Explorations in Energy

Energy awareness is a natural part of our sensory system, but to consciously access this awareness, we need to harness our attention, apply our intention, and align with flow. These are the three keys that open us to the information we are receiving through our subconscious mind. Making use of this awareness requires the two knacks of felt senses and perceptions, and active meditation.

 

The Three Keys
Key #1: Attention
The first key to energy awareness is attention. Attention is the principal instrument for activating and directing subtle energy. To use our attention, first it must be accessible. This means being unattached to preoccupations with our past conditioning, future expectations, or places and situations other than where we are or where we are intentionally placing our attention.

 

To access the energy information received through our body, our attention needs to be anchored in the body on the sensations, emotions, gut feelings, and other feelings that inform our intuition. Staying present in the body is best accomplished by focusing on the breath in a practice called Conscious Breathing.

 

The awareness of the breath helps drop our mind into the body to be available for energy information. Because the breath enters through the mouth and/or nose, and expands the lungs and abdomen, following this movement brings our attention naturally out of our thoughts and into the sensations of our body. Conscious breathing focuses our mind and shifts our internal state of being. It frees our attention from the outside world to observe the subtle energy information being received through the body-mind.

 

Attention is not only essential for our ability to receive subtle energy, it’s also key in how we direct subtle energy. Where we place our attention is where our energy flows. The more conscious we are of this, the more consciously we engage life. Placing attention on our feet and Earth, for example, increases our grounding. Placing our attention on an objective brings our energy to bear on the circumstances. Placing our attention on a body part, increases flow to that area. Attention directs the flow. What happens at the site of attention relates to the second Key of Intention,

 

Key #2: Intention
The second key to energy awareness is Intention. Intention directs our attention with a specific aim. Placing our attention directs our energy, intention directs what frequency that energy carries, and the frequency effects the outcome. When our intentions are laced with self-doubt and fear that is how our energy is directed. When we maintain the frequency of highest and best good, that is what our energy aligns with,

 

Attention is a focused mind; Intention is a focused heart. To consciously use our Intention, we must know what we value, treasure, and hold precious. To form our Intention, we must identify our deepest truth and allow our objectives in life to organically develop out of our truth. 
 

Intentional Attention is our most powerful tool in being conscious, co-creative beings.

 

Key #3: Alignment
The third key to energy awareness is alignment. Flow is established through our Intentional Attention. The nature of the flows depends on what our intention is aligned with. When we align with fear, greed, and doubt, we bring conditions necessary for growing past these motivations. When our intention is aligned with our authentic self, we are connected to our deepest truth.

 

Our authentic self is unique and our deepest truth is deeply personal. No two people are the same. For me, the authentic self is the part that knows without any doubt that we come from and return to Love. That is my deepest truth. The more I identify with Love, the less divided my thoughts and the more authentic I feel.

 

Finding our deepest truth brings the disparate parts within self into alignment with where we intentionally place our attention. Energy flows along the lines of connection, turning our Intentional Attention into a vibrant, creative force. Aligning with outcomes that are consistent with our inner truth organically brings those outcomes into manifestation.
 

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The Two Knacks
Attention, Intention, and Alignment awaken our energy perceptions. They help us access energy information coming from our body-mind. Deciphering and using this information requires two key skills or knacks.

 

Knack #1: Felt-senses and felt-perceptions
Felt-senses are the physical translations of energy produced in our body. They consist primarily of body sensations, emotions, visions, and inner knowing. Felt-senses are the basis of felt-perceptions, the awareness gained through a combination of mental insight with the emotions and body sensations of our felt-senses.  Felt-senses and perceptions are the foundation of intuition, gut feelings, hunches, and deeper insights that reveal our inner truth.

 

Felt senses and perceptions are the language of our body-mind. This language is used by the Heart to communicate with our conscious mind. Here is a short list of ‘vocabulary words’ of this language. For a longer, more detailed discussion, see The Path of Presence (New Page Books, Sept. 2016):

• Sensations such as goose bumps, shivers, hot and/or cold that arise in response to situations.

• Emotions that come from deep within, arriving with no apparent stimulation during conversations, activities, or meditations that shift our energy.

• Gut feelings about people, places, or choices.

• Feeling a sense of connection, opening, or flow when our actions or thoughts are in sync with our vision, the flow of the universe, and present time information.

• Visions or images that produce deep feeling and have a profound sense of reality to guide our direction.

• Dreams that are lucid and connect us to an underlying truth.

• Pulsations, waves, and flow within the body.

 

Felt-senses track energy interactions. Perhaps someone is misleading us and we feel an internal resistance, or we walk over a ley-line and feel tingles in our legs, or step under a tree and feel a warm rush of opening. All of these are examples of how our body receives and responds to flows of energy. Felt-perceptions go one step further. They combine information from the heart and mind, body and soul, into an interpretation of reality. Felt-perceptions take the information of our felt-senses and provide understanding. We realize the person isn’t working on our behalf, there is a continuum between life and mother Earth, the intelligence within Nature is an honored relationship. Felt-perceptions represent the deepest understanding we can have of given set of facts and experiences.

 

Knack # 2: Active Meditation

Active Meditation uses Intentional Attention to consciously receive and/or direct energy.

 

In receiving mode, Active Meditation creates a relaxed focus in the mind’s eye forming a canvas on which images can form. The images can be a communication from our subconscious mind, our higher guidance, or the felt-perceptions of energy awareness Active Meditation is a powerful tool for self-exploration and receiving inner guidance.

 

In directive mode, we interact with the images forming on the canvass of our mind’s eye to create specific objectives. This is has been termed creative visualization.  The reason visualization works is because our energy follows our attention: where our attention goes, our energy flows. When we place our attention intentionally and in alignment with our authentic self, the flow of energy becomes a powerful creative force.  Visualization creates a path for our energy. We send it ahead of us to co-create the course of our actions.  

 

The important thing about working with energy is to know that, like water, it can’t be pushed. We don’t “send” energy in the typical way we think of propelling something forward. Rather, our attention goes first and our energy follows. We make an invitation. We can’t force anything and expect a satisfying outcome. We can only offer a possibility, invite flow, and trust in the higher design at work in the world.
 

For exercises in building your energy awareness, purchase Subtle Energy Work or join our class, Energy Basics 101.