Phillies World Series and Healing the "Pain Body"

I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If you are not from there, you have no idea what the Phillies World Series means to the people of that city and the relief that it gives to the collective "pain body" of the sports fans there.

The "Pain body" is the term Echart Tolle refers to in his best selling book, "A New Earth, Awakening Your Life's Purpose ". It is a condition that Tolle says is cultivated by the egoic self to fulfill perceived need to be right. The Pain body is the part of us the gets offended by the smallest slight, insult, or perceived affront to our dignity. It is the part of us that vigorously defends our "dignity" against a usually imaginary foe in the name of "righteousness". It feeds on itself constantly and is the source of most of the conflicts in the world. The need to be "right" and protect one's dignity.

Many Philly fans have a huge "pain body" (present company excluded). If you don't believe me, wear an opposing teams hat, sweatshirt, or jacket and make eye to eye contact with a Philly fan. If that does not instigate a comment, climb as high in the stadium or arena as you can and chant "Philly sucks....Philly sucks....Philly sucks..."
If this activity does not evoke the collective pain body from the local populous, the building you are in is empty.

I have seen people liteally thrown down a flight of stairs in the stadium for loudly rooting for the opposing team.

Philadelphia is a city that sits midway between the financial and political seats of power in the US- New York City and Washington, DC. You drive through Philly or take the Metroliner to get to the other two places, where the BIG decisions are made. In Philly, we're "tweeners" and sometimes just a little defensive about the importance of our city as compared to the other two. Some folks have a chip on their shoulder.

Philadelphia is a huge sports town. We are the best fans and we are the worst fans.
We have huge "pain bodies". We need a winning sports franchise bad. It's been way too long since we have gotten bombed at a victory parade. The mummers parade is an excuse to get inebriated, but that's diferent. It's not a sporting event.

If you are a professional athlete in Philly and play hard, win, and are accessible, we love you. If you are a slacker, make allot of money, lose games, and are aloof......watch out. You will be run out of Philly on a rail. Many an athlete has had to lick their wounds from being on the receiving end of the boo birds and the sports media who stirs the pot of controversy at an athlete's expense On a slow news day if there is no controversy, the press will create some.

Philadelphia fans have been starved for a championship. The last time the city had a championship was in 1983 when the 76ers won the NBA title. Before that it was 1980 and the Phillies World Series Championship. My favorite team, the Eagles haven't won the Super Bowl since 1960! There wasn't even a Super Bowl back in those days.Quarter century, no winners. You'd feel pain if you were us....

Philadelphia has had to watch New York (Giants/ Yankees) and Washington (Redskins)win several championships during the past 25 years, while getting close ourselves, but never able to close the deal. If you want to stretch further up the railroad tracks to Boston, we've had to watch the Red Sox win 2, the Patriots win 3, and the Celtics win one in basketball during the past 25 years. Why not us? Is the collective refrain. Why can't we bring a championship to the city? Is there a jinx?

Well, finally the Phillies broke the Karmic ice....now we need an Eagles NFL Super Bowl victory to fill us up. Maybe in 2010? The pain body has been thrown a tube of Polish kielbasa to chew on for a couple of months to satiate it. On second thought- make that a Jim's Cheese Steak with extra velveeta, fried onions, sweet peppers, ketchup, salt, and pepper. To go.

We'll see,,,,

AHO

Rich

PS- What's this have to do with Natural Healing? I guess there is some connection between the "pain body and eating Philly Cheese Steaks?