Protecting your energy is not something you’re ever really taught about. It’s something you learn on your own throughout your experience being here, on this planet ,and in society. It’s scary to think that a lot of people don’t ever learn how to protect their energy. It’s important for everyone, but especially those of us with mental illness, to establish boundaries so that the experiences of others don’t deplete us. Because how can we be the best versions of ourselves when our energy is constantly snatched away from us?
So, let’s get into 9 things you can do to protect your energy.
How To Protect Your Energy
1. Become A Mirror
“Becoming a mirror” is essential to protecting your energy. It’s an exercise in which you allow the words and actions of others to “bounce off” of you, like a light to a mirror. What this does is protect you from internalizing the actions of others and letting it potentially ruin your day.
How I practice this is by simply thinking “That has nothing to do with me” whenever someone does or says something to me with malice. It’s surprising how efficiently a simple thought bounces those draining behaviors and words right off your mind. It’s a great way to remind yourself that people are always going through their own problems, and most often than not, you’re just getting the brunt of it. And if it truly does have something to do with you, you don’t have to waste precious energy entertaining it.
2. Allow Others To Misunderstand You
Learning this will protect your energy and peace of mind like no other. When you allow others to misunderstand you, the anxiety and frustration that comes with being judged are washed away, leaving you with the comfortability of being yourself no matter where you are and who you’re with. That’s power. A true testament to reclaiming your energy. People who drain you by conjuring up feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, and distress do not deserve to understand you.
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3. Invest In Yourself
A great way to protect your energy is by investing your energy back into yourself. This can look like making time for your hobbies, learning a new skill, doing something you’ve been wanting to but have always put off, and connecting with people who add value to your life.
Living a life in which you put your energy and time into yourself, into your future, or into healing your past are all great steps towards self-fulfillment. That’s a genuine feeling no one else can take from you.
4. Lean On Numbers
This method of protecting your energy is specifically for those of you who are dealing with energy vampires. Energy vampires are people who only drain your energy.
I like how Judith Orloff, MD words it in her post, published in O Magazine, on protecting yourself from energy vampires, describing them as “those who leave you feeling stressed out. Or guilty. Or exhausted down to your very last molecule.”
When you’re in the presence of an energy vampire, it’s important that, while you practice everything listed in this post, you don’t continuously deal with them on your own. These types of people thrive off making you feel small and will chip away at you any chance they get.
So if you have to be around them, be around them within a group. By dealing with an energy vampire within a group setting, you don’t have to constantly put forth energy 100% of the time.
5. Be Selfish With Your Time
Boundaries are essential to protect your energy. Whether you want to eliminate toxic people from your life or simply want to reinforce balance, you’ve got to get comfortable saying no.
Saying no doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate the people or opportunities you’re saying no to. It just means you value pouring into yourself first in order to show up as authentically as possible.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and if others have a problem with that, they probably shouldn’t be around in the first place.
If you want to know more about how to invest in yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically you may find these posts helpful as well.
Healing Your Relationship With Yourself: 3 Strategies That Will Never Fail
7 Steps Towards Genuine Self Trust While Coping With Anxiety + How Anxiety Ruins It
6. Live and Let Live, With An Emphasis On The First Part
Protect your energy and peace by letting go of control. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a particularly controlling person, you’d be surprised by how often we punish ourselves for things that can’t be helped. You can’t control what energy vampires do or how they behave. Besides setting clear boundaries for yourself, you’ve got to bring your focus home.
You are your home, and you are living your unique life experience. If you’re around people who are living their lives in negativity and always dissatisfied with something, be content that you don’t want to live that way. Change the way you respond to their negativity so you’re honoring how you want to live. Because that’s the only thing you can control.
7. Love On Yourself
Loving on yourself is slightly different than investing in yourself because it’s not action-based, but mindset-based.
It’s believing that you are worthy of *self* love. It’s easy to talk down on yourself when your energy is being drained from you. You can start thinking it’s your fault others are impacting you so much, and blame yourself for not managing stressful situations better. As I’ve mentioned before, this isn’t something we’re taught growing up, it’s truly a lesson only life can bring you.
So ease up on yourself! You’re not going to be successful in protecting your energy if your mindset is draining you too! This is especially difficult for people with mental illness, so I urge you to speak kindly to yourself and believe you are worthy of your own source of love. Tend to yourself through self-care, compassion, and patience.
These are some of the many ways you can protect your energy. As we continue becoming better people than we were yesterday, we’ve got to make sure we take care of ourselves when others get in the way of that journey.
*If you’re a Highly Sensitive Person ready to start implementing these protection practices, check out The Highly Sensitive Foundation To Success Bundle for $17, where I teach you how to tear down the faulty structures (i.e. relationships, cognitive distortions, lifestyle) causing your energy leaks and rebuild to protect your energy right now.
Until next time.
Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive… to live now… to have the courage to confront each day.
Bernie Siegel
