How To Cope When Reality Clobbers You Over the Head
A Spiritual Guide to Alchemizing Energy.
An Essay.
The past four months have been spent creating a new identity for myself. Well, really creating identity to make sense of myself in the world is an ongoing process as my journey continues. But this past four months has been like an accelerated chapter in the story of my life. A chapter that has revealed hope and empowerment in the way I navigate the waters.
In an attempt to find my spot, my role, in this part of my life’s story I turn to what has sustained me throughout the better part of my adult life without having to be on pharmaceuticals: earth-based spirituality.
The question is, “how do I cope with world events as a single person living alone in a way that delivers me into the purist energy I can create and promote into the space I inhabit?”
And the work becomes, as always, an investment in alchemizing energy: the energy of the collective, the energy of those in my story, the energy of my past, the energy of my ancestors, the energy of my heart, the energy of my own self.
In this essay, I speak from my spiritual self. I consider myself a pragmatic existentialist that uses earth-based spirituality to cope in a world that seems irrational and often acts in ways void of sense and meaning. I do have hope and I do have purpose, but I must find meaning in whatever lies before me. It’s just how I operate. I have come to understand that I think in metaphors, pictures, and diagrams. I also energetically feel my way through experience. I am equally linear as I am abstract, so putting things into words is often challenging for me. However, the challenge is one I enjoy if given the time to put it into writing as I am now.
Alchemy is a combined mind/body/spirit process by which one can use focused attention to intentionally and deliberately transform energy. Alchemizing highly static energies from without and transforming them into cleaner, more positive energies from within is what earth-based spirituality, to me, is all about. This process, for me, relieves anxiety and keeps me grounded. I can then move about those realities of life that clobber me over the head, as those things out of my control are bound to do, in a more deliberate way that allows me to express my own energy more authentically.
The deliberate recycling of the irrational energy to which humans are exposed is, for me, akin to the recycling of air that plants just naturally create through simply existing. When we can alchemize the static into something more calm, we find ourselves operating from a more evolved space with offerings that resonate more acutely within our immediate space and hopefully the world at large.
I need to alchemize the energies around me to maintain my own sanity. I have evolved this process as a deliberate part of my own healing for over 20 years. Sharing my practice perhaps will present as a gift to someone who struggles, as I did (and sometimes still do), to make sense of what is happening on an energetic level. Perhaps this essay will help someone gain purpose and meaning out of the chaos that is currently our country and possibly our world.
If you struggle with the overwhelming emotions and anxieties that are presenting themselves through current events and have not found a sustainable method for dealing with said energies, this essay might prove helpful. It is presented as an illustrative description of my experience during the past four months. Hopefully, it will be an interesting enough process for your consideration if you find yourself struggling in the same way with the energy of current events.
I personally call my spiritual practices “earth-based spirituality.” It may have other terms, but this is my own home-grown version of what has evolved from years of studying (and sometimes practicing) other religions along with a keen interest in psychology, sociology and self-development. I have come to believe through years of personal reflection, observation and experience that everything is energy and energy’s home is the universe. More specifically, humans’ energy is rooted in the earth. So, hence, earth-based spirituality is a description that fits in with the belief that everything on our human earth is based in energy.
In order to alchemize energy, we first need to know how to recognize different energies and make mindful resolve that we will use all encountered energies for the betterment of the whole and alchemize the so-called “negative” energies into something more “positive”. I use the words “negative” and “positive” in quotes because labels are far too often used in a one-dimensional way that energies cannot really be harnessed into. However, I do believe there are flavors of energy that are worth trying to label such as yin and yang, masculine and feminine, positive and negative so we can create context and meaning that is relevant to our human experience.
I am not a psychologist or physicist. These are simply my spiritual beliefs and how I use those beliefs to alchemize energy and manifest that energy into something psychically meaningful using my mind, body and spirit.
Energy is transformational by nature and if we discipline ourselves enough to engage easily with the energy of our emotions and the energy being revealed through our mental states of mind, we can learn how to alchemize energy to manifest an empowered path of confidence that is authentically ours. This in turn, engages and attracts others to do the same for themselves.
This is important as we navigate these chaotic times. We are being called to focus our attention on the greater good and the structure we create for ourselves towards that end involves for many of us, a spiritual foundation that gives us support, meaning and purpose as we navigate through the static and friction.
Here’s the story as I see it.
We’ve been clobbered.
Coping with the clobber of patriarchal energy we are witnessing in the current events of 2020 in the United States of America requires vigilance and focus beyond anything I’ve experienced in my 55 years.
While we dodge the bullets of a pandemic, overt racism, and a crumbling economy beneath the weight of an oppressive capitalist regime, the working class of the United States is being crushed beneath the heavy energies of death and trauma coupled with the chaotic energies of stress and anxiety.
It’s psychically overwhelming and what we are feeling is the energy of the collective consciousness. Such powerful energies cannot be contained. The energies present themselves no matter how hard the system tries to deny it or suppress it. And I would argue, the system actually produces it. We just respond to it.
When faced with the death, trauma, stress and anxiety we’ve all experienced in the past four months, it’s important for those of us that work with energy to pay attention to and document and give name to the energies that we see playing out in the national arena’s collective consciousness.
It’s the stuff of legends, stories and myths - all of which we can learn and evolve from.
The story as I tell it will begin with the Spring Equinox of 2020 and I will use my own set of personal circumstances to illustrate how nature and the seasons can be used in conjunction with alchemizing energy. There is no diagram or manual for all of this, so meandering becomes an essential activity through the illustrative language and descriptions.
As circumstances would have it, I was in the midst of coming through a very drawn-out personal and emotional journey of three years.
As Spring began, I consciously aligned myself with the not-yet-realized gifts of what Winter had grievously lamented for me to experience. After the shedding of Winter’s misery and sadness, Spring found me squeezing out of the cocoon feeling more confident and ready to begin a new life with intention.
I even made the intention to start dating again! It was like I was getting my footing back after a long three-year journey of breakup, loss, more loss and grief. Energetically, I had alchemized a shit-ton of grief and sadness and was feeling more in alignment with my true self than I had in the previous three years.
And then, on March 12, 2020, “Coronavirus,” appears in my journal for the first time. Within a week, the energy of the entire world would change and by default, so would I.
There are many notions “out there” that one can simply change one’s own mind and move on. For me, taking care of my own mind and energy is just one part of the whole. We still need to engage and interact in connection with the whole. So we also need to deal with the energy of those “out there.”
What I have come to understand is that I can better engage with the energy “out there” when I am strong in my own energy first. Then, little by little, I make my way through the story at my own pace (yes, I can control that if I really try and my own energy is empowered and clear) using the structure and foundation of my core values. By recognizing, developing and living by my core values, I am arming myself as a spiritual warrior navigating the energies of life.
By St. Patrick’s Day, I was glued to the tv, watching the news - something very out of character for me.
The story of COVID-19 began to take shape and it was clear to me that the energy behind the words was grave. This may have been the energy behind fear-based words, but the global economy closed down! That, for me, was evidence that COVID-19 was a real threat. Because...closing the economy? That. Just. Never. Happens. To me, that was just using plain logic more than anything else and was enough for me to take it seriously.
But, I’m not a scientist and I don’t know shit about shit when it comes to pandemics, so I decided on choosing the safest route that would serve the highest good - which meant committing to self-isolation. That was also just logic to me. If it all turns out to be a scam, I’ll deal with the energy of that at a later date.
And then just as we were collectively getting our heads wrapped around COVID-19 and how to quarantine, how to stay at home, how to deal with the virus in everyday living, how to deal with the death toll, how to deal with unemployment, how to deal with possible eviction, how to deal with the homelessness, how to deal with people hoarding supplies, how to deal with panic, on and on and on....BAM!
George Floyd gets murdered before our eyes.
The already-chaotic energy of panic had been compounded, at least in the U.S., by the energy of anger rightfully spewing out of a ticking time bomb that was just waiting to explode. Or implode depending on how you relate energetically in the world.
As a single woman living alone and who feels connected to life in an energetic way, it was overwhelming.
All this energy threw me headfirst back into where I had just come from: grief.
It threw me off my game. Like many others living alone, I started to panic. I had been dealing with grief, but the energetic levels of anxiety and panic that presented themselves within my physical body put my already dysfunctional auto-immune system into overdrive. I had to call in my therapist for additional support. I called her without hesitation because I knew my mental state of mind was fractured beyond my ability to address it on my own.
I could feel myself becoming very depressed due to the re-emergence of grief and the exhaustion of anxiety and mental stress. But, due to past experiences with depression, I willingly leaned into it. I knew that consciously diving into this murky energy was necessary as I worked through the initial energies of anxiety and panic I was taking in from the outside.
It proved to be a whole different experience of grief.
At about the time of Beltane (April 29 - the midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice), I was able to recognize some of the energies for what they were: an overextension of the masculine energy that permeates our patriarchal capitalist system. I was taking that energy in and now it was time to alchemize it into something that would work better for me and my path and not against me.
As Beltane is a time of creativity and discovering more self-worth, I created simple agreements for myself that would provide the foundation I needed physically to lead me out of my current anxiety, stress and grief and back into the empowerment of my spirit.
I vowed to make the time count.
I would willingly self-isolate. For me. For others. For my own spiritual growth.
I would willingly allow radical self-care into my days.
Radical self-care would come in the form of therapy, a guided spiritual journey by women who also understand what it means to alchemize energy and the letting go of what was not serving my immediate needs.
I would use the time wisely to gain wisdom, to acknowledge and learn from my mistakes, and to explore my psychological triggers as they arose through my own emerging emotional trauma and stress.
To allow myself deep rest (which I found was necessary due to the auto-immune response I was experiencing).
To pay careful attention to the energy while using therapy (to dive into a deeper subconscious) and alchemy (by using higher consciousness techniques)
These agreements have served as a structure to process the incoming negative energy.
The energy I have willingly allowed myself to receive without judgement and have immersed myself into has been very dark and has taken me (continues to take me) to depths I have not allowed myself in the past. But fearlessly and deliberately taking the energies of pain, sadness, trauma, anxiety and stress has allowed me to see new depths beyond what I was previously able to expose my psyche to. And I am discovering my new identity through the muck.
I am learning that disengaging from outside physical stimulus for long periods of time allows me to alchemize my own energy from within in a more profound way. It allows me to function as my highest self, which IS empowered and confident. The extended periods of time give me space to observe (along with my therapist) how the negative energy triggers me and causes me to react in ways I find no longer useful. Once I am able to understand the wound involved with the trigger, I can then go into a sort of psychic subconscious deep dive so I can forgive myself and others, which in turn depletes the energy from the trigger. I then can use higher consciousness techniques to alchemize that energy and integrate more empowered back into the whole.
The negative energies then turn into something not only positive, but meaningful. Alchemy helps me understand and integrate the energy from that highest self and show up as I want to show up in life when I do interact with others on social media or in person. But it takes patience and practice to do this in a mindful and deliberate way. It’s an act of great intention.
I then want to bring that new energy to the surface of my being and bring that forward into my life. I can’t talk myself into the actual new energy. For me, I first have to think and feel my way through the static energy and then think and feel my way into the actual energy I want to create until it becomes my own to share. By using this process to alchemize that initial negative energy of pain, fear, panic, anxiety and stress into a more positive, empowered and confident expression is the way I can really show up authentically. Without the process, there is no authenticity for me.
Showing up authentically through the spiritual process of alchemizing energies does not mean we don’t express the original energies. Quite the contrary. It means we MUST identify those energies for what they are (triggers of unresolved emotional and mental states from the past), express those energies as they appear (hopefully in more evolved ways) and allow that expression to integrate into the whole. Moving through these energies without fear means we are willing to be vulnerable enough to risk making mistakes...alchemy of energy requires mistakes.
This is a never-ending process that gets fine tuned over time. It’s not as linear as the language might make it appear. It’s organically a messy tangle of information constantly coming and going and presenting as emotion.
So we see and feel the patriarchal energy of our system rising in ways that are out of balance on the energetic masculine side.
If we look at it from a metaphorical or mythological-type perspective, we see this fiery energy (coincidentally?) of Sol/Summer being out of balance with way too much fire and heat - ready to set everything ablaze. And if it’s not contained with wisdom, we will all burn.
We see this energy play out when protests get aggressive, when our president gets aggressive, when our military gets aggressive, and when citizens get aggressive with one another.
It’s the Law of Attraction.
Aggressiveness breeds and builds more aggressiveness when engaged.
Law of Attraction is also:
Wisdom breeds and builds more wisdom.
When we recognize the imbalanced collective energy running amok, it’s our job as feminine energy healers to help rebalance that energy wherever we can in whatever ways we can. We use the weapons of integrity, confidence and self-empowerment to tame negative and hateful energies.
We call upon our own unique gifts and start where we are. We offer our gifts, however insignificant they might seem. We are not blinded by any notions that we can single-handedly change the world at large, although we can certainly change our own little world in a more immediate way.
Energy work helps us understand we are not to be misguided by media or politics. We know these are social structures used to maintain the oppressive capitalist regime that is manifesting itself as the pain, trauma, death, anxiety and stress we, as human beings, are actually fighting against. We may use those channels to speak our own truth and add our energy to the collective consciousness, but we do so with discernment knowing that the channels are really quite elusive. A narcissistic fascist doesn’t care what’s on a piece of paper that goes by the label of “Constitution” and any politician can make up a story knowing it will find itself as truth in one or another channel of media depending on which media source his or her corporate sponsors own.
The system is like a machine (run by the wealthy, by corporations and by their loyal politicians) that produces this energy that we can’t see. Because we can’t clearly see the machine or the oppressive energy it produces, it becomes easy to claim it doesn’t exist. We blame others for the energy we feel from the pressure of the system when it’s failing all of us because it’s easier to blame someone we can see rather than to blame a system we can’t see. But I believe we all feel it energetically whether we know it or not.
When practicing earth-based spirituality to more effectively engage with the outside world, we commit to engaging in and cleaning up our own energy first. This means we don’t exclude ourselves from the realities of our days, but we engage in life and all its energies to the extent that we can do it authentically and with wisdom and integrity. We do it so we can recognize when our own internal energies are out of balance.
When we feel our energy being pulled out of balance from the true center of what we want to project, it means we are allowing ourselves to engage within the energy that we ultimately realize does not sustain us or serve us as human beings and does not sustain our Mother Earth.
It may take practice and time, but when we instead recognize that energy for what it is and consciously commit to alchemizing that energy, we pay attention to that and retreat into our empowered core of love and peace for the nourishment we have built to sustain ourselves through times like this. Times when we are being clobbered over the head with the realities of our country, of our world.
Rene Nitz
Certified Professional Coach
