The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose. – Rumi 

“His attitude stinks.”
“She’s a breath of fresh air.”
“I smell a rat.”

You emit energy. Like flowers have fragrance, like … garbage is smelly. @DanielleLaPorte
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Your words, your energy, your vibe … they smack or sweeten someone else’s energy field — like fragrance wafts into their olfactory system.

Short story: My boy and I are on a holiday. Alongside a bunch of other tourists of all shapes and sizes, we’re crammed in the back of a shuttle van going from the hotel to the main attraction.

Tourist Lady in the front starts complaining about the hotel service. She has a valid point. But she goes on, and ON. And it escalates into name-calling and general unclassy-ness. The driver dude is respectfully nodding his head. We’re trapped. I say nothing, play with my kid’s fingers, enjoy the view.

We get out of the van and I say to m’boy, calmly, neutrally, curious: “So what’d you think of that lady and what she had to say?”

The Kid: She kinda stunk up the whole van with her talking, didn’t she?

Me: Yep. That’s what ‘mean’ smells like. Complaining is a vibe. Happiness is a vibe. And everyone around you can smell your vibe.

The Kid: Well, she should have shut her vibe up sooner.

“Emitting energy” can be such an abstract term to get a hold of, but if we imagine that our consciousness has a fragrance, if we visualize that our words, our gaze, our thoughts have a scent, then the concept starts to land. And then maybe we become more aware of what we’re emanating — or what’s left behind after we leave the room.

Bubble gum requests, jasmine invitations, the rose of compassion, citrus encouragement, the trace of a little lie, the stench of nasty, confection affection, the smelling salts of truth, the spice of provocation…What’s your signature blend?

Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul — the book that turned into a day planner system, a top iTunes app, and an international workshop program. A Desire Map workshop happens every weekend somewhere in the world. Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and the wildly popular #Truthbomb series, Danielle is also the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and co-host of the Beautiful Writer’s Group podcast.

Entrepreneur Magazine calls her “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” A speaker, poet, former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over four million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. The Huffington Post named her Twitter feed as one of the “12 of Wisest Twitter Accounts Worth Following.” You can find her @daniellelaporte just about everywhere.