I had mindlessly picked up a book on my bookcase and flipped it open. My eyes had focussed in on a line of text that changed my life from that moment onwards. It is a line of text that highlighted my then issues. A line of text, a proverb that like a coup de foudre or thunderbolt of lightning raised the most important question when dealing with people. Intention.
I had been struggling in relationships, inwardly. Outwardly, nothing was amiss. But inside my mind was an ongoing battle. I was not living the life of my dreams. I had allowed people to latch onto my life although deep down inside I knew they were not good for me, on any level. These were people who were simply there for ‘fair weather’. I thought I had moved past that after my teenage and university years.
Yet here I was again, a people pleaser, going with the flow, finding it awkward to express my feelings, and swayed by heavier personalities. I would spend time with them, and then sit in pools of regret and discomfort. It didn’t ‘feel’ right, to spend time with these people. Although we did on the surface happy things. Every time I left, I felt like my energy was drained, and depleted. I felt tired. I couldn’t explain why though?
I was living in duality. And I had enabled this to take place myself by not following my instincts and hunches. By looking for external and not internal markers and confirmation.
So what was it that changed how I perceived people and energy? One simple line of text, an ancient proverb, with much wisdom.
“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, Than a fattened calf with hatred.”
Proverbs 15:17
The moment I read it, it’s like a switch went off in my mind. I understood ‘Energy’ and ‘Duality’. My mind was racing with many thoughts. In that moment I saw the fakeness and lack of real affection in some people I had courted. But now I could place it in the perspective of accepting and understanding the difference between the surface actions, and sifting through and observing the real ‘intentions’ of people.
I came to realise two things- Look always for ‘Intention’, realise that most people live in the duality of what they are and what they would like you to think they are.
By not listening to my inner feelings, call it gut instinct or intuition, I was causing the energy drain in myself. I was going against the ‘flow’. I was living in resistance to what my inner being knew, and trying to make the surface equations add up. Lacking sincerity, they never could. The truth is those who truly care about you, will serve you the ‘dish of herbs’ or ‘the fattened calf’, like in the proverb with the same intention, which will have the same emotion, which will have the same energy. And in the same way, duplicitous people can serve you even a feast, but when it is attached with ill-feeling, it will not be something you will find pleasing or be able to digest.
I understood from this proverb something sacred, and something universal. I learned about energy consciousness, and how all our consciousness is uniquely linked with each other. Every person has an energy that they radiate, this is made up of their feelings and thoughts for the most part. This energy is linked to, but also separate from the body of the person. Although it influences the body.
It’s like imagining that every person is like a beacon of light or like an electricity tower. And there is the tower itself, the physical form, and there is also the energy or the messages that the tower radiates. And the energy/messages that they emit are like two radio signals. One is the one they want to show to interact with the world, the other, softer one is the inner stream of thought. Tuning into this energy is like tuning into two different radio stations, one loud, and one in the background- softer and almost imperceptible. It can also be described like a song with layered sounds. Tuning into both the spoken and the unspoken, the visible and the invisible is like being able to listen to the whole symphony and not just individual parts.
Understanding that both streams of conscious and unconscious thought and feeling exist and that it is supremely relevant, is the key. It was the key which I used to completely transform my life and relationships.
Duality and duplicity was costing me. It costs so many of us, our health, relationships and sense of wellbeing. Understanding it and being supportive of your own energy and correctly assessing the energy -surface and intentions, conscious and unconscious, of others, allows one to make more astute choices. It allows us to fill the holes that repeatedly drain our energy. And to create healthy energy patterns and supportive energy bonds.
I learned to conserve my energy, protect it and use it to perfection. I learned to maximise my energy, read other people’s energy and avoid toxic self-habits. I learned to put up my boundaries and disallow infringements on it, and I learned to protect my energy. All by using the example of this proverb, and using its guide- Look Deeper, Dig Deeper, Find/focus on the real meaning.