Protecting Your Energy

We all know how important it is to eat right, stay active and get enough rest. But just as important lies your mental energy. You can be in the best shape of your life, but if something is draining you mentally, you'll never feel your best. There are conscious efforts and actions we can take to limit exposure to negativity and garner a sense of control over our lives and thoughts to achieve balance and reach our full potential.

1. Set Boundaries

Understanding how to set personal limits is essential for building and maintaining healthy relationships with ourselves and the people in our lives. When you understand how to set and maintain healthy boundaries, you can avoid the feelings of resentment, disappointment, and anger that build up when limits have been pushed. Healthy boundaries helps us to manage expectations on people and situations to protect your energy, stay positive and feel aligned.

2. Self-Awareness

We absorb energy from other people, places, different environments. By becoming more aware of the experiences that positively and negatively impact your energy, you will be able to protect it better. Pay attention to your mood and take note of situations which trigger negative, even if subtle, energy shifts. Who and what changes your energy? Do certain interactions leave you feeling emotionally exhausted? Do you find yourself saying “yes” to things you don’t feel like doing, just because you want to be polite, or because you feel obligated to do them?

3. Learn To Say No

This leads us to one of the most important and powerful lessons for protecting our energy - the art of saying, "no." It's important to realize that if saying no is challenging for you, you're not alone. Many of us agree to things — even things we would prefer not to do — simply to avoid the considerable discomfort of saying those two letters because as social creatures we want to preserve our relationships and feel included. But saying "no" is one of the best forms of self-care we can engage in, allowing us the time and space to rest and recharge, engage in activities that align with our goals and a more intuitive navigation through life.

4. Listen To Your Gut

We all know the sensation of when something doesn’t feel right. When our circumstances are just wrong, it's common to feel a strong urge or uneasiness in our gut. Sometimes, our first instinct will be to seek external guidance to lead us to the answer. Often, we grasp desperately for someone else to simplify our decisions for us. But if you learn to turn inward, you’ll discover that you’ve possessed a powerful guidance system within you all along. By using this gut feeling to help us navigate life, we protect our energy, emotions and life; trust your emotional compass, how you feel is your greatest indicator.