energy work: 1st efforts, shielding / a funnel not a source / avoiding manipulation

[belenen]

icon: "ethereal (a photo of me looking at the camera from behind a lacy green plant, while wearing makeup that includes a glitter goatee)"What do I think is happening when I do energy work? I think that people's electric fields get dirty and hungry just like bodies, but since people don't often think about them or practice tuning in, they get

Comments

[pallid_regina]

Interesting read. I find energy work fascinating. I was at a public event a few years back and actually felt someone manipulating me, rounded on her and asked her just what the heck she thought she was doing. Turns out she was a Reiki practitioner and she thought I wouldn't notice. Um, WHAT?! Energy rape is NOT OK, you always ask! It was very strange and it kind of kick-started a consideration of energy work etiquette in my mind, what if I hadn't been able to feel what she was doing? Such a strange and interesting area of interaction.

[eristic_writer]

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I feel like using the term energy-rape to refer to someone sending thoughts/energy your way against your will is not only extreme, but diminishing of actual rape, which is a lot more than just a "strange" experience.

[pallid_regina]

As a rape survivor, I respectfully disagree. Being raped is having someone take your power away - your right to choose what happens to your own body. Manipulation of one's personal energy without consent is absolutely rape, even if it is meant in a positive way, because I didn't get to choose to allow that person to be in my personal space, my personal energy, and I didn't even have the right to say, "Hey, fuck you, I WANT to wallow in my own psychic filth" which I absolutely have a right to decide for myself. Positive priviledge isn't a valid excuse to enter someone's space - physically or energy-wise - and realizing that is what made me start considering energy work as more complex than it initially seems. It's an interesting consideration, really, and one I've spent some time on. I might send general energy out into the world, send some love to someone I know is struggling, but to actually enter and manipulate someone without asking them? That's not positive, that's thinking you know what is better for someone than they do

[eristic_writer]

Thanks for your feedback. As a rape victim myself, though, I continue to find the term offensive. I'm not disputing how upsetting it would be for someone who believes in energy to have this done to them against the will. But lots of things are morally reprehensible and deeply damaging without being rape.

[belenen]

I cannot believe someone would do that. Well, I can, but it is so INCREDIBLY vomit-inducingly wrong. I understand your reaction! It's a very intense intimacy and a massive violation to have someone do it without consent, especially deliberately.