Today we ask that you look at the ways you feed unhealthy energy, in your life.
Energy is a very simple thing. It is all a matter of fuel.
If you wish to light a fire, or drive a car, or jog a mile, fuel is required. Wood, gasoline, food — fuel converts to energy.
Most people don’t understand this, but attention is a form of fuel.
This is obvious with small children. When you pay attention to a child, your attention fuels whatever the child is doing in that moment. Sometimes this can be unhealthy, as when the child discovers that tantrums are a way to get attention. Wise parents learn that the best way to stop the pattern of the tantrum-ing toddler is to cut off the flow of parental attention.
So you can see that attention is a very potent form of fuel.
This is especially true on the subtle, energetic level. In ways that you cannot directly perceive, your attention fuels your life experiences — both positive, and negative.
Say, for example, that some person’s behavior is really upsetting you. You may know this person, or it may be someone you don’t know, like a politician.
By obsessing over this person’s behavior, by giving it your attention and directing your heated emotions toward it, you are unwittingly fueling this person. You are unwittingly feeding energy to the very thing you do not like.
The most intelligent action you can take, when it comes to unhealthy energy patterns, is to withdraw your attention from them.
This may sound irresponsible — like you are “ignoring the problem.” How will problems go away, if you do not pay attention to them, and fight them?
As counterintuitive as it may sound, rest assured that giving your attention to unhealthy energy patterns only feeds the disruptive pattern.
Obnoxious people and political pundits thrive on attention. If people ignored them, they would have no power.
Think of withdrawing your attention from an unhealthy person as a kind of “boycott,” or “economic sanction.”
Historically, a way to undermine a destructive regime or corporation is by denying them economic energy, through a boycott or sanction. It is a highly effective tactic.
Do the same with the destructive people in your life — whether you deal with them directly, or not.
Stop giving them your attention. Institute an “Attention Boycott.”
That does not mean you “ignore the problem,” or stop interacting with them.
It just means that you spend no more than an absolute minimum amount of time thinking about these people, especially when you are not engaged in direct action in terms of dealing with them.
You do not obsess over them. You do not spend time reading about what they’re up to online. You do not gossip about them with your friends. You do not talk about how horrible they are.
You spend the minimum amount of time necessary to effectively deal with them. And then you move on. You spend the rest of your life creating the beautiful reality that you wish to live in.
This is deep magic. If you starve unhealthy energy of attention, it will eventually go away.
Try it. Try an “Attention Boycott” with destructive energies. Refuse to feed that energy, beyond the absolute minimum required to take effective action. Institute an energetic sanction against unhealthy energy in your life.
One thing you will notice right away, is a huge amount of resistance. Like tantrum-ing toddlers, when you first choose to ignore a destructive energy, it will usually scream much louder. But if you hold strong, eventually it will quiet down.
Use your energy wisely. Do not feed the things that you do not like with your attention. Use your attention to create good things.
If you follow this, it will transform your existence.
wordfromthewell 