Psychic Protection
by Julie Tallard
Johnson
Psychic protection is the ability to create a safe place within and
around yourself, so you can freely be yourself. It is a shield you
create to deflect the negative or unwanted thoughts and energy of
others and to prevent you from losing your energy and self to other
people or places. It is a psychic form of self-defense and has been
used for thousands of years by shamans and everyday folk alike.
Psychic
protection works by strengthening your energy body to defend against
any negative influences. For shamans, psychic protection includes
calling on guardian spirits to help them when they do their psychic
"journeys."
When Do You Need Psychic Protection?
Everyone at some time or another needs psychic protection. In
this busy, full, sometimes frantic world we live in, we are frequently
exposed to negative energies. The following list of questions will help
you identify situations when you need psychic protection from these
negative energies.
• Is it difficult for you to relax and be yourself?
• Do you at times feel overwhelmed at school?
• Is it hard for you to focus at school (but you can do so when you are alone)?
• Do you feel "dumped on" by others?
• Do you tend to feel down when a friend is down?
• Does school or any other place make you feel drained, tired, or weak?
• Do you feel overly sensitive to your environment?
• Are there places or people that make you feel useless or worthless?
• Do you ever feel "not yourself'?
• Do you feel as if you give a lot of your energy to others?
• Do you feel drained of energy after being around a certain person?
• Do you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks?
• Do you feel certain people or places "suck" your energy, leaving you tired?
• Are there people in your life who put you down?
• Do you abuse prescription or recreational drugs? (This includes alcohol.)
If you answered yes to two or more of the above, you would benefit
from psychic protection, and you may want to take some extra time in
this chapter.
You can begin with this simple technique that I use regularly when I
am scared or simply worried. It is a call to your spiritual source to
go before you and prepare your way, to make things safer for you, and
to be ready to come to your aid. Simply make this declaration, out loud
or to yourself:
Spirit goes before me and prepares my way.
After saying this declaration to yourself, take some time to imagine
a powerful guardian or force going before you and making things better
and safer for you. Hold this in your mind as you go to meet your
difficulty — whatever it may be.
Such prayers of protection are found throughout all spiritual
practices. Many Christians pray to Mother Mary or St. Jude for
protection. In Egypt, over three thousand years ago, they prayed to the
divine Mother, Isis, for protection. The power of such prayer is your
ability to call on the energies and spirits of these beings to protect
you. You then carry their energy with you into the world and into the
environment where you need protection.
Casting a Spell of Protection
In some traditions, a meditation such as the one that follows is
considered an "empowerment," a way to empower yourself; in other
traditions it might be thought of as a "spell" — a way to make a wish
powerful enough to become a reality in your life. There are many names
for the same undertaking — use the one that works for you. If you feel
stronger by saying you are casting a spell, go for it; if you would
rather feel you are empowering yourself, then so be it.
Color Shield Meditation
Find time when you can be alone in your room, undisturbed, for five minutes. Sit in a meditative posture with your eyes closed.
Imagine bringing a white or golden light down from above to
surround you. Let this light surround you and feel it touch your skin,
so that this glow of golden or white light seems to come from you.
Now imagine the color of the light changing slowly to each of
the colors of the rainbow: orange, red, yellow, purple, blue, and green
(not black or brown). Notice how each color feels to you and which one
makes you feel most protected. When you find the color that makes you
feel the safest and the most protected, keep that colored light glowing
around you. Know that this light will go with you to surround and
protect you in any difficult situation. As you open your eyes, continue
to imagine the shield of light still surrounding you. Any time you need
it, you can simply invoke this shield and it will appear around you for
your protection in emotionally or socially challenging situations. This
protection is primarily energetic, so it will not protect you
physically.
The Glass Body
This exercise is very helpful in situations when you are with another
person who is in the habit of dumping on you and who usually leaves you
feeling awful. (Even when someone has a reason to be mad at you, it
doesn't give him or her the right to dump negativity on you.)
his words fell
like rocks from his mouth
and clattered all around him.
even after
the avalanche had cleared,
I could feel them jostling
around
in my head
keeping me awake.
-KIRSTEN SAVITRI BERGH, TEEN POET
Do this exercise a few minutes before you are about to have a face-to-face with someone who puts you down.
Take a moment to ground. Remember to relax and breathe. Now
visualize an image of yourself standing before you. Picture yourself as
a clear glass body. Then bring that glass body over to you and surround
yourself with it. You are shape shifting, changing energetically into a
glass body. Now go to meet the negative person, knowing that all
through your interaction you will be present in a glass body. What this
means is that any negativity aimed at you will just pass through you.
Your energy body will follow Gandhi's example, not pushing against or
resisting the other person's words, but simply letting them pass
through you. You are neutral, unmoved by what is being said. Remember
to breathe when you are with this person.
After the person has left, take a moment to check in with
yourself. Are you feeling any negativity in your body or emotions? If
so, it means that a particular comment made by this other person
"stuck" to a belief inside you that the comment is true. When you are
in the glass body, all the other person's negativity just moves through
you and can only get stuck on a place in you that agrees to it. Your
glass body is like a clean window — all the light shines through it, only
getting stuck on any dust or dirt that may remain on the window.
So
when Joe says, You are worthless," if you don't believe this to be true
about yourself, his energy and comment will just past right through
your glass body. If you do already believe this about yourself, you
will feel his negative comment in your physical and energy body. This
is a signal that you need to examine this belief and begin to work
through why you believe it and what you can do about making it untrue
for you.
Tamara, a seventeen-year-old client, once asked, "How is it that I
can have a great day until just one person gives me a bad look or says
something nasty to me? Everything good that happened to me the rest of
the day gets trashed!"
This can be true for many of us — and there is one reason this
typically happens. You get brought down because that nasty look or
comment hooks up with a belief or perception you hold of yourself
that is dormant — not in your conscious awareness. If it didn't feel true
to you somehow, it wouldn't be likely to bother you. When you feel
brought down as a result of what someone has said to you, or how
someone has acted toward you, it is time to check in with yourself. Ask
yourself: What belief in me agrees with this person's negative take on me?
When you do identify a negative belief about yourself,
examine it with an open and relaxed mind. Is this belief based on
unfair and untrue criticisms that you have heard all your life? Or,
underneath the unnecessary harshness and negativity, is there a germ of
truth in it? If you determine that the belief is someone else's voice
that you have carried too long, now it is time to banish it from your
life. If you sense that there is some truth to this belief, you need to
decide how you want to handle it. You may decide that this aspect of
yourself is something you are ready to change. If so, you can begin to
make a realistic and positive plan for what you will need in order to
make that change. If, instead,
you recognize that this is a part of you that you cannot change, or are
not yet ready to change, you need to be kind to yourself and
acknowledge that you, like everyone else, are human and not perfect.
You still have every right to feel safe and good about yourself.
Five Differences
Another simple, in-the-moment strategy for protecting yourself in
a negative encounter with someone is to focus on identifying five
physical differences between you and the other person. Simply name
these five differences to yourself. "Jane has blue eyes and I have
green. She is taller than I am. I sing in the choir and she does not."
This helps you to be in your own space and to successfully
differentiate yourself from the other person. You are less likely to
take on her stuff, her negative energy, when you take control of your
thoughts this way. I find it gives me something else to "listen" to
instead of the criticism or the blaming that the other person may be
engaging in. It also helps keep your energy neutral because you are not
automatically reacting to the energy of what the other person is
communicating to you.
Clearing Out Negative Energy
Are there times when you feel you just can't shake a negative
feeling? Or, after being with a certain person, do you always feel
down? Often this occurs after someone has "attacked" you with negative
energy. He or she may not have said anything, but instead attacked you
nonverbally — just giving you that look and zapping you
energetically. Being more aware of the energy world will help you
realize when this has happened. Then, you can do something about it and
not carry this harmful energy around.
When energy is hurled at you, there will usually be some harm to
your energy body. Therefore, you will need to release that negative
energy. Crying, talking about it, and breathing are natural and
effective ways to release that energy, as are all the breathing
practices in this book. The following exercise can be especially
helpful to free yourself of the negative energy you take on from others.
Amethyst Rain Meditation
Give yourself about five to ten minutes for this exercise. Take a
moment to ground and sit comfortably but alert in a chair with your
feet on the floor. Take five deep breaths through the nose, holding for
a moment and then releasing through the mouth. On each exhale imagine
releasing the negativity from your body.
On the next inhale, while relaxing in the breath, visualize an
amethyst cloud above you. Watch this cloud shower amethyst raindrops on
you and right through you. Continue to breathe, taking nice deep
breaths through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Imagine every
cell, every molecule and atom being washed by this rain of amethyst . .
. the lavender water cleansing you and going down into the earth where
it can be recycled and reused. Stay with this image for as long as you
need to.
This
article was excerpted from:
 Teen Psychic
by Julie Tallard
Johnson.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bindu Books, a division of Inner
Traditions Intl. ©2003.
http://www.innertraditions.com
Info/Order this book.
More books by this author.
About the Author
JULIE
TALLARD JOHNSON is the author of The Thundering Years and I Ching for Teens. She
is a psychotherapist and mentor of teens and young adults. She lives in Spring
Green, Wisconsin. Visit her website at www.julietallardjohnson.com.
Other articles by this author.
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