, (I do that sometimes.) You have been such a wonderfully supportive person in my life and my world be less bright🌅without you in it. Today really had very little to do with you and a lot to do with me. And I do especially love and appreciate your big caring heart.💘
.
With all my love 
A remorseful pain body
🐕💓💖💙🐝🌼💐💐