Sensing Energy
Whether you see this in yourself or not, you already possess acute abilities to sense energy, and in this chapter you’ll learn how to tap into those abilities whenever you need them through a series of fun exercises. Sensing energy is something you do each and every day, from grabbing a coat when the temperature drops to feeling your “spidey sense” activate when someone is staring at you from across the room. A popular misconception of energy work is that it always entails dramatic or overt demonstrations of energetic abilities, and sure, those do exist, but they’re certainly not necessary to facilitate effective healing. In fact, working with subtle energy is often much more, well, subtle, although the effects can be far-reaching and profound.
Another misconception that can hamper our intuitive and energetic skills is the belief that working with energy primarily means accessing what we might think of as supernatural or otherwise outside our normal frame of reference. And yes, this can be part of it, but we musn’t overlook the so-called mundane experiences either. As we learned in Chapter 1, matter and energy aren’t so different after all, so bringing mindful attention to the physical world is a powerful way of enhancing our energetic abilities, because the physical world is energy.
Nowadays, we’re usually moving through our environment with a million things on our mind and our attention glued to a device, only partly aware of what’s going on around us. I’m amazed at how often I see someone out hiking in a stunningly beautiful landscape … and they’re on their phone. Is it possible that the “mundane” world feels mundane because we’re ignoring the vast majority of what it has to offer? While I think spiritual practice is a vital part of wellness, it also seems that sometimes we’re reaching for profound mystical experiences because the rest of our life has been drained of color, and we’ve largely forgotten how to see the sacred in the world around us.
It’s my belief that disconnection from our environment dulls our energetic perception, so in the following exercise, you’re going to hone your energy skills through the five senses. While all your senses work together, here you’ll attempt to isolate them, focusing on one sense at a time. There are two reasons for this, and the first is practical: when we’re accustomed to tuning out, it’s often easier to get reacquainted with our senses if we approach them one at a time. The second is tied to hypersensitivity and boundaries for empaths, which are big topics these days. With the barrage of stimuli and distractions everywhere we turn, it’s no wonder. Learning how to focus on one form of sensory input enhances our ability to tune out unwanted “noise,” which is an important form of boundary setting and one that will prove immensely useful during healing sessions. As energy workers, we need to be able to mediate our interaction with energy in a useful way; our perceptions are of little use to us or to others if we’re simply overwhelmed by them.
Exercise: Opening the Five Senses, Part 1
You’ll need a piece of fruit for this exercise and a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.
Sight: Set the fruit down and look at it. What color is it? Is it shiny or dull, smooth or rough looking? What shape is it? Are there any visible patterns in the skin, the leaves, or other details? Pick up the fruit and look at it from different angles, up close and at arm’s length, from above and below. Look at it through your peripheral vision.
Touch: Start by feeling the textures, the weight, the shape of the fruit. Explore the surface like you’re searching for a hidden entrance, and really bring your awareness to the minute sensations you’re receiving through your skin.
Sound: Tap the fruit with your fingers; lightly or more firmly tap the fruit on the table. What does it sound like? Continue this exploration as you peel or open the fruit in the next step, and while you taste the fruit, listening to the sounds of your chewing.
Smell: Smell the fruit. If it has a peel or skin, smell it with this layer intact, then open the fruit and smell the interior. Does the scent evoke any memories or images? Can you already taste the fruit simply by smelling it?
Taste: Finally, take a bite. Notice the different flavors unfolding as you chew, taking your time and mindfully chewing until the fruit is pulpy and ready to be swallowed. How do the other senses play into the taste, from the feel of the fruit in your mouth to the sound of your chewing and the smell?
Following this exercise, bring this level of awareness to at least one part of every day, perhaps to your morning tea or the act of brushing your teeth before bed. Use this practice as a way to build your energetic sensitivity, honing your ability to take in details that others overlook.
Exercise: Opening the Five Senses, Part 2
For this sensory exploration, you will need to go out in nature, such as a local park or a wilder setting. Use common sense and take any necessary precautions, such as bringing a water bottle and a snack or letting someone know where you’ll be.
Start by taking a walk through this natural space and giving yourself a few minutes to simply take in information without trying to focus on anything in particular. Continuing to move, bring more awareness to your body, and prepare to focus your attention on one sense at a time. Feel free to be in stillness at times to take in different details, but spend at least part of each sensory exploration moving in some way.
Sight: What do you see? With so many sights, are there certain features of the landscape that your eyes are drawn to? Choose one of these features and explore it further. Look at it from different angles, perhaps standing up, sitting down, and while moving. Look at it from a distance, then get up close and explore its surface in more detail. Do any textures, colors, patterns, or other features catch your eye?
Touch: Move around your environment once more, and focus on the sensation of your feet touching the ground. Notice which part of your feet you tend to land on first. Experiment with letting your heel touch, then rocking through to the ball of your foot before pushing off. What does the rest of your body feel like in space? What are your arms doing—are they swinging, and if so, does one arm feel freer to move than the other; are they crossed or with hands in pockets? What does the temperature feel like? Is there a breeze? Can you feel the warmth of the sun or is it overcast? Choose something in your environment and explore it through touch more fully, noticing any textures and shapes.
Sound: Move around again, and this time, tune in to the sounds around you. Can you hear any animals or birds? Is there wind or running water, creaking tree branches or rustling leaves? Sounds of human activity? What do your feet sound like on the earth as you walk? Choose a feature of your environment and explore its sounds more closely. Is it something you can safely pick up or interact with in some way, perhaps shaking it or tapping it on the ground to see what sounds it makes?
Smell: Move around again, and now focus on your sense of smell. What stands out? Once you notice the most prominent smell(s), get curious and see if you can detect more subtle smells, such as scent on the breeze or the smell of the soil. Choose a feature of the landscape to explore in more detail. Get up close and take a whiff—what do you smell? If it’s safe to do so, rub your fingers on it or rub it between your fingers and see if that produces any new odors. Do the scents conjure any memories or images?
Taste: It might not be possible to safely ingest anything in your environment, so please use common sense. If there are edible nuts, fruits, or berries that you can identify with absolute certainty, have a taste, going through the same explorations as you did with the piece of fruit in the previous exercise. If not, close your eyes for a moment and breathe in through your mouth a few times. Do you notice any subtle flavors?
Proprioception: Finally, tap into your sixth sense: proprioception, the ability to gauge where your body and body parts are in space. Proprioception is crucial for balance and movement, and we often set up our environment to minimize proprioceptive challenges, thereby weakening this important faculty. If it’s safe to do so, close your eyes for a moment, and touch your nose with one index finger and then the other. Was it easy to do without accidentally poking yourself in the eye? If not, practice this over the next few weeks. Then, close your eyes and see if you can lift one foot, even just a couple of inches, off the ground. Repeat with the other foot. Is one side easier than the other?
When you’re ready to end the exercise, release focus on any individual sense and allow them to work in concert, enriching your experience of your environment, providing you with layer upon layer of information. Thank your senses for helping you interact with the world and for bringing to your awareness what is most important for you to know. Break the habit of spacing out and ignoring what’s going on around you; treat your senses like the finely tuned antennae that they truly are. The more you have full presence in your environment, the easier it will be to pick up on, at will, important details, including those related to subtle energy.
In reiki practice, healing is most commonly done through the hands, making it useful to spend time activating and honing your ability to perceive energy through them. One simple yet effective way of doing this is to vigorously rub your palms together for a full fifteen to thirty seconds. Then, slowly start to pull your palms apart a couple of inches, feeling for a sensation a bit like electrified taffy, a gentle tugging sensation between the palms. Explore slowly moving the hands a bit closer and further apart, noticing if the energy feels more pronounced at one distance versus another.
Another variation that can yield rather “trippy” sensations is to once again rub your palms together vigorously, but this time, using the thumb and index finger of one hand, gently pinch the center of the opposite palm, imagining that you’re picking up a thread of energy, and slowly draw it up and away from the palm. Can you feel the gentle tug in the center of your palm? With time, you will likely be able to tap into these sensations without rubbing your palms together.
Exercise: Opening the Hand Gates
Figure 7: Energy points of the hand
Where awareness goes, energy flows, so by bringing more awareness to our hands, we increase our energetic presence there. One way to do this is to lightly massage the energy gates in the hand, as mapped by the system of qigong.1 One energy gate is in the middle of the palm, where you “plucked” the energy string between your thumb and forefinger in the previous exercise. The remaining gates are in the thumb and fingers, located at the tip and the base (where each digit meets the palm), and at the joints of the digits. There are three in the thumb (tip, base, and one joint in the middle—the interphalangeal joint) and four in each of the fingers (tip, base, and two interphalangeal joints). With a finger pad, gently massage each gate with a clockwise circular motion to free the flow of energy and enhance sensory awareness in the hands.
Exercise: Byôsen Reikan Hô (Energy Scanning)
Sometimes referred to simply as byôsen, this practice comes from reiki teachings and is the process of energetically scanning the body for illness. You can do this for yourself or with a partner, and the method is quite simple. Take some deep, calming breaths to center yourself and release distractions. Place your hands directly on the body or hovering slightly above, and allow them to be drawn where they will (avoiding direct contact with areas of privacy, of course). Perhaps the trickiest part is quieting the ego and trusting the process, but I have never met anyone who wasn’t able to do this, once they got out of their head and released expectations. You might feel a gentle tug toward a particular area or get an image or other impression of a body part in your mind. As you scan the body, some areas might feel tingly, cold, or hot, drawing you to them. In a reiki session, you would place your hands in these areas, allowing reiki to flow until you get the sense it’s time to move to the next spot.
Exercise: Clairvoyance (Clear Seeing)
One of my favorite techniques for enhancing clairvoyant skills is one I learned from Debra Lynne Katz in her book You Are Psychic. I was astonished at how dramatically my tarot readings changed after only a week of practicing this technique. Find a comfortable place to sit where you won’t be disturbed, and close your eyes. Bring your awareness to your breath, gradually lengthening each inhale and exhale, cultivating a sense of peace and calm. Open your crown chakra to the flow of healing energy, and allow this pure, white light to travel down through your crown, all the way out through your root chakra, grounding you into the earth. Allow healing energy to well up from the earth, entering at your root and ascending all the way out through your crown, connecting you to the heavens. You are now perfectly balanced between heaven and earth with all your chakras open and attuned to divine information.
Say to yourself three times, “My clairvoyant abilities are fully activated in a manner that is correct and good for me.” In your mind’s eye, conjure up the image of a single rose. Take some time filling out the image, noticing increasingly finer levels of detail. When the image feels secure in your mind, ask a question on which you are seeking guidance. The answer will come in the form of changes to the rose, perhaps a color shift, a change in its health, size, the appearance of thorns, and so on. When you notice a change, focus on it and ask what this means in relation to your question. At this point, you will often be shown images, such as memories or symbolic scenes, that shed further light on your situation. If the rose underwent multiple changes, work with each one individually, zooming out between each one to see the rose as a whole before refocusing on a different alteration.
When done, wipe the image of the rose from your mind’s eye, like erasing a chalkboard, and bring your attention back to the stream of energy from earth and sky. Allow the stream to slow and fade, and set the intention that your chakras return to the state that is correct and good for you. I like to hold my palms about a foot in front of my body, starting at the crown of the head, and slowly pass them down the length of my body, ending with my palms flat on the ground, all the while holding the intention that I am returning to a state of perfect balance. Practice this technique regularly to hone your clairvoyant skills.
Exercise: Clairaudience (Clear Hearing)
For this exercise, you will need one earplug (yes, just one!) and a place where you can sit undisturbed. Close your eyes and slow your breathing down, one breath cycle at a time, until you feel calm and centered. Cup your palms over your ears and allow healing energy to flow in between your hands, clearing your physical and energetic ears of any blocks and supporting a balanced flow of energy. Say to yourself three times, “My clairaudient abilities are fully activated in a manner that is correct and good for me.”
Put an earplug in one ear (if this is uncomfortable, you can skip this step, but I’ve found it easier to practice this technique with one ear at a time). From the unobstructed ear, imagine an energetic cone beginning to take shape, the point deep within your ear and the mouth widening out into the surrounding space. See this cone constructed from a web of energy, a web that is connected to a universal web that surrounds, interpenetrates, and extends out in all directions from your body. This cone is perfectly adapted to picking up vibrations on this web and decoding them for your clear understanding.
Ask a question, and sit quietly, allowing any relevant energies to condense in your energetic funnel, where they are translated into words. Most likely, you will hear these words as a voice in your head; very rarely will they manifest as something that sounds like someone speaking in the room with you. Gather whatever guidance you need, then retract the energetic cone into your body. Once more, cup your palms over your ears and allow healing energy to flow, sealing any energetic openings that may have been created with the cone and leaving you in a state of perfect balance.
Exercise: Clairsentience (Clear Feeling)
A super simple, yet very effective way to tap into clairsentience throughout your day is to check in with your body sensations when making a decision. Let’s say you’re weighing out options A and B. Close your eyes and breathe for a few cycles to calm your mind and connect with your body. Bring to mind option A and notice how you feel in your body. Then do the same with option B. A “yes” response for me is some variation on open, expansive, or curious. I can sometimes feel a flutter of excitement, too, which might at first glance seem like anxiety, but it’s accompanied by a general body sense of openness, a desire to move toward this option even with the butterflies. A “no” response elicits a sense of contraction, closing down, getting smaller or moving away. Try this over the course of the next week—you’ll be surprised how clear your body is, even when your mind might be vacillating!
Another clairsentience exercise: Find a place where you won’t be disturbed, get comfy, and close your eyes, bringing your awareness to your breath. Really feel where your body is making contact with the chair, floor, and so on, and use these sensations to focus all your awareness in your body. Say to yourself three times, “My clairsentient abilities are fully activated in a manner that is correct and good for me.” Take a few more breaths here, really concentrating on the physical and emotional sensations occurring in your body right now. Then, ask your question. How does your body respond? Do you feel a heightened sensation in a particular part of your body? If so, bring your awareness there and ask your question again. Breathe as you wait for a response. Emotional energy is also within the domain of clairsentience, so check in: How do you feel after asking your question? Again, the emotions are often consistent and clear, even when the mind can endlessly debate the pros and cons.
Exercise: Claircognizance (Clear Knowing)
This subtle sense typically expresses itself as a fully formed thought popping into our heads. These aren’t the thoughts generated by hashing something out in the mind; they arise, quite suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. Granted, not every spontaneous thought is one we need to follow, but clear knowing has a certain feel to it. When the thought appears, it resonates. It makes sense on a deep, gut level. Our ego might not know what to make of it, but our higher self likes how it sounds and feels.
To jumpstart your claircognizant abilities, try this “spiritual Mad Libs” exercise. Copy the following template, either with a photocopier or by hand, onto a separate sheet of paper. Ideally, if you are copying the words by hand, do this a few days beforehand so the text isn’t fresh in your mind. Write your question on the top of the page. Use your breath to calm your mind and bring you into a more grounded state. Say to yourself three times, “My claircognizant abilities are fully activated in a manner that is correct and good for me.” Then, without reading the sentences, start filling in the blanks according to the prompts (noun, verb, etc.). Work somewhat quickly to prevent the analytical mind from hijacking the process.
In regard to my situation, my root chakra wants me to ______________ (activity) while bringing more awareness to my ____________ (body part). My sacral chakra feels very _____________ (emotion) about this situation. My solar plexus believes that a wise choice would look like a ______________ (animal) that was ________________ (verb). My heart chakra knows that if I _______________ (verb), I will be able to let go of _______________ (difficult emotion). My throat chakra wants me to ______________ (school recess activity) to help me express my needs in a mature fashion to _________________ (another person involved). My third eye chakra sees a possibility for _______________ (positive emotion) if I make more time for _______________ (fun hobby). My crown chakra knows that if I let go of _______________ (bad habit), I’ll find a more productive way of responding to _________________ (someone/something you fear). Generally, I feel _______________ (emotion) about this situation. It is an opportunity for me to treat myself with more ________________ (quality you would associate with unicorns).
Over the last five chapters, we’ve learned a great deal about energy, including different ways of conceptualizing and working with various aspects of the human energy system. In the next part, we’ll focus our energetic explorations on one particular type of energy: reiki. You’ll learn how the system of reiki developed into what it is today and explore fascinating components of this rich healing tradition, from attunements and symbols to precepts and hands-on techniques, and much, much more.
1. Sandra Kynes, Change at Hand: Balancing Your Energy through Palmistry, Chakras & Mudras (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2009), 7.