What is Energy?

I’ve been using this word more and I hear it more.

What do I mean by energy?

I’ll start with why I started to use it.  

Because it doesn’t define something.

It is movement, sensation but not labelled and no story around it.  Anger is energy. Sadness is energy.

Energy moves or flows.  Anxiety is a lot of energy moving.  Depression is usually energy sitting, stuck, blocked.

The word energy has some spiritual connotations and some scientific ones.

I like bringing it into heart and mind work because it focuses on the embodied aspect of emotions - that our feelings are physical sensations.

And it doesn’t judge anything.  If you can feel it, it must be natural.  Meaningful. Human.

It’s just energy.

And then there is the idea of moving energy.  Of expressing and releasing energy and also of starting it moving - getting unstuck.

My experience is that working with where a client’s energy is in the moment is the work that has impact.

There isn’t really any other work after all.  Otherwise, we are both in our minds. Nothing wrong with that but if we are running around in thoughts we are having a specific kind of energy and it is good to notice that rather than identify with the energy itself.

Energy is not the same as us.

Thoughts are not the same as us.

Feelings are not the same as us.

We are containers.  Physical beings with membranes of skin that “hold” us in.  

Energy flows through us.  It moves.

My experience is that the more it moves the less identified we become with “me”.  My achievements, my personality, my needs.

That’s an important step - knowing and having the “me”.

And as we allow our energy to move and focus on the energetic piece rather than that content of our lives we "loosen the bolts”.

What do I mean by loosen the bolts?

I mean allowing.

Allowing life.

It’s another paradox.

We create our lives by allowing our life force energy to flow.

We spend so so so much time on the making, forcing, controlling side of things and so much less on the allowing and receiving.

If I ask you - how is your energy?

You could tell me whether you feel tired or fatigued, your level of engagement, curiosity, joy, and pleasure.  You could describe any physical sensations you are experiencing. You could tell me your emotional feelings. You could describe any connections to spirit and nature that you are aware of.

How your energy encompasses anything related to your experience.

I am alive.  I breathe. You are alive.  You breathe.

If we can allow whatever is present to flow, we are allowing energy to flow.  The energy all of us have. Energy that is life-sustaining and life-creating.

And a caveat - I don’t mean acting on every impulse.  I mean feeling every impulse and breathing with it.

That is what I mean by energy.