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The energy in the back of everything
We can learn to work with this formless intelligence of life.
I cautiously held the wire in my gloved hand and used my pliers to strip the plastic back about half an inch in order to expose the three wires. I gently pulled the electrical socket out of the wall and carefully wrapped the white wire around the positive screw, the black wire around the negative screw, and grounded the neutral wire around the grounding screw.
I set my pliers down and picked up the screwdriver to tighten the screw over the wires. My fingers accidentally brushed against the tip of the hot wire. "Ouch!" A pulse of electricity shot up through my hand and zinged my elbow, sending the screwdriver clattering to the ground. I cursed my clumsiness.
It was the summer before my senior year in college and I was working as an electrician's apprentice in a wealthy suburban Philadelphia neighborhood. My boss, the electrician, was a gruff man who chain smoked tobacco from a pipe, drove a 1950s Willys jeep, and muttered one word replies to his customers. He was a friend of my aunt's who hired women for their "small hands", ability to fit into attic crawl spaces to run wires, and their ease and charm with customers.
Before this summer job, I knew absolutely nothing about electricity. Because I knew so little, I had no fear. I got shocked more times than I can count that summer. Now, twenty years later, I steer clear of anything that could potentially shock me again. I learned a great deal about energy that summer. That even though it's invisible, it definitely exists.
There is an energy in the back of everything.
As much as I can tell, there seems to be some sort of energetic intelligence that runs the show that we call life. We may have different words for it, but most of us can comfortably say that there is "something" that makes flower buds bloom into blossoms, acorns always grow into oak trees, and babies transform into teenagers with facial hair. The seasons turn, the sun rises and sets, and rainbows appear like magic in the sky.
We are a part of that same intelligence that somehow moves through us, in us, from us, and beyond us. The same stuff that animates us, also gives life to the spider crawling up my shower wall, my inexhaustible Australian shepherd, and the small cactus sitting in my windowsill. They are all different forms of the same formless energy.
Denying this energetic intelligence is denying a true part of ourselves. It's kind of like saying, "we are going outside to be in nature". We are nature. We can’t get away from it.
Most of us, (myself included!) have no idea how the energy behind life works. However, there is an understanding, often called the inside-out understanding, that helps to explain the energy behind our experience. This understanding is what all of my coaching and writing is based on, and it is such a game changer!
We constantly get shocked and pained by our thoughts and feelings. There is a general misunderstanding that our suffering is coming from the outside world. When really, just like getting shocked while I was an electrician's apprentice, the pain comes from something invisible, but viscerally real. It comes from thought.
We go through life thinking that there is no way to avoid suffering without avoiding outside circumstances, so we hustle and strive to make sure our outside circumstances are in just the right order to avoid heartache, pressure, or failure. Do I have the right job, the right partner, the right amount of macros in my diet?
Believe me, I know, I did that for years. It's exhausting, isn't it?
The truth is that it is so much simpler. We actually can reduce the amounts of shocks we get through life simply by understanding where they come from. When we start to develop a different relationship to the formless intelligence that is "in the back of everything," we experience true transformation from the inside out. This type of change usually has much longer and broad reaching benefits than just shifting things around in the world of form.
As soon as we gain a better understanding of the profoundly simple way in which we are designed we can reduce the amounts of shocks we feel. We can learn to work with this formless intelligence of life, that I often call inner wisdom or knowing, that gives us intuitive hits, creative ideas, and moments of clarity.
As I learned more about the mechanics of electricity during my summer apprenticeship with the electrician, I got shocked much less. Similarly, something magical happens when we start to pay more attention to the creative intelligence of life that is in the back of everything. When we understand how it works, we stop blocking this energy and start to allow it to move through us.
From this internal direction, huge obstacles that looked like mountains crumble into dust. What is left behind is pure potential. From this place of energetic possibility, life begins to unfold in a new way.
Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to work so hard to be spectacular? Wouldn't that be so refreshing? Well, it's actually available to you. This intelligence is your true nature. It's your birth right. And, it is waiting for you to re-discover it.
Intrigued? I share and explore this understanding more in depth in my Know Your Nature coaching program, a 3-month journey back to your true nature.
Interested? Book a free discovery call with me and we can chat further.