On Psychic Self-Defense, and the Problem with Energetic "Hedges"

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The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” --Bob Marley


        "Sandra" came into the metaphysical store where I worked looking for any number of oils, herbs and crystals with which to "repel" the many negative energies she was facing in her life.  She filled up her basket with every such item in sight.  It must have gotten expensive.  Moments later, "Rene" walked in, having the same goal in mind.  Overhearing my assisting Sandra, Rene listened for a while.  Then, she approached me and requested a reading to examine the negative energies she believed were plaguing her life.  I usually answered questions and chatted with guests when I wasn't doing readings.

        You could employ witchcraft spells and workings, or Hoodoo.  You could pray to angels, saints or gods for intercessory assistance.  You could construct elaborate psychic wards and energetic shields around yourself, your home and your possessions.  These are all ways we might separate and protect ourselves from what we perceive to be negative energies around us.

        I call these "energetic hedges."  The way we grow and maintain large juniper hedges around our front yards hoping to create protection and privacy, we construct energetic hedges with the hope they'll keep negativity from getting at our energies.  After all, it's a dirty world out there.  And we know that dirt could lead to sickness, and sickness could even lead to death.  Like washing our hands in the mundane world, we likewise find times we feel the need to sanitize our spiritual worlds.

The Problem with Hedges

 
        Don't get me wrong --hedges are necessary.  There's a reason for them.  Some people don't understand boundaries, so you have to clarify yours for them.  But at the same time, it's not always the "keeping out" that brings the healing you need.  Sometimes there's a kind of "letting in" that needs to happen, too.  I think a balance between the two approaches is the healthiest course of action.

        One problem with hedges, though, is the amount of energy their creation and maintenance require us to expend.  First they have to be built, which uses energy.  Then, they have to be maintained, just as mundane hedges need to be trimmed and watered, using more energy.  Once their purpose has been accomplished, they may be discarded, but if the same situation, or a similar one arises again, one would have to restart the building and maintaining of yet another energetic hedge.   Phew.  I've seen this become the focus of some peoples' lives.  They live in "fight mode" from sun up, to sun down.

          Another problem with them is that your fear energy may just attract exactly what you don't want. Some people get so paranoid about whether they could trust anyone, about how unsafe the whole world really is, that all that juicy energy they expend building and maintaining hedges becomes a bright energetic beacon signaling to potential troublemakers that they're hiding something good.  So, they'll come looking for it.

         And finally, if you're constantly looking for ways to defend to yourself, you're not spending time building up the joyous areas of your life that reflect your soul's purpose here.  Instead, in essence the enemy becomes your life.  Your life purpose, the reason you came here, then becomes neglected.  Neglecting your life eventually starts to deplete its energy, which results in cavernous "holes" in your energy field.  There's got to be a better way.

 

The Best Defense, Sometimes

          Understandably, our first reaction when encountering what we think of as negativity is to play defense.  But as they say, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.   Strong, protective auras don't just happen; they are built up and cultivated over time.  People who are quite adept at harnessing their energy don't live in fear.  They don't expend a lot of their life force building and maintaining fear-energy hedges around themselves.  Instead, they fill their lives with activities, relationships, and states of mind that uplift them.  Often, this is the best defense.

          In Sandra's and Rene's situations, which had many similarities, I didn't think the oils and crystals and other tools these ladies piled into their baskets served anything more than to simply exacerbate their fears.  I got the impression that it's what they needed to bring into their lives that would bring them the healing they sought.  I got the impression Sandra needed to find and cultivate a sense of sangha (Sanskrit for "community") in her life, and Rene needed to first close one chapter in her life, so she would be free to open and cultivate new, positive chapters in the future; something, however, had been logjamming that process.

Sandra's Need for Sangha 

        As we chatted on the salesfloor, I could see Sandra's overall energy picture forming in my consciousness.  I "saw" Sandra standing in the middle of a huge, lonely canyon, looking up and shouting, "Hello."   No one answers her.  Her voice just echoes off the imposing canyon walls.  I also saw her looking down and covering her head with her hands, as though the loneliness and isolation were "crushing" her.

The word "sangha" is often used in the context 
of a Buddhist or yoga group.  But by extension, 
it could also mean any group that gives one a 
nurturing sense of "family."

          When we spoke, she claimed that there was someone "negative" at her workplace, so she needed to arm herself energetically, ergo all the "protective" products with which she filled her basket.  I cautioned her that perhaps focusing on the problem person could put her "in" that person's energy, calling more attention to it and attracting more of it into her life.

          At that point, Sandra really began to open up.  She related that for the first time in her life, she had no one around her.  She had no spouse.  Her children were grown, and moved away.  She had been raised in a family with eight other siblings, and the loneliness she experienced now in her life was unbearable.  She had moved into a home (literally located in a canyon).   "Beautiful place mind you, just gorgeous," she said.  "But I'm cut off from everyone!"

          Sandra really needed sangha, a Sanskrit word meaning "community."  She needed people in her life with whom she could share interests, activities, the joy of life itself.  There is a biological basis for this.  We produce a  hormonal "nutrient," oxytocin, when we are around other people, when we interact with our "tribe."  Our appetites for food, our circadian rhythms (which regulates sleep), and our ability to concentrate are all aversely affected when we are deficient of this nutrient.  So Sandra, accustomed to having lots of people around her all her life, was most likely sorely deficient of this nutrient that only a sense of community could bring.  She had no tribe.

          The "negativity" she encountered with the person at work would probably be greatly minimized if she had a warm, supporting network of people around her as a buffer.  But being alone caused the spectre of this person to be magnified many times in Sandra's consciousness.  She was languishing in isolation and fear.  Relationships take patience, time and trust to build and manifest.  However, in the long run, they're a much better investment than a baskets full of oils and crystals ..baskets full of fear.

        Sandra mentioned that she really enjoyed practicing yoga, so I gave her the contact info of a yoga teacher I knew who lived near her workplace in the city, so she could attend classes immediately after work before heading back to the foothills.  The lessons are at the instructor's home, and the instructor herself is an older woman with a big heart and a humorous, motherly disposition.  I also gave her info about streaming internet radio stations, like Hayhouse Radio, with positive programming.  Instead of the silent echo of her thoughts of loneliness, the rooms of her home could be filled with warm voices of caring people with productive, uplifting messages.  It was a start.

Rene's Run-in with a Marauder

          Rene and I sat for her reading.  Before me sat a highly-evolved soul, I thought to myself.  I felt she was a healer, used to giving other people answers to their questions.  She acknowledged as much, though not disclosing exactly what her work was save for saying it was similar to mine.  "But sometimes the healer needs healing, too," she said, "Sometimes we need an objective opinion, just like everyone else."  I was humbled that she asked me for a reading.

          Interestingly, I saw within her energy a large canyon-like formation as well (must have been the theme for the day), which was more like a crater.  Rene's crater was "created," not a hole she suddenly found herself in, as Sandra had.  Someone did this to Rene.  It was an attack by a selfish, mean-spirited person, whom I felt to be male.  "Marauder" came to my mind, and it reminded me of gold mining here in California, how the gold mauraders blew up entire cliff walls in search of a nugget or two of gold.  They didn't care about any damage they caused the ecosystem.  You still see these formations today.  The gold digger and his greed are long since dead, but the land remains permanently scarred.  That's how I saw Rene's energetic field.  She was in "suspended animation" in her spirit, frozen.

         It's hard for healers to accept that they can't heal everybody.  Though greatly wronged, nothing in her spirit sought retribution of any sort.  She just wanted to understand, make sense of it.  She was looking for an intellectual reason that she would never find.   It felt deprived, like she wasn't going to feed it until she first got a definitive and acceptable answer for his behavior.  Until then, she was not going to let anyone in.  I think the lesson here for her was that some people, like this marauder, don't want to be healed. 
      

        I advised her to close that chapter of her life, to not waste another moment trying to figure out or change the unscrupulous behavior of this guy, or anyone else.  "Sometimes," I said as I thought about my own life, "we have to cauterize the wounds that result from our run-ins with these types."  We ward our homes and our lives with crystals, oils, prayers and spells hoping they'd bring clarity and protection.  But sometimes there's just no answer for someone else's pathology.  Sometimes the answer is just to close that chapter, and move on.

The Aesthetics of Wisdom:
Designer-made Pain

          Then, a turning point came.  I thought about how in some cultures people purposely scar themselves.  It was just something that popped up in my mind at the moment.  It had to be something her spirit guides dropped in my ear, because I don't know I thought of something like that.  But maybe it's what Rene needed to hear, because when I mentioned ti, she seemed to already be very familiar with the custom for some reason, though honestly I wasn't (maybe she was an anthropology teacher or something, lol).  Suddenly, her face lit up, and a light bulb went on in her head:  "Yes, yes, they scar themselves to mark a transition or an initiation."   While writing this blog post, I researched and found this blurb about that:

The metaphor of scarification
brought clarity and insight to
Rene, and she could use the 
wisdom she learned from dealing
with the maurader, to hopefully
keep her from getting involved 
with another one again.

Scarring [in African cultures] is used as a rite of passage, a test of inner strength. Once you've been through such intense experience, everyday annoyances and fears seem mundane. Scarring can also be used to mark significant moments in your life. This could be the birth of a child, the death of a loved one or anything else that has a left a permanent mark on your consciousness or changed the course of your life.

         They wear their scars as a sign of the beauty that results from growth and wisdom derived from the challenging milestones in their lives.  They carve and "design" their own pain.  Rene and I began to bounce these and other ideas back and forth in a productive volley.  When we ended the session, Rene had a sense of resolve and peace.  She had a definite plan of action in mind.  Her Higher Self kicked in and amped up.  It was wonderful.  She wasn't the same person she was when she walked into the store.

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          In the long run I think, the best defense is a good offense, indeed.  Sometimes hiding behind an energetic hedge isn't the solution, but an energy-sucking route to a life of fear that builds upon fear.  We often overlook our need to properly process our experiences emotionally.  There is no crystal or oil or spell that will do that for us.  We need to do the dirty work of processing what's on the inside, while resisting the urge to project outward the fear about some "negativity" to be guarded against. 

          Instead of keeping things out, there are often people and experiences we, conversely, need to "bring into" our lives, as was the case with Sandra.  And sometimes there's closure and wisdom from our experiences we need to "bring in" as well, as was the case with Rene.

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