Give it up; the world we have been thinking of so long, the world to which we have been clinging so long, is a false world of our own creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see that as such it never existed; it is a dream, Maya.
Vivekananda
I uttered those word to someone last evening ( in a paraphrased form) who was in the height of an extreme reaction to my sharing that I will be moving 30 minutes away. The reaction was dramatic and extreme...to say the least...like it usually is when change threatens the false protective world she created around her and to which she clings with white knuckles in hope it will provide some semblance of comfort and safety for this idea she has of who she is. Once those walls begin to rumble and shake (and it doesn't take much to make walls built on sand rumble and shake...so they rumble a lot)...she spits out a hatred, blame, negativity that is as toxic as sulphuric acid towards me. How dare I make her world rumble? How dare I disturb her comfort zone? She is, after all, sick, she reminds whoever will hear and especially herself, and I am responsible somehow for making her sick etc. I, therefore, owe her my complete and utter devotion etc etc. Anything less than that and I am "mean", "cruel", "unloving" etc. She threatens to hurt herself and tells me I am responsible for it. I drove her to it. I am to blame for her unhealthy choices...each and every one of them.
Sigh!
This is what it is like living with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her pain is real...there is no doubt about that. She has the epitomy of what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the "pain body".
Eckhart Tolle defines the pain body as an energetic field of old accumulated emotional pain-both personal and collective-that resides in an individual's mind and body. It is driven by an unconscious need to survive and feeds on unhappiness, manifesting as intense anger, sadness, or fear and often resulting in self-sabotaging behaviours. The pain body thrives when we identify with it, but it can be dissolved by bringing conscious awarenes and presence to it, observing it without judgement. (From AI overview of Tolle's definition)
I wonder how Marsha Linehan (the founder of DBT, a treatment modality she developed for treating BPD) views that definition. It seems bang on to me from both the psychological and the spiritual standpoint.
Her pain body is old accumulated energy from a past ...a story she clings to with all her might and even adds to, fabricates, and rearranges to create a justifyable "reason" for her pain body's reaction and behaviours in the present. There is definitely pain there that she stuffed and stored...that she repressed and surpressed so deeply creating doozies of samskaras to which she sees as who she is, and to which she spends her life keeping down. She uses most of her focus, her energy to organize the world around her so precicesly that these things never get triggered. Refusing to accept the ebb and flow of life, the natural unpredictability of it, the vastness of it...the reality of it...she creates a very limited and unreal version to hide her pain body within. And from there she feeds it and lets it grow. It has become who she thinks she is.
And I...a recovering pain body...a person who can finally see beyond the pain body in this human I call "me" and the pain body in others am no longer pulled into that drama her's creates. Her pain body feels threatened by my detachment to it and convinces her of her worse fear...that I am not only abandoning her, I am tearing down the walls of her comfort zone. Pain body grows with this fear and she reacts...very, very dramatically.
There was a time I would have so quickly gotten pulled into that drama...where I too would have fed her pain body...with what seemed like my very soul....anything to soothe it. There was a time I didn't make the distinction between a being and their human "pain body". Now, I see that distinction so clearly. I know when I look at her that she isn't her pain body...it is just something she has and something she feeds. I know she is much more than it, than her diagnosis, than her past, than her choices and circumstances... I can see who she is beyond it and how bright her Life can be if she lets go of that Maya to which she clings so tightly. I tell her that (not in those words exactly...but you know.).
That doesn't go over very well, let me tell ya. lol. Pain body puffs up and blows up in an attempt to appear bigger and all emcompassing when it is threatened by Truth. It doesn't want me seeing that she isn't it...more than anything it doesn't want her seeing that she isn't it. It doesn't want her discovering that if she stopped clinging to it and the lies it spews, if she stopped feeding it and identifying as it...if she stood away and just observed it...pouring conscious awareness and presence on it from the Seat of Who She Really Is...pain body would shrink to nothing....eventually.
But atlas...he isn't ready for that truth. And I, from this end, can no longer soothe or feed her version of reality as she continues to identify with pain body. I don't get lost in the drama anymore. I don't react. She sees my cool detachment as me "not loving her", "not caring", "being mean and cruel" (and all sorts of other names I will not share here :) ) Still...I don't get pulled in. My conscious awareness, my presence is doing the observing now. I see pain body and I see her. I bypass pain body again and again in our communications to speak directly to her. I tell her I love her and I see her. I remind her that though I see and feel her pain...I believe she isn't her pain, her diagnosis, her choices, her circumstances. I encourage her to get the help she needs to get "through" her pain...that there is nothing I want more than her happiness and well being...that I will support her in getting the help she needs but she has to be willing to get help.
When I do that her pain body puffs up with all the reasons why she can't get help and why it is then my responsibility to fix her and to let it do what it does. I simply speak to her again and tell her..."This is your life. It is you that must do the work of getting through this "pain experience"...all I can do is support you and love you through it when you are ready...."I didn't break it and I can't fix it." "
I also remind her that her pain body has no right to hurt other people. Though I understand it, no one has to be a victim of it. So, she cannot expect me...or anyone else... to be abused by it. I tell her she is responsible for her Life, no one else.
Then, I will hug her...if she lets me...and I tell her I will love her and see her beauty no matter what she does. I walk away.
Though I remain, for the most part, in higher awareness during these situations...I automatically fall back there to Seat of Objective Observer when I notice the reaction starting...it is still very draining and exhausting for this human I call "me" to be dealing with this all the time. It is a challenge. A challenge I am slowly mastering.
I have learned so much, though, through this life challenge. I have grown so much. For that I am very grateful.
All is well.
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