The Universe is the way it is.
Scientists seek to explain it; they do not define it. Mystics seek to interpret it; they do not manipulate it. The Universe remains what it is.
Belief precedes results. One of my favorite examples of this is Thomas Edison. Edison believed in the light bulb before he could see it. He believed he could create light with electricity and filament before the science of it had been discovered.
I like to think back, even a few hundred years. Before light bulbs and cars and planes and satellites. Not too many generations ago. The things we know and revere today would have been unfathomable to these people. But the science of it all still existed. Nothing about the laws and physics of the universe was different then.
Orbital mechanics still defined the moon’s orbit around the earth. Birds still used the concepts of lift, weight, thrust, and drag to navigate the skies. Fuel and oxidizer still combusted. We just hadn’t figured it out yet.
Human understanding of the way things work has nothing to do with the fact that it works.
This is such an important concept, especially for those of you who feel you need the hard science before you can believe in something. As an engineer, there are few things I love more than understanding how things work. But I maintain reverence for the things that I don’t. And I am constantly pushing myself towards understanding them, too.
The Human Energy Field
One such belief that I held before I had any hard science was the idea of the human energy field. I believe it because I can feel it. I can feel my own energy field.
An article by The Scientific & Medical Network provides examples of scientific research in this area. Harold Burr, a lecturer in neuro-physiology at Yale University, published 90 papers on what he called Life Fields between 1938 and 1970. Not surprising, considering his time, Burr’s work on Life Fields was never completely acknowledged.
Nevertheless, Burr used silver chloride electrodes (essentially a conductor) and a voltmeter to detect electro-dynamic fields in mammals. Amazingly, he found that these fields varied in health and disease. Healthy mammals demonstrated a smooth sinusoid; those suffering disease demonstrated a wild electrical pattern.
A few decades later, Robert Becker, M.D. and researcher in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the State University of New York, took Burr’s work further. Becker describes the electromagnetic field as dipolar; picture your standard straight magnet, with a positive and negative pole and surrounding electromagnetic field. The earth has one too.
Becker demonstrated that this dipole has a head/tail axis and is, “a summation of all the individual fields of all cells in the organism.” This, combined with the links to health and disease, has huge implications.
I could research and write for hours on the human energy field, but I’ll stop at, “it exists” for now. I give you all of this simply to say that there is scientific research supporting the idea of a human energy field and its links to well-being.
The Body Is An Antenna
I have a lot more research to do in this area, but I want to introduce a concept that makes a lot of sense to me. Much of this was inspired by the teachings of Bashar and Abraham.
Think of a standard radio. Let’s pick your car radio. What are the most basic components? There’s the antenna, which picks up the signal (the radio waves). There’s the receiver, which converts the signal into something the speakers can use to make sound. There’s the tuning of the radio, to make your channel selection – you. Then, not to forget, there’s the source of the music – the radio station – which generates and transmits the signal.
What if we think of the body as part of a radio system? What would that look like?
In this “human radio” system, the body is the antenna, the brain is the receiver, the human energy field is part of the signal, and the Universe/Source (or whatever you choose to call it) is the source of the signal. How the brain-receiver is tuned then determines how the energy waves flow through the body. What tunes the brain? We do! With our thoughts and beliefs!
Radio antennas are able to receive the frequency of the wave that they are tuned to because the electrons within them become excited at that frequency.
Physical emotion, then, is the sensation we experience when the conductive elements in our bodies (we’re made of 60% water, right) are excited by the frequency of the energy the body is receiving.
For some of you this may make perfect sense, but for others you might be having a brain explosion. Either way, totally fine. If you want, take a second to let this concept sink in before reading on.
Ready to go on? Ok…
To summarize our radio analogy.
With my thoughts, I tune my brain. With my body and energy field, I connect to Source. Like my body, my energy field (and each of yours) is always there. Always flowing. Protecting, providing insight, and keeping me alive.
When my brain is precisely tuned to (or aligned with) the frequency of the energy flowing through me, I experience positive emotion. Like a radio, I receive the song clearly, cleanly, and without static. It feels pretty great.
When my brain is out of tune (or misaligned) with my energy field, I experience negative emotion.
Have you ever been scanning the radio and land between stations? You can usually make out the song but it isn’t totally clear. Same concept. When I experience negative emotion, like a jumbled song or static, I know that I’m receiving a distorted version of what was sent. Usually, nothing is wrong with the radio; I just have to tune it correctly.
Feelings, then, are indications of our alignment with our true selves and subsequently the Universe.
They tell us if our thoughts are aligned to best allow the energetic life force to flow through us. There is nothing inherently terrifying about this. It just is.
Emotions Can Help Tune Your Brain
I realized this week that I’ve spent much of my life thinking that negative emotions are bad. Thanks to Brooke Castillo’s Self Coaching Scholars (SCS), I got to really examining my beliefs surrounding negative emotion.
In SCS, Castillo talks about the Motivational Triad. Our brains have evolved to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and stay efficient. This is our pre-programmed tuning default. The human brain evolved this way because it served us for thousands of years; until recently.
This means that anything new will likely cause our brains to freak out and say, “Stay away!”
But there’s great news, we have a prefrontal cortex. We can think. We aren’t bound to the brain’s default setting. We have the ability to reprogram our brains.
Since our thoughts tune our brains, which then determines our emotions, our thoughts are pretty important. Not quite sure where to start? This is where thought work comes in. Digging up and dumping out all those old thoughts you’ve gathered over your lifetime and buried inside your varying levels of consciousness.
Not something that happens overnight, which is totally fine.
Here’s a Personal Example
For the past two weeks or so, I’ve been stagnant. I’ve found my new happy place, making weekly posts that only my supportive family reads because they’re the only ones I’ve told about my website. The idea of opening myself up to the world, I realized, terrifies me. It’s the next step in carrying out my life’s work. Rejection, then, would mean I’m terrible at my life’s work, right? How devastating would that be.
Let’s apply this example to the human radio concept. I am experiencing the sensation of fear – fear of failure – caused by the thought, “I might not live up to my calling.”
My brain’s default mode of “avoid pain” is strong. Avoiding pain means get the heck out of there, definitely don’t put yourself out there. You might fail or be rejected and that will cause pain. Stay where you are. Safe, in your cave.
My experience of fear is my indication that my thoughts are not tuned, or aligned, with Source. There’s work to be done here. Thoughts to dig up. Feelings to feel.
There is nothing inherently negative or bad about negative emotions.
“Bad” is a judgement. An opinion.
I used to avoid negative emotion, because I thought it meant something “bad” was going to happen. And in a sense, I was right. If we’re not living consciously (or proactively vs. reactively), negative emotion can lead to unintentional action from a negative place, which will likely lead to results we don’t want. This is part of Castillo’s model (check out her podcast where she describes it!)
The fact that our thoughts create our reality is just the way it works. It isn’t scary.
I find this concept incredibly empowering because the only one in charge of my thoughts is me.
Knowing this, emotion transforms from my scary arch nemesis into my greatest teacher. Emotion is there as a tool to help guide me towards thoughts that are better aligned with Who I Am.
You now have a tool. A key. If what I’m saying rings true for you, you now know that your thoughts tune your brain and the resulting emotions let you know how well you’re doing.
But don’t fall into the trap I did.
We can’t escape our emotions. Negative emotion, like every other part of us, must be acknowledged, felt, and processed. It’s there for a reason. Let it be there. Resisting negative emotion by avoiding it, pretending it’s not there, or pushing it away with other thoughts only creates more resistance. It doesn’t eliminate the original emotion. That old negative-emotion creator (i.e. thought) will still be there, somewhere, hanging out with all your other thoughts. Until you look at it, process it (through allowance), then when it’s time, let it go.
I took a good hard look at my fear today. I let myself feel it. I let it teach me about my own hidden thoughts. I expected it to be a terrifying and uncomfortable experience. But it wasn’t. It was enlightening. I learned about myself. I dug up some deep-seated beliefs and I looked at them. I gave my emotions permission to be there.
That was enough for now. I played around with some new, better-feeling thoughts, but that’s not what I want you to walk away from this article with.
Give Yourself Permission
I want you to walk away from this article with permission to feel your own emotions. All of them. Give yourself that.
Emotions don’t mean anything. Fear doesn’t mean you’re a coward. Sadness doesn’t mean you’re weak. Feelings are vibrations experienced in the body. Nothing more.
You are whole just as you are. Right now, in this moment.
Every part of you is valid and complete, including your negative emotions. By opening yourself up to all of your emotions, you open yourself up to all of you. The whole life experience.
I believe that each of us holds within us all the tools required to navigate this world. One emotion at a time. So stay tuned! Together, we’ll continue to think about ourselves more and more clearly.