The third step of “The Basics” is called “Bind”. This process will help set our personal energetic boundaries.
In the second step of the series, we cleared the energy field surrounding the physical body known as the Aura. Now that we’ve cleared the field, we want to define the edges of it. We also want to ensure that we are getting all the energy that we need from within and not from others at their expense.
EARLY DEPENDANCY
When our physical bodies begin manifesting in the uterus, the umbilical cord becomes our feeding tube from our mother. This is where we receive nourishment during our gestation period in the womb. We begin our lives in the physical world by learning to feed off of another. After birth, when the cord has been cut, we move to breast feeding and are dependent upon others to bring us the nourishment that we require to survive and grow. This process is often referred to as “bonding”. This process continues at various stages in our lives until we reach the point where we can become self sufficient and are able to care for our own needs.
The learned behavior of depending upon others to nourish us is deeply set at an unconscious level by the time we reach our late teens and begin our adult lives. Unfortunately in American culture we have lost the ancient rituals and rites of passage into independent adulthood and so these unconscious patterns don’t get broken. In Native American traditions, the ceremonies used to celebrate our transition from childhood to adulthood help us make the energetic shift from dependence to independence. They are physical acts to accomplish an energetic purpose of breaking the bonds to allow for liberation of both parent and child.
CUT THE CORD
In these ceremonies, the energetic fibers which have formed from parent to child are cut and the child is taught to become self-sufficient. We might think of this as cutting the final energetic umbilical cord. As our culture has lost sight of these rituals those connections are not being severed and we have generations growing up who are still energetically feeding off others because of their unconscious patterns. This is detrimental to both parent and child at an energetic level. The parent’s energy is slowly and continuously drained by the child who is energetically (and often physically and emotionally) dependent upon them. This can lead to physical ailments in the parents which eventually get transferred to the child via the energetic feeding tubes and are often explained as being hereditary ailments or dis-ease. (Dis-ease is anything which disrupts our natural and easy energy flow. This is separate from disease which is an actual infection, virus or physical ailment.) The child also suffers in this situation.
It may feel harsh for the parents to cut their children off and that is often why it doesn’t happen. In the long run, the parents are doing a grave disservice to the child. As the child moves away from home and begins forming attachments to others, unconsciously they begin feeding off of them as well. This happens at such a deep energetic level that most of us aren’t even aware of it and certainly not conscious that we are doing it…but still it happens. If we have friends that leave us feeling drained emotionally, physically and mentally whenever we’re around them, we can be sure that this is the underlying energetic cause. These people are often referred to as “energy vampires”.
ADULT FEEDING TUBES
The energetic attachment we make to others is accomplished by our “fibers”. These fibers are non-physical and become feeding tubes of sort. To get a visual idea of what they look like, imagine them as dozens of small ropes or tubes that extend from our abdominal area and reach out beyond our Aura. The ends of these ropes can have suckers or hooks on them, depending upon the need trying to be fulfilled. Unconsciously we send these fibers into the energy field of others in an attempt to get our energetic needs met. Where then do these “energetic needs” come from?
We are all non-physical energy beings inhabiting physical bodies. We are force coming into form. Our physical bodies need energy to do all of the tasks that they have evolved to do. In every moment our bodies are doing an almost infinite number of tasks and these processes require fuel. Even when we are completely still, our bodies are handling countless numbers of tasks such as digestion, assimilation, elimination, respiration and circulation. At the cellular level, in every moment our bodies are in the process of renewal. As one cell dies another replaces it. In fact, by the end of every seven years, every cell in our bodies has died and been replaced. We literally have a completely different physical body than we did just seven years ago. How’s that for our amazing capacity to change?!
Within each of these physical processes there are three components of the process. Each has an input, an action and an output. For example, in digestion there is the input which is food that is to be digested. Second is the action, in this example it is the physical act of digestion which transforms the food we eat into the nutrients that our body needs to survive and grow. Third is the output of the process, the nutrients derived from the food and the unused waste. This is true for every system in the body. The action part needs energy to function and this energy has to come from somewhere.
ENERGY ALLOCATION
Our physical bodies can hold a finite amount of energy. They are physical in nature and while they can expand and contract, ultimately they are limited in size. So let’s say that we have our 100% allocation of energy. This energy comes to us from the environment through our energy system. Now, we have to begin allocating this energy to each of the countless processes going on inside the body…digestion, elimination, fat storage, fat burning, cell creation, circulation, respiration, etc. Each of these involuntary processes needs energy to do their work and so each of them chip away at our total energy allocation.
Then we move into the voluntary systems such as communication and locomotion. All of the physical acts that we do with our bodies require energy to function as well as the fuel to burn. Each of the muscles which comprise our bodies and all of the organs within all of our systems also require energy to do their work. Each of these things takes another portion of our overall energy allocation until eventually it is all divided out into our bodies as needed.
ENERGY SUPPLY
All the energy which is needed by our bodies has to come from somewhere and since it is constantly being used it has to be constantly replaced. Our bodies are major consumers of energy but fortunately our environment provides all the fuel that we need. We get it from the air we breathe, food and water we consume as well as from the Earth. In the first part of this “Basics” series, Grounding, when we connect with the Earth we are also connecting with its energy field to receive more of the energy that we need to survive. In essence, we established our energetic umbilical cord to the Mother Earth and use it draw in the energetic nutrients that we need.
Most of us however don’t access the environmental energy which is freely available to us. Due to all of the physical, spiritual, emotional and mental issues we are dealing with, we don’t feel connected to our bodies and even less connected to Life. Despite that lack of connection, we still need energy to function as described above. To get the energy we need, we use our energetic fibers to acquire this energy and often at others expense. In a perfectly healed and whole state, an individual can obtain all the energy that they need by simply connecting to the environment.
VICTIM OR VAMPIRE?
So how can we tell when we’re feeding off others or being fed off of? On the physical level this happens when we’re with someone that “dumps” all their issues on us. They constantly focus on their problems, how bad their life is, their needs and the injustices that they believe they suffer from on a daily basis (victim mentality). If they don’t do that then they disguise this behavior as an unhealthy attachment to someone who they make the center of their world and expect that attention to be returned. “Look at all I do for you” becomes their identifying catch phrase. At some level they try passive-aggressive guilt as a way to get the energy they need. If we see these things being done to us or we find ourselves doing them, having an energetic understanding of what is happening allows us to make the decision to stop the unhealthy process.
Our attention (or focus) is where our awareness is. The physics of what happens is that “Energy follows awareness”. When we give our attention to someone or something, we send some of our energy to them. This is true whether the person is physically present or not. When someone is doing something and trying to get our attention (even with what we label as “negative attention”) this is them throwing their fibers at us trying to get the energy that they believe they need. Often times this can be so draining to us as the “host” that we’ll immediately turn to someone else and complain about the experience in an unconscious attempt to drain energy from them. This can all be avoided by ensuring that our Basics (Ground, Clear, Bind and the next one in this series, Core) are in place and our boundaries are maintained appropriately.
STEP 3: BIND
This process sets our energy field so that we aren’t sending our fibers out to someone else and draining them. All the energy that we need comes from within through our connection to the Earth and the world of energy available to us in the environment. As with most things done in the energy field, this is a physical act used to accomplish an energetic purpose.
After grounding and clearing are complete (step 1 & 2 in this 4 part series) then you’re ready to bind. Focus your awareness at your navel and imagine that your fibers extend out from your body at that point. Imagine that they are at least two main ropes (tubes, vines or whatever visual works for you). They can also be seen as a large number of smaller tubes as well. Just notice what visual comes up for you when you put your awareness on this and trust that. There is no need to make it anything other than what works for you. One way is no more or less correct than the other it simply is what is true for you.
Once you have the image of the fibers, physically reach down with your hands and surround your navel with your palms facing each other. Imagine that you are gathering half of them in one hand and half in the other. Pull them out directly in front of and away from your body the way you would if you were going to tie a rope around your midsection. Swing your arms wide and around toward your back where they would meet again. Feel like you insert the cords into your body again right through your spine and they come back out in the front. Now take each half in the front and then tie them together the way you begin tying the laces on your shoes. Just a simple over and under knot (twice, to form a square knot) and then cinch them together as if you were tightening a belt around your waist.
Visualize and move as if you are forming a circle around your body with the fibers. You are sending an image to your subconscious by doing this visualization and physical action. Take your time with it and really focus on the action as if you actually had two ends of a rope that you were wrapping around your body. The end result of this is that you want to contain your energy field and these grasping fibers so that you rely on energy from within. You made that connection in the grounding process. This process teaches your energy field to use that connection rather than draining others.
Update 7/6/13: Another important thing that this process does is protect you. These fibers are actually connected directly to the "soul" energetic. They are our energy field reaching into the physical world to manifest our bodies to explore this realm. When you tie them together the way I've described above, it causes a protective dome to form around you. This dome will prevent others from throwing their fibers with hooks or suckers into your field. The tie, or as the Deer Tribe calls it "The Master Tie" activates your aura and gives you an extra layer of protection.
KEEP THEM TIED
As you move through your day, if you find yourself seeking unnecessary attention from others by your actions, stop and repeat this process as if the fibers had become untied (and they will until you change the habit). The basics process is about learning better energetic manners and defining your boundaries rather than relying on others for what you need. At some level it is like the child growing up and leaving home. Becoming an energetic adult requires taking more responsibility for your own actions and becoming self-sufficient. This necessitates moving beyond habitual patterns and making your own way.
Click on the following link to go directly to The Basics - Step 4 - Core
In the second step of the series, we cleared the energy field surrounding the physical body known as the Aura. Now that we’ve cleared the field, we want to define the edges of it. We also want to ensure that we are getting all the energy that we need from within and not from others at their expense.
EARLY DEPENDANCY
When our physical bodies begin manifesting in the uterus, the umbilical cord becomes our feeding tube from our mother. This is where we receive nourishment during our gestation period in the womb. We begin our lives in the physical world by learning to feed off of another. After birth, when the cord has been cut, we move to breast feeding and are dependent upon others to bring us the nourishment that we require to survive and grow. This process is often referred to as “bonding”. This process continues at various stages in our lives until we reach the point where we can become self sufficient and are able to care for our own needs.
The learned behavior of depending upon others to nourish us is deeply set at an unconscious level by the time we reach our late teens and begin our adult lives. Unfortunately in American culture we have lost the ancient rituals and rites of passage into independent adulthood and so these unconscious patterns don’t get broken. In Native American traditions, the ceremonies used to celebrate our transition from childhood to adulthood help us make the energetic shift from dependence to independence. They are physical acts to accomplish an energetic purpose of breaking the bonds to allow for liberation of both parent and child.
CUT THE CORD
In these ceremonies, the energetic fibers which have formed from parent to child are cut and the child is taught to become self-sufficient. We might think of this as cutting the final energetic umbilical cord. As our culture has lost sight of these rituals those connections are not being severed and we have generations growing up who are still energetically feeding off others because of their unconscious patterns. This is detrimental to both parent and child at an energetic level. The parent’s energy is slowly and continuously drained by the child who is energetically (and often physically and emotionally) dependent upon them. This can lead to physical ailments in the parents which eventually get transferred to the child via the energetic feeding tubes and are often explained as being hereditary ailments or dis-ease. (Dis-ease is anything which disrupts our natural and easy energy flow. This is separate from disease which is an actual infection, virus or physical ailment.) The child also suffers in this situation.
It may feel harsh for the parents to cut their children off and that is often why it doesn’t happen. In the long run, the parents are doing a grave disservice to the child. As the child moves away from home and begins forming attachments to others, unconsciously they begin feeding off of them as well. This happens at such a deep energetic level that most of us aren’t even aware of it and certainly not conscious that we are doing it…but still it happens. If we have friends that leave us feeling drained emotionally, physically and mentally whenever we’re around them, we can be sure that this is the underlying energetic cause. These people are often referred to as “energy vampires”.
ADULT FEEDING TUBES
The energetic attachment we make to others is accomplished by our “fibers”. These fibers are non-physical and become feeding tubes of sort. To get a visual idea of what they look like, imagine them as dozens of small ropes or tubes that extend from our abdominal area and reach out beyond our Aura. The ends of these ropes can have suckers or hooks on them, depending upon the need trying to be fulfilled. Unconsciously we send these fibers into the energy field of others in an attempt to get our energetic needs met. Where then do these “energetic needs” come from?
We are all non-physical energy beings inhabiting physical bodies. We are force coming into form. Our physical bodies need energy to do all of the tasks that they have evolved to do. In every moment our bodies are doing an almost infinite number of tasks and these processes require fuel. Even when we are completely still, our bodies are handling countless numbers of tasks such as digestion, assimilation, elimination, respiration and circulation. At the cellular level, in every moment our bodies are in the process of renewal. As one cell dies another replaces it. In fact, by the end of every seven years, every cell in our bodies has died and been replaced. We literally have a completely different physical body than we did just seven years ago. How’s that for our amazing capacity to change?!
Within each of these physical processes there are three components of the process. Each has an input, an action and an output. For example, in digestion there is the input which is food that is to be digested. Second is the action, in this example it is the physical act of digestion which transforms the food we eat into the nutrients that our body needs to survive and grow. Third is the output of the process, the nutrients derived from the food and the unused waste. This is true for every system in the body. The action part needs energy to function and this energy has to come from somewhere.
ENERGY ALLOCATION
Our physical bodies can hold a finite amount of energy. They are physical in nature and while they can expand and contract, ultimately they are limited in size. So let’s say that we have our 100% allocation of energy. This energy comes to us from the environment through our energy system. Now, we have to begin allocating this energy to each of the countless processes going on inside the body…digestion, elimination, fat storage, fat burning, cell creation, circulation, respiration, etc. Each of these involuntary processes needs energy to do their work and so each of them chip away at our total energy allocation.
Then we move into the voluntary systems such as communication and locomotion. All of the physical acts that we do with our bodies require energy to function as well as the fuel to burn. Each of the muscles which comprise our bodies and all of the organs within all of our systems also require energy to do their work. Each of these things takes another portion of our overall energy allocation until eventually it is all divided out into our bodies as needed.
ENERGY SUPPLY
All the energy which is needed by our bodies has to come from somewhere and since it is constantly being used it has to be constantly replaced. Our bodies are major consumers of energy but fortunately our environment provides all the fuel that we need. We get it from the air we breathe, food and water we consume as well as from the Earth. In the first part of this “Basics” series, Grounding, when we connect with the Earth we are also connecting with its energy field to receive more of the energy that we need to survive. In essence, we established our energetic umbilical cord to the Mother Earth and use it draw in the energetic nutrients that we need.
Most of us however don’t access the environmental energy which is freely available to us. Due to all of the physical, spiritual, emotional and mental issues we are dealing with, we don’t feel connected to our bodies and even less connected to Life. Despite that lack of connection, we still need energy to function as described above. To get the energy we need, we use our energetic fibers to acquire this energy and often at others expense. In a perfectly healed and whole state, an individual can obtain all the energy that they need by simply connecting to the environment.
VICTIM OR VAMPIRE?
So how can we tell when we’re feeding off others or being fed off of? On the physical level this happens when we’re with someone that “dumps” all their issues on us. They constantly focus on their problems, how bad their life is, their needs and the injustices that they believe they suffer from on a daily basis (victim mentality). If they don’t do that then they disguise this behavior as an unhealthy attachment to someone who they make the center of their world and expect that attention to be returned. “Look at all I do for you” becomes their identifying catch phrase. At some level they try passive-aggressive guilt as a way to get the energy they need. If we see these things being done to us or we find ourselves doing them, having an energetic understanding of what is happening allows us to make the decision to stop the unhealthy process.
Our attention (or focus) is where our awareness is. The physics of what happens is that “Energy follows awareness”. When we give our attention to someone or something, we send some of our energy to them. This is true whether the person is physically present or not. When someone is doing something and trying to get our attention (even with what we label as “negative attention”) this is them throwing their fibers at us trying to get the energy that they believe they need. Often times this can be so draining to us as the “host” that we’ll immediately turn to someone else and complain about the experience in an unconscious attempt to drain energy from them. This can all be avoided by ensuring that our Basics (Ground, Clear, Bind and the next one in this series, Core) are in place and our boundaries are maintained appropriately.
STEP 3: BIND
This process sets our energy field so that we aren’t sending our fibers out to someone else and draining them. All the energy that we need comes from within through our connection to the Earth and the world of energy available to us in the environment. As with most things done in the energy field, this is a physical act used to accomplish an energetic purpose.
After grounding and clearing are complete (step 1 & 2 in this 4 part series) then you’re ready to bind. Focus your awareness at your navel and imagine that your fibers extend out from your body at that point. Imagine that they are at least two main ropes (tubes, vines or whatever visual works for you). They can also be seen as a large number of smaller tubes as well. Just notice what visual comes up for you when you put your awareness on this and trust that. There is no need to make it anything other than what works for you. One way is no more or less correct than the other it simply is what is true for you.
Once you have the image of the fibers, physically reach down with your hands and surround your navel with your palms facing each other. Imagine that you are gathering half of them in one hand and half in the other. Pull them out directly in front of and away from your body the way you would if you were going to tie a rope around your midsection. Swing your arms wide and around toward your back where they would meet again. Feel like you insert the cords into your body again right through your spine and they come back out in the front. Now take each half in the front and then tie them together the way you begin tying the laces on your shoes. Just a simple over and under knot (twice, to form a square knot) and then cinch them together as if you were tightening a belt around your waist.
Visualize and move as if you are forming a circle around your body with the fibers. You are sending an image to your subconscious by doing this visualization and physical action. Take your time with it and really focus on the action as if you actually had two ends of a rope that you were wrapping around your body. The end result of this is that you want to contain your energy field and these grasping fibers so that you rely on energy from within. You made that connection in the grounding process. This process teaches your energy field to use that connection rather than draining others.
Update 7/6/13: Another important thing that this process does is protect you. These fibers are actually connected directly to the "soul" energetic. They are our energy field reaching into the physical world to manifest our bodies to explore this realm. When you tie them together the way I've described above, it causes a protective dome to form around you. This dome will prevent others from throwing their fibers with hooks or suckers into your field. The tie, or as the Deer Tribe calls it "The Master Tie" activates your aura and gives you an extra layer of protection.
KEEP THEM TIED
As you move through your day, if you find yourself seeking unnecessary attention from others by your actions, stop and repeat this process as if the fibers had become untied (and they will until you change the habit). The basics process is about learning better energetic manners and defining your boundaries rather than relying on others for what you need. At some level it is like the child growing up and leaving home. Becoming an energetic adult requires taking more responsibility for your own actions and becoming self-sufficient. This necessitates moving beyond habitual patterns and making your own way.
Click on the following link to go directly to The Basics - Step 4 - Core
Posts
