Do you choose peace or succumb to drama?
Ekhart Tolle is my modern day philosopher of choice. His words resonated with me from The Power of Now when I needed to end my trauma-bond marriage to the doctor. And his words are still resonating with me years later from his book A New Earth about staying out of suffering and with peace. The first and most consistent concept in both books is that the only time that exists is NOW, this present moment. And we often waste this moment to suffer or worry or impatiently await something that’s not actually happening now.
Tolle also spends time discussing what he refers to as the “pain body” which is basically the accumulation of trauma and suffering we all carry with us that our smaller, ego selves, may allow to take over, thrusting us into a state of in-ease such as depression. Our ego selves are the parts in us that crave recognition, acknowledgement or the need to be right. Alternatively we can become more conscious beings and acknowledge the pain body and not allow it to take us over, and still choose peace.
In A New Earth Tolle basically calls me out on my shit when he writes about how many of us say all I want is peace yet we continually choose drama which creates the stories we tell ourselves that attach to our pain body. All the things that irk our ire such as the boss needing to talk to you, losing a job, the car breaking down, a disagreement with a loved one, running late, or missing an appointment are examples of little things (even though they may seem big at the time), that we allow to steal our peace and drag us into drama. Our fears also fall into this category. We basically have the option to stay with peace or choose drama and allow our pain body to grow and take us over.
This sounds simple and so obvious, but as humans we are only able to choose peace over drama when we know we actually have a choice. The pace of life, being reliant on how our parents or early caregivers teach us to be, and transgenerational trauma all push us toward drama rather than peace. Once we know better we can do better. Ask yourself now, where are you choosing drama over peace? How can you step out of you small ego-self that perpetuates drama and into your higher self that chooses peace?
A New Earth is a book anyone suffering can truly benefit from reading. Since reading it when I wake up with anxiety about the little things, I now thank my pain body for trying to protect me and then I consciously take stock of my present moment existence and actively choose peace.