Teaching Children About Energetic Boundaries

Energy Boundaries for Kids:

Helping Them Be The “You” That They Are

By Cyndi Dale

A while back, I received a call from my son’s school.

Now I’ve been called by the principal every so often for all sorts of concerns. There was the time Gabe “accidently” punched a kid in the stomach after the other kid “mistakenly” kicked him in the gut. There was the day nearly every boy’s mother was asked to restrict her son’s activities at school, after the boys collectively staged a mass jump into a huge mud puddle—the one near the recess teacher. There have been the flu calls and the “dog ate the homework” calls, the latter usually accurate, as we’ve tended to host dogs that eat just about everything, except the dog food, of course. This particular call, however, flipped my stomach.

“Your son threw his back out,” the school nurse informed me.

“How?” I asked, my stomach now officially sinking.

“Apparently he was simply sitting in his desk at 1:30 and said his back started throbbing. He’s having a hard time walking right now.”

I groaned—not only because I was concerned about Gabe’s well being, but also because I was the reason for his malady. You see at precisely 1:30 p.m. that day I was “releasing energy” from my lower back while sitting in an office with my therapist. My “old emotions” had transferred immediately from my body to Gabe’s, no stopping at “Go.”

I can’t count how many times I’ve been certain that Gabe’s issues were a result of absorbed energy rather than a particular germ or emotive problem. Sometimes he picks up my energy, other times, his father’s. Because he, like so many children, is such an open child, however, he’s fair game for attracting feelings, thoughts, illnesses, and frankly, even entities from friends, relatives, and more. As I work as an energy healer and intuitive consultant, he can even pick up my clients’ energies off of me through a process that is quite complex, and once in a while, even humorous.

For instance, I once hung up the phone after talking with a client who had a popcorn addiction. I emerged from my private office to Gabe’s clamor. “Mom, can we make popcorn? Please, please?”

We are open systems because we are energetic beings. Everything is made of energy, which is simply information that moves. Some energy—or information—moves slower than the speed of light. This is sensory or physical energy and is relatively recognizable by our five senses. We can hear, see, touch, smell, and taste sensory energy.

This energy is not only fairly constant but also easy to contain. We can’t hear what someone is thinking unless they share out loud. We can’t describe a photo unless it’s in front of our eyes. There’s an entirely different sort of energy, however, that operates faster than the speed of light and can permeate our skin, sneaking through to roost inside of us. This is subtle or psychic energy.

Subtle energy doesn’t stop at road signs. It’s not controllable by the Newtonian traffic cops of the universe.

It moves so fast you can hear what someone is going to say before they even know they are going to say it. It’s so quick you can perceive what’s going to happen before it does and it’s so flexible that you can feel what someone else feels like, even if they don’t know it. Subtle energy is the explanation for Gabe and other children’s ability to take on illnesses, desires, emotions, and more, that are not their own.

I believe many of us share certain similarities to the kitchen sponge but that kids are even more vulnerable to others’ subtle energies than are adults. Their energy centers, called chakras, and energy fields, often called auric fields or electromagnetic fields, are still fluid. These are two of the energetic structures that convert slow or sensory energy to fast or subtle and back again. In short, they are responsible for our ability to simultaneously sense what is occurring with others and also send information about ourselves into the world.

These energetic structures don’t set in stone, or at least, soapstone, until adulthood. This means that many children have almost no control over the absorption of others’ illnesses, feelings, thoughts, drives, needs, addictive tendencies, family systems dysfunctions, and even the invisible beings sometimes called entities or ghosts. On one hand, we want our children to be sensitive to others, but on the other hand, we want them clear and self-defined. How can we help the children in our lives accomplish these goals energetically?

We need to teach them about energetic boundaries.

We are all surrounded by energetic boundaries that expand to the corners of a room and beyond. Healthy, solid boundaries keep out unwanted energies and attract supportive opportunities. Unhealthy, punched in, or permeable boundaries do the opposite. To explain this idea, I draw a picture for children.

I insert a figure of a person in the center of four encompassing circles: red, orange, green, and white. I then tell children that these are the energy fields that “decide” what is going to happen to them physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually, respectively. Next I show them how others’ energies can enter their body and make them feel bad.

To illustrate how we might absorb others’ illnesses, I draw little black dots in the red sphere and track them into the body. This is how others’ colds, flus, and aches and pains can enter our outside in the red sphere and cause disease. To depict ways we take on others’ feelings, I sketch a big black cloud in the orange ring, calling it sadness or anger, and show how this cloud, like a thunderstorm, can move into us and make us feel bad.

Our relational field opens us to others’ relational desires, but also their thoughts and unconscious communiqués. To respond to others’ unconscious love needs, if it involves self-sacrifice, is a set-up for codependency. To explain this boundary, I have kids remember the last time they felt controlled by the ideas or judgments of a parent or a friend who wasn’t present. I then show them how this connection is similar to a phone line entering the blue boundary. If we decide to respond, that line extends all the way into our heart or ears and we feel compelled to take care of someone else rather than us. Finally, depending on the child, I explain that the white sphere can part like the Red Sea to invite messages from angels or darker figures, and that we have a right to accept only loving prayers and healing help.

What do we do if kids remark they might be struggling with certain boundaries? Kids are very sensitive to color. With young kids, I encourage parents to dress them in colors that strengthen the weaker boundaries or attract what is more desirable. Older children can imagine themselves surrounded by certain colors.

Red bolsters physical stamina; orange increases creativity; green invites healing and bonding; and white will purify negativity while welcoming angelic assistance. Silver deflects negativity; gold increases a child’s personal power; and pink both protects against external forces and encourages love.

Young children are quite responsive to the idea of an “invisible cloak,” a sort of Harry Potter cape or Superman special that, once donned by the imagination, keeps them safe and protected. Older children are often able to use breathing exercises to take in good energy and breathe out bad energy. I literally ask them to take a few deep breaths and say, “In with the good, out with the bad.”

There are special situations that call for extraordinary boundaries. Tests, for instance, often stimulate those butterflies in the stomach. Kids might become doubly stressed because they are picking up on other kids’ test anxiety. In order to remain calm and mindful, I encourage kids to picture themselves in a bubble of white light, which is clarifying and protective, while breathing in yellow, a healthy mental energy.

Night is hard for a lot of children as their daily boundaries are on a mini-vacation. It’s extremely important to make sure there no electrical objects in the room, as the corresponding electromagnetic (EMF) fields penetrate their physical boundaries and create tension. It’s also helpful to avoid mattresses that employ coils, as the metal distorts energetic fields. Since kids are usually very kinesthetic or sensory, I also encourage parents to surround their beds with grounding stones, such as limestone, river stones, or chips of other solid rocks. This will enable a peaceful and calm sleep.

It’s surprising how many children hear voices, sense ghosts or demons, or experience other psychic phenomenon. The most important instruction I provide these children is to assure them they can tell these beings to go away. I also introduce them to guardian angels or their religious depiction of God, telling them that they can call on this help to empower their “no’s.”

Bottom line, the most vital technique to help children establish energetic boundaries isn’t a technique at all. It’s a teaching. I want children to know that they are responsible for themselves, not for others. Their job, their joy, is found in taking care of their own bodies, feelings, thoughts, needs, and desires, not others’. They can help others, but this should not be done at their own expense.

Parents and adults who can demonstrate self-love in obvious ways best model this important concept. How about if we parents take personal time for ourselves, not only others? Eat right, exercise, and enjoy healthy behaviors? When interacting with others, what if we shared compassion and kindness while abstaining from codependency and self-sacrifice? In the end, boundary issues are a question of worth. We are worth being who we really are, not what someone else is or thinks we should be, especially for their own convenience.

In my home, I frequently remind Gabe that he doesn’t need to take care of me, emotionally or energetically. I’ll state my feelings and tell him that they are messages that tell me what to do, not him. It’s not his job to feel or fix them for me. Likewise, any time I suspect he is taking on my own or others’ issues, I stop and ask him to ask his own heart what’s really going on.If he has absorbed someone else’s issues, I remind him that he can ask the Divine to take care of the other person—and him as well.

What a gift to let our children know that it’s okay to be strong—and themselves. As Dr. Seuss said to us all,

“Today you are You, that is truer than true.

There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

What joy, to help our kids be the “you” that they are!

Original Print: © 2012  Cyndi Dale – All Rights Reserved ~ Printed with permission from Cyndi Dale

Reprinted March 2019

Cyndi Dale is an internationally renowned author, speaker, healer, and business consultant. Her books to-date includes the bestseller, The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, the winner of four internationally recognized Publisher’s Awards. Cyndi has presented seminars and workshops in Russia, England, Wales, Amsterdam, Iceland, Scotland, and has led groups across South and Central America and into Africa. Her training has encompassed studies in shamanism and healing across the world, taking her into the Peruvian, Belizean, Hawaiian, and Costa Rica jungles, the Moroccan sands, the Venezuelan savannahs, and the glaciers of Iceland. She seeks to unify the world’s most vital spiritual messages, encouraging understanding and community among all peoples.

On a daily basis, Cyndi works with clients and groups, serving as an intuitive coach and an energy healer. Clients are commonly referred by professionals, including psychiatrists, medical doctors, and therapists. She continues to hone her ability to help people discover their essential selves so that they can make healthy and positive changes in their lives. Cyndi offers training, classes and apprenticeship programs in the United States. Through Normandale College in Minneapolis, MN, she offers a seven-class certificate program, “Energy Works: The Subtle Body Certificate,” which is also being developed for online learning. She is also noted for her one-year Apprenticeship Program, an in-depth developmental process of the spiritual gifts; and training in clairvoyance, clairaudience, and healing.

With Anthony J.W. Benson, she provides creativity and writing classes through their business, Dreams Made Manifest. One arm of this endeavor is Deeper Well Publishing which serves as a publishing company for her own and Anthony’s projects as well as other books and products.

Cyndi has been trained in several different healing modalities, including shamanism, intuitive healing, energy healing, family of origin therapy, therapeutic touch, the Lakota way and faith healing and holds a fourth degree mastership in Reiki. Her travels and training have taken her around the world. She taught business ethics at the University of Minnesota; served as a public relations consultant to 3M and Tonka, and has been honored in “Who’s Who in American Business,” “The American Women of Noteworthy Achievement” and the “International Association of Business.”

In addition to her newest works publishing in 2011, Kundalini: Divine Energy, Divine Life, Energetic Boundaries: How to Stay Protected and Connected in Work, Love, and Life, and The Intuition Guidebook: How To Safely and Wisely Use Your Sixth Sense from Deeper Well Publishing, her other world-renowned books include New Chakra Healing, now published in over twelve languages and revised in an all new edition The Complete Book of Chakra Healing; Advanced Chakra Healing: The Four Pathways Approach; Everyday Clairvoyant; Attracting Prosperity Through the Chakras; Attracting Your Perfect Body Through the Chakras; Advanced Chakra Healing: Heart Disease, and Advanced Chakra Healing: Cancer.

Cyndi lives in Minneapolis with her sons, Michael and Gabriel, as well as way too many pets, all of which believe they have voting rights to her time. For more information on how to connect with Cyndi, visit CyndiDale.com.