Spiritual Growth and Psychic Self Defense

Who doesn’t love surprises? When I picture surprises, I think about holiday gifts and chance encounters with old friends. Everyone loves unplanned excitement, right? Well, not exactly. We only love surprises we enjoy.  But what about when there’s an unexpected flat tire? Or, imagine a dear friend or trusted romantic partner betrays you? What then? Heartache can drive even the most resilient into momentum freezing despair. And, what about those for whom life feels like a constant uphill struggle because even their thoughts are unpredictable and self-harming?

It’s easy to feel spiritually connected when things are going your way. But if you’re a psychic person trying to live spiritually, your extra sensitivity arguably stimulates your nervous system more and differently than most. For you it’s critical that you consider how you deal with uncertainty so you can maintain harmonious contact with reality.

This article explores the relationship between uncertainty and the strategies psychics employ to stabilize themselves and provide for their wellbeing. Let’s begin by examining why uncertainty can be especially difficult for highly sensitive people who identify as psychic. Later we’ll scrutinize techniques for psychic self defense.

Uncertainty means unpredictability which when translated further means a fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown indicates doubt in one’s ability to handle life’s down turns. And for highly sensitive people who identify as psychic, unpredictable circumstances can interfere with one’s ability to maintain a consistent seemingly solid experience of self. This is important to understand so let’s examine how one develops an experience of self and how a paranormal self-concept serves to neutralize the stresses associated with self-doubt.

The Psychic Persona

Your identity, specifically how you envision and feel yourself to be as psychic person, results from your relationship with the self-concept you manufacture for yourself within your mind. Imagine for a moment that your self-concept is an actual reflection bouncing off something called the mirror of your mind. Now, you assume the vision you see of yourself is accurate, so you create a relationship with your mental self image which naturally provides for your emotional needs in self-affirming way without concern for facts. Real is what feels real. And feeling justified in your self concept, you write mental rules for how life and other people should interact with you based on your psychic persona. But, what if your inner mirror isn’t completely smooth or clean? That would distort or partially obscure your true self image wouldn’t it? Well, in fact, to some unknown extent the mirror of your mind is scratched, dirty and contaminated with mental and emotional debris. What this means then, is that you cannot entirely trust that who you perceive yourself to be via the mirror of your mind. No matter whether that reflection is good or bad.

Creating an identity based on a relationship with a distorted self-image projected by the mirror within the mind is a problem for all people – not just psychic sensitives. I deal every day with clients from all over the world who feel trapped by the opinions of others and by past traumas they mistakenly use to define themselves because these “energies” have been carved into their inner mirror. Over the long term our perceptions about ourselves distort our ability to fulfill our needs directly. We become dependent upon helping our self image survive instead of expressing who we actually are.

In large part, surrender allegiance to our false self is the very heart of spiritual work. The problem is we don’t realize how unsafe we sometimes feel letting go of our false self. So the mind looks for ways of giving us the sense of surrender without actually risking transparency and vulnerability. This kind of self deception is most obvious an positively pervasive among psychically sensitivity.

Aside from the inaccurate self concepts reflecting off the mirror of our minds, psychic people have another self limiting delusion to confront. We must challenges the seemingly spiritual nature of our psychic identity. You see, the psychic identity can be a covert way of covering up old hurts and bypassing the emotional wounds and real work you  needs to do to achieve self realization.  So in short, extrasensory perception when mistaken for evidence of spiritual achievement is often assumed to be a short cut for gaining spiritual truths and actually transcending personal struggles. When in fact, the psychic identity can be a sign one has diefied their own mind and stopped deepening one’s spiritual understanding of one’s self completely.

Spiritual devotion to psychically discerned metaphsycial “truths” as a way to maintain one’s psychic self-image is common problem for sensitives. Philosophies that support a psychic persona typically reinforce a dualistic mindset, hyper sentimentality, lack of embodiment and a belief in a power struggle between light and dark forces as well as spiritual materialism. All of these aforementioned concepts only cause suffering by further blurring the mirror of the mind with mystical nonsense rather than fostering greater clarity and focus.

It can be difficult breaking out of a bad relationship until we identify which part of that situation covertly meets our needs. Likewise, learning to live with uncertainty can be hard until we discover how clinging to a dysfunctional psychic identity satisfies you and helps you avoid the uncertainty you need to embrace in order to discover who you really are.

Awakening occurs when you identify with the openness and fluidity of the space that holds existence rather than the illusions within time and physical space.

Now, you’re probably guessing I’m going to tell you to fix the emotional wounds distorting your inner mirror’s reflection so you can see how amazing you truly are. Fixing your mind’s inner mirror isn’t the correct course of action though. In fact that mindset, the one that has you believing you’re broken inside and in need of fixing is also a problem. Yes, we all have personality quirks that need softening but there comes a time when we must accept who we are with good humor and love. So, the point I’m wanting to make is your mirror doesn’t need fixing because you need to realize the mirror is also an illusion.

Through the Looking Glass

Spiritual practice illuminates your inner life. It’s as if you’re staring at your reflection in the mirror of your mind when suddenly a light goes on inside the mirror revealing an empty space behind the glass. Awakening occurs when you identify with the openness and fluidity of the space that holds existence. You find out that you, the mirror and all concepts and material essences are made up of the same stuff. There really is no subject and object or good and evil. From this vantage point indivduality is experienced largely as still being observing the illusions within the mind and physical space.

Most psychic sensitives never discover the truth I’m sharing with you in their felt experience. Such focus and clarity exists only as an idea to be discussed and debated. Most won’t have the courage to truly let go and really look within using an open heart. Instead they get caught in an endless self-help loop polishing their inner mirrors as unhealed healers trying to perfect their illusory identity. Or, they avoid looking at themselves altogether and instead craft paranormal personas based on supposed ESP and imagined relationships with invisible beings who glorify their false self through their mind.

Time and again I see novice psychics weave misunderstood metaphysics into self-aggrandizing philosphical  cocoons that insulate them from reality. You can recognize the degree to which a sensitive is shrinking from the uncertainties of real life and clinging to their psychic identity by observing their attention seeking spiritual vanity and their dependence on external approval.

A professional psychic is a responsible person. She or he always remains humble and in full control over of their mental, emotional and extrasensory faculties.

One way you can observe how fear of uncertainty and seeking approval manifests among sensitives is through a phenomenon I call spontaneous merging.

People with psychic-like sensitivity often have chameleon-like powers. Without consciously choosing they adapt to their circumstances changing ever so slightly depending on who they’re interacting with. These adaptations are subconscious. Nevertheless they cause sensitives to uncontrollably violate boundaries and invade the personal spaces of others. The result can be so dramatic, that for them, it can be subjectively difficult to distinguish where “I” end and “you” begin.

Unwittingly taking on the thoughts and feelings of others may sound amazing and indeed quite psychic. Such behavior is not psychic however. Nor is it polite, or for that matter healthy. Dramatic occurrences like this are not to be admired. Such behavior is amateur, a potential anxiety provoking mental health problem and a signal that one has not accepted responsibility for their undisciplined mind. A professional psychic is a responsible person. She or he always remains humble and in full control over their mental, emotional and extrasensory faculties.

Possessing boundaries so weak that you spontaneously blend with others is a serious problem that can also lead to overwhelm. Overwhelm also indicates a fear of uncertainty. More importantly, it shows a lack of trust in the security of one’s personal boundaries.  Let’s look at how poor boundaries effect psychic-like people.

When there are large crowds or sudden unpredictable changes sensitives can become overstimulated. Over stimulation is a sign boundaries are pourus and that one is sliding toward overwlem. For senstives, diverse social settings are also over-taxing because subconsciously their chameleon powers are working overtime.

Uncontrollably adapting to the frequency of one new person and then another and another is exhausting. Under the surface it’s as if you’re mind can’t decide which channel to set your personal dial on. The brain is frantically scanning a bombardment of energy signals trying to pull each into focus by answering questions like: How do I best define my value with this person? What’s the hierarchy here? Whose approval do I need most? Where do I fit in? And above all, how do I make myself safe in this situation? These and other questions, underlie the indecisiveness afflicting those predisposed to psychic-like overstimulation. Sensitives try to answer all kinds of questions disguised as confusing feelings until either control is established or eventually a fuse is blown causing a melt-down.

In response to social uncertainty most sensitives withdraw before they blow a fuse. Some find a single solitary person to converse with. Others retreat to a safe corner to sit alone.  While another brand of senstive might make themselves the center of attention. These attention seekers use their perceived specialness to dominate conversation and dictate social interactions. The point I’m trying to make  is wether a sensitive chooses isolation, a solo conversation or hogging the spotlight in a crowd, the need being fulfillfilled is the illusion of control.

Psychic Defense – Bubbles of light and Invisble Servants

In extreme cases overwhelm can lead to groundlessness characterized by a loss of time and a panicky disassociation from the physical body. Subjectively, what’s happening is the relationship between the mirror of your mind and your observing awarness shuts off. And when this happens your individual felt experience of self vanishes like a hologram that’s lost power.

Psychic self-defense is a product of your imagination that demands you first divest yourself from divine source within.

Sometimes when you approach overwhelm the mind begins wildly projecting repressed fears that haunt you in the form of archtypes that feel entirely seperate fom who we are. These can feel like monsters trying to gain access to your body and attempts to posssess your mind. Overwhelm and specifically an onslaught of psychological shadows can even feel demonic. But rest assured such experiences are only the chickens coming home to roost. Spiritual life demands that we embrace these fears rather than resist them so we can integrate the split off aspects of our being and return to wholeness. Sensitves who fear uncertainty and resist such integration harm themselves. They are avoiding emotional healing and denying themselves spiritual maturation.

When we are spirtually immature we cling to beliefs that support our psychic identity such as multiple powers, demons and invisble beings that come to our rescue. A mindset like this only foster suffering as is evident during nightmares, percieved hauntings and in moments of overwhelm .

Like most hauntings, nightmares spawnd by the belief in multiple powers are an illusion. Moreover, as a psychic who endeavors to live spiritually, it is critical to move toward accepting there’s only one real power. And this power exists as your mind, body and spirit. However, your expereince of the one power living as your being can only enter inot your life to the degree you abandon your false persona including your psychic identity.

The universe wasn’t created so that there is God and man. Physical and no-physical.  The one power in esxistence manifests the physical and non physical universe from itself. Therefore we are never seperate from anything. Nor are we capable of being psychcially attacked from any external source unless we believe it possible theone power can be two or many fighting against itself. You create the experience of feeling weak and needing protection when you indulge in seperateness and the false belief in two powers. Light and dark, good and bad are only mental constructs you must let go in order to rest in the grace of absolute power. Likewise, psychic self-defense is also a product of your imagination.

Psychic self-defense in the form of any metaphsycial strategy is also an illusion because such a strategy demands that you first divest yourself from divine source for psychic self defense to be even necessary. Let’s examine the most common forms of psycic self defense novice psychics employ.

The most common metaphysical strategy for defending against overwhelm and uncertainty is surrounding one’s self with a bubble of light. Another technique is envisioning one’s aura imbued with a protective color. And for added security sensitives commonly call on angels or other invisible archetypes to defend their personal space. These are helpful techniques for beginners. However, mental imaginings such as protective bubbles of light and calling upon angels and deities are not effective strategies for cultivating self-realization and lasting inner peace because the spiritual path is about opening up not closing off.

Neither Jesus the Christ nor the Buddha advise bibbles of light and frantic praying for rescue. Jesus simple recognized the tempter as having no power. Likewise the Buddha saw evil dieties as illusions. The two transcendent beings both in their own way recognized there is but one power in the universe and it was the father within.

As a psychic, genuine spiritual growth demands something other than leaning on ritualized protection schemes. Schemes that spiritually inflate you through pretending the universe is something seperate from you that can both attack you and come to your rescue. Spiritual imagery and interactions with heavenly archetypes are valuable only to the extent they remain temprary tools for familiarizing yourself with the inner workings of your being in this author’s opinion.

True spiritual power, the kind that genuinely protects you and enables you to deal with the life’s ever changing circumstances comes from drawing your identity from a relationsip with the impersonal light within you.  This identity fosters transparency and genuine confidence.

Confidence is a byproduct of spiritual living. It emerges naturally when you accept and value who you really are without being unduly attached to a fixed identity. Moreover, when you are no longer dependent upon external approval for feeling secure, and you activly fulfill your adult needs from within, you naturally develop healthy psychological boundaries that secure your personal space.

Strong psychological boundaries spiritually protect you from psychic injury. You’ll know you have developed healthy boundaries when as a psychic spontaneous merging and the desire to rescue others is felt easily as an unloving and selfish boundary violation. Overtime personal equanimity also increases.

Equanimity is the ability to experience and process emotions without becoming sentimental or dramatic. (another common problem for psychic people) Of even greater significance is as you mature spiritually and develop healthy boundaries, the capacity to hold space for others while they suffer and explore their emotions increases. And finally, perhaps the most signifcant sign of personal acheivement for psychic people is the ability to live day to day without psychic power. Indeed, accepting rather than fearing uncertainty is the greates expression of spirtual maturity.

The Last Word on Psychic Self Defense

Whether your problem is lack of dollars or having no sense, the first step toward resolving uncertainty on any level is abiding with the power within you that goes before you to make the crooked places straight.

Accepting responsibility for your spiritual wellbeing by going within is the most effective strategy for protecting yourself s well as providing for your spiritual and material wellbeing. The master taught seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all things will be added. So, whether your problem is lack of dollars or having no sense, the first step toward resolving uncertainty on any level is abiding with the power within you that goes before you to make the crooked places straight.

What is this power you say? It is the space behind the mirror. The calm before creation. It is the void from which the still small voice commands, “let there be light.”

To abide within the stillness that goes before you to make the crooked places straight means surrendering your fabricated human identity. You can do this daily by choosing moment by moment to form a relationship with the open space behind the mirror of your mind. The result will be spiritual presence living as your life.  And within this state, uncertainty becomes an exciting opportunity to express the joy and power of who you really are. ☼