Meeting Your Dragon

We continue the Energy Leadership series with Level 2 Energy.

As a reminder, each Level of Energy has a Core Thought, Core Emotion, and Action/Result associated with it. At Level 2, Conflict, Anger, and Defiance govern our respective thoughts, feelings, and actions:

Though I haven’t included sensations in the graphic below, tuning in to the body is a dynamic way to notice when Catabolic Energy shows up. For example, I know that when my heart starts racing, when my blood feels hot, when my chest gets tight, adrenaline and cortisol are present.

While such Catabolic hormones are helpful when we’re truly in danger (or as part of an exercise routine), because they provide a boost of energy to combat what we perceive to be a threat, when used chronically or long-term, they lead to inflammation. So it’s helpful to process this flavor of energy as consciously and efficiently as possible.

These days we become angry

• stuck in traffic,

• waiting in line at the grocery store,

• talking in circles with customer service,

• scrolling through social media,

• watching the news, etc.

 How can we tune in during such moments and remind ourselves that we’re safe? Remind ourselves that it’s to our detriment to generalize such potent and powerful anger when we can activate patience and curiosity instead. Those of us who live in parts of the world that are not under threat of attack have the most potential to cultivate safety and strengthen our Root Chakras.

*[Note, while the Chakras are a more familiar and widely-applied approach to holistic health, I don’t give much voice to this connection between the two modalities, because when iPEC coaches are trained in Energy Leadership, we are reminded that they are two different systems. As Bruce Schneider, the founder of iPEC and Energy Leadership explains, he does not know the formula for the Chakras, so it would not be appropriate to compare the two modalities. While I honor and respect such guidance, I also feel comfortable sharing from my own experience:

I have noticed that when I experience an imbalance in my Third Chakra (or Solar Plexus), my resulting attitude is either Level 1 (under-expression of will-power) or Level 2 (over-expression of will-power). When I feel solid and connected with my personal power, I am better equipped to take responsibility (Level 3 core thought) for my life and choices. Also, when I’m swimming in Level 6 Energy, my Third Eye (6th Chakra) becomes my strongest sense.

So while I identify my personal correlations between my experience of the 7 Energy Levels and 7 Chakras, please know they are not birthed from the same metrics. Energy Leadership is based in Quantum Physics, while the Chakras are more Metaphysical, as I understand. Though I am always open to deep dive into more philosophical realms on the topic. I just may ask permission to set my coaching hat aside for that conversation.]

Coaching hat back on…

Level 2 Energy is so normal and available to us, because it is the predominant energy not just in the workplace, but in the world at large. At early ages, when we experience our first tastes of looming deadlines and race against the clock to write school papers, we are using Level 2. When we play sports to win at the expense of the other team losing, we’re using Level 2. When we yell at our TV screens while watching sports, we’re using Level 2. When we argue over politics, convinced that our side is “right,” and the “other” side is wrong, we’re using Level 2. When we merge into an angry mob with tunnel vision on who or what is to blame, we’re using Level 2. When politicians get heated during debates and start chirping insults at their opponents, they are using Level 2. It’s everywhere.

While these examples paint a dark picture of Level 2 Energy, I’d like to remind readers that there are no good or bad, right or wrong Energies. They are all here for us to experience and use as we navigate the journey of life. The key is to use them at will. By choice. To control them, instead of allowing them to control us.  And to become more familiar with the Anabolic frequencies, so we may choose them when possible. So we may anchor them more effectively into our habits and routines and inundate our cells with healing hormones.

When might we use Level 2 by choice?

Let’s start by digging deeper. What lives below the triggers? What’s at the heart of the catalyst for anger? Anger is usually born out of Love for self and others. When we are angry, it’s often because we feel something or someone we love is threatened. In her book, “Dodging Energy Vampires,” Christiane Northrup MD dedicates a chapter to the causes of health. She includes Righteous Anger as one such cause, and she describes it as, “expressing and acting on the justifiable anger that comes from pain caused without regard for your own or another’s innocence and humanity.” To suppress such anger would be to deny or reject a core part of ourselves and would manifest as illness in the body.

These days, I allow my anger to hiss, roar, rage, blast, burn, explode, & erupt naturally. It took me a lifetime to embrace this capacity for anger. Up until the era I call “Meeting My Dragon,” I used to suppress my anger through self-gaslighting. At some point when I was very young, I learned that my expression of righteous anger is met with shame. And like most sensitive children, I began to censor myself and people-please so I wouldn’t have to feel that shame again.

My fear of shame (and my pattern recognition of how to avoid its projection) taught me how to play the game. And I played it well. I subconsciously bought into the paradigm, even in my perception of women, which had been shaped since childhood. Whether through witnessing or directly experiencing bodily violations and disrespect, over-hearing demeaning jokes, or absorbing the objectification in commercial, film, and television programming, my perception of normal skewed me toward self-loathing. Up until I began working with my coach and connecting with my voice and my Core Values.

In the process of course-correction, I accessed self-advocacy, and all the Level 1 energy I’d been using to remain a victim to our culture began to expand into Level 2. And I was pissed. Which is why I understand the fever pitch among the woke mob these days. I felt it back when I had my own scorched Earth moment. I didn’t just burn bridges, I set my whole life as I knew it on fire. I left my company after 7 years of loyal fawning, I erupted at family members who were not yet acclimated to my new identity, I quit drinking alcohol, I distanced myself from friends, and I was ruthless in my mirroring of dysfunctional patterns. Eventually the dust settled, and I rose from the ashes.

Without judgment, I sifted through the rubble of my old life and salvaged what I could, while accepting what had been turned to ash. I viewed my explosion as a Big Bang, allowing my new Universe to expand as it was meant to.

While I had zero control over my anger during those years, I am grateful for what the fire illuminated. I learned that my sacred rage arises when something needs to change. When I’m not being heard. When I’ve exhausted all other options, and invoking Goddess Kali is my only way to achieve justice. When I need a cathartic controlled meltdown to release the pressure boiling in my blood. Or when a clear boundary has been violated and a well-executed hiss lets the perpetrator know there will be no next time.

I also use Level 2 Energy to propel my Yoga practice when a little extra fire under my ass fuels me to hold a pose a breath or two longer. Healthy competition with my past self ignites a passion for self-improvement I might not otherwise feel from a calm, peaceful, content frequency.

So as with each Energy Level, there are optimal times and places to utilize them. The invitation with Level 2 is to reduce its control over us in situations where it doesn’t serve. There’s no need to raise our cortisol levels and increase inflammation when we’re sitting in traffic or waiting in line at the cash register. There’s no need to raise our voices at service-based employees when we are capable of invoking patience and kindness instead. I know it’s easier said than done, though with enough practice resonating in Levels 3-7, we can co-create the Anabolic world our vulnerable nervous systems deserve.

Practice the shift from Catabolic to Anabolic with us, as we work through the Big Four Energy Blocks in our workshop series, “In and Through the Body,” held monthly at Mati Yoga Studio in Millbury, MA. We will be discussing the “Assumption Block” in our next session on January 28th from 12:00-2:00pm.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information, or to book your ELI Assessment and Debrief to uncover how much Energy you are carrying in each level. Sometimes seeing something seemingly intangible quantified in a chart helps to demystify the alchemization process and bring more self-acceptance to the attitudinal patterns we subconsciously perpetuate. We are all capable of adjusting our attitudes, just as we adjust settings on the radio. And Feedback Loop Coaching is here to help with the process, reminding you that your personal settings are normal for you, so it becomes safe to view them objectively and without judgment. From there, we evaluate what’s working and introduce new options for whatever might be less than ideal.