I LOVE celebrating a new year. There is something about a fresh start and the prospect of change that incites optimism and hope in me each year.
As I reflect on the start of 2018, I think about not only the changes I’d like to see in myself, but also the changes I’d like to see in the world. This makes me remember Gandhi’s wise charge to “be the change you want to see in the world”. I’m realizing that to be the change, we must all be more aware of energy, particularly our own personal vibration.
Everything in the Universe is energy. The floor beneath you is vibrating atoms and molecules. Pitch and musical notes are vibration. The colors of the rainbow are light vibrating at different frequencies. Heat, gravity, magnetism, and electricity are all energy. Thanks to Einstein, we even have a mathematical formula proving the existence of energy.
The same principles apply to us. An essential part of your make-up is vital energy. We each have a unique energetic vibration, something Penney Pierce calls our “home vibration”. When we are in state of love and compassion, our vibration is at an all time high. Likewise, we can choose to go towards negativity and fear, jealousy, envy, cynicism and the result is a lowered vibration.
My most unforgettable lesson in the power of personal vibration happened in 2010 when I had the chance to see the Dalai Lama at the University of Northern Iowa. My seat was up in the balcony about as far from the podium as you could get. Despite the distance, when the Dalai Lama walked onto stage, his vibration blew me away. I started to feel a pounding in my chest, heat in my face, and tears streaming down my face. I didn’t know what was happening to me at the time. Although I have read many of his books and have deep respect for the work he does in the world, I am not Buddhist, nor would I call myself a follower. Yet, I had never been in a room before with someone vibrating at such a high level with the power to automatically effect my vibration just by being in his presence.
It has been said the the true teachers can heal and change you just by their presence not by the words they speak. This means they are shifting your energetically by the power of their vibration, and research is now backing up this idea. For years’ people have known about a scientific concept called entrainment that can be observed in nature, chemistry, pharmacology, biology, neurology, and psychology. It’s the natural law where things synchronize to one another. For instance, if two pendulum clocks are placed on the same wall, they will eventually swing to the same rhythm even if they don’t start out together. In nature we observe it when watching how fireflies flash in unison. Women who spend a lot of time together begin to synchronize their menstrual cycles.
Well this same synchronization happens between people, but most of us never know it is happening. In a recent study, 3 random strangers were put into a room for 20 minutes. They didn’t talk or interact in anyway, they just sat there in the same space together. By the end of the 20 minutes, the brain state and physiology of the calmest person in the room pulled the other 2 brains in line with it. The most powerful person in the room was the most relaxed one.
This finding has great applicability to our everyday lives. The practice and effort we put into raising our personal vibration toward states of love, positivity, compassion, and peace will not only improve our life, but has the power to actually shift and change the people in our vicinity. I definitely experienced hours of bliss after being in the Dalai Lama’s vortex; just his presence changed me. Deepak Chopra says that the more your practice the more powerful you become and the less you have to do….your presence does it all.
So what kind of presence are you in the world? How are you impacting those around you just by the energy you bring into the room? All of our energies and minds are entangled, so we do impact one another. Remember that people rarely remember what you said or did for them, but they always remember how you make them feel. They always remember your vibration.
