My last office was in a converted World War II POW cell. No kidding – if you want to talk about BAD ENERGY, it was spectacularly negative!

A lot of us have to contend with areas or situations where the energy is less then productive – to downright poisonous to our inner spirit. You may feel anxious, clammy palms, racing heart, a dull lifeless feeling in a particular area that saps your energy leaving you drained, irritable and unable to relax.

A lot of mystic type shops will sell special candles, incense, bowls, chimes, etc. to ward away bad energy. However – honestly, they are not imbued with any sort of special karmic sauce other than to separate you from your coin. Most of the Jedi way is dedicated to finding personal paths to our own ‘Zen’ like states of peace where we can contribute the most and live the best life.

Here are a few things you can do to authentically protect yourself against such psychic drains at home and at the office that doesn’t involve lining some New Age shops profit margin, or any sort of hokey rituals!

Positive Personal Talismans

The best talisman against negative dark-side energy is YOUR energy. I find that a large corkboard somewhere prominent in a frequented space works well. It may be accompanied by a shelf (I have a few items that have to sit on a shelf – like my presents from the kiddos!)



Finding talismans may take a few weeks – don’t set out to ‘find’ them – let them find you. After awhile you’ll discover you have many. I have my 5K medal, the HDR photograph of my favorite trail taken by my favorite photographer which was a gift to me, my little model star ship which was the very first gift my kids ever purchased for me, a photo of me and my camera, my kids when they were babies in the bathtub frolicking, my cousin in Indian dress…a whole board full of items (which is quickly turned into everything in my house as a positive reminder of what I love!)



At the same time you start putting your talisman’s together – eliminate negative energy items. Hate your mother-in-law? Is she staring at you accusingly from her matriarchal perch on the mantel? Time for her to go into a BOX! Look around carefully – if you’ve been putting up with something out of some kind of gloomy social responsibility – time for it to go away, it’s an energy sink. When I started looking around, I was surprised to find that I had put up with a wide number of negative items that seemed to have accumulated on their own accord, the coffee table that my Mom had owned which I had always hated with a passion but which was still in use for instance. (Which is now in the dumpster btw...)



Throw Things Away.

In the Japanese Shinto tradition there are little spirits called Kami that love to live in unkept, un-tidy locations and breed. They’re a bit like gremlins and cause general mischief. This is a strong reason for Japanese practice of Feng Shui.

When I started cleaning out closets and getting rid of everything I wasn’t using, hadn’t used in six months and didn’t want – it turned out to be an enormous task. How on earth had I collected three humidifiers? Why exactly did I own a curio cabinet when I hate nick knacks? Part of the problem is I never felt like it was okay to toss a gift, so every card and gift for the last twenty years was piled up around my ears (even a few from my ex-husband!). Also apparently I always thought I would wear XYZ (someday) or I would fit back into XYZ (someday). And anything I had paid ‘premium’ money for – I held onto with two hands.



My Mom, who has passed away, had kept an extensive library documenting every facet of my childhood life. My garage was full of “shrine-to-me” (ugh). It took a lot of courage and realization to know that YES, I CAN throw all those family mementos away, no shock troops were going to show up if I violated the social accord that said I would keep all keep-sakes until I died at which time my children would swear to pass on all that stuff on to a new generation pack-rat style. I kept a small Ziploc baggie of photos and everything else – even the large portraits of me from the 70’s went into a dumpster. It only meant anything to me, and I have my memories, and now also my garage back.

Tossing Food

Throwing things away also goes for food. Oooh’ yes - here is permission not to clean your plate. Most of the time it’s better to just toss it, then wear it around your waste for the next ten years (or twenty). Food can become a terrible burden. Be aware if you’re eating due to “well there is only one left” or “I paid a lot of money for that” or “it’s chocolate – of course I have to eat five cups of it.”

My friend Leslie is trying to eat better and she says she wants to lose a lot of weight – so her and I go grocery shopping. She’s aghast that I spend $3.00 on bell peppers. $3.00 will buy in bulk a LOT of food – particularly very bad for you food that is subsidized by the government so it’s offered to the consumer at below the cost it takes to produce it. So she can buy a huge bag of corn flakes which can supply upwards of 25 breakfasts (all those vitamins and minerals those ‘whole grain’ cereals have in them are sprayed on in bulk and are normally worthless unless you’re buying a premium whole grain cereal...)

We sit down later – Leslie is complaining because she has a sweet tooth and a salty tooth and tends to over eat items she likes. She believes she’s an emotional eater. I ask her if she likes cherries, sure – cherries are cool. I get out a bag of Bing cherries and dare her to eat as many as she humanly possibly can. 6 in she is slowing down, at 8 she stops looking perplexed. “How is it I can eat a bag of chips but only 8 cherries?” – hmm, still think my peppers are stupid?

Sure I get less when I buy peppers – but I simply won’t eat as much. My peppers and produce will go as far as Leslie’s junk food dollars although on the outset it will feel to her like she’s getting less and paying more. But less is GOOD!



The Great Material Continuum Will Provide

The food that you toss probably lands in a dumpster somewhere. If it landed in my local dumpster, “Georgia, Meatwad, Inky, Stephen, Gemini” and other assorted cats would covertly get it out at night and eat it – and if not them I assure you there is a local rat population that will dine on anything else (which also happens to feed good old Georgia…)

When I took in all six bags of my closet stuff to Goodwill, I knew someone else would enjoy having nice clothes to wear.

Relinquishing items you don’t need any more isn’t about loss – it’s about gaining a sense of freedom. It allows you to be surrounded by your personally chosen meaningful talismans that make you feel strong, happy, at peace and constantly reinforce your positive environment. For instance I tossed out a lot of my “I’ll buy this because it’s practical and on sale” clothes and kept the clothes I actually wore and LIKED. Really liked!

Let excessive stuff go to people who need it. If you ever truly need something know that the Force (or the Great Material Continuum as the Ferengi would say) will provide.

Every time you purchase something it owns a little piece of you. The ongoing maintenance, care and dedication required takes your resources far within the future. Usually far after it has any relevant use to you – like my three humidifiers.

Social Pressures

My POW Camp office was pretty hideous, so I started taping up photos to the walls. Photos I took that were happy and interesting. I brought in my own talismans – even my plants. My workmates pretty much thought I was nuts (but as an artsy person I usually get away with such…)

Social Pressure at work said I probably wouldn’t so much as hang up a ‘do not disturb’ sign (which was also my cue that I probably shouldn’t have accepted the job in the first place..) and social pressure wanted me to hang on to old family photos and engrain in my kids how they HAD to keep them too, and social pressure said I needed both a coffee table and a curio cabinet. And at one time social pressure talked me into having a roof that leaked and a lawn that I had to mow – both of which I detested. And social pressure tells me that Chicken Wings are a holy delicacy – but I like cabbage stir fry and enjoy not weighing a metric ton.

Live the positive life YOU WANT TO LIVE – not something from a can that people tell you, “this crystal will make you strong” or “you must get married and have 16 children all named George.” Social conventions are great if you’re a completely homogenized drone – but if you’re a regular human being keeping your life simple, clean, and surrounding yourself with what you love will defeat the dark side and keep you on the right track.

-MTFBWY - Seven