Wanted...

A new security blanket. As a kid I had a security blanket, it was blue, red and white striped, fuzzy, warm and cuddly. It was dragged everywhere and I drove my mother nuts because blankie and me were inseparable . She used to have to wait until I was asleep to wash it and then I would be unbearable until I got it back. I know now how bad my need for security was as a kid that the blankie played a role for so long.

There are days when I wish that everything could so easily be solved, a fuzzy blanket to ward off the demons, to help me sleep at night when my thoughts go round and round my head until I want to scream. Sometimes when the world seems a particularly cruel place; when I get e-mail forwards about starving children, human rights atrocities, cruelty to animals or read about the slaughter of innocents and wildlife, I want to shut it all out and not think. When people I know die suddenly from stress related diseases or some spectacular piece of stupidity obtains undoing months of hard work, necessitating huge amounts of time, I wonder, is it all worth the struggle? And then I wish for my blankie. It seemed to solve so much!

Fortunately I've learnt to not accept the pain-body as my cross to bear at all times. What is the pain-body? Eckhart Tolle in his book, Awakening Earth explains, it is the collection of past emotions, hurts and wrongs that we cling to, "it is the remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted and let go of"- these join together to form an energy field that lives within you. Sounds like hokey? Think about it, the more painful something is the more we can use it to evoke negative emotions in ourselves.

So how do we let go? "When you no longer identify with the pain-body it can no longer control your thinking and so cannot renew itself anymore by feeding on your thoughts". The more you disconnect from it, the less power it will have over you until you cease to be clouded by past emotions and perceptions. These days instead of running for a security blanket when I have a particularly trying day, I try to leave it at the front door when I get home. I go inside, greet my ecstatic animal, take him out walkies and at some stage we lie around together. He happily submits to being petted, his thick fur is reassuring to the touch and me, I know I'm okay.