How exactly do you create hucha?

There are three primarily ways: as a result of conflicted and life-negating emotions, a lack of self-awareness, and a loss of integrity in your thoughts, words, and deeds.

Jealousy, worry, blame, and harsh judgments and emotions that negate the value of yourself or others can create hucha. As can loss of integrity, which usually results in hypocrisy. For example, if you are thinking, “What a jerk this person is” but are shaking his hand and telling him how happy you are to meet him, your hypocrisy can create hucha. The operative word in these examples is “can.” These emotions don’t have to create hucha.

Hucha, as you may know, is kawsay/sami that is slowed down. Kawsay’s nature is to move unimpeded. If you are conscious of your ayni exchanges with the living universe and so absorb and radiate kawsay freely, then you won’t slow kawsay down. It won’t get stuck on the skin of your poq’po (energy body) or blocked from flowing through you. However, when you are unconscious of your ayni exchanges and out of integrity in your emotions, thoughts, words, or deeds, you can slow, stop, or block the flow of kawsay and so create hucha. Hucha, as you can see, is not negative, bad, dirty, or contaminating energy. It is just slowed or blocked life-force energy. And even if you e experience life-negating emotions or a loss of integrity in our behavior—as we all do—you don’t have to create hucha. It’s possible, but not a given.

Why?

Because we are conscious beings. And self-awareness has everything to do with ayni—with the way we interact with the living energy—and thus with hucha.

Here are three variations of a scenario that examines energetic emotional processes. I have devised this example precisely because it relates an event that seems innocuous: going to an art gallery. Even seemingly simple or mundane events and interactions can cause problems if you are not conscious of your energy dynamics. One variation of the scenario creates hucha, and the other two don’t.

Scenario One: As you view the artist’s work, which has been touted by art reviewers, you form an opinion: “Wow, her portraits are fantastic , but I’m not so fond of these landscapes. And the prices! They seem ridiculously high. That must be the artist. Wow, she certainly seems self-confident the way she’s making the rounds. Guess I won’t wait around to meet her. I think I’ve seen enough. I’ll have a glass of champagne and head home.”

Scenario Two: As you view the paintings, you think: “Yeah, she’s good. But only at portraits. Her landscapes are mediocre. Why didn’t the reviewers talk about that?  How could they be raving about her art and missing the truth about half of her works? There’s the artist. She’s not the least bit shy. In fact, she’s strutting around this gallery as if she were Da Vinci! There is no Mona Lisa here! And I can’t believe she gets these prices for her art. What makes her think these are worth that kind of money? She needs a reality check.”

Scenario Three: As you move around the gallery, you think: “She’s good, at least at portraits. No denying that. The landscapes. . .don’t like them so much. And the prices! A bit high. Maybe a lot high. Where is the artist? Oh, that must be her. She certainly is strutting around as the star of the show. Ha! She thinks she’s Da Vinci, but she certainly is not . . . Hhmmm. Where did that snarky remark come from? I am feeling hostility toward her and I haven’t even met her! I wonder why? I don’t even know her. I haven’t spoken a word to her, but I have been pretty hard on her since I walked in. What’s that about? Why am I feeling such a strong negative reaction to her as a person? Am I feeling jealous? Jealous? I am! I have to admit it. Why?”

After more self-reflection, you realize you are projecting. You realize, “I always wanted to be an artist, and here is a woman who has done it, and is making a darn good living at it. She’s self-confident because she has a show and a full audience, and from the looks of things a lot of buyers. I never had that kind of confidence. I only dabbled with oils. . .I never really applied myself. Never believed in myself as an artist. It’s my romantic dream. That’s why I am so hard on this artist. I am jealous of her success—because I never risked trying to produce any art myself.”

You can see the differences in energetic, emotional processing that goes on in the three scenarios. In the first process, you form an opinion, but there is no emotional charge with it. It’s what you think. You’re entitled to your opinion, and when you leave the show, you are not carrying any emotional baggage out with you. The result is that even though you had strong opinions—some that reflected negatively on the artist—no hucha was created.

In the second scenario, opinion begins to veer into emotional turmoil. Objective opinion spirals into judgment and self-righteousness. There’s a good chance that you are projecting something hidden within yourself onto the artist, but you are oblivious to that possibility. You think the truth is “out there,” not “in here.” This is a classic set-up for creating hucha.

The final scenario starts out much like the second one, but you catch yourself as you spiral from opinion into judgment. You realize you are not only feeling a strong emotional reaction, but that your emotions are beginning to become overcharged. You have the self-awareness and self-control to monitor your emotional dynamics and so begin to explore the charge behind your hostile feelings. When you do, you discover at least part of what you are feeling is a result of your projection of unrealized dreams onto another person. You realize that while there is nothing wrong with having an opinion and you are at liberty to dislike something or someone, something more is going on. You have no objective evidence or personal interaction to justify your feelings about the artist, and that’s a clue that your shadow self (the hidden, rejected, denied aspects of yourself) is involved. This process of self-reflection allows the hostile feelings to dissipate, thus guarding against your creating hucha.

As you can see, lack of awareness of the complexity of our thoughts and emotions—and thus lack of self-examination—is a core reason we slow or block the life-force energy and create hucha.

The transpersonal psychologist and philosopher Ken Wilber wrote something that helps us understand why self-awareness is so important. He says, to paraphrase, that information is just information. No matter what kind of information is input to your consciousness—a fact from outside or an internal opinion— it is simply information. In and of itself information is devoid of emotional content. The emotions are add-ons—they come from your reaction to the information. When you have a strong emotional reaction to that input—especially one that stays with you over time—you have a clue that your feelings are arising from your shadow self and so are not truly well-formed, objective opinions or reactions. If you have an emotional reaction and then it passes—you can let it go easily—then you’re okay. But if those feelings linger, you need to pay attention. You have exposed a soft spot in your shadow and that information has irritated it. That irritation has presented itself as projection—usually of negative emotions—onto others. Through self-reflection, you can aspire—as paqos do—to be a person who “sees reality as it really is.” In this case, you see that your opinions have become embroiled with emotions about yourself and really have little or nothing to do with the other person. That person or situation simply became the trigger for that shadow emotion. When you realize this, then you can deal in a healthy way with those feelings and not create hucha.

While there are other ways you can create hucha, lack of self-awareness, unjustified/projected charged emotional reactions, and loss of inner integrity in thoughts, words, and deeds are three of the most common. If you take this knowledge to heart and work these three energetic processes, you will go a long way toward evolving your consciousness and creating greater well-being for yourself and others.