Impacting Your Energy
Pure energy. Have you felt this? Imagine a time when you were totally in flow, creative and energetic and unlimited. If this is something you’ve experienced, you have awareness of the joy and genius of these moments and likely seek to find ways to incorporate more of this into your life. If it’s not something you’ve experienced (and perhaps it sounds too good to be true), think about the closest you’ve come to this. In what areas of your life has this happened the most?
The truth is that we are all capable of experiencing pure energy. It happens more naturally for us as children - in imaginative play, in uninhibited motion, in simple wonder at the world around us.? What many of us experience as we get older, however, is that those moments start to become less frequent and the free, joyful energy we had in youth is not as easily captured. What, then, gets in our way? And how do we regain our energy in order to experience life as fully as possible?
You may be able to easily think of some of the things that get in the way of your energy - hectic schedules, lack of sleep, no time to recharge. The list could be seemingly endless. When we are feeling low energy, we often focus on these types of physical and environmental factors and sometimes feel helpless to mitigate them. And while certainly these and many other circumstances (strained relationships, illness or injury, financial challenges) are significant influences on our day-to-day experience, we often discount a particular factor that has the power to change our energy fundamentally: our thoughts.?
Consider the scenario of a sleepless night. In the morning, you feel foggy, physically exhausted, and stressed. Apart from the physical experience of fatigue, your mind is racing with thoughts of:
?“Why did I stay up to watch TV last night, what was I thinking?”
“This day is going to be terrible, I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.”
“Starting the day tired is the worst.”?
While we may not realize it, thoughts like the ones above can often impact our energy far more than the objective experiences themselves. The thoughts above indicate that we have judged our situation as concretely “bad” and thus any outcomes will also be unfavorable for us. No wonder we feel drained from the get go!
Consider instead the same sleepless night, but with different thoughts upon waking:
“I may need to take it slow, but I'll take a quick walk to perk up.”
“I’m going to give my best today and that will be enough.”
“I may be tired, but this day is what I make of it!”
What’s different about the thoughts above? Notice that the judgment of the situation (e.g. being tired is bad/the worst) is removed - instead, there is openness to possibility, a sense of calm and agency in how the day might go. Close your eyes and imagine having those thoughts instead of the previous ones. How might this shift your energy? It likely will feel much lighter!
When we find ourselves drained or stressed out, it can be very powerful to ask ourselves what thoughts we might be having that may be impacting our energy. Once we have awareness of these thoughts, we can then start thinking about how we might change them to become more empowering and energizing for us. Some reframes to move from judgment to objectivity, from “stuck” to possibility, could be:
Where in your life do your thoughts get the better of you? Take some time this week to think about where you can reframe, let go of judgment, and expand your energy. Don’t be afraid to be childlike in this pursuit…What might be possible if you dreamed a bit bigger, faced each day with more courage, and freed yourself from self-limiting thoughts?
Please Comment below if you try this out and let us know what you learn! And as always, if you enjoy this newsletter content, please do like/share if you know of others that may enjoy it also!
- Leslie
[As a coach, I am certified in Core Energy Dynamics and the Energy Leadership Index, which means the topic of energy is my jam! If you're interested in learning more about energy leadership and coaching, feel free to message me!]