Positive Energy Guide

“True freedom is freedom from the compulsion and resistance that bind us to unfulfilled pasts and imagined futures.”  TD

The process of reaching for Guidance promotes deep self-awareness. That’s one thing it’s for. In this post we explore the shadow side of reaching for Guidance.

Let’s put on our hip-high boots and venture in to look at orientations that do not support Guidance:

• Being out of touch with what you really want
• Lack of positive motivation
• The odd weakness of acting like you have no healthy will such as not being able to decide what to wear when it doesn’t matter and trying to get Guidance to do it instead of stepping up
• Self pity or victim issues
• An attitude of self punishment
• Expecting Guidance to please you or support your ego
• Using Guidance to avoid feeling by trying to use it to shortcut your process of getting in touch with what you want
• Using Guidance to avoid self-awareness
• Not being accountable for the results of decisions made with Guidance; wanting something on which to blame these results
• Subconscious patterns such as feeling undeserving or feeling entitled blocking the options that you allow to come to mind
• Allowing temptation to be more important than your Highest Option

Following from posts #51 & #52, note that threads of temptation and vagueness run through this list of stances that compromise self-honesty.

Butting up against a clump of feelings, thoughts and desires that mess with our ability to get clear Guidance can be frustrating. These inner actions orient us positively and help pave the way to clarity:

• Formulate clear, realistic intention
• Accept the reality of your situation
• Release attachment to results
• Accept that when you make a decision with Guidance it is still YOUR decision
• Aim to fully accept all potential consequences of your decisions
• Relax fears and desires
• Remember that you’re asking Guidance because you WANT resolution
• Make resolution more important than your temptations
• View Guidance as a benefit and a relief, not a dictate
• Accept that you may have to give something up no matter what you do and release your desire to have things both ways
• Focus on and desire the clarity that comes with a solid decision
• Recognize the way your Highest Option feels in your body

Note that these actions support full presence instead of substituting Guidance for other life skills.

Staying open to Guidance without grasping is an effective orientation. Reaching for Guidance when we feel a need works also, but proves to be a more challenging orientation. The former stance builds a groove you can use when things are difficult. The later may provide motivation but feeling a need ramps up hopes and fears and makes practice more complicated.

If you cannot orient yourself in a way that allows for clear Guidance come back to the issue when you are in a calm frame of mind and try again.

Sense the way your alternatives feel in your heart center or your body, not your head. Pros and cons distract because they are theoretical rather than being rooted in your direct experience and sensations.

When you look for Guidance you’re asking your heart or your body for a cue. You are essentially asking to notice it if something is important to you in a way that you may not know with your head.

What is YOUR biggest challenge with orienting yourself to receive clear Guidance?

What do you resist seeing in yourself?

What types of issues should we address with Guidance? Are some kinds of issues better addressed through ordinary means?

These questions arise as we practice applying Guidance in daily life. They make a good inquiry–IF we think outside the box. This kind of question often springs from and reinforces a certain kind of thinking. This box includes assumptions that all issues have importance, and that the type of issue matters.

Issues and daily life are compelling. It is easy to think that because we get wrapped around something and feel like it’s a big deal that Guidance is the answer. Sometimes a decision is purely a matter of personal preference or common sense. Size, in this context, doesn’t matter. Type doesn’t always matter either.

In instances when personal will or ordinary processes should be primary, Guidance may stay silent. That silence can itself be a form of Guidance.

The practical importance of any particular issue may or may not call for Guidance. Focusing on issues, tasks or results usually distracts from what is important to Guidance. Our internal orientation and the way we align ourselves with life matters much more.

Guidance is support for how we unfold and develop.

We all know that simple things such as the timing when you leave your house, the direction you decide to walk, or a lane change on the freeway can change your life. Simple things set us up to meet important people in our lives, gain essential insights, or even stay alive.

Being open to Guidance helps us stay in touch with miracles, including simply being fully alive.

Respectful reliance on Guidance can devolve into overdependent silliness unless we also think for our selves and employ common sense and practical skills. We go nutty if we take on every moment as if it HAS TO have monumental importance. Nagging Guidance about whether to use the pink toothbrush or the yellow one trivializes it. Getting neurotic with Guidance increases stress instead of assisting personal growth.

Avoid trying to push Guidance out of neediness or fear. Use techniques that balance and calm you, then Guidance will pop in as needed.

So how do you know whether to use Guidance?

You feel it. You use your sense of Guidance to feel into the moment and determine what tool to use for the job. This takes you outside the conceptual box from within which you think you need to know in order to move forward.

Knowing is over-rated. Keeping the door open to Guidance and staying aware without demanding it frees you to access it more clearly.

Topics, thoughts or directions that are important to Guidance carry an energy tag on them. When a decision–however trivial it may seem–is spiritually important it will kind of light up when you turn your attention to it with an openness to Guidance. Things that are important to Guidance are somehow marked so we can recognize them, if we are paying attention as we feel into the topic or think about a potential direction.

Being awake to the moment is the balance point between being open to Guidance and pestering after it obsessively. Being available to Guidance in the moment entails staying open to possibility without imposing anything with your mind or grasping from your emotions.

You don’t make anything up. You practice trust. You just let your sensors tell you when to sharpen your attention. When you get a cue something lights up you tune in to your Guidance.

Guidance can and does come through for seemingly-unimportant decisions. When we are in balance and have a healthy orientation toward it, it shows up more. It is less likely to come through when we are oriented in ways that undermine its value. I’ll list specifics in the next post.

Exercise: Pay attention to the times when Guidance shows up.
Sense the cues and signals that occur when this happens.

How do YOU recognize when Guidance wants to come through?

How is this different from the times that you reach for Guidance intentionally?

“Vagueness about things” turns potential Guidance into word soup.

Following from quote in the last post, it will be simplest to touch in with the way dishonesty impacts our relationship with truth before exploring vagueness:

Dishonesty sounds fairly straightforward. Being completely honest can be confounding. This is because honesty depends on authenticity. Full authenticity requires self-awareness. We have blind spots. When it comes to the nitty-gritty of getting Guidance on complex personal issues, the more self-aware we are the more we are in touch with our truth. (We explore related processes in detail in the Inner Work Series, under the Personal Development tab.)

Vagueness often results from being out of touch with parts of ourselves. We may have mixed motivations in any given set of circumstances. The question is whether or not we know it. When we recognize our conflicts we are in a better position to work toward clarity than when we are compromised by a need to believe that only our conscious motivation exists or matters.

Vagueness in communication often indicates hidden motivators or inner conflict.

Vagueness can also result from not having necessary facts. Sometimes we try to make decisions with Guidance when it would work better to use ordinary means.

For the purposes of our study here I will describe an annoying internal conflict that made me work hard to get clear Guidance. Reactiveness made it challenging to be clear:

Some years ago I bought a timeshare week to help pry myself out of my house and provide somewhere quiet to write. It’s the kind of week one can trade to go to different places. The company recently devised a new system to extract more money. If I paid a lot more I could use their system much more flexibly. If I did not, using my week would become highly frustrating as owners who paid more enjoyed greater access. If I did not decide right away the rates would skyrocket.

I agonized about this decision. I did not WANT to buy more time. Nor did I want my initial investment devalued. This is like inside-out temptation: Instead of wanting it BOTH ways I wanted it NEITHER way. And as usual, “not to decide is to decide.”

This situation gave me a chance to watch my process in detail. In the next post I’ll share some of the things I do to get clear.

Note that when we do not have a positive motivation it is harder to get clear. Even a temptation we eventually set aside without acting out offers a more positive choice than resistance to things we don’t like.

Some life decisions are not very important, even if they are annoying. Even crossing the street at the right time can change ones life path. Something totally mundane can be important, so we need to stay awake to that possibility. Then again, we can go nuts if we assume that every decision actually does matter and calls for Guidance. Sensing when Guidance is called for is an essential art.

My decision probably didn’t really matter. I wanted to use Guidance to make my decision easier. It was difficult to determine my best interests, and I was frustrated.

So what did I do?

I did due diligence and legwork! I made a few phone calls to check facts. The sales woman had misrepresented several things to create pressure.

Here is an interesting detail of this process: My Guidance did suggest that I move forward with the timeshare company instead of shutting down. I didn’t not want to buy more, so I did not initially understand this Guidance. Note that moving forward did not have to mean buying in. Moving forward led me to ask questions. In the end this left me with a greater sense of peace. That has value.

My Guidance initially seemed vague. Later I realized that it was ME who was vague–because I did not know the specifics about my choices. Through due diligence my Guidance led me to investigate the specific details to clarify facts that the sales woman was misrepresenting. Now the facts and the Guidance were clear.

Take care not to think in either/or about the direction Guidance moves you. Sometimes moving forward can have purposes other than DOING something obvious.

Getting clear through practical, day-to-day methods is often the best option. When we try to do with Guidance what would best be done by ordinary methods, Guidance may send us back to ordinary methods. Stay open to using practical resources in concert with intuition. Be specific and aim for clarity.

How does vagueness impact YOUR sense of truth?

What assists you to move toward clarity?

Accurate Guidance depends on being able to get to what is true. In this sub-series we dive into interior processes that support or undermine clear Guidance.

I’ve had difficulty deciding whether or not to share one of my favorite quotes. I was concerned that some of you might shut down instead of reading all the way through the quote and considering its implications. How about making an effort to stay open to it, and checking out my interpretation? Here’s the quote:

“There are three things that always hinder Truth.
First is temptation. Very, very few persons can overcome temptation — temptation of money, fame, power, lust and leadership are disastrous, very binding, and very few escape it.
Second, vagueness about things;
And third, dishonesty.”    Meher Baba

I’d like to address all three parts of this quote over the next few posts. Let’s start with the temptation part:

There is nothing “wrong” with money, fame, power, lust and leadership themselves. Challenges to clarity come from what you DO with these experiences, and what MOTIVATES you to move toward them.

New age thought focuses on being open to the things we desire. The pendulum of popular opinion swung from a former belief that spirituality requires abstaining from life in various ways to now encouraging their pursuit.

Internal freedom is supported by remaining open enough to life that we neither cling to or reject anything outright.

Wielding money, fame, power, lust and leadership in balanced ways that bring benefit to one’s self and others depends on being clear in our relationship with these types of experience.

When we think about temptation, our first association is tends to be with pleasure. Culturally, we usually use the word when we want something simple. Most of us think about temptation in terms of not-so-subtle desires, like finding your hand twitching toward chocolates or somebody’s naughty bits.

Temptation is kind of like arm wrestling yourself. You want something, then again you don’t really think it’s the best thing for you or you’d simply DO it. You have reservations.

Mixed feelings and inner conflict hinder truth.

Temptation is attachment; being stuck to something. This is the opposite of internal freedom. The THINGS we want are not a problem. WE can BECOME a problem if we handle them poorly or allow them to pull us away from our Highest Option. Money, fame, power, lust and leadership can be tremendously distracting.

Again, the question here is NOT whether or not to HAVE these things, it is how we relate to them. Can you keep your Guidance clear as you involve yourself?

I am not suggesting avoidance. I am suggesting observing yourself and learning through the way you deal with them in order to sharpen your Guidance skills.

Sensing internal Guidance is like watching a raindrop strike a still pond and seeing how the ripples spread. Head-noise from conflict is like tossing in a handful of pebbles.

Sensing Guidance is also like looking through clear water to see what is on the ground underneath. Submerged feelings create body-racket:
A jumble of sensory input from the body when muscles, organs, nerves and glands all signal in response to emotion. This sensory racket muddies the water so you can’t see through it. The calmer and healthier your body is the quieter it becomes.

Going for your Highest Option will handle temptation–if you can allow yourself to sense what that option is, and you are willing to be loyal to your best interests. Simple willingness to operate in your best interests resolves most conflicts and helps to clarify Guidance.

Exercise:

• Consider money, fame, power, lust and leadership, one at at time.
• Carefully examine what temptation actually feels like in your body.
• What sensations occur and where do you feel them? Avoid judging; just feel.
• As you consider each category, think of a time when you felt conflict about temptation. You may have been tempted to steal, to do something that was not right for you, to try and impress someone in an inappropriate way, to impose your will, or to put your yourself above someone else at their expense.

This exercise has several objects:

• To increase awareness of the entire range of temptation.
• To be able to observe neutrally the kinds of temptation that hinder truth.
• To be able to sense exactly when temptation crosses the line from pleasure to distress.
• To establish basic skills for maintaining clear Guidance with respect to difficult personal decisions.

Remember: If you trust yourself and follow your Guidance you can have all of these things when it feels right, without a down side.

Note that this exercise also begins to address “Vagueness about things,” the second challenge to truth.

Which category of experience tempts YOU the most?
What do you notice about the way temptation impacts your Guidance?

When someone gives us “guidance,” we are required to discern whether what they tell us is actual Guidance or merely information, opinion, or projection. For information to be guidance it must correspond to your actual needs.

The ability to read someone’s fields does not prepare someone to step into the role of Guide. Those who have some degree of psychic vision or intuitive insight may observe you and offer so-called guidance based on their personal perceptions.

Perceptions of subtle phenomenon may be accurate without being useful. Someone may accurately ‘read’ imagery or energy in your fields without understanding what these images or energy are showing about you, or what you are ready and able to integrate into your life.

When reading imagery or energy it is easy to make errors in interpretation. Imagery is usually symbolic. Death, in a dream, for example, may refer to transformation, not an ending of the body. Sex often indicates unifying several interior parts of oneself or modes of expression. Sex with an individual usually relates to elements within you, which the individual represents.

Reading energy is not always straightforward either. Energy accumulations in our fields can source from inside us or from external sources. It may belong in a different place than one finds it. For example, energy that belongs inside the body can be displaced into the fields when it is related to something someone is in denial about.

Guides carry some responsibility for the outcome of our words in people’s lives. If we offer information that confuses, distresses or distracts people from their best path we take on some energy or karma.

We have discussed this before, but it bears repeating. Again, I hesitate to raise concerns, yet it is essential to consider the effects of our words on others. Those who shoot off their mouths to meddle or impress may not be appropriately concerned. Those who truly “get it” may be those of you who are able to make a real, positive difference in the lives of those you touch. If this is you, I want to encourage you to explore.

When we openly explore our perceptions and begin to unfold new skills we may hesitate to speak for fear of making a mistake. Sincerity and authenticity help protect us and others. It can be best to make some mistakes and learn through practice, developing yourself in this process to be more fully of service as you grow.

Yes, even the sincere can cause harm. This being said, sometimes seeming-harm can be harnessed and used as a road to deeper realization. The process of struggling with discernment and sorting out what is real develops us.

Understanding that benefit can spring from confusion must not make us casual about the results of our interventions with others. It serves best to strike a balance between over-concern and under-concern. Here are some guidelines:

• Instead of being hesitant, be intentional and discerning.
• Lean into your inner Guidance and make sure what you tell others feels right inside.
• Keep one eye on yourself when you’re looking at others.
• Watch your motivations.
• Focus on genuine service.

Remember that we seek out or take in advice according to what we are ready and willing to listen to at our current stage of development. If we are not ready for full clarity we seek out or accept guidance from those who are unclear. We we are not ready to go deep we gravitate toward those who do not challenge us to go deep.

Whether we are giving or receiving Guidance, we are drawn to and match up with people who need to work at a similar level.

The most important element of receiving OUTER guidance–from or through another person–is to be attentive to YOUR INNER Guidance. You need to tune IN to see whether or not what you are told sits well with you. To do this you need to address any issues you may have with receiving INNER Guidance.

We will explore conundrums with inner guidance in more detail in subsequent posts. Please step in with your comments and share your process.

Sincere thanks to those who have shared comments. Your participation inspires and guides my efforts.

What signs and sensations are present in your body and energy when you hear something that is completely true?

Are you willing to notice what happens in your body when you are wrong about something you feel a strong need to be right about?

How much do you trust yourself to be honest about what you really feel?

What signs and sensations occur when you are resisting something?

A common concern that can arise as we become aware of Guidance is: “Do I have to give up my free will now that I have Guidance?”

Guides don’t work that way. Whether Guidance comes through an individual or a direct source we always have choice.

We always have a choice as to whether or not we honor Guidance. We would have better lives if we chose to do so more consistently, but we can get so caught up in fears, assumptions, and habits that we resist doing what we know is best.

Making like you just can’t access your Guidance is a common defense.  What we are defending against usually ends up to be our own overactive imaginations. Real Guidance is appropriate for our actual needs. 

Usually when we feel we are not receiving Guidance, we just don’t like the Guidance we are getting. 

We can carry on as if we are separate from All That Is. We can close down or block what we allow ourselves to experience. But when we shut ourselves off we also close out grace.

Fear of Guidance largely turns out to be attachment to something we think we might lose. Whether this attachment is to a relationship, a job, a house, or an attitude, deep inside we have some ambivalence about it or feel it holds us back. This may or may not actually be true. Usually there are ways to grow where we’re planted.

Resisting fear does not work. Embracing the parts of ourselves that harbor fear and intentionally running the energies of kindness, deep compassion, and generosity supports growth.

Guidance is not necessarily what we WANT in a situation but is what we need. Following Guidance may lead us into challenges we don’t expect or like. We may interpret these difficulties as errors in Guidance, or assume that our Guidance was inaccurate.

Avoid assuming that the point of Guidance is to make day-to-day life easier. Soul growth and personal development mean more than continual ease.

Some of us beat ourselves up for NOT following Guidance, for undermining it or consciously ignoring it. Self-blame intensifies the urge to feel in control. In actuality, being self-aware enough to NOTICE this inner struggle is a much more developed state than being unaware of the conflict and simply blocking out Guidance. A compassionate stance would be to give one’s self credit for being aware of having a real choice.

What is at issue in the conflict about whether or not to follow Guidance can be summed up by this question:

“Are the results of my attempts at controlling my life from my ego preferable to the results of following my guides?”

Spiritual Surrender requires relaxing into self-knowledge without reacting from habit patterns. This freedom creates the possibility for real CHOICE. Real choice lives outside of habit, reaction, and automatic patterns of behavior.

Being spiritually open to following Guidance presents a fascinating paradox: The more deeply we surrender the more freedom we have. This freedom goes beyond the relief or letting go of outdated, canned, or contrived motivations.

When we are truly intimate with the divine we discover that ultimate free will and spiritual surrender are identical. When we move from our most authentic and integrated expression we are One with our Guidance and our Guidance is One with us.

Remember that real intuition is always accurate, and that when it is not we have mistaken something else for intuition or made an incorrect interpretation.

Are YOU aware of any conflicts in yourself about actually GETTING Guidance?

How do you manage it if you feel like you must choose between your personal will and your Guidance?

What are you afraid might happen if you had a significant increase of insight or a clear sense of life direction?

In the previous post we observed that identity and personality shape our attitudes toward Guidance. We explored some questions that can arise about receiving Guidance. Similar questions can arise about NOT receiving Guidance, or about needing Guidance from other people. Here are a few such questions and my responses:

“Does my need for Guidance from a living teacher or guide mean there is something wrong with me?”

Absolutely not. We all have blind spots. We all have habits of mind that limit our scope of vision and exploration. We need others as mirrors. We all benefit from creative collaboration and from working with experienced teachers.

The question is unnecessarily harsh and implies self-judgment. Be kind to yourself.

“Shouldn’t I be able to access Guidance directly and meet all my own needs?”

This kind of thinking is often related to fear of intimacy. The emotional patterning may include judging oneself for having needs, and perfectionism. Consider using Guidance to address the underlying issues that make you ask this question. Relax your fears and find someone you can learn to trust and enjoy working with.

Those of us on a path of self-discovery and spiritual growth benefit from lifelong Guidance. When we live meaningfully we grow throughout our entire life. We also enter new and different life phases that require fresh adjustment.

“Shouldn’t I be past this already?”

No. You are where you are. That’s your starting place.

It is normal to be more developed in some life arenas than we are in others. We all have weaknesses that surface under specific conditions.

The act of judging ourselves biases our experiences toward seeing ourselves as better than or worse than others, or both with different people. This bias lights up and brings out issues that distract attention from what is truly important.

Judging ourselves compromises personal clarity.

Getting or giving Guidance does not make us any more or any less important than anyone else. That’s not what it’s for. We can honor Guidance deeply without bringing these petty considerations into it.

Greet Guidance as a natural expression of the unimaginably complex and profound mystery we call Life. We are interwoven with all Beings and forces, and in communication in more ways than we can imagine.

Keeping Guidance free from our identity issues and opinions about ourselves allows Guidance to flow through without bloating or deflating our egos. Surrendering our notions of who we take ourselves to be creates a balanced-yet-expanding stance from which to explore Guidance.

We impact those we serve. This does not make us greater than they are, even if their issues (or our own) allow them to think so. Nor are we less than those who serve us, even if our issues (or theirs) allow us to think so.

Allow Guidance to be natural. Practice sinking fully into the moment and allowing your real feelings to surface. Then discern Guidance from feeling. This way you are not suppressing and therefore unaware of potential emotional impact on your Guidance.

If self-importance or self-criticism rear their distracting and heart-dividing heads, bring your attention to open, sincere exploration. Learn to observe your ego patterns in action without allowing them to limit or bias your relationship with Guidance.

Are you more prone to feeling one-down or one-up, or does it depend who you are interacting with?

Are you more comfortable giving or receiving Guidance?

What do you tell yourself about it when Guidance comes through you?

When the question, “What does getting Guidance mean about ME?” shows up, it is important to explore your inquiry with care.

Useful answers depend less on what Guidance is than on who you take yourself to be. This is not abstract. It means that the way your personality processes the question will bias what you learn.

Guidance works through, around, and even in spite of our personalities. The more we can get personal issues out of the way the more clearly we interpret Guidance. This does not come about by ignoring personality, but by handling it well with respect to Guidance.

Let’s look underneath the question, like lifting a rock to see what crawls out from underneath.

This is often the fastest thing to crawl out first: “Am I normal, or do I have some sort of problem?”

Most of you have probably addressed this one. Then you will know that the validity of your experiences does not depend on other people’s opinions. It is essential to be discriminating about with whom you choose to discuss your experiences. If you have doubts be certain to select only those who are experienced with intuitive Guidance, so you don’t set yourself up to be misinterpreted. Those without experience will confuse you.

Learning the ins and outs of Guidance takes time and intention. A broad range of skills and abilities are normal. Some are unusual. Excellence in any ability is unusual.

“What does it mean that I have Guidance?” is usually filtered through the personality, which tends to make the fact that you can get Guidance mean something about your personal identity. For this reason the answers will be biased by your opinion about yourself.

In general we tend to imagine that we are worse than or better than other people. We may go from, “Is something wrong with me?” to “Does the fact that I receive internal Guidance make me special?”

When the personality makes the fact that Guidance shows up all about self-criticism or self-aggrandizement this ego involvement blocks open exploration.

Let us go on to consider the role of Guidance and how it relates to our sense of Self. We can do that by looking at some typical questions about getting Guidance:

“Does the fact that I receive internal Guidance make me special?”

You already ARE special–so no. Needing to be special indicates that you could still use some support to develop self-esteem. Needing to see ourselves as either better or worse is a big distraction until we accept ourselves as we are and come to peace.

“Am I supposed to do something with this?”

Not necessarily, but you’ll need to feel into it and find out for sure. Start simple and basic. Avoid going on any inflated flights of fancy. Consider your ability to get Guidance like you would being able to identify musical notes or real Braille. You get to choose whether or not you use your capacities for something particular. If you get clear Guidance to do something, do it. If not, relax your focus so you don’t make it into a something it may not be. If you need to beat around trying to find out, that’s a clue. Clear Guidance drops in cleanly. When you feel a need to strive for Guidance examine your motivations to see if your ego has become involved.

“Should I become a spiritual counselor or something?”

Having this question shows that your Guidance is not informing you to do so or you are not ready. When you are it will be clear.

Quit thinking so far ahead and avoid making Guidance about what you can get from it. Just accept the gift. Your skills needs to become consistent over time, and you need to integrate it smoothly into your daily life. If and when you are internally ready to serve others you will sense this and your opportunities will unfold naturally.

What do YOU notice about your attitudes about yourself when you question your relationship with Guidance?

Can you identify how your beliefs about yourself operating inside you?

Can you sense an underlying need that drives the questions that come to mind?

Holding the Listening:

Highly intentional Listening establishes a social and emotional atmosphere. This atmosphere can be called a “space” because it contains the conversation. To those who sense energy, this space has a size and shape to it, and specific properties.

Think about being in a crowded room, extending your attention to include one person or several people in private conversation. You may sense the size and shape of the space you and those you are speaking with create with your attention. The atmosphere in this space is a function of your shared intention. Telling a joke has a different atmosphere than resolving the details of a business arrangement.

Social and emotional experience are greatly impacted by the Listening in each interaction. I am capitalizing the “L” to indicate Listening as an active, intentional and creative act, distinct from passive listening or simply hearing. By “creative” I mean to imply positive influence.

Intentional Listening is similar to “active listening.” It includes awareness that intention influences energy. This skill of intentional Listening, applied inwardly, is used to attune to Guidance.

The Listening holds the space and creates the atmosphere for the conversations that occur within it. True Listening holds the intention of deeply receiving other people. It establishes an environment of safety and possibility. These potentials inform the charge the atmosphere with the energy of your intentions.

Intentional Listening sets up energetics and subtle signals that support speakers to:

• Talk with more Presence
• Hear ourselves as we speak to others
• Express significant intentions
• Communicate real feeling
• Take our own communication and allow others to take it seriously
• Remember our conversation more clearly
• Consider what is being established through our words
• Establish committed action
• Get in touch with and bring forth inner Guidance

Powerful Listening actually creates the speaking. What comes out is drawn forth by the energy and environment that receives it. Some therapists and ministers carry an active quality of Listening so pronounced that their silence draws secrets out of strangers.

Think about a time when you tried to speak in a situation where someone was not open to your words or ideas, or had pre-judged you. You may have felt at a loss for words, had trouble organizing what you wanted to say, found yourself uninspired, or have given up on what was important to you.

Whether or not people say a word, speaking into a stuck energy or an emotional vacuum feels quite different than speaking to someone who is committed to understanding your intentions as well as your words.

A third party can “hold the listening” in an interaction for two people to speak together. Good mediators practice this skill. This type of listening has a powerful influence.

Holding space sets up an experience of focus-within-spaciousness. It brings love and intelligence into the context in which the conversation takes place.

Effective Listening can occur naturally or be established intentionally. When we Hold the Listening intentionally the energy field and context we establish is usually more powerful. Holding the LIstening is a creative act. It creates possibility and gives rise to something that would not otherwise come about.

Holding Space
“Holding Space” for someone or for a group is very similar to holding the Listening. In this case your active focus is on letting the person or group express and experience rather than on speaking and being heard. Someone who provides a service to others by holding space is playing a powerful role without necessarily saying a word. We hold space for others by having a big enough heart and enough flexibility to allow them to BE in the space we share. Holding Space is a function of the spiritual heart.

The opposite of holding space would be to insist that people behave the way we think they should. Note that holding space for another person is invitational. Feeling entitled to specific treatment is demanding.

Seeing others in their own context is an act of holding space. Listening to and observing what people intend to get across instead of reacting literally to their words contributes to holding space.

Listening from the heart actually changes the way the other people in the room hear one another.

How do YOU feel about yourself when you are able to fully attend to another person?

What is different inside you when you cannot?

Can you sense how the obstacles that block Listening may also interfere with Guidance?

Energy-savvy placement of the objects within a space amplifies the impact of these objects. Small shifts of objects–like moving or turning something even half an inch–can alter its energetic resonance and its relationship with other objects. In the story several posts back about tuning the stone circle, small, intentional changes made a huge difference. So did linking various stones by putting them into energetic relationship. Use the objects in your environments to activate potentials.

When setting up an intention for a space and tuning it up, pay attention to:

• The size, shape and location of the room or area
• The materials it is made out of
• The energies in the list above
• Colors, light, angles, and shadows
• Its relationship to the environment surrounding it
• The objects within it
• Exact positioning of such objects
• What you leave OUT
• Your intention to generate a particular energy via this space

Before tuning space it is highly useful to pay close attention to the energy that is already in the space. The existing energy may impact your selection of an appropriate space to use for a specific intention. A dark, heavy atmosphere would not be useful for child’s room or for joyful expression. It might be adapted for sleeping or reading.

These types of energy accumulate in the environments we inhabit:

• Energy established from accidental and intentional thought forms–energy residue from what we think
• Emotional energy from current and previous people in the space
• Energy broadcast from the exact state of our bodies
• Energy generated by objects in the space
• Energy from building materials
• Energy from harmonious or disharmonious placement of objects
• Energy from the land, including underground water or metals
• Energy from electromagnetic sources such as power lines and cables
• Subtle energies such as power spots or portals
• Energies related to subtle dimensions

Yes, learning to CLEAR space is an essential skill. Clearing non-useful energies is an art in itself. It can become complex depending what you are addressing. Fortunately a large percentage of the energy we usually wish to clear out is from thought and emotions. This energy is fairly ambient and not difficult to remove.

The easiest way to clear the bulk of energy build-up from thoughts and emotions is to burn frankincense in the space. Done correctly, frankincense is more effective than sage. It works on its own without directing intention through any type of prayer or ritual.

Space can be cleared of non-useful energy build up with the power of intention and prayer alone–if you have developed the skill and focus to do it. Guidance skills come in handy.

Learning to clear space with intention alone took me years of practice, after encountering an advanced healer who could clear my home from his office! I would go home and the previously-cloudy and dense atmosphere left over from some incident would be like alpine air. I still use frankincense for heavily congested homes or buildings. (I will post a link with detailed instructions for effective use of frankincense if several of you request it via Comments.)

Once the area has been cleared of nonconstructive energies, establishing or tuning space starts by pruning out everything that doesn’t invoke an atmosphere that will nourish your intentions for that space. This step can be as simple as removing personal belongings in a room dedicated for work, or as decorous as creating a sanctuary.

Remove objects that:

• Are not relevant or distract your theme or intention
• Do not contribute positive energy
• Cannot be harmonized with the objects that serve a useful purpose

Kinesthetic Space-Tuning Exercise:

Extend your sense of your environment into your body, almost as if the space around you is an extension of your body and visa versa. Feel. Allow impressions to come to you. Sense into the space. What does it feel like?

Make a change in the space by moving something and see what happens. Start with things that are fairly obvious. Pay attention to the way you feel in your body, mind, energy fields, and emotions as the ambiance of the space is altered. With practice you will be able to sense what will shift BEFORE actually moving anything, at least to an extent. This subtlety uses visualization and sensation together.

What rooms, buildings or areas have had a profound impact on YOU?

What made them stand out?

What kind of focus did you bring to this place that allowed you to experience it so much?