This article is an outcome from a latest conversation within my fellow healers. With every article my own understanding of a subject become deeper , I hope you will like and benefit from it too.

Pain is associated with suffering either physical or emotional and as A healer and practitioner of alternative healing techniques this is the most common word I keep hearing from patients. I am in PAIN, I fell down got hurt or I have so and so disease and I am in PAIN, or I was emotionally hurt and I am in PAIN.  So we see PAIN can be either physical or emotional :).  In this article we explore Are Both These PAIN Different ?? Is Physical Pain a Symptom of an Emotional Pain??

In this article I will follow the course of the conversation that we were having and then delve deeper into the spiritual understanding of Pain at a deeper level along with How we can use this PAIN to our benefit. 🙂

The picture below is a Chinese phrase famous in medicine ,meaning, “If there is free flow, then there is no pain; if there is pain, then there is no free flow” (Tong zhi bu tong; bu tong zhi tong). Interestingly this phrase has a far deeper meaning 🙂 we will explore.

 Normal physiology says that Qi, or energy, flows through the Meridians the way that blood flows through blood vessels, and these Meridians traverse the entire body to allow Qi to nourish, warm, and activate the various body muscles, tissues, and organs. When that flow is impeded in some way, Qi and blood stagnate in the Meridian, and the body experiences pain along that Meridian – either locally or farther down the stream. This is way bruises are painful; they are essentially stuck blood (and Qi).

What causes stagnation in the Meridians? For most pain cases it’s trauma or injury, and this could include things like surgery or overuse. Cold can also cause stagnation. Think of a creek freezing solid in the winter. That’s why we typically don’t recommend icing a strained muscle. Things like stress and emotional constraint also contribute to pain, so have a glass of wine and relax once in a while!

Interestingly in the school of energy we understand that we have an etheric body or a the energy double that is also called Aura or bio plasmic field of our body. This body has one to one mapping to our physical body and it has its own energy meridians controlled by energy centers called Chakras. These energy channels or Chakras help distribute prana throughout the energy body and into our physical body. If the meridians in the energy body are clean then the physical body follows the same.

The energy body is fed by our thoughts and emotions and hence every physical ailment is related to our emotional wellbeing. There’s no denying that our emotional pains are felt in physical discomfort.Our bodies respond to the pain of our hearts and racing mind. We carry the stress of our lives, literally, on our backs. We get tension when we’re going through stress and have trouble breathing in times of despair and heartache.

The Chart above illustrates the emotions that can cause Pain in the Physical body

Interestingly most of the times we see PAIN as a Symptom of a physical ailments like, gall stone pain, angina pain, migraine,joint pain , Sciatica and many more 🙂

What Are the Symptoms of Pain?

The symptoms of chronic pain include:

• Mild to severe pain that does not go away
• Pain that may be described as shooting, burning, aching, or electrical
• Feeling of discomfort, soreness, tightness, or stiffness

Pain is not a symptom that exists alone. Other problems associated with pain can include:

• Fatigue
• Sleeplessness
• Withdrawal from activity and increased need to rest
• Weakened immune system
• Changes in mood including hopelessness, fear, depression, irritability, anxiety, and stress
• Disability

The Emotional Pain and our PAIN BODY

This is only the physical part to pain however being emotional beings we are greatly affected by emotional disturbances within and around us.The feeling and experience of Pain (emotional /physical) is something that is there with us since our birth. Past experiences of painful events reside within us. The accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it surfaces and leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain. It comes together with other energy forms from other instances, and so after some years you have a “painbody,” an energy entity consisting of old emotional patterns.

This negative emotional body is part of us and when it gets a trigger during times of rejection, break ups, cheating, abandonment,this pain body feels an amplified by the emotion and at times we behave under the influence of this living entity.At that moment, when it does take over your mind, the internal dialogue, which is dysfunctional at the best of times, now becomes the voice of the painbody talking to you internally. Everything it says is deeply colored by the old, painful emotion of the painbody. Every interpretation, everything it says, every judgment about your life, about other people, about a situation you are in, will be totally distorted by the old emotional pain.

If you are not there as the space for it, you are identified with the painbody and you believe every negative thought that it is telling you. If you are alone, the painbody will feed on every negative thought that arises, and get more energy. That’s why it’s become active — after it does that for a while, you can’t stop thinking, at night, or whenever it is. The painbody is feeding, and after a few hours, it’s had enough. You feel a little depleted. And then it happens again a few weeks later, or few days later.

The painbody loves to feed on actions and reactions and drama is one of the favorite food for it. 🙂 The cornerstone of emotional toxicity is the Pain Body, which prevents you from experiencing peace and connection at an emotional and spiritual level as well as vitality and health at a physical and cellular level. Intersting Pain in this context become the CAUSE.

The Pain Body can be seen as its own energy field within the Cellular Memory whose prime directive is the accumulation and generation of pain in your life. Whether disease, dysfunction, imbalance or lack of peace occurs at any level, you can be sure that the Pain Body is playing a very active role in feeding its existence. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, calls the cumulative layers of negative emotions the “Pain-Body” and refers to it as an entity. He says:

“There are two levels of pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain of the past that still lives on in your mind and body. This of course includes the pain that you suffer as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world into which you were born. The accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look at it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth – It’s the emotional Pain-Body.”

The cells in which past physical or emotional trauma is stored, operate in a survival pattern based on something that is no longer real or current for anyone but the person maintaining the pattern. When an unresolved issue or trauma impedes the flow of energy in the body-mind system, stagnation is created in a particular part of the body, often the organ, joint or muscle most associated with the trauma. We know further that areas of stagnant energy contain negative e-motional charge, dirty energy or diseased energy. A simple example: You hurt your ankle while running because you are late to your office. You feel very upset for that. You get angry at yourself for not paying more attention when walking and you may blame yourself by saying things like, “Stupid, you never pay enough attention!” “You are going to be late and your boss will be upset with you”. By now, your body is not only feeling the physical trauma in the form of real pain, but you are adding self-condemnation, anger, guilt, fear and unforgiveness. This process may go on and on.

I have been reading and understanding PAIN through my patients and also through my personal experiences but in the end the realization is that whether PAIN is a CAUSE or a SYMPTOM it does not arise from outside; instead it highlights our own internal weaknesses. There is a famous proverb “NO PAIN , NO GAIN” which I used to always consider in a literal way but today it makes more sense as Pain is actually an instrument for the Soul which if used with awareness and mindfulness can be used for soul mastery.

An excerpt from the lecture from the great Theosophist Annie Besant (From the book PAIN and meaning and use)

“And another use of pain, a more inner lesson now: for we have reached the point where the Soul has distinguished himself from the body of desire and even from the mind itself. And still he has not got outside the reach of pain, for he has not yet quite found his centre, he is only seeking it still; and although he knows that he is not the body, nor the sense?, nor the mind, he still finds himself susceptible of pain that comes from within, of contacts that translate themselves as pain. And coming into contact with others —-with the thoughts and the feelings and the judgment of others—’he constantly finds himself pained by mis-judgments and mistranslations, by unkind thoughts and unkind feelings; and if the Soul has by this time gained wisdom, as he must have done if he has followed the path along which we have been tracing him, then he will begin to ask himself: Why do I still feel pain? What is there, not in the outside, but in me that gives rise to pain? For he has now passed beyond the ignorance which makes this outer thing appear as the inflicter of pain, and he relates to himself the element that causes pain, and realizes that nothing can touch him save himself, which is in truth responsible for all.

 So in Truth Pain whether it is a Cause or a Symptom has its own significance in our life either we can heal our self on a superficial level of the pain or we can deep dive and use it for our eternal spiritual growth.

HOW to Benefit from PAIN 🙂

1.Physical Pain is the manifestation of an emotional cause: It is always wise to introspect on the emotional cause for the physical pain instead of working on the symptom understand the emotional cause and work on it.

2.Understand your Pain Body: When in situation of negative self talk, mulling, anger and resentment just detach from the emotion and try to check if you are looking for more drama to fuel the pain body. If Yes then this is a danger ,alarm for introspection.

3. Meditation /Mindfulness: When the pain body engulfs you or you understand it is trying to take over it is best to go a step back and try to see the situation with awareness. The Pain created by your pain body , the drama expected by it to feed itself . Learn a meditation technique or simply sit quietly and revisit the situation in awareness understanding the side effects or the outcome of feeding the pain body.

4.Cut Cords: Cutting cord with people and situations that trigger your pain body is very useful as it stops the emotional drain from one to the other

5.Shadow Work: Use situations of Pain as an Opportunity for Improvement: It is hard to hear but learning through Pain is much more faster and hence Pain can be used for understanding our inner weakness to increase our tolerance, to learn forgiveness and to grow emotionally.

A useful point to remember is that pain is a protective factor. It warns of danger. It makes one aware of the need to remove a pain-producing potential, such as flame, or scalding water. If it were not for pain, the commonplace dangers of daily life could do irreparable harm to the physical body before the owner was aware of what was happening. And it is this beneficent work of pain that makes one aware of disease in the organism, and so leads to a cure being effected before it is too late.

Pain appears to be basically the result of lack of harmony in some area of man’s total make-up. It could be disharmony between

1. the soul and its vehicles (or between the form and the indwelling Life),
2. different elements of the personality equipment, e.g. mind in conflict with emotions,
3. the components of the physical body—maladjustment in organs or cells: blockages in the flow of the life-giving blood.

Lots of Love Sargam