Emotional Mastery with 3 Practices

A red ibis's totem meaning is finding emotional and energetic balance. It is time to find a harmonious connection to your relationships and surroundings.

One of the most frustrating things about being an empath is teetering between being emotionally unpredictable, drained and depressed or toxically codependent on others needing you for their own emotional security. Being an empath makes us easy targets for manipulation and being used. It's the blessing and curse of being in-tune with other's emotions. Many empaths want nothing more than to shut all those feelings down and throw in the towel, but little do they know how powerful they could become if they only knew about these 3 practices. These practices can evolve even the most sensitive and unbalanced empath into a calm, focused force of nature.

Let me give you a solid start in beginner practices that will help you– if you are an empath, sensitive or an intuitive. Learn to focus your energy, clear out anything that does not belong to you and keep you in control of your own energy. We all have had those days where we have racing thoughts, mind chatter and crying fits for no apparent reason. Or other days where we are in a group of people and we suddenly feel drained. Most of the time we don't know why we feel this way. Our companions don't exhibit the same symptoms. These are instances where we lack energetic boundaries and other people have more control over our energy then we do ourselves. We are not able to control who takes our energy or who we're giving our energy to, or what direction we are even putting our attention. These practices that I'm going to be sharing today are fundamental in stabilizing your energy field. No matter your surroundings or environment or even the people you socialize with, no one will have the power to manipulate your emotional states.

As we do these practices, I ask that you give them a try. It won't hurt to just follow along and breathe in to your body and follow the practice. If it doesn't work for you, I completely understand. I appreciate your openness to try something new. And you can always go ahead and reach out to me personally and I can find a practice that works best for you because we all are individuals. And we all are different. And I respect and honor that. I have so many different variations of these. These are the simplest and most practical for everyday use.

Grounding

This is a super simple application of grounding. It doesn't require deep meditation or a tibetan singing bowl. You just need to be able to follow these instructions and apply this practice as many times as you can during your day.

Before we use grounding, we need to understand why we do it. Let's start with thinking about what the word "Grounding" means to us. When I think of grounding, I think of a tree with deep roots. Why does a tree have roots? Trees need roots to keep them upright, as they grow and expand and mature, their branches extend and their leaves grow in thicker and develop fruit. To balance all that weight above, they need a strong counter balance to stabilize their base, especially when facing a strong wind or a heavy snow. As you grow and expand your awareness and develop your skills, it is important you have a strong foundation to prevent you from becoming top heavy (big headed, egotistical).

When I think of grounding, I think of an electrical outlet with that third prong. What is that third prong really used for? That third prong is taking excess surges of energy, and it is siphoning it off so that it doesn't interfere with your electronic device, your computer, your TV, etc. That ground is making it so that you do not have an overloaded system. Our body is much the same way. We are filled with kinetic energy (how we move), static electricity (external energy caused by friction), thermal energy (for regulating body temperature), chemical energy (energy from food), electric energy (nerve signals to our brain), and more. We have so many different varieties of energy input and output; our emotions, our expression of self, our food, our water and our waste. These things all energize us, even taking in sunlight is a form of energy. We are energetic beings, it is only natural– it is only logical– that we have to make sure we don't overload our system that we take the time to siphon off what is too powerful or in excess or isn't healthy for our body. Since the invention of electronic devices for home use, overloading our systems has become common place. Every time you type on a computer, hold a cell phone or watch TV you are absorbing the energy output from those devices, since they are not naturally occurring energy, our body doesn't know how to dispel it. Which is why we ground out unused or unnecessary energies.

Let's begin. First find a comfortable seated position or standing with your feet firmly planted on the floor, please uncross your legs if they are crossed and just plant your feet on the floor. Take a deep breath into your body and just become aware of your edges, your skin. Become aware of your chest, your neck, your head. If closing your eyes helps you connect with these parts of your body better, please close your eyes to do so. Just take a deep breath into your body. Become aware of your body, any tension, any pain, any fluttering, or buzzing, any sensations. Sit with those for a moment. Don't change them. Don't alter them. Don't push them away. Be with them. Now take a deep breath. And bring your attention completely to the soles of your feet. Bring all of your awareness, your inner vision, your mind's eye to the soles of your feet and hold your focus there. What does your big toe feel like against the floor? How much pressure are your heels putting into the carpet? Into the grass? Into the earth? If you are walking or moving, what does the the shifting from foot to foot feel like on the soles of your feet. Just take a moment and become aware. Breathe into the soles of your feet. And breathe out through the soles of your feet. And be with that for as long as you can.

At first you might only be able to do three to five minutes. Try your best to return to this practice throughout the day, preferably each day. Make the decision that everytime you remember this practice, you stop what you're doing just for a moment and breathe into your feet. You don't have to go to a quiet corner and meditate. You can be standing in line at Starbucks and just take a nice, solid deep breath into your body and hold your awareness in your feet. It seems so simple. At first it might be a little difficult to hold your focus there for more than 3 minutes. However, over time, this practice can completely change the way you experience life. This practice has eradicated all of the mind chatter that used to plague me. Because this practice really grounded me into the present moment.

Eventually you might want to expand the practice. As much as grounding is a way to release excess energy and create emotional stability, it is also vital for recharging your energetic system (the way a tree draws up nutrients, you can draw up energy). When breathing through your soles, you can imagine with each out breath your feet grow roots into the ground. Allow them to grow deeper and deeper, thickening and exploring. As you breathe in, draw up energy from the earth into your body. As you breathe out, relax your legs and imagine your stress just oozing out of your roots into the earth. That technique takes a longer commitment of time, around 20 minutes to 40 minutes. Master the first grounding practice then give this one a try.

Emotional Processing

What is the importance of labeling your emotions? Without a vocabulary for our emotions, we get confused on what we're feeling and even more so, if it's even our own. Knowing what you feel, is the first step to knowing what to do with it.

When we label our emotions, we are giving our logical brain a reason it is feeling physical sensations. So for a moment, I would like you to bring your attention back to your body. But shift your focus to your emotional body, not your physical body. What emotion Are you feeling right now? Let's shy away from good, bad, happy, mad, glad. Let's get into more descriptive terms: anxious, disappointed, frustrated, nervous, courageous, energized, excited, calm. These are some words that might describe where you are. You might feel guilt or you might feel uncomfortable especially since you normally ignore all these feelings. These are all valid emotions. Do not judge how you feel; do not shun how you feel. Just become aware. Now pick just one of those feelings. It is time to just sit with this emotion and recognize it. "I feel exhausted." Where in your body do you feel this exhaustion? It can be anywhere. Is it in your head? Is it in your elbow or your big toe? "I feel exhaustion in my right shoulder." Breathe into your body– into that spot. And just let it be. Just let it be there. What sensation does it make in your body? "For my exhaustion, I feel a radiating pain down my arm." Maybe you feel anxious. Anxiety might feel like tingling in your tummy or a knot in your chest. So recognize this tingling, this bubbling or buzzing vibration. And let it be. Just breathe into it. And breathe it out. Do not try to change it, just breathe with it. As you breathe into this area, you may have noticed that it moved or melted. You may suddenly have a sharp pain in the back of your neck or a heaviness in the pit of your stomach. Follow the flow, stay with the sensation and breathe into it. "The sensation is now dense, the sensation has changed." I'm just gonna be with it. Just be with your sensation. And and breathe. And as I breathe, mine leaves through the top of my head, yours might leave through your fingertips, through your feet, through your breath. It might just fade completely away. But by labeling your emotion, validating it and holding space for it, you can heal it, you can resolve it, you can let it end its cycle.

Boundaries

Boundaries are barriers that keep enemies or foreign entities out. This is true when we look at borders of countries, fences or the Great Wall of China. Humans have a natural boundary as well, through control of your aura. There is importance in learning where your aura begins and ends. What is in your auric field can be the difference between having a lot of energy when you're in huge groups of people and being completely depleted and wanting to go home. It is important to know who is in your energy field, if people are taking your energy, or if you are giving your energy away.

Boundaries are so very vital. And yet so many of us never learned them. It was almost taboo to teach children or people in general, about boundaries. It's not polite. They said it's harder to control children when they are saying no when they are setting boundaries. Boundaries also for healers– we feel the need to help people we see people in distress, and we want to send aid. We want to give them find peace but at our own expense. Understanding very early in your journey that you can give other people peace without giving anything of yourself away is so important. Because then you will always have more to give. You will always have more to give because you can't give if you're an empty cup, but you can give if you're a flowing fountain.

I will teach you how to be aware of your energy and to create a border between you and your environment. People you're interacting with will keep their energy out of your aura and your energy out of theirs. You can do whatever work you do, or go about your day in whatever way you do. Without transference (the subconscious exchange of energy between two people), life will still be as wonderful as ever, if not better.

So the first thing I'd like you to do is read the steps and visualize it as you go. Then close your eyes and do the practice on your own paying attention to the sensations in your body, this is the best way to do it.

Take a deep breath. Focus on setting the intention that you will find the edge of your aura. Our aura is a giant kind of bubble-like object. Sometimes it's not a full circle. Sometimes it's more oblong. Sometimes it has spikes. But the goal is is just like when you close your eyes, and you can feel where your skin is, right? We can all kind of pay attention, be mindful of the edges of our skin. Just apply that to "where is my aura, where is my bubble? How far out am I?" Our aura has several layers. Find where is the very, very, very, very, very, very farthest out of my aura. You might be the room. You might be just a little bit off your skin. Some of you might find that you are the entire city. The entire city. That's where I was when I first started. So once you have found your edge. Pay attention to it. Follow it, follow the edge all the way around. Follow your bubble make sure you get a full sphere. A complete sphere or a complete polygon for some of you. Make sure you know exactly where it is. Take a nice deep breath in. As you do so imagine shrinking your aura towards your body. As you breathe out, you're just going to let it relax. Take a deep breath in and allow it to shrink. Take deep breath out and relax your aura. Take a deep breath and allow it to shrink. Don't force it, let it be and let it move at its own pace. As you breathe and pull it in, be patient with it. Be patient with yourself. You might find that you feel more heat or the air might feel stuffier or more dense around you. If that happens, imagine having a chimney and as you breathe out, let all of that stuffiness out through the top of your head out through the top of your aura. Breathe in, shrink your aura around you. Breathe out any heaviness through the top of your head. Breathe and shrink your aura. Breathe out all the stuffiness through the top of your head. You're going to shrink your aura all the way down to your skin. It should feel as if you have a second skin or a latex bodysuit. And when it gets to that point I want you to take a moment and double check everywhere. Make sure your aura is skin tight around your body. Over your toes. Over your shins and your calves. Over your knees, all the way up over your stomach, your torso. Your butt and your back. Your back is important. Check your back. Always check your back. Bring in any areas that seem inflated. Check your arms, your hands and your throat and your face, all the way to the top of your head and let out anything that got trapped against your skin out through the top of your head through your chimney and close it up the top of your head. Now you have an auric bodysuit.

The next step is bring your attention to the soles of your feet. I want you to imagine standing on a disc. Allow that disc to expand into an egg shaped dome, or an egg shaped shield out of the strongest material you can think of. For some people, they might resonate with Himalayan sea salt, or a type of crystal, or a type of metal, or light, or a feeling. Whatever it is, if it's sparkles or diamond, or a big puppy or a type of crystal or tree bark, whatever it is, build this bubble. Imagine that substance expanding and encasing you in a 360 degree shield. Check the top of your head and your back. Make sure your shield is sealed. Add an extra layer or two for fortification. Throw an invisibility cloak over the top. Why? So that other people don't want to test your boundaries. Other people don't want to take our energy. If they see this giant bubble that seems strong. That's almost a challenge. Like, hey, you can't break my bubble. Their subconscious is like, "Watch me." Instead of letting people know that you have this very strong boundary, create a nice invisible shield around it. You can do that with the color black or with invisibility. I don't recommend mirrors. But if mirrors resonates with you go right ahead. The goal is to create a shield around yourself to secure your energy in and make you feel safe and protected. This will also help you with your root chakra and make you feel more at home in your body.

These three practices, grounding, processing emotions and boundaries are beginner practices, but are vital if you want to have more control over your emotions and how others treat you. If you do these on a daily basis, they will change your life. I encourage you to give these a try daily for a month. They will feel weird at first. Everything new always feels awkward the first few times. Maybe you might not feel confident in how well you're doing it just yet. That's okay, you can return to this article or you can listen to the Podcast episode this blog was inspired by. You can email me and get a session with me for guidance.

Do this for yourselves and your energy. When we take our power back, we demand respect from others and our bodies can learn to discern foreign energies. This will give you a solid start on your path– or for those of you already on your path– this will give you a solid foundation to build upon.