How to Stop Reacting When Someone Triggers You | Eckhart Tolle

Any problem. If you encounter challenges and problems in your life, you can allow the challenge to awaken you, to make you more conscious. This has been done too. Over thousands of years. Spiritual practitioners have created extreme discomfort in order to awaken. Now there is. The Western mind says, how can they be so stupid? Well, it's not that. It's not that stupid. I don't recommend it, by the way, but let's just. Taking yourself out of the comfort zone. They used to do that in ancient times in the west, also in the early days of Christianity, there were people, there were the desert people, lived in the desert on almost nothing, depriving yourself of every physical comfort. And even nowadays in India, that tradition still continues. There are humans who create very difficult situations. Some, I don't know if they still do this. The ancient example, you sleep on a bed of nails rather than a comfortable mattress, for example. But there are many other things where people inflict physical discomfort, even suffering on themselves. Now there is. This is not for most of you or all of you. That's probably not your path. So please, or if you have to do it, go to India. At least they'll. They'll may support you, but don't tell. I don't recommend it, so don't blame me. Taking yourself out of the comfort zone. In many traditions this has been a practice and there is a deep meaning behind that. There's some insight behind that because they realize if you take yourself out of. Then there is. The possibility of awakening is greater. You can even observe it with a very little thing. Let's say you put your hand in very cold water just as an experiment, and leave it in for 30 seconds. And then the very uncomfortable feeling arises. Or you can do the whole body jump in. There's a river here. I'm sure it's always very cold. You jump in the river, very unpleasant feeling arises. And let's just stick with a hand. Your hand is in the cold water. And then the first react is you want to pull your hand back or there's a reaction and then you separate yourself. You just observe the feeling and then you become the observer of that feeling, which is the observing consciousness. So you have disassociated from the feeling. The feeling is there, but you're not reacting to it. That was a little practice. You step out of identification with the unpleasant feeling. This is why some people, as Aaron mentioned at the beginning, I'm going to talk to people in prison later this year and I often receive correspondence from people in prison. Now, that's not A comfort zone. Being in prison is the opposite of a comfort zone. And quite a few have reported that through coming into contact with this teaching or some other spiritual teaching, or sometimes spontaneously, they were able to awaken in this situation of extreme discomfort. It operates on every level. Energy flows in when there's a need for energy. Energy exists on many levels. You can have energy, physical energy, or higher energy at higher vibrational frequency, where it becomes consciousness. It's our all consciousness. It's just different vibrational frequencies of consciousness. If you want a stronger physical body, it not going to happen. If you make life for your body as comfortable as possible, that would be nice. If it's okay, I'm going to strengthen my body now. I'm going to lie on this sofa for six hours and watch Netflix. The body will get weaker because it's not being challenged. Or you go out into. You start some physical exercise, lifting weights style small weights. Oh my God, the body doesn't like it. You're making life difficult for your body. You're taking the body out of its comfort zone. And then the mind says, okay, I think that's enough. Or you carry on. Or you start jogging, you start running. Trust you. Oh, why? Why did I get up from my sofa? You shouldn't be. And then there's a gap, there's not enough energy. But then at some point, whether it's weightlifting or running, whatever, you will experience an influx of energy which would never have come if the body had remained in its comfort zone. Then it comes. And then you even begin to enjoy the movement because the energy is there before it wasn't there. And this. And then the body as you, if you persevere, the body gets stronger. And that's only on a physical level. Any problem. If you encounter challenges and problems in your life, you can allow the the challenge to awaken you, to make you more conscious. A difficult person, for example. Life is full of them. You may have noticed there's always a difficult person somewhere around you, not you. Somewhere, somewhere. How do you react when you encounter a person who is uncle, accuses you of something silly or complaints, is angry with you or shows you no respect or whatever they may be doing? Yes, in some cases you need to say something, but in many other cases any reaction would be futile. But the reaction is usually unconscious. And so any unconscious person can pull you down to their level. You're driving, somebody shouts at you, calls you something, idio, idiot. And you can feel if the ego is there. You can feel the injury to the ego. He called Me an idiot and immediately only takes one or two seconds. The ego will immediately jump into repair mechanism and shout something back. That's even worse than idiot. I don't know what's worse than idiot, but I'm sure there are many things. And then if you're not careful, that guy may stop his car and jump out. And you jump out after your car. Total unconsciousness or same situation happens. God shouts something at you and you realize in that very instant you can be present or you can react of ego and you realize idiot and you. That would be very disconcerting for the other person. You're simply present. They were just sounds coming out of his mouth. Absolutely nothing to do with you. And you're present. Now this person will become very disconcerted because there's no respons. Because the ego wants the reaction, it wants the other to react. It thrives on the turmoil. I have the pain body you might written and spoken about what I call the pain body that lives in you which is an accumulation of emotional pain and negativity accumulated since childhood. It lives in you as a kind of energetic entity, so to speak. Sometimes it's dormant periodically, but it gets triggered by some external event. Then the dormant pain body, the emotion that is painful then rises up into your mind and makes forces you to speak and say something through the emotion. Then uses your mind and every thought you think. When the pain body has been triggered by somebody or situation you may become. Every thought that you think then is will be irrational. And you are not doing the thinking. The old emotion in you is doing the thinking in your mind. You are not even there anymore. You're completely asleep, spiritually completely unconscious. You're in the grip of the old emotion and you act it out. And it could be a driver. Maybe you triggered this driver and he shouts. Nothing to do with you. This emotion has lived in him for 45 years. And it's just. You were just a convenient trigger. And the pain body is there. The pain will needs, but it needs you to react. It's desperate. If you don't react, it can't do very much. So it'll try again. Say something else. No reaction. But you're not suppressing a reaction. You're simply present. I've done that quite a few times in traffic because sometimes I'm a bit slow and driver and people get upset with me and they shout all kinds of things and I look. And sometimes they think I must be deaf. Then they shout even louder. And then a few months ago a man did that and he shouted even louder and then he shouted I know you can hear me. Pain body is very important to be aware of in your daily life because most people have one. Well, virtually everybody has a pain body, but in some people it's much stronger than in others. It varies in strength. In your relationships it's particularly important to be aware that periodically you act out drama in the relationship or of the small trigger is enough. It awakens somebody's pain body and then it tries to provoke the other. And, and usually, usually it succeeds. And then you cannot argue with a pain body. There's no rational argument. When a person is in the grip of the pain body, the emotional pain body, any rational argument is totally impossible. So don't even try. All you can do is remain in a state of non reactivity or if possible temporarily remove yourself by walking out of the room. If you can't stay just present. So if you live, if you are married or you live together, I always recommend that not while the pain body is active, when you're fine, have a conversation so that you can help each other next time. This emotional turmoil wants to return the pain body. When you observe it in another person, beginning of it, come to an agreement that you're going to give the other person a little sign, Whatever it may be. And the sign means could that be your pain body just talking just now? And if you catch it early enough and that person is already there's a certain amount of presence that's already in that person. I call it presence power that grows in you. This is if there is a certain amount of presence power, then if you and you catch it early, then that other person may become conscious at that very moment of the emotion. And then would say oh yes, thank you, I got it. And then it cannot rise up and use your mind. It cannot renew itself through the other person's reaction. But even if you live alone, the pain body can renew itself through your thought processes because thought is also energy. So once the pain body is taking possession of your mind, your thinking becomes deeply negative, very heavy density to it. And the pain body, in that moment you are the pain body and you are addicted to towards the negative thinking in that moment. It's an addiction because the pain body feeds on every negative thought. So you're addicted to it in that moment. So pain body can feed on other people's reactions or it can also just feed on your thoughts. Once you have the grip of it, you have to just wait for it to subside. But more present you are, the easier it will be to catch it as it arises. And then it will not renew itself by using your mind and creating havoc in your personal relationships. This is all connected to presence. The arising of presence in your life and the pain body is a wonderful challenge. And again, it's not comfortable. But that's how we grow. Now it's extremely important that we practice presence when confronted with world events and so on. Sam.