Managing Your "Energy Field"

Welcome to our March Newsletter: Managing your “energy field”

Are your daily habits depleting or filling your energy field?  For thousands of years, people have known the power of cultivating, maintaining and charging their personal energy field.  In this newsletter, we will explore why this ancient practice of paying attention to your energy is still important.

IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY

Energy is the fundamental source that allows you to move through life and realize your full potential. It operates on several levels, including not just the body but also memory, thoughts, beliefs and feelings. A well-maintained energy field is an essential aspect of keeping balanced and free from disease.

Our energy bodies are complex and vast. A simplified framework can help you to gain access to different levels of energy with an eye towards balance and alignment.  I divide the energy field into 3 levels:

Level 1:  Physical body
Level 2:  Emotional and mental body
Level 3:  Spiritual body

In the course of a day, we deplete, maintain or increase the energy at each of these levels. The first step is to develop a daily practice that invites awareness around how you “spend” your energy. With this understanding, you can embrace practices that renew your energy and help you release what does not serve you.

WHY IS THE PRACTICE OF TAKING INVENTORY AT THESE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF BEING IMPORTANT?

Dan Siegel, neuropsychiatrist, author, and founder of the Mindsight Institute explains that by inviting intentional awareness around the different dimensions that contain us, we link these different planes of existence and promote integration. Integration of consciousness frees us from getting stuck in one place.  By incorporating all these planes into our lives, we liberate the mind from ingrained patterns of cognition and emotion.  We expand our consciousness and emerge with a more expansive sense of awareness.

DAILY PRACTICE

Level 1: The physical body

The body is the container that “holds” our life.  When regulated, well fueled and maintained, we feel safe walking through life.  When dysregulated, hungry and unmaintained, we can spend most of ourday living in our “reptile” brain.  In this place, we are preoccupied with survival.  That means we go through life in a state of hyper-vigilance, literally looking for threats. Life becomes an unwelcoming place to live. The ground we live on is shaky.  We can have a tendency towards a “fight or flight” (anxiety) or collapse (depression) response to life.

What is needed for balance:
•    Healthy meals (food as medicine)
•    Regular exercise/Move/Dance
•    Sleep
•    Massage/ Bodywork
•    Daily structure (daily routine, schedule) that is not overly rigid
•    Daily tasks such as paying bills, cleaning house
•    A living space that is loving, healing and safe                                     
•    Supplements and medications
•    Meaningful work

Level 2: The emotional and mental body

At this level we sense into the body and make meaning.  This process is a connective process that begins to connect the physical and cognitive levels.  It is also the bridge to the spiritual plane and is needed to make that crossover! This plane engages our midbrains, also referred to as the limbic system. This is the seat of the value judgments we make (often unconsciously) that influence our behavior. Attunement with others and emotional regulation happens here.  Malfunctions on this plane will manifest in many ways, including relational issues, conflict, lack of empathy, compulsive thinking and acting, inattention, mood disorders, confusion, boundary issues and attachment issues.

What is needed for balance:
•    Getting in touch with and communicating feelings
•    Awareness around behavior
•    Spending time with your family, partner and friends
•    Self-reflection
•    Psychotherapy
•    Creating healthy habits
•    Journaling / Writing
•    Singing

Level 3: Spiritual body

These energies are the furthest away from our physical self and require transcendence. This is the level of “knowing,” imagination, inspiration, and purpose. If this level is not grounded in the physical, ideas, dreams and wants cannot and will not manifest here on earth. When we are in this level of our energy plane we are in the highest part of the brain, the neocortex. This is the seat of language, abstract thinking, imagination, and consciousness. Malfunctioning on this plane will show up as feeling lost, spacing out, not being present and/or despair.  Spacing out can take many forms: too much screen time is just one of the ways we can space out these days!

What is needed for balance:
•    Quiet time
•    Meditation
•    Reading
•    Yoga
•    Paying attention to dreams
•    Visualization
•    Spiritual practice / Prayer
•    Art / Music / Poetry (both as a participant and as the spectator)
•    Connection to others, community, and nature
•    Play / Hobbies
•    Cranial sacral therapy

ANALYZE YOUR TENDENCIES

The above lists are not exhaustive, but they are a good place to begin. After reading the lists, take note of which dimension you spend most of your time in and where you are absent. This week, invite more of the other dimensions into your experience by shifting the energy heavy dimension to the energy light one. Cultivate wholeness by balancing the energy you commit to body, mind, and Spirit. The changes you make today will show up in your tomorrow. In other words, you can create your future.

See what happens!

If you are interested in learning more about integrating planes of existence you can Google:

  • Dr.Dan Seigels' Wheel of Awareness

  • KenWebers' Foundation for Integral Science

  • The Triune Brain

I hope you found this newsletter helpful. I welcome any and all feedback and would love to hear any suggestions you might have for future newsletters.

With love and light,
Judy Choix

Judy Choix