If you have come across the work of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, including his best-selling book ‘The Power Of Now’, then you’re likely to have come across the concept of the ’emotional pain-body’. Although Tolle’s books explains the concept in depth, it can be a little hard to grasp due to its figurative and intangible nature.
Having studied Tolle’s work for several years, I believe I now fully understand what he means by the pain-body, which I will attempt to clarify below. In a nutshell, the emotional pain-body is an accumulation of the residue of all the emotional pain that you’ve experienced throughout your life. Literally an invisible body of emotional pain, it is a reservoir of negativity that is constantly seeking to be fed and cause further pain. Although this may sound very abstract, understanding it fully can truly transform your life and emotions for the better. Read on to find out more about the pain-body, where is comes from, how it impacts your life, and the first step to overcoming this negative phenomenon.
What Is The Emotional Pain-Body?
In his book ‘The Power Of Now’, Eckhart Tolle explains that ‘every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind.’ This is what Eckhart refers to as the ’emotional pain-body’. He goes on to explain that the pain-body is created by the ‘ego’, and in a similar way to the ego, its purpose is to preserve itself by making you identify with it. The pain-body will feed on anything that will cause you further pain.
Although they don’t do it consciously, most people will identify strongly with the negative things that have happened to them, and the struggles they face in life. They will often dwell on these painful experiences and complain about them to others. This is the pain-body at work. It creates and recreates pain so that the ego has something to identify with and to make it feel valid. It feeds the person’s identity in a way that can be very satisfying to the ego, even though it feels negative on the surface.
Eckhart states, ‘you will claim that you do not want pain, but look closely and you’ll find that your thinking and behaviour are designed to keep the pain going. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would evolve, as to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.’
It’s important to note that the pain-body and the ego are just figurative tools used by Tolle to help explain the working of the human mind. Eckhart personifies these phenomenon in his book and often speaks about them as if they were separate living entities. I think this might prevent some people from taking these ideas seriously, as they believe Eckhart means them literally. I believe he personifies them and gives them ‘behaviours’ and ‘motives’ as a way to help us identify them in ourselves more easily.
Where Does The Pain-Body Come From?
As mentioned above, the pain-body is a product of what Tolle refers to as ‘the ego’, which essentially is your identity as a human being. The ego acts as a lens that you view reality through. The interpretation of the present moment is distorted by things like your job, possessions, relationships, education, social status, appearance, beliefs, religious and political groups.
These things all contribute to your ego, along with your ‘life story’. This is where the pain-body comes in. The pain body further solidifies the ego by causing you to identify with your past, present, and future pain and suffering. Rather than leaving it in the past and allowing you to live in the present moment, the pain-body attempts to feed itself and the ego by storing old pain and re-awakening this pain whenever it can. For example, the pain-body is often triggered by memories or events linked to past pain -often referred to as ‘trauma’. 
How The Pain-Body Negatively Impacts Your Life
The negative effects of the pain-body on our lives are numerous. It can cause us to react in irrational ways, lash out at others, and even harm ourselves. According to Eckhart, Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless, whilst others are vicious and destructive. They may attack others that are close to you, or they can attack you, their host. The awakening pain body can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, or a need to have some drama in a relationship.
In more severe cases, the pain body can also lead to the development of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Due to it’s nature of trying to pull you into negative thoughts and emotions, the pain-body is often responsible for the ongoing negative mindsets that lead to anxiety, depression. and even suicide.
Finally, the pain-body can simply prevent us from experiencing true happiness and inner peace, as it constantly seeks to keep us in a state of suffering. If we really want to live happily and peacefully, we need to become aware of the pain-body and its behaviour within us. This, according to Eckhart, is the first and most important step to dissolving the pain-body and eventually becoming free of it.
Eckhart explains that, in the way that shining light onto shadow turns it into light, placing your awareness and consciousness onto the pain-body transforms it also into consciousness. For more on how to dissolve the emotional pain body, check out this blog post!
To learn more about creating awareness and consciousness through the practice of mindfulness, check out this article! Also, to learn more about the pain-body, and Eckhart Tolle’s other teachings, read his book The Power Of Now!