10
Loading video...
By Herman Petrick
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Your phone knows how many steps you took today, how many hours you slept, and how productive you were, yet no app reports on the person taking them.
We discuss mental health with far greater candor than previous generations, yet millions of people still feel exhausted and disconnected from themselves.
I believe we are overlooking an essential dimension of wellbeing. Our spiritual and energetic relationship with ourselves.
Read More on Leadership Insights
Physical and mental health deserve the attention they receive. But I have spent approximately 15 years working with people across different countries, and my experience has convinced me that the human experience cannot be understood through those two dimensions alone.
...
I see wellbeing through three interconnected areas. The physical body, the mind and the spirit.
Each deserves attention if we want to understand why someone can appear perfectly healthy while feeling profoundly depleted.
Consider how often a seemingly ordinary interaction leaves someone emotionally exhausted. Why does a conversation with one person leave us feeling uplifted, while another leaves us carrying a heaviness we struggle to explain?
We tend to dismiss these experiences as personality differences or temporary stress.
My perspective is that there is an energetic dimension to these exchanges that deserves consideration.
Beware The Energetic Parasites
I use the term energetic parasites to describe what I believe are external energies that attach themselves to people during periods of vulnerability, feeding on fear and anxiety, and influencing their emotional state.
These energetic parasites create the fear and anxiety that they need to feed on.
I also work on cutting what I call energetic cord connections that I believe can develop between people and become difficult to release.
These are spiritual concepts drawn from my own practice, not medically established explanations for anxiety, depression, or physical illness.
Yet they raise a question worth considering: how much of our emotional exhaustion comes from experiences and relationships we have never properly processed?
There is a physical dimension to this conversation that science does recognize. Chronic stress activates the body’s stress-response systems, including the nervous system, and can affect sleep, digestion, and overall health.
The World Health Organization estimates that over one billion people are living with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders among the most common.
These figures should prompt a wider conversation about how people experience their everyday lives, not just how we treat symptoms once they become overwhelming.
Our Attention is Finite
I greatly worry about the influence of constant external stimulation. Our phones accompany us everywhere. News alerts, social media feeds, television, and digital entertainment compete for our attention from the moment we wake up.
We absorb opinions, arguments, advertisements, and distressing information throughout the day, often without questioning how much of it we actually want to carry.
The problem is that our attention is finite, and our capacity for reflection requires space.
Research published in World Psychiatry has examined how digital technology can influence mental health, with effects varying according to the individual, the type of use, and the surrounding circumstances.
Technology is an extraordinary human achievement. But a society that can reach anyone instantly should also ask whether its members can still sit comfortably with themselves for ten uninterrupted minutes.
Many people have surrendered too much ownership of their thoughts and emotions to their surroundings. We allow external opinions to shape our identities, difficult experiences to dictate our reactions, and constant stimulation to occupy the silence in which self-awareness develops.
We Need To Leave Things Behind
In my work, I approach this through energy clearing and the removal of what I interpret as energetic blockages.
True agency begins when we name the external forces acting upon us, decode our entrenched emotional patterns, and intentionally decide what we will continue to harbor, and what we must finally leave behind.
Start with ten minutes a day. Put the phone away. Breathe. Reflect on the relationships that leave you feeling depleted and the experiences you have avoided confronting. Spend time doing something that reconnects you with yourself.
Seek appropriate professional support when emotional or physical difficulties persist. Taking ownership of wellbeing also means recognizing when we need help.
Which Daily Habits Will We Tolerate
The present trend toward digital dependency carries an inherent risk, breeding a culture where people share every detail of their lives online yet lack the bandwidth to offer a neighbor undivided attention.
When validation replaces connection, isolation becomes the default.
Yet the antidote to this isn’t unattainable. By learning to decode our own internal lives, we can develop the capacity to absorb the emotional realities of those around us, shifting the social fabric toward empathy and meaningful relationships.
The fine line dividing a fragmented society from a connected one runs directly through the daily habits we choose to tolerate.
I believe we are meant to have a stronger sense of connection, both with ourselves and with one another. I call this coming from the heart space.
It means allowing love and empathy to guide our decisions, instead of letting fear, insecurity, and self-interest dominate them. How we treat ourselves inevitably influences how we treat other people.
The responsibility for changing this cannot rest entirely with individuals. Healthcare leaders, employers, educators, and technology companies must take a more serious interest in the conditions shaping human wellbeing.
Mental health education should include emotional self-awareness.
Children Should Be Taught How To Manage Attention
Schools should teach children how to manage attention and develop healthy relationships with technology. Employers should recognize that productivity means little if the people sustaining it are chronically depleted.
Technology companies should be held accountable for designing environments that compete relentlessly for human attention.
We need to stop treating wellbeing as a maintenance routine for the body and mind alone. It should also involve asking what we are absorbing, what we are holding onto, and what kind of human beings our daily habits are helping us become.
I have built my work around that belief. Now it is time for the wider conversation to catch up.
Herman Petrick is a compassionate remote energy healer and founder of Global Energy Clearing.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines