Chapter 4: Sensing Energy in Others

A gentle breath exploration brings us into a clear knowing of our own energy. From this knowing we are able to know more reliably how the energy of others is affecting us. We can use the breath to bring us into alignment with our own inner knowing, and use it to clear energy that is not in harmony with ours. 

We can take this breath awareness out into our day, using it any time we need to clear, cleanse and realign with ourselves. 

Orin also shares clear techniques about how to deal with doubts: self-doubt about our ability to use our intuition or inner knowing, or doubts brought on by false ideas or beliefs learned from others. Again using our breath, we connect with our mental body, where these beliefs and doubtful thoughts reside. We learn to recognize the deeper information contained in these doubts and how to release them. 

We end our light-hearted meditation with a heart centered breath.
 

'Sea of Light' music by Sanaya Roman (orindaben.com)

Podcast production by iRonick Media (ironickmedia.com)

Disclaimer:

Breath exercises are not intended to diagnose or treat illness. Anyone undertaking to practice breath awareness and exercises should be mindful of their health and consult their health care practitioner if they have any questions about their fitness for this practice. 

Transcript

Miriam: 0:03

Aloha, and welcome to Miriam's meditations. And I send you that Aloha because I've just been visiting Maui. And I'm now returned back to the east coast where I live now. And sending out shout out to all of my beautiful Hawaii loved ones I was cared for with such great kindness and gentleness and joy, to be there on that magnificent Island, it was such a gift. And I send that radiant blessing out to all of you. It's truly a remarkable place filled with very high beings doing amazing work in this world. Now I'm back in my chair and the East Coast. And it's a beautiful spring day, it's been quite clear and crystalline, and the air today was really spectacular piece of weather that we've had last couple of days. And so I'm hoping that you are still reading through the orange book scenario, Romans book personal power through awareness, we are up to chapter four, in our work. And this chapter is about sensing energy and others. So while I'm speaking, I'd like you to close your eyes. Because the very first task and learning to sense energy and others is to recognize your own energy signature. And this is a great part of what we have been doing with our podcast all of these many months. And our suite podcast has crested 10,000 downloads, which is a remarkable achievement that we have all done together. And I am deeply grateful to all of you for all of that focus and dedication. So back to your own beingness. As you draw your attention in and begin to recognize your own energy signature, you must let go of the outside world as we are making this recognition. And I like to begin with feeling my breathing body. So just recognize your body, your limbs, your trunk, or abdomen and chest, your neck and hit. These are your big parts. And we will begin with a breath exploration to recognize how we are breathing in this moment. And giving ourselves some expansion of breaths. That gives us more room for life. more room for beingness. So let's all begin by just exhaling all the air in our lungs. Just breathe out. Really empty yourself of the breath. And now breathe in Nice, easy, relaxed breath wherever the breath would like to go in this moment. Doesn't have to be the biggest breath you've ever had. Just an easy breath. A pleasant breath. And just keep breathing in that fashion for a few cycles of breath. Just easily breathing in and easily breathing out. And as you breathe out, let your shoulders drop away from your ears and lengthen the back of your neck. And breathe in again. As you exhale, again, drop your shoulders away from your ears, lengthen the back of your neck and let your tongue rest on the bottom of your mouth. Let your jaw be free and easy. Breathing in breathing out. Let your face soften and your ears flow down as though they could fluidly meet your shoulders. Just as though your ears were liquefied. And notice how that makes your scalp feel smooth and soft. Air releases any tension between the eyebrows. Now recognize your breath perhaps a little larger exhaling A little more clearly and completely, drawing your abdomen in briefly to really empty of the breath. pausing for a moment and then letting your body in filled with breath as it will you can open your mouth and release the breaths as I softly resting in the quiet bottom of the breath. Now in your next inhalation, see if you can get your lower ribs to expand, just as they do when we were doing our ribs, stretching breath, you don't have to move your hands if you don't want to. But just see how much your lower ribs are expanding as you breathe in and falling back inward as you breathe out. So just letting your attention rest on this rib section bond with the ribs you easily expanding easily releasing few cycles of breath here. Keep the back of the neck long. Keep the body relaxed is really nice. Now on your next infilling of breath, seeing if you can move at your mid ribs. Sort of in the sternum the area to see if that front part of your chest can lift easily and gently as you inhale and returning back down as you exhale. You might place your hand gently upon your sternum. And as you inhale, see if you notice in movement there and exhale. Now relax your shoulders away from your ears again. So you're doing this very gently. So if your hand is up on your sternum, let it touch your sternum very, very softly and breathe in again in that upper chest sort of in the heart area, making room for your heart. Isn't that a lovely thought? Once more now let your hand drop to your lap and on your next inhalation, we're going to do something a little more complex. Try to keep the front of your body a little bit still and see if we can open the back body and press it into your chair. If you are leaning against a chair, let's do it all together. Exhale. Now breathe in front of the body remains still and the back body expands. Even perhaps drawn your shoulder blades away from each other as you fill your back ribs. Ah did you get very much movement. The exhale exhale, exhale. Let's try that again. Breathe in front of the body remains still opening the back body. See if you compress your ribs into your chair cushion. Chin might drop towards your chest. Exhale once more breathing in in this fashion Ah that was a nice one. Exhale. All right, shake it out. Just shake your body a little bit. Move your head from side to side with a lack of wiggle. And let go of all of your technique and just allow the breath to be whatever it is breathing. With the breath breathe you. Here's an interesting thought. how smooth and even is the breath. How relaxed and sweet is that exhalation? Oh, my head yawn a little bit. Maybe you had a yawn too. I love his breath explorations. That particular one is a lovely one to do lying down. Because then your postural muscles are not trying to hold you up at the same time you were exploring your breath. So now through this breath exploration that we have been doing all these many times that we have gathered together. Part of what you are doing, in addition to expanding and clearing and opening clarifying is that you are learning your own inner being the true note of who you truly are. Being able to recognize your energy signature, free and clear of others, energy signatures, you are always broadcasting your energy signatures. Everyone you know, is also broadcasting their energy signature. Imagine that you are encountering someone who draws you toward them somehow in this exchange of energies, as we are encountering this other person you are sort of drawn off your center toward them. Or some people push you back and your energy, their energy is not a good fit for you in one way or in another and you rock back on your heels. Or take a step back even. Now, come back to center. Imagine a lovely conversation with a beloved person who does neither of these things but only calls you to your own truth and your own center in the lovely embrace of energies that you stay square and solid in your own energy. This is truly your optimum position. And as you go through this next few days, just observe how you feel around others. Do they draw you in? Is it pleasant to be drawn in perhaps they tell a really great story that makes you laugh or engages your heart. That could be good. But if they are drawing you in in a way that is uncomfortable, or they are gathering more of your energy to their own purposes, then feels right for you. That's a signal to you that this is not a balanced exchange. Do you feel depleted after encountering some others this is information for you. Now what Oren tells us in his beautiful book, personal power through awareness in this chapter for that we are working through syncing energy and others is that we do not owe others our attention. We do not have to interact with people that are not a good fit for us. We can turn away we can pivot to some other exchange or to be on our own. loving and supporting others does not necessarily mean surrendering who you are and your own well being are in tells us that our first priority is to be committed to our higher purpose and to loving yourself being very clear in that self love. Now this is challenging for many of us, I know what has been for me. In my own upbringing, I was always taught to put others before myself. And many of these others that I was taught to put before myself were quite invasive in their energy, using my own precious life resources for purposes that were not in alignment with my higher purpose and did not encourage me to be loving toward myself. These early experiences can be very challenging to unravel. So part of what we are being asked to do here is to recognize what we believe about what we owe others, and what is our highest and best way of being ourselves. So as we become aware of others energies and how those energies affect us, we can clear that energy out of our being we can use our breaths. The cleansing breaths that we use often when we are doing specific pranayama is is an excellent way to gather up that energy, turn it into a little ball of fluff and breathe it right out. Once again just imagine yourself being able to perhaps in a quiet moment later, after you have encountered this person that tried to kidnap some of your energy, and you are still ruminating about it later, because it bothers you bothersome. How wonderful it feels to let that go. And return to center. And even the graduate level of this, to send them light. And to thank this process of self awareness that we are studying, and these irritating people, and their wonderful gift of being irritants because it teaches us so much about where we are in the world. And how to be loving toward ourselves. And perhaps even to laugh at some of these encounters. Knowing how much to give and how much to receive is a kind of fluid balance and we are always engaged in. But as you practice in this way, listening to your breath, meditation, writing or journaling expressing to yourself your own belief system, recognizing what suits you what's really yours, what belongs to others and can be let go. All of these practices all of these tools again, as the kind of inner serenity because our inner being rests in clarity and knowing of who we truly are, and our connection to Source, our deep intuition or being able to listen for inner messages, especially when we are in difficult circumstances that we do not become flooded by other people's energies that we can have Stanback awareness and become very clear about what we are observing. Now, one of the other pieces of very important information that already presents to us in this chapter is about doubts. And I found this really delightful piece of enlightening perspective on what doubts can do for us. doubts are very enlightening. But if you look at your doubts, and you sort of squash them down and try to pretend they're not there or just sort of talk yourself out of them. You miss the information that is within them. Is that doubt based on false beliefs that your inner knowing is unworthy to be listened to. Did someone tell you that intuition should not be trusted or that there was no such thing so sweep those away with your inner broom. That belief that intolerance toward an inner life does not serve us. So if that is the source of your doubts, that's a pretty clear one. It does take practice. And when the doubts arrive again and again, you get a little better each time going, Oh, that's an old thought pattern or belief that no longer serves me. I can trust my inner knowing I can trust my guidance, I can act upon my guidance easily. And every time I do, I'm led more and more clearly, to the life that I want to live to beauty and joy and abundance and fun, expression, creativity, love, peace, well being all of these infinitely abundant qualities, weave more and more securely into your day. So our doubts give us a gift of awareness. They help us become aware of our emotional body. So if you have a doubt, a particular thought pattern that arises for you on a regular basis that's in your mental body. And as we've just been talking about is a way of becoming aware of it and or recommends that you take a moment to write it down, express it in some way, this doubt, it begins to allow it some space to clear out of your being when you try to put it into words becomes very obvious. What is it the root of this doubting, mental behavior. And as you clear that particular one, whatever is arising, perhaps there is another underneath it. And maybe a few more. All right, just keep going. If you are having doubts about a particular path to take, or a project that you were involved in, those are different kinds of doubts. They have a kind of inner plate or inner relationship with ordinary reality. But the same processes still apply. writing them down, getting them out, making some space, finding out what is at the root of this doubt, is it a belief that you don't know what you're doing or can't know what you're doing? Or is it just that you don't have enough information and you kind of have to gather more information or wait till some shows up. See, they're very different kinds of doubts but such good information I really enjoyed working through this particular chapter again, and becoming familiar with that deeper knowing. So coming back to our breath for a moment. One of the other things that you can do when you are learning these new practices is recognize how valuable the breath is in these moments. The breath brings you back to center. And when you practice breath in this way, you have this whole breadth of experiences with you as you being you and that is the kind of clarity that serves you very well. When things around you are confusing. And you can always return to the breath. So when you take a breath in this mindful way as you're going about your life it's Something in you harkens back to your practice and suddenly you were there in that spacious present moment because you have a practice this is one of the real joys of practice is be able to call upon it at any moment So, using the breath to call yourself to center when you are in an uncomfortable interaction with another or as you are having doubts recognizing the other person's energy as distinct from your own energy because you have this large bank of experiences yeah yes you breathing Imagine yourself now so, expand it all of these mindful breaths that we have been taking have been drawing in prana and life vitality and causing a greater and greater illumination from within your true beauty shining through all of the layers of your being creating an aura of beautiful light all around you you are expanding into your true self and allowing that true self into every moment of every day every interaction not taking from others what is not yours and not allowing others to take from you this very solid pleasant centered way of moving through the World. Allow yourself to expand grow larger in this radiance of being light still recognizing all of your being fluid floating free filled with light Breathe in and out of your heart space letting your attention drop there into your heart see how clear and open you are attracting all the abundance and higher light creativity and well being that is truly yours bring my hands together my heart in recognition of light that you truly are and all of us gathered here together in the secret space of clarity and love you peace namaste Mahalo for listening, follow rate and review Miriam's meditations on Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast or wherever you're getting your podcast. We share a new meditation each week. The breath work presented here is cumulative. So if you're new to breathwork please start at the beginning in season one, and you'll learn the fundamentals. You can find more information about my work and my blog at Miriam's. meditations.com That's mir. I am s meditations.com I welcome your comments. Write to me at contact at Miriam's. meditations.com Aloha, and have a beautiful day.