You may or may not be conscious of it, but you actively read people all day every day. You might think of it as the “vibe” you get from people or places. I had a recent experience a couple of weeks back and here’s what happened. I was in a train, minding my own business and trying to read a book. Out of absolutely nowhere, I was hit by an intense wave of what I can only describe as negativity. The feeling was so commanding, that my head snapped up and caused me to study my surroundings, trying to figure out what had disturbed me. Feelings like these were the kind that warned me of impending danger or required that I increase my awareness. I don’t often question them. The scene playing out around me was that the train had just stopped at a station and people were filing in. It was not quite rush-hour, so the numbers were not very high. There were a number of empty seats available all round, and people were shuffling from carriage to carriage as they sometimes do, searching for the optimal spot. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but there had been snatches of sun which was enough to put most people in good spirits. The ambience was generally calm and pleasant, and in the air was the promise of an early spring, wafting in through the open doors.

When I looked up, I immediately saw a mother and her 2 daughters passing down the aisle in my direction. The girls appeared to be around the same age of around 6 or 7; maybe twins. The mother had in her hands a few grocery bags that didn’t seem particularly heavy, and seemed preoccupied in keeping her girls together – one was a couple of steps in front of her and the other just behind. When I looked up, the girl to the front, who was wearing a lime green parka, was just passing by my seat. But it was not they who had piqued my attention; it was a man who was passing down the aisle in the opposite direction. He was passing the little girl in green just as my head snapped up. He wore blue jeans and a dark coat (the most common garb adorned by men in that town), and carried a dark backpack. His dirty-blonde hair peeked out of the navy blue beanie it had been tucked under, and like the rest of him, this was rather unremarkable.

I noticed that the little girl in the green parka had noticed it too. She stopped and looked back at him for a long long minute. Her face was not to me, so I could not read her expression, but I knew that she had felt what I had felt. It was as though time had been suspended and the tapestry was hung at a moment where the man was walking away from us in slow motion and the little girl and I were looking after him. The negativity I felt was a strong feeling of hatred interspersed with rage. I wanted to protect the little girl so she wouldn’t have to be exposed to such raw evil negativity. I sought to protect myself – I did not want that energy interfering with my own. So I put up my energy shield. I think of it sort of like the invisible shield that protects Wonder Woman’s native land or Wakanda or the Starship Enterprise. It doesn’t make me invisible (get a grip people!), but is impenetrable to foreign energy, meaning that other people’s energy cannot affect mine when I am consciously blocking it. I asked myself what the level of the threat from this bad apple was and got the answer that his was a self-destructive path. No need to fear terrorism or the like – our train journey would be safe. 

Then, just like that, as though with the snap of the fingers, the moment passed and time was back on track. The man disappeared from view and the little girl continued on her path to find a seat. I later wondered if that girl had tried to explain this to her mother. I wondered what words she would have used to describe what she had felt. I wondered what her mother’s reaction would have been. You see, neither the mother nor sister had had any visible reaction when the same guy passed them by. Would the mother tag it down to her daughter’s overactive imagination? Maybe she would think it was an attention seeking ploy? Had the little girl previously tried to express a similar situation in the past, only to be rebuffed? Had she learnt to keep such experiences to herself to avoid the disbelief and disappointment in her mother’s eyes and taunting from her sister? This was interesting to me since it was that little girl’s validation that had pushed me to write this all down and share it. Perhaps her mother will read it and there would be validation for her as well.