A client recently asked me what she could do to not absorb the painful energies of family members when they were projecting negative energies. She has some close family members who exhibit narcissistic and unconscious behaviors. This is really triggering to her young parts who have had to deal with this for a lifetime and she becomes flooded and frozen. On top of that, she is very empathic so she is also absorbing what feels like poisonous or toxic feelings when she is around these people as they go off on one selfish rant or another, completely oblivious to how they are impacting her. Of course one solution she has is to spend less time with them but this is not a complete solution as she doesn’t intend to cut them out of her life. She can also get up and leave the room during particular challenging moments.
Having been in therapy before, she commented that past therapists had told her to use an imagined golden cloak to protect her from any and all negative energies. I think this can be very useful at times. But some times call for more drastic measures. When the outer situation is really intense and our parts are in extreme states of dysregulation – as is clear she was by the freeze response – we can call upon more powerful visualizations. For some people/situations, gentle protective imagery isn’t potent enough to match the intensity of what they’re facing. And if you are skeptical about the realness or efficacy of visualizations, I’d say don’t knock it until you’ve really tried it. I mean with sincerity and many times over as these practices are like anything else in that their strength builds as does your skill the more you practice them.
I brought up the theme of fierce or wrathful deities with my client. In Tibetan Buddhism as well as many other traditions that use icons or figures to exemplify certain energies inherent in life (archetypes), there are certain ones that embody ferocity. These are often known to be protectors or guardians of something. These protective entities or energies are essential in life. They don’t have to be in a Tibetan Buddhist form. They can be a lion, an imaginary monster-ally, or a Lord of the Rings Elfin warrior. It is the mother bear protecting her cub with an ear splitting roar and threatening, deadly claws. It is the armed warrior at the door, insuring no one shall pass into the inner sanctum where the family sleeps safely and the precious jewels are stored. It is that force that bubbles up in you and says “not on my watch!” to injustice.
There is a blind spot here for many of us modern people who have grown up on an energetic diet of “be nice and open hearted.” We have been erroneously taught that it’s best to stay open, be nice and accommodating. Maybe this is more classically what female bodied people are encouraged to believe, but I also believe it’s a story boys and men are often taught these days. It could be that we are out of balance in our relationship to this energy of guardianship and protection. When we are not consciously embodying it as a society, it has to come out somewhere, and that is in the form of an obsession with guns by many citizens and overly violent sectors of trained forces. But how the fundamental essence of this need to garner protective energy applies to each of us individually in our lives and relationships is something we can work to improve.
One of my most vivid memories from childhood was at camp when a group of our New Zealand camp counselors enacted a Māori warrior dance – the Kapa Haka – and then taught us to do it. “This haka was … used before battle to bring courage to the tribe and to emphasize the triumph of light over darkness.”1 It was a revelatory experience I can still feel in my body, to take on a powerful stance and loudly yell the indigenous Māori chant while stomping and moving my arms in protective cross-body moves. I felt filled up with a fire from deep within myself and from the earth itself. Even as a child, I knew this was different from the aggression that comes from shadow—this was something ancient and sacred.
Starting by acknowledging that we are being protected all the time by countless seen and unseen forces is a way to start engaging with these energies more consciously and using them to help us for good. In the case of my client, I tasked her to bring images into her daily life of fierce, protective beings, with fire and swords and fangs. The core intention of these kinds of beings is to protect what is good and true, not to hurt anyone unnecessarily, but to stop or shield from malicious gunk from hurting us and what we hold dear. (Pair this with the equally useful practice of Feeding Your Demons from my post of Feeding Not Fighting. Different practices for different moments. Protection is distinct from fighting.)
In addition to calling upon images of fierce beings, I also gave my client the homework of doing “Lion’s Breath.” This is a pranayama (yogic breathing) where by you take a deep breath, then open your mouth and eyes as wide as they can go, sticking your tongue out forcefully, draping it down over your lower lip, and making a loud exhale akin to a powerful growl or hiss. Some yogis roll their eyes to look upwards and hold their hands up on either side like claws, fingers fully extended. Try it different ways. This practice works on multiple physiological levels: the exaggerated facial expressions stimulate the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic nervous system and shifting you out of fight-flight-freeze. The intense engagement of jaw, throat, and facial muscles—areas that often hold chronic stress and trauma—followed by release, creates a genuine nervous system reset. By deliberately engaging the muscles around the eyes and mouth, you signal safety to your body while the vocal component activates a felt sense of agency and boundaries. This isn’t just visualization or mental exercise—it’s embodied practice that directly regulates your autonomic nervous system, building the somatic capacity to stand in your warrior stance when facing challenging relational situations.
Fierce energy can be harnessed to help and protect us in times of need. It is not always needed to be fierce. Sometimes softness, compassion, and openness are called for. But not always. It is when we are not in skillful, aware relationship with these energies that they end up dwelling in the shadows and coming out in destructive ways. This theme is showing up in my son’s kindergarten classroom as well. The teachers called together a parent meeting to discuss how we are all holding and reckoning with the innate impulse in our kids to express their aggression and power. Besides helping my client to fortify her confidence and self-protection in the face of painful family dynamics, maybe the Lions’ Breath and fierce imagery would be good to introduce to kids, in an age-appropriate way, to help them learn healthy and useful ways to wield the sword of ferocity in service of the good.
Lion’s Breath Practice
1. Find a private, safe space where you feel free to make any movements or sounds you want to for a few minutes (bedroom, shower, car, private office, nature spot)
2. Stand or sit up straight and feel your feet firmly planted on the earth, knees slightly bent if you are standing. You can also do this in a hands and knees position on the ground (feels good because you can feel the solid support of the ground underneath you).
3. Close your eyes and take a few full breaths in and out. Tell yourself that you are safe and protected in this moment.
4. Take a nice big inhale, and on the exhale, open your eyes and mouth wide, sticking your tongue out and down as far as you can, making an audible exhale through the mouth. Feel the muscles in your face and tongue stretching a lot. Then close eyes and mouth and return to calm breathing with your attention inward. Repeat several times to really feel the effects. Then rest and observe how you feel.
5. When you open your eyes, notice if you feel differently as you look out upon the world.
