"A mind that has been stretched will never return to its original dimension"

Einstein 

July 2009: Heart without Borders

Alycia Hall

Working as a Wellness Coach I began to notice that much of our behavior is very fear driven. Many empathic clients have asked me how they can protect themselves from negative energy or other peoples 'stuff'. For quite a while I too believed that I had to protect my sensitive self from the heavy and dense world but my perspective on that has since changed.

It is common to feel overwhelmed with the new awareness that comes from being so intuitive and empathic and quite often people want to protect themselves from ‘negative’ energy.  Being empathic means having an opening heart and when the heart opens more fully boundary issues can be felt. It is because our sense of self, where we begin and end, becomes less distinct and we become oversensitive and raw to any energies around us. It can make it challenging to be in crowds because one feels everything so deeply. This happens until we get used to having a more expanded heart, full of love.

At some point though, the need to distinguish other peoples stuff from our own stuff becomes irrelevant. Why? Well, because there is no separation between any of us. We are all one. Sound too simple? That’s because it is.

Besides, if the emotion is in our own energy field then it is our own emotion as well. It may have been triggered by a situation or someone else but it only awakened the pain that was already within us. So rather than trying to allocate whose is whose, we simply feel it. The emotion itself is not the problem, it is the story we attach to it that creates the drama. Emotion is just neutral energy - think of the word EMOTION (E- MOTION) = energy in motion. The quote from Shakespeare expresses that beautifully, “Nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so”. If one can allow the neutral energy of any emotion to flow through freely then we are experiencing true freedom and allowing Mother Nature to carry out her healing work.

Learning not to identify with our thoughts or emotions is the task here. Why would we do that? Simply because those emotions or feelings are not us, we are much more than that. It is like being an ocean and realizing that we are more than just the waves on the surface. When we feel a heavy or uncomfortable energy in ourselves we just feel it and it eventually passes. This is sometimes called witness consciousness, which is the art of learning how to observe life without judgment. As we develop witness consciousness we discover something much deeper in ourselves that is unaffected by emotions or thoughts. A daily meditation practice works well and being mindful through out the day is even better. Mindfulness can be practiced by being aware of breath, noticing what kind of thoughts are present in the mind or feeling the different sensations in the body…all without judgment. There is a lot of great literature out there about mindfulness practice and how to cultivate it. By practicing mindfulness our hearts continue to open and expand along with our consciousness.

According to the Law of Attraction everything that has come into our awareness we are responsible for attracting. That includes the friend that calls all the time to talk about their problems, the issue with the co-worker or the neighbor that seems to know how to push our buttons. There is something in us that is attracting and creating those situations and more importantly- creating our reaction to them. What is the point of the Law of Attraction? I like to think that life is trying to help us out by bringing situations that challenge our victim mentality. The hope is that we choose ownership and responsibility rather than blaming, complaining and victimhood.

We are responsible for everything that happens in our life.

I know this is a radical statement but rather than blaming others for our drama and emotional reactions we can choose to look within and take responsibility for ourselves. Remember that focusing on our reaction is much more enlightening than only focusing on the situation itself. Focusing here does not mean judging or analyzing, it simply means observing and witnessing our emotions and thoughts. After a while we end up looking forward to emotional reactions since they provide us with opportunities for self discovery and realization.

Imagine how much better we would feel when we don’t worry about how situations or other people’s energy affects us. It is as if we can then live fearlessly and are okay with whatever happens. Ahhhhhh…. finally we can let go and relax.

My meditation teacher Kim Eng once told me an experience she had that has still stayed with me. She was in a restaurant and had overheard a couple having a disagreement; the woman was very emotional and reactive. Kim had started to feel the energy coming from this woman and noticed it was very heavy and intense. Kim explained that she felt the energy move through her and continued to breathe through it. After some time had passed all at once the heaviness lifted and she felt lighter and only moments later the women at the other table let out a big laugh and seemed completely free of negativity. Kim said, “As soon as I stopped trying to distinguish my stuff from other peoples stuff is when my growth really expanded”. I’ve never forgotten that.

A heart without borders… we are all one.