TranscendBulimia.com

Many of you know that I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. In this new book, he has made many of his concepts from The Power Of Now so much more accessible. I have been using this book as part of my recovery – from all areas of my mind, body and spirit. I think I mentioned that inspirational books like this have helped me more than any eating disorders book has. Why? Because in eating disorders books, I may learn more about the “condition” of an eating disorder, but not much about how to really change. Sure, I can change the behavior of addiction, but how do I change myself? How do I experience life with peace and joy? How do I stop suffering and struggling? When will I be free?

There are several stages of recovery that go beyond stopping the addictive behavior. In order to really enjoy life, this constant practice of CHOOSING happiness — choosing your thoughts – becomes the key. Eating disorders often keep us immersed in negative thinking – so when we start practicing putting positive thoughts into our minds and believing them, we move to another level of recovery – empowerment. We realize that we do, in fact, have control. Control over our thoughts, actions & choices. We don’t control the outcomes – but the trick is that we TRUST the outcomes – because we know we’ll always be okay. Once we can move from practice, to catching & choosing our thoughts, trust becomes what sets us free.

The Pain Body – What It Is & Why It’s So Difficult
Eckhart Tolle talks about suffering in terms of the “pain body.” He says that for most of us, we don’t think – “thinking happens to us.” We walk around on autopilot with involuntary and repetitive thoughts cycling through our minds (mind-chatter). When in this state, we lose our ability to choose what’s in our minds and the “voice in the head has a life of its own.” (A New Earth, p. 129). In this way, our thoughts own us, rather than us owning our thoughts.

That might be okay if we all grew up learning to love ourselves and thinking positive thoughts – but it’s not the standard conditioning of most of humanity. In addition, our thoughts are just a small part of who we really are – so when we buy into ourselves as just the thoughts in our minds at any given moment, we lose the whole of our being. Have you ever felt really great at one moment, then terrible the next – after someone yelled at you and told you how awful you are? Who were we at the time we felt good? And why are we someone else when we feel bad?

The only reason this happens is because we have identified with the thoughts filling our head in that moment. We BECAME our thoughts. We lost the opportunity to know that we are so much more than what is sitting in our heads at the moment.

Pain Body – The Monster
The pain body is an energy field of negativity that feeds on negative thoughts. It needs negative thoughts, negative situations and drama to live. Tolle describes it so much better than I do, but in essence, it is like the monster in the closet. When we believe the monster is in there, as a child might, we have all kinds of fears. We can’t sleep, we imagine all kinds of terrible scenarios. We have nightmares. If someone only opened the closet door, we’d see the monster is not there at all. It can only live when we imagine & believe it’s there. The pain body is the same. We can’t see it, but once we start buying into our negative thoughts, it builds up power and speed until it takes us over. Pretty soon, we are experiencing emotions and behaviors that feed on that negativity. And the pain body is in it’s glory at this time – ahhh, it loves this! It takes us over completely, just like the monster. Just like addiction. And once it gets satisfied, it leaves and we sit in the aftermath, wondering what happened.

Tolle tells us that we have a chance to stop this by catching our thoughts. Just the act of noticing the thoughts, before the pain body takes us over, can stop it in it’s tracks. Noticing it means you are watching it – not becoming it. This is when you can exercise the power of choice – you get to decide at that moment whether to buy in or be free.

Happiness Is A Choice
This lesson came back to me today as I was reading an interview with Barry Neil Kaufman, author of Son-Rise and Happiness Is A Choice – and co-founder of Option Institute. Here is a little of how he describes his background:

Barry Neil Kaufman: It’s a good question and I’ll try to give you relatively concise answer. I’ve been teaching what we call the Option Process, and also the Son-Rise program for nearly thirty years. In my early to mid twenties I ran a successful organization in Manhattan, working in the motion picture industry. I was, from all the external accoutrements, extraordinarily successful. I had a wife, two children, drove a Mercedes, and I was feeling totally hollow inside. While the style of living, and maybe my ambiance, suggested confidence and comfort, inside there was a real discomfort and displeasure. I was sort of living out Thoreau’s quote, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” That was me.

By my late twenties I had done years of analysis. I said to my therapist, “Now that you have a teak deck on your new sail boat, paid for by my sessions, it’s time for me to move on.” He kind of went back and forth on it, and I said, “My only question is, I’ve been working on myself for years now. I am still anxious, I still get scared, things look really confused to me, and I still get angry.” He nodded, smiled, laughed and said to me, “That is the human condition. The only difference is now you’re able to cope and adapt with those internal feelings and experiences.” I remember saying, “You really believe that?” and he said, “Yes.” And I laughed and said, “I’ve been believing it too.” And I walked out.

Is Happiness A Choice?
Barry Neil Kaufman not only believes happiness is a choice, he also believes that “there are no addictions.” Here is what he has to say about it in the same interview:

…,I don’t think they are addictions. For example, a person may be smoking, or drinking, or procrastinating, or accumulating too much debt, and does it repetitiously. That is viewed as addictive, and addictive is another problematic victim word. It is a word that suggests a lack of control. If someone is procrastinating, they do that for very specific reasons, because they don’t want to deal with the consequences of their actions. So they resist taking action until the last minute in order to avoid potential consequences which they think are adverse or difficult for themselves. If you break it down, there’s always a reason I’m doing it. There’s always a belief behind it. Addictive sounds like you’re out of control, versus, I make a choice and I keep making the same choice to behave in a certain way, and because I haven’t challenged the way I’m behaving, it looks like I’m out of control. But I’m not out of control, I’m just deciding to do it that way, everyday, or four times a day, or however I’m choosing to do it. But if I approve of what you’re doing, of course I wouldn’t call you addictive. I would call you inspired. I would call you self-disciplined because I like what you’re doing. But if I don’t like what you’re doing, I call you out of control, addictive.

Creating A Pathway to Choice
Kaufman goes on to explain the process they use at Options Institute, which is very similar to coaching. They work with people to find out why they don’t like what they are doing and how to change it. The first step to change? Love and acceptance of where you are. It seems that this theme continues to come up in one inspirational book after another. This is a timeless truth that all spiritual leaders, regardless of religious affiliation, have mentioned. Another timeless truth is to listen to your own voice.

Timeless Truths Today
The bottom line is that all of this leads to empowerment. When we feel like victims of an addiction, we lose our power. When I write this, I am not stating disagreement to the 12-steps – I don’t know enough about them to comment one way or another. I think the difference about power and powerlessness is a subtle nuance resulting in surrender. Powerlessness, when thought of in terms of surrender, can be very close to acceptance. If you chose to see powerlessness as surrender and acceptance of where you are now, you are in fact, empowered to make choices and changes in your life.

If you see powerlessness as being a victim of circumstances, without power, without ability to change or choose, you lose this option. The words really don’t matter – they are just words, or “signposts” as Tolle calls them. No matter what words you use, remember that you have the ability to choose – who you want to be, what you want to think, every action that you take. Don’t put it off until tomorrow. The first step is acceptance – and being open to change. Just that one step and the rest will come. If you do this, every challenge – including addiction – will be an awakener for living your life in peace, joy and freedom.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• How This Life-Changing Book Can Help You Heal and Thrive
• How to Deal with Physical and Emotional Pain in Eating Disorders Recovery
• A Recipe for Balance – Reset Your Body & Mind
• Recovery Coaching
• Is Getting Out of The Dark Hole Possible?

Related items

• How This Life-Changing Book Can Help You Heal and Thrive
• Top 3 Reasons to Change Your Perspective Today!
• Caroline Myss: Anorexia, Bulimia and Self Esteem
• How to Deal with Physical and Emotional Pain in Eating Disorders Recovery
• Free Thought Shifting (TM) Teleclass: Change Your Thoughts, Release Addictions