Energy is Everything
What are you bringing to the world today?
I didn’t get it wrong. I didn’t write it backwards.
I am familiar with the Einstein quote, “Everything is energy,” and the quantum physics explanation that “mass and energy are interchangeable, and consequently that mass is merely a manifestation of energy.”
Scientific language mostly gives me a headache, so in simple terms, this means that everything, including humans, is energy stored in mass particle form.
And since energy is always in motion, we humans are bundles of moving energy at all times regardless of our activity: sitting, resting, walking, dancing, or driving.
Science also tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy can be felt. It can be projected (felt by others), and it can be stored in our bodies. Sometimes that stored energy manifests as deep emotional wounds, which can become psychological scars and require healing therapy to resolve.
You may have learned all this in school and maybe you remember it, unlike me, who read the science texts the night before an exam and promptly forgot the information by the next evening.
Unless you went to a very special school, however, you probably did not learn that we have an energy body with an energy system. It’s not taught in school. I know that because as part of my job as a textbook editor in the 1970s, I worked on Modern Biology, the most widely used high school biology text in the nation in those days. And because I was then getting paid to pay attention to this stuff, I do remember what was included in the lessons. Explanation or even mention of the body’s energy system did not make the pages.
Perhaps if it had, we’d know more today about why people act as they do and have better understanding and compassion for our own behavior and that of others. We’d know that we’re all connected on an energetic level and everything we do affects not only ourselves, but everyone else.
If that weren’t true, why do we feel our hearts break when we learn of someone we don’t even know losing a child or being the victim of some tragic accident or brutal act of violence? If you’re a normal, healthy person and not a psychopath, you value human life and wouldn’t willfully harm another person.
Yet many of us have no problem throwing out hurtful opinions and judgments about people who have ideas and beliefs that do not concur with our own. Most of the time it’s not even our own words—it’s a meme or copy-and-paste from someone else. Facebook even has little circles with representative text we can put around our photos to broadcast our positions.
Disconnection has an energy that affects us negatively. Unlike compassion, which draws us together, the act of separation hurts us all.
It’s one thing to express your opinion and quite another to denigrate opposing ideas. Even worse is the assumption that everyone who deviates from our viewpoint is the same. As if everyone who shares our viewpoint is the same.
When I see posts with sarcastic, mean putdowns directed at people who represent the opposite opinion, I wonder if the “friend” who is posting even considered that these words might be directed at someone he or she knows personally. Not a faceless individual, but a real-life friend.
I used to go along with the theory that people feel freer to express nastiness on the internet than they do in person-to-person interactions, but not so much anymore. Our polarity has grown to such divisive proportions that many people not only don’t think twice about disparaging a friend’s position, they feel obligated to do it. To protect themselves, their community, their certainty in the correctness of their own positions.
I’ve yet to hear of or know anyone whose mind was changed by something seen on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Nor have I ever known a person to change their position on something due to coercion or rejection. I doubt you have either. I’m reminded of a little rhyme I learned from Brian Tracy: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
So how did we get to this situation and how can we resolve it?
The issues that separate us are just that—issues. We have little control over most of them. I’m not suggesting that makes them unimportant, because often those issues can deeply affect our lives or lifestyles. And perhaps it’s because we are affected that we seek to strike out against what we perceive as threats to our safety.
But, how’s that working out? With every accusation and putdown, we move further apart.
Disconnection has an energy that affects us negatively. Unlike compassion, which draws us together, the act of separation hurts us all. It may feel like a temporary triumph to shoot off some sharp putdown, but on a deeper personal level, it hurts. Think about the energy associated with “put down” as opposed to “lift up.”
Anytime we act contrary to our true human nature, which is to love and seek connection, we step further away from the life force energy that sustains us. On a personal level, the disconnect eventually manifests as stress, anger, illness, and potentially as chronic disease. Collectively, it manifests as the chaos we’re experiencing.
I can’t offer solutions to the world’s problems that are overwhelming us now. But I can suggest ways to behave to keep ourselves healthy in mind and body, which ultimately may be the only way to solve the world’s problems.
Full disclosure: I am an intuitive energy healer. Although I started in earnest as a way to process my grief, I’ve been a proponent of energy healing for years and have personally felt the benefits of Reiki sessions and cupping therapy to relieve sciatica and chronic back pain in both in-person and distance sessions.
That said, I’m not suggesting you enlist those or other similar services unless you’re called to it. However, the tenets that energy healing are based upon can be adopted in our everyday lives to improve how we process energy, which affects our outlook, emotions, behavior, and ultimately the energy we release into the world.
Specifically, here are the 5 Reiki Precepts. Incorporating them into daily life can go a long way toward balancing both our personal and the world’s collective energy.
1. Do not be angry
2. Do not worry
3. Be grateful
4. Work diligently
5. Be kind to every living thing
Regarding the first and second precepts, it doesn’t mean to never express or experience those feelings. That wouldn't be possible, or even helpful. I believe what is meant is don't hold onto anger and worry; don't become a victim of your own emotions. When circumstances cause these feelings to arise, recognize what is happening and take redemptive action.
We can express anger without making someone or something else wrong. Blaming and shaming never resolves our feelings or the hurt caused. The purpose of expressing intense emotion is to release the harmful effects of it on us, not to inflict harm on others. So shout it out in a safe container or do something physical to release pent-up energy in a non-harmful way. (Punch a bag or pillow, not a person ;)
If it’s a worrisome situation, do what you can to resolve it and know that you’re doing the best you can. Staying in the tense space of worry and anxiety will not solve the problem, it will only create more negative energy within you and cloud your ability to think clearly.
The key word for number 3 is “be.” Being in a state of gratitude is probably the single-most effective healing action we can take for ourselves and the world. If everyone could take even one moment to find one small reason to say an honest, heartfelt “thank you” every day, the energy on Earth would elevate, and we’d find ourselves seeing and feeling more and more reasons to be grateful. Gratitude is a loving feeling and only good can come from it.
Taking action is what work diligently is about. It’s so easy to complain or post a gripe or a rant. Too many people avoid the work that’s necessary for real change, especially because personal change requires effort to move out of the comfort zone of the familiar, even if it’s toxic there.
Number 5 is probably what inspired this post for me. I’m so saddened by the hatred and disrespect I witness every day. It’s well documented that seeing people with something in common and attaching a label to describe that commonality robs them of their individuality. Not everyone who shares one belief necessarily shares anything else in common.
One of the greatest needs we have as humans is to feel seen and heard. That can’t happen when we lump people into groups and assign them a perceived set of values.
On the other hand, acknowledging another person, showing kindness in word and deed, even just holding space to listen without judgment, affirms our humanness. Remember the movie Avatar? The simple phrase “I see you” was the one of the highest and most loving compliments that species shared with one another.
Many readers of Shelley Writes are members of the “Peace & Love” Generation. Remember the Youngbloods and their song Get Together?
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now.
Right now, Right now, Right now.
(Hey, I was at Woodstock in 1969. That lovin’ feeling never left for me.)
Be the love. Be the light. Be kind. Simple things can change a complex world.
Energy is everything. What are you bringing to the world today?
Image: Thunderbolt ©Gemignani. Purchase prints here.
FYI: I am a certified intuitive energy healer, but not a Reiki practioner. If you’re interested in learning more or receiving a healing, I offer Intuitive Energy Readings via Zoom. Learn more about the process or book a session here.