Beyond Within

The modern world is subject to an epidemic of misplaced personal power. Ideally each of us is the master of our own domain — the finite reserve of time, energy, material resources, personal space and daily experience that I will refer to for simplicity’s sake as your sphere. The ideal is to take responsibility for what goes on in this sphere, and manage it in a deliberate and conscious way. This situation is made a bit more interesting by the fact that we live in a “free will zone” where one of the goals is to learn how to share space with an extremely diverse cast of characters. Part of achieving that goal is learning how not to be blown around like a leaf by every passing influence or deliberate intrusion.

Unfortunately most of us aren’t ever specifically taught to hold beliefs and “rules of engagement” that keep our personal resources inside our own sphere until we’re ready to use or distribute them, as well as recognizing and refusing access to unhealthy or abusive influences. Our concept of personal boundaries (and thus our personal bubble itself) is primarily shaped by influences such as family, culture and religion, most of which are designed to convince us to give away our power and sovereignty. Hopefully we pick up at least a basic idea of reasonably healthy boundaries in childhood, but even then, most give little thought to the subject, and what comes in or goes out of one’s sphere is largely left to chance and unconscious patterns of habit. Much like legal code, when your personal boundaries are not well defined and laid out in specific terms, gaps are left in your sphere through which anything could potentially enter, and areas of your life are left to probability and whatever happens to be influencing it at the time. I’m all about swinging probabilities in my favor whenever possible, and today I’m going to share how you can do the same with many areas of your daily life.

Through experience I have found that personal boundaries are created, maintained and enforced by the solar plexus chakra, the energy center located roughly at the base of the sternum. If you’ve never given serious, conscious thought to this issue, the programming your solar plexus uses to construct and maintain your sphere is probably a mishmash of rules and ideals you’ve latched onto over the course of your lifetime from the sources I listed above. I’m here to tell you that you can begin reassessing all those old patterns, make them your own, and deliberately program specific new rules of your own choosing. I do this with a relatively simple technique I’ve developed — basically, I talk to my chakras. Chakras have an intelligence all their own; if you tell one of yours you want to change the way it’s operating and give it a new statement to work with, it will “record” that statement and make the change you’re shooting for.

There are many benefits to doing this work. My first experience came when I started consciously defining my energy as mine — suddenly I went from barely having enough energy to drag through most days, to having more than my system literally knew what to do with. I had to spend a few days adjusting to the increased load, after which I felt fantastic. That was just the beginning though. As I continued to use this method and gradually brought more and more aspects of my life into my personal sphere, those parts of my life were not only free of negative interference, they began to optimize in ways that were much more consistent with who I am and what I want to experience. The changes have been striking, though the more I work with energy, not all that surprising. Energy is the foundation of our reality; making changes at the energetic level is often the quickest and most direct way to make changes in our real life experience.

Additionally, defining these aspects of your life consciously, sends a strong subconscious message that YOU, and nobody else, are responsible for them. For instance, many people completely fail to take responsibility for their own health. They lead unhealthy lifestyles; they might believe that disease is something that just strikes at random, and the responsibility for dealing with it falls on their doctor. By doing this work I have not only sent a powerful message to my subconscious that I choose not to let sickness and disease into my space; I’ve also reaffirmed that I have a responsibility to my body, to figure out what it needs to be healthy, and meet those needs to the best of my ability. Wouldn’t ya know it; ever since I decided that sickness wasn’t something that I chose to have in my space — *gasp* — I haven’t been sick. For my-ass-covering-disclaimer purposes, this does NOT mean you should abandon
medical treatment and stop seeing your doctor, but it does mean that your doctor’s role should be to give advice and treat problems when they arise, not to be the all powerful and all knowing arbiter of your health. This is just one example of how conscious personal responsibility alone is a huge part of manifesting the experience you want out of those areas of your life.

With that, I think I’ve yammered enough about how cool the results of the technique can be; onto the method itself!

Defining Your Sphere

Before you decide what you want to allow or not allow into your personal sphere, you need to gain some clarity about what your personal sphere actually includes. Having been the target of some pretty determined negative interference, my personal sphere was at first defined largely by the need for defense. If it was something that could be attacked in order to put a damper on my day, then it’s something I can bring into my personal sphere, take responsibility for and thus have that part of my experience fall under all the protection and positive influences available to me. Here’s a partial list of functions I defined as part of my sphere to give you some idea of how this works.

Body
Mind
Emotions
Energy
Health
House
Car
Dreamspace
Relationships
Chakras
Material possessions
Finances
Occupation
Daily experience

Get into a relaxed, meditative state. If you’re not a regular meditator, then doing some stretches, getting comfortable and observing your breath for ten deep breaths is fine. Focus on the area of your solar plexus. Try to get a feel for the type of energy you’re holding there. If you’re the visual type, the solar plexus chakra is usually associated with the color yellow.

Now, mentally say:

“I am speaking directly to my solar plexus chakra.” Thank you for faithfully performing your duty as my personal security system. Until now you have been doing your job without any conscious input from myself — now I’m going to give you some specific commands that you are to operate with from this point forward.”

First you want to make sure you’ve set up this concept of a personal sphere to begin with. So, tell your SP:

“You are to establish, maintain and enforce the boundaries of my personal sphere. Into this sphere, I permit only the energies, entities and influence that are aligned with my highest good.”

Now you’re ready to get more specific. Pick an area of your life like those listed above that you feel needs protection, or that you’d like to take responsibility for, or that you’d just like more of a say in how it plays out. Focusing again on your solar plexus, state:

“I define ____ as part of my personal space. I extend all protection available to me into this area now, and I do not permit entry to any energy, entity or influence that is not aligned with my highest good. I now take conscious personal responsibility for ____.”

You can repeat this command for every item that you’d like to include in your sphere. In the future, you can also update your sphere by repeating the process with anything else you’d like to add. As you get comfortable with the technique, you can tweak the wording and make it your own; it will work as long as the basic concepts are kept intact, and the wording is very direct, specific and kept in the present tense.

Your House, Your Rules

Now that you’ve defined some of the things that fall within your personal boundaries, you’ll want to start defining how your sphere operates. This will be unique for everyone; the commands you use will have to do with your desires, likes and dislikes, goals and so forth. This is also an opportunity to get creative, experiment and really get some vivid examples of how your perceptions affect your experience of reality. If there’s something you’d like to exclude from your sphere, you can direct your solar plexus to keep it outside your boundaries. One of the first things I used this on, to great effect, is random noise. I’ve always had real problems tuning out environmental sounds. Whether trying to sleep, work or meditate, I’d need it quiet; things like dogs barking, kids crying or people yelling outside would cause me great agitation and inability to relax or focus. I eventually had the idea to use this technique to keep sounds outside my sphere unless I chose to let them in. I made specific statements to my solar plexus that noise is to stay outside my space when I’m sleeping, working or meditating except in cases of emergency or someone deliberately trying to get my attention. After giving my solar plexus those rules, I noticed an immediate, drastic change. Now when there’s noise, it’s as if it stays on the outer edges of my sphere and thus my awareness; there’s no agitation, and I can choose whether or not to give it any attention or energy, rather than having my attention jerked all over the map against my will.

I’ve also used this technique to keep specific traits out of my space that have given me problems, or that I just find irritating, whether in other people, myself or both. One should be careful here, because if you tell your SP to eliminate other peoples’ traits from entering your space, it will also start trying to purge any trace of that characteristic from your internal space, in an accelerated fashion as well. This can lead to some difficult realizations and even make it hard to live with yourself until it’s fully resolved, but well… how bad DO you want it? For you empaths, keeping other peoples’ negativity and bad energy outside your sphere can be particularly helpful — but if you’re in the habit of being habitually negative or radiating crappy energy yourself, you may have a rather rocky “sorting-out” period in your future!

As far as defense goes, this technique is an effective way to lock out a lot of negative interference and unwanted energies. Well defined boundaries are crucial for empaths, so as not to end up feeling energetically beaten up every time you go out in public. Your first line of defense is the original statement about only allowing access to positive entities, but I find it helpful to be as specific as possible with even further statements. As I understand it, each statement is an extra layer of defense, so if you’re operating with five statements that all happen to apply to a particular entity or its intentions, then it’s going to have a harder time intruding on your awareness than if you used one and left it at that. A statement forbidding “psychopathy” from entering into your space covers pretty much all negative entities and some people. Beyond that, statements about whatever specific way you’re being targetted would be helpful.

At this point I should extend a word of caution to heavily targetted individuals: when I started using this technique, there was a brief period of “running the gauntlet.” In other words, I would use this to protect one area of my life, and within a day or so another was under attack. It was as if something was getting panicked over the exploits I was closing down, and was scrambling to get their shots in through any that were still open. For my part I just used each attack as an indicator of another exploit to shut down, and once the attacks wore themselves out and gave way to a lengthy period of relative peace I knew I was “done” for the time being. Today, direct attacks on my person are relatively rare, and a lot weaker than they used to be. When it happens it’s very much as if it’s pounding on the outer edges of my sphere, rather than seriously derailing anything important. When they do occur I take the opportunity to reinforce any relevant statements with my solar plexus.

In general, carrying an attitude of “this is my space and you’re a guest in it” is a good way to project an air of self-respect and honor, which puts you in a powerful position in any interaction. This taps into the social structures most cultures have relating to being a guest in someone’s house — including the shame of infringing upon their hospitality and good will. If someone is inclined to infringe on your sphere, and your energy is sending a message that regards them with the same righteous disbelief and disgust you’d be showing if they walked into your living room and peed on the carpet, they may think twice before they even have a chance to act.

My last point here has to do with those of you whose personal boundaries were already too rigid before you started. This can happen in response to traumatic events, or as a response to emotional upset — instead of a permeable cell membrane you end up with a superfortress, likely around your heart chakra. Boundaries formed in this way are counterproductive, because in practice they will keep out things you may actually want in your experience, you’ll be seen as unapproachable, yet it will provide no real defense against things that are best kept at a distance. Before I did this work, my SP was a bit hyperactive and if someone were to approach me to start a conversation, all defenses would immediately and unconsciously go up until I determined who they were, and that there was no threat. Obviously this state of being wasn’t much help to my social prospects, much less my defensive capabilities. I solved this by telling my SP to stand down, remain alert, and only throw up the defenses in that way when a legitimate threat was perceived.

While this technique is not a panacea, it has proven extremely effective, continues to be something I use frequently and am still exploring the limits of. By learning to recognize and manage your own personal sphere, you will be able to carry a bubble of space around with you that is solely yours, and subject only to the influences you choose to share it with. You will be making your way toward mastery of yourself and your resources, and taking back your personal sovereignty. A worthy goal indeed!

–Palehorse

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With all the talk of “oneness” that goes on in many spiritual circles, it can be all too easy to forget about the importance of things like healthy boundaries and personal space. Oneness is a great concept — unfortunately when you incorporate this idea into your belief system without putting it in proper context, you can run into problems. When you affirm our universal oneness without simultaneously affirming your own personal sovereignty, and identity as a unique individual within that oneness, this is interpreted by your subconscious to mean something along the lines of “I have no personal boundaries; anyone and anything that wants to enter my space is free to do so at will.” This can be a real problem for those who are very empathic or otherwise sensitive to energy, because they can end up overwhelmed by a constant flood of everyone else’s energy and emotions, whether positive, negative and everything in between. In more severe cases, a failure to define one’s boundaries can act as an open invitation for negative interference, as well as some pretty shady human characters looking for just such an opening. I was recently discussing this issue with someone who had begun approaching negative entities with love, and “accepting them as part of himself” — and promptly encountered a virtual flood of negative entity activity in his life. Case in point. After nearly choking on my coffee, I was able to explain why this is not a good idea, no matter how well meaning.

The relationship between the cells and the body works as a handy metaphor for a healthy balance between oneness and individuality. The body has its own identity, but at the same time, it’s made up of trillions of individual lifeforms. Without all those cells, which perform very diverse functions, “you” wouldn’t exist — not on this plane anyway! Each cell is a valuable part of the greater body, but no one cell can say “I am the whole body,” or “I am also every other cell.” Additionally, every cell has its own membrane which acts as its personal boundary, and it is very discriminatory about what it will let in and out of that space. It’s a good thing too, because if those cells let down all their defenses and were unconditionally accepting about what got into their space, no matter how toxic, the body wouldn’t last very long. If all cells decided to give up their membranes entirely, the body would cease to exist a lot sooner.

Yet this is the rough equivalent to many peoples’ approach to life and spirituality — relinquishing all boundaries and trying to identify with every part of the Whole. I had an eye-opening early experience with relinquishing my concept of personal space that vividly reiterates what I’m saying here: after I dropped my personal bubble as an experiment, the world began treating me as if “I” didn’t exist! I only kept that going for about ten minutes, but to be in that state all the time would actually be disempowering, because it saddles your individual identity with the energy, emotions and actions of other selves — which is a lot more than it was designed to manage — while giving implicit permission for your own resources to be freely taken away or manipulated by anyone so inclined. The point of self-mastery is to separate “me” from “not me” and then learn to successfully manage the energy, emotions, thoughts, words, actions and personal space that are yours. Achieve harmony with the Whole, not by relinquishing your individual role within the greater body, but by becoming a master of what goes on within your own personal boundaries, and to which influences you will and will not permit access.

In my next post I’ll share one of the most effective techniques I’ve yet come across for defining healthy boundaries at the energetic level. This was among the most important developments in my own spiritual practice, as well defined energetic boundaries are a major key to attracting the influences that are aligned with your highest good, and keeping toxic influences at a safe distance.

–Palehorse

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