Childhood and Cultural Trauma

Healing the Pain Body

“At least I’ve come to that in my life, to realize that this stuff called failure, this stuff, this debris of historical trauma, family trauma, you know, the stuff that can kill your spirit, is actually raw material to make things with and to build a bridge. You can use these materials to build a bridge over that which would destroy you.”

Joy Harjo (NPR interview with Neal Conan)

          I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s description of the “pain body.” He characterizes it as a field of energy in and around the body that is composed of the collective pain of one’s personal childhood experience along with cultural pain that we inherit. For adults, it is mostly dormant, which is to say unconscious—we’re not aware of it. But when it raises its ugly head and takes possession of us, we say and do things that we later regret. The entity that is the pain body is autonomous, and once it takes possession of our physical body and mind, it stirs up situations that recreate the original trauma. That happens because the pain body feeds on pain—both the pain we experience ourselves, and the pain that we cause others. Pain is its only food, so it is essential to the pain body’s survival.

          What we see, and what we experience, is people repeating patterns of behavior that come out of their original trauma. Here is a case in point: I knew a man whose parents used the family dinner table to act out their animosity toward one another. The husband began by criticizing the wife, and the wife responded first by fighting back, and later by crying, and later still by fleeing from the table. When the man, who was their son, began drinking heavily, he staged the same scene at his own dinner table. When he could not force his wife to engage in the pattern, he turned his destructive behavior on the children. It’s telling that these nightly scenes revolved around dinner time—food for his physical body, and for his pain body. Culturally, we find the highest incidences of domestic violence in societies that have been, or are still, experiencing poverty and hopelessness. When we are in emotional pain, we may try to relieve it by attacking someone else—a futile attempt to transfer the pain from ourselves to them. It doesn’t work, of course.

          Here’s the good news: we can use our childhood trauma, as well as our cultural trauma for building bridges. First, we have to be aware of it—bring it to consciousness, acknowledge its existence. If we are living in situations that cause us pain now, that is a pretty good clue that we have an active pain body. Instead of blaming others for our pain, claim is as our own. Regardless of its origin, if we are feeling it, it belongs to us. Don’t project it, don’t spend time and energy tracing it back to a perpetrator, don’t over analyze it. Just know it is there without acting it out. In other words, contain it. The mere acknowledgment of its existence is a step toward wholeness. It is especially important not to identify with your traumatized self. Do not let “victim” become your identity. Being perceived as a victim can be seductive; people try to make you feel better, you get a lot of attention. But it’s not in any way healthy; it’s simply more food for the pain body. It is, in fact, and addiction, and like any addiction, it requires more and more feeding. People who see themselves as victims and continue to live from that identity, often fulfill that prophecy.

          We are watching a classic demonstration of the cultural pain body right now in America. Peaceful protest is an excellent way to drive home one’s claim of prolonged cultural deprivation and trauma, while violence, property destruction, and vandalism are its pain-body opposite. Taking responsibility for our feckless response to a pandemic is the first step in moving forward, while blaming everybody and his brother for it is the pain-body opposite. Being able to say, I messed up and the buck stops here, is the mature response of a leader, while blaming the “deep state” and China, is the pain-body opposite. One comes from unhealed childhood trauma and the other comes from evolved consciousness. The difference is stark.

          Learning to use the “stuff” of our personal and collective trauma to build bridges is a positive and desirable move forward for us, and for human evolution in general. It requires individual consciousness and maturity. The reward is joy. Seems worth the work to me. How about you?

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane