Positive Energy Guide

Most energy experiences, while indicators or reflections of what one is personally working on at the time, are not in and of themselves spiritually significant. Certainly some experiences do reflect and express spiritual states. Stabilizing new development and attending to guidance matter more than transitory states or experiences. Most energy experiences involve releasing energy that doesn’t belong with us, reorganizing or smoothing out our energy, or pulling back in energy we pushed out—which usually occurs when denial is present to some extent, or one is out of touch with emotion.

Experiences of releasing or of encountering energy that does not source with us are fascinating phenomena—but not therefore important. I do not want to posit an energy experience as being, for example, of greater value than an excellent body work session that changes your posture and emotional expression. I do want to help to normalize energy experiences, to set at ease those who experience them, to provide useful reflection, and to help people to learn to assess experience accurately. This fosters personal development.

I am not saying this with respect to anyone I associate with, but for those who might become fascinated with experiences rather than using them to learn and grow. Energy experience is both a path and a vehicle, but not an end in itself, and not entertainment.

I have had a very broad range of intense and interesting experiences, most of which I have not written down or shared. It is lively and interesting for a variety of experiences to be represented, I am pleased that Kelly shared some of her (what I call) “third party” experiences in the two blogs preceding Part 1. Her descriptions of picking up energy that is directed toward or impacting someone else with whom she is connected are “third party” experiences. This type of event varies widely. I sometimes get third party information when I work with clients. For example, I notice something occurring with their partner, family member or work associate, or even energy from the partner of a client of a client who is a therapist. Some of these connections are amazing since I know nothing of these people and my client validates what I discover. These encounters are so unique that sharing them could pose problems with confidentiality, so I do not.

My role as a healer and guide sometimes keeps me also from sharing experiences that too many clients will not be ready to process. Then again, I balance that care with my proclivity for stimulating growth by presenting controversial topics. Still, I try to be careful about what I model.

Beginners can get unsettled by intense energy experiences and become afraid when they:

—Cannot encompass the experiences within their existing belief structures
—Don’t have the knowledge and energy boundaries to manage any issues the experiences provoke
—Need to make life or relationship changes that become apparent from the experience
—Extrapolate on part of an experience without being able to understand the greater context
—Misapply what they become aware of in ways that promote fear
—Concentrate on provoking experiences without the requisite development to manage them
—Are mentally unstable and attempt to validate symptoms that require treatment
—Imagine that energies originating from themselves is coming from an external source
—Forget that much of the energy they newly perceive has been with them for a long time so there’s no need for urgency or fear
—Require a stronger spiritual basis to assist with bringing in positive energy

A spiritual basis assists with energy protection in a handful of different ways. It takes time and experience, however, to skillfully apply them. Platitudes and truisms are not especially useful. From a certain spiritually expanded perspective, for example, everything originates within ourselves. Knowing or saying this does not help you sort energy. Matter is space filled with protons, neutrons and electrons, and life is illusory—but since it’s so convincing, don’t try to fly, drive through walls, or neglect your body. Natural laws still apply. We need to develop intact energy fields and functional boundaries until we are evolved enough not to have distressing symptoms if we take on energy that doesn’t belong with us or jettison parts of ourselves.

What makes an energy experience frightening to you?

If it does, how does spiritual understanding assist you in dealing with unpleasant energies?

Before I share my general comments regarding topics she brought forth, let me say that I am delighted with Kelly’s comprehensive, well thought-out, and fascinating commentary in the last two posts. She covered a lot of ground, and touched upon a number of ways that energy does indeed show up and express. I always value the the rough-and-tumble way she gets it straight out there and speaks her truth, with its stamp of authenticity and colorful qualities.

Below are my related considerations:

Those who do not experience energy directly and specifically are also impacted by it, sometimes less directly, sometimes directly but with less awareness. One naturally finds something else upon which to attribute whatever one experiences. It is common to assume that sensations source from physical causes, mood states from events or dreams, and so forth, as the mind seeks to make sense of our experience. Of course, when energy pathways are not open and enlivened, ones range of experience is less broad, less vivid.

Inability to notice the energies inside and around us can be similar to the way the body shuts down sensation and compensates when we have multiple misalignments. A person who has never had body therapies or done yoga etc., despite various problems, becomes out of touch with sensation. Similarly, those who are buried in and riddled with energies that do not belong with them become numb to energy to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their neurological software, nature, and level of development. Assorted impressions and energies are all glommed together and feel normal. This load prevents the person from noticing something new unless it is quite intense, just as you don’t notice one more small crumb on a dirty floor. When it’s clean, you notice. “Stuff” usually starts to show up, if and when we are ready to release it, layer by layer. The more we clean the more we begin to notice and the more stands out. Deeper layers are often related to deeper emotional and ancestral archeology.

In very rare cases, people go through sudden awakenings, during which intense sensitivities and capacities show up suddenly. This is no picnic and nothing to envy.

People who work with energy through Qi Gong, acupuncture, extensive meditation, etc., and who address our Inner Work, learn to identify our own issues. We become more able to sense and recognize energy. This is partly a learned and developed skill, and partly owing to innate aptitude. Like all developed skills, different brain pathways are of course established.

Energy sensitivity is often but not always associated with physically or emotionally inconsistent or unsafe early environments. We turn on and develop our sensors learning to stay safe. Hyper-vigilance is an extreme stance, involving adrenal pathways. Innate sensitivity to energy is not necessarily an imbalance. It can be an inborn trait.

Some of us who start out with abnormal capacities for sensing energy may have unusual brain organization or activity, possibly involving the temporal lobe. Think, for example, of those individuals who can recite several thousand decimals of Pi without a calculator. Energy sensitivity is more common and uses very different brain pathways.

No matter the origins, one can use energy sensitivity as a path to self development. Development may be driven by the need to learn to mediate influences so they don’t overwhelm. This, plus learning to source influences, requires work and it demands self awareness to become accurate. Further self awareness results from these efforts. Whether one chooses this path or enters by necessity, once started upon it, most of us prefer to be clear and aware over inaccurately attributing our experiences to false causes.

A skeptic may consider energy experience as a false cause—until they experience, over and over, they way so many symptoms and life expressions almost miraculously change as such energies are addressed, and collaborate repeatedly with others who validate what they discover.

I started out as a skeptic—which helps me to ground my experiences in actualities whenever possible. Reality testing and seeking confirmation of findings is an essential element of self clarification and becoming accurate.

Where are you on the spectrum of sensitivity to energy?

How did your sensitivity come about?

In what ways does sensitivity to energy stimulate your personal growth?

This and the previous post I have pulled from “Comments,” on my July posts on Energy Release, with Kelly’s permission: 

Kelly continues: How about when you have something foreign going on and have no guideposts, as in familiar people that this energy resembles? This occurs for me often and I usually sense that I am having super intense feelings that are amplified beyond what is called for in the moment. It happens with my partner or the barista. I may draw her rage at her parent as it joins with my anger over something similar, but we may both be unaware of what is occurring. Again, detective work and subtle awareness will usually bring forth info and if not we just ask for those who are here to help to do so. These scenarios often lead to healing.

I have an unfortunate knack for drawing unresolved energies in people around me but can often help them track something they may have no memory of but is ready to return for healing.

I was able to help a women who had a negative view of her parents relationship. 🙂 She came in one day to do other work but it was clear by the energy in her field that the moment of her father’s passing and her mother’s care was up to be witnessed. We were able to identify and follow the energy which allowed the client to see an entirely new perspective, from within her parent’s relationship, and heal her feelings about their relationship by understanding other ways of loving one another. It was a very powerful experience given the energy of death remained. I was the one who recognized the energy but was able to guide her to it at which point all the doors opened up experientially.

A different example and personal one; I was aware of carrying energies I had no context for but one day I was working with my healer and we welcomed those who had come to help. For 2 hrs I laid on a couch as an energy that had entered me while my body was developing, my mother also draws energies easily, and had been literally woven into my being and had always been with me was removed. I could recognize it was an older man and that he needed me for energy, was lost and didn’t know to go back to the light to get another body…. a vampire of sorts but not intentionally harmful; lost.

The process was unbelievable, unraveling in my spine and organs, emotions and thoughts. I experienced huge energetic waves that changed direction over the 2 hours, pulses and in the end an unbelievable amount of grief as though I was losing a part of myself as he left. It was incredible, bewildering and very emotional only to then have the Being who helped act as a place holder until I was filled over the next week with me-ness. How did I know? She was yellow and sang through me in a way that I and my partner can assure you I do not sing. It was a loss when she too left, for I was allowed to experience her life energy which was by far much clearer and purer than mine.

I have hundreds of these stories but at bottom you must have a sincere interest in energy and your sense of self.

Ah, I feel I must add one more story. I was bothered for months on and off by what I would call a black shaman. I say this because he was so sophisticated in how he merged seamlessly with my energy then would ‘step out’ in moments when he knew I’d recognize something was not me, say a feeling like I just wanted to kill someone. I couldn’t shake it, he was not going to let me rest and I sought a lot of help.

Finally through a chain of people it resolved, but I would be blind to how it occurred really for a year. I had 3 people working with me on this, but one had contacted a shaman in another part of the world. To this day she is upset that this was revealed to me, but it was best because I had made up some story about how it happened to come into being. I had prayed my ass off and though Jesus and Buddha showed up in answer to my prayer, little did I know that this person had sent the energy. The good shaman had sent the Christ energy and flooded my body with it for 24 hrs while showing me how the energy was being removed not just from me but the earth. Lets say a lot of high beings were involved and an unbelievable radiance of love. The point though, is that I was able to recognize it but I needed help to remove it.

Energies like this are sophisticated and do seek to instill fear… I never believed in this type of stuff, but the direct experience taught me that my beliefs don’t mean anything when stood up against reality!

I now see that everything has its own unique energy imprint. You can experiment for yourself by finding a great tree, a powerful tree like a redwood and ask to come into energetic alignment with it. Ask Mount Rainier. Ask to be helped to experience it in an way you could recognize it. There are glorious trees just waiting for you to ask. There is one that I am aware of and have direct experience with that is a spiritual teacher, another consistently comes to my aid to help clear my energy.

This world is full of the incredible and we are a part of it. I think we are all working with energies that do not belong to us daily, but some do imbed or pester or have hung out in the dark corners unnoticed and need to be sent on their way. They can never get what they need through another nor we through others. This is a journey for all of us to remember our power even in the midst of realizing we will never be able to fully know ourselves.

I hope this was helpful and shed light on several ways this can happen, how to begin to recognize it, accept it and work with it or call in help!

This and the next post I have pulled from “Comments,” on my July posts on Energy Release, with Kelly’s permission. Her contribution is rich and interesting, and I’m choosing to bring it forward. I only added a few paragraph breaks: 

Hey T this is Kelly. So this is right up my ally, fortunately for writing but challenging to live with the reality as an uber empath. I will tell you that from my experience there are many ways that we pick up these energies: at conception and in womb we inherit unresolved ancestral energies as well as the energies of our parents at that time. They reside in our energy bodies. As children we are unified with the environment we live in until we begin to individuate and often beyond depending upon awareness, nervous systems, family boundaries and so forth. We may think that something belonged to us that did not, it could have a family members thought, feeling or belief.

I have personally absorbed and transmuted through my body most of the energies in my environment my entire life and was unaware for most of it. That meant that once aware I had a backlog to resolve that had not been literally digested through my body. Yes, I have had a long life of illness and strange experiences. I also had to recognize in real time when something entered and try to sort it out. Not everyone has boundaries and not everyone can build them. There are many lessons that come from living this life.

Although I have been told that I am unique in my level of absorption, I believe everyone carries energies that did not originate inside of their personal life experience. Most assume it is just a part of themselves or give little thought to why they react or feel certain ways, or have behaviors or fears that may not have a lived experience in the lifetime of the person experiencing it.

I do this work often with myself and others and feel it is crucial in healing work to first remove the energies that are not personal in order to get clear about what is ours.

There are two things about this that are important. Sometimes a person will draw issues that are in resonance with personal life traumas and lessons. Like draws like. Second, you can also carry an entire interpersonal dynamic. Say a child in a divorced family later is experiencing issues that seem bewildering and have no memory of the day dad walked out the door.

It is not uncommon to find the thoughts and feelings of everyone who was there residing in the person’s energy field surrounding the part that split off to survive. I have gone through this hundreds of times with people and it is a wonderful gift to actually experience each person’s perspective, clear them then recover the little self and be able to change the story based upon the new information and adult perspective. Often there are assumptions during events like these, misunderstandings that entire lives are written on, and having the chance to experience it through the other’s energy really is healing. A new story with new energy.

So how do you know that these energies are there? For some it may come in a dream or they may feel like they are not eating their soup the way they eat their soup but rather it kinda feels like how dad ate his soup? This requires a very subtle mind and awareness, but you can easily begin to track the energy once you recognize a point of departure from your normal way of being. Or say you look and feel a little big in your face or upper body. You check into it with your awareness and get nothing specific so you ask to be shown who this belongs to. Again, subtle awareness is required but the information is always there and cannot lie. They are energy imprints. That seems clear enough.

Continued next week . . .

Over time I have learned that I must correctly identify the type and source of the “impression” in order to release it. (“Impression” is another word for the impact that energy or things we perceive and experience have upon us; the way it remains with us after we take it in.) Once I see what it is and no longer identify an energy or impression as belonging to me me, I am able to command the energy to go out. As it leaves, my body may shudder or jerk, sometimes even violently, if the thing I am releasing has been taking up inner space or has had an intensive hold.

During an active energy release, my body sometimes moves in ways I cannot do intentionally. (I have seen this occur with energy-sensitive clients also. Most people experience release less obviously. They may simply feel better in the related body area after the release, without noticing the release happening.) This release is not frightening, although it was unsettling the first few times it occurred. It feels freeing and cleansing. I feel more alive and fluid in the areas that the old energy moves out of, and in my body as a whole after a session like this. This kind of release session occurs spontaneously and organically, when I am doing concentrated inner work. It seems to be an amalgamation of many different types of energy healing, which eventually developed into a self repair protocol.

Sometimes the energy I discover during one of these cleansing protocols surprises me. The sources of these energies may show up to me through simply recognizing the identifying energy signature of a specific person as I turn my attention to the area of blockage, excess or odd energy. More often, I need to flip through potential people-sources in my mind until I come across an energetic match. Sometimes a name pops into my head as I attend to the sensations. Other times I have to dig to find it, and what I discover surprises me, but it clearly feels correct, and the energy moves. The energy does not move out until I identify it correctly and ask it to move.

I learn through this process about what is important to various parts of me, which were apparently running their emotional programs beneath the level of my conscious awareness. Previously-unconscious emotions or reactions are what allows energies from other people to lodge in one’s energy systems. I also get information from what I find about the emotional processes within the people who projected the energies; what drove them to project. Once the energies release it as if the footprints in the sand have been blown smooth. The related issues tend to be if not forgotten, at least unimportant.

The process I am describing, of identifying energy originating from the outside, is occasional. Identifying what is MINE and originating from MYSELF is frequent and consistent. Looking for impressions from others without taking responsibility for one’s own involvement in the interactions and energy transfer would be bunk. A steady baseline of self-observation helps to develop the ability to tell the difference.

Please feel free to describe any similar process you may have that allows you to release energies that do not serve you.

What have you learned in the process of developing an ability to recognize and release this type of energy?

What does energy transfer from one person to the next have to do with your self-definition or emotional context?

“Acknowledging the presence of negativity is the first step to putting your life back in order. You can’t change what you refuse to confront.” ~Levine

In this and the following post I will describe an experience I have from time to time, during which I locate and release energy that does not belong with me:

Occasionally, when I do spiritual practices between waking and sleep, I find myself in a state in which I am sensing my body and the energies and sensations related to the practice, and running a related inner exploration. For example, after the a set of practices related to balancing karma and forgiveness, my contemplations stimulated me to review whether or not I was harboring any emotional reactivity toward those who may have done me some type of injustice. I was gently and detachedly reviewing this topic, and checking my body sensations.

As I did this I began to notice energies from other people, which had become lodged in me. Some of these lodged because of my reactions to them, others because they were strong projections that I was unable to keep out owing to incidents in my history making the energies so similar that I hadn’t filtered or sorted them. Many of these projections consisted of, for example, inner child projections from people who fervently desired me to caretake them in some way. I felt responsible for my mother’s feelings and emotional needs as a child. I was now finding some related energies that had been lodged in me for years.

I have noticed that after periods of significant personal growth, I tend to find and release layers or pockets of energy that no longer belongs with me. I see this type of release with clients too, during profound growth. The energies we identify with are not accessible until that growth takes place and we no longer identify with them. At this point related energies release, or the issues show up, and different types of release occur as one reorients and experiences one’s self differently.

In that state between wake and sleep, I experience these types of energies mainly through sensation, although sometimes they show up like dark or fuzzy/static-y spots or areas when I scan internally, which is more of less visual. These spots or areas of sensation always have a specific location. Some may reside in chakras, some in my energy fields, some in organs, and occasionally in my spine. I might feel the energy as a stinging burn, an ache, congestion, slight nausea, contraction, antsyness or deadness in the area. The sensations change or resolve after the associated energy or “impression” releases. The emotional charge on any related issue decreases right away when the energies release.

Are you able to sense when there is energy in your body that does not belong with you?

What do you notice in your energy and in your body when something is present that does not belong?

Can you discern whether what you are sensing originates from within yourself, or from an external source?

This tip is counterintuitive: Keep your energy-sensors pulled in unless you have a reason to check something out. 

Sensitive sorts want to scan everything to see if we will be safe. Constant scanning is draining and causes energy leakage, making things worse. If we mind our own business, our fields remain more intact. When someone approaches and it doesn’t feel right, in dangerous locations, or when intuition prompts you to attend, attention is a good thing. Habitual, inappropriate attention to everyone’s energy makes one more open to drawing Stuff in.

Learning how and when to contain our energy (not “leaking”), supports safety, clarity, and vitality. 

Having emphasized our self-responsibility and the internal aspects of managing our energy, I will include a few externally-based tips on energy protection:

Mirrors are used as a Feng-Shui cure to deflect energy coming toward your house from inharmonious neighbors. You place a small mirror in a window, facing out, facing the direction where energy comes in. You set this up with the intention to bounce the energy back where it comes from. If you use this cure, do it with practical and clean intent, not defensiveness or retaliation.

Violet flame can be used for protection as well as clearing. You visualize violet flame in a space that needs clearing, around you or around your home.

I have been exposed to numerous techniques of visualizing protection in your energy fields. One uses a spinning pyramid and an inverted, pyramid, another uses three layers of different colors of light connected with different sources of protection. We do empower these techniques by honoring those who come up with them, but you can certainly craft something that works well for you.

The last few tips rely on your ability to concentrate and project energy and intention. I use this type of tip only occasionally, if they are specifically called for. They are worth doing in the short term if you feel compromised and cannot yet shift what you need to shift internally in order to disengage from the energy.

As we all know, sincere prayer–with appropriate inner alignment–can be used to protect as well as to clear out energy. I have emphasized in previous posts how to address what we need to take on in ourselves to be able to align ourselves effectively. If we could just do this well we might not need other tips, but what we can access in any given moment and what we believe impact whether or not they energy actually changes.

In my opinion this is the most important tip: “Make your energy clear and transparent so energy goes on through without stopping.” Most of my previous posts support this aim.

One externally-based intervention I do like. These are devices that look like laminated pictures, but they are more complex. The energy technology of this device raises the pitch of your resonance to help disengage. In a sense this is working on Self.

I have used these devices for years, setting them on clients when their energy is compromised, to clear out Stuff that does not belong with them. Recently some of my clients have started to covet them. As they become more aware of energy they can feel the results.

They look hokey. I was initially skeptical. One time I asked the guy who makes them how they work. My eyes glazed over at his response, so I can’t tell you. I can say that they work quite well. I use them when I am exposed to intense negative energy until I get a chance to work on what’s letting it in.

When I was writing about External Energies I made a website to sell these as a service, so people would have some kind of support as they became aware. Should you wish to get one you may go to http://positiveenergytools.com/

How do YOUR beliefs impact your style of working with energy?

Do they enhance or hinder your abilities?

Do you make belief a precondition for getting results?

The extent to which tips on energy protection will be useful to you depends on quite a few different factors. How much trauma you have endured, your exposure to people who modeled good boundaries, your sensitivity and the degree to which you are empathic will have a bearing.

A tip must correspond to your current capacity for self observation and your level of energy mastery to be useful. Different tips work in different moments.

Techniques do not stop energy from coming in if we open the door to it ourselves, intentionally or otherwise. In stories, granting permission for a vampire to enter your house allows it to enter at will until permission is intentionally revoked and clear boundaries are established. Similar principles operate in the world of energy. If something enters, some part of us is in agreement or in resonance with it. This can be really annoying when we don’t know ourselves well enough to be aware of what we are letting in or why. Thus the universe makes self awareness a high priority for sensitive individuals.

Blaming ourselves, or flailing around in confusion about ‘why’ we pick up energy just muddies the water further. I produced the Inner Work Series and the Pearls to Pain Series in this energy-savvy context to assist readers to develop the personal clarity and self awareness to learn to sort self from not-self and gain better boundaries. These series are one huge tip. This is not an easy fix, but it produces permanent life results.

Energy transfers for various reasons. Sealing ourselves off is not a real answer. Using our sensitivity for personal development is meaningful and satisfying.

Given the above, here are various tips that help minimize unintentional energy transfer:

• Focus on and breathe into your hara/belly center and bones
• Ground yourself as well as you can
• Be careful about trying to help people who are not asking for it or flying out of yourself to others in sympathy
• Take responsibility for your sense of safety by working with your fields, setting boundaries or withdrawing instead of trying to get others to make you feel safe
• Discern clearly between your needs and the needs of others
• Resolve issues that arise clearly and directly instead of stewing about things
• Notice the way your negative judgments send out energy toward others–and remember that energy can transfer back to you along the link you are sending out
• When you feel drawn in to someone’s story, tell yourself, “I am HERE; that person is THERE,” and notice the space in between you
• Remind yourself that just because someone is carrying energy you don’t want, you do not have to pick it up
• Scan and clear yourself regularly, and get assistance if you cannot
• Challenge yourself to master your energy in difficult situations instead of fearing or resisting them
• Make your energy clear and transparent so energy goes on through without stopping
• Visualize your energy fields and strengthen them with light
• Let your energy fields be strong but bendable, like spider web
• Allow your fields to flex, like pushing a finger into a partially inflated balloon, when someone comes near (instead of imaging them as being broken)
• Keep your fields smooth and intact so they are like Teflon
• Do spiritual practices on your breath to raise your resonance to a higher pitch
• Practice keeping your resonance at your own pitch instead of matching someone else’s when their energy is compromised

Which of these tips is most useful for YOU at this point in time? Why?

What tips can you add to this list?

What happens to our energy when we ‘go out to’ others, become overly sympathetic, ‘over-merge’ with another person or a group, give ourselves away, get drawn in to interactions that do not serve us, do more for others than is healthy, or get ‘triggered’ and begin to dissociate?

These unintentional behaviors leave our energy fields patchy and thin, riddled with holes, or partially unoccupied, leaving space for ‘squatters’ (like in an empty home). This type of condition creates erratic energy connections with others.

Unintentional energy connections spring from our personal issues. They do not express our preferences or foster healthy intimacy.

The behaviors mentioned above cause energy to leak from us into the fields of others. This may or may not compromise us, depending on our own field strength and what happens to be going on with the other person when we do it. Let’s say it “leaves us open,” literally and figuratively.

A bit farther below are some types of interaction that can lead to unintentional energy transfer. I have broken them into categories. Some kinds actual of interaction reflect issues that cause ‘leaking.’ Things we all do inside our own heads can also create energy openings or connections. These connections can be constructive, neutral, or problematic. The key is to notice and have a choice.

The maxim: “Where your mind goes your energy follows” applies here. Note that thinking about people creates connection. This may seem sketchy to some people but I have several friends who will call me, or visa versa, EVERY TIME we focus on one another with feeling, whether it has been a few days or a few months.

The mind has been referred to by a certain spiritual master as, “A public well.”

Thinking is an interaction more often than we care notice. I have seen strangers respond bodily to my thoughts about them, and realized I was thinking too loudly or judging. The stronger our will and concentration the more important it is to watch what we put out.

I am do not suggest neurotic self-consciousness about your every thought. That produces its own kind of inner ‘noise’ and leads to suppression. Notice instead when you are putting out energy, and learn to manage your energy instead of dwelling on your thoughts. Learn to think inside your own space instead of projecting.

Examples of conditions that can create energy contact:

Emotion-based

• Compassionate desire to help, with insufficient energy boundaries
• Over-concern for another person, without adequate grounding
• Inappropriate care-taking
• Worrying about someone
• Worrying about what others may think of you
• Resentment, hostility, hatred, guilt, etc.
• Any other emotions (including positive) that cause you to project yourself into someone else’s space
• Vacancies or hole in our energy fields from emotions or issues we push away or deny

Mind-based

• Judging another person creates a link to the energetic frequency of the behavior upon which we are focused
• Conversations with others in our heads
• Having something we need to say and not saying
• Intending to do something for or with someone and thinking about it without acting on it

Body-based

• Body contact, especially if it involves energy transfer
• Hugging
• Training that involves touch
• Healing work
• Sex

Take care to associate with people with good energy hygiene.

Resonance-based

• Going into rapport/resonance with someone who has energy that is not theirs or who has disowned emotional energy in their fields
• Running an emotion that matches the energy in someone’s fields
• “Matching pictures”– which means that something unresolved in your history, one of your emotional triggers, or an incident you react to has the same resonance as energy the other person is carrying

Note that energy easily transfers over the telephone when conditions set up sufficient resonance

Moving from a defensive stance into personal growth depends on taking responsibility for the INTERNAL reasons that we take on energy.

What habits, traits, or behaviors make YOU vulnerable to picking up energy?

When you notice the potential of picking up energy, do you do seek to protect yourself from the other person or to shift what you do inside to minimize your vulnerability?

In the last post I introduced the project of becoming transparent to unwholesome energies and influences to prevent taking on external energies. Let’s now explore the skills that support transparency: Clarity and discernment. Contemplating these rather abstract words makes it easier to access the parts of ourselves that can actively apply these gifts in daily life.

Discernment is the ability of the mind to perceive differences between things without cloudiness or obstruction. Clarity is a state of Being that allows light and insight to penetrate and pass through you.

Understand that clarity and discernment are not just something you HAVE or LACK. They are skills we cultivate with practice, and they contribute to success in every life arena.

Clarity is similar to transparency. The word clarity implies perception and intelligibility. Clarity is coherent—whole. Transparency is open and free from pretense. I am using the word transparency with respect to letting energy come though without sticking, and the word clarity to refer to your interior state.

Note that when you put on pretenses, your energy changes. It becomes kind of clumpy and inconsistent, and you will be far more likely to pick up external energies than you are in your authentic state.

Clarity:

• Implies the peace that comes when we are not entangled
• Allows light and energy to pass through
• Is a prerequisite for discernment
• Supports accuracy of inner vision
• Aids in general effectiveness and personal mastery

Clarity is an extraordinary asset that contributes directly to all business and personal affairs.

Clarity is not an across-the-board attribute. One may be clear in some contexts or states of mind and muddy in others. As we explored in the Inner Work series [link], our level of over-all clarity exists in direct relationship to our ability to integrate inner wounds. Blind spots caused by wounds bias vision and response. Some of the most dangerous people identify themselves as being very clear because they are intelligent, discerning, and take bold action, while blind spots the size of Texas inform some of their motivations.

Discernment:
When it comes to accurate perception and energy protection it is quite useful to be able to tell the difference between (for instance) your anger, someone else’s anger, anger from a third party impacting you, irritation from liver overload, suppressed helplessness or grief hiding under anger, and numerous subtle influences that feel similar.

You need to have a clear inner mirror or remarkable detachment to discern and sort out external influences. At least you need to know which smudges were already on your mirror when you begin sorting things out. Self-awareness is essential.

You may think you don’t need to know the difference between various inputs like the example above unless you’re doing advanced healing or guidance work. If you think about it you’ll realize that being able to tell yourself apart from assorted external influences and knowing what drives you is integral to being awake and aware. It also contributes to happiness. Being confused is a drag.

Positive thinking without discernment is not necessarily an asset. Note, for example, the way someone who views power as abusive and themselves as powerless uses power abusively. This person does not need to THINK to create the sense of abuse. He or she can repeat positive surface thoughts ‘til the cows come home and as long as the inner wound is screaming out energy, emotional reactions will trump any new soundtrack grafted over the top. Substituting surface dressing for self-awareness is not ultimately positive. Positive thinking is a wonderful tool when combined with Inner Work.

Bottom line: There are many types of energy and many reasons for susceptibility. Energy protection is often approached as a simple one-size-fits-all technique. Such techniques offer partial protection or Band-Aid approaches, some of which have undesirable side effects. These techniques may be useful or essential in the short term. In the long run ongoing application of clarity, discernment, good boundaries, and Inner Work lead to profound benefit and develop natural immunity to unwholesome energies. This is an ongoing and rewarding process.

Did you ever notice that the clearer you feel the more safe you feel? What do you notice about the relationship between pretenses and your feeling of safety?
Tell us your favorite practices for energy protection.