The importance of protecting your energy
Ahhhhh. This is one of my favorite topics because it’s literally the thing that saved my life.
I feel like protecting your energy is the secret to happiness and health… especially if you are queer!
You have to realize that your energy is all you have that makes you…you. It’s so precious and it is so vital to your overall well-being. The more we let people and things come in and steal our energy the more drained and exhausted we feel. When we are exhausted it’s harder to stand in our truth, set boundaries, and feel and embody confidence. That leads us to being super hard on ourselves, slump into bad habits, and stop taking care of the things that mean the most to us.
All growing up I never knew the importance and value of my energy. I was constantly giving, putting others before myself, and even going above and beyond for others at the own cost of my health. Growing up religious didn’t help with that mindset either because it was engrained in me that putting yourself first was “selfish”.
I was taught to fill up the cups of others before I filled my own. This way of life depleted me. It allowed me to welcome in relationships in my life where people walked all over me, manipulated me, and even took advantage of me (i’ll write another post in more detail on all this later on). I was literally the one that every one could rely on but whenever I needed them they were never there. This left me feeling isolated, alone, and abandoned.
When I came out to all those same people they did not welcome me with open arms, actually, they shut their arms pretty damn fast. This opened my eyes to a lot that I was refusing to see about my worth. It showed me I was putting my worth into the lives of those who didn’t even really care about me, they only cared about what I could do for them. In the end I was the one who got hurt and got the door slammed right in my face. All that energy exerted for what?
When I came out, standing in my truth was the first thing I did and that could not come without protecting my energy. (Disclaimer: you cannot protect your energy if you don’t even know who you are and what you are protecting). I knew I was special. For the first time in my life, I felt like me, and I felt like I was exactly who I was always meant to be. That feeling was liberating and lead me to set up some strong boundaries in my life so that I could protect that feeling of complete ease and freedom.
My top energy protecting tips:
Surround yourself with a small group of people that love and support you for exactly who you are
Do activities that you love and that make you happy
If it’s not 100% yes, it’s a no
Be confident not defensive
Rest. Rest. Rest. You will be better for it
Less is better. There is nothing you need to prove
I also wanna state that you aren’t gonna get it right all the time and that’s okay! The cool thing is we are always learning because we are always evolving. You can have your energy protected and still let the wrong things in…they key is just to be aware of it and…fix it afterwards. Boundaries are formed by our experience so always draw from that when you are setting up new ones. A perfect healing journey isn’t a perfect healing journey :)
