Do you know someone or a situation that is always negative? Do you know someone or a situation that is mentally and physically draining? Do you know someone or a situation that is like an emotional vampire, sucking out your happiness and positive energy? (Dramatic much?) Then suffer no more and read on – I have the cure for you!!

What a beneficial challenge. This week was all about grounding and protective exercises for energy– whether it be grounding your energy, or the energy of particular rooms or pets (this was a doozey… more to come later).

I have tried grounding and protecting my energy before thanks to Helen, but because it’s been a loooong time since I’ve last done it, Helen sat down with me again and ran me through the meditation exercise step by step. Here’s a quick run down:

Step 1:The main gist of grounding yourself is to begin with a meditation/visualisation where you imagine ‘tying’ yourself down to the centre of the earth with a cord. We plugged it in to the base chakra (remember the chakras from week four?) You then visualise running through the length of the cord any negative thoughts/feelings/energies and feel them being dragged away from you, your chakras and aura. Once you feel the negativity fading away, you can ‘remove’ or ‘unplug’ the cord and replace it with a new, clean cord that will remove any unwanted energies throughout the day.

Step 2:Once you have done the meditation, you then imagine yourself with a magnet that will attract back to you and of your energy which you’ve expended on others. You can use this magnet to pull back all of your energy that those ‘vampires’ have sucked away. You can pull it back from work, friends, family, your partner etc as well as the past or future. Once you have called back all of your energy, you simply imagine it filling you completely.

Step 3: Now that you are free of negativity and full of positive energy, it is now important to protect and ground yourself. To do this, imagine a white light completely surrounding and filling you. Nothing can penetrate this light. You are then grounded and ready to take on any event – this is particularly useful for entering work, important meetings, liaising with new clients, meeting a friend going through a hard time… it basically protects you from having your energy drained or filling yourself with negativity.

I used this visualisation a few times this week and have recorded my results below:

Monday: I struggle with Mondays – I can’t wake up and it’s generally my busiest day, packed full of meetings. I did the exercise about mid-morning (it only took about 5 minutes) before my meetings began. I snuck away to a meeting room and sat with palms sitting up (this is not unusual in my office as quite a few people have ‘meditation moments’). During the meditation I was able to vividly picture everything – particularly around the section where I imagined the negativity slipping away. I saw reports, people, and names literally sliding away from me. When it came to the engulfing light, I literally felt my body tingle and feel warm. The day went well, no issues. When I arrived home I was not as exhausted as normal and not complaining about anything.

Tuesday: I forgot to do the meditation in the morning as I was actually at home sick, but I did do it in the afternoon, which was interesting to say the least. For anyone who knows me, you’ll know that I have a crazy puppy! He is a Border Collie (named Teddy) so therefore very active. I was feeling a bit too sick to walk him, so I thought “I’m going to ground my dog to calm him down a bit!”

So, I used the exercise for Teddy. I didn’t really do the negativity bit, because really – what main issues does a dog have? “Next door’s dog has a bigger bone than me? No-one is walking me today? I want my tummy scratched?” So I must admit I felt silly and skipped that part. But I did imagine Ted being surrounded by white light. I can honestly tell you, he was really sensible this night; he just walked around (as opposed to cutting laps around the obstacle course that is my backyard). It really worked (unless he was sulking because I didn’t walk him….)!!

Wednesday: I did the exercise in the morning and had such a fantastic day. I got so much work done; I attended what was a very abrasive meeting and sat there nonchalant and unaffected. I went out for a large going away lunch and went out with girlfriends for dinner. I laughed and laughed all day and night and felt so light and happy. My stomach literally ached from laughing.

Thursday:  Today I was out of the office, meeting with clients all day. It was a long drive to our destination and while my colleague was driving, I attempted to do the meditation while singing to the radio and chatting to my colleague… Not so great. Although a nice day with nice people, I was physically and mentally drained. I was so tired I almost slept in the car on the way home… definitely did not do the exercise properly (but who can resist Harley and Rose?!).

Friday: I completed the exercise before I left for the bus. I could massively feel warmth and tingling when the white light was covering me. People pushing in front of me to get on the bus and sitting on aisle seat with no-one next to them is one of my pet hates - and although this does initially annoy me, I quickly visualised these annoyances being dragged down the grounding cord and I was over it in 2 seconds. I have a very busy day today…. At the time this blog post is uploaded, all fine so far.

I know you must be wondering how I managed with the meditations this week when I complained around them the other week? I actually did really well, reasons being:

• I learnt at the end of the first chakra cleansing meditation challenge how to cater meditations to suit me (and not be corny)
• The meditation I used for this challenge were written by Helen and they are fantastic and not overly hippy-dippy. I have attended a few of Helen’s workshops and can honestly say that most attendees say they benefit from these components
• You only really need to do this meditation properly once or twice, until you remember the main steps and then you can run with the exercise and put your own spin on it.

This is a quick, easy and beneficial exercise that I am going to try and do everyday. Helen tells me that you can ground rooms, pets and objects (does this mean everything I have lost in my life will come back to me? Accio wallet!!)

NEXT WEEK’S CHALLENGE: Connecting with your guides through automatic writing. For those following along at home, check out this post on how it’s done.

Have you also read:

Visualisation mediation for protecting energy Visualisation meditation for grounding energy CLAIRE’S CHALLENGE: Week Three Results – Clearing emotions CLAIRE’S CHALLENGE: Week Four – Chakra clearing meditation