What is possible with expanded awareness?

It was one of those assignments that every man learns to dread--shopping with the wife and kids.

(Sounds like the beginning to one of those vintage detective stories, I know. Bear with me....)

I had been working with Eric for 6 or 7 months, and our common interest in tracking and expanded awareness led to some pretty wild discussions. But running energy was getting boring--I was ready to try some "real stuff."

One of the applications we had talked about was discerning the intent of others around us. Because of my law enforcement work, I'm really interested in this type of skill. So as we walked into the store, I started trying to "feel" whatever I could from the people in the store.

Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Of course, I had forgotten that I should "connect" first. So I started to "breathe and sweep." Breathe and sweep. Breathe and sweep. I had also forgotten that it's a good idea to practice these things while moving around. Breathing and sweeping was a bit more complicated while pushing a loaded cart through Wally World--definitely a lot different from sitting in a chair or lying in bed.

In the confusion of trying to walk and run energy at the same time, my original intent was lost. For nearly 10 minutes, I was trying to hold it all together--walking, pushing the cart, avoiding other shoppers, running energy, pretending to listen to my wife, etc.

After the divided attention became less annoying, a thought popped into my mind--that this might be a good way to identify someone who was carrying a firearm. Arizona law allows citizens to carry sidearms openly, so it's not too unusual to see someone strolling through WalMart with a .45 on their belt. I wondered if being connected to this life force thingy that Eric kept talking about would help me locate someone in the store who was carrying a firearm.

Keep in mind that I had no idea how this would happen. For all I knew, the gun-toter would be encased in a blue light. Maybe my skin would tingle. But I set my intent to locate someone carrying a gun, and tried to detach from any expectations of success.

The very first person I looked at had a 9mm pistol on his belt! I hadn't seen him before--he just "happened" to walk around the corner as I started my visual sweep of the area.

I'm no expert at this, but I suspect that while running energy, because of my law enforcement experience I had already located the pistol as something worthy of my attention. Instead of seeing blue lights or getting an itch, I got a signal that was misinterpreted as an "impulse" or impression to see if I could locate someone carrying a gun.

The information we're looking for doesn't always show up in the way we expect it to. As my skills increase, I expect that I'll learn recognize the subtle signals, and instead of a casual thought, maybe I'll hear my inner voice scream "Gun!"

For now, "gut feelings" and indigestion feel pretty close to the same thing....