Oprah, Tolle, & A New Earth, Chapter 6 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 | Last week in Chapter 5, you realized you have a pain-body. This week in Chapter 6, learn how to break free from the pain-body by staying present and alert enough when it becomes active.
If you missed Monday night’s web class on Chapter 6: “Breaking Free,” watch it here. Don’t forget to fill out your workbook for Chapter 6 here. |
Oprah & Tolle Discuss Chapter 6: "Breaking Free"
Chapter 6 of A New Earth discusses how to break free of the pain-body. Tolle says that the beginning of breaking free is first realizing that you have a pain-body. Then, and more important, is to stay present and alert enough to notice the pain-body in yourself “as a heavy influx of negative emotion when it becomes active.” (pg. 161)
Tolle also discussed “triggers” for the pain-body in Chapter 6. Some pain-bodies only react to certain triggers, which usually resonates with an emotion or pain from the past. Money, feelings of abandonment or neglect, abuse, and lack of love are all common triggers. Once you recognize your own triggers, you can immediately see them for what they are when they occur and notice your own emotional reaction to them.
The key to breaking free of the pain-body is to break free of identification with it. When it is activated, know that what you feel is your pain-body in you. According to Tolle, “This knowing is all that is needed to break your identification with it. And when identification with it ceases, the transmutation begins.”
Don’t allow your pain-body to use you anymore; face it directly and allow yourself to feel, but don’t allow yourself to think that there is something wrong with you.
Discussion of Chapter 6:
Here are some thoughts to ponder (and share) regarding Chapter 6:
1. Did a situation arise this week where you were able to detect the pain-body in another person or in yourself? What happened? Tell Us.
2. “Misery Loves Company”.... How does this relate to the pain-body? Tell Us.
3. If you are reading A New Earth with your partner or a friend, you can help each other enormously by telling him or her: "What you just said (or did) triggered my pain-body." Have an agreement that whenever either of you says or does something that triggers the other person's pain-body, you will immediately mention it. "In this way, the pain-body can no longer renew itself through drama in the relationship and instead of pulling you into unconsciousness, will help you become fully present" (p.180)
Did this happen to you this week? Any tips on how to tell someone this? Sometimes people don't like confrontation. Tell Us.
4. Some pain-bodies react to particular kinds of “triggers” - situations that resonate with specific emotional pain suffered in the past. Difficult childhood experiences with intimacy, money, domination, abandonment, neglect, abuse, etc., can cause emotional reactions in the present time that feed the pain-body.
Do you feel your pain-body become activated by certain situations or things that other people do or say? In other words, what are your triggers? Tell Us.
Get Ready for Next Week, Chapter 7
In Chapter 6, you learned how to break free from your addiction to negativity. Now, take that freedom a step further. In Chapter 7, you discover that you are not who you think you are. Who are you? Get started on your workbook here.
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Article Written by: Amy Taylor; Amy is a graduate of FIDM in Los Angeles and is always looking for ways to better herself and the world around her.
