-
Discussion
-
Finally, you’ve opened your third eye! You’re exploring the spiritual, observing how the energy flows around us. Maybe you’re meeting spirits or parts of your psyche, receiving new understanding about life and the dynamic nature of consciousness.
Everything is new and exciting, but you’re starting to get sidetracked when you should be focused on the physical.
A spirit interrupts your breakfast with an “important” message, you notice on your daily walk a car accident and know that the driver had died due to the energy that hovers over the scene, which leaves you disturbed for days. Maybe, you’re getting an increase in nightmares and sleep paralysis. You suddenly get a download or dream about your family member, who then shortly passes and you agonize on what you’ve could have done. Perhaps, you notice the unsolicited energy of a client glomming onto you at work.
You’re getting headaches, feeling sick, off center, having trouble visualizing and concentrating. If you’re not just getting sick, you could be experiencing psychic blowback. This happens when we practice ungrounded. You can actually damage your third eye by being too enthusiastic in your practice. I experienced psychic blowback when I was a kid and last year when I first started out.
Maybe you’ve already mastered the art of Ground, Center, and Shield and have noticed this has helped you, but you still *observe* these things and they’re causing interference in your life, now.
In this post, I’ll go over the importance of dialing down for our mental well-being with resources on how to do it. I am not a professional practitioner. I’m a witch who happens to be psychic since early childhood. I’ve been practicing spiritually for over a year, now. I also struggle with c/ptsd and trauma. While my practice has greatly improved my life, it had also further aggravated my existing trauma because I didn’t know when to walk away. Ignorance is bliss, right?
Everyone needs to step away. Everyone.
Let’s start with dialing down.
How you close down doesn’t matter. What matters is that it should have the *association* of closing down your awareness.
I’ll give you some examples. Feel free to create your own.
In Matt Auryn’s Psychic Witch, He talks about meditating on a dial that represents your awareness. Tune it to lower it and feel your awareness shrink, the noise gets quieter until all you’re aware of is your physical reality, your thoughts and feelings. Nothing else.
When I first started playing with types of shields, I started to visualize a metal dome over my head, blocking out every noise, nothing could see in and nothing could hear my thoughts. The immense sense of peace was like nothing I had ever experienced. For the majority or entirety of my life I was receiving so much of something. Most of which, I couldn’t translate, so it bombarded me like static. Putting up that shield made everything quiet- even in a crowded room.
Nowadays, when I’m distracted by energy or entities, I’ll picture my third eye in my mind and shutting it, feeling my awareness shrink with it.
It’ll start out like a short meditation. The more you do your chosen method, the quicker you’ll be with it. Right now, it takes me about a minute to 30 seconds to finish closing down, but when I first started it took several minutes.
To open back up, reverse whatever method you chose. Your abilities won’t be lost.
At the end of my practice, I’ll spend time closing down. I was doing this before bed as well since I have a heightened psychic awareness in the beginning phases of sleep. Sometimes, I talk to people or entities in my dreams. Currently, I lack the lucidity to do this safely most times, but I’m working on getting better. Whenever you close down in your practice will be in accordance to your needs.
These examples are very visual. For those who struggle with this, pick a sense that’s natural for you. For shielding, I like to focus on a satisfying click as the shield is in place. Feel the weight that assures you of its impenetrability.
For the dial exercise, focus on the texture ridges of the dial, feel your wrist turn it as your awareness decreases. You hear a click as you’ve reached the point where your awareness is off.
If you lean more crafty, you can associate an item or action with being open. Mark Auryn uses the action of taking off his hematite ring with going into a trance state. He started out whenever he started meditation, he would take it off, then when he would close down, he would put it back on. Using this ring so much in practice, he started to associate twisting it off with being open that he can do it out in field fairly quickly.
I also have trouble staying in my body. This paragraph is for those like me. My dissociative nature has made it easy to *start* astral projection (and so, *so* much harder to be safe about it 🙂 ). I know dissociation and astral projection are different, but they are in the same family. It’s easy for someone like me to pop out, while others try for years and still struggle. Trust me when I say that the ease of which I pop out is not a good thing.
Closing down in this way for me involves a grounding technique I’ve learned in therapy, though modified for my spiritual practice. .
I’ve already grounded, centered, and shielded, and cleansed before my astral journey. I had already called in the Four Quarters to set up my circle and invited them to travel with me and ensure my safety.
I shut all portals previously opened.
When I’m ready to step into my body, I do so, making sure my spirit aligns with my physical form. I’m centered, right arm goes to the right, left arm goes to the left. Each leg steps into itself. It’s like I’m putting on a suit.
I’ll focus on three things I feel physically, three things I hear. I open my eyes and note three things I see. I’ll point out three things I smell. I meditate on being present in that exact moment in time, who I am, where I am, and that I’m safe. I’ll stay in that awareness for as long as I need before dismissing each Guardian I’ve called in and closing that circle and then “shutting my third eye”.
**But why close down?**
We’re physical beings and need to do physical things. Doing too much spiritual practice can leave us ungrounded in reality. The universe is a beautiful, but an indifferent place. It will give you more than you can handle and you definitely can break if you let it. If you’re like me who struggle with mental health, it can add an extra challenge. If I’m open all the time, I’m dissociative, missing out on life. A year ago, I was open in a spiritually unsafe environment and I allowed a spirit to mop the floor with me, which has left me and my partner with additional trauma we didn’t need. In my early posts about the risks of astral projection, you can probably feel the instability in my words. It’s because I was still so scared.
Working with more spirits of various sizes and complexity, I’m no longer scared of the entity that was attached to me. It feels so small and I’m happy my guide stepped away so I could learn to defend myself on my own.
To me, the scariest things are not the dark or chaotic entities, but parts of my own psyche that had been locked away for so long. Those can shake me to my core. Being open and exploring your mind can lead you to frightening places you might not be ready for. If you lack the tools to face it, this can exacerbate trauma and absolutely destroy your mental health.
It might be exciting to see so much improvement in yourself when you do parts work, but pace yourself. Be gentle. Seek professional help if it’s accessible. A good resource for doing mindfulness with trauma is *Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness* by David Trevealen. Nearly word for word, his book described what plan my Psychologist at the time laid out for me. Good stuff.
I have a soft spot for nature spirits and get excited when I see my favorite ones. There was one time when I was very sick, still pushing myself to work when I stumbled upon a familiar spirit in her grove. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, felt energy spark at the base of my spine, tingle up my back and arch over me. I was excited and felt partially out of my body at becoming aware of her presence. Suddenly, I felt concern from her that caused me to doubletake.
“You *need* to rest.” She told me. And that was all she said, cutting the interaction short.
It might be obvious to those more experienced, but I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s vital for us to energetically rest when we’re sick. While struggling off and on with sickness, my guides would insist I needed to be present in my body and to put the spiritual aside. My body needed that energy more than anything else.
My partner is an advanced lucid dreamer. Astral projection is a new concept for her she has been curious to explore. We both listened to the book Illusion of Method by Mark Gurrian.
One night, she decided to go through time and into Bardo where her dad was going through a life review and they communicated with each other. When she woke up, she told me she felt weird, like she wasn’t in present reality.
“Did you close down and integrate?” I asked her.
“No.”
To make matters worse, because her dissociative state was distressing, she took an edible. Getting drunk or high will only prolong the integration process (ask me how I know 🙂 ). All my attempts to walk her through the grounding process were unsuccessful. She couldn’t focus. I got her something hardy to eat instead and we spent the day trying to make things comfortable for her.
Most people (including myself, which is why I prefer to project while awake) have trouble closing down in their sleep, however my partner has such great lucidity that she definitely can close down. She got lucid, decided to go to Bardo, decided to exit Bardo, and then chose to wake up. She just didn’t integrate and close down properly. Looking at her, I could see she wasn’t fully present in her body. She didn’t fully come back until the next day after she integrated back into her body in a lucid dream that following night.
Sometimes, it’s just not the right time to practice. What going too far and then stepping away has taught me, is that there’s a time to practice and a time to decide not to. When I’m already dissociative it is absolutely the worst time to practice because grounding is difficult. Not only that, but my unresolved emotions can create hurdles in my practice. I’ve gotten stuck in the astral because I didn’t want to go back to my body.
Luckily, I was in a safe place and those who were there helped me get unstuck. Still, the experience was distressing as I didn’t think that could happen.
I’ve learned that if I practice anyway, it doesn’t do me favors. It extends that time I’m dissociative as if I have one foot in the spiritual and a foot in the physical. It’s not a good feeling.
The best thing for me when I’m dissociative is to pay attention to the physical, talk to people I love, be with our animals, go outside, and treat mindfulness very, very carefully.
**What if there’s information I need to know?**
Let it go. Your mental health matters. You need to put yourself first as a priority in order to grow. You are no help to others or yourself if you aren’t well.
When I was closed down something terrible happened to someone I loved. Normally we feel when each other isn’t well and check in. This was the first time I was completely blindsided by the text messages that morning of her in the ICU. My partner had a dream about her, but this person wasn’t even on my mind before I got the texts that morning.
I felt horrible, like it was my fault.
However, what could I have done if I was open?
Nothing.
There was no difference between being open and knowing something was wrong and reaching out versus me receiving messages stating she was in ICU blindsided. She would have gotten sick either way.
Being closed down during that time helped me focus on her, giving her the love and comfort she needed while she recovered. It helped me stay grounded and focused on what actually mattered.
(edit in italics to make the conclusion more clear)
I noticed numerous posts asking how to open your third eye, how to increase psychic ability, how to astral project, but I hardly see anyone asking how to close down. It’s concerning because in my own experience it’s more important to my mental health to know how to dial down than anything else. *When we’re sick, we need to close down and focus on healing. We can get so lost on the spiritual that we put family and friends on the back burner. By putting space aside for the physical, we become more well-rounded.* Psychic doesn’t mean instability, instability doesn’t mean you’re psychic. You don’t have to be both, but you definitely can.
**Good reads:**
Matt Auryn’s *Psychic Witch* <- Everything I talk about, he talks about and so much more!
David Treleaven’s *Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness*
**Free reads:**
How to close your third eye: [https://digestfromexperts.com/3781/how-to-close-your-third-eye-can-you-close-your-third-eye/](https://digestfromexperts.com/3781/how-to-close-your-third-eye-can-you-close-your-third-eye/)
Astral travel guide:
[https://www.uncharted-waters.net/post/my-not-sugar-coated-perspective-on-spirit-guides](https://www.uncharted-waters.net/post/my-not-sugar-coated-perspective-on-spirit-guides)
Discernment:
[https://www.uncharted-waters.net/post/learning-discernment-sensing-the-difference-between-inner-selves-and-spirits](https://www.uncharted-waters.net/post/learning-discernment-sensing-the-difference-between-inner-selves-and-spirits)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RicottaPuffs/comments/12yugvl/guidance\_for\_new\_or\_young\_people\_who\_wish\_to\_be/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RicottaPuffs/comments/12yugvl/guidance_for_new_or_young_people_who_wish_to_be/)
Guidance for New or Young People who wish to be Mediums or who have Experiences with Spirit. Post One: Levels of Spirit Interaction
byu/RicottaPuffs inRicottaPuffs
-
Why closing your third eye is more important than opening it
updated 7 months, 1 week ago
2 Members
·
1
Reply
-
My crown is wide open, and not because I am trying. I really struggle to close it. I’ve been told quite a lot that my crown being so wide open blocks my third eye. Any advice on that or insight?
-
Thank you for taking the time to share your hard earned knowledge. There are many things you expressed that I can relate to. I have learned a great deal from your post.
-
I agree with this post a lot. There have been a few times I’ve had to close down and come back to the physical completely for awhile before returning.
I feel like when you first start out and open your eye everything is thrilling as OP described and a lot of new practitioners would never consider closing the third eye which is understandable it feels like you worked so hard to get there or being on top. But sometimes after ego death or harsh lessons it’s okay to close down for a bit and regroup before coming back.
