While author Eckhart Tolle suggests in his book, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," that “it takes no time at all” to become free of our identification with our pain-body (page 183), he also says that breaking free of our pain-bodies doesn’t generally instantaneously happen. It is usually accomplished over a process over time. Staying unaware of your pain-body only increases our ego and the identification that we attach to it. Every time you become aware of the pain-body within you, your pain-body is reduced.

Breaking free from our pain-bodies doesn’t mean that we ignore the emotions and drama that arise in our lives. To break free from these past hurts, we need to accept the emotions, no matter how unpleasant, in the moment that we experience them. Eckhart Tolle suggests that we sit with the emotion and allow the feeling, no matter how unpleasant and allow it to be. In doing so, we need to remember that we are not the emotion itself, but rather we are the awareness of the emotion.

Here again, we must not make the emotion our identity. It is not who we are. If we make our pain-bodies part of our identity, it causes suffering. We re-live the past and this keeps us in a state of unconsciousness. Yet our past has no power over the present moment. Once you bring the pain to the present moment, the pain-body is diminished in some way.

The best way to break free then is to practice being still. Practice it everyday. Become present as much as possible. As Eckhart Tolle says, “The pain-body needs your unconsciousness. It cannot tolerate the light of Presence.”--page 180. Awareness is everything.

It may seem overwhelming or impossible to move yourself into a positive place when your pain-body is heavy and roars, but when you become aware of your pain-body, you can then move yourself into a space that allows for a stillness by going to a better feeling or thought. This creates an awareness that will move you closer to consciousness. You will feel better.

So take a deep breath and start from there: ask yourself, “Am I still breathing?,” take a bubble bath, walk around the block, or close your eyes and see yourself in a happy, beautiful place. These are only some suggestions and you will find the right strategies that work for you. Breaking free is a joyful place to be and brings you closer to finding who you truly are.