Ep.19: Psychic Attacks, Family Life, and Seeing Clearly

Welcome + Quick Book Plug

Welcome to the Awaken24 Podcast, it’s me, Zi Yi. Today’s episode covers a few things that touch the soul of every cultivator, and honestly, anyone dabbling in the fine art of cultivating the mind.

Before we get into it, the book plug.

Jiu Wu Tan Gong, The Sacred Platform of Celestial Embodiment, Scroll 1: The Three Root Methods is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. I wrote it. It’s the beginning of a seven-volume system built from over 37 years of methods I realized, developed, and learned through direct practice.

Here’s what you can expect in this, and in all Jiu Wu Tan Gong texts:

• The reason for each method

• The perspective for each method

• The method itself

No filler. No storytelling as the main event. Just practice, clearly laid out.

This is the book I was looking for when I first started and could not find in the world. So I looked within, and things unfolded. This is a realized text, not a recycled offshoot. And I’m plugging it here because besides social media, I don’t have a real marketing machine. It’s all on me. Self-praise stinks, I know, so I’ll roll in the mud to get the word out. Bear with me, and thank you.

Segment 1

Psychic Attacks, Draining People, and Responsibility

The problem begins with the belief that things like “psychic attacks” can overpower you, hijack your will, and force you into decisions that are against your well-being.

That belief removes accountability. It places the cause of your experience outside yourself. And while that can feel comforting, it is usually a reflection of an unclear mind.

Yes, people influence one another all the time, through emotion, speech, posture, tone, and behavior. That’s normal. But the extent to which another person affects you is dependent on the clarity and stability of your own mind.

When a cultivator, or someone dabbling in cultivation, feels overwhelmed or controlled by people in their immediate environment, it does not automatically mean they’re under attack. It usually means boundaries are not being held.

Feeling uncomfortable around others is rarely “because of them.” It comes from not being clear on your own standards, limits, and cyclic sensory habits, the patterns through which the six senses get pulled.

The idea of “draining people” usually comes from allowing someone to take more attention, emotional bandwidth, or time than you can afford. The exhaustion that follows has nothing to do with psychic interference. It has everything to do with not maintaining boundaries.

And a lack of boundaries almost always points back to unresolved insecurity.

Kindness does not mean self-sacrifice. You can give attention without collapsing. You can be present without overextending. Boundaries exist because you know how much you can give before it becomes a burden, and you respect that limit.

Many people use spiritual language like “psychic attack” or “they’re draining my energy” to signal awareness while positioning themselves as powerless. It becomes a way to seek validation while avoiding responsibility for their own reactions and patterns.

The truth is simple: people influence each other constantly. Humans, animals, plants, all living beings do this naturally.

The difference between a cultivator of the mind and someone who does not cultivate is this:The cultivator knows their cyclic habits and works with them deliberately. They move with purpose and clarity in how they think, speak, and act.

Someone who does not cultivate simply reacts. They are carried by the ebb and flow of senses and emotions, believing that this is the only way things can be.

Keeping your energy strong is not about protection. It’s about clarity. It’s about boundaries. It’s about responsibility for your own mind.

That is the real work.

Clarifying What “Psychic” Actually Means

We also need to look at what people mean when they use the word psychic, especially in phrases like “psychic attack.”

Most people use psychic to mean the ability to receive information without spoken words, and transmit information without spoken words, mind-to-mind communication without speech. That’s the common definition.

From that perspective, a “psychic attack” would be a negative influence moving directly from one mind to another, intentionally causing harm or disruption.

Framed that way, it becomes easy to assume that anyone who feels draining, overwhelming, or emotionally intrusive must be attacking you psychically.

This is where the misunderstanding begins.

Influence does not automatically mean attack. Minds influence one another constantly through presence, emotion, tone, posture, and behavior, whether anyone intends it or not.

Calling every uncomfortable influence a “psychic attack” collapses responsibility outward and bypasses the real work: understanding how and why the mind becomes affected in the first place.

My point is simple: we cannot conclude that every unpleasant experience is a psychic attack, as if we had no control over what is happening. That kind of thinking gives away agency.

We always have the power to change how something is experienced, and that power is choice.

You don’t need spells. You don’t need energetic shields. You don’t need magical protection from other people.

What you need are clear boundaries and the mental fortitude to uphold them.

This is exactly why cultivation is so important. Cultivation places accountability back onto the cultivator. It forces you to see the causes of your experiences clearly, rather than projecting them outward.

From that clarity, you make a conscious, awakened choice: either to change what can be changed, or accept what will not change, without confusion or self-deception.

That is real strength. And that is real cultivation.

Perspective Check

Practicing With Kids, Work, and Stress

A common question I hear is: How do I practice when I have kids, work, responsibilities, and stress?

You have to apply the right perspective here. It is not that the world you’ve created gets in the way of practice. It is that you get in the way.

Most people believe cultivation only happens when you set aside a specific block of time. And yes, that is true for certain methods, especially sitting practices or single-minded focus cultivation.

But cultivation does not stop when you stand up.

There are contemplative practices, self-introspection, and observance without grasping. Cultivation is also the deliberate application of attention in daily life, making sure you are nourishing the right causes for the conditions you want to live within.

If you feel stressed, that’s your cue to investigate your perspective:

• How are you framing the situation?

• What are you adding emotionally?

• What are you wanting from it?

• What outcome are you clinging to?

That investigation is cultivation.

It’s not enough to say, “You must sit for 5 to 30 minutes a day or you’re failing.” That’s ridiculous.

Cultivation is not fixed. Use your immediate world as a mirror of the mind. Likes, dislikes, desires, resistance, all of these reveal the seeds operating within you.

Question. Investigate. Remove or empower. Repeat.

That’s how cultivation continues within family life and responsibility.

Seeing Clearly

Real Experience vs Mental Projection

In truth, everything arises from mind alone. Most of what we experience daily are self-imposed states.

When single-minded focus cultivation deepens, a buffer zone begins to appear between sensory stimulation and mental construction. This buffer marks the point before discrimination forms through the six senses.

As this becomes clearer, you begin to recognize when you are making things up through sensory habit.

But caution is required.

If you conceptualize that state, or try to recreate it through memory or feeling, it immediately becomes imagination.

Read that again. That distinction matters.

I’ll share an example, not as a model, but as illustration.

While cultivating single-minded focus through the Wu Zong method, the first of the Three Root Methods of Jiu Wu Tan Gong, I encountered another being who transmitted cultivation methods to me.

There was no prior knowledge, no sensory activity, no conceptual framework. During that experience, ordinary sensory activity was absent. After returning, sensory engagement resumed.

Only afterward did contemplation occur.

One way to discern imagined from unimagined experience is long-term cultivation of single-minded focus. Over time, you become intimately familiar with the physiological and emotional markers of sensory engagement, especially thinking.

I can only speak from what I’ve practiced. There are no shortcuts. You practice. You know your mind. And in time, discernment develops naturally.

Some experiences feel deeply true. That is exactly when investigation must be strongest. Question fully. Break down causes, associations, and attachments.

This discernment only develops through inward cultivation: Chan, Zen, Wu Zong, single-minded focus.

That is the work.