Separating the Event From the Energy: A Lesson in Spiritual Discernment

By Leila Briggs

This weekend, I had the house to myself. Well, almost to myself. I had my animals with me, which means I was technically sharing the house with Taco, my cat, and Renny, my pup.

The night before my alone time, however, I had an experience in the dream state that put me on alert. I caught a face of the shadow masculine.

I felt as though someone's anger and frustration were being directed toward me. By the time I felt the energy reach me in the dream state, it didn't just contain the original person's emotional charge. The emotional charge had interacted with the larger archetypal channel of the shadow masculine - something I have been watching shift collectively for some time and in the dream state I chose to take energetic precautions to be safe. 

Enter Renny

Let’s start with a little context: Renny came into my life with more significance than I initially knew how to explain. Every dog I had as a child was eventually taken away through strange and often unexpected circumstances. So when Renny came into my life after months of consciously saying no to old loops, repeated relationships, and patterns I was finally ready to release, having her felt different.

She became connected, for me, to my personal healing.

She is also chaos wrapped in fur.

Renny grew up with Taco and therefore seems genuinely convinced she is a cat. If Taco sits in the window, Renny sits in the window. If Taco climbs something, Renny should obviously climb it too.

And if Taco walks elegantly across the back of the couch, Renny will attempt to walk across the back of the couch - with absolutely no awareness that she is significantly larger and heavier than Taco. Our couch has paid the price.

That became particularly relevant this past weekend. I was preparing for clients and set my phone on the back of the couch. Because the cushions and lining have slowly been pushed down by Renny's adventures, my phone slipped into a hole and disappeared into the void of the couch. I heard it hit the bottom.

What followed was a comedy of errors. I tried reaching underneath. Eventually, I cut the lining beneath the couch hoping I could retrieve it from below. That didn't work. While trying to pull myself back up, I used the couch for balance and managed to put my finger into a spring, cutting it. Eventually, I discovered that my phone wasn't even sitting at the bottom. It had landed on the edge of part of the internal frame, which meant I had to reach down through the hole in the back of the couch to retrieve it. Renny watched the entire process in confused contentment.

Unfortunately, she wasn't finished contributing to my day.

When One Thing Becomes Five Things

Renny has recently discovered the basement. Taco apparently showed her that there are fascinating things downstairs, including boxes to investigate, mysterious smells, and an excellent view through the sliding glass door. AND a personal bathroom (litter box) just for Taco. I've caught Renny down there simply wandering around and exploring.

Unfortunately, she has also recently started peeing downstairs when no one is watching. "Why does a taco get his own bathroom?"

Later that day, I was carrying laundry downstairs when the mat at the bottom of the stairs suddenly slid beneath me. I lost my footing and slammed my shoulder into the corner of the wall trying to catch myself. The mat had moved because Renny had peed on it.

This, by the way, came after dropping my dinner on myself and Renny happily helping herself to part of my protein bowl from my lap. At that point, I decided perhaps the universe and I were finished for the evening.

I sat down and replayed the day. That was when I realized something: a surprising number of the day's most frustrating moments had revolved around Renny.

The Event and the Zing

There were the events themselves. My phone fell into the couch. I cut my finger. I slipped. My shoulder hurt. My dinner ended up on me. My dog ate something she wasn't supposed to eat. None of those things needed a spiritual explanation in order to be frustrating.

But there was also something else present. For lack of a better word, I call it the zing.

The zing is the additional charge that sometimes seems to ride alongside an experience. The event happens, but the emotional or energetic response feels larger, sharper, stranger, or somehow different from what the event itself seems to warrant.

Because of what I had experienced the night before, I recognized that additional charge quickly. Years ago, I might not have.

The stress of the day, my own emotions, someone else's anger, and what I perceived as the larger archetypal energy could have become tangled together. I might have started having thoughts or emotions about Renny that didn't actually reflect how I felt about her. Perhaps frustration would have become resentment. Perhaps resentment would have become regret. And because of what Renny represents in my life, those thoughts might then have created guilt and shame.

Instead, I could look at her sitting there and separate what had actually happened from everything that had attached itself to what happened. Renny had been Renny - a joyful, curious, slightly chaotic dog who thinks she's a cat and who had contributed to several unfortunate events in one day.

I could be annoyed about those things. I could correct behaviors that needed correcting. I could clean the basement. I could acknowledge that my finger and shoulder hurt. None of those things had to become a larger story about how I felt about my dog.

The event was one thing. The zing was another.

But How Far Do You Need to Go?

Once I separated the event from the zing, I had another choice. I could have kept going. I could have tried to determine exactly how much of the energetic charge belonged to the individual whose anger and frustration I believed I had sensed. I could have separated that from what I perceived as the shadow masculine, examined the larger archetypal channel, and kept pulling the experience apart until I understood every energetic layer I was capable of perceiving.

Years ago, I probably would have.

Now, I didn't see the point.

That may actually have been one of the more important moments of spiritual discernment in the entire experience.

Just because I can continue discerning something doesn't mean the continued discernment will benefit me.

More Spiritual Discernment Isn't Always Better Discernment

We often talk about intuitive development as though greater resolution is always the goal. Greater resolution often equates stopping, preventing, or changing. Thus we want to see more, feel more, and understand more.

But I believe there is another stage of discernment that deserves just as much attention: knowing when you know enough.

At what point does the discernment begin to take energy away from you; rather than give back energy, aid, and/or benefit you?

Event. Zing. Choice.

By the end of the evening, Renny was still Renny. She hadn't become a symbol of something terrible, and I hadn't suddenly made the wrong decision by bringing her into my life. She was still the dog who arrived during a period when I was breaking old cycles. She was still my beloved puppy who believes she is a cat.

She had also wrecked part of my couch, contributed to an injured finger, peed on a mat that sent me into a wall, and stolen part of my dinner.

Both realities are true.

Maybe that's the simplest way I can describe what discernment gave me that day. Something happened, and something else seemed to be riding alongside it. I separated the two, decided how much more information I actually needed, and then chose what deserved my energy.

We don't always have to follow an emotion, an intuitive impression, or an energetic thread all the way to its deepest possible origin before we're allowed to make a healthy choice. Sometimes discernment is knowing what something is.

And sometimes discernment is knowing when you have learned enough.