Energy Flow this Week

As I continue to focus on resilience and emotional regulation, I keep reading things about energy flow.  Not just the idea of where “your attention goes, so your energy flows”.  I am also trying to pay attention to what increases my energy and what deletes it.  I’ve been watching my energy flow more carefully this week.  

I saw this question the other day about energy – are you keeping any energy to respond to an emergency?  And it made me realize that almost every day, by 7:30 PM I am ready for bed.  I am too tired to even read and comprehend a book.  (No wonder I’m behind on my book club reading!)  In my journal I replied to this question with, “Stop feeling responsible for everything and saying yes to everything.” 

And I then said no to a request at a board meeting. I had 2 people reach out and repeat the request, trying to get me to change my mind “because we really need you to do it”. But I stayed firm. It’s not just the activity. It’s the thinking I will do in anticipation. The planning what to say and what not to say, to each and every possible scenario my brain will come up with. I also said no to making phone calls that I knew would be draining and not very productive. 

I saw another quote about spending time – when you spend time with someone or on something, you are saying, “Out of everything I could be doing, I am choosing to do this/ I am choosing to spend this time with you”. And that hit me hard after a very long phone conversation I did not plan and did not deserve the amount of time I gave to it!  I looked more closely at my mental load (reference blog post here on mental load) – both the calendar busyness (time spent) and the mental load (thinking time). The mental load on the house is big. I created a list of things I’m juggling in my thinking. It is currently 34 items long. Ack. And yet the garden club activities took up more than 40% of my daily time this past week.

But there are glimmers of better energy flow management:

• I am beginning to believe my new mantra: I am enough. I do enough. I have enough. 
• I am being more accepting of compliments. Recognizing them, hearing them, feeling them and not just tossing them away. (positive energy)
• I am saying no. 
• I am not feeling guilty for maintaining the boundaries I’ve set on distancing from energy drains.
• I am making sure there is some downtime in my schedule. (Not yet enough… too many yesses in the past, but some!)
• I need to be more conscious as to where I am choosing to spend my time.

As I look at the upcoming week, I’m excited to have a day trip with hubby planned. I don’t “choose to spend time” with him nearly enough.  And there are currently two very open (nothing much on the schedule) days. Reading time? Crafting time? Do nothing time?

The cringe question I am dealing with these days is, “Do you have a move-in date?” Because no, we don’t and it feels like a failure to say that.  I’m failing at getting this project done. Delays continue, all out of my control, but still frustrating. We did, however, get the roof installed this week on both the new house and the old garage (so they match).

How is your energy flow these days?  Are you keeping any energy to respond to an emergency?  Are you distancing from energy drains? Are you consciously choosing where you spend your time, your energy?

Picture: new roofs – old garage (“toy shed”) in front and new elevated house behind it.

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