Picking up other peoples negative energy?

[Gjeken]

So it happened today again and it's been happening a lot lately.

I wake up in the morning feeling great about myself and life in general and i go out in the world with a big smile on my face, i pass a beautiful girl who smiles at me and i feel even better.

 

Then as the day passes and after interacting with different people i come home and feel like shit and i haven't really had any negative encounters during the day it just feels like i pick up a LOT of garbage during the day.

I can't find any reason why i always get in a bad mood after being "out in the world".

 

Then i come home and i do my practise in the evening as usual and i'm starting to feel good again.

This has been going on for a couple of months now and it's really starting to annoy me, today i just felt like leaving everything behind and move far away from all people and society..

 

Does anyone else experience anything similar?

Is this just a phase in cultivation practise that will pass or is this why some cultivators go away and live in seclusion?

Is there anyway i can protect or shield myself from all this negative stuff?

I live in a big city by the way..

[Tao99]

[

Edited July 10, 2010 by Tao99

[Gjeken]

What if you were to attentively do your practice while "out in the world?"

 

I can't do my practises out there but i try to maintain my awareness during the day.

This is the first time this is happening to me so i hope it will pass, or maybe i'm just becoming more energy sensitive and just need to protect myself.

[Aetherous]

We become more sensitive as we progress. It's best to look at the negativity as our own emotions. It's not good to blame other people for making you feel bad...you're not actually taking on their emotions. They just make you feel that way...so change the way you're made to feel. You can't change other people, or make them go away.

 

It's our responsibility as spiritual practitioners to take the negativity and dissolve it into enlightenment. To be responsible for our own feelings.

 

I like a few methods:

1) Gold Flower from Kunlun (it's in the book). Also the 'metal' standing posture.

2) Kuji-in from Francois Lepine. He also has a technique called emotional transmutation, where you simply face whatever emotions are present and breathe.

3) Smiling and laughing. Yelling, or singing. Bowing. Going for a walk or jog. Being in nature. Clapping in front or above you. Doing the "devil horn" sign with your hands. Hitting a punching bag....these are all some other ideas.

4) Simply doing belly breathing...this is very calming, but sometimes if emotions are too strong it's not enough.

[Marblehead]

Excellent post Scotty!

 

Peace & Love!

[Gjeken]

We become more sensitive as we progress. It's best to look at the negativity as our own emotions. It's not good to blame other people for making you feel bad...you're not actually taking on their emotions. They just make you feel that way...so change the way you're made to feel. You can't change other people, or make them go away.

 

It's our responsibility as spiritual practitioners to take the negativity and dissolve it into enlightenment. To be responsible for our own feelings.

 

I like a few methods:

1) Gold Flower from Kunlun (it's in the book). Also the 'metal' standing posture.

2) Kuji-in from Francois Lepine. He also has a technique called emotional transmutation, where you simply face whatever emotions are present and breathe.

3) Smiling and laughing. Yelling, or singing. Bowing. Going for a walk or jog. Being in nature. Clapping in front or above you. Doing the "devil horn" sign with your hands. Hitting a punching bag....these are all some other ideas.

4) Simply doing belly breathing...this is very calming, but sometimes if emotions are too strong it's not enough.

 

I don't blame other people for making me feel bad nor do i want them to go away or change them. I'm a social guy who likes to be around people under normal circumstances.

I don't really know where all this comes from.

Like i said i hardly have any negative interactions it's mostly good and positive but when i come home i feel drained and bad.

Maybe i give to much of myself to other people.. I feel like my heart have become more open towards people lately and i get a lot more positive attention from that esp. from women.

 

But you're right i'm responsible for my own feelings it's just that it's been like an emotional rollercoaster lately and i feel like i'm either in heaven or hell and it's really frustrating.

 

Thanks for your practise advice i will try them out

 

Edit:

This experience has made realize i don't have my "shit" handled as good as i thought i had and that i have a looooong way to go.

Can't wait to see what my next challenge will be

Edited July 9, 2010 by Gjeken

[Birch]

Yeah it's sensitivity. I forget this all the time, but our friend Glenn Morris said "the stronger spirit wins"

 

Hardlight dude said something like "if you're going to be in someone's movie, be something nice."

 

Neuroscientists (may) say it's about mirror neurons, you encounter someone who feels like shit and your biology mirrors theirs (a good excuse to shine da love pretty much all the time IMO).

 

Given that we live in a world where lots of people feel like crap for a large proportion of their time (and that's because our societies often suck.) it's hardly surprising.

 

Mal had some neat white light stuff.

 

Dissolving is pretty cool for that too.

 

Of course, as Scott says, not the people's fault you feel they way you do, imagine how THEY feel???

 

Practice sucks for that, but you'll end up with both the sensitivity AND the strength. Which I guess is the point...

[Kali Yuga]

This is very simple and a common problem to those who make progress along the path.

 

A lot of people think that "oh yeah i'll just do my practice and i'll just feel better and nothing too much in my life will change, i'll only get positive stuff from all of this etc."

 

Depending on your practice, your sensitivity may develop slowly or quite fast. Not that one is more better than the other because if you aren't ready for what you are getting it doesn't matter how fast you go.

 

What people fail to understand is as they progress along a certain practice, energy flow is increased, and with this energy comes a great deal of things, some good and some not so good if you can't handle it. Sensitivity is definitely a double edged sword.

 

What is essentially happening is that with a practice your energetic, less material bodies are being built up. These are your bodies in a similar fashion that your physical body is your "body". With the awakening of these bodies comes senses and sensitivity alike to the senses we have with our fleshly body. So instead of having to deal with everything that comes with the physical dimension, we also have to learn to deal with the next dimension and its own peculiarities at the same time. It's easier said than done. Hence why you can pick up so much bad stuff from almost doing nothing if you're not careful.

 

So you have to develop your own set of tools to deal with this. Scotty gave a good list of things that could help you. I personally would recommend learning a preventive measure that you would use as daily ritual instead of just a cleansing practice. The advantage that this has is that instead of picking up bad energy and then having to spit it all out later (like a dirty, used whore ) you prevent it from sticking to you in the first place.

 

So I would suggest that you learn and gain proficiency in creating energetic shields. Kok Sui has some very good stuff on that. Particularly his book "Practical Psychic Self-Defense for Home & Office." Ask if you want more on that.

[Vajrahridaya]

 

Does anyone else experience anything similar?

Is this just a phase in cultivation practise that will pass or is this why some cultivators go away and live in seclusion?

Is there anyway i can protect or shield myself from all this negative stuff?

I live in a big city by the way..

 

I know exactly what you are talking about! I mostly have been raised in the middle of major Urbanization myself, born in San Francisco and then a long stint in NM's various cities, into NYC since 1990 and now on the East coast of FL. When you become more detached and more cultivated of inner virtue, love, detachment, and free joy... you will heal others and others will feel happier around you because you will be aware of their lack of what you got. If you are strong in your own cultivated energy, you will naturally give it. If you don't give in to their level of osmosis and rather help them become benefactors of your own.

 

Your sensitivity to outer phenomena beyond your own ego is definitely a sign of cultivation, but the next is when you much like coffee changing the flavor of water, you change the flavor of your energetic contacts.

[lino]

So it happened today again and it's been happening a lot lately.

I wake up in the morning feeling great about myself and life in general and i go out in the world with a big smile on my face, i pass a beautiful girl who smiles at me and i feel even better.

 

Then as the day passes and after interacting with different people i come home and feel like shit and i haven't really had any negative encounters during the day it just feels like i pick up a LOT of garbage during the day.

I can't find any reason why i always get in a bad mood after being "out in the world".

 

Then i come home and i do my practise in the evening as usual and i'm starting to feel good again.

This has been going on for a couple of months now and it's really starting to annoy me, today i just felt like leaving everything behind and move far away from all people and society..

 

Does anyone else experience anything similar?

Is this just a phase in cultivation practise that will pass or is this why some cultivators go away and live in seclusion?

Is there anyway i can protect or shield myself from all this negative stuff?

I live in a big city by the way..

 

That "negative energy" might not be quite what it seems.

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[Vajrahridaya]

Thanks Kali Yuga. When I first was learning chi gung, one morning I walked into my office and said to myself, quite matter of factly, "I don't like the energy in here." Would love to hear more.

 

 

Vaj, yes, I have heard this about two of the practices that I utilize. I am interested in seeing the transformation.

 

 

Good to hear.

 

I use mantra repetition influenced by the memory of it's positive experience. When the inscriptions of it's positive experience are in your body, you can just re-vitalize that through the reverberation of the mantra that the experience occurred through as mantra is really just honing and focusing mental power.

[Christoph]

the way I now deal with this issue is to simply use my cultivated spirit to uplift others...I try to be the giver of energy and not the receiver

[Vajrahridaya]

the way I now deal with this issue is to simply use my cultivated spirit to uplift others...I try to be the giver of energy and not the receiver

 

Right... just be your joyous self, relative to the realization you have uncovered through your own relative being. Why succumb to the negative pressures of others that arises dependent upon their own ignorance?

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[shaolin]

"THE STRONGER SPIRIT WINS", I think this is true.

 

How is one spirit stronger than another's and how does a persons spirit become stronger?

 

What is implied by "spirit", is it a frame of mind, determination or the actual "spirit" of a person?

[Birch]

"How is one spirit stronger than another's"

 

- I see it as whichever has the more "influence" over the feeling of the other. The example of getting up in the morning and feeling happy - then suddenly walking into a place and feeling "off" or worse.

 

 

 

and how does a persons spirit become stronger?

 

- I'm interested in any answer to this but I think that understanding when your own feeling has shifted in response to something and then taking steps (prevention or resolution) to bring it back to balance - dropping off "ego" is a really fast way of doing it but I think an issue with that is that it might lead you to neglect actual physical effects of any encounter. So if for example you go to the desert and get dehydrated by it and then just drop your ego off as a response, well your body could die...but I could be wrong as usual. I think the "ego" or mind control aspect of practice is interesting but it's not all.

 

What is implied by "spirit", is it a frame of mind, determination or the actual "spirit" of a person?

- This one is kind of tricky;-) A frame of mind can be very misaligned with determination. The term I tend to think of is Yi, but before Yi, there is, um, now I'm stuck

[shaolin]

Thanks Kate, thats how I understand it to be too.

 

Kali Yuga,

 

Ive tried to see if practicle psychic self defense is available in the Uk but it seems its not.

 

Is it available to download? The only way of getting hold of it is through the authors web site.

 

Thanks.

[Vajrahridaya]

Because we are human, and to pretend to be impervious would simply be denial.

 

It's not about being impervious, it's about inner transformation. When we transform our own negativity into positive energy and virtue through awareness, then even though we are aware of anthers negativity, they are transformed within our field of influence naturally. Like osmosis from lower vibration to higher vibration. It's not about denial, but merely the power of awareness. I've met spiritual masters who are able to do this. I've seen people who are negative and mean outside of the presence of these teachers, but when they are in the presence of these teachers, only their positive traits come out during that time due to the influence of the energy. I myself have experienced this within me. In the presence of an enlightened teacher, all of a sudden I'm enlightened for those few days that I am with that person like osmosis. The job is to take the practices and contemplations I've learned from this teacher and make that state of mind truly my own all the time. Be the light of my own presence and thus have the same effect on others as these great teachers.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Gurdjieff taught that one needed this kind of 'negative energy' in order to fuel your own growth and transformation. There is an account of a very difficult and surly Russian follower who lived in their community at the Preure in France, who annoyed everyone. Gurdjieff later told someone that his energy was needed for the isolated community to irritate and keep the others uncomfortable.

 

The worst kind of spiritual community is the one where the followers are always about the Light, and deny/suppress the Shadow. This causes it to erupt later in a usually spectacular way, like a sexual scandal.

[Vajrahridaya]

Gurdjieff taught that one needed this kind of 'negative energy' in order to fuel your own growth and transformation. There is an account of a very difficult and surly Russian follower who lived in their community at the Preure in France, who annoyed everyone. Gurdjieff later told someone that his energy was needed for the isolated community to irritate and keep the others uncomfortable.

 

The worst kind of spiritual community is the one where the followers are always about the Light, and deny/suppress the Shadow. This causes it to erupt later in a usually spectacular way, like a sexual scandal.

 

Sometimes scandals are the product of the onlookers misunderstand, rather than the victim of the ignorance of onlookers.

 

Plenty of spiritual masters have secret sexual practices that they don't talk to every student about because people can be so deeply puritanical about their spirituality. Sometimes, too much information can harm a student if they are not ready for that level of transcending societal taboos.

 

I do agree with what Gurdjeif said though. Was it Jung or Freud who said that enlightenment is bringing awareness to your darkness? Or something like that.

[Aetherous]

I try to be the giver of energy and not the receiver

 

There's always an exchange with this. It's better to just shine.

[Dr. Dcup]

You can achieve some harmony from your practices but from your daily involvement can't keep it.

 

I would suggest you try to clean out deeper emotional baggage and learn how to ground and center your emotions. That way you won't be affected by other's negativity.

Edited July 10, 2010 by Dr. Dcup

[Vajrahridaya]

There's always an exchange with this. It's better to just shine.

 

I agree! Though, it's true that skillful shining is beneficial if you know how to do that. Sometimes people just get bowled over by ones shining and actually get mad that I'm so darn happy for seemingly no reason at all. Sometimes... one might want to close the door to your inner sun a bit in order to not attract so much attention. Especially when walking through the hood.

[Gjeken]

Thanks for all the great advice guys and gals:)

 

I found this interesting text from the Kybalion about transmutation of mental states.

 

"The Principle of Rhythm is well understood by modern science, and is considered a universal law as applied to material things. But the Hermetists carry the principle much further, and know that its manifestations and influence extend to the mental activities of Man, and that it accounts for the bewildering succession of moods, feelings and other annoying and perplexing changes that we notice in ourselves. But the Hermetists by studying the operations of this Principle have learned to escape some of its activities by Transmutation.

 

The Hermetic Masters long since discovered that while the Principle of Rhythm was invariable, and ever in evidence in mental phenomena, still there were two planes of its manifestation so far as mental phenomena are concerned. They discovered that there were two general planes of Consciousness, the Lower and the Higher, the understanding of which fact enabled them to rise to the higher plane and thus escape the swing of the Rhythmic pendulum which manifested on the lower plane. In other words, the swing of the pendulum occurred on the Unconscious Plane, and the Consciousness was not affected. This they call the Law of Neutralization. Its operations consist in the raising of the Ego above the vibrations of the Unconscious Plane of mental activity, so that the negative-swing of the pendulum is not manifested in consciousness, and therefore they are not affected. It is akin to rising above a thing and letting it pass beneath you. The Hermetic Master, or advanced student, polarizes himself at the desired pole, and by a process akin to "refusing" to participate in the backward swing, or, if you prefer, a "denial" of its influence over him, he stands firm in his polarized position, and allows the mental pendulum to swing back along the unconscious plane. All individuals who have attained any degree of self-mastery, accomplish this, more or less unknowingly, and by refusing to allow their moods and negative mental states to affect them, they apply the Law of Neutralization. "

 

http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.asp

Edited July 10, 2010 by Gjeken