When we try to achieve a peaceful mental state on our own, often we find ourselves stuck in a monkeying mind, unable to really settle in and get something from the time we’ve set aside. I have found that gathering in a group of positive, well-intentioned people in order to practice meditation or energy work, amplifies what I am able to achieve by a power of ten, at least! And, there are positives from the group field that spill over into other areas of life.
So, what is it that is so magical about groups?
After spending times in groups of many kinds, some very positive and others with a lot of unspoken issues, and also teaching focused meditation and energy work classes, I’ve noticed these five beneficial things that intentional groups offer to our lives:
- The power of the group amplifies our learning potential.
The group intent to go deep and practice outweighs the smallness of one human mind efforting on its own. When one person within the group is distracted or having a harder time, the cohesive force of the group brings them into the positive current, making it easier to drop into the deeper spaces that meditation and healing work require.
- The positive intention of the group outweighs stressful energies that we encounter in our daily lives.
If you implement a very strong positive group energy into your life, you may notice that the negative energies and situations you encounter in other areas of life start to have less impact on you. This is because the positive group energy outweighs small negatives, giving you a cushiony, safety net feeling in your field as you walk through life. Rather than getting hung up on the nasty look that your coworker gave you, for example, you feel the love and supportive container of your group, and the negatives bounce off of you with much more ease. Supportive groups are one of the ways to create safety and an “I can handle this” feeling in life. They provide us with a shared resource to access when we need a little reminder of the positives of life.
- Positive groups heal our past and call forward our best self.
All of us have had some negative experiences in groups. All groups have “contracts,” which are the spoken or unspoken “way we do things here.” Families have contracts, social groups have contracts, gangs have contracts, political parties do, etc.
Some contracts are positive, as in a family that communicates openly with each other and invites expression, and many are negative/inhibiting, as in a social group where you have to speak and dress a certain way in order to be accepted.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience of walking into a group where you can feel immediately that your energy doesn’t blend with theirs, and you stand out as an outsider. That is the feeling of hitting up against a group contract that doesn’t align with you and your values.
Contracts are part of the tribal/territorial nature of humans, and they aren’t all bad, but I find most people have some trauma and fear associated either with being the outsider, or belonging to a group and experiencing backlash when they begin to individuate out of the unspoken agreements of behavior. The issue with most unspoken group contracts is that at some point or other, they inhibit the full expression of the individual soul.
Many of us bring our negative memory of what groups have meant into all kinds of new group situations, resulting in feeling left-out, unsafe, misunderstood, or, on the flip side, trapped and unable to break free of the contracts, whether they are superficial, dogmatic, moralistic, etc.
However, when the contract of the group from the beginning is consciously about inviting, celebrating, and encouraging uniqueness, and the intent is attended to by the group leader to ensure that it continues to be supportive, groups can actually start to undo the previous negative experiences. The pieces of ourselves that went into hiding in negative groups start to blossom and come out once again, allowing the wholeness of our being to emerge through the group’s positive intent for us.
- Service to others in the group gets positive energy moving in other areas of life.
When we show up with full heart and enthusiasm in a group setting, all of the others present benefit from our contribution and come away with something more than they started with. If every member is committed and willing, every person receives this benefit of positivity and walks away feeling lifted and recharged. This giving attitude is, in itself, service! Giving our energy to each other and setting aside the time for something that is not just about us, can activate wonderful unselfish energies that in turn attract abundance in other areas of our life. Sometimes these positives come in the form of happiness, lifted feelings of transcendence, a feeling of being able to promote healing in life situations, and yes, money can come in too!
- Personal issues are moved in the silence.
Whereas personal sessions are all about digging deep and shifting issues by attending to them head-on, the strength of group meditation and healing tends to bring issues up and move them more through silence and less through processing. As we sit and practice together, our life lessons sink deeper, our process work and efforts settle into our being more fully, and we are more able to receive energy that truly refreshes us. Instead of only having access to our own consciousness, we interact with more perspectives, a more intelligent field to relate to which is a composite of all of the wisdom of those present with us.
As a healer I find that integration/absorption of positive energies is hard for everyone. We are programmed to be outwardly active and constantly achieving, and most people do more checking out in front of the computer than actually integrating their life experience in their down time. I see meditation, especially in a group field, as a perfect place to let go and absorb your life ‘s deeper meaning. The group field allows the integration to happen more quickly, and more completely. What we learn in the group can be taken home with us, as a living understanding of how to be in a more absorptive, open state; a state that is naturally generous and beneficial to all who we come into contact with.
In Conclusion
What positive group energies do you have in your life? Or is there a group (at work, family, etc) that you feel limited and inhibited with? Do you feel safe to be yourself when you walk into a room of people, or do you have fear and anxiety at the very thought of it? Are you able to handle the negatives that crop up in your daily life, not caring too much about small things? Do you only work one-on-one with a therapist or healer, and sometimes get stuck in process loops that seem to go nowhere?
These questions can help you find whether positive group energy is working well in your life, and bringing benefit to you, or whether there could be an up-leveling for you of group energy to support your deeper healing. I’d love to hear your feedback and ways you use group energies positively, and how well this energy of positive group intent is working in your life!
For more information about my group programs, please visit www.ninahandwerk.com/services
Photo credit: “Line of Buddha – Wat Pho”