Shifting Negative Vibes that Break Up Relationships, Our Hearts and our Communities
We all know that human interactions are about more than just words.
That’s why “I love you” can sound like “Go to hell” and “Fuck off” can sound like “I love you.”
It’s also why we can perceive that a call center representative with a very polite voice might not really care about our situation at all.
Or why the antagonist computer “Hal 9000” in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey sounds evil and menacing even though it speaks with a polite and calm and quiet tone.
It’s not just words or tone.
It’s the energy and intention behind the words.
This is something which artists, healers and spiritual seekers have encountered and practiced for a long time.
Actors think – and create – emotional states and intentions of fictional people to a convincing and authentic level - often by shifting their own emotional state.
Certain types of healers get in touch with body-based emotional states and learn to shift through them like playing different characters.
Spiritual seekers engage with and release different states of emotion and energy in a variety of practices, from breathwork, to hypnosis to trance.
But even those of us in day-to-day life know we can pick up on someone’s “energy” when they’re feeling down or angry, or are in some other mood.
Likewise, we can feel someone’s exuberance or passion.
Anxiety can be contagious.
As human beings, we feel each other.
We know what it feels like – and can sense – when someone lies to us, or is vicious or hostile, or is feigning good will.
Even when we deal with robots and artificial intelligence we pick up the same – intentions and energy – we know Mr. Spock, a Vulcan, and Data, a machine, are friendly and trustworthy. But Hal 9000 and the 1st Terminator are not to be trusted.
In a way that is difficult for any o f us to explain our human ability to sense intention goes beyond words, or even physical cues, but, as with movement, where conscious thought can not direct all the complex actions that must happen to move our bodies, our ability to sense intentions behind words comes from a capacity to rapidly identify complexity beyond logical analysis.
We get the “gestalt” before our minds can tell us why.
So if we stop to think about the power of energy and intention — which is really what puts the oomph in how people speak or behave — we might wonder about:
How is it generated within us?
How it ripples outward (Pheromones? Visual cues? Magic?)
How & why it influences others?
4. And how we turn the tide when things start to go off the rails - how do we shift interactions when more than one person is involved?
If you’ve ever been triggered in an argument, you might wonder about what it was that got triggered.
More importantly, from laypeople to artists to healers and spiritual seekers we might ask a very important question:
How do we navigate and shift patterns of energy & intention — especially when they get triggered?
Article continues below …
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Fighting the Ghosts of the Past
After watching this happen with people over and over again in their personal lives, I came to call it: “Fighting the ghosts of the past.”
This could be observed where people would continually fight about the same issue, and it would come up again and again, in different contexts, with different people,
as if it was embedded in the way the person experienced the world and that they kept re-creating the same fight as if to solve it.
As humans we rely on patterns to do anything. Take a shower. Make dinner. Execute a physical skill.
If we didn’t have the capacity for automatic patterns, not only could we not function, but we couldn’t learn to play guitar or sports very well.
We get good at new skills by learning a pattern and then making it automatic and easy to execute and recall without a lot of conscious thought.
Many people throughout the ages (and long before modern times) have had theories about our compulsion to repeat the patterns of the past that cause us pain.
But rather than explore the thinking about that, a more relevant and important question — and one that people are often eager to know the answer to, but can’t figure out — is:
How do we create spaces where change is possible?
Whether in relationships, groups, or broader societal contexts?
If we find ourselves, or someone else, stuck in a repetitive pattern of reaction — how do we create the conditions for something new to emerge?
The question becomes:
How do you build a relationship where these things can be worked through, rather than just triggering the same cycle over and over?
This could be a very long answer, but for the time being I want to highlight 5 conditions that I think are important components in a context where an environment (and relationship) might have the chance to create change rather than endless repetition.
1. Body awareness and regulation – the ability to shift emotional states
If you’ve done deep work in the performing arts, healing practices, or movement disciplines, you know firsthand that emotional shifts happen in the body. When someone gets triggered — or when you do — the speed of the reaction makes it clear: it’s not just a thought. It’s a body-level response. Something stored gets touched, and that’s where the emotional charge comes from. Shifting that state requires tuning into what's happening physically.
2. Recognizing that shifts in emotion affect cognition
From affective neuroscience, we know emotion and thought aren’t separate. Shifting a feeling can shift how we see a situation, what we believe about it, and how we interpret others. That means working with emotion isn’t just “feeling better” — it can literally change what we think is real.
3. Mutual willingness to shift
People vary in how much emotional and energetic weight they can carry — just like with physical weight. If you’re trying to lift a couch, the ease or struggle depends on both people. The same goes for shifting an emotional state. If one person can’t or won’t move, the shift may not happen. When both people bring some willingness or capacity, things can change.
4. Supportive environments and practices
Change rarely happens in isolation. We need spaces — therapy, clergy, friendship, coaching, family, a trusted facilitator, even a spiritual or shamanic guide — where patterns of emotion, energy, and thought can be named and navigated. Not fixed, necessarily, but witnessed and worked with.
5. Moving from practice into life
It’s one thing to find insight or movement in a session, a workshop, or a safe space. But the real shift happens when what’s practiced there starts to show up in daily life. There’s a process of living into what was once just rehearsed — and that’s where transformation gets traction.
6. Knowing when to disengage
Sometimes it’s just not the right moment. If someone’s overwhelmed or the capacity to shift isn’t available, it can be wiser to pause than to push. Disengaging doesn’t mean abandoning. It can mean regrouping — with the option to return when there’s more space.
Where do we go after the article is over?
The truth is, real change is hard.
It’s often a marathon, not a sprint. And like a marathon it can be done if we properly prepare and train.
But not everyone will go the distance.
Many people can live their whole lives caught in the same cycles, fighting battles that are impossible to win because the ghosts that formed them are no longer there.
And the reality is that when those struggles don’t get dealt with, they fracture relationships, communities, and even the world itself.
This isn’t just philosophy; it’s human history.
And so, in the face of all that, we ask:
Can we shift?
And how can we guide others to places and spaces where they have the chance to work on themselves to find resolution, not repetition?
And when people are not able to do that, what do we do?
Can we create spaces where real transformation is possible?
Can we learn to run an emotional marathon?
Can we model real skill in a world where most people may stay stuck?
Can we meet pain with a higher level of ability?
Or are we doomed to repeat the same patterns again and again?
The answer isn’t easy, or neat, but the skills required are worth training for.
Because ultimately it leads to being less haunted, and it is the path to liberation and true freedom.
And the process can be both beautiful and liberating.
Victory to our spirits.
Jai.