Feeling Off-Kilter

And the process of recalibrating energetically

I woke up feeling off-kilter today. As there was no obvious reason, I put on my detective hat and went investigating. I’m outlining the process here in case it’s helpful for anyone.

Working in the energetic realm is very different than what we usually see displayed in our society. Over 20+ years of doing healing work, both professional and personal, I’ve learned how to troubleshoot the usual suspects. I look for the leaks, the clogs, the blocks, the deficiencies and invite the flow of life-force.

First, an inventory.

Body? Agitated. Experience teaches me that this is an effect of my overly sensitive fight or flight reflex. Further exploration reveals that no, I am not actually in any danger. It’s likely that I’m responding to an interaction with a neighbor through a filter of overprotective defense mechanisms developed in childhood that have yet to catch up with my current status as an independent, empowered adult.

Mind? Also agitated. Likely a result of the nervous system.

Spirit? Dull. Hmmm… I realize I’ve mostly been indoors for the past two weeks, hermetically sealed in with the AC. I’ve been going to the gym to exercise, but I haven’t been outside much. This is a recipe for accumulated energetic gunk plus a deficiency of life-force energy that I would normally have absorbed in nature.

Emotions? A tornado. Or to quote a country song I once heard, a drunk tornado. All over the place and very disruptive.

First things first. I know I can’t do anything meaningful until I soothe my nervous system. Otherwise I’m just spinning in circles. A few minutes of deep breathing and bouncing on the rebounder and voilà! I’m calm once again and that on-edge feeling and the agitation in my mind are greatly diminished.

Next, because it’s my day off and the weather is no longer suffocating, I head out to the woods for some tree medicine. Oh, how I missed this! The gym has its purpose, and I really do enjoy the elliptical machine and temperature control, but the aesthetic is not a good match for me. I make a note to be more aware of my energetic hygiene in that atmosphere and find more balance of indoor/outdoor time.

Ok, now that I can think clearly and my life-force is topped up, I can investigate what’s happening with my off-kilter emotions.

First, I turn to the clues. I’ve had three separate water-related issues in my apartment over the past week. Individually I wouldn’t interpret them as meaningful, but two leaks and a clog in close succession catch my attention. Water is often related to emotions, which confirms that this is an area that needs my attention.

I review the day’s astrology, particularly as it relates to my natal chart. I’m not going to get into the specifics, but there are many fingers pointing to the moon, which to me often symbolizes emotions. It’s really helpful to be aware of the cosmic forces that are exposing particular strengths, wounds or weaknesses so we can ride with the current rather than struggling against it.

Finally, I pick a tarot card to see if I’m overlooking anything. Would you believe that I pick… The Moon? I had to chuckle, surprised but not surprised, to find confirmation that I’m looking in the right direction. While this is a complex card with many interpretations, my inner GPS says to take it at face value today.

Time to address the root: unexpressed emotions wanting some air time.

I have a different approach to working with the emotions than I did in the past. For 30 years I avoided, numbed and suppressed them because I simply didn’t have the resources to face that tornado.

Then I spent 20 years trying to fix and heal them. If I felt sad, I Reiki’d the sadness, counted my blessings and invited in the antidote- joy.

But I was missing a step in that recipe, as much of an improvement as it was on the previous strategy. I was approaching my feelings with an attitude of rejection: there’s something wrong here, I don’t want you, please go away, preferably quietly and without a fuss.

Something happened a few years ago that seemed to coincide with the onset of perimenopause. My capacity to sit with the uncomfortable feelings deepened and I experienced first-hand the wisdom of meeting my emotions with compassion and allowing them to flow. I harvested the life-force energy that was freed from this simple practice and fed it back into my healing practices and reaped tremendous rewards.

I learned how to give big emotions more space. I realized that feelings that seemed overpowering when stored in my belly were much more manageable when I zoomed out and imagined myself in a field under the open sky. I imagined a dragon emerging from my body flying amongst the stars, breathing fire and letting all the pent-up energy out rather than trying to store it in my gut.

All the breadcrumbs were pointing me to such a practice today.

I put on some music. I’m a fan of the Pandora radio app and will often open it up and see what songs emerge. I set a timer for 15 minutes, creating a container with definitive edges so I didn’t get lost in the tornado.

Then I dropped into my body and noticed what I was feeling. There was a heaviness in my heart and a contraction in my solar plexus. I leaned into that. I noticed my breath was shallow and I sucked in a big inhale. I let it out on a bigger exhale and felt my body soften.

I noticed, breathed and followed, allowing my body to move and sounds (mostly of the moaning and groaning variety) to emerge. I visualized being on top of a mountain with the vast sky above and immense spaciousness all around.

When the timer went off, I reevaluated and found that I was back on-kilter. (? Is that even a thing?) Just from a short period of time spent paying attention to my inner landscape and allowing feelings to be felt, I had returned to a sense of harmony.

I think this approach is especially effective because it utilizes nature’s energy. I stopped the leaks by regulating the nervous system, cleared out the gunk and filled up on life-force in the woods, and moved the stuck emotions. All of this opened up the organic flow of life-force within me, helping my entire system to return to balance.

This is exactly what I mean when I use the word “holistic”- addressing all the different aspects of ourselves, and doing so with kindness and awareness. It’s quite different than what we find in our medical system or western over-culture. It might seem like a complicated process, and maybe it is at first. Over time, it becomes a simple flowchart that yields tremendous benefits.

Afterwards, I felt alive and energized, calm and relaxed, joyful and at ease. In the past, it would have taken me days, maybe even weeks, to get back to equanimity. That’s the reason I do this work- not because I necessarily enjoy going through these stages of recalibration, but because I don’t need to fight against my biology or my psyche day in and day out. I bring all the pieces together and invite them to work as a team for the greater good.

Already I can feel a full moon practice along these lines bubbling up to the surface. I imagine I’ll be recording something in the next few days to share here. At least, that’s how the current trajectory looks, but I’m not really in charge of these things! I’m just following the breadcrumbs.

So now I’m curious. How do you work with feelings of being off-kilter? Did I forget any steps? This process is so ingrained that much of it happens on an unconscious level and I sometimes skip over part of the process when I’m trying to explain something that’s so very internal it often defies language.

I’d love to hear what you think! And if you found this helpful, please do tap the heart button and help others to find their way to the world of holistic and energetic healing.

Photo by S. Tsuchiya on Unsplash