The Game Of Life: Play Energetic Offense

Does it ever feel like life just happens to you, and you have no ownership or influence over it all? The game of life is all about energetics. Once you see it that way, there’s suddenly an easy way to flow through life with clarity, power, and discernment. Instead of reacting to what shows up in life, you can get back into the driver’s seat. That sense of co-creation allows us to stop defending against the bad stuff that might happen, and instead create more of exactly what we want out of life.

It starts with looking at what you are energetically investing in.

protecting, defending, and playing small to stay safe.

We get injured in the game of life. We’re supposed to- it’s how we learn, grow, and evolve. But it can seem like it’s smarter to stop exposing ourselves to the potential for hurt by hiding, protecting, and locking down. But in the long-run that self-protection also locks us away from a fuller experience of life.

People often assume that I must end every day exhausted and drained after working with my clients’ energies all day long. Actually, the opposite is true. I always feel amazing by the end of every session, even if I begin feeling a little tired. Some practitioners use various tools and techniques to protect themselves in an effort to stay grounded in their own energy, so I get asked often about how I defend myself against unwanted energies from other people. Here's the thing: I intentionally DO NOT prepare defensively for my work. Here's why.

If I defend against my client’s (we assume negative) energies, I also prevent myself from being exposed to ALL my client’s energies. Which means I also stop learning from, and being affected positively by my clients. There’s a certain stop to the energetic flow between us that happens, because the underlying message I’m energetically sending is that I’m afraid of their energy and fear for my ability to hold my own in the presence of theirs.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Defensiveness requires something to defend against.

When you engage in defensive behaviors, you feed into the energetic foundation for conflict. You’re literally preparing for a battle by expecting it and participating in it. There are many possibilities and potentials in life. Which we choose to attend to, and the way we participate energetically, is what matters. Defensiveness says, “I 100% believe this energy/person/circumstance IS GOING to hurt me so I need to ____.” Where you choose to energetically invest your belief, intention, and effort is significant, because energy attracts and magnifies more of what you create.

When you instead focus on strengthening your inner resources, it’s like saying, “Sure, negative energies are out there, but rather than planning for them to hurt me, I can expect that my energetic boundaries will do the job they’re meant to.” Instead, you can relax and put your efforts into other things, the same way you’d relax and put your focus elsewhere if you had a security alarm system protecting your home. You’d stop looking out the window constantly or guarding the front door, and instead direct your attention to your family. You’d invest energetically in a very different possibility.

There’s no need for tools or techniques to help a situation that doesn't need helping. No fear, anxiety, or constant “patrolling the border” necessary. I don’t buy into the idea that my clients’ energies will negatively affect me. So I don’t defend against that possibility- and it never happens.

Remove your armor with intention.

On the other hand, pretending that conflict doesn’t exist isn’t the same thing. That’s just denial and passivity. There is such a thing as negative energies and I absolutely believe that evil exists. But I also believe that I am inherently protected from those things if I choose to be. I’ve intentionally done the work to naturally exude appropriate boundaries and a solid authenticity- and that’s far more “protective” than whatever defensive strategy I could obsessively engage in. In other words, my strong offense negates the need to constantly engage in defensive tactics- not because I’m hiding from reality, but because I’m intentionally co-creating a better one. Preparing for a battle I don’t need or want to participate in is not the reality I want to invest in. I choose to invest in myself instead.

Ask yourself: is there somewhere you're holding defensiveness that's actually creating or continuing the potential for conflict? Where can you instead invest in growing yourself?

Defensiveness Doesn’t Create Safety

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re worried about personal boundaries with people who might take advantage of you. You’re afraid of your trust being betrayed, of unwittingly becoming part of an imbalanced relationship. This is a legitimate fear. Those things are possibilities, after all. But it’s what you do with your fear that matters most.

You can focus all day long on trying keep safe from people who might hurt you {by definition, that would be anyone and everyone}. But until you heal your own boundaries and become solid in who you are, you’re wasting a lot of effort that keeps you fearfully focused on everyone else instead of on your own growth. It’s your fear of being hurt that spurs your desire to protect yourself. It seems like you should arrive at a point where you feel safe because of all your defensive preparations, doesn’t it? Avoiding people, staying only in superficial relationships, never allowing real intimacy- hey that would keep you from being hurt, right? But in reality, your underlying fear never really goes away no matter how much you defend against it.  In fact, it’s perpetuated, keeping you invested in looking for ways to expect being hurt so you can respond by building stronger, taller walls around yourself.

Distracting yourself with figuring all the ways you might protect against what *might* show up {but isn’t actually in the present moment} means you’re not doing the work to heal YOURSELF. You’re externally focused, not internally directed. Investing in a band-aid to find a way to control your fear seems proactive, but keeps you from doing the deep work to heal yourself and find internal strength. And guess what? Engaging with worry about the future instead of finding strength in the present moment is the very definition of anxiety.

be open to possibility- all of it.

Energetically speaking, when you defend against what could happen, or are only open to a narrow bandwidth of possibility that seems palatable to you, you energetically block yourself not just from the thing you don’t want, but also against any other possibility. Even the “good” stuff. Being defensive affects the flow of all energies. If you’re only open to a certain kind of job at a certain kind of firm with a certain kind of compensation plan, you might just be closing yourself off to something truly amazing you haven’t even remotely considered for yourself. Something that might be the game-changer of a lifetime. What a shame, right?!

Staying open to all energy, to all possibility, and trusting in your inherent strength rather than building walls allows you more access to what you do want. And even better- keeps you open to the possibility of something even better than you’ve ever dreamed of arriving. Defensiveness, fearful expectations and constant control over what can flow into your life is like building a prison- sure you’re safe from the scary stuff you’re hiding from, but you’re also locked away from everything else too.

Work with your energetics.

Shore up your energetic boundaries, address your fears and defense mechanisms, and heal your past wounds. The energy formerly wasted on being hyper-vigilant and over-protective (often subconsciously!) can then be redirected into your personal growth and evolution. And watch as anxiety, a general sense of being on edge, and constant stress no longer have a foundation in your life. The flow of the game of life changes, and you’re the game master.