Living with Energy Awareness – 10 Years On

Ten Years of Living with Energy Awareness

by Natalie Fee

10 years ago I embarked on a journey of a lifetime. I didn’t know it at the time. As far as I was concerned I was simply signing up for a two-day ‘spiritual development’ workshop – albeit one that had drawn me in rather magically.*

I’d attended many courses and workshops. I’d been a yoga teacher, trained under various teachers and gurus, chanted, prayed and taken plant medicines that held the promise of a lasting connection with the divine. Yet the ‘Living with Energy Awareness Training’ promised nothing more than to provide me with a set of tools that could help me ‘change my energy to change my life’. Little did I know those tools would become the foundations upon which my future life would be built.

Yet, the changes didn’t come how I’d imagined. Looking back over the past 10 years, my life appears simply to have become more ‘normal.’ I thought I’d have developed special powers, that I’d be some kind of sorceress or tantric goddess by now. But perhaps they were the longings of a 20-something year old girl on a spiritual quest rather than the aspirations of the woman I am today. Which in case you’re wondering, are far less glamorous. Today my spiritual path is my life, the everyday, the mundane. It sounds clichéd but the ‘real’ spiritual work has come in the form of fundamental changes in my relationships; at home, at work and those within myself – the old relationships I’d internalised and was still influenced by. Changes like learning to be kind, first to myself and then to others. And learning to be of service, even when I don’t feel like it. (Especially when I don’t feel like it!)

As someone who has lived with the constant urge to move on after a year – relationships, jobs, homes – it’s testament to the Living with Energy Awareness Training and subsequent, monthly ‘Way of Life‘ teachings that, with the exception of my 13 year old son, it’s the only thing I’ve ever fully committed to. I could put it down to resonance, or fate, but actually I think the main reason I’ve spent the last ten years developing my energy awareness this way is that it really does work.*

Yet unlike other paths or teachings, with the Way there is no set path. No formula to follow, group thinking to conform to, or personalities to be admired. Living with Energy Awareness is between you and your spirit. Of course there’s support and community, but everyone I know within the Shendo (the name given to the monthly teachings) lives a unique life. Artists, musicians, CEO’s, psychologists, stay-at-home parents – each with the same set of tools yet leading remarkably different lives; each of them shining steadily brighter in their chosen fields.

One of the ‘mottos’ of the Shendo is ‘change your energy to change your life.’ So has my life changed, ten years on? Unquestionably yes. In every way. But here are some practical examples of how my life’s changed for the better:

• That urge I mentioned that kept tripping me up my entire life, the one where I couldn’t settle into anything? It’s gone. Now I’m able to understand the energies at play within me and choose to keep giving to, and sustaining, my relationships and career.

• I used to be scared of spiders, flying, the sea, small spaces, the dark and terrorist attacks. In fact I was scared of pretty much everything. Now it’s just terrorists. That’s a massive load of energy freed up – which now powers my creativity, health and wealth!

• I was perpetually distracted around my loved ones – unable to focus fully on them, always lost in my own thoughts. Now I’m more present in body, mind and spirit when I’m with them. It’s a work in progress, but it’s a tangible, ongoing positive change.

• Until recently I would sabotage my creative work – believing it wasn’t good enough, or that I wasn’t good enough. Now I honour my creativity as a woman and share my work with the world, regardless of how it’s received. It’s a huge and welcome relief, one I give thanks for every day.

• In terms of diet and health, I’m fitter, stronger and have more energy as I approach forty than I had in my twenties.

So yes, it works.

And then there’s the other stuff that lights up my life. Like having a relationship with my energy body that means I can trust it to take me to where I need to be. From being called in a dream to visit a particular spirit place (somewhere I need to go to receive more energy) to grabbing my keys and following my feet out of the door late at night, with no idea why they’re taking me outside, only to see that I’d left my car lights on. In that instance, my energy, or spirit, saved me from being late for an important meeting the next day because my car battery was flat!

Little moments of magic like that increasingly brighten my days. Over the years I’m learning to listen to my energy body more and follow the direction it gives me – and in doing so open my world to experiences that I couldn’t have planned in a million years. ‘Surprises’ have become a delightful part of my daily life.

Take my work for example. I could never have predicted I’d be running a non-profit organisation to protect the seas from plastic pollution. Three years ago I was training to be a TV presenter and I was afraid of the sea, remember? I wouldn’t go in it, on it, or over it (unless drugged! Just call me B.A. Baracus).

Yet one day I recognised, through my energy awareness, that I needed to be of service to the sea. Over the months, as I gave my attention, time and energy to my ‘City to Sea‘ project, I experienced the most direct healing of my life. As I slept, the Ocean – in various forms – came to me in my dreams, night after night. She showed me the life she supports and gave me a direct experience of what it’s like to be these creatures. To swim as a whale with my family by my side; to be one of a pod of dolphins speeding through the surf. By the time the dreams stopped, my fear had gone. It was one of the strangest and most magical experiences of my life – and yet just one example of my ‘Way of life’ in action.

Naturally I still hit bumps along the way that throw me off course, days when my commitment waxes and wanes. But the thing with Energy Awareness is that, once you get it, whatever junction you come to in life, you’ll be able to navigate your own way through it – seeing which practitioner or doctor to go to for a health issue, which remedy to buy for your child’s hayfever, which person to talk to to guide out of a slump, the right place for you to live … you’ll be able to truly follow your heart to a more expanded, happy and aware life. And in today’s society, with so many gadgets and gizmos all clamouring for our attention, the ability to quietly sense your heart’s desire – and act on it – is a truly wonderful gift to the world.

Natalie Fee is an author (The Everyday Alchemist’s Happiness Handbook, Findhorn Press, 2012), broadcaster and environmental campaigner based in Bristol, UK. She founded City to Sea in 2015 to help stem the tide of marine plastic pollution. www.nataliefee.com / @nataliefee

 * See A Step Into The Unknown by Natalie Fee