Imagine you have just finished a campout in a beautiful mountain valley, or have attended a magnificent symphony in a gothic cathedral, or have spent the day meditating in the Taj Mahal. How do you feel? Most likely, you feel calm and joyful. Probably, you feel resilient, clear headed and untroubled. You might describe a lightness of spirit--a sense of being radiant.On the other hand, in stressful times, when dealing with problems and difficult people we may become tense, worried, sad or angry. We may feel a spiritual heaviness, a mental darkness. It is as if we are filled with a dark cloud of bad energy. Have you ever spent time with an angry, bitter person and come away feeling as if they had given you their bad vibes?
These different states of mind, the light, calm and joyful state and the dark, tense, and unhappy state are quite distinct. We prefer the brighter, relaxed state, yet we may get stuck in the dark, tense, unpleasant state. We don’t need to hang on to negative mental and emotional states, however. Mental imagery can help dispose of bad vibes and open us up to more joyful experience.
Here are some things you can do:
After an interaction with someone that leaves you feeling discomfited, put your hands on a large piece of wood, a desk or doorframe for instance, and imagine all the negative energy you may have absorbed flowing into the wood. Think of the wood as grounding or as an absorbent material. The unwanted thoughts, feelings, and body energy flow into the wood and dissipate. You are left feeling lighter, clear headed and unhampered by the energy of the other person.
Shower yourself with light and feel the negative energy drain down into the ground.
Imagine you are holding a large balloon or bubble in your hands in front of your chest. Breathe the bad energy into it. Imagine that all hurt, anxiety, and unkindness flow out of your heart and into the balloon. Release the balloon and imagine that it floats off a little way before bursting. Imagine that, as the balloon breaks, all the bad energy dissipates harmlessly or falls to the center of the earth where it can do no harm.
Use your hands to sweep the cloudy energy off your body. Let’s say you have a cat standing on your lap, and you pet it running your hand down its spine and the length of its tail. After the stroke, there is cat hair on your hand, so you flick it away. Do that with your own body. Stroke yourself, and when you get to the end of an appendage, flick away the negative energy.
If you finished a shower and had no towel, you might try to squeegee the water off your body with your hands. You would run your hands down from the top of your head to your feet squeezing the water off your arms, legs and torso. Imagine you are doing that with energy. Brush and flick away any negative thought, emotion, or dis-ease. Let it go down the drain to the earth’s core of molten gold where it can do no harm.
Imagine your hands are filled with light. As you run them along the length of your body, the light shines in and clears out any dark energy like the sun breaking up fog.
Say a little prayer. Ask for healing. Ask to be filled with light and loving-kindness.
Breathe. Blow out any remaining discomfort.