While everyone experiences feelings of depression and anxiety, when it becomes overwhelming, and takes over your mind, it can cause you to self-destruct. Despite most people who are dealing with it thinking that it never really goes away- according to Eckhart Tolle, it can, and he knows how.
An amazing author and teach, Tolle’s teachings have provided guidance and counsel to many in need. He uses the description ‘painbody’ when referring to emotional pain that we experience. He also explains that they are often the result of past trauma that was never fully experienced. And when we don’t fully face the emotions inside of ourselves, anxiety and depression fill their place.
Through learning how to understand your traumas and then fully experiencing them, we are capable of dealing with anxiety, because through these hard moments, we learn about the most difficult emotions. In an excerpt from his book, ‘The Power of Now,’ Tolle says the following words:
“The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you. But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again. The pain-body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence.
Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true. The question is: Is it true for you? A mere belief doesn’t make it true. Do you want to experience pain for the rest of your life and keep saying that it is an illusion? Does that free you from the pain? What we are concerned with here is how you can realize this truth — that is, make it real in your own experience.”
And honestly, I couldn’t agree more. While I haven’t read much of his work until recently, I know that I will be from now on. Because I feel like his understanding of overcoming a battle that I, and millions of other people deal with, is the best possible way.