How To Protect Your Energy: Your Guide To Safeguarding Yourself From Negativity
Discover effective strategies on how to protect your energy and shield yourself from negativity. Our comprehensive guide offers practical tips and empowering techniques to maintain a positive mindset. Learn to set boundaries, cultivate mindfulness, and surround yourself with uplifting influences. Take control of your well-being and create a resilient shield against negativity, enabling a more fulfilling and harmonious life.
By Liv Surtees / Jan 09 2024
Have you ever found yourself having a great day until you meet up with a certain friend? Do you feel like specific situations leave you feeling drained? Is there a work project that you simply can’t manage to feel motivated by? Well, if you experience any of these situations or you feel like your mood gets affected by external factors in a significant way, you might not be protecting your energy effectively.
Each day we give ourselves and our energy to things: our partners, our friends, our colleagues, our work, our homes, and even our phones and social media platforms.
Whilst giving our energy to various aspects of our life isn’t a bad thing - in fact, we need to give our energy to things in order to channel our joy, create a fulfilling life, and receive more energy - there are certain things that can drain our energy, promote negativity, and leave us feeling less than energised!
So, it’s incredibly important that we protect ourselves in order to live a life that truly aligns with what we want and our values. So, in this article, we’re going to tell you exactly how you can protect your energy to bring you to a better state of wellbeing!
why is it important to protect your energy?
If you want to live a life that brings you the greatest possible level of joy and fulfilment, you need to give energy to the things that align with your values.
If you consistently decide to give energy to the things and people that line up with what you want in life and what truly brings you joy, you are much more likely to find yourself feeling happy, healthy, and centred.
However, if you are consistently giving energy to things that do not align with your values and people that do not bring you joy, you will find that you not only have very little energy for the things that you actually want in life, but you may find yourself feeling drained and unfulfilled.
Therefore, to live a life that you’re truly happy with, you need to protect your energy - let’s take a look at exactly how you can do this…
8 things you can do to protect your energy
Here is the ultimate guide to protecting your energy: using these 8 things, you can say goodbye to negativity and hello to more positivity, cultivating a happier and healthier life for yourself.
1. take stock of energy givers and energy drainers
The very first thing you need to do when it comes to protecting your energy is get clear on what your energy-givers and energy-drainers are.
One of the best ways you can do this is to grab a journal (or your notes app if you’re not a journal person!), and take stock of your life, focusing specifically on what in your daily life brings you energy and what takes away your energy.
Write two columns, “energy-givers” and “energy-drainers” and write down whatever comes up for you. For example, an energy-giver could be “hitting the gym with my friend” and an energy-drainer could be “spending the evenings scrolling on social media”.
Once you’re clear on what gives you energy and what takes away your energy, you can then start cutting out the things that drain you and invite more energy-giving activities and experiences into your life!
SHOP
mind + spirit
2. listen to your gut
A lot of the time, our bodies actually tell us when something isn’t good for us. You’ve likely had that “gut feeling” before about something, right? Well, it’s time you listen to it more! If you are around someone or in a specific situation where it just doesn’t sit right with you and you get that odd sensation in the pit of your stomach, it’s highly likely that this person/experience is an energy-drainer and you shouldn’t be giving away too much of yourself to them/it.
Lean into your body and how you physically feel when you’re around people or in specific situations, and decide whether they’re good for you or not. Most of the time, you will know what aligns with you and the more you practice listening to your gut instincts, the more natural it will become.
3. honour your values + set boundaries
An incredibly powerful way to protect your energy is by setting boundaries. Setting boundaries helps us to ensure that we are not compromising our values. So, first, sit down and think about what your values are - again, it’s very helpful to actually write down these values either in a journal or within a notes app to ensure you consistently see them and can add to them/update them as you grow.
Then, think about whether there are situations or people in your life that aren’t aligning with the values you hold or are actively discrediting them, and then set boundaries appropriately in order to protect yourself from these situations/people.
4. cleanse your space
Sometimes, protecting your energy can mean you need to protect your physical space and you can do this effectively by cleansing it! Whether you feel like there’s too much stagnant energy in your home, you’ve recently had someone enter your home that is an energy-drainer, or you’ve recently experienced something testing and difficult within your home (such as an argument), cleansing this physical space can help to banish bad energy.
Both palo santo, sage, and incense can be powerful at cleansing your home - as you move around the home with whatever you choose to burn at your disposal, once you leave a room, open the window so the potentially bad energy stored inside it and leave. Then, call positive energy into your space with physical words.
5. practice mindfulness regularly
Practising mindfulness on a regular basis doesn’t just help you calm your mind and recentre, but it gives you the opportunity to spend time on a regular basis to consciously choose to give yourself love and protect yourself.
Although there are different types of mindfulness activities out there, meditation is one of the best types of mindfulness practices to support you in protecting your energy. If you can fit a morning meditation that focuses on centring yourself, raising your energy, and actively protecting it, you will begin to notice that you don’t put yourself in situations or see people who are energy-drainers as much, and if you do, you’re better able to handle it.
6. spend more time alone
You need time to recharge and although spending time around others can certainly bring you joy, you are still taking onboard their energy. So, one of the best things you can do to raise your own energy levels and get in touch with your own essence is to spend time alone on a regular basis.
You definitely don’t need to isolate yourself: after all, humans are social creatures! However, even dedicating just one night a week to spending time by yourself can help you unwind, re-centre, and build your energy back up after spending time with others.
Image credit: Pinterest
7. use affirmations
Whether you choose to start your day by speaking outloud to protect your energy from the offset or you mentally run through specific sentences and words to protect yourself when dealing with a situation or person that’s zapping your energy, affirmations can be incredibly powerful.
Try to create a selection of affirmations that you can choose from in order to get whatever you need. Here are some ideas for affirmations you can use to protect your energy:
- I am choosing to stay true to me.
- I am strong and can choose to bring only positivity into my life.
- I am protecting my energy and I do not let anything that doesn’t bring me joy into my life.
- I have a protective shield around me that safeguards me from anything negative.
- I am honoring my values and protecting myself from anything that doesn’t bring me positive energy.
8. push out positive energy
What you give out to the world truly is what comes back to you, and this is certainly true with energy! When it comes to protecting your energy, it’s important to spread your positive energy to the world. Two of the things that will stop you from doing this are comparison and judgment.
Comparison really is the thief of joy - it’s one of the worst things you can practice. In order to protect your energy, you need to make sure that you’re not giving away your energy to comparison. Whether you’re comparing yourself to others on social media or you’re jealous of something that’s come into the life of a friend, the energy that you’re giving out will reflect directly back onto you. Reframe your thoughts from “I’m annoyed that’s not happening in my life” and “I’m so happy for them and it doesn’t take away from my experience because we are all on different paths”.
When it comes to judgment, try not to judge others at all. This may be difficult to start with and you may actually notice how often you judge people without even realising as soon as you consciously try to stop being judgemental. Just like comparing yourself, giving judgement may be a hard habit to stop, but every time you have a judgemental thought, just reframe it and replace it with something positive like, “I have no reason to judge this person, so I’m not going to. I hope they’re happy”.
ready to protect your energy?
If you’re not already focusing on and protecting your energy, it’s time to start doing that. It’s time for us all, as a collective, to become more aware of not only what we give our energy to, but how we can protect our own peace.
It’s OK to do whatever you need to in order to protect your energy - you are important and you deserve to enjoy a life radiating with joy!
DANDY DEVOTION...
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