How much energy do you have by the end of the day? Do you usually feel vital, alive, ready to interact warmly with family or friends? Or do you feel stressed, weary, ready to eat and just watch TV?
If you feel low energy after a typical day, you’re not alone. It’s common in our hurried society for people to feel worn out by day’s end. Yet many people push through weariness because of multiple worries and demands. They can end up feeling stressed, rushed, and worn out all at the same time. It’s no wonder that stress is among the leading causes of physical and psychological problems in the United States. Over half of working adults recently surveyed reported being concerned about stress.1 Chronic stress can negatively affect our physical and emotional health, contributing to anxiety, depression, obesity, hypertension, heart trouble, and general weakening of our immune system.
Keeping our energy strong and reducing stress can involve nutrition, exercise, and so on; those important topics are covered elsewhere in this book. Here I want to consider one way we consistently either build or drain our energy: through some of the decisions we make many times each day.
What kinds of decisions make such a difference? Usually not the smaller, external ones, like what you will wear today or what you will have for lunch. I’m referring to the subtle decisions we make. Our internal choices, our ingrained habits of thought and feeling, can be so automatic that we may not even notice we made a choice. Yet these decisions engage our energy and can either build up or deplete our life force.
One way we use our energy without noticing is through mental storytelling. Have you ever rehearsed an upcoming conversation or challenging situation? Many of us do this mental rehearsal. It can be helpful if used deliberately to build up our confidence and energy. But the kind of rehearsing we do without awareness is an energy drain. On and on our thoughts and feelings go. We often end up anxious, imagining worst case scenarios.
Along with future rehearsing, many of us do not easily let go of past upsets. Can you recall a recent difficult conversation? Once it was over, how many times did you play it over in your mind? Did your feelings get involved? Did you feel confusion or anger, frustration or helplessness?
We are prone to these replays. We review what he said, what she said, and if only I had said . . . But as we vividly imagine our story, our bodies don’t really know the difference between what’s imagined and what’s real. Our heart rate goes up, our breathing becomes shallower, and we use our energy to elaborate the experience, creating upsetting feelings and their biochemical reactions in our bodies.6 The truth is, we choose to jump on those trains of thought and feeling. But many of us make this choice so quickly and automatically that we don’t even notice we chose to jump and just get carried away. The good news is that we can learn to notice these choice points and redirect our internal focus and energy in more productive ways that leave us happier and stronger.
Imagine what life would be without such negative visualizations. You’d be in the present moment more—the only place we live anyway, and which many spiritual traditions teach is a doorway to inner peace. Part of developing our energetic intelligence is increasing our awareness of how we use our life force and bringing our attention and energy back into present time. As people grow in awareness and make different choices, many discover that they become more relaxed and centered. It’s easier to be relaxed when we’re not using so much energy to mull over past upsets or imagined, negative future events!
When we’re not scattering our energies among past, present, and future, we have more energy available to nourish our entire system. We become more internally spacious and better able to respond instead of reacting, even in challenging situations. Our sense of humor returns. We become better able to float through the usual stream of stress more calmly—paradoxically, we become more productive, with greater ease and less striving.
Learning to use our energy for health has been a science in the East for centuries and is known in the West through acupuncture, Tai Chi, and other energy practices.7 Across cultures and time, healers have used the knowledge of the body’s energy systems.8 Einstein was the first Western scientist to demonstrate that all matter is really energy. Currently, energy psychology is examining techniques that use the body’s energy to heal emotional distress and wounding.9 Some scientists in medicine and physics are predicting a major shift in focus from matter to energy as the basis for human healing and transformation.10
So what does this mean for you and your well-being? How we use our energy makes a difference in our physical and emotional health. Becoming attentive to our internal choices is one part of developing our energetic intelligence: our inherent ability to be aware of our energetic decisions and to learn how to use our energy more skillfully to be happier, healthier beings.
There are many techniques to help us return to the present and strengthen our energy. Becoming aware of our breath (which is always in present time), moments of silence, meditation, and energy exercises including Qigong are all helpful. Getting curious about our own energy use is an excellent starting place for awakening our energetic intelligence.
Try this simple exercise to gather your extra energy back at the end of the day: before you sleep, notice where you still have active energy about people or events from your day. Where are you still using energy through thoughts or feelings; where are you still having leftover reactions? Without jumping on any train of thought, just note a few places where your energy is still connected—maybe your job, your family, or the commute home. Then visualize a glowing energy ball in your heart area, like a bright ball of string or twine. Each strand of that twine is your life energy; some strands are still stretched out into your day. Imagine the ball beginning to turn within your heart, pulling back the energy strands of leftover feelings or thoughts about the day. Allow the ball of energy-twine to grow in your heart as all the strands gather back to your center. When it feels complete, allow the energy to glow brighter and gradually fill your entire body with soft warmth and relaxation.
Try this exercise for a week. See what you notice about your sleep and dreams or your daytime energy levels and choices. Become aware of how your body feels when you have greater awareness of your energy, and notice your interactions with others.
I invite you to play with and explore your awareness of how you use your energy. Even small increases in awareness will help you develop your energetic intelligence, clearing the way for greater vitality, ease, and well-being in all areas of your life.
** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Health. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Health”, visit http://selfgrowth.com/healthbook3.html
Laura Maciuika, EdD, is a licensed psychologist in California and Massachusetts, and holds the advanced EFT Certificate of Completion. In her Integrative Psychotherapy practice in California, Dr. Maciuika includes energy psychology approaches, including Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), to reduce stress and anxiety, to heal old wounds and patterns, and to help people step into the freedom of their truest selves. Her work includes in-person and phone consultations and workshops on stress reduction, emotional freedom, and EFT. Dr. Maciuika is on the research committee of the Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology and is working on a book on energetic intelligence. Visit her online at http://www.tapintofreedom.com.