Positive Energy Guide

Saving the World sounds like a positive Life Purpose. Yet there is something grandiose about presuming to know what is best for the entire world–and in seeing one’s self as the agent for its execution.

Let’s look at the way well-intended ideas about Life Purpose may be Frankenstein in disguise.

Tanya told me during a session that she wanted to Save the World. (Name changed, with permission.) As a child she fantasized holding a seat as Supreme Court justice, as a sanction to impose order and control.

“What do you want to save the world FROM?” I asked Tanya.
She surprised me by saying, “From ME!!

With tremendous courage, honesty and faith in her own core goodness Tanya saw that Saving the World can be a way to feel superior while seeking to fulfill a young fantasy of living in a totally safe world—one she could control. The small, scared part of her was hiding behind an aggressive part that longed to “get ahead, to dominate and conquer.”

Saving the World does not occur by marching out to impose one’s ego-driven image of justice onto others, scrapping with others in competition for the same bloody honor. Tanya could save her own world by relaxing her compulsion to control, and learning true compassion for herself. Doing this alone contributes to world peace.

If you think in either/or, and you are a competitive perfectionist, you may feel you must either save the world or be worthless and useless. Familiarity with the way our wounds bias our points of view allow us to make intentional life choices instead of living out unconscious dramas on the stage of life. If you take on a large role, it is for more fulfilling reasons.

A drive to save the world may be about leaving your mark, like carving initials in a tree or gouging them in stone. The urge to cry I exist, globally, can spring from fear of death. It is like the urge to combat mortality by having children. Wanting to prove how special you are to the world can be like trying to fill a black hole.

These urges are not wrong. Desire does drive us, and creates the dramas of life, the lovely ones included. Living with Purpose is about experiencing a sense of meaning and making intentional choices.

In the world of energy, motivation is everything. Motivation establishes the resonance of our acts and their ultimate effect. If we are thinking big and plan to impact others, the nature of our influence determines whether or not we actually serve the world. If the drive to save the world comes from inspiration your actions may be a boon to mankind. If that drive emerges from unacknowledged inner wounds it creates havoc.

Take, for example, a nurse or doctor in a psych ward, whose need for control, approval, or glory casts them into competition with their team or those under their care. Their service is compromised. On the other end of the spectrum someone with ‘a meaningless job’ can be a light in the world by performing service with loving kindness.

A wise friend (Evelyn Roberts) said: “Today’s freedom fighters are tomorrow’s tyrants.”

Ego drive intense enough to presume one’s personal will onto the world may be epic–but is it service or merely drama? Does it play out Life Purpose or merely create karma?

A strident man strode into a spiritual center, talking about saving the world before it was too late. The perceptive fellow who received him asked: “What part of the world are you interested in saving? If it is yourself that you are trying to save, we can help you.”

We are possessed of a whole range of different motivations and inclinations. Finding and following our most beautiful and uplifting motivations is a true route to meaning and purpose in life. Bringing forth the parts of us that want to create something that really matters is an art. There is purpose and beauty in energizing those aims and goals with life breath.

Do you want to Save the World, or are you struggling to save yourself through external acts?

Does the world want to be saved?

How will the world respond if you attempt to save it?

Who do you feel a need to be seen or recognized by?

What do you need people to do or say in recognition of your deeds?

Are you absolutely certain that you will feel better, happier or more worthwhile if you accomplish large goals?

Life Purpose is the course of action that best actualizes not your brightest, best, and most recognized potential, but the elements of your heart and nature that invite authenticity, joy, balance, and expression of core values.

Life Purpose–also known as Soul Purpose–is the way you align yourself with the Greater Whole to give your life meaning and value.

A sense of purpose is a steady goal we use to inspire ourselves into ongoing action in a specific and meaningful direction.

Steady goals and dreams draw us into experiences we might otherwise avoid. They motivate us to grow and to face challenges that bring into focus facets of ourselves that would otherwise remain latent.

Steady goals and dreams sometimes lead away from what is familiar. At the same time, they provide the means to achieve consistency of motive and intention over time, a center around which to organize experience and come to know ourselves.

We previously explored what happens when we make Life Purpose into an unattainable dream.
Here are a few more types of traps (I changed the names):

Thomas could not connect with desires or motivation. He desperately wanted Purpose but would not take risks. He had learned early on to shut down self-expression to protect himself.

Patricia came from a wealthy family. She felt entitled to work just for fun. She wanted a job like that of a top-notch medium with a television program—without intuitive skills, training, or personal application.

Katherine had a passionate and loving heart. Out of fear she lusted for control and superiority in the guise of world service. Rigorous self-exploration inspired her to note, “My idea of service would have been toxic to myself and others!”

Some get involved in the structure of institutions to make themselves feel valid, powerful and important. Agencies with heaps of rules attract petty tyrants. You know: People who thrive on imposing obstacles and take delight in obstructing progress and projects with obscure rules and regulations that confound common sense.

Inner Work can free motivation from the grip of our issues. Some need to address issues first, to be able to step successfully into external goals. Others find Inner Work gentler and more effective than hard knocks on the world stage.

If you have not done so please read the post Series on Inner Work.  It forms background necessary to fully understand most of my other posts.

For almost everyone, this is a good place to start:

• Take back your authority to think for yourself about what is important for you to accomplish in your life and for what it means to you.
• Change any vague, impossible to enact, non-supportive, notions about Life Purpose to beliefs you can actually work with in your day-to-day life.
• Sacrifice fantasies that you are REALLY so special and different that your Life Purpose is absolutely staggering—but you just quite face it. This is a recipe for failure. Creating pressure and standards that we cannot live up to is counterproductive. If your purpose IS huge you will do it real time, without fantasy.
• Develop a relationship with what is meaningful and important to YOU.
• If you make even a small effort to answer the questions I bring up in this Series you will have made a great start.

In my decades of experience as a healer and guide I have come to believe that Almost Everyone’s First Purpose is to get in touch with who we really are, and to release emotional wounds from the past. Some few people have big destinies to be played out on the stage of life, and do so regardless of their inner hurdles. As for the rest of us:

Beyond question, inner wounds interfere with our ability to perceive, interpret, trust and carry out our Life Purposes. Dealing with this interference is the first work in front of us. Chewing what is on our plate carries inherent meaning and purpose. Doing our Inner Work is the one thing that will most improve our lives—including our ability to succeed in the world. Consider facing yourself one of your main purposes in life.

What if the things you do to TRY and make a difference take you away from your actual Life Purpose?

What habits, beliefs, needs or relationships, or addictions do you allow to have authority over you?

What do you avoid dealing with that prevents you from living your life with greater meaning and value?

When the idea of Life Purpose arises, the first thing that pops up for quite a few people is terror that Life Purpose will take them away from all they know and love. Since I began this series I have heard several versions of the following:

“What if once I get healed or discover my Life Purpose I find that I can no longer tolerate my _________.”
(Fill in the blank. Spouse? Job? Residence? How I allow myself to be treated? All of the above?)

This is a fascinating question. What we’ve got here looks like this:

I am unhappy with my circumstances. I think maybe I should be doing something else because I cannot fully value what I’m doing. But I don’t want to do anything that would take me away and I’m afraid to make any changes.

Sometimes we don’t change unless the terror and discomfort of remaining the same are worse than the terror of change. Either/or thinking and imagination about the future are usually at the root of this fear. “I must either endure this forever or leave (totally, suddenly, and without preparation, into the unknown).”

Unhappiness comes largely from resisting where we actually are. We get happier with our circumstances by investing in them fully and using them to grow.

Instinctively know we need to be willing to surrender attachment to forms and circumstances to be spiritually free. This does not mean that it is spiritual to leave the entangled life web we have weaved. Sinking in is a more effective way to become free. This is done by becoming Present and authentic, and seeing where things go.

What about surrendering to your current circumstances with the sincere Purpose of resolving your issues there? You will either transform your relationship to your life so you’re happier, or gradually work through it to the point of freeing yourself from it without trauma.

Time is ticking ticking ticking. If you use up your life avoiding being Present where you are you are literally giving up your life. Is this situation you say you do not like worth your life?

You will need to face your current discomfort, moment by moment, and make some real responses to it if you want a happier life. Terrifying yourself with being trapped in your circumstances or floundering without them is not the real issue. The real issue is that your fear of discomfort keeping you stuck. You will be MORE comfortable if you address your discomfort. But you need to FEEL it to address it.

Staying the same is not actually comfort—it is familiarity. Discern the difference between familiarity and comfort. This will help free you from fear of change.

Fortunately, when we tune in to our core authenticity and become loyal to ourselves, our relationship with ourselves forms a steadfast and absolutely familiar basis of operation that remains with us no matter how circumstances change. This core self forms and informs our relationships, through our loyalty to ourselves within these relationships. Thus we become more and more comfortable in our relationships as we become true to Self.

The act of trying to be somebody other than we are makes us unhappy. Here is the most common regret of all at the end of life:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Being loyal to yourself is prerequisite to Life Purpose. If you’re not there yet, becoming loyal to yourself can BE your Life Purpose. We have more than one.

We grow and morph as we accumulate life experience. Being integrated and healthy involves making the adjustments necessary to infuse our current values into daily life. Change can come about gradually and gracefully. Huge changes, if essential, can occur with preparation, foresight, and collaboration with those we love.

What do you tell yourself about Life Purpose?

Could it be that my circumstances actually support me in that Purpose?

Could it be that taking on what I am resisting and having difficulty with is a part of my Purpose?

Life Purpose lives at the crossroads of Feeling and Belief. It is shaped by the collision between:

• What we feel about ourselves
• What we feel about participation in life
• Who we believe ourselves to be
• What we believe about participating with others

What we believe informs our behavior in specific ways. We may believe, for example, that Life Purpose must be recognized by others to be valid. This type of belief is largely subconscious. As a belief alone it remains inactive and theoretical–unless we activate it by aiming to put it into direct practice. As our energy becomes engaged, feelings arise.

What we feel informs our behavior in totally different ways than do our beliefs. We may feel that we are incapable and inadequate. Emotional patterns that sabotage success are quite common.

The intersection between beliefs and emotional patterns operates according to our unique personality structures. Following our example, when we combine a belief that we must be recognized in the outer world with feeling incapable of measuring up, we come up with an interpretation like: “I must contribute to society to be a worthwhile human being but I can’t.”

Life Purpose is shaped by translating belief WITH FEELING into day-to-day action, and shaping our time to express what we value.

Whether or not we can access our sense of Life Purpose is determined by the degree to which we can align positive feeling and belief, so that insight and action are not derailed by conflict.

Feelings, if used for awareness, provide us with the opportunity to revisit and revise our beliefs. Take note of the feelings and beliefs that arise as you read this series.

Interpretation, like the quote above, can become activated and rub us raw after listening to talks or exposure to teachings about Life Purpose. A belief that inspires some personality types and serves development casts other types into despair, or excessive striving. A passionate, ambitious personality will suffer more keenly with Life Purpose issues than someone who feels fulfilled through the bonds and exchanges involved in family life or artistry. Passionate energy needs positive direction.

When beliefs and emotions are not congruent (harmonious), they cannot empower the actions we take in the world in healthy ways.

From an energy perspective, beliefs and emotions that intersect smoothly weave patterns that support, magnetize and attract people and circumstances that allow you to express your sense of purpose. Beliefs and emotions that clash form nodes or clumps of energy in one’s personal fields. These inconsistencies are associated with inefficient or blocked function.

The more passionately we aim to do something that expresses our life meaningfully the more steam we build toward action. When emotional patterns derail the urge toward action, distress or despair can result.

In my role as healer and guide I naturally discover imbalances and specific issues that underlie such distress. Misconceptions or unfortunate interpretations about Life Purpose can be at the source of this distress. In the next several posts we will investigate common issues and misconceptions related to Life Purpose. I will offer insights that can alleviate distress and frustration to help get your energy on track with your sense of meaning and purpose.

Why do you want to make a difference in the world?

What do you seek to gain or take from your experience?

What are you willing to give to life?

Dynamic changes in our world remind us we will not here forever. Remembering our impermanence stimulates gratitude for what we have, and can inspire us to live our lives to the fullest. Life purpose is about living our lives to the fullest.

Feeling purposeless and not knowing what to do to make life worthwhile is a distressing plight. Monumentally important questions cry for deeper engagement with life. Pat answers and distraction do not suffice. Having answers that are not your own frustrates your sense of purpose—even if you cannot get your arms around it.

I am writing this detailed post series to address the issues that arise when we consider Life Purpose. I hope to free Life Purpose from misconceptions that derail and confuse. For now, let’s look at a trap some of us set up for ourselves:

Most of the clients who talk to me about Life Purpose use the concept of having a purpose in life to beat up on themselves in some way. What is going on with this?

Cultural focus on Life Purpose causes a backlash as we interpret the messages we receive. Most of our input about Life Purpose is laden with extreme stories of people whose purposes involve wild and amazing success after devastating losses, who change the world with money or place themselves in service like Mother Teresa. I remember being terrified, when I became more seriously spiritual, decades ago, that the ultimate fate of my life would be extreme sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. We are fed stories to inspire us. Inspirational stories can have a vicious backlash.

Have we really begun to believe that every Life Purpose is about becoming rich and famous and changing the world? This would mean that everyone who is not up for this has no Purpose?

It is not a calling for every life to have an obvious and public destiny. Living to the fullest—in any case—begins with becoming truly Present with ourselves, exactly as we are, in our current circumstances.

If you are one of the people who stops yourself from dealing with Purpose by thinking it’s way out of your reach, I have some questions for you. They are not rhetorical. Take time to contemplate them or journal.

Can my Life Purpose be something that is so far beyond what I am capable of actually doing that it is a pie in the sky or dooms me to failure without even trying?

Do I really believe pursuing my Life Purpose will make me less happy and satisfied?

Is the universe really designed so that our Purposes are virtually impossible, or so difficult to take on that they are only for highly exceptional people?

Could it be that my Life Purpose is something that I myself can take on, starting where I actually am?

Could it be that my Life Purpose–being correct for the actual me–is something I can begin right here in my current circumstances?

“Your work in this life is to find your work, and to give yourself to it with your whole heart.” Buddha

Whether you got your notions about Life Purpose from parents, spiritual or religious leaders, from an assortment of media input, or somewhere else, your concepts will be biased by their energy and their values.

Considerations about Life Purpose are usually entangled with concepts about success. Part of this is because advertisers target those who long for purpose and success by firing up their issues, to fuel their urge to buy programs. The lure of simultaneously succeeding and setting aside the nagging feeling that we must make something of ourselves is powerful.

What about you? Does what you hear about Life Purpose inspire you, cause resistance, or leave you flat? Wherever you got your notions, no problem. But let’s add some deeper, balancing thinking to take out the hooks and get into action.

Focusing on Life Purpose can help us remember to use our time and energy in ways that we value. Remembering that we will die helps us get real and stay present with what is truly meaningful and important. Life is more interesting with a sense of purpose.

I saw a video considered a big deal in the online advertising community. A rich, mucky-muck was saying, “Forget about life balance when starting to be an entrepreneur.” He advises putting aside all values except health and family in order to make money. I have to ask: What values are shoved aside and what is the long-term effect? What else is lost along with life balance? Heart? Soul? Introspection? Perspective? Integrity? I remain unconvinced that the attainment of money will make up for a long period of life without acknowledging internal values.

I have a friend who teaches classes on end of life issues and dying. Here is #2 from his list of deathbed regrets: I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

Re-defining success in personal terms is powerful and helps us access our feeling of Life Purpose. Getting in touch with Life Purpose requires being deeply in touch with yourself.

This is the age of collaboration. Competition can drive us to beat ourselves up for not living out a notion of success that would never make us happy. Competition may be healthy or unhealthy. Motivation makes the difference. Healthy competition relies on good self-esteem. It stimulates skillful action and allows for team effort. You are able to celebrate the wins for the group, whether or not your own performance is stellar.

Unhealthy competition is toxic to collaboration. It is driven by ego issues and may even be a touch maniacal. Unhealthy competition is motivated by the desire to be worth something. This assumes that you are not worth anything to start with, and that proving something on the outside can change this. It doesn’t. It can’t. There is always something or someone bigger and better.

It is perfectly okay to define yourself as a success just as you are. Try it. Then you can go ahead with your sense of purpose without worrying about external standards.

Goals driven by aims that are not truly and deeply meaningful to YOU leave a disturbing sense of meaninglessness in their wake. This empty meaninglessness may exist inside before the goals emerged. The goals were a temporary distraction. When a major goal is achieved a sense of being empty or worthless may float back up toward the surface of awareness. Getting in touch with Life Purpose helps us to face and set to rest this type of feeling.

This series contains a lot of important questions. If you have an issue with Life Purpose, make a journal and answer them as we move through the series.

Where did you get your notions about Life Purpose?
How well are they serving you?

This post on using energy and sound to balance hyperactive children was written by my competent friend Barbara McKell, who practices energy medicine in Ontario:

This summer I had some long fruitful conversations during a visit with my friend Teresa Dietze. On one walk together the subject came up of children being drugged with Ritalin. I have always felt it was abhorrent to drug a child. Through greater patience, understanding and a holistic approach, this is completely unnecessary to solve issues with children’s behavior.

I told Teresa about a mother I met at a workshop I was conducting. I will call her Jenny to protect her privacy. After the workshop Jenny came up to me and asked me if I would work with her son. Jenny was very distressed because the school her 6-year-old son was attending asking her to put him on Ritalin because of attention and behavioral problems. They had begun to take extreme measures with him in the classroom. His educators had put a partition around his desk, so that he would not be stimulated by the activities in the class and could not disrupt the other children. This tactic wasn’t working and Jenny had asked them not to do it.  Then they told Jenny that if she were not willing to have Jonathan put on Ritalin, they would have to remove him from the classroom.

Jenny was desperate. I told her I would be happy to work with her son. She brought Jonathan in the following week. The child I met in office was bright, alert and very curious, but he was not the type of child you could sit down with and have a quiet conversation. He was stimulated by all the energies in the new surroundings. In order to interact with him on a level that would be comfortable for him, I encouraged him to move around and touch some of the objects in the room. He was fascinated and his little mind had a hundred questions at once. In my healing room there are many crystals, sacred objects and sound healing instruments. After some exploration and many questions, Jonathan began to settle in a little. His curiosity and ability to operate on many levels at once was being honored and he was feeling safe and comfortable.

He then zeroed in on a musical instrument made by Woodstock Chimes. It is constructed in a xylophone format with the chimes tubes and creates amazing sound no matter how the instrument is played.

We sat on the floor together producing wonderful soothing rhythms to which he responded by becoming even more relaxed and comfortable. Jenny was witnessing the whole interaction and with tears in her eyes. She told me that Jonathan had told her on the way over, before he even met me, that he was going to see Barbara so he could play music with her. She told him she didn’t think so. Now she was witnessing the very thing he had said would happen in his session with me.

Discovering how sound affected him I decided to try out a set of tuning forks with him. I had him stand up and I used a D and an A fork. I use a method with the D&A tuning forks that I learned in a Jonathan Goldman workshop many years ago. It is highly effective for children who been labeled ADD and ADHD.

I simply hold a tuning fork in each hand and gently strike the forks to get them resonating. The two forks sounding together create a harmonic, which is referred to as a “Sacred Fifth”. I move the tuning forks around the auric field and weave them down and around body, usually three times, moving slowly past the ears so the recipient not only feels the vibration throughout their entire field, but can also hear as the forks move past their ears. There is also a cross over motion, which brings the brain into balance while the weaving motion balances the Chakras.

Jonathan loved this and asked me to do it again. After we had done it two more times there was a remarkable difference in him. An air of calm and confidence had settled in. Now he was ready to receive a little more energy work and the rest of the session went like a charm. Jenny was so impressed that she bought a set of the D&A tuning forks and I showed her how to use them.

A few months later I saw Jenny and asked how Jonathan was doing. She told me he was doing beautifully. The work he did with me had held. He had learned to discern for himself when he was out of balance. When this happened he simply ran and got the tuning forks, handed them to his mother and “Here mommy, tune me”. There was no need to drug him or segregate him all that was necessary was a little understanding and a non-invasive tune up.

Barbara McKell,
Visionary Artist and Energy Medicine Practitioner, Guelph Ontario
http://www.reikikids.ca

Being comfortable and clear relies on knowing where we start and stop, what is part of us and what is not, which feelings and sensations originate with us and which come from other people or events. The more intuitive we are the harder it is to make this call.

Mystics experience all life as one. The psychologist Jung coined the term “collective unconscious,” where personal experience merges into what is essentially the group mind of all of us together

The more expanded your awareness the harder it can be to tell your own cup of water from the ocean. In actuality, water that runs through us has been in many different people, places, plants, periods of time, and life forms. We now call the water and minerals of our bodies “I.” Atoms jump in and out and energy interpenetrates us in the sea of greater-than-self awareness.

The task of knowing who we are involves being able to sort out different levels of awareness. Telling our bodies apart is easy. Sorting my feelings out from your feelings can be easy or hard, depending on early experiences, how similar we are, and other factors. The mind world is a stickier wicket. If you’ve ever had the same dream a friend had on the same night you have an idea how hard it can be to sort out mind from mind.

The most distinctly personal levels of our minds have a distinct and separate energy frequency or signature that identifies us to ourselves and to those who can identify persons through the energy of their thoughts. Advanced Intuitives and those who are trained in Remote Viewing, for example, have this skill.

Transpersonal levels of mind are more diffuse. The thoughts of everyone are out there in the mind-cloud of general human awareness and can jump from mind to mind. In Family Constellation/ Reconstruction sessions, where group members agree to represent one person’s relatives, it is not unusual for participants to temporarily express very specific emotions and physical symptoms of persons they know next to nothing about. This is exemplifies transpersonal experience. The group mind allows for transfer of information without words.

Boundary confusion STARTS WITH energy. Energy is not a woo-woo abstraction. Energy is a real part of the non-verbal communication that actually occurs during events when boundary issues begin. When a parent or family member invades a child through inappropriate acts, for example, the energy part of the communication actually enters the fields or body of that child. This type of energy is stick and hard to throw back out because the child cannot tell who it belongs to, owning it. This is one major cause of issues with boundaries.

Boundaries are primarily about sensing/knowing what is yours and what is not. This especially includes knowing what you are and are not responsible for causing or creating. Taking inappropriate responsibility for the feelings of someone who is attempting to manipulate you emotionally is an example of boundary confusion. You do not cause their emotions and you are not responsible for stopping them. They are. You ARE responsible for finding an effective and preferably respectful way to get away, and for taking care of your own emotional needs. Your need to be liked, for example, must not overpower your need for safety.

Making sure to be consistently authentic is an act of healing if you have any issues with boundaries. This minimizes giving yourself away to try and please others, second-guessing them, or otherwise getting them in your space and you in theirs. State straight out what you feel comfortable or uncomfortable with, respectfully, and work out positive solutions that work for everyone whenever you can. Challenges can often be used to hone new skills.

“Boundaries” is another word for self-possession. Self-possession is a fascinating term if you think about like this: If you are in possession of yourself, nothing else can possess you. When you are fully in your body and in touch with your feelings, energy that does not belong to you passes through but does not take up residence.

Do you ever get confused about what is YOU and what is someone else?
What types of energy do you get confused with?
What kinds of actions help you sort yourself out?

A world of difference exists between living in your head and sensing. Sensing–attending to the flow of guidance received through your body–supports constructive responses to emotions and energies from moment to moment.

Disconnecting from the body makes us ever so much more susceptible to external influences and energies. It lays us open to them like an empty house with the doors open. When we are not fully Present our energies become less organized, focused, and clearly-patterned. This alters the function of our meridians, organs, chakras, and energy fields. Such disorganization makes us both more sensitive to external energies and simultaneously less able to take actions that increase our comfort.

Noticing feelings, emotions and needs begins with sensing feeling in the body. Getting Present allows our body to give us information about what we need, our minds to interpret this information and conceive self-soothing ideas, and our emotions to calm down and smooth out. Then our energy becomes more robust and solid around us and we are less vulnerable to external influences.

Spacing out or numbing out makes our energy fields porous and wispy, and can cause holes in them. Disowned emotions stick in the fields and attract discordant energies from the environment, like lint to Velcro.

Being IN and WITH the body and getting really healthy makes it easier and less painful to manage intense energies and emotions. Drugs, alcohol, non-present sexual encounters, media addiction, eating disorders, unexpressed emotion etc. monopolize space, time, energy and attention that can otherwise be used to actually address discomfort. When we numb ourselves we cut off the signals that provide effective guidance and direction.

Mastering reactions instead of running from them builds up power and energy for constructive change.

Impact, traction, power, influence, and clarity draw from Being Here fully; Presence. We begin to find words for our experiences and it becomes much easier to ask for what we want and need, like asking someone to listen or asking for some space.

Presence is the first step. When boundary issues (confusion about what is who’s) arise, there ARE more steps to take to get to personal power and clarity. Checking to make sure we are sticking around is good to do between each step. Presence is an end in itself.

Post #3 is an esoteric view of why boundaries can be confusing to intuitive people, and how boundary confusion can lead to picking up external energies.

Please share this post with those who will find these reflections useful.

What would You be empowered to do if you could manage your discomfort with compassion?
Have you ever noticed that when you go straight into your pain that it begins to dissolve?

My ebook—see cover on the right sidebar—goes into detail about managing sensitivity to energy.

This post series speaks to learning to manage sensitivity to energy. Presence and Boundaries are cornerstones of this skill. You have to BE HERE to make a boundary.

The more able we are to be Present and the better we know ourselves, the easier it is to deal with energy we find uncomfortable to experience. If we are honest with ourselves and pay attention we will find that when we absent ourselves in some way through distraction, dissociation, or diversion, we do so because we feel uncomfortable. Often some feeling we don’t like is trying to surface into awareness. We stop it by checking out.

Being comfortable feeling our discomfort is a big key to being able to stick around in the here-now moment no matter what we feel. Although counterintuitive, this skill forms a foundation for learning to manage our own energy. Once we can stay present with our own, we begin to be able to sort it out from external influences.

Bell Rock Vortex

Allowing and observing discomfort instead of trying to escape from it is a very Zen kind of practice. It is the foundation of quite a few types of foundational spiritual work. Basic self-observation—sticking around and noticing what is going on—is also key to numerous therapeutic and healing techniques.

Let’s discuss what it takes to become more comfortable with discomfort.

In response to my Post Series about feeling the energy of the world, one brave man wrote: “I do feel the energy of the world, and it bothers me sometimes. All the unrest in the Middle East caused all sorts of funny energies, restless energies to hit me. I can also feel the energy of some people around me. I just don’t quite know what to do with it, how to process these energies. It is things like that which makes me need to numb myself unfortunately.” (Quoted and responded to with permission.)

I would like especially to address those of you seek ways to “numb out” when energy gets intense and those of you who get confused about what is and is not your responsibility. The common link here is that you need to be more Present in your body. This previous 3-post blog defines and also discusses “being in your body.” (Scroll part way down that page.)

Being in your body is fundamental to being Present, and to having effective boundaries. In order to keep from getting confused about what energy, emotions and thoughts are yours and which ones come from other people or events, you need to learn to clearly and distinctly feel and identify your own sensations and emotions.

Body sensations are the easiest place to start. These sensations change with each emotion, and when we get connected with different types of energy. It’s important to have a solid baseline of sensory experience so you can begin to tell what is yours. Again, this begins by sticking around.

Dissociation or disconnection from parts of ourselves—physical, emotional, thought, or energy—is a defense against pain. But when we abandon or fragment ourselves we cannot effectively nurture ourselves and minister effectively to this pain. The survival tool of pulling away is not so useful for sticking around and doing repair. Being Present helps us to learn when to physically withdraw, and to make new, more-effective responses to our needs.

Setting boundaries means recognizing your discomfort and being able to make decisions that are healthy for you; staying whole when things happen.

Post #2 will begin to explore constructive responses to emotions, sensations, and energies.

What do YOU notice about how you respond to discomfort?
Can you stay Present and feel it, or do you find a way to avoid your feelings and sensations?