Whose energy is this?

I’m writing this from Kauaʻi, where a hurricane just came through and I still don’t have power in my house.

I’ve been through a few Category 4 and 5 storms in Texas, so I knew roughly what to expect. This one was mostly high winds. There was a lot of damage to trees, and some people on the south side lost a lot. But as a whole, the island escaped something that could have been much worse. For most of us, the biggest challenge has been living without water and electricity for a while.

The day after the storm, I woke up with body aches and a pounding headache. I rarely get sick, and when I do, my mind usually stays clear. This time I felt heavy and couldn’t focus. All I wanted was to go inward.

01Picking Up What Isn’t Yours

A couple of weeks before the storm hit, I ran into a friend from the gym. He’s a sweet guy, and he was really anxious about the hurricane coming. Within a few minutes I could feel his fear in my own body. I started getting anxious too.

There’s a scientific name for how our nervous systems pick up on each other, and science is finally catching up to something a lot of us in these communities have been talking about for years.

That matters. When you sense something you can’t explain, it’s easy to dismiss it because nobody around you has the words for it. But the truth lives in your body and your own experience. Just because someone can’t explain it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

Here’s what I noticed in that moment. As my empathy has grown over the years, my tuning fork has gotten more precise. I pick up on more. You probably do too.

So when I felt his fear, my first thought was, “Good to know. This isn’t mine.”

02Rising to Meet the Field

The next step matters just as much. I didn’t decide something was wrong with him and try to get away from him as fast as I could. I came back into my own center, and from there I chose to meet him at a higher frequency.

I asked him a couple of questions about what he was afraid of. And as I stayed steady, he started to calm down.

If other people’s energy affects us, then ours affects them too. In spiritual communities we talk a lot about what we’re picking up from the collective. I’d love for us to also ask what we’re putting out, and which good things we’re choosing to amplify.

When it comes to your partner, your kids, and the people you work with, notice what you do. Do you shrink to meet the energy in the room, or do you rise and invite it up with you?

03The Island Showed Me Both

After a few days of feeling off, I went to the ocean and let those negative ions do their thing. By Thursday, something had opened up. I felt grounded again, and I realized I’d been picking up on what the whole island was going through.

There was a lot of fear. People were cleaning out the grocery stores because nobody knew when power would come back. For most of us, losing electricity for a few days is survivable, and I say that with a lot of respect for people who need power for medical care or have small kids to feed. But fear was running the show.

There was also so much goodness. I had palm trees down across my driveway and no idea how I was going to get out. Three hours later, a guy I didn’t know showed up with a forklift and asked if he could move them for me.

That’s how it works here. People show up for their neighbors and the elders and the kids. If one person is suffering, everybody’s suffering, so everybody asks how they can help. When you’re caught in a loop of “what do I do, what do I do,” serving someone else is one of the best ways out.

With the weather getting more extreme everywhere, I think knowing how to regulate ourselves and then co-regulate with each other is going to be one of the most valuable skills we have.

04Reaction or Alignment

With the power out, I couldn’t respond to messages the way I normally do. And a few people were pulling on me for answers. One of them is a well-known speaker I love dearly, and she needed a reply right away. I had to be honest with myself. That reply could wait two or three more weeks, and it’d be fine.

A lot of us, especially in business, want to answer everyone immediately. We want people to feel taken care of, and it feels good to clear things off our plate. But the stillness showed me how much of that comes from reaction instead of alignment.

When I slow down, I have more of me. And when I have more of me, I can give from a real place. I get clearer on what’s for me and what isn’t. When something isn’t for me, I can bless it and let it go.

Someone not responding right away doesn’t mean they don’t care. The timing just may not be ripe yet. We can learn to respect each other’s rhythms.

05Am I Being a Vampire?

Here’s one I’ll laugh at myself about. Am I reaching out to my daughter in a vampiric way? Sometimes I catch myself reaching out to her because I need her to show up for me in a certain way. I’m pulling her toward me to soothe something in myself that doesn’t actually need her to soothe it.

“Vampiric” is a strong word, and I’m using it on purpose because you know that feeling. So I pause. I wait five minutes, or thirty, and see if the urge is still there. If it is, great, I call.

And to be clear, we’re allowed to have needs. Waking up doesn’t make any of us immune to getting dysregulated. It’s a gift when someone else can help us feel connected in a moment we can’t get there on our own.

I’ve also noticed my telepathy getting stronger. I’ll think about someone I haven’t talked to in two years, and the next day they call. I believe the heart is what makes that happen. The mind can steer, but the heart has to agree.

06When Time Slows Down

A lot of people are telling me time feels strange lately, like a day suddenly stretches out.

When you get more present, time can slow down. We’re so used to filling every minute with the next thing that extra space can feel uncomfortable. We get bored, or feelings we’ve been outrunning finally catch up. So there’s a pull to speed back up.

Try staying in it. Ask yourself, “If I’m not who I was yesterday, and I have all this space, what do I want to create?” You don’t need a specific answer. Maybe you want more play. Maybe you want more awe. Let divinity show you.

If I could have thirty extra seconds with my mom and dad, who’ve both passed, what a gift that would be. Extra time is a privilege. Don’t rush to fill it.

07Find a Better Word

We say “for lack of a better word” all the time. So find a better word. Spirit, energy, the divine: we repeat these because we learned them from other people. They’re useful, and they do spark something in us. But underneath them is an intimacy that’s yours alone.

What does your spirit actually feel like to you? How do you experience it?

Here’s what I keep coming back to. The spiritual path leads me back to myself. The angels, the guides, the divine that I’ve been seeking outside of me are alive in me all the time. When the field opens and everything lines up, yes, spirit is doing that. And so am I.

08Stop Denying Your Experiences

You’ve had experiences you can’t put into words. Visions, deep grief, joy that took you somewhere else before you landed back in your body. When you tried to explain them, the words didn’t fit.

That doesn’t cancel what happened. Nobody can fully explain birth either. Science can take it a long way, but at some point it needs one miracle to start from.

There’s no need to explain your experiences to anyone who isn’t open to them. But it’s time to stop denying them just because you can’t explain them.

09Bring Your Mess

None of us has it together all the time, and we’re all going to be messy sometimes. That’s okay. Bring what’s real.

And while you’re at it, bring your desires too. Your sensuality and your sexuality. Your appreciation for money and what it makes possible. Your wish to have more friends and more fun, or to be seen and loved.

For a long time a lot of us set those things aside because they didn’t seem spiritual enough. Money isn’t important. Desire should come with some shame. Better keep working on my limiting beliefs before I let myself have fun.

I say let’s start living. We weren’t given access to other realms so we could escape this one. We’re here to experience all of it in a human body, with senses we don’t get anywhere else. It’s a privilege to be here.

When you let yourself live fully, you become proof for someone else that there’s more available than the suffering they know. You’re the doorway. That’s what it looks like to turn insight into lived wisdom.