With a keen sense of curiosity, it’s sometimes fun to take personal inventory of the energy fields surrounding us. Energy fields contain that flow or current of ideas from which we experience life. Your energy field contains ideas that are helpful to your journey as well as ideas that are draining to your journey. Ideally, we hope our fields carry only ideas that benefit our lives, but realistically a few unbeneficial ones get in. Let’s dive into our own energy field by first identifying it and all three of its levels, then by seeing what’s in it. We’ll expect to find some energies floating around that do not support our greater vision, so naturally we’ll learn some tools to help these energies exit.
By definition an energy field, or aura, is the energetic or vibrational force that influences our emotions, attitudes, physicality, and spirituality. The understanding of it is quite a bit more challenging to pinpoint. Imagine yourself in the middle of a bubble that extends three feet from you in every direction. You are in the center of this invisible bubble, which is your personal energy field. Now imagine within your bubble space, hundreds or even thousands of smaller bubbles representing ideas of how you see the world. Perhaps one little bubble holds the belief, “Jazz music makes me feel relaxed.” Another little bubble carries the idea, “Accounting is enjoyable,” yet another, “Chocolate gives me hiccups.” All these bubbles are moving around and bumping into one another, but totally affect how you experience life.
Now let’s pull the lens out a bit farther out from our personal energy field. The near field is yet another energy field generating ideas for you to have. The near field includes community, family, work, and those people and places close to us. It interacts with our personal field on a daily, minute to minute bases. The distant energy system is composed of energy fields that do not directly cross paths with your personal energy field, but can greatly influence your energy. How do these two fields contribute to the overall health of your personal field? Very much.
As Kyle drove home from work, he reviewed his day. Proudly, he recalled averting conflict with one client, while receiving accolades for his work with another. In addition, he signed on three new accounts and heard praise from his boss. It was a good day. So when Kyle crossed the viaduct continuing home, he wondered why he suddenly became anxious and sad. Perplexed, he let it go and focused on the day’s positive events. Later that evening, Kyle received the heartbreaking call from his mom. Grandpa Sam, Kyle’s favorite grandpa, had just passed away from a massive heart attack. Kyle realized his earlier anxiousness and sadness came from the energetic impact of this news upon his family. There was no rational explanation for Kyle to feel randomly upset as he drove home especially after such a great day. He knew the near energy field of his family had impacted his mood without him knowing it.
Kyle’s story is the most common and obvious. Of course those around us daily are going to impact our lives. World events also affect us, but in a much more subtle way. Recall the nation’s reaction to Kennedy’s death. Happiness was sparse and celebratory events cancelled to allow for large scale mourning. Politics aside, everyone felt the energetic shift in some form during that time. Now focus on the Olympics. What energetic flow surges through us when these athletes win big? It’s joyous and light, even if we’re not following the games. Distant energy fields, although not poignant, lightly shape our personal field flow.
Recognizing these three levels of energetic influence allows us the freedom to choose. Choose what belongs in our field and what does not. Choosing begins with awareness. When below-the-line thoughts and feelings creep up, we can put our awareness to their origination. “Suddenly, I’m feeling guilty about skiing in Europe over the holidays,” Chris recounts. Previously, Chris was very lights-on about his up-coming trip. Chris took a moment to himself to get in touch with this guilt. He asked himself what event, issue, or heavy thought has recently taken place. Chris realized just that morning he was on the phone with his mom, when he broke the news of his holiday European ski trip. “She wasn’t excited,” he recalled, “The conversation went from light to heavy and I wasn’t sure why.” Chris realized his mom would rather he spend time with her and the family, than go to skiing. She was disappointed and now he felt it in his personal energy field as guilt. Families are the best at getting into our personal space both physically and energetically. We spend so much time with them, it’s easy to see how they can influence our field.
During BP’s oil spill, Denise couldn’t sleep and had trouble focusing. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about all those sea mammals. They must be miserable.” She wanted to take sabbatical from work to help with the clean-up efforts, but her finances wouldn’t allow for unpaid leave. The oil spill didn’t directly affect her, but she felt its reverberations. Although the constant worry has lifted some, Denise still finds herself feeling depressed whenever she thinks about it.
Both Chris and Denise had energies pulsing through their personal fields that not only fueled their monkey minds, but also made them feel bad. They identified where these foreign currents or ideas came from, but felt hopeless in their grasp. What can we do when we see outside influences taking up space in our personal field? Energy is mutable, it can easily change into something else or change to somewhere else. Intention is the most efficient way to chase out those pests. Setting an intention, no matter how small, is making a declaration of freedom, of choice. To set an intention for his ski trip, Chris thought, “I feel good about my vacation and will have fun. I will call my family Christmas day to wish them well, then happily continue my ski trip.” He held this belief firmly in his mind. The next time he spoke to his mom, he acknowledged her sadness, then explained why this dream trip was so important to him. He had no control over her response, but he did have a choice in how he responded to it. Being a visual person, Denise tried a different tactic. She saw the image of the BP oil spill in her mind, then imagined a huge sponge sweeping over the water to clean it up. Many times a day she would imagine this scenario as she sent a kind thought to the sea life and people living in the gulf. Soon, she felt lighter and less worried. She didn’t have to leave her job or lose sleep. She just had to set different intentions about the situation in other words choose different thoughts.
Our personal energy field is magnetic – we are magnets for all sorts of energy currents swirling around us. As powerful magnets, we have a choice of what we attract and what we do not. Putting our attention and awareness to thoughts, monkey mind, and worries help us identify what weighs us down. Choosing differently through intention and imagination helps us clear our personal energy field so we may fill it with only beneficial ideas.
