I was not aware there were ways to safeguard your own personal energy and keep others from sucking you dry. But in the Qigong training, protecting your own energy is considered step number uno. Qigong caregivers learn how to protect themselves before they interact with patients.
Here is a modified version of the exercise we learned to keep our own energy safe and secure. It iss called the “Column of Light” preparation exercise.
Column of Light
1. Stand with the left and right pinkies touching and the left and right thumbs touching. The hands are held in front of the lower abdomen.
2. Energetically sink and root your energy into the earth. Visualize yourself sinking into the earth’s core as all stress melts out of the body deep into the earth.
3. Once you are rooted, visualize a column of energy or light coming up from the earth and surrounding you completely.
4. While surrounded by the column, see yourself growing so tall that your head reaches the stars and the column of light that surrounds you ascends and connects to the heavens above.
5. Sink your focus back down and root your energy into your abdomen. At this point you are surrounded by a column of dense energy (or Qi) that strengthens you and acts as a boundary between the earth and heaven to prevent the patient’s energy (or Qi) from invading your own tissues.
6. Next, expand the column of light around you as if it were a bubble around you. This bubble will be your portable protection as you interact with patients or those who may be drains on your energy. You are now secure in a bubble of protective energy.
You may release the bubble of energy by taking some deep focused releasing breaths and / or brushing your shoulders and abdomen with your hands and visualizing the stuff you may have picked up from day, along with the bubble, being released and cleaned along with returning and being reabsorbed by the earth.
Or the process can be automatically relaxed and the energy released with sleep (unless you visualize the continuation of the bubble while you sleep).
You can do this little visualization each day as well as several times through the day as needed. In fact for Qigong, the recommendation is to do this exercise before each and every patient (along with some visualization for the treatment room).
What is so cool about this process is how you can also use it for every day interactions, too. For example, I tried this exercise the other day prior to going to one of my dreaded meetings at work, so before going to the office I did this column of light visualization. When I got home later that day, I was surprised how much energy I had and how I wasn't drained. This exercise worked even for my everyday office interactions.
You may want to also try it for yourself and see if it changes how you feel that day. If you feel better, try making it part of your daily routine and see if things start to improve even more..
(Special thanks to Dr. Suzanne Friedman who taught this visualization exercise to our class).
