Colleen Shipman felt uncomfortable as she stood at the baggage claim area at the Orlando, Florida airport.
She didn't know why.
After she took the shuttle bus to get her car to drive home, she may have had some inkling to this feeling, when a disheveled woman tried to flag down the same shuttle bus.
Then, when she got to her car, she certainly should have known: the disheveled woman appeared at her car window, asking for help.
When it all got sorted out, it turns out that the disheveled woman was in disguise.
She was Colleen's now husband's ex-lover.[Colleen & Bill Oefelein are pictured above, right]. The woman reportedly had driven all the way from Houston to Orlando to confront her about dating her man.
The ex-lover at the time was an astronaut with NASA in Houston. She was in space, just months earlier, sharing space time with Bill Oefelein, the man she loved and with whom was having an extramarital affair.
This blog is not about either woman. It is about knowing the ABCs of Energy. [For the rest of the story, about Colleen and Lisa, go to ABC News' 20/20. The story aired on Feb. 18, 2011.]
This ABC News'20/20 story coincidentally attracted my attention on the same day I'd seen Zach featured on Oprah.
He is a seven-year old who was in serious trouble because he had extreme eruptions in his behavior. So much so that his parents feared for their lives and the life of their daughter, his sister, when Zach was in their presence.
Oprah's story on Zach turned out to be fairly positive, because it seems that Zach now takes ownership of his outbursts by recognizing when he is in the presence of negativity and diffuses its influence on him..[Zach is pictured below with his loving parents.]
According to him, and his mother, Laurie, Zach's eruptions occurred because he could "read" the energy of the people around him. When, for example, Laurie was feeling less than patient or compassionate with him, he could "sense" her energy and responded with a major outburst.
Zach's behavior may have been extreme. But many of us also get this "feeling," when energy surrounds us, be it negative or positive energy.
So, we also react.
The problem is that we often don't tune in to recognize what our "inner" radar is sensing, like Colleen. We just get a very uncomfortable feeling around the person, place or thing.
Sometimes, we do more than sense...we're able to "feel" what the other person is putting out, and we react. Obviously, our outbursts are not at the level of Zach's. But we respond by shouting or screaming in response to anything this person does or says to us.
It's all about energy shifts and reading.
Sometimes, we're in people's presence, and we hate being there. Sometimes, we feel blessed.
But be sure of one thing, it is not your imagination. That restlessness is coming from the essence of your being.
We all have in common this shared energy. Whether you call it God, or your Soul, or "energy," it is very much alive within us.
It is a universal energy that makes us "connect" to each other on some level.
James Redfield, author of "Celestine Prophecy" and the recently released "Twelfth Insight," says, "...because we're all connected, we sense what others are feeling and thinking."
So, when we're in other people's presence, that inner core of our being is able to "read" what the other people are putting out.
Respect it. Learn it. Discern it.
I have often felt the energy of people when I've walked into a room. Sometimes, I've immediately wanted to run away. Most of the time, because of the circumstances, I've stayed and suffered.
Even when you're not in the presence of people, you can "feel" them.
Jealousy, envy, hate, anxiety et al are all nouns we've used to describe what we're feeling. It's time for you to learn to discern these ABCs of Energy.
Energy repels or attracts.
Begin to know when you're in the presence of someone who depletes or repletes your energy or simply leaves you scared.
You can "feel" people even via inanimate objects, such as the computer. There, you can "read" the energy of people's words, whether mal-intentioned or benign. Sometimes, people do things for you; based on the type of "energy" they put into doing it, you can discern whether they did so with good or bad "feelings."
"I know for sure" that I also get very uncomfortable when it seems someone's attention is too focused on me. In the past, I've known that people's continued focus on me, excluding family and close friends, has been to my detriment!
Pay attention.
"Feel" when someone is focused on you and do everything in your power to discern whether it is malignant or benign.
Keeping that "energy" in your space should be totally your choice, which is made from an informed awareness of knowing what this person is doing in your "space."
Truth is, we're always reading positive and negative energy. We can't help but be in the presence of both.
But we can choose to turn a blind eye to what we "sense" and "feel," or acknowledge the energy and be blessed.
Animals are very clear when they are in the presence of benign or malignant energy.
We have to learn how to more actively use this energy that animals instinctly use in their day-to-day process of survival on earth.
Let's not kid ourselves: at our base, we have the same instincts as animals!
We have those instincts for the same reason animals do: to discern danger or friendliness.
I'm not proposing that you now go get to an "energy reading," or any wisdom from anyone else! I'm simply talking about your paying attention to your feelings when certain energies are present or absent in your space.
Oprah Winfrey on the segment with Zach says that before she goes out each day, she surrounds herself in "white light" to protect herself. Zach says he does the same thing.
When she knows she's in the presence of negative energy, Oprah says she also covers herself in "white light."
"Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't," Oprah says.
The point is that at least she's aware: not everyone wishes her well, despite all she's done for the world.
For me, protection from negative energy comes through prayer and meditation, where I always use the "white light." Recently, too, I've added sage and sweetgrass to cleanse my surroundings whenever I feel negativity has surrounded me. This technique is something those in the spiritual world have learned from American Indians.
I know that everywhere I go, there is positive and negative energy around me. I also know that energy is very active. For example, about two days before I saw the programs highlighting Colleen Shipman and Zach, I'd already posted the topic for this blog. I did not know at the time, where the information source for my writing on the topic would come. Two days later both programs appeared on television on the same day. Was that an accident? No. It was the energy I'd released into the universe.
"There are no coincidences in life," James Redfield stated in Celestine Prophecy. Put out your question to the Universe, he suggested, and see what happens. Well, I did, and I saw how "energy" worked to bring me the information I needed to write this post.
Knowing what I know, I'd be remiss not to put on my "God" armor daily!
I urge you to begin to tune in to "the vibes" you're feeling in someone's "presence," whether in person, over the phone or via the Internet.
By tuning in and learning your ABCs of "energy," you can avoid many of life's surprises and unpleasantness.
Namaste',
Che'
