I’m often asked about this series of posts regarding the use of other people’s negative energy. I wrote this ten years ago but it’s the kind of thing that will never go stale. If nothing else, you should know that people like me are out here. We exist!
Hi Elsa,
Awhile back I read some advice you gave regarding betrayal. You wrote about the idea that if someone stabs you in the back, that knife is yours to keep forever. Now I’ve been pondering this, but have yet to figure it out completely. Would you mind enlightening me a bit more with expanding on why keeping the knife is seen as beneficial?
A Reader
Great question, thank you. Sometimes I say these things knowing they are home truths but not knowing no one knows what I am talking about!
First, I did not specify “back”. It has nothing to do with being stabbed in the back. I am talking about being stabbed, period. When someone stabs you, there is an energy exchange. If someone hits you, same thing. If someone oppresses you in any way they are giving you energy. If someone kisses you, same thing. If they yell at you or if they give you a present, they are transferring their energy to you and at the point the energy is yours and therefore it is yours to use.
I hold that energy is neutral until directed. So when this persons lashes out, you now have their energy and what you do with it is completely up to you. For the record, I learned this by being stabbed! Someone stabbed me when I was 15 years old and I pulled the knife out of my arm and just looked at the guy like this: “What do you think you’re doing, fool? Who do you think you are stabbing, you idiot? Me?”
So think about that. He’s got all this rage and he sticks a knife in me. I immediately neutralized his energy. It was like a hard-on gone soft. I am sure I looked at him as if to say, “Try that again and I’ll kill you.” He didn’t stab me again.
It’s years later and I own that knife. Don’t you think? Who has the knife? Me? Or him? And don’t you think I’m just a tad fearless courtesy that experience?
So that is what I did with that energy as opposed to letting it crush me. As opposed to spending the next twenty years in abusive relationships, getting re-victimized. But let me come back with another example, not so extreme. Because this phenomena happens every day all around you and if you can get hip to this, the benefits are endless.
Are you adept at transforming negative energy? Tell us.
This became a series – Skip to part two.
Also I am wondering if it is the age of when the initial abuse happens whether one is likely to have that abuse repeated as an adult ; as the younger one is, it might impact the sub conscious more.
Hi Opalina, I am not sure of the birth time, but he has a Mars-Moon-Pluto conjunction in Leo, and with the birth time from mother’s memory the Scorpio is all contained in the 2nd house (Taurus). Very materialistic and obsessed with money. His Saturn is also exactly conjunct my Venus so there’s that too.
Yes, anonymoushermit, that’s exactly how it is. It’s taken a lifetime of working on not caring. I’ve read Elsa’s book (read it!) and marvel at how she didn’t take on the victim role. Any kind of spunk I showed was quashed immediately, whereas Elsa just kept going with it due to her own personal makeup. And, our astrology and temperaments are different hence a difference experience.
This is Buddhist tonglen practice. Breathe in the bad, breathe out with good
Not everyone will agree with this, but I think Elsa might. I was thinking about learning to receive and use the energy that’s been used against you – and what came to mind was Christ’s Resurrection from the dead (and that does seem 8th house). Whether you are Christian or not, I think Elsa is on to something – transforming that energy that’s been used against you can potentially be incredibly powerful. This has been an eye-opening post for me, Elsa. Thank-you.
good words,energy is in everything tangible or expressed
we are all in constant need of, usage of;like my car needs fuel[energy] work[energy] for food,wood[energy] for heat music[energy] for treasured mysteries in our mind[energy]constant state of exchange
its wicked windy here,gonna go pump up my mood and later
magically turn them into pies
As a natal Scorpio Pluto on the 1st house and Scorpio Saturn/Pluto on 2nd house…I learned almost after 30 years of being a cutting board to everyone’s Narcissim, scapegoating, emotional abuse, betrayal, fragile ego, insecurity, delusion, guilt trips and denial. I VALUE the knives that have been constantly thrown at me and my family. I unconsciously kept a lot of knives in storage without knowing and recently for the past 3 years, ive been throwing them all back now to it’s original owners. They were never my knives in the first place and I didn’t like bleeding from wounds I didn’t deserve. I use the knives to cut people out of my life and keep it around to make sure they don’t come back. If I had 30 years of abuse, then I would have 30 knives to use. I don’t feel bad because I didn’t ask for these knives and they don’t belong to me. Powerful. Healing. Transforming.
Well, I went through every post in this little set and it is exactly, exactly calibrated to where I am and very very profound. In fact, the only reason I am here and not playing music is tiredness.
There is a lot to say on this, including a not so positive point that Bob Dylans ‘positively fourth street’s’ is thought to be about Phil Ochs and was assumed as Phil Ochs before it became socially incorrect to say so… Ah, the pull of Saturns lair. For me though I always listened to it as being about a group.
‘When you know as well as me, you’d rather see me paralyzed. Why don’t you just come out once and scream it!’
… You know the types that are being nice to you in speaking terms but in behaviour are undermining you.
Also, I use a technique often myself that is apparently so powerful it was used by some survivors in concentration camps with positive effects which is visualisation. I am constructing memory palaces and many different rooms/ programs of different things. I can literally go for a jog in the forest. I can go there when I am forced into a situation I can’t withdraw from. Like a bad work day.
There are a lot of different directions to go with this comment. It could start off a books worth of information. But one point I think is relevant is Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda. I know it’s an animation but I analysed Tai Lungs fighting style to see how he manages to take down most of the other characters so easily and I like how he attacks, the opponent counters and he has already prepared and uses the counter to further his attack; mostly the opponents counter helps him more than them. In general, negative people do not prepare for the counter because they are stuck in the adrenaline high of taking someones energy. But this technique, although sometimes unavoidable, is not without cost. You are essentially allowing your opponent a free attack before you make your move.
There are a lot of other songs which describe a dark situation, such as Hoziers ‘take me to church’ about gossips, Metallica’s ‘Nothing else matters’ with many covers – ‘… Never careful what they do.’ The Delgados ‘I fought the Angels’ about BEING the gossip and losing all her friends.
I guess I’m just not good at transforming people’s energy into my own at all; when they lash at me, I simply stand there and take it to the face. And it kills me from inside, and takes time for me to recover.
I experience this despite having a packed Scorpio-ruled 8th house (Sun/Mercury and Jupiter/Pluto). I guess part of the problem is my Taurus Moon, as well as that my Jupiter/Pluto is the center of a T-square with Mars and Saturn. I feel that I can’t stand up for myself, instead simply remain quite and try to outlast the problem (perhaps that’s where my Moon-Saturn sextile comes into play?).
Nevertheless, when someone stabs me, I bleed, until I die or someone comes around and bandage me. I have rarely recovered on my own,and when I do, someone is always around, and when they leave, the mending wound is reopened, bleeding.
Interesting how relevant this is today. We’re all moving through ‘something’. Our world is definitely going through deep change. Bullying is rampant. Knives are semi-automatics. I get what Elsa means about someone transferring their energy to us. It takes me down, for a while. Cancer Sun/Moon, but then I alchemize the situation. There’s the Scorpio. Elsa does it quickly, in the moment. It can take me years. But I am a hell of lot stronger for it. I personally have no need to throw it back, but the energy is there, stored. Eventually someone will attempt to ‘knife’ me and they’ll look into my eyes where it’s all stored and they’ll back away wondering what just happened.
“The meaner you are, the luckier I get.” Priceless, Elsa!
I can relate to this. Just stabbed in the back a few weeks ago. Never saw it coming. Interesting concept. I like it.