Ask The Council

Pain – A Spiritual Perspective

In this post we look at The Council’s spiritual point of view on the subject of human pain. The post was inspired by two questions about pain from two different readers. Robert’s question is a philosophical one about the purpose for pain in our human experience. And Lee Ann’s question is a personal one about a spiritual agreement she thinks she made to ‘take on’ the emotional pain of other people.

Robert’s Question – The Purpose of Pain

If you’re open to the idea there’s a spiritual explanation for things that happen in your human experience, sooner or later you’re likely to wonder what the spiritual explanation is for pain that might be in your life or other peoples’ lives. Robert concludes pain is an anchoring tool that serves the purpose of slowing down your spiritual vibration enough for you to “embody the human density and to have a flesh body,” and he asks The Council’s opinion about this.

“We would like to say here… how many spirits do you think would want to come back and experience this life in the physical body if they knew they had to have pain to anchor themselves into that physical body?

“There is nowhere where we want to come into this physical experience and suffer, and be in pain, and have many, many challenging experiences. It was our belief to come in to make things lighter… more loving, no matter what situation you are in.

“There was never a belief that you must have pain to anchor yourself into a body.

“The spirit decides when to enter [and] when to leave the body; and what its tool is… what its vibration is… is to be in the vibration of love, and happiness, and compassion.

“And there is nowhere where we would want to experience pain, or anyone else’s pain, because that would not help anyone, anywhere, ever.”

—The Council
(Text [in brackets] in these quotations has been added to improve readability and clarity when this seems useful.)

From The Council’s point of view you are an eternal unconditionally loving spiritual being who enthusiastically chooses to come into your human body because this offers you abundant opportunities to expand the love you are into physical reality. And in our session to answer Robert’s question, The Council begins by making the point that if pain was a necessary part of human experience, you wouldn’t be very likely to make the trip. Then they go on to emphatically state in no uncertain terms that from your point of view as a spiritual being, it is never your intention to have painful physical reality experiences.

But from your human point of view it’s easy to get the impression that pain – whether physical, emotional, or psychological – is an inevitable fact of human life. Until recently we thought the spiritual part of you sometimes deliberately chooses to create challenging and even painful human experiences for the expansion these experiences offer. But in our last few sessions, including our session to answer Robert’s question, The Council says that isn’t the case, and we find ourselves coming around to this point of view.

The Council says who you are as a spiritual being remains continually focused on the unconditional love you are, and on making this love available to you in your human experience. And it’s your free will choice whether to focus on the love you are as a spiritual being, or to focus your attention in ways that limit your experience of this love that’s always available.

Lee Ann’s Question – Taking On The Pain of Other People

In answering Robert’s question, when The Council said it’s not your spiritual intention to experience anyone else’s pain, they answered a related question from a reader named Lee Ann, who says: “I was recently told that one of my soul contracts/agreements is to take on others’ emotional pain,” and she asks The Council, “What is the best way for me to fulfill this in a way that is healthy?”

The idea of taking on the emotional pain of other people is a curious one. Setting aside for a moment the question of whether Lee Ann actually intends, as a spiritual being, to take on the emotional pain of other people, let’s consider this idea for a moment and then we’ll look at what The Council says about Lee Ann’s situation.

If you have a strong desire to be of service to other people and you’re sensitive to people’s energy and their pain, it may occur to you that you can help relieve their discomfort by somehow taking on their pain to yourself and that you are in a better position to handle it. Lee Ann intuitively perceives this could have unhealthy consequences for her and she wants The Council’s advice on how to protect her health as she attempts to fulfill what she believes is her soul agreement. But The Council has a different idea about Lee Ann’s spiritual intention.

“There is no way to fulfill this. There is no contract to take on other people’s pain.

“If you have surrounded yourself with people that have pain, it is your purpose to bring love into the situation… understanding… comfort… and be a light among them. Not to remove their pain so that you can experience it.

“You are to make things better, closer to the loving experience, but never, ever to experience pain. There is no purpose in that; only to see it and try to be a part that leads the other people in the pain to see things differently, to have hope, to have more understanding.

“But always, always, somewhere in there to speak about – especially at this time – being a spirit in a physical body.”

The Council is very clear about the following:

1. There is no healthy way for one human being to take on the pain of another human being.
2. Lee Ann did not spiritually contract or agree to take on other people’s pain, contrary to what someone told her.
3. The best thing you can do to help others relieve pain they may be experiencing, is to remember you are spirit in a physical body, and bring the love you are into your human experience as an example and a reminder to others that they are also spirit in a physical body, and they can also choose to have more loving experiences.

You Are Spirit in a Physical Body

Our last couple of sessions with The Council feel like a turning point in our appreciation of their point of view. For most of the time we’ve been aware of their guidance, our focus has been on understanding what they’re saying about spiritual reality and its relationship to physical reality. And we’ve tended to think of spiritual reality as something that’s separate and distinct from physical reality.

But the more we think about the meaning of what The Council refers to as their #1 teaching – you are spirit in a physical body – the more we begin to feel the presence of spiritual reality within physical reality, rather than something distinct and separate from it. From this point of view we find ourselves less focused on understanding spiritual reality and more focused on how to feel it as much as we can in our day-to-day and moment to moment lives. Mostly this seems to involve remembering to have an open mind about what it means to be spirit in a physical body, and paying attention to uplifting feelings, impressions, and thoughts throughout the day that might be coming from the who you are as a spiritual being.

An Exciting New Session, and New Upcoming Posts

We’re excited about a session we just did with The Council to answer a question about spirit’s intention for male and female gender in our physical reality. This session also ended up touching on the following interesting topics:

1. Undiscovered physical reality historical records that support what The Council and other spiritual guides are teaching.
2. Energy portals.
3. Evil and Good, Satan, and scary stuff
4. The power of the focus of your attention, thoughts, and beliefs to influence your physical reality.

The Council believes the material in this new session will be of interest to many people and we look forward to devoting the next few posts to it.

Let Us Know What You Think

Thank you for reading this post. We’d love to know what you think of this material and if you have question that might help clarify it for you and other readers.

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March 20, 2014 - Posted by Cynthia & Bob | Beliefs, Choice, Expansion, Love, Questions & Answers | Compassion, Happiness, Pain, Spirit in a Physical Body, Spiritual Agreement, Spiritual Growth & Expansion, Unconditional Love