Eckhart Tolle on Navigating Others' Negative Energy with Presence

I can walk into a room and feel other people's pain. And when I was younger, I identified with that and thought there was something wrong with me. Now that I'm older and have more experience, I realize that it's not me. So I disidentified with it. But I still have to deal with it. So any advice?

Thank you. Well, the vital thing you're already doing that the disidentification and as presence grows, you are less affected by. Takes a little longer for a woman because there's more sensitivity to energy fields in the female form than it is in the male form. So for a woman, it takes a little longer to. A woman would need more presence because there's such sensitivity in many women to energy fields. The feminine has that sensitivity. So you can feel it more than a man can. Generally speaking, the main thing is already you're practicing already, which is the disidentification from it, so that there is awareness. And it you haven't become it, you are the awareness. And there's is allowed to be in the field or the space of awareness no longer that problematic because it is not who you are. And so negativity, of course, is contagious, highly contagious. The immunity. Gradually, as you become more present, the immunity is there because intense presence is no longer susceptible to that illness, the negativity. And so when you feel a negative energy field, you touch, as you said, a room that you go into. There are also other energy fields in this. Even when there's a full moon, for some reason, it seems to influence some people's behavior. Lunatic. That comes from the word luna, the moon. When we were in Chicago two years ago with Oprah, one day there was a full moon. And I read in the Chicago paper that on that night there were something like 15 murders on that night.

And.

And all kinds of energy fields impinge upon us. But there needs to be something in us also that resonates with it. So as your pain body gradually shrinks, also you'll find there's less in you that resonates with negativity. Pain body, of course, takes a while to dissolve. It dissolves through presence. But as long as there's some pain body there, there may well be something that resonates with certain forms of negativity. And then you feel it. It's nothing personal. Even the pain body is not personal. Nothing is really personal. And then as the pain body dissolves, then you find you're free. You can go into a negative energy field and you're fine. It's Just not that you build up. Presence doesn't build up a barrier around yourself. It's not like that. It's just. It passes through. It's a different frequency. It can't hang on to anything inside you anymore. So it goes through you. I haven't studied astrology, but it sometimes seems to me that there may be some truth in some of that. And the less presence there is in you, the more it applies to you. And the same applies to the full moon. The less presence there is in you, the more you are susceptible to these energy fields. And the moment you think a negative thought, especially if you think more than one negative thought, it goes on for a few minutes and then leads to another and another. You connect to negativity in a million other people in the same city, kind of, and then you are in it, nothing personal. And then people are surprised if they can't get out. It's not just yours you have connected with the whole city or beyond. That's why it's so important to keep yourself as clear as possible through presence. The less you carry inside, the less likely it is that it'll affect you. Well, now, you may still be able to feel it, but it does not impinge upon you. Especially if you as a woman, you probably are still able to feel the negativity, but then you no longer need to. There's nothing in you where it gets stuck. So it passes through, you know, it's passing through, that is, but it has nothing in you to hang on to. It can't attach itself to anything. And the same applies when people are negative. Their dialogue is negative. What they speak to you is negative. And again, if you are in the state of alert attention, there is no negative thought in you that this can connect to. And so you are immune, so to speak. The mental negativity can't hang on, can't lodge itself in your mind. If there's nothing, there's no frequency in there that it corresponds to.

I've been told by some spiritual teachers that there's something in my system that is trying to take this on from other people, to rid them of it. But I mean, it's nothing I do consciously, and I don't even know if that's true, but I.

Well, to some extent, presence does that, but presence doesn't take it on. It dissolves it, not only for yourself, but wherever you go, you go there as a field of presence into an energy field. To some extent, something happens. It. It dissolves through presence. And so, yes, that's a beautiful thing. You don't take it on. You don't need to suffer for others but you can let go of suffering for others. So you let go of suffering. The same thing you do. For example, when you sit with a person who is in suffering it is your job to relinquish resistance and if they can't do it, you can do it for them. Enter the state of surrender. Do it when you are with somebody who is dying when you are with somebody who is seriously ill or has had some other kind of disaster or is just completely unhappy. So be with that person and become very still and very alert. And that means you surrender for them. And very often that has an effect. It affects them. It burns up some of the suffering. It invites them also into that space. Sometimes they're able to join you in that space but even if they are not, it does burn up suffering. That's the most beautiful gift you can give is your presence. So you bring that undiluted presence, just that.