Do you take on negative energy from other people?
Do you find yourself getting drained in social situations, or around that certain person where you feel like your energy is just taken away?
Maybe you were feeling good beforehand, and afterward you feel terrible. Or perhaps you have trouble letting work go, bring it home with you, and can’t stop thinking about it.
This Positive Energy Protection series is designed to help you understand why this happens and give you practical ways to work with your own energy.
We’ve now reached the practical application part of the series. We’re going to look at what you can do before, during and after interactions to help maintain your own energy and stay present.
In this article, we’re starting with what you can do before an interaction.
Start With Your Own Energy
Before setting intentions for an interaction—which we’ll explore in the next part of the series—the first important step is making sure your own energy is good.
If your energy isn’t good before you go into a social situation, work, shopping, a meeting, or an interaction with another person, you’re going to bring that energy with you.
So take a little time beforehand.
At first, this may take five, ten or even fifteen minutes. With practice, it can eventually become something you do quite quickly.
Find somewhere you can be undisturbed. It might be sitting at home before you leave, sitting in your car before you go somewhere, or stopping somewhere peaceful on your way.
Then breathe.
Connect with your breathing and begin noticing where you are right now.
Ground Yourself and Come Back Into Your Body
If you’re feeling wound up, simply notice it.
Notice where your thoughts are. Notice where your energy is.
Create a clear connection with the ground. If it’s appropriate, you might even take your shoes off and feel the ground beneath your feet.
Focus on your breathing and connect inwardly. Bring yourself back into your body and into the immediate moment.
You’re purposefully listening to yourself rather than automatically carrying everything from one part of your day into the next.
Take a few minutes and ask yourself:
•Is there something I was just doing that I can’t get out of my mind?
•Is there something unresolved?
•Am I still emotionally triggered by something?
•What am I carrying with me right now?
If something is there, acknowledge it. Breathe into it and give yourself an opportunity to let it go before moving forward.
Clear Your Energy Before Moving Forward
You can also use visualization.
Perhaps in the morning while you’re having a shower, imagine the water washing away everything you don’t need to carry with you.
Or sit quietly and imagine a shower of light moving through you and clearing your energy.
Some people visualize very easily and others don’t. If you don’t see images clearly in your mind, that’s okay. You can simply feel yourself becoming more connected to your body and your breathing.
You might quietly say to yourself:
I’m clearing. I’m cleansing. I’m connecting to my breathing and to this moment.
The important part isn’t whether you can create a perfect image. It’s purposefully taking a moment to reconnect with yourself before moving into the next part of your day.
Explore the Full Positive Energy Protection Series
This is one part of a larger process. The full Positive Energy Protection series explores why we can feel drained or affected by certain people and situations, how awareness can help us recognize what is happening, and practical ways to protect and maintain our own energy before, during and after interactions.
Positive Energy Protection Series:
https://www.hypnotherapyvictoria.com/positive-energy-protection/
Don’t Carry the Past Into the Present
One way I like to explain this is to imagine carrying a big backpack everywhere you go.
Throughout the day, you keep putting things into the backpack—what happened earlier, unresolved thoughts, emotions, worries and experiences. But you never take the backpack off.
Then you expect yourself to carry the present moment as well.
Eventually, it’s simply too much.
So take the backpack off.
Go through what you’re carrying and put away what you don’t need anymore.
It’s similar to coming home from a trip. You can leave your suitcases sitting there for weeks, with everything still piled up. Every time you see them, there’s that sense that the trip isn’t completely finished.
Or you can come home, empty the suitcases, put everything away and then sit down and think, Ah, that feels really good. I’m home now.
We can do something similar emotionally and energetically.
Clear what you’ve been carrying from what you were doing before, so you can prepare yourself for what you’re doing now.
That allows you to be more present. Your mind can be clearer, your energy can feel stronger, and you are in a better position to notice what belongs to you when you enter interactions with other people.
Free Self-Help Mindfulness Series
Developing present-moment awareness can make it easier to recognize what you’re carrying emotionally before entering an interaction and to reconnect with yourself rather than automatically bringing previous stress into the next situation.
My free Self-Help Mindfulness Series can help you practise:
•Becoming more aware of your thoughts, feelings and internal state
•Recognizing emotional stress before carrying it into another interaction
•Grounding yourself in your body and breathing
•Letting go of what you’re no longer doing
•Becoming more present and centred in everyday situations
FREE Self-Help Mindfulness Series:
https://www.hypnotherapyvictoria.com/free-self-help-mindfulness-series/
Free 1-Hour Video Consultation
If you regularly feel drained by other people or find it difficult to let go of emotional energy from interactions, I offer a free 1-hour video consultation. We can talk about what you’re experiencing and how it’s affecting your life, explore possible underlying patterns and root causes, discuss what you’d like to change, and look at my therapy process to see whether working together feels like the right fit for you.
Counselling Hypnotherapy
Sometimes the patterns that leave us feeling emotionally drained or overly affected by other people go deeper than what we’re consciously aware of. Counselling and hypnotherapy can help explore these patterns while developing greater awareness, emotional regulation and a stronger connection with yourself.
Counselling Victoria:
https://www.hypnotherapyvictoria.com/counselling-victoria/
Hypnotherapy Victoria:
https://www.hypnotherapyvictoria.com/hypnotherapy-victoria/
Preparing Yourself Before an Interaction
The goal isn’t to avoid other people or try to control everything around you. It’s to become more aware of your own state before you enter an interaction.
Take a moment. Breathe. Ground yourself. Notice what you’re carrying. Clear what you no longer need and come back into the present.
With practice, this doesn’t need to take very long. Eventually, it can become a quick transition that helps you move from one part of your day into another with a clearer mind and stronger sense of yourself.
In the next video in the Positive Energy Protection series, we’ll build on this by looking at setting intentions before interactions—contemplating where you’re going, what you’re going to do, and creating clear steps for moving forward.
Arne Pedersen
