In the best of times, a wonderful life can be stressful. Stress can help us to grow and build inner strength and outer muscle. What is important is to maintain a healthy level of energy in your body and aura to allow you to function well.

Good diet and sufficient rest, meditative practices and exercise help. Sugar and caffeine can get us through a particularly challenging period, but they charge a high price in return for the false sense of energy and focus they give. Many people give and take energy with other people. It may be conscious or unconscious on the part of those who are doing it. Depending on the day and who you exchange with, this can be nice or very toxic and draining, leaving you too vulnerable to other people’s moods and circumstances.

Below is an easy exercise for generating and maintaining a clear energy source for your life.

We will use the image of a tree. Just as a tree gets it’s life force from the earth and the sun, we are going to access our energy from the core essence of the earth (not the surface earth energy where life gets complicated and unhealthy, but the core essence where we are getting a pure spring like flow of clean energy) and the warm and loving energy of the sun (even in the night time, this energy will be accessible for you). In order to access these energies you don’t need to be outside on the ground or in the sunlight. Your energy body is already linked to these sources of life. Your body was largely built of their energies and they are already a part of you, as you are of them.

1. Imagine that you are a tree. The roots of your tree are already there, they spring from the core essence of the mother earth. Likewise, you already have branches that reach up toward the sun and they receive pure light and energy from that source, like sunlight on the leaves of a tree. The trunk of your tree is strong and wide and it is as big around as your arms can reach in every direction.

2. Breathe into your heart and belly and go deep within yourself to that still clear place within, which I call your Inner Wisdom. Your Inner Wisdom is that place within yourself where you just know things, you don’t know how you know, but you do. It is a trustworthy wisdom within you and knows how to do everything already. Allow the light of your Inner Wisdom to glow and fill your tree.

3. Ask your Inner Wisdom to help you to remember how to receive the core essence of the earth energy up through the roots which are already there within you and to allow it to fill your tree.

4. Ask your Inner Wisdom to help you to receive the unconditional loving energy of the sun and let it fill your tree too.

5. Allow your Inner Wisdom to merge its own light with these two sources of energy and to join them all into a strong and constant support and energy source for your life.

6. Imagine your days and nights and yourself being constantly supported and recharged this way. Ask that all your energy systems of body, emotion, mind, spirit, and aura would be recharged fully now and then constantly recharged day and night through your living, so that you are constantly gaining and recharging your energy and always having enough.

7. At the beginning of every day, refresh your tree by redoing this exercise and looking forward to your day and all the situations you know you will face, ask that you will have enough energy to meet those situations and any you don’t yet know about and that you will end your day with as much energy as you started with (more if you are tired to start with).

8. Imagine that the bark on your tree and the strong wood of it (using metaphors here) will keep your energy from being drained by others and keep you from picking up energy from others as well.

When you keep your personal boundaries strong, then the energy between you and others can be something lovely and healthy that is an expression of the divine in life that lives within and around all things. People can appreciate and support each other without getting all entangled in each others energy. Even with family and friends this can be very important. Each person needs to generate their own energy and be responsible for working with the divine within themselves to create their own life experience. When people are constantly trying to do for someone else or giving their power away, it gets in the way of their finding their own power and direction in life. Each of us has what we need, we may need help understanding and accessing our power and occasionally we may honestly need support from others, but most of the time we have to work through our own challenges for ourselves, in order to grow and self-actualize. Keeping good boundaries is a first step toward doing this for ourselves and allowing others to do it for themselves too.