3 Practices how to protect your energy while still being kind E55
August 16, 2022
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Do you know the dilemma that you want to protect your energy levels from others but still want to be a kind and helpful person? And you might think that if you protect your energy more then you are not such a good friend, partner, colleague or parent. I will give you 3 ways today how you can get better at protecting your energy levels and still be the kind person that you are today.
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Protecting your energy level is not selfish. Just remember what you are told by the stewardess or steward a the beginning of a flight. In case of an emergency put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help anyone else. I want you to make your energy levels a priority not just in emergencies but all the time. That way you are so much more powerful to help and serve others.
We just had a visit from my husband’s family for a few days and I had to watch my energy. I made sure that I had some alone time on some of the days where I could look after myself. And sneak in a couple of short meditations. I know if I don’t do that I get very low in energy. Then I will get irritated by having 6 more people in the house than usual.
I bet you can relate and have similar examples where you know already upfront that a situation will test your energy. This is where the rubber hits the road and if you don’t take your energy more seriously then you will suffer the consequences. And everyone involved in the situation as well.
Protecting your energy is not selfish
Don’t think that managing your energy levels makes you self-centred and egoistic. Think about it like this: When you have a full level of energy you have so much more capacity to give to others and still stay energized and full of life yourself.
You can compare it quite well with a glass of water. Your glass of water can be just a third full and from that third, you try to give to others around you. But you have to be careful not to give too much of it away because otherwise, you have nothing left. So you always need to operate from a mindset of scarcity and that you might not have enough to give any more at any moment? Does this make sense?
But if you look after yourself first and you make your energy levels priority number one in your life, you have a full glass of water and everything that spills over goes to other people in your life. In this way of living, you do not worry about running out of water ever. You can keep giving without any consequences, regrets or constraints.
3 Practices how to protect your energy while still being kind
You can only live this way of abundance and no worries if you decide to look after your energy first before you help everyone else in your life. And this applies not only to the people in your personal life but as well the people at work including your boss or your employees. The same applies here! You want to live by this principle in all areas of your life for it to show its magical side to you.
Now we don’t usually learn anything much about our energy levels at school or university. So it might be quite new to you. Or you might think the only way for you to regain energy is through sleep and food. But there are lots of other ways that you can watch and protect your energy levels while you are awake. So let’s dive into the 3 practices I want to share with you today.
1. Observe your energy levels
For you to be able to be more in control of your energy levels you have to understand them better. And you can do that by starting to observe them. Meditation has not only allowed me to observe myself better but to become more aware and in control of my energy. I can now feel my energy moving inside of me or where it might be stuck. But the cool thing is to watch yourself when your energy levels are going up or down. Observe yourself in interactions with people or when you do certain things like tasks at work or home and understand more what might take more of your energy or less energy. Let me give you an example.
How to protect your energy levels at work
When I returned to work after my burnout (Episode 24) I started to learn to observe my energy levels when I was on calls with people. And the more I observed myself, the more I began to understand where I would spend more of my energy or less of my energy. And once I understood that level of energy spending, I was able to investigate further and figure out why.
I did the same with tasks at work and I still do. Certain tasks take hardly anything away from my energy levels, for example, writing the script for the podcast episodes or writing for my book. This kind of work does not eat up a lot of my energy. But if I have to work for half a day on my website to build a new sales page, for example, I will feel exhausted afterwards. It’s an activity that takes more of my energy.
When I have this understanding of my energy levels, I can manage and protect my energy levels better. I can make sure that I do more of the activities at work that gives me energy or keeps my energy levels more neutral and then outsource the tasks that take a lot of my energy. When it comes to interactions with people I do the same. I will put my energy levels first and will think twice to interact with a person that takes a lot of my energy – especially if I don’t really have to. My energy is so important to me these days that I am not giving it away lightly.
I hope this explains why it is so important for you to get to know how your energy works. You want to become more aware, more mindful of your energy levels and check in when they go up and do more of that – or when they go down and check if you can do less of that. Try it out. Just alone the awareness and getting to understand your energy better will give you more energy. Trust me!
2. Watch your reactions
The next thing that you want to be more in control of is your reactions to other people’s stories. If you go all in and emotionally react to what people are telling you about, you are spending a lot of energy on something that is not even your life. Let me give you an example. Let’s say your friend has been informed that they are going to restructure at work and there might be redundancies coming up.
Can you imagine how your friend is going to tell you all about her worries, the worst-case scenarios she or he might be thinking about? How this just is coming at the worst time in their life? If you go full in on this emotional rollercoaster let me tell you all the emotions you are going to create in your body: panic, frustration, existential worry, sadness, anxiety, and potentially many more. Being a good listener, a good friend and empathetic does not mean that you have to fill your body with all of these stress and survival emotions which lower your frequency and with that your energy levels drastically.
You can be kind and protect your energy
You can listen to your friend. Still you can make them feel cared for and heard. And you can be in that conversation with her and still not take on all of these emotions that she or he is currently going through (Episode 17). If you get better at observing and managing your own energy as I told you to in the first practice, then you can make an internal decision to not go all in with these emotions. You can decide instead to feel emotions of care, love, compassion and empathy while you are listening to them. Does this make sense to you?
The same applies if you are in a conversation for example at work or at a party with someone who is displaying behaviours of blaming, complaining, judging, and making excuses. You do not need to chip in and support their behaviour if you want to protect and care for your energy. If it is a situation where you are not even so close to the person you have even more choices: You could literally get up and walk away. Trust me, I have done that all for me to not be impacted by their lower vibration of energy. It was just not worth it for me to talk to this person and listen to them.
My energy and a good mood were much more important
If you don’t want or feel like you can walk away, then just don’t react to their blaming or complaining. Don’t respond or be supportive. I have done this before and it might feel weird at the beginning but you can be there listening and not responding. Believe me, it is possible. And yes it might feel weird for you and the other person – but you know what will happen? If you don’t react, they will change their course of conversation. Either they will start talking about something else or they might even walk away.
And of course, the other option for you is to steer the conversation to a more positive or minimum neutral topic. Ask them something that you know will move the conversation to a new topic, something they might be happy about. Works wonder.
The most important part is for you to take responsibility for your reaction to someone else. If you have listened to my podcast for a while I don’t let you get away with being the victim in your life. You know by now that you are the creator of your life and that includes the reactions and responses to other people.
And see it as a practice, as a learning process. It will take a few times for you to practice these different ways to protect your energy. Even the getting up and walking away bit needs to be practised. But believe me, after you’ve done it a few times it becomes pretty easy. Just imagine all the extra energy and good mood that you will have. Instead of getting sucked into energy-draining conversations or discussions.
3. Do what you expect of others yourself
This one probably needs a bit more explanation as it does not sound so straightforward. But it is simple, which does not mean it is easy.
Quite often we are looking for something in others. In our partner, our best friend, our boss, our children, even a potential partner that we might not have met yet. These could be things like love, respect, honesty, compassion, understanding, praise, openness, joy, and many more. When we are looking or wishing for these feelings or actions from others, we have a gap inside of us to fill. If we would not be looking for it we would not need it and there would be no gap to fill. Make sense? Ok.
What are you not giving to yourself?
I want you to consider this now. Whatever you are looking for in another person, you are not even giving it to yourself. If you are looking to receive more love from another person, it means that you don’t even love yourself enough. That’s why you have this gap, this need inside of you. If you would love yourself enough, you would not need another person to love you more. Because you would already be filled with love all by yourself.
For example, if you want your boss to give you more praise for your hard work, you are not giving yourself enough praise. When you would honour yourself and see how much great work you produce and be proud of yourself, you would not need to look for your boss to give you praise.
If you are looking for your best friend to be more compassioned with you, you are not compassioned enough with yourself. If you would be much more understanding and compassioned with yourself. And feel like you are really taking care of yourself and your mental health, then you would not be looking for it in your best friend.
Directing your energy from others back to you
I hope this makes sense to you. And even if it is triggering to you when I say this, I still want you to look at it. Don’t shy away from it – otherwise, you will never fill this whole inside of yourself. And you might ask what this all has to do with energy. Well, the answer is EVERYTHING.
Think about how much energy you can spend on getting someone else to love you more. There is all the energy you spend on wondering why they don’t, when will they ever or what is wrong with them. Then there might be the energy you spend on being angry or disappointed with them. All of this energy is spent on something that will never fill that whole of needing more love from someone else. Because what you are missing is loving yourself (Episode 11).
And what if you open your eyes to this fact today? What if you redirect all of this energy to begin to learn how to love yourself instead? Just imagine how much better you would feel. How much more harmony you would have with the people in your life and all that extra energy.
Next steps to protect even more energy
So these were the 3 practices I applied in my life to increase my energy levels and protect my energy better. I bet one of them resonated with you and maybe even all three of them. If you want to learn more about how to manage and protect your energy, I have a free course on this topic which is called “Mind Your Energy”. I will link to it in the show notes for you to sign up for it.
Sadghuru – Karma
Sadghuru’s book is a fabulous book on energy and will deepen your understanding of how you create your own world through your thoughts, beliefs, actions and emotions. What you receive is what you created – intentionally or unintentionally. So check it out and learn more about the energy of life.
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So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!
You Might Also Like
- Protect your energy from other people’s low vibes! Episode 17
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4-PART VIDEO TRAINING – FOR MORE ENERGY
HERE ARE SOME KEY TOPICS YOU´LL DISCOVER …
- Watch Outs to Protect Your Energy Flow
- WHY to Be More Present in the Moment
- My Top 3 Techniques that I use to Get Myself out of My Mind and into the Present Moment.
- Get better at protecting your energy.
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