When times get tough remind yourself often that you are energy, that everything is energy in constant motion, that all things change and change they will. You cannot stop change or hinder what will be, but you can choose how and if you attach, react, or get infected by it. As an energy being you are flexible. You can turn down your own energy, clear it, let other energy go through you without being infected or effected by it. You are in control of your own energy. And remember, what is outside of you is only energy too after all! Keep your own energy centered on your calm heart and all will be well, within and without!
My daughter was 4 years old. Her nursery school class sat in a circle as they prepared for their Halloween parade while parents and spectators waited on the grounds of the Randolph School.
I arrived early and decided to put on a scary mask before entering the school. I was immediately accosted by two warrior women teachers who chided my innocence, insisting I remove the mask to not freak out the children.
In nursery school, and for most of childhood, children are socialized to a world of predictable, familiar, routine behaviors. This consistency enables a sense of security that fosters the building of a solid self capable of taking on the world. An unexpected adult wearing a mask, even on Halloween, is too shattering for a child’s fragile ego in its formative stages.
For many reasons our energy gets blocked in… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Taken to its extreme, a perfectly predictable world of supreme order is the intent of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). When we are in the OCD part of our being we are protecting ourselves from disruptive intrusions that threaten our security. Turning to habit and prescribed patterns of ordering our lives and environment promise to ward off danger.
When life becomes dominated by adherence to routine our entire energy reserves are deployed to uphold our familiar, safe, and secure world. In such times we have no energy available to manifest something new. In fact, regardless of what we might wish were different, our actual energy deployment is actively blocking any change. It continues to seek solace in the known and familiar, however unhappy that makes us.
Manifestation requires that we free our energy from our routines. The shamans teach us that all the energy we will ever have in our lifetime is the energy we were born with. If we want our energy for something new, we have no choice but to shift the way we employ our inherent energy and point it in a new direction.
The greatest consumer of our inherent energy is self-importance. In modern times this translates into our relentless pursuit of attention and validation. Withdrawing our habits of seeking approval and validation for our appearance, be it our clothing choices, hairstyle, Instagram photos or Facebook comments, would provide a huge deposit of energy into our savings bank for manifestation.
Withdrawing our rigid attachment to our daily habits is another source of energy for redeployment in manifestation. Something as simple as getting up because you happened to wake up 10 minutes before the alarm can shift the entire day into new possibilities of manifestation. Of course such an occurrence should not become a habit; perhaps it will be equally important not to hear the alarm the next day and awaken to a whole new set of possibilities!
ADD, the acronym for Attention Deficit Disorder is at the exact opposite pole of OCD. When we are at our ADD pole we are completely at the mercy of our impulses, all our vital energy exhausted with what captures our attention in the moment.
Such a depletion of vital energy also precludes any energy reserve for manifestation. The challenge at the ADD pole is to actually invite routine and habit to provide a structure that conserves energy waste. Thus, the person who lives life completely spontaneously might benefit from rigidly setting the alarm and conforming to some level of routine. In this case routine supports energy conservation.
It remains for each individual to assess which pole they naturally favor and institute the necessary changes to conserve energy. With manifestation it truly is all about the energy. To hold an intent with no available energy for manifestation is to get caught in an energetic whirlpool of wishful thinking.
The winning formula: INTENT+ ENERGY=MANIFESTATION.
Are you upset, anxious, fearful, sad? You are what you attract. You attract what you are. Are you positive or are you negative? Is your energy bright or is it dark? You have the power to clear your energy, to shift into a new position, to take on a new attitude about life. The polar opposite of negative energy is positive energy. Flip your negative vibe and attract into your life, and into the world, powerful new vibrant forces of love, kindness, and compassion. If you open up to attracting this kind of energy it will find you, because you do indeed attract what you are. And it will make all the difference in the world!
How do you expend your energy? Where are you putting your attention? Are you doing things that are good for you or are you doing things that deplete your energy stores? Learn to protect yourself from energy drains. Give yourself time to recharge, to replenish, to rejuvenate in good ways, for you are like a battery with a limited charge. You need rest. There comes a time when it is right to slow down, pull inward, and take care of yourself for a change. That time has come. Watch your energy.
Energy in action… – Detail of Artwork by Jan Ketchel
We live in the most stupendous of times for ego development. From the moment we awaken each day we are barraged with outer world events, bodily needs, and an internal dialog which all clamor for our attention. Attention is where we employ our vital energy. Ego must decide in rapid succession how it will spend this vital energy.
Will our decisions enhance or deplete our energetic reserves? Will our decisions be in alignment with the state of our body? Will our decisions channel the deeper calling of our spirit? These are examples of the myriad of decisions the ego must make in our hyper, fast-paced, rapidly shifting modern world.
Ego has gotten a bad rap. This is largely because it is associated with enhancing one’s self-importance and outer-world possessions to the detriment of others, as well as to the detriment of the spirit. Indeed, ego can decide to employ the vital energy of the body and the spiritual self to its own aggrandizement.
In fact, perhaps the most exaggerated example of this attitude confronts us daily in the governance currently in power of our world. We all must face the real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the hands of such leadership, but here also lies the very heart of opportunity for the moment we live in.
We must all choose whether to spend our energy worrying about this fact, and this is an ego decision, or not. True, we must acknowledge the threat to our survival, the existential anxiety of pending destruction and disintegration, for not to do so would be to dissociate from our animal knowing of the real and present danger to our existence.
However, as the shamans discovered long ago, death is our greatest advisor. Knowing that we are beings who are going to die is our greatest support to stay awake and take full advantage of the opportunities of life in this dimension. The ego must decide what to do with this information.
The ego can employ the classic defense of denial and go about daily life as if nothing is different, all is predictable and unfolding as it should. Modern events, however, are really rattling this defense.
The ego could become concretely opportunistic, gobbling up power and wealth to enjoy its time here in material abundance, paying little heed to the side effects of its choices. Nature is dramatically confronting this attitude right now.
The ego might alternatively choose to face reality and attend to the impact of its animal knowing on its central nervous system through a variety of meditative and breathing practices.
Further, ego might turn its attention inward to the subtler energies of its spirit. These are the energies of manifestation, these are the energies of intent. These are the energetic pathways open to the evolving human. We all may glimpse them in the magical occurrences that frequently follow shortly after the loss of a loved one when, in heightened awareness, we are opened to the energetic possibilities of quantum connection.
Ego turning its attention materially toward outer control and accumulation are Old World technologies. It is obvious that from an evolutionary standpoint they are not favored. Don’t be fooled by the current last stand of the worst of these practices, they need to have their last dance.
We are being prompted now to discover life at a deeper energetic level. This entails tuning into the subtle energies of synchronicity and serendipity where the ego is presented with feedback and energetic possibilities that can guide life into truly sustainable evolutionary directions.
These are the amazing opportunities for ego refinement in our current volatile times. We are evolving into a New World of energy as well as a world of concrete objects, a far more expansive world, with a wise ego at the helm.
