The Oxygen Network will premiere a new episode of "Snapped," its true crime series about women who kill tonight at 10:00 p.m. EDT (9:00 Central).The 2004 murder-for-hire plot of Florida woman Karen Tobie (attention: spoiler alert if you click this link) is the subject of tonight's installment of the series, in its eighth season, that claims all female killers share a common trait: "At some point, they all snapped." Thus the title.
This is likely true on some level for men who kill as well. Be that as it may, where does this impulse come from? Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says that violence in general arises when people lose touch with "their natural state, the joy of life within."
In The Power of Now, he states the obvious: "Only people who are in a deeply negative state, who feel very bad indeed, would create such a [violent] reality as a reflection of how they feel."
Instances of violence in which people snap, according to Tolle, are manifestations of what he calls the pain-body (and what traditional Christianity calls original sin). The pain-body can, indeed, make its owner "feel very bad indeed."
The pain-body, according to Tolle, is a semi-autonomous mass of buried negative emotion that can take us over from time to time, making us feel bad and unconsciously motivating our behavior in negative ways.
The only way to get rid of the pain-body, Tolle says, is to become conscious of it. When we understand how it works, we can be prepared when it awakens out of dormancy. We can feel when it makes us feel physically bad and we can become aware of its motivational impulse. This breaks its hold over us and dissolves it.
It is a key factor in criminal behavior, he says. In A New Earth, Tolle writes: "To my knowledge so far, no defense lawyer has said to the judge . . .'This is a case of diminished responsibility. My client's pain-body was activated, and he did not know what he was doing."
Or she.
It's too late for her attorney to implement this novel strategy, but tune into "Snapped" tonight on Oxygen to find out whether Karen Tobie will learn about her pain-body in the comfort of freedom or from behind bars.
You might also like: The Pain-Body in the Workplace
Well, I will go along with Mr Tolle. Have you read 'Henderson The Rain King.' It's a novel about a man who will not pass on the hurt and pain.
ReplyDeleteAs for the 'analysis' that these ladies have snapped, I guess that is a bit of reasoning after the fact.
I haven't read that novel. Sounds interesting. I'm not quite sure what you mean about reasoning after the fact.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the comment!