A lot of people talk about shielding. I talk a lot about shielding. And I wanted to ramble about it for a bit, because I understand that the idea of imagining a white light surrounding you can feel a bit empty to some. It certainly felt empty to me when I first started, it was this task that I didn’t have any emotional attachment to nor did I truly believe it would do anything for me. And yet, here I am, in this very community, making simple statements about shielding and how great it is without providing the whole truth about it. Because as easy as it is to do, there’s a lot of foundational stuff behind it.

So let’s break down the how. I mentioned it above, but I am stating here again as a solidified statement that I can reference back to:

“Imagine yourself surrounded by a white light or energy.”

Imagine: This is not fantasy land imagination, this is visualization. In your minds eye, you create an image. I’ll go into more depth on why visualizing a thing makes an effect on the world further in. For now, we will focus simply on the “how”. You can practice visualization with anything, just pick a thing and recreate it in your mind. Energy and light is easier to visualize because of it’s formlessness.

Yourself: You, where you are, in what you’re wearing, how you are in that moment. This is important. You don’t want to shield your future or past self, and certainly not the self you imagine. You want protection in that moment, so remember to be present.

Surrounded: This is where you get to decide what your shield looks like. Is it a large bubble? Is it a smokey haze? Can you move it? All of these things are small factors. Go with what feels most protective to you, don’t worry about the finer points of it. If you feel better imagining it cascading down like a waterfall over your head, do that. If instead you feel more protected by a fluffy robe of light, imagine that. Perhaps you believe in a higher power who holds you in their hands of light. This is fully customizable, so wrap yourself up in it however intuitively feels best.

White: We say white because white is reflective. Metaphysically, white is generally considered the purest color or light. It is whole, complete, and sacred. Most major religions clothe their higher power or highest clergyman in white. I also think that white shows the dirt better, energetically speaking. If bad vibes are getting on your “shield”, it’s easy to see, you have clear vision.

Light or energy: I say light or energy as more of a visual cue for you. I also think that when it comes to white energy specifically, it looks and feels a lot like light. But if you’re not into the whole “everything is energy” deal, then light works just fine. Both work, so we don’t have to argue over which is correct. Go with your gut! The shield you are creating is like a force field. It’s important to remember that whatever you make it out of is strong, reflective, protective, and positive.

So what is the point of shielding?

The point of shielding is to give yourself a buffer for the wayward emotions and vibes of the world. It helps to keep your eyes open and observant without emotionally suffering.

What does “shielding” really do for me if I don’t follow the same spiritual construct as you?

Psychologically, it is implementing a cognitive bias. If you’ve been in therapy, undoubtedly you will have had experience with positive affirmations. You tell yourself that, for instance, you are happy and healthy every morning. Over time, your brain adopts that to be truth and it begins to influence your daily life. By shielding yourself, you are giving yourself the cognitive bias that you are protected from the emotions you are observing, and that you are less affected because of it. It’s like hacking your brain, you can make yourself believe anything if you want to. I, personally, think it’s a loophole we should use to our highest good.

But, Wookiee, isn’t that kind of like brainwashing?

Yup.

Isn’t brainwashing wrong?

Nope. Well, obviously you don’t want to brainwash someone else. That’s manipulation and goes against most people’s morals on a very personal level. But to be fair, the world has been brainwashing you since birth. You may hear some in some circles the concept of the ego and ego blocks. Your ego is made up of all the cognitive biases that you use instinctively. It’s just the way our brains work. In order to save energy for your body, your brain adopts repeated patterns as truth and automatically feeds that information to you. For instance, many people would think it odd to begin a meal with a bowl of ice cream. But that is simply a cognitive bias that was built up by repeated patterns of ice cream coming after a meal. We are simply taking advantage of this through our awareness of it. We each must decide what our moral code is and where we draw the line, but I think that’s a personal choice.

If you’d like to hear more about the metaphysical opinion, please let me know. I can do that, I’m super into that. But I feel that this community would benefit more from the psychological model at this time.

If you’d like to see more articles like this, please let me know, and be sure to drop some topic ideas in the comments! I hope this has proven to be helpful.

This blog is a chapter of the r/empaths and r/empath subreddits.