Levels of Consciousness and Your Emotional Energy
I would like to introduce a topic and some concepts which will help you to gauge where you normally operate and may help increase your awareness of your energy level/consciousness. We hear a lot about people’s “vibes” or how they are (or aren’t) vibing with certain things or with other people. The vibrations referred to in those phrases are considered your vibrational energy or emotional energy. If someone gives you a bad vibe you are saying that they are making you uneasy and fearful or suspicious. If someone gives you a good vibe, you feel positive energy and emotions in relation to interacting with them. Let’s dive deeper!
Love versus Fear
Our vibrations and energy levels can be broken down into two simplistic categories, love or fear. As humans we act and react based on our feelings of love or fear. Everything emits energy. We can absorb energy as well as emit it to others and our surroundings. There are a multitude of energy levels that we can experience and they fall under one or the other, fear or love. If our emotions and consciousness is primarily focused on the fear end of the spectrum we are more likely to feel hate, anger, anxiety, uneasiness, depression, and sadness. Conversely, if we operate more on the love side of the scale, we will feel more upbeat, inspired, active, in-tune, optimistic, and happy.
The Nitty Gritty of Lower Consciousness and Emotions
Under the fear category are several levels of consciousness which we can experience: shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, and courage. Courage is the turning point where our energy can start to shift into the emotions and states of being that are tied to love. When we operate below the courage level we experience emotions of humiliation, blame, despair, regret, anxiety, craving, hate, and scorn. Even just reading the words can start to evoke draining emotions in our bodies and minds.
Everyone dips into these levels and experiences these emotions once in a while depending on what is happening in our lives. Whether or not we stay at those levels and remain stuck in lower energies is another thing. As author David Hawkins states in his book Letting Go, “we can say that the lower end of the scale is associated with lower vibrational frequencies, lower energy, lower power, poorer life circumstances, poorer relationships, less abundance, less love, and poorer physical and emotional health. Because of the low energy, such needy people drain us on all levels. They tend to be avoided and find themselves surrounded by people on the same level (e.g. in jail).”
He goes on further to say, “The lower our emotional state, the more negatively we influence not only our own lives but also all of life around us… All lower emotions are limitations and blind us to the reality of our true Self. As we surrender our way up the scale near the top, a new type of experience begins to happen.”
The turning point of consciousness or our awareness is at the point that we hit courage. For example, someone who is unhappy with their weight will stay depressed and frustrated until they can get to the point of courage. Not much will change for this person until they get enough energy to hit the level of courage to do something different and make a change. Courage is the turning point between being fearful and turning into the love levels of consciousness. Pay attention to the energy levels you experience and whether they are rooted in fear or lean toward love. Recognizing where we are at can help us to readjust and aim for where we would like to be.
The Nitty Gritty of Higher Levels of Consciousness and Emotions
Above courage we begin to vibe into more and more positive arenas. We become more energetic and optimistic. We begin to feel less like victims of life’s circumstances and more like our own heros. The levels of consciousness tied to love and higher levels begin with courage and then go to neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, and enlightenment. The emotions that correspond with those levels are respectively trust, optimism, forgiveness, understanding, reverence, serenity, bliss, and ineffable (too great or extreme to be expressed or described by words).
It is often easier to identify with our emotions than with our consciousness; that is perfectly okay because our emotions are easier for most of us to sense and feel. As Hawkins says:
The corollary to letting go of negative feelings is to stop resisting the positive ones. Everything in the universe has its opposite; therefore, in the mind, every negative feeling has its counterpart between smallness and greatness, whether we are constantly aware of its existence at any given moment or not.
A good and very illuminating exercise is to sit down and look at the feeling that is directly opposite the negative one that we are experiencing and begin to let go of resisting it. Let’s say for instance, that a friend’s birthday is coming up and we are feeling resentful and stingy; therefore, we just can’t seem to get out to shop for a present, and the day is getting closer. The exact opposite feelings are those of forgiveness and generosity. We just start looking for the feeling of forgiveness within ourselves and stop resisting it. As we keep letting go of our resistance to being a forgiving person, it is often surprising that it will come up with a surge.
We will begin to recognize that part of our nature has always been willing and wanting to forgive, but we didn’t dare chance it. We thought we might appear foolish. We thought we were punishing the other person by holding resentment, but we have actually been suppressing love. In the beginning, we may not consciously feel this specifically about our friend, but we will begin to notice that we do have this aspect to our personality. As we keep surrendering our resistance to love, we will notice that within ourselves there is something that wants to express itself through sharing and giving, letting the past go and burying the hatchet. There is a desire to make a friendly gesture; we want to heal the separation, to repair the wound, to make good the wrong, to express gratitude, and to take a chance on being thought a fool.
The purpose of this exercise is to locate within ourselves that which can only be described as greatness. Greatness is the courage to overcome obstacles. It is the willingness to move to a higher level of love. It is the acceptance of others’ humanness and having compassion for their suffering by putting ourselves in their shoes. Out of the forgiveness of others comes self-forgiveness and the relief of guilt. The real payoff we get is when we let go of our negativity and choose to be loving; we are the ones who benefit.
We are the ones who gain from the real payoff. With the increased awareness of who we really are comes the progressive invulnerablity to pain. Once we compassionately accept our own humanness and that of others, we are no longer subject to humiliation, for true humility is a part of greatness.
Observe Your Thoughts and Identify the Emotions They Tie To
When your mind repeats the same thought over and over and you find yourself ruminating on something again and again, your brain and body are trying to get your attention. Thoughts tie back to emotions. Emotions tie back to a level of consciousness. The level of consciousness resides in fear or love. If you can follow your thoughts back to the emotion, identify it and figure out what consciousness it ties to, you can then get to the root of it and help yourself to raise your vibrational energy. Feeling apathetic? Try raising your feelings to fear or anger and from there to courage. As we move through the levels of consciousness, our emotions follow. Soon enough you will be operating in the realm of willingness, then acceptance, love and joy.
Understanding this scale of consciousness can be a great barometer for our emotions and states of being from day to day, or even moment to moment. As we are able to understand what we think, then what we feel, and lastly what it is tied to, we are then able to do something about it.
There will be moments of more depressed vibes and energy, such as experiencing grief after a loved one passes away. These moments are normal. The amount of time we experience grief varies and can come and go like waves. We can pop from love levels to fear levels from moment to moment, but just like the waves from a rock being thrown into our calm pond, they will dissipate in time and with the smoothing out comes acceptance followed by peace.
How Posture Can Help
Our bodies record what we go through and experience. Our tissues can store the emotions that we experience as we operate at different levels of consciousness. It is important to remember that just because our brains processed hard times and moved up vibrationally, the rest of our body can sometimes not get the memo. See my blogs on Our Bodies Record What We Experience, and also how your CEO may need to send a memo to the rest of you!
Posture massage works to connect your entire being and body again. Sessions can include emotional integration, or essentially making sure that your tissues and brain are on the same page as your current level of consciousness. Think of your being as a computer that occasionally needs software updates. Sessions can help to reconnect everything and ensure that you have been “updated” to the level that you currently are at.
Many of our aches, pains, and issues in our tissues are tied to the stresses and lower emotions that we are put through as we live. Processing our emotions, recognizing their roots, and intentionally working to grow in positive directions can clear out the things we hold onto. Wanna try it out? Consider focusing on these things in your next session with Posture Massage!
