Hurting Others with Energy: Part 1
by Penney Peirce
You may have noticed that the vibration of our planet and body has been steadily increasing. This causes us to become more ultrasensitive and empathic. We feel more. We’re learning to live by and use “frequency principles” — the way energy and awareness actually work — and we are penetrating into the reality of the Golden Rule. We are realizing why it is the core truth in every religion, and are discovering more subtle ways we hurt each other — and ourselves at the same time — with energy. Today, because we can feel the more nuanced repercussions of negative thought and behavior, what used to be glossed over as “nothing much” is now being understood to be as detrimental as the seven deadly sins.
Abusive Behavior
I recently encountered several situations where people were trying to understand and recover from the hurt caused by their intelligent, spiritually aware partners. Their partners had been abused and abandoned in childhood, and periodically, like clockwork, would erupt in cycles of rage and passive-aggressive behavior, so different from their “other” personality. There was an odd double standard they would not admit to: they crave, solicit, and even demand unconditional love and support, but don’t mind abusing and wounding the ones who actually do love and support them — the moment their hyper-vigilant imagination makes them feel they might possibly be abandoned or hurt again.
During the acting out episodes, they say cruel things, throw objects, destroy property, and impulsively try to ruin their relationship by blaming the other person for the very things they themselves are doing. Sometimes they become physically violent. They ignore the reality of shock and fear they create and cannot see how they are becoming the abusers they hate, and how they are actually re-abusing themselves in the process. They don’t want to see this because it would mean taking responsibility for their actions and having to face a painful (though false) idea of who they think they are.
When close to feeling their childhood wound, they often walk or storm out of the room or house with no communication about where they’re going or when they might return, leaving the other person in the swirling emptiness to worry about their safety and the future of the relationship. The heart and all empathy is shut down; there is no capacity to feel the other’s pain — or goodness. There is, however, a will to deflect one’s own pain, a will to blame others, a will to wound.
I suppose, below the surface at some level of the crazy victim-mind, they are letting themselves off the hook because, “I was hurt, so I’m not responsible for what I do. I deserve to be mad. And I can make it all better later, or act like it never happened. Or, I can always leave and start another relationship.” But even without the existence of physical violence, they are allowing themselves to hurt others with negative, low-vibrational energy.
The Appalling Effect of Addiction
I used to watch, with morbid fascination, a reality television show that dealt with celebrity rehab from drug, alcohol, and sex addiction. It was interesting to watch the difference between the two states of awareness the addicts swung back and forth between. When they were high they isolated themselves, acted impulsively, and put down or destroyed anything relating to “normal” life, since it seemed below them. Whatever substance they relied on to cover their pain became the Authority and demanded attention and obedience.
When they detoxed and got clean, their sweetness shone through, they cared about others, and expressed themselves clearly and intelligently. Their talent emerged. Then the fear reality crept back in and the mind acted out in ways I described above: behaviors were marked by lying, whining, blaming, making excuses, avoiding truth, going into apathy and dissociative states, and becoming cruel and violent to distance others who they thought wanted to “judge” or “change” them. They routinely walked out on their group when they got upset, rather than stay and learn something about themselves. As I watched, I could discriminate times when the disease was talking vs. times when the soul was talking.
Most people are not addicts to the extent the television show people were, but many of us manage or medicate our early wounds similarly, in a variety of tricky ways. The behavior is the same: when faced with feeling that a painful pattern might be repeating, the mind pulls out every ingenious mode of distraction and avoidance. The mind becomes clever, the heart closes and hardens, a gap opens that causes dissociation, and it’s easy then to say any hurtful thing, or use energy to whack someone.
Addiction creates a dramatic pattern of behavior that allows people to justify hurting each other — by pretending they don’t see it happening or by pretending they don’t care. If we can recognize this blatant pattern, it’s easier to see the more subtle, everyday ways we wound others. It’s time we realize how we routinely allow others to get away with care-less-ness and flinging pain at others. It’s also time we understand how, by staying in the pain reality — by constantly dreading it, expecting it, deflecting it, and causing it — we continually re-abuse ourselves. It’s appalling, really.
Subtle Ways We Hurt Others with Energy
You may be wondering: Really, how does one injure someone with energy? We’re made of energy and all creation comes into existence and dissolves out of existence on waves of energy. Stop a wave, lower a frequency, interfere with someone’s destiny, or act in ignorance of universal principles, and we can temporarily distort and impede the wisdom and goodness of the Flow. Outright physical attacks and violence are an obvious way we hurt others, yet many people don’t consider harsh criticism, insults, and trash-talking to be a form of violence. They are.
Remember the last time someone insulted you or “put you down” (literally, reduced your vibration)? How easy was it to get out of that dented, contracted state? To handle the meanness, you probably either had to close your heart, go away and cry, get involved in an intense activity, throw more meanness back in the perpetrator’s face, or resort to an addictive behavior to dull the pain.
There have been so many reality television shows that feature catty girls and women calling each other whores and bitches, or where there is ceaseless gossip and nastiness behind each other’s backs. Or, the host or hostess proclaims, “You’re OUT!” How awful can we make someone look and feel? Why was this huge behavior trend put squarely in our face? Are we trying to see through it? Perhaps there is a vicarious thrill in watching someone else hurt others and be hurt by others — as long as it’s not me, right? But how much fun IS it — really?
My experience is that repeating these insane, pain-based cycles of feeling wounded, then wounding others to avoid feeling our own wounds, doesn’t get us anywhere, except locked into a never-ending, wound-generating, and wound-feeding reality that is a living hell-realm. There is no end, no way out, as long as we perpetuate the punishment reaction, either by punishing and blaming ourselves, or others.
Besides saying and doing mean things, it’s also possible to hurt others by stonewalling or shutting down while they’re sharing themselves. I have often experienced people slamming the energy door shut in my face when what I’m saying hits too close to home concerning one of their personal issues. In these situations, I had not been preaching or trying to change them, but they made me feel like I’d done something wrong. So, too, when friends text or take calls on their cellphones during a lunch date, or while we’re having a conversation, the rudeness is a subtle meanness, a way of hurting by withholding attention and energy. Are we supposed to get used to this callousness?
And what about the plague of people who are habitually late for appointments and either laugh it off or have a plethora of excuses when they arrive? And the ones who reschedule appointments multiple times because something else more important than you came up at the last minute? Or people who don’t return phone calls? Just a normal part of life? Or are these also ways we hurt each other with energy, and don’t practice the Golden Rule? There are thousands of seemingly innocuous ways each day that people convey to others that, “I’m important, and you’re not.” This is hurting others with energy.
In Part 2 of this article, I’ll examine ways to free yourself from these subtle forms of unkindness.
www.penneypeirce.com