On Energy
“What energy are you putting out into the universe?
Energy is not just your actions and your speech. Your thoughts are energy. When you are thinking angry thoughts, thoughts of revenge, envy, self-doubt, fear, all of it is manifesting itself as energy whether you realize it or not.
When you stop and catch yourself throughout the day and ask yourself, ‘is this the energy I want to be putting out into the universe,’ you will realize that most of the time, the answer is no.”
That was from On the Laws of Thought, although increasingly in tweets, texts, emails and on the phone, I find myself referring to pretty much everything in energy terms. At the risk of sounding like a yogi or hippie, I’ll explain why life makes more sense this way.
People give off energy. There are people who radiate positive energy and optimism, where you feel energized and happy just being around them. There are people who radiate negative and toxic energy, where you feel depleted and anxious just being around them.
When you try to put words to this, as in why you feel the way you do, you will realize that there are no words for it.
I spend a lot of time thinking about energy and the endless battle between the heart and the brain, because when I think back to all the mistakes I’ve made in assessing people — the character of men I’ve been friends with or women I’ve been with — energy has never lied. Men lie, women lie, children lie, and we lie to ourselves, but energy, my friend, energy never lies.
There were plenty of times where I felt negative energy with the first impression, where the heart said no followed by the rationalization of the brain saying yes, and I ended up going against my gut in who I brought into my midst. And for real, I don’t think there is a single time where I’ve gone against my gut and had it work out for me. Sometimes it takes years, but you think back to how you felt when you first met the person, even if you STILL can’t come up with the right words, and the energy told you it was a no.
The reason why you have to be so careful is that after you let someone into your circle, we become less conscious of their energy. We grow accustomed to it. When someone new meets them, picks up on the energy that you originally sensed and points it out, we go rushing to that person’s defense and we make excuses for their behavior. It’s all well and good until the shit hits the fan, true character reveals itself, and the negative energy you picked up on years ago finally manifests itself through action. Energy didn’t lie to you. You lied to yourself. Some cliches are cliche because they’re true, my friend; love really is blind.
The following representation of energy is the best I can come up with. Below is a palette of colors. This represents the limitations of language to describe the way we feel:
You are given a small array of colors to choose from. Good, bad, warm, cold, positive, negative, generous, mean, kind and cruel, there are only so many words we have available to describe our feelings or to describe the aura that someone generates.
The depths of the soul, the innermost workings of the human heart, they can’t be accurately represented by that limited palette.
This is what reality looks like:
Like I said, 80% of communication is nonverbal and 95% of brain activity is subconscious. This is how you perceive the energy that someone gives off before they even open their mouth. And before you let your mind be swayed by their words, before the brain overpowers the heart, you must grant an audience to the energy that is coursing up from your spirit and out through your arteries. You feel it before you sense it. I’m not going to lie, sobriety is a precondition for thinking this way, because when you are drunk or high, you don’t feel shit. You’re numb, you’re retarded, your judgment is flat-out impaired. You cannot feel life for what it really is, the true nature of the world around us, until you have removed anything mind-altering from your life — which takes three to six months from personal experience. But once you’ve gotten there, and feel that you can fully trust the signals that your body and mind are sending, the next step is to abide by those same signals when it comes to people.
I wish I had words for this phenomenon, but like I said, the colors of real life are represented only in dizzying levels of complexity, compounded no doubt by my limited vocabulary, blunderous command of the English language and subterranean talent ceiling as a writer. When you feel bad energy coming off someone, trust your instinct.
The next aspect of energy is the kind discussed at the beginning of this post, which is the energy that you are putting off into the universe. I’m not referring to the subconscious kind, the aura we give off which is well beyond our control, but the conscious energy which comes billowing off your thoughts and actions and speech like a smoke coming off a train.
I tried to put words to this notion here:
This sort of ties in with James Allen’s philosophy, the feedback loop of how thoughts become habits and habits become character, except what I’m really trying to get at is the excuses people make for the things they say, do or think.
Every time you say something cruel about someone, regardless of if they deserve it or not, you are practicing cruelty. This applies for all gossip, all slander, all types of evil speech that comes flying off your poisonous tongue. You have to unwire the part of your brain that justifies and rationalizes this type of behavior, and pull the tree out at the roots, so to speak. Because all you are doing is deepening the habit of giving off toxic energy. All anger is toxic, all vengeance is toxic, all envy is toxic, these are all feelings and behaviors that lead to you being someone who is a slave to his emotions rather than the master. With every repetition, the imprint grows increasingly indelible. The same goes for actions and the same goes for the deepest level of the game, your thoughts.
If you are dead-set on removing all your defects of character, I have found that viewing everything in energy terms and separating the contents of your mind into good or bad energy is how you gradually burn off all the dross. Why energy? Because sometimes there just aren’t words for it. Oftentimes we say or do something we shouldn’t have, and our spirit reacts by blasting currents of energy throughout our mind and body. You literally feel it, you feel weak and anxious. What happens next is that your brain starts creating rationalizations and justifications for why what you did was okay. The currents of energy weaken and gradually disappear, but really, all you have done is repress the emotions and enforced the habit of wrong speech, wrong views and wrong actions, deepening your defects of character rather than buffing them out.
Ultimately, what you are trying to achieve with all of this rigorous self-examination, self-reproach and self-discipline is to purify your soul and consistently vibrate at the highest levels of this scale:
The only way you get there is to stop short-circuiting the negative energy you feel when you do something wrong, stop blaming, stop justifying, stop making excuses, and turn any and everything inwards on yourself. This leads to the duality that countless others have discussed before me, namely, that while it’s painful to accept that you are at fault for everything in your past, this pain is offset by the freedom that comes with knowing that you and only you are responsible for shaping your future.
Finally, the third component of energy is the straightforward kind. Energy is what allows you to get things done in life. Energy is what allows you to bounce back from failure. Energy is the only limitation to what you can do with each twenty-four hour block that you are allotted by our Creator. When you have low or no energy, you cannot accomplish anything. When you are at peak energy, the world is yours. You would think that most people would realize this and do everything they can to maximize their energy, but they don’t. They skip out on sleep, they eat like shit, they don’t exercise, they lay on the couch and watch television and play with scrolly apps. All of these things are energy-negative, and the only guarantee we are given in life is that with each year that goes by, you will be 365 days older, you’ll be one step slower, you’ll have less energy than you do today and it will take you longer and longer to bounce back from your mistakes. I don’t think I have to belabor this point any further.
Start thinking about all the ways you can maximize your energy. Take care of your sleep, your diet and your training. Surround yourself with people that give you energy. Cut off all the people who steal your energy, who radiate toxic or negative vibrations. Trust your gut and your accumulated life experience in both directions with each new person you meet. When the energy is bad, don’t feel the need to justify it and don’t feel like you have to put words to it — bad energy is bad energy, and all you are doing is wasting time waiting for it to manifest through their actions. These are lessons I have learned the hard way, and all I can say is that as your energy levels continue to rise, you will grow accustomed to the strange phenomenon of consistently getting what you want out of life.
Energy is everything. Protect yours at all costs.
Le monde est à vous,
GB
