One of the pitfalls of self growth is our tendency to take on other people’s energy and projections. We may shield ourselves against negative energy, but often at the same time we welcome other people’s thoughts and beliefs into our minds and offer them the most comfortable chair.

When we take on the thoughts and feelings of others, it is usually not a conscious choice. We think we are being independent, yet modify our goals to please Mom or Hubby. Here’s an example. I do intuitive and energy work to help clients find and change energy patterns that hold them back. My family is full of skeptics who are not familiar with the copious research that supports what I do. They think it is silly. For a time, I hid the nature of my work from them.

At the same time, I frequently managed to accidentally sabotage my marketing pieces, hide my ads, and generally keep most clients from finding me. I made my work so occult that nobody could see it! My family never intended to affect my work negatively (I don’t think,) nor did I intend to let them interfere. But I did care about them and what they think, so I found ways to unconsciously conform.

There is plenty of scientific research that shows that we are all continually picking up other people’s thoughts and feelings out of the ethers, and usually at a subliminal level. Because most of us have been taught that psychic phenomena are imaginary or at least very rare, we tend to accept the thoughts we pick up as our own. Since many of us are also trained to ignore or distrust feelings, we tend to overlook the sensory cues that help us recognize which mental and emotional images do not really belong to us.

Other people’s energy can affect yours in many ways and your field may contain stuff that doesn’t belong to you. This sounds scary, but you need not make a frantic scramble for the white light. This is normal, like having microorganisms on your hands. Sometimes it may seem that you have no control over foreign thoughts, as you know if you have ever lain awake hearing a commercial jingle over and over again in your mind. But usually if you have someone else’s thoughts or feelings in your energy it is because you resonate with them; you buy into them or agree with them in some way.

Projections from other people may not serve you well. It is quite common for parents, spouses, bosses or other authorities to energetically communicate to you just how you should behave. Your husband may believe you should be the perfect wife who comes home from an executive job, hands over a huge paycheck, then cooks dinner with one hand and vacuums with the other while checking the kids’ homework. You will pick up on this expectation without a word from him. If you do not buy into his view, you will simply dismiss it. But if some part of you agrees that you should be a wifely paragon, you will put this mental and emotional image up on your mental mantle piece and compare yourself to it on a regular basis.

While this foreign stuff can be problematic, it also invites you to heal your own energy issues that resonate with it. What can you do about foreign energies? Usually it does not even occur to us to look for them. Here’s how to become aware of unconscious stuff. Check in with your body for messages from time to time. Do you feel good? Do you feel bad? Do you feel neutral?
When you notice a feeling that doesn’t easily make sense, see what thought provoked it. Then ask yourself, “Is this my thought? Do I agree with this thought?” If you always feel a little depressed after visiting Uncle Harry, is it because he’s ill, or is it because he subtly insults you, condescends to you, or says things to worry you? What unhelpful beliefs of yours are being engaged?

Often, if you become fully present, and check in with how your body feels, you can identify uncomfortable mental and emotional images and tell if they belong to someone else. If the thought is not useful, see if you can release it, breathe it out of your space, or put it in a helium balloon and let it drift away. Thoughts are just energy, so the energy can be transmuted to something else. Notice whose thoughts you pick up and what their messages are. The will give you valuable insights for self growth.

Author's Bio: 

Ruth Wilson Zamierowski practices Intuitive Energy Coaching and Healing. She uses intuition as well as language and physical cues to identify the energetic patterns that affect clients. She then teaches them to heal and manage their energy to that support greater health and success.

Ruth has studied various forms of energy healing, NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), and therapeutic bodywork. She is currently taking classes through the Academy of Clairvoyance and Consciousness.

Her website is www.ClearPathToAbundance.com and her blog is www.change-your-energy.blogspot.com