Positive Energy Guide

We lay groundwork for energy mastery and spiritual states through ‘hands-on’ practice, developing focus, intention, and receptive awareness. Exposure to people who are spiritually advanced, however, is the most direct way to cultivate spiritual energy.

At the in-depth meditation and spiritual dance retreat I attended in January, I had the inestimable opportunity to sit right close to my Teacher throughout the meditations.

On the fifth day I became keenly aware of the energy coming into his crown chakra, connecting him with his own teachers and their teachers, informing his energy and guidance. In this group, direct connection is encouraged, with all illuminated Beings and with one’s Teachers.

While I have known about this energy link for years, I had acted as if carrying it myself was an ideal or an abstraction. I liked the idea and feel of it, but didn’t have a solid grasp of just how to tap in to that myself. Nor did I exert concentrated or ongoing efforts in that direction. I considered being established in that energy something to grow into eventually. This horizon continued to recede without my becoming any younger. So I set about to realize the link to a greater extent.

Sitting beside my Teacher being actively curious about that link was somewhat unsettling. The boundaries seemed complex. I opened to him to totally attune to his energy, directing my attention to feel the energy above his head. It did not feel right to seek to enter that stream of energy directly. I wanted to avoid being invasive or distracting. I wanted to learn to run that energy myself; to connect with the same sources. I noticed my Teacher feel me as I touched his energy with my mind. A stab of concern ran through me. I relaxed a small part of me that wanted to take or to have, knowing that attachment would destroy what I was looking to create. My intentions were respectful and this pursuit was honorable.

Several minutes later we circled up for the next practice session. My Teacher said to the group, “As they say, these states can’t be taught— they must be caught.” While I was reeling, realizing that we was addressing what I had just done, he said else something to the effect that those who are open to it and ready for it ‘catch’ the transmission of energy.

“In the Krishna story,” he concluded, “this is referred to as ‘stealing butter.’ Baby Krishna had a tendency to steal butter.”

This term should not be interpreted to construe that stealing energy is okay. My Qi Gong teacher used to suggest copying it. Instead of trying to use him as a source or to steal the energy he was running, he suggested using ‘copy and paste’ and learning to match it.

Trying to learn by listening to words alone can generate assumptions about what an unknown experience might be like. Preconceptions interfere with actually experiencing. We may miss an important experience altogether, seeking things that match our concepts.

Other than happening upon them by grace or chance, we gain access to spiritual states by seeing, feeling, sensing, and intuiting them as they are modeled by someone who has established them within their energy systems.

We grow quickly by learning to carry our energy the way advanced teachers do when they practice, by learning to match their vibration.

Spiritual and martial arts traditions often have a lineage or a line of teachers going back through time, through which aspirants can connect with the energy of those who have mastered advanced states. We can attune to the energy of developed Beings by exposing ourselves to their lives and hearts through concentration and study. Person-to-person contact is more direct.

Have you ever tried to intentionally reproduce a certain kind of energy?

What happened?

What are the implications of being able to intentionally generate or connect with positive energy?

I experience “subtext” (people’s unvoiced, private thought) like being in a room with a radio station playing in the background. Some of people can tune that input out, while others find it intrusive.

How we response to subtext can depend on which ‘station’ is playing, and on our state at that moment in time. Our ability to tune things out depends in part on our ability to concentrate. The better we are able to concentrate, the more choice we have about what to let in and what to tune out.

When someone is emotionally important to me I am more attentively tuned to them, so their subtext stands out more. Subtext can indicate that a sensitive topic has arisen, and the person is readying to address it. This attracts my attention. When I am entirely comfortable and trust the person not to withhold communication, I find it easy to wait for what they might bring forth. When I feel uncertain or shut out, I may find myself anticipating with discomfort communication that is not simply being shared.

As I consider intuitive communication I find myself wanting to share several stories from a recent meditation and spiritual dance retreat.

My spiritual Teacher communicates through intentional “text” (unvoiced yet direct communication). He broadcasts his intentions, and any energy he decides to share, with lucid congruence between energy, body, speech, and emotion.

During practice sessions he models different inner states by palpably producing their energy. He also broadcasts intention when demonstrating clear boundaries. If he were, for example, walking along and did not wish to be disturbed, even an insensitive clod would find it daunting to interrupt him. A friend described this: “It’s as if he has a huge ‘do not disturb’ sign on his back.”

During lunch at the retreat, he and I were sitting at the same table. A young man across from us was saying that he could meditate and work, but could not exercise, because his emotions would come up. The rest of this story is is embarrassing, but worth sharing. I was very tired at the time, and felt like I was going to get drawn in and start to explain how important it is to be in touch with one’s feelings. Having finished eating, I wanted to get up and go, but I did not want to be rude.

“I’m probably the wrong person to say that to,” I told him, “since I bring people’s buried emotions.” Missing my implication, he began to explain his situation in detail. I wasn’t sure how to get out of this without shutting him down.

My Teacher had one bite left on his plate. I thought, I’ll just wait until he’s done and get up when he does. A moment later he stood up as if to leave. As I in turn stood up, he immediately took his seat once again. The food was still on his plate. I hope I didn’t gape. As I scuttled off with my plate, I saw him look to the young man saying, “Have you considered some form of movement therapy?”

He had made it so simple. I was struck by his economy of words, grasp of the situation, and practical compassion.

I said to him later, “Thank you for helping me escape at lunch.”

He said, “So you’re one of those people who find it hard to turn away when people need too much from you?”

“Yes. I handle it pretty well at work, but the boundaries can be confusing in social situations.”

We had a kind-of repeat the next night. I was exhausted during the evening program and wanted to leave, but did not want to offend the speaker. When I glanced in his direction my Teacher stood up as if to move toward the door, then sat back down. I left.

Now it’s up to me to remember and apply this Zen lesson in all appropriate circumstances, to be fully present or take body with me wherever I’m thinking about going!

It is stimulating to be in situations in which my own text and subtext are as clearly consequential as direct speech.

I suspect that what we do not say aloud is always of consequence. Usually it’s just less obvious.

Do YOU remember being in circumstances in which someone was apparently aware of whatever you were thinking?

What was that like for you?

Contemplate this statement: “Personality is a vehicle for development of the soul.” (source unknown)

We use our dilemmas, quandaries, incapacities, dramas, faults, power struggles, and areas of blindness right alongside our strength, beauty, positive will, aspirations, compassion, creativity, and generosity. These attributes bring one another into focus and develop awareness. Our difficulties hone, exercise, and strengthen positive motivation, bringing us closer and closer to accepting the realities of life as it is.

Through full engagement we gradually come to an unconditional enough acceptance of Life to truly Love.

When we are smart, we use our suffering wisely; to build consciousness, consolidate insight, and develop comprehensive values.

I get to say these things because I walk the walk. I had an intense day yesterday, the dregs of old wounds active, painfully on the brink of a huge energy shift. It was physically and emotionally painful. Yet I did the Work I needed to do, so today I am more alive and inspired than I’ve been in a few months. My experience felt like some sort of initiation, and my energy systems are different. I could have wasted that intensity and cast myself into a lingering unpleasant condition by failing to call forth my better values to make healthy choices.

Our potential experience of divine perfection coexists with our humanity. It does not obliterate our humanity. In other words, we become able to experience divine perfection right alongside being flawed and having foibles. The one does not interrupt the other.

Every stage of human or spiritual development confers a different set of challenges.

As we progress spiritually we gain greater and greater self mastery. This does not mean that we cease to have challenges. If you’ve ever used sandpaper to make wood smooth, you will have noticed that once your surface is as smooth as you can get it, the next finer grit initially scratches it up and makes much more dust. The end product becomes smoother, subtler, and more refined. The same holds true doing Inner Work. As we refine ourselves we initially find more to do. We may seem like a mess, yet we are improving through the process.

Like wood, we also have knots. Our characters, natures, and egos have hard patches that don’t sand well. We may require a file. Other people and difficult life circumstances are required to address our knots. Certain people and circumstances can be like files. It is important not to feel that we are flawed because we have knots.

Powerful people usually have intense energy and personalities. Some lives and purposes require ego strength to manage their challenges.

Having a difficult personality can feel like a permanent flaw. When we can view ourselves with an understanding of what we need to learn and the burdens we carry for soul purposes, we see why we require strength.

Challenges also increase as does our strength. I remember complaining to my spiritual teacher in my twenties, saying, “The stronger my back gets the more they heap upon it!” He laughed and said, “Well then the load remains about the same.”

A weak personality can be just as much or even more of a hinderance as a powerful one. Our challenges may be less obvious to others, and our flaws may be harder to put a finger on. Weakness shows up less dramatically than unrefined power. Errors of omission cause different problems than the errors that we enact boldly on the stage of life.

My eighth grade choir teacher used to say, “If you’re going to make a mistake, make a loud one!” Similarly, the spiritual teacher Meher Baba said that when we make mistakes whole-heartedly we learn from them effectively and are less likely to repeat them. Bringing ourselves fully into what we are doing is practically always the Highest Option. When it is not, we probably need to do something else.

What are YOUR myths about spiritual growth?

How do you hold yourself back from full self expression?

Working with a spiritual teacher several decades ago, I remember getting really scared. I was thinking: “If I REALLY open my heart I will have to give everything to the poor and live like Mother Teresa.”

That was my concept about spirituality.

A dear client felt afraid to take her next step in personal and spiritual development. As we looked into this fear, she formulated its underpinning as something like this: “If I become perfect, I will have to give up getting angry, and therefore will have to do what my husband wants me to do and give up the control I feel through my resistance.”

Most of us fear transformation. Faced with the possibility of profound change, we often have an underlying, anxious construct like: “If I become like _____ I will have to _____, and therefore ______.”

Such constructs and resulting predicaments stem from unexamined assumptions, driven by fear. Either/or thinking often plays a part. The initial premise is usually an inaccurate assessment, which leads to an unrealistic extrapolation about a frightening and fictional future.

Noticing and investigating rhetoric or propaganda from our less-developed inner sectors is essential to successful personal and spiritual development.

Here is a line of inquiry for investigating fears and conflicts about inner growth:

• What are you actually afraid of?
• Is this fear warranted?
• How does this fear indicate a conflict of values between different parts of yourself?
• What part or value is most important to your life satisfaction?
• Can you intentionally choose your most important value and go with it?
• What inner resources would serve you in doing so?

Let’s walk this through with the fear I began with:
What are you actually afraid of? I was afraid that I would be compelled to sacrifice myself entirely in order to have spiritual validity.

Is this fear warranted? No. In actual fact, my issue has been with over-giving; too much sacrifice. My spiritual path has actually helped me to give in healthier ways.

How does this fear indicate a conflict of values between different parts of yourself? Part of me wants to give everything, while part of me is survival-oriented and selfish.

What part or value is most important to your life satisfaction? Balance and healthy adjustment are more important to me than either sacrifice or selfishness.

Can you intentionally choose your most important value and go with it? Yes, and I have been practicing. When I begin to feel too self-sacrificing or too selfish, I make adjustments.

What inner resources would serve you in doing so? I understand that very life time has different requirements for balance, and that the things that serve my soul bring about real happiness.

When we become fully loyal to our most comprehensive values, we resolve mental conflict and can use our values to navigate life challenges.

A few more thoughts about scaring ourselves with ideas about growth:

• States of awareness that we move toward in the process of healthy development are rarely the way we imagine them from within our current limitations.
• We usually enter new states having developed the foundations that support them.
• A new state may require adjustment, but after adjusting we feel better than we did before.
• We usually develop new stages of awareness gradually, and must work to stabilize them so we do not regress. This process is like adding drops into a bucket of a waterwheel, which begins to move slowly once its weight hits critical mass. If we do not keep adding water it may come to a stop.

Spiritual work consists largely of learning to be able to accept and tolerate WHAT IS. This includes ourselves! We are not attempting to transcend our humanity, but to integrate it within the Whole.

Do YOU ever scare yourself about doing the things that are most important to you?

If so, how do you construct or deconstruct your rhetoric about it?

During verbal communication we share many subtle messages: postural, tonal, pitch, voice modulation, energetic, atmospheric, and thought-to-thought. Whether or not we are able to “read” that subtle communication, we all know that it exists. 

Non-verbal communication includes the list above, and also what we “read” intuitively.

The greater our rapport and the more intuitively open we are, the more we are aware of that which is NOT said. This includes things that are understood already, clearly implied, and about to be said, as well as context and content we expect one another to read between the lines.

In this exploration I am referring to two distinct types of thought-to-thought or mind-to-mind communication, one clear and direct, and the other muffled and less direct. I am calling direct thought that one is willing to or about to share “text,” because it is easy to read, and calling thought that one circles about inside without necessarily intending to share “subtext.”

“Text” is available to be read clearly. “Subtext,” in this domain, is like inference or innuendo in speech. It is simultaneously communicated yet to some extent withheld.

“Text” is congruent, meaning body signals, emotional tone, and voice tone all match. “Subtext” is prevalent when someone is not internally congruent, or is unwilling to be clear and direct.

Note that I am not referring to all thought as either text or subtext. We are discussing thought which is taking place within the context of a conversation with another person. Personal internal thought occurs outside of conversation, without reference to communication with someone else. I am not drawn to track someone’s personal internal thought, and consider it none of my business.

Text exists in “Shared Space”. By Shared Space I mean the open place where meet mind-to-mind—to the extent we are able. Text may come across directly, mind-to-mind, as clear but unspoken communication.

Subtext is not fully in the shared domain. For this reason it comes across like a footnote in writing. Like text, subtext often occurs just before or after someone speaks—if they do indeed share. Subtext may contain information they do not intend to share, or are not sure whether they are willing to share. Subtext often expresses either some kind of self-protective worry, or a concern that the other person cannot deal with what one has to say. Subtext is not intimate. It often indicates a wall, hesitation, and perhaps even a negative judgment, of self or of the other person.

Within the most intimate friendships we convene at least some of the the time in Shared Space, where our thoughts are available within our shared domain, without separation, blocking or guarding. We may or may not ‘hear’ these thoughts, but the way they charge our shared atmosphere—their energy—influences what comes to mind and our direction of conversation. We may weave in and out of a number of conversations, leaving them all ongoing over an extended course of time, without losing any of the threads. We know what our friend is talking about without a new preamble or introduction to the topic.

Sometimes I say, “I heard you the first time,” when a friend clearly transmits a thought she is about to verbalize and then says it aloud. I can say how many seconds passed between thinking it and saying it, and they laugh with the fun of that intimacy. We are laying ourselves open to one another and the energy in the atmosphere usually stays very clear.

Subtext generates white noise or static in the mindspace. I sometimes experience subtext like a subtle pressure. Perhaps this experience reflects the pressure of the thought that is arising in the other person, or their conflict about bringing it out through speech. A thought may have arisen, yet s/he holds it back. Part of them wants to say it while another part does not. Subtext comes across without the clarity and definition of directed thought—but it comes across none the less. The energy this kind of subtext puts out is like static. It can cloud the atmosphere like unfinished business.

I find frequent and habitual subtext irritating. It draws my attention without satisfying my interest. The person is thinking something TOWARD or AT or ABOUT me or something else but isn’t sharing it WITH me. Excessive subtext is like muttering under one’s breath so it gets the person’s attention without them actually being able to discern the words. When habitual, this behavior can be distracting, draining or even passive-aggressive.

This reminds me of something the computer, Holly, said in the British SciFi Comedy, Red Dwarf: “If you have something to say, say it straight out! No innuendo or hyperbole.” I posted that on my door about twenty years ago when dealing with too much subtext.

Do YOU sense a difference between text and subtext?

How do you notice them and what do you experience?

The more light we bring in, the more we need to ground. To bring spiritual light onto the Earth, we need to be able to move the energy that comes in through the crown center, down through our bodies into the ground.

Spiritual light transforms whatever it encounters. It ‘lights up’ any unresolved issues that reside—as issues do—in our bodies. When we work with light or grow spiritually, old patterns and obstacles generally arise.

Self awareness requires noticing our issues. When we bring the light of awareness into the body areas where our issues reside, the process may temporarily produce symptoms or pain. These symptoms pass as we give up resistance to the changes that are occurring in our energy systems.

As we accept our issues and stabilize self awareness, we become able to get energy, attention and sensation fully into our bodies. We can also receive and pass along more light.

Circumstances that bring up our issues can stimulate us to clear out old energy and emotional patterns. This Work is effective to the extent that we can clear out stuck energy from the past.

Old patterns arise in layers, as we become more and more able to confront them. The ability to release the past is a positive sign of growth, even though the process of coming into that growth may be challenging. Symptoms and distress often arise as an indication that growth is occurring, rather than because we are ‘having a problem.’

Clearing out old energy and anchoring light widen our ability to express our unique essence.

Bringing in spiritual light gradually confers an unfolding freedom of Being. The more we can bring in and anchor spiritual energy, as a clear vessel, the happier we become, and the more connected to all of life.

Learning to contain our own energy is essential to bringing in light. If we cannot keep our contents inside, bringing in light is likely to throw us out of balance when it lights up our issues. Leaking does not support grounding our energy. When we leak energy out this is an automatic behavior, based on issues. It is not empowered choice.

Cultivation and concentration of energy increase power, mastery and healthy choice. Building and containing energy invites transformation.

The following experience speaks to the importance of containing energy during expansive spiritual practice:

During a retreat, I was practicing cultivation of universal Love, expanding a field of Love outward into the universe. In the middle of the practice I became disjointed and confused. I consulted with my Teacher. He asked whether I had “jumped.”

I had begun the practice with Love within me, then expanded it gradually outward. Just outside the cluster of inner planets in the solar system, my focus ‘jumped’ to contain a larger sector of the universe. I apparently had lost my continuity of experience at this point,. Then I became uncomfortable and felt quite strange.

My Teacher suggested that I expand only as far and as fast as I was able to maintain connection between the expanding field of energy and my Self.

Highly intuitive or sensitive people often need to learn to contain energy before doing practices that dissolve or expand boundaries. In contrast, people who are dense or solid, who create walls and rigid structures, benefit from practices that help to open and dissolve these structures. Different practices serve different people at different times.

Whenever we work with expansive energy such as light or Love, it is important to be able to go as far DOWN and IN as we can go UP and OUT. Practices that assist with grounding, sensing inside the body, and deep self awareness support healthy and balanced spiritual expansion.

How do YOU feel shortly after strong exposure to highly spiritual energy?

Are you able to move your energy down and in as easily as you can move it up and out?

Grounding your spiritual practice or energy practice means allowing it to impact your body and making it a part of your life; giving it impact and influence. NOTICING changes that occur helps to stabilize them.

Building from our current context of grounding: Grounding your practice relies primarily on SENSING, following light suggestions of mental intention, without mental pressure or force of will.

SENSING and FEELING create the internal receptivity that ALLOWS changes to occur—and assist us to notice these changes. Trying to MAKE something happen with the Mental Center creates resistance.

FEELING enhances experience. To enhance feeling you might bring in appreciation, love, gratitude, longing, desire for connection, or a sense of wonder. Emulation of anything or anyone divine is another excellent way to enhance feeling.

Here is the gist of grounding any energy practice:

Instead of trying to DO something TO yourself, using the practice as a tool, allow the practice to do its magic. Call in its vibration and be receptive to it, allowing it to shift your energy.

Ask yourself to allow your energy to be imprinted by your practice, so the effects are allowed to linger or recur, changing you.

INVITING yourself to spiritual practice or energy practice, so you get to receive the benefits, works better than trying to MAKE yourself do it because you “should.” The former is a yin or receptive approach. It works much better than any type of force.

Effort often originates from old opinions of ourselves, or ideas about how we THINK we “should be.” That type of effort is a very subtle type of violence. It conveys that something is ‘wrong’ and must be corrected. “Come sit on the meditation pillow so I criticize you and tell you you’re doing it wrong’ isn’t motivating.

Practicing Sensing your body and exploring Feeling is experiential and engaging. It’s easier to be open and enter a process with wonder when it’s about having an experience instead of “doing it right.”

One of the primary obstacles to sinking in to experience is fear of encountering ugliness, pain, or darkness.

Starting a meditation several days ago I was in a crappy mood. Fortunately I had gained enough regularity and courage to sit anyhow.

When meditation is contingent on feeling good or being in the mood we don’t get the great benefits of stabilization, which accrue through consistency.

My energy felt like muddy water. I was releasing an old emotional construct, heading into a life change I’ve been building toward for many months. In the past I might have said, “I can’t meditate with this dirty energy feeling bad and distracting me.” This time I said, “This is what it is right now, and I’m just going to sit with it.”

After fully grounding myself, I began to SENSE my energy as it was, without recoiling from it or judging it, and bringing in clear, sweet energy. It felt like a clear stream flowing into a muddy river. I opened to allow myself to fully feel this gradual purification, with patience and acceptance. I did not try to make the muddy energy go away or get into internal conflict about it. Soon my awareness gravitated to the practice I do regularly. I had one of the most pleasant meditations ever.

BEING WITH WHAT IS is essential to meditation. We can ACCESS and empower more profound states by intentionally using the yin skills of receptivity, feeling, sensing, and allowing.

The yang skills of doing, acting, structuring, thinking, intending and visualizing are used to establish a container for practice, and for setting up the direction and intention. Within that container, holding your focus lightly, directly experiencing energy and sensation allow real magic to occur.

Do you under-use yin or over-use yang energy when you practice with energy or meditate?

What skills, behaviors, intentions or techniques help you (or do you think might help you) to deepen your connection with energy or meditation practice?

The most effective way for an individual to address grounding may vary during different stages of personal development. Various approaches produce somewhat different qualities of experience and types of awareness.

In practicing grounding, visualization can be used as a guide to enhance Sensing, keeping Sensing primary. A gentle suggestion via imagery works better than overemphasizing visualization and running the risk of substituting images for actual experience. Do not allow suggestions you give yourself to become a stand-in for actual sensory experience.

Energy is your guide: Notice whether your energy responds and changes as you focus your attention using a particular technique. If your energy is not responding, do not push with your mind. Try a different approach, and emphasize Sensing.

One more point before we move on from the important topic of mental interference: A mental filter of the known can block or distort direct perception of energy and events. Filtering experience through the lens of what we have experienced previously and already know prevents one from experiencing what has hitherto been unknown, impeding both learning and perception.

Feeling like one does not belong on planet Earth can interfere with grounding. This feeling is intensified by being unable to ground. More people than you might imagine feel they do not belong here. Their experience is often viewed as social or emotional isolation. This sense of alienation is not always social or emotional–although feeling one does not belong here can certainly impact our interactions with others. Feeling disconnected can be a cause, an effect, or a vicious circle of alienation.

The following strange experience speaks to questions about belonging and grounding. I am not saying I believe in the implications of this experience. I will say that I do not disbelieve either. I call this sort of thing “an experiential reality.” A dream, for example, is an actual experience. It has a reality as an experience. A powerful dream can influence how we live.

In Egypt, I unintentionally ‘downloaded’ a technique that has worked well for grounding people who feel they are from other planets. When this occurred, I was standing between the feet of the sphinx, in the middle of one of a series of shamanic initiations. I was not fully engaged, let alone expecting anything. Then I ‘saw’ energy spiraling down from what could only be a wormhole in space, from another galaxy, off to my right. This small, twisting cyclone of energy entered the top of my head, went through me into the Earth, ran through the planet like a bead, wrapped up around Earth’s sphere, and simultaneously anchored from the core of Earth to a planet below the Earth and off to my left.

I am not often a seer. I do receive direct guidance in fully formed concepts, and sometimes in words. Sometimes I translate from feeling to imagery, to communicate more easily. This experience was primarily visual. I have only had a handful of primarily visual experiences.

Before the Egypt trip my Guidance had announced, in words, that the trip was going would make a permanent change in my grounding. I had no idea what that meant, and was not looking for anything.

While I did not believe I was from another planet, I have felt that way from time to time, and joked about it with friends.

After this odd initiation I have been consistently able to ground. Initially I had to use a technique that accompanied the experience I just shared. Within a year I became able to use more direct techniques as well. This was a transitional or remedial technique. A modified version has worked with most of the people I have met who were unable to ground before that. They have been able to repeat it on their own after being shown just once.

The commonly-used tree image still doesn’t work for me. In my opinion it works much better to tap into to the molten core of the Earth. The energetics are powerfully magnetic and the experience is deeper. One can also access any other point on the globe from its core.

Does visualization assist or overpower your experience when you Sense energy or ground yourself?

Have you had a interesting experience that changed the way you ground?

Our energy systems (fields, chakras, meridians) reflect personal issues. Imbalances reveal our issues to those who perceive energy. Working with our energy helps us to recognize and address our issues.

The base or root chakra at the bottom of the spine becomes weak and misshapen when one has chronic safety issues. Safety issues interfere with the natural connection between the base chakra and the earth, impacting grounding. Safety issues tend to keep us out of touch with the sensations in our lower bodies, also making it more difficult to ground.

Most of us pull our energy up and out when we become afraid. Fear telegraphs ‘loud’ or strong sensations and energies. Fear sensations easily overwhelm and distract us from other input, including grounding. If we hear a sound in the house and feel afraid, it is more difficult to Sense whether or not an actual intruder is in the house.

Relaxing fear increases our ability to Sense, turning down the intensity and quantity of sensory ‘noise’. When we are calm, we are more able to Sense the origins of sounds and energies, to distinguish the presence of a person from that of an animal or of the wind. We more easily Sense subtle input, including grounding.

Chronic fear can disable ones ability to ground. The opposite is also true: Learning to ground can help considerably with fear issues. Grounding assists us to Sense what is real. Sensing reduces disturbing conjecture and speculation, and supports empowered, reality-based action.

Addressing safety issues may be necessary to learning to ground. Addressing them means learning to: identify them, sense when they arise, feel how they impact body sensation, self-soothe, make appropriate self care decisions in the moment, and stay present with body sensations as they arise and subside from a useful response. Developing the base chakra assists with most of these steps.

Overactivity of the Mental Center can seriously interfere with grounding. We touched on this in the last post when I said, Grounding is a SENSING experience–it is not accessed with the mind.

Habitual overuse of the Mental Center is quite often an attempt to think things out in order to avoid fearful consequences. This habit is an expression of fear. The attempt to avoid fear by anticipating backfires because fearful thinking exacerbates fear.

Giving a busy mind a related job can keep it involved with grounding so that it does not interfere. FOCUS and INTENTION are constructive ways for Mind to participate with grounding. Focusing and actively extending the intention to ground holds the space open for having the actual experience of grounding. SENSING is essential. You cannot think grounding into occurring.

A balance of about five or ten percent INTENDING and ninety plus percent SENSING works well. Bringing in a little bit of related Feeling can enhance the experience, like noticing the way your heart feels more open when you are grounded, longing to feel grounded, or remembering how good it felt to be grounded.

Projecting an image of reality as an overlay onto reality itself is counterproductive. To ground we need to attend to energetics and sensations–not imagining, fantasizing, believing, conjecturing, trying, postulating, expecting, theorizing or rationalizing. These activities of mind interfere with actual experience. So can excessive intending or excessive Feeling. Trying too much becomes TRYING (as in irritating). Get mind out of the way and Sense it.

The above applies not only to Sensing but to accessing intuition.

Excessive mental involvement is an obstacle to satisfying engagement with life.

A client skilled in Tai Chi had high blood pressure. She noticed that whenever she did Tai Chi or meditated, hoping to bring down her blood pressure, that it increased instead. Watching her practice, I discovered that instead of being One with her body, she held a rigid image of exactly how each position should look, striving to impose this image onto her Tai Chi form to get it right. She was Thinking the practice and trying to make her body conform to a mental image. When she meditated, she was “trying not to think” instead of allowing her thoughts to pass by without engaging them. She was using mental force and will instead of Presence.

What makes YOU feel more grounded?

Does fear impact your relationship with the ground?
If so, what percentage of your time is this going on?
Chronic fear can be subliminal and constant.
Can you Sense whether or not you can allow yourself to feel safe?

Trying to ground by using the mind or a set of preconceptions is the most obfuscating block to being able to ground.

Let me set the stage for my following commentary by creating a context:

One model of exploring human experience describes life from the perspective of three centers of experience: The thinking/mental center, the feeling/emotional center, and the sensing/body center.

Grounding is a SENSING experience–we do not access it with Mind. Using Mind to “try” and ground is using the wrong tool for the job.

The sensation of grounding may be subtle–but there is nothing abstract about it. One does not think it into being. One senses it.

Mental busyness interferes with grounding. It’s distracting. So is emotional ‘noise’ from personal issues kicking around inside. Grounding requires a shift of focus onto Body.

This is slightly grizzly but clarifies the point: If you were a corpse on the ground, your body would naturally be grounded. The circuits might have less energy in them, so the energy exchange would be minimal, but internal activity like mentation and emotion would not be rerouting the electrical flow between body and ground.

Look around at people. Body awareness and grounding show up together. People who are aware of their bodies are more likely to be grounded. They Sense. Being scattered, distraught, obsessed, distracted, beside one’s self and thinking about all sorts of things– especially in the past and the future–decrease direct Sensing and reduce grounding. You can see it when someone is not grounded.

Grounding reflects internal State. Some can ground their energy fully while wearing rubber soles on a plastic floor. The energy around the body is grounded. Others can be barefoot outside and remain ungrounded–although this requires more internal interference. Grounding through our energy fields and State apparently impact our personal experience at least as much and perhaps more than the natural grounding that comes from being in contact with the ground itself.

Interference from the Feeling Center often impedes grounding. Part of this is straightforward. Feelings and reactive emotion in particular can distract us and get us all wrapped up in inner worlds. Of course, there are always circumstances that do not apply to the rule. For example, if our emotional content is from past events, or we are speculating about the future, we are not likely be grounded. If, on the other hand, we stay totally present with our feelings and Sense their attendant sensations, accepting them, we may well be able to ground and feel at the same time.

Let’s look briefly at the relationship between Feeling and Sensing:

Feeling discharges through Sensing–through embodied expression. Sensory information from the body gives us information about what we feel. The more we resist and suppress Feeling the more likely we are to shut down Sensing.

When we spin in emotion or shut it down inside, Sensing is compromised. Shutting down is a defense. Like all defenses, it limits awareness and creates blind spots. Any emotion we shut down limits self awareness. Since grounding is a form of sensory awareness, if we shut down Sensing or Feeling we block information and we have trouble grounding.

There are always details that vary from individual to individual. Not everyone who shuts down emotion is continuously ungrounded. It depends in part on how powerful the emotion is, whether it has any chance of surfacing into awareness at the given moment, and the person’s style of shutting down. For example, some people use running or sports to avoid Feeling. If they do this all the time and their emotions are nowhere to be found, they might still have a great deal of Body awareness/Sensing, and perhaps less Heart awareness/Feeling, and expression. They might be grounded until a strong emotion breaks into awareness, and then spin inside until they run or train to suppress it again. We have different patterns. This is why I do not support one-size-fits-all approaches.

Which of the three centers of experience–Mental, Feeling, or Sensing–is most active in you? Right now, or habitually?

Does one of the three centers over-influence the others, or is one center less developed than the other two? Which one/s?