Eckhart Tolle explains how to respond when someone is caught in their pain body, the accumulated emotional pain that surfaces as ego. He discusses staying present and aware rather than getting pulled into their emotional state, and how compassion works when someone is overwhelmed by pain.
A question here about what to do. Remaining silent in order to refrain from responding to a person's pain body. How do I respond without responding to the ego, the pain body of the other person, staying silent seems to only fuel their fire. When somebody has been taken over by the pain body, almost anything, well, probably anything you do will fuel the fire. Staying silent or not saying anything may fuel the fire. And whatever you say will fuel the fire even more. Staying silent is probably preferable to interacting with the pain body. Because if you interact with the pain body, and I'm talking about situation when the other person has been taken over completely by the pain body, if the pain body is actually there's a remnant of awareness in the other person, then one can still communicate. You would still be communicating to the other, to the person, if there's a remnant of awareness. And to know that if you said say it's your partner. And I always recommend that when you're both conscious to have an agreement with your partner that to point out to the other that the pain body is arising when you notice it. And you both agree that you will help each other be conscious of it. And if that's the case and you've done that, then as the pain body begins to take over your partner, and of course the partner is about to lose consciousness completely, you can say, I think that's your pain body coming up right now. And if there's a remnant of awareness in him or her, the person will say it is and which kind of put attention within it. Yeah, I actually do feel very angry right now because of what you said or whatever it is. Okay, there's a remnant of awareness. They say it's the pain, but there's a moment of, okay, let me see if that's true. If the person has been taken over completely, you will no longer be able to communicate with that person. And if any communication will be received by the pain body, so you're not. And any answer that you get will not be your partner's undifferentiate. Now, between your partner and that which takes him or her over when he or she is totally taken over communication, but becomes virtually impossible because whatever you say, the pain body will answer back and it will never. The pain body cannot admit that it is the pain body, the pain body always pretends to be the person. So when you say, oh, you've become your pain body, can't you see? Of course they can't see. They're totally asleep. And you're talking to the pain body and the pain body will not say, yes, I am the pain body. The pain body will say, don't give me that nonsense, look at your own stuff. Why do you put it onto me always? And you go on and on my pain to look at yourself. But it's always been so you remember what you did last week, that was the pain body. So whatever you say to the pain body will be wrong and will fuel the fire of the pain body. If there's a remnant of awareness, that's a different matter. Then something is still possible. So if there's no remnant of awareness, then say as much, as little as possible. Be as present as possible or compassionate, if that's possible. Pain bodies are very challenging, so high degree of presence is necessary. And sometimes the best solution is to remove yourself for a while so that the pain body can naturally come to that particular episode can subside. So if you do remove yourself and go for a walk, then the pain body in the other person for a while will continue to renew itself through their thinking or they might even make phone calls to somebody else to renew. But then after a while it'll come to an end. And then hopefully a few hours later or the next day, awareness comes back in. And then there's that there's the person that you know has come suddenly come back. I haven't seen you in a.
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