Positive Energy Guide

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?

(Continued . . .)

Forgiveness and blessing soften, open and release stuck energy.

The next day the retreat group did a Forgiveness Practice, eye to eye, singing: “Please forgive me, for all that I have done and all that I have not done. Please forgive me.” It could have been hokey. The beauty of the music and sincerity of the group made it powerful.

L. encouraged us to approach and sing to anyone in the room who we needed to clear something with, or to allow someone to stand in for a person in our lives or our hearts. Tears came up here and there around the room.

Contemplating this song, my best formulation of what many of us need to say to our best Selves would be: “Please help me to forgive myself for not forgiving myself for all that I am going to do or not do next.”

While a bit lawyerly, this formulation covers that niggling sense that if we forgive ourselves in this moment we might not still be quite up to forgiving ourselves later, and may find ourselves doing the same darned thing!

We need to be able to let ourselves move forward despite shortcomings in not yet being able to sustain our ideals. We need to be willing to forgive ourselves when we fall back. Then can we move forward with the confidence that we can return to grace again if we fall.

Most of the day we did prayerful song with movement–like the one I shared in Part 1, but varying widely in type, intention, and tone.

We shared blessings later that afternoon, starting with some standard blessings: “May you be well and happy. May you be free from pain. May you live in peace. May you return to Love.” After warming up to it we began making blessings up for the person in front of us, giving and receiving, then moving on to someone else. I challenged myself to craft blessings that perfectly fit the inner longing of the person in front of me, such as:

“May you find yourself always around people you can trust, who understand you so you can be totally silly and get to play in joy,” or “May you be recognized for your lovely and unusual gift of congruence between your body, movements, emotions, thoughts and energy.”

The second one brought tears, and the woman later said she had been hoping all her life that someone would notice that about her. It’s an amazing intimacy to connect soul to soul without knowing someone’s personality. We had never spoken with one another before. Her response speaks to how vital it is for us to be ‘seen.’

I had another profound experience that evening. The group, in a long line, doubled back on itself, snaking through the room so some of us would pass face to face. The fleeting glance of one man astonished and transported me. Faster than thought, my heart literally rocked in my chest. I was riveted, yet we had already passed.

What I felt was The Beloved. This had nothing to do with the man as a personality or a body. He was so Present, inwardly silent, and connected to Source that the Divine shone through him at that moment.

I felt a brief confusion. Yes, I wanted the moment back–and forever–but this flash of feeling had nothing to do with anything that could survive a moment of grasping. This was the mystical experience of longing for the Divine. There was no where to look for it but to cultivate it inside myself.

To have mastery over our energy requires assessing our experiences accurately. We are safe to open to deep feeling when we trust our perception and therefore our decisions.

Is there anyone YOU need to forgive, or to receive forgiveness from?

How does thinking about this impact your energy?

Here is the soundtrack again if you care to hear part of the event as my story of a healing event continues:

A friend on the Path, J., approached me with loving tears on her face. My body began to thrash in a resistive way when she touched me, as if on its own. This was not a release. I love J., but her energy was not going to work for me at that moment. I held my palms out in a universal symbol to back away.

B. remained solid and clear, giving me courage.

J. backed up just outside my fields, grounded herself, and began to pray for me with love, keeping her heart and her glance with me. I was deeply grateful that she understood and accepted my need without making anything up, feeling rejected, or projecting on me. I was greatly relieved that she ‘got it’ and could honor my need for her not to touch me without withdrawing. Her response was truly loving and healing. This touched me more deeply than touching my body could have.

B. said, “Thank you for trusting me to be there for you. It is a privilege to support you.”

S., a lovely and competent therapist, showed up and laid her body across my back. On her knees beside me, she began to sob aloud. I was grateful for her trust, and this deep contact. I felt as if she was crying for us both, and learned later that her current life situation matched parts of my own. I lifted the heat and weight of her long, thick hair from her neck and face, and covered the back of her heart chakra with my hand, to support and connect.

A familiar-feeling hand took one of mine, stretching my arm above me. My new friend, A., pressed acupuncture points in my palm.

Someone calm–P.– grasped my feet, helping me stay in my body. P. put a hand on my sacrum. A jolt like a shock ran through me, jarring my body in a huge spasm. I gripped B. to stabilize my body. I saw from his face and hesitancy that P. was uncertain whether touching my sacrum was supportive. He allowed me to place his hands where I needed them at the moment. As remembered I could ask for what I need I redirected various hands to areas where I needed connection or release energy. My brave supporters were happy to be effective. Now their collective flow activated energy that had been locked inside. It began to release in intense and sudden jolts.

B. stroked my forehead. I pressed my face into his leg or side, pulling gently on my hair to keep my neck aligned so I wouldn’t hurt it as I thrashed. I was trying to relax and let it all happen. “You can throw up on me if you need to,” B. said. I told him I didn’t want to. “But you can.”

A tiny but mighty healer who is also a midwife leapt in and began digging with all of her fingers over my heart, like a small dog scrabbling for a bone. She suddenly grabbed and tore something out from the energy-hole she just dug, flinging it from the building. A cascade of jolts raced through me, buckling my spine and shooting out the top of my head. This release was especially helpful and powerful. I found this intervention oddly comforting and even lyrical.

Later, she told me she was aiming for the pond when she did this “extraction”--and truly hoped no one had been in the way of the energy she threw out. She said this extraction had been done by her inner fox, who assists her when she does healing.

I challenged myself to take in all this support, to let myself feel it instead of trying to get the process over with so people could carry on. I began singing softly with the group between waves of release. This helped me stay with the process without thinking too much. I let myself feel included instead of feeling as if I were interfering with the group process.

As I went through this moment of concern, B. said, “You really didn’t need to go to such lengths to get a little attention from us–you could have just asked for it!” This was his kind of humor, touching my fear gently so I could laugh and let it go.

When the storm had passed he said, “Why don’t you let some of your sisters walk you out to your van and go to bed.” I thanked him and we shared a parting hug. He added, “I’m just glad I thought to tell you to put your head in my lap, and that you trusted me and were able to do it!”

S. and I got herbal tea and had a good talk in my van.

Does part of this story ping something for you?

What comes up, and what does it tell you about yourself?

If not, is there any feeling you resist when read this? 

How are you with receiving support?

This post suggests compassionate responses and actions we can take to stay balanced during times of major change:

Don’t take the ambient energy personally. Ambient energy comes from the physics that CAUSE earth changes AND from the collective response. By ambient energy I mean the energy currently circulating around in the collective. You know—the energy-aftermath from the feelings the news stirs up.

Less obvious and even more important is the energy OF the ACTUAL events the news is ABOUT. Energy generated by people in distress ricochets around the earth like a rock in a pond or an earthquake causing a tsunami and moving continents.

Do explore what is going on with you personally and the issues that arise inside, and address them. Take care not to add anything to them. The intensity that fuels your reactions may have little to do with you. (See Post #3 in series.)

Learn to take internal trauma with a grain of salt—even while you validate and honor its origins. Neutral observation brings balance. (See Inner Work series.)

Seek to participate in fully in transformation during times of trauma. Whether or not the PURPOSE of trauma is transformation, positive participation alleviates stress by conferring a measure of, if not actual control, constructive direction.

Take a longer-range view. Look beyond the last few days and weeks to note with compassion that we’re in the middle of a very long grind. We habituate to this stress mentally, and take it for granted. Our emotional and physical energies adjust more slowly, while fast-moving effects build over time.

Accept your discomfort. Grasping for joy and trying to push away discomfort digs us in deeper. It sets up a series of reactions that make authentic joy harder to access. Be with What IS as you take actions that nurture greater comfort.

Extend compassion to the parts of yourself that feel traumatized by the level of change occurring.

Surrender to the fact that change is inevitable, and seek to surf with it. Resistance drains you and keeps you stuck. Find ways to create benefit, even through loss.

Ask for divine assistance–not to GET something but to BECOME all you can be.

Do your Inner Work (Link).

Use the energy of change to transform yourself and your life by considering positive outcomes. Use any disruption you feel and your concerns about the future to motivate constructive action, personally and in service. Make a concerted effort to recreate your life while things are in a state of flux anyway.

• How would you like to emerge?
• What do you need to release or tear down to make way for a better situation?
• What can you free yourself from or give away?
• What do you need to be independent of to be happy?

Contemplate the freedoms that come with loss. Also contemplate the types of freedom inherent within commitment, the things you can express and accomplish.

Deal with any lingering dissatisfaction and your fears of going away from familiar structures and situations.

Make moment-to-moment choices that are consistent with you where you want to go.

Take responsibility–by staying as present as possible to your authentic experience.

Find practical ways to reduce overwhelm:

• put self-care at the top of your list
• set clear priorities
• revamp boundaries to fit current circumstances
• take time to relax
• spend time in nature
• exercise
• notice if listening to the news becomes too much
• take care of your spirit

Avoid random action rooted in restlessness.

Make changes based on true preference. Changes made to avoid discomfort can land you in another form of discomfort somewhere else. Impatience without a solid direction is just undirected energy.

Give energy a positive direction. If you do not have a clear sense of direction, focus on building clarity and developing lucid intention.

How do YOU manage the energy of change?
Which aspects of you adjust quickly and which ones get stuck?
What do you do when external energies become intense?

Intense world energies have been bringing up buried personal issues, but there is another phenomena going on too. What is it, and how can we use it for positive growth?

I got a call from an intuitive woman does her Inner Work and keeps her energy clear. She had been feeling disturbed by a vague sense of guilt, shame, or culpability and wondered why. She had effectively scanned inside, finding no source.

Responsibility is in the air. It accompanies all our new opportunities for choice. Choice and responsibility go hand and glove. The world has entered a phase in which we must each and all assume greater responsibility for our actions and impact upon one another.

Example: Persons whose choices courted or passively led to disaster for their families feel bad about it, adding concern about responsibility to collective energy pool. One may feel he “should have” sold the house sooner, or she “should have” selected a different retirement plan, etc.

Even waging peace demands responsibility from participants and those they petition.

We each take up what responsibility we can, hoping to see ourselves through the world changes. This new flood of responsibility—the energy of it—begins to work its way down into the things we feel bad about, into our old wounds and shame.

Assuming greater responsibility requires becoming aware of what we need to be responsible for. Not knowing what we are responsible for can cause stress and confusion. So does loading our plates with way too much responsibility without clarity about exactly what is ours, and what to do differently. This boundary-confusion can reactivate old wounds.

Many blame ourselves when we experience trauma. Children who are mistreated or have a parent die attempt to make sense of their world by taking inappropriate responsibility for things that were done to them. This stance confers a sense of having a measure of control. It’s easier to manage than feeling totally powerless in a senseless world. But it also keeps one stuck with feeling blameworthy. World changes can undermine this sense of control, making the wounds accessible.

Turn this to your advantage by doing deep emotional ‘housecleaning’ while the energy supports this transformational practice.

The sense that at some level we choose and set up our destinies can add fuel to confusion about responsibility. In general, giving our experience meaning and seeing ourselves as participants reduces trauma, whether or not our assessment is correct.

One reason those who have been victimized feel blameworthy is that we take on, absorb, and come to identify with the energy that abusers refuse to carry. Guilt and shame an abuser pushes away from his or her body congest in their energy field, like disowned emotion tends to do. This energy easily enters us those who are shocked and stunned into absolute openness by trauma.

Energy an abuser rejects can get stuck in your fields or body and echo as if it is your own. If you confuse this with a psychological pattern you will find that pattern highly resistant to change—and perhaps simple once that energy is removed.

Remember that blame is different than responsibility. Blame keeps one stuck in the past. Learning to assume appropriate responsibility in the present can free us from blame. (Also see Forgiveness Series.)

During times of upheaval we have a wonderful opportunity to do deeper healing and make major changes. Bring love and light to all realms of distress. We are helping everyone when we do.

Do you find yourself feeling responsible for things over which you have or had no control?
Do you blame yourself for it or go into shame?
How do you soothe yourself when this comes up?
How can you move into positive action instead of recycling your discomfort?

Times of change are exciting and invigorating to the extent that we use them to make meaningful discoveries, adjustments, and connections with others. The ways we respond to change depend at least as much on how we position ourselves internally as it does on our life situation.

Using the energy of change to transform depends on the way we manage our moment-to-moment experience.

How do we get from living our lives like business-as-usual to engaging fully with profound change? Strong energy signals that wake us up to the possibility or necessity of change usually take the form of some type of discomfort. These signals alert us that something different is going on. How we experience, embrace and respond to these signals is paramount. If we ignore, misinterpret, or shut them down we cannot use them for intentional transformation. Change will still occur, but with less awareness. We have more choice and possibility when we put ourselves in concert with the changes.

One way that intuitively sensitive people get clear is to ask ourselves: “What is my own in the energy, and what belongs outside of me?”

This is a great place to start when we feel strange. It is, however, easy to misinterpret uncomfortable sensations from the outer world as some sort of energy invasion. When world changes are intense, the energy fields around our bodies go through changes too. And why not? The relationship of the earth itself to its magnetic poles changed a bit with the tsunami. The government has had to change GPS settings. We really aren’t separate from all that.

Initially, during intense world changes, when I felt the fields around my body going through strange changes I had to really pause and evaluate what was happening. Like others experienced in working with energy, I went through a mental checklist to rule out common types of energy interference. I’m talking about the kinds of influence sensitive people take on from others. For example, when someone is throwing anger at you from a distance, pulling on your energy out of neediness, or projecting onto you issues they are unable to acknowledge in themselves, you may sense this energy coming at you and feel invaded. Even those who are fairly skilled may not find it easy to check our own subtle energy when our energy systems are compromised.

After ruling out the usual suspects I discovered that the fields around me were going through the equivalent of being stretched and thinned in places and pulled different ways, like a pizza crust in the hands of a chef.

As we become more sensitive and also more connected with the entire world our energy goes through changes. Unfamiliar sensations occur. These sensations are not totally unfamiliar, so we initially interpret them according to what we already know. We are unable to interpret them based on what we are not yet familiar with, so we make our best attempt. It is essential to stay open to new possibilities and to stretch toward new understanding.

Here are some unusual sensations that may occur when our fields are stretched, pulled and impacted by world changes. Some feel similar to energy invasion:

• fields feeling wispy, or weak
• disproportionate tiredness, which may feel like being drained
• bouts of dizziness
• nightmares
• periods of disorientation, brain-fog, or inability to focus
• inconsistent motivation
• sadness, shame, anger with yourself or others; the showing up of really old issues or inner wounds
• restlessness
• inability to access usual channels of guidance
• sense of losing your bearings or that life tools no longer work
• feeling that there is something in your fields that doesn’t belong or hasn’t been there before

Mental and emotionally you may feel:

• Nothing applies or makes sense
• Doubt
• Wondering whether we made a mistake
• Handling stress poorly
• Feeling unhappy with what you’re doing or like leaving your current circumstances
• Situations we have put up with for years may feel intolerable
• Strong desire for change, perhaps with no idea what to create
  
  This type of sensation may come and go. When the cause is energy it’s important to remember that nothing is wrong. As you relax and adjust the sensations pass. Kind self-care is the best plan. 

  In Post 6 we’ll explore the relationship between dynamic, changing energies and responsibilty, following in Post 7 with compassionate responses and actions that help us stay balanced through times of major change.

  How does monumental world change impact YOUR day-to-day energy?
  What do you do to increase your inner balance, clarity, or ease?

   

   

   

   

It makes perfect sense that intuitive people respond more to global events. We feel them. If you think about it, you will see that intuitive people, when other factors are the same, go through life changes more quickly than average. Seeing through into what is going on, and being able to grasp the life lessons within situations and relationships makes for a faster response.

We all say “I’m not going to do THAT again” sometimes. Intuition increases your ability to tell at the start whether a situation is actually new or THAT again. If we THINK it is different but it is not, we stay stuck. If we think it is the same and it is not we remain rigid with respect to it–defensive—and do not engage in it and grow. It follows that flexible, intuitive people grow faster. This accelerates life changes.

Speedy life changes are not particularly comfortable. Poise through change demands spiritual detachment and works-over the ego as we become self-aware through new experience. This is hugely true during transformation. So when the world is changing quickly, those of you sensitive, positive people who are looking for constructive ways to improve your lives and the world are often uncomfortable.

In response to the world changes, those of us who are able, are becoming more open to compassion, more aware of others, and keener to the preciousness of life. We long to use our hours and days for something truly meaningful. Uncertainty about the potential duration and quality of our lives makes transformation a much more immediate goal than it is in times of inner peace. These choices accelerate the pace of change even more.

The process of becoming aware IS exposing. Consider the first post of this series, with the list of personal traits and issues that pop into awareness as awareness expands.

Another reason some feel exposed is a side-effect of feeling so directly connected with the rest of the world. It’s as if we can no longer effectively hide out at home to get a break from external energies. One highly intuitive client said she felt “very exposed and vulnerable.” She found some relief in long periods of time alone.

A lot of energy-sensitive folk are spending periods in isolation lately. As one highly-aware friend put it, “I’ve had a few days where I’d just as soon take a beating as pick up the phone.” I could relate, even if I could not indulge.

Feeling vulnerable runs the gamut between wondering whether one will still have a house, a job, a family, our health, or a life by the time the world quits bucking, to feeling floating anxiety in resonance with the pervasive and ambient feelings of others. This is in addition to our internal, personal response to major change. If the way that you receive internal guidance is also in flux, you may have intermittent access to the clarity on which you usually rely.

I will take up the topic of inner guidance and life direction in some subsequent posts. The next post details specific experiences energy-sensitive people experience when planetary changes sweep the globe.

If you can use this period of change to transform YOUR life, what would you like to create?
What is precious or meaningful to you?
Can you see a way to aim yourself toward what you value, using the current disruption to your advantage?

The same energies that are actively altering our physical and societal world are of inestimable use for transformation and awakening.

Energies that stimulate profound change can cause restlessness and exhaustion. Alterations to our personal energy require energy to adjust to and assimilate.

As we explored in Part 1 & 2, we are not immune to the energies that change the planet.

Energies that cause radical change make us want to change too. We are less willing to tolerate situations—in the world and in our personal lives—that go against what we feel is right. We may be less likely than usual to tolerate restrictive or annoying circumstances.

When specific types of energy are prevalent, we tend to drum up a feasible story in order to make sense of our experience. As an energy worker I observe that when certain types of energy are around-and-about at a planetary level, a large percentage of clients show up distressed about related emotions and sensations. When fiery energies are taking place clients come in angry and frustrated–and find a “reason” in their lives to explain.

Sometimes we simply search through our experience for a supposed “reason” to make sense of what we are experiencing. Other times the ambient energies add fuel to the fire of what we already have burning.

Anxiety is usually easy to find “reason” for. Spacey energies may be more challenging to explain away, unless someone has been missing out on sleep. Knowing “what is going on”—even if the explanation does not acknowledge the primary cause—is easier for most of us to deal with the great unknown. Consider the way superstitions have seemed safer than the fearful void of having no idea WHY.

Carolyn Myss describes trauma as “A trauma is something that has happened to you that your reason cannot understand.”

“Our myths are being dismantled.” This trauma calls us into transformation.

Carolyn goes on to observe that “Spiritual Awakening is a trauma.”

I have been discussing these formulations with clients and friends, who find them enlightening. In this blog series I expand on these useful observations, extending them into the context of “subtle” energy. (I used quotes because some of the energy these days is not so subtle.)

The first step is . . . backward.

Step back and notice the connection between the world situation and your personal experience. While obvious if we really think about it, most of us initially do not connect the dots between World and Self when we feel out of whack. Personal and Universal are customarily viewed as opposite categories. Culturally, we rarely link them. Even the fact that these polar experiences are becoming mixed together in our experience carries an element of trauma. It’s a breakdown of an old worldview.

Questioning faith goes along with the territory in the process of transformation. Alterations to core beliefs is almost always somewhat traumatic, particularly when loved ones cannot support changes we are called forth to integrate into new life expressions.

A clear-sighted and intuitive friend said, “I feel that old ways are dissolving around me.”

An energy-sensitive client describes her experience: “It’s like being pulled out of one world into another and all the rules change—and you have to figure them out. You don’t know what they are until you bump into them.”

You have to figure basic things out instead of simply living into them as we do with established structures and habits. This takes focus and energy. At the same time your ability to focus may be compromised by odd shifts and changes, and alterations in the ways we perceive guidance. Part of the trauma is not knowing how—or whether–to respond at a practical level.

Radical change takes energy. Your energy fields, meridians, and subtle energy structures take time to accommodate and assimilate these changes. The vast majority of people who walk through my office door have been unaccountably exhausted. The effort of trying to understand the incomprehensible can be draining.

I think it is safe to say that the majority of people on the planet are having some serious concerns at this point, whether it is about rising water levels, water pollution, banking, housing, employment, war, or planning ahead. We are becoming aware of our vulnerabilities collectively. This is reflected in our personal experience.

In Part 4 we’ll explore specifics about global change and energy-sensitive or intuitive people.

What are YOU learning about yourself and the world during this time of change?
What do you feel is important for you to create, achieve or release in your life while you have a chance?

How do the changes going on in the world impact our personal energies? We think about housing, money, oil, water, food, and pollution. Let us also begin to consider the subtle impacts of monumental and global change:

Conversations with clients and friends are revealing to me that most of us underestimate the extent to which we are impacted by world events. Changes that impact our personal energy fields are highly subjective–yet more important than one may think at first glance.
If you have a home, a job, and your family is okay you may not recognize the extent to which world changes impact your day-to-day experience.

Changes in the world we live in present new choices. Small changes such as banking options or Facebook format do not rock our world—until they accumulate speed and combine with enormous world changes. Constant change in simple things we have taken for granted can cause overwhelm and over-stimulate us.

“Choices equal change.” (Carolyn Myss) Change forces choice. As our available options change our previous choices are no longer available. We have to rethink things. Here again we see the circular relationship between transformation and awareness, since having to make new choices makes us more aware.

When internal changes–no matter how vague or undefined–challenge basic assumptions about the world this is a type of trauma. (See Part 1)

Think of a time when you were really hungry and absolutely nothing you could find seemed fit to eat. You might feel really stirred up and restless. Feeling a need and having no idea how to satisfy it is, in a very minor way, a kind of trauma.

Have you ever discovered that something you believed in wholeheartedly or took for granted was untrue? Your realization may have taken the form of a betrayal, loss, disillusionment, or the failure of a system, like a religion or the legal system. Situations that force us to rethink everything, wondering where we went wrong and why unimaginable things have happened are traumatic. They throw us into uncertainty and confusion and disrupt our sense of stability.

The severity of trauma does not depend on external factors. When I was raped at 19 the worst part was that the legal system let the guy go. Rape had been verified at the hospital. I had been robbed, and police told me the rapist had assaulted other women but the case was dismissed. Discovering that society allows this and feeling unsafe all the time were infinitely more painful to assimilate than the physical event. I had to work with this disillusionment for years.

Things we do not understand cause a degree of trauma. Some adopt belief systems to make sense out of experience. If these belief systems collapse we feel intense trauma. Right now we do not understand what is happening in the world and many do not feel safe.

Culturally we are accustomed to leaving the world outside our doors, peeping now and then via technology, which we could turn off at will. Technology now streams into our homes on the airwaves. We can turn off our myriad technological linkages, but cannot insulate ourselves. The actual energy of world-rocking events comes through our walls with the same ease as wireless technology, radio waves, ionized air, radiation, and innumerable yet-to-be-defined influences that connect us. That the world is all One is not spiritual rhetoric. It is molecular fact. We are steeped and stewing in the changes that rock the world.

Impacts to our personal energies differ depending on the specific frequencies of the energies that flood the earth. Forces and frequencies real enough to cause sun spots, solar flares, aurora borealis, earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, extreme weather, and tsunamis can and do impact human energy fields. The manner and extent to which we are impacted depends on our unique personal balance, resilience, sensitivity, strengths and weaknesses, chemical and nutritional composition, stress level, and so forth.

We are not the same. Some of us thrive when others decline from stress. The stronger the influences, the more of us feel stress. Current influences are very strong. Even if you are someone who thrives during massive upheaval and change you know and love others who do not. Through bonds of compassion and the energies that link us with those we care about we are bound to feel something. Energy-sensitive people who resonate with those in trauma mirror that distress.

In Part 3 and 4 we go on to explore exactly what you might be experiencing and how you can use your experiences to enhance your life.

How sensitive are YOU to events that impact Earth?
Which kinds of change impact you the most?
How does your sensitivity show up for you?

In this post series we explore the way major world change impacts energy-sensitive people.

“Spiritual Awakening is a trauma.” I was surprised, intrigued, and inspired to hear this comment from the spiritual thought leader Carolyn Myss.

Some of you may need definition and background for the rest of the series. Let’s jump right in and define my use of terms so the rest of the series will be smooth sailing:

Transformation means moving quickly into and stabilizing within a more-inclusive state of awareness. (My definition for this context.)

“Awakening means becoming aware of our relationship to power.” (Carolyn Myss)

Huh? Okay, that threw me too when I first heard it. It takes a bit of thought because it’s such a tight summary. I’ll unpack it, the way I see it. The list below refers to experiences that we may lose power to or attempt to have power over.

Awakening/Self-awareness involves becoming aware of:

• all emotions, including so-called negative emotions
• wounds to self-esteem and how we compensate
• the extent to which we use possessions, roles, or positions to define ourselves
• how honest we are able to be with about who we are
• how we manage our personal needs in relation to others, such as whether and why we give up parts of ourselves in an attempt to secure intimacy
• any posturing we do to try and control our image and the way others view us
• hidden motivations and unconscious drivers that influence how, when and why we attempt to get what we want
• what we are willing to give up to get what we want or to be right
• how our energy and body language communicates needs and requirements to others
• our degree of willingness to use force or impose our will
• our level of moment-to-moment awareness about the way our self-assertion impacts others

The state of being spiritually awake includes being awake to what we are up to and why. Awakening is the opposite of denial. Full self-awareness and presence in the moment require awareness of the above.

Confronting and assimilating the initial realizations that accompany self-awareness takes tremendous compassion and the ability to observe neutrally, without condemnation. As we explored in the Forgiveness Series, compassionate acceptance is key. Our patterns run for cover into the unconscious instead of remaining available to view unless we are able to bring forth love in the face of them. Once we are able to do this for ourselves we can also view the same behaviors in others without withdrawing love.

Considering this list you can see the role authenticity and humility play in Awakening. In a very real sense, full authenticity IS personal power. The power to be fully one’s self is far greater than false power associated with domination and control.

Authentic power includes awareness of what we are serving from moment to moment. Unconscious patterns allow the Shadow (unconscious) elements to drive.

In psychology we pursue understanding to better our life, using a rational approach to feeling and motivation, often by looking for answers in our personal pasts. We are, however, much more than the sum of our pasts.

In spirituality, we seek to expand awareness through heart-centered, intuitive and energy-based methods of connecting with the Greater Whole. The Self-knowledge of Awakening transcends distinctions and categories.

Transformation causes and is caused by self-awareness. This circular aspect makes it massively powerful, again relating transformation with power. Awareness confers a greater range of choice—an element of power. 

Transformation occurs as we become more Awake to who we really are. As we Wake Up our interior contents begin to come to light. The process of Waking Up can and will reactivate unresolved traumas. Being awake includes familiarity with and deep acceptance of our inner wounds. Whatever we resist seeing in ourselves is a pocket of Sleep.

No doubt you have heard of supposed-spiritually-advanced persons who abuse power in one way or another. It is a daunting challenge to fully know ourselves and to achieve a significant degree of mastery over our baser impulses. Again: Judging ourselves and holding ourselves to perfectionist standards makes the issues we need to accept go into hiding, giving them power. Gradual, compassionate awareness over time is the best plan.

Right now the world is Waking and shaking us. What happens when we start to Wake Up more quickly than we are prepared to assimilate?

In Part 2 & 3 we will explore a subtle-energy perspective of trauma. We will look at how and why monumental world change impacts those of us who are sensitive to energy.

Related Posts: If this Post seems dense the Inner Work Series supplies background. Find by clicking numbered pages below.

Good questions (from Carolyn Myss):

“What is it in your life that you allow to have authority over you?”
“What part of your life are you willing to give up to make that [higher awareness] happen?”