What’s an Aura and Why Is It Important?

Most cultures of the world recognize that we are more than just our physical shell of skin, bones, and teeth. We are thinking, feeling, living, energetic fields of potential. We are our thoughts, feelings, emotions, brain, mind, body, and Spirit all wrapped together in a package of consciousness.

All of this potential, this consciousness, doesn’t just reside in the physical body. Thoughts and feelings, our own, and those we’ve picked up from others, surround us in a personal bubble of vibrational energy called an aura. While this word may be new to some people, we’ve all experienced someone “getting in our face” or standing too close to our back as we wait in line. What we are experiencing is the effect of someone invading our space, our aura.

Barbara Brennan, in her book Hands of Light, describes the aura as the “place where all the emotions, thoughts, memories, and behavior patterns we discuss so endlessly in therapy are located.” Western scientists call this energy surrounding our bodies a “bio-field.” Author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake writes about the theory of “morphic resonance,” suggesting that invisible fields surround and connect all matter and allow species to communicate telepathically.

Our journey of taming the inner critic  and living a life full of joy and peace, starts here, in this auric vibrational soup. Through the aura we exchange energy (thoughts, feelings and emotions) with our fellow inhabitants of the earth.

When we think of someone, we transmit some of our energy from our aura into theirs. When a parent worries about a child, they may be sending a mixture of love, concern, and judgment energy into their child’s aura. A boss or a co-worker may send us a little bit of criticism energy mixed in with their morning hello. These outside energies combine with our own internal truths. Soon we are unable to tell one from the other, so we accept it all, as a right, accurate and exact portrayal of who we truly are.

This I believe is the genesis of the inner critic. The judgments, criticisms and displeasure we feel about ourselves is energy we’ve unconsciously absorbed from people in our lives.

The following exercise will help you sense this invisible space surrounding you.

 Sensing Your Aura

1. Sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your eyes closed.
2. Most people’s auras are oval shaped and extend about eighteen inches in all directions. Imagine this egg-shaped space all around your body, softly pulsing with energy. You may even want to move your arms around slowly, feeling into this space around you.
3. The aura extends above your head and below your feet. Sense the space behind your knees and down to the tips of your toes. Imagine your aura extending about eighteen inches below the floor.
4. Think a peaceful thought, and imagine that peaceful energy filling your aura. Now think an angry thought and imagine your aura filled with that energy. Do you feel an energetic difference between the two?
5. Keeping your eyes closed, think a calm thought, and imagine your aura—head to toe and all around you—filled with calm, soft energy. Sit in this calm personal energy field for a moment longer. Know that as you get up and walk around, your aura moves with you.
6. When you are ready, open your eyes, get up slowly, and walk around the room.

As you begin to understand auras, you come to the awareness that we are all connected. What affects one affects the whole. If you have ever entered a room and felt “negative vibes,” you have encountered some leftover energy still occupying the room. What type of energy, what thoughts and feelings, would you like to leave behind in a room? Anger and frustration or compassion and joy? You truly are your brother’s keeper, and the thoughts and feelings you transmit out into the cosmos have a lasting impact on the energy system of the entire world.