Show notes:

143.How to do a Personal Energy Inventory, and Steps You Can Take Now To Protect Your Sacred Energy

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to the Empowered brain, the only podcast using science, psychology and coaching to help you rewire your brain and create a life you love with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Harvard grad physician, master coach, and mother of two.

Hey, friends, you're listening to Episode 143, protecting your sacred energy. So I'm talking about sacred energy today, because we're still in the month of February, when we're thinking about ourselves, how we love ourselves how we care for ourselves. One of the things that I think is incredibly important is, you know, we think about ourselves as sort of the body, right? Like, the physical body that we're in. And when we think about protecting or caring for ourselves, we think about sleeping, maybe exercise, eating healthy. What else like blood hydrating those sorts of things. And what we sometimes miss is the fact that yes, we are in a physical body, but inside our physical body is also our energy. And so yes, we have to protect and be kind to our physical body. But we also need to protect our sacred energy.

So if you are not an energy believer yet, like I was not an energy believer, I'm going just quickly to reveal a little bit of energy. So here's the thing about energy, everything around you has energy. Now, you cannot always see the energy. You can't always see examples of it. But everything has energy. If you put two magnets together, and you put the two negative sides together, and you try to push them together, they push each other off, right? They're repelling each other. What is repelling? Like, what is that? What's causing that repel? What's causing that friction? It's the energy that the magnets are giving off. Now, I also was not a believer in the kind of this whole energy field, and I thought it was a little bit like, woo, there wasn't a lot of science behind it. And I think it's funny because I am a scientist. I love love, love data. I love figuring out the why behind everything. And I also know that you know, the human brain can't comprehend everything happening around us. So sometimes things just don't have an explanation. And that's okay, too. But I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to a lot of the stuff you know, like you can see behind me right now, that orange a little light if you're watching this on YouTube. And what you see is a Himalayan salt lamp, because Himalayan salt lamps, clean up the energy around you because they absorb negative ions. So let's talk about energy. And when I became a believer quickly, and then we'll talk about how you protect your sacred energy. So again, I used to be a huge skeptic.

A while ago, I went to this conference and there happened to be a talk of the conference about Fung Shui and how to function where your house. So you guys all know the concept of Fung Shui, right? How to set up Fung Shui essentially means how to set up the energy in your house. So it's flowing in a way that's going to serve you. And I was kind of a skeptic, but I was super interested. And of course, the universe does what it does, and it hooked me up and it put me in the exact space that I needed to be. And the instructor of the course was awesome. Because she started with like, Hey, if you're a skeptic, I get it. I was like, Oh, awesome. And so she's like, let me show you how things have energy.

So the first thing she did was she brought out these things are called dowsing rods. Now there are these two rods, I think they're copper rods. And what they do is they used to be used a long time ago in desert areas to see like where we can find water underground. And so people would take these rods and they would put them over certain parts of the land and if the dowsing rods moved one way or the other, they would know that underneath here there's water because the water has a specific energy that causes the dowsing rods to move. So she has these dowsing rods there and she's like I want to show you how everything has energy. So she gets these two copper rods. She's holding them in her hand and they're kind of like these L-shaped copper rods. And she first she's she puts the copper rods over a cup of water and the copper rods are moving I was like oh fascinating. Then she puts the copper rods over an empty cup and the copper rods move a little bit but not a ton so the cup has a little bit of energy but the water has more then she gets out a big bucket of crystals, not a bucket but like a handful of crystals and she puts the dowsing rods over the crystals and the dowsing rods go crazy. And I was like what holy smokes that's crazy.

And new crystals, you know have been believed to have energy but I'd never seen that sort of example. And I sort of became a believer in energy She also did one other example with me that I'll share with you because this one blew my mind. She said, she's like, I'm going to do one more example for all of you are there any volunteers and I shot my hand up right away because here, I am not a believer. So if you're going to try to prove to us prove it with me, the biggest skeptic in the room. So she stands me in front of the group in front of the class, and she puts a stool underneath us. And what she does is she says, I'm going to put my hands over the stool, and I want you with all your mind to push down. So that so that my hands go down. So I'm pushing and pushing and pushing, and I can't get her hands to go down. I was like, that's weird. And then she tilts the stool over.

So now it's just like a crooked straw in the room. And she puts her hands over again. And she's like, now do it. So again, the stool is between her and I first it's like standing upright, and then she tilts it. And when she tilts it, all of a sudden, she's not holding her like I'm pushing really I'm pushing and her hands fall as like, Okay, well, she's clearly doing this on purpose, like now she just doesn't have any strength. So she looked at me, she's like, you don't believe it? Do you? And I was like, nope. And then she's like, Okay, how about you be the person that puts your hands up. So now we do it the other way around. So she has the stool in the middle. And it's standing upright, I put my hands out, and she's pushing, and she's pushing on my hands, and she's not getting them down. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm really strong. And I feel her pushing, I see her face, I see the strain in her muscles. And then she tilts the stool, and she puts my hand again. And here I go again, holding my arms out strong. And she pushes and my arms fall to the ground. I was like why this is wild.

So again, everything around us has energy, including you, your body, you have this beautiful energy around you. And the word energy, also known as chi, depends on you know, who you're talking to, in what language, energy, or chi, also known as prana. Another way to say energy, all of that is the energy that you hold inside of you. And the energy, the way we've measured it before is we've done studies, where we can measure the energy that you're holding with these special tools. And what the energy does is it shows us a specific vibration, kind of like, there's like these EEG studies, electro magnetic studies that they do on a brain to see if somebody is seizing, if you have a seizure, the electricity in your brain changes.

And so you see these waves on kind of this on this paper form. And so they can test your energy by by hooking you up to this machine, and they can see how your energy is vibrating on the machine. It's wild. And it's super, super cool. All right. So when I say that, what I want you to really take away from this is the fact that you are an energetic being a beautiful, sacred energetic being. One of my teachers once said, you know, we don't understand this, but really the human body is, you know, a body it's made of matter. Matter is, you know, when a solid a solid thing. But the human body does not move does not go anywhere doesn't do anything without energy. And the way you know that is you can have a human body moving around doing all of these things. And the second that, you know, energy is removed from that human body.

So for example, your heart stops beating, and you start breathing, the second that the energy is removed, all of a sudden, the human body doesn't move. So the human body needs energy. So you and the energy that you create, that you call forth, that you have around you, that is creating the world around you, which is why it's so important to understand that and to protect your sacred energy. And, you know, you've been around people probably that you call magnetic like that person is so magnetic, like I just want to be around them. What is it about them? What's the magnetism, it's their energy that they're calling out that they're putting out in the world that's getting you to want to be around them.

Vanessa 09:21
So what I want to do now is I want to talk about what affects your energy, and how we can protect our sacred energy to make sure we're taking care of it and giving it the care that it deserves the care that it needs to make sure that it giving you the results that you want in life. All right. So what are the things that affect our energy? So there are really obvious things, you know, how we spend our time so work, what we're doing at work, our relationships, who we have around us, personal relationships, the person that you live with, so either a roommate or a significant other, your family, that is one of the biggest markers of how you're willing of how your energy will be because now you're sharing energy, you're in that same space when you're close to them, your energies are going to mix.

So you've probably noticed, like when one person is really upset at home, if you have a significant other, and they're upset or angry, you feel the tension in the room, you're feeling their energy, that's what you're feeling. So again, work relationships, people that you live with any activities that you do energy-giving activities, like, you know, meditating, exercising, and spending quality time with people who love traveling the world, and energy-draining activities, like, you know, drinking too much when you go out on a weekend, or staying up late or scrolling through social media kind of like what do they call those Doom scrolling? And what else affects our energy?

The other thing that affects our energy is what we consume mentally, what we're reading, what we're watching what we listened to. So all of these things affect our energy. So we're going to go through each one of these. And I'm going to give you a few ways to think about, am I in a place that's energy giving, or energy draining? And then what to do about it. So let's start with work.

So the first question for you is, are you currently in an environment at work? That is energy-giving, energy-draining, or energy-neutral? Are you in a work environment that's energy-giving, energy-training, or energy-neutral? The way you know is how you feel on your way to work. Are you excited to go? How do you feel on the way home? How do you feel when you're there? And so ask yourself, am I in an environment that I feel is giving me energy or taking energy away? So you know, if you are in a toxic work environment that's energy-draining, you have options, you know, the first option, is not to work there. But not all of us can take that option right away, we need to transition out. So if you're choosing to stay, or whatever reason, the finances, you know, you need to transition out health care, whatever it is, you want to ask yourself and be super, super clear as to why you're choosing to be there.

When you can clean up that what you're doing is essentially cleaning up your thoughts about your work environment. Because if you're in a toxic place, and you keep showing up and all you're doing is complaining all the time, that is incredibly energy draining it, bring it on your energy, because there's two things that create the energy and the magnetism, electromagnetic energy is electricity, the electromagnetic field of who we are, there are two things that create that. One is our thoughts. And the other is our feelings. What we're thinking creates a huge part of the electricity, the electricity, what we're feeling creates the magnetism. So when you all you do is complain about work, you are decreasing your vibe significantly, because your complaint is causing you to have feelings of like, rage, anger, you know, all of whatever you're feeling. So those are negative feelings, negative thoughts. So you want to first clean up your thoughts if you're going to choose to work in that environment. Even if you're choosing to work there for a short amount of time, while you transition out, get clear as to why you're there and clean up your thoughts.

So you want to make sure that you're staying for reasons that you appreciate like, I got to stay until XYZ happens, I'm choosing to stay here until I get another job. So what I'm going to do now in choosing to stay is I'm going to be neutral about this job, I'm not going to think negative thoughts about it, I'm just going to be neutral, I'm going to accept it for what it is and know that I'm actively choosing to stay because I'm going to slowly transition out. Because the truth is that let's say God forbid this to happen, but let's say you were to die tomorrow, they would find someone else to work there, they would figure it out. So if you think that you're choosing to stay because you have to or because who else would do the job, just know that they would figure it out if you were no longer there. So let's go on to let's say we're in an environment. So let's say I actually liked my job, but there are parts of my job that feel draining parts of my job that feel giving.

So if that's you a simple thing that you can do is if you want to you can make a list and actually write this out or just do it in your head, make a list of the activities that you do at work. And then next to it say to like the next column is energy. Is this training? So positive? Is it is it, I'm sorry, if it's draining negative, if it's positive, if it's energy giving you put a positive, and if it's neutral, maybe just put a little circle next to him. So make a list of your activities and get clear if the activities are energy-giving energy energy-draining or energy-neutral. If it's an energy-draining activity, then you got to say like okay, what can I do about this energy-draining activity? Is this something that I can create a boundary around a healthy boundary? You know, like I love my job but I hate that people are texting me all the time. That's so frustrating. Can you create a boundary around that? And, you know, if it's not something that you can create a boundary around, for example, for me in the emergency department, I have to do a lot of charting. You have to chart after all my patients.

One of the things that energy draining is if I have a ton of charting to do, at the end of my shift, it just feels exhausting. So I've set an internal boundary for myself that says, okay, when it's time for me to chart, I'm going to chart after X number of patients so that I don't have a bunch left at the end. And if I do have X number of charts, at the end of my shift, what I'm going to do is be super patient with myself, I'm not going to let myself get distracted by going on to my phone, checking emails, doing whatever because that's usually what I do to procrastinate when there's a task I don't want to do. And then I say to myself, I'm just going to complete the task, because I love my job. There's one thing that I don't love so much, it's kind of energy-draining, but I have to do it because it's part of the job. So what am I going to do to manage my energy around this? So that's your option? What are you going to do to manage your energy? Sometimes you can create actual boundaries outside of you. Like, please do not text me unless it's an emergency. Sometimes you can create internal mental boundaries so that you clean up your thoughts and feelings around the tasks that are draining your energy.

Okay, so once you do that, then you can sort of see like, okay, is this career for me is this job for me, energy-draining, energy neutral, or energy giving? So let's move on to relationships, you want to do sort of the same inventory with your relationships. Think about your close relationships, you know, are you do have friendships in your life? And are those friendships, energy-giving energy-draining energy-neutral? If they're giving fantastic? If they're draining, ask yourself like, why am I still in this relationship, if it's so draining, and if it's because you don't dare to end the relationship, here's my invitation to you right now, to know that when you keep these energy-draining activities in your life, you're keeping yourself from creating more beautiful, abundant, loving energy giving relationships, you're keeping yourself from doing that, because you're not making space in your life, for the relationships that you really want.

The same thing to romantic relationships, if you are dating somebody, and it's energy-draining, figure out why you're in that relationship, and clean up that relationship, you got to clean that up, maybe it's time to end the chapter in that relationship. And again, like you have the power to do that. One of the things that keeps us in relationships longer than we need to be in relationships is guilt. Or it's our you know, we don't feel a sadness of ending a relationship. And we don't want to go through the process of grief. We don't want to grieve the end of the relationship. And so we stay in it longer than we have to, or habitual, you know, we've been friends with them for so long. I don't want to end the relationship. But it might be time to end. If you're feeling like you're no longer being fueled by this relationship. It's no longer serving you. And instead, it's energy-draining. No, my friends that there are friendships out there, there are relationships out there that are fueling, that are giving that are going to be serving you. And you don't have to stay in relationships that are not, that is a choice you get to make. So if it's a little bit more complicated, because it's a romantic relationship, maybe it's a marriage.

This is not a marriage therapy by an array, you know, a marriage podcast, or a marriage therapy Podcast. I'm not here to tell you how to fix your marriage by any means. But marriage gets a little bit more complicated, right? Because now there's usually legal financial, all these other bonds associated with that. But if you're in a relationship, where in a marriage where you feel like it's energy-draining, like this person isn't serving me.

Vanessa 18:54
You have to do, like, here's my recommendation. Again, I'm not a marriage therapist. If you're physically safe, you're not getting hurt in the relationship. You're you're not getting emotionally, physically sexually abused in the relationship, then you might want to ask yourself, how, how can I clean this up? Where it how can I take personal responsibility for the draining off of this relationship? And what can I do to clean this up? Because perhaps you can take personal responsibility. Maybe it's because you're not accepting your partner the way they are. Maybe it's because you're judging them. Maybe it's because you don't accept yourself. Maybe it's because you think you need to show up a certain way. Whatever it is, do your work first to clean up your energetic vibe. So your thoughts and your feelings and then see what happens to your work. Maybe you need to go to a therapist, maybe you do need to do whatever you need to do to try to heal that relationship. And if it still doesn't work, then you know you did everything you could. Now the last sort of energetic vibe. Or there are two more. So there's work, there's relationships, and then there's activities.

So when I say activities, we all know that the energy-giving activities, right? Like, what are those activities that give you energy? And are you doing them for yourself? For me, it's meditation. It's exercising, it's spending quality time with people that I love. It's traveling the world. Those are the activities that give me a ton of energy. What are they for you? And are you making time for those activities? And if you're not making time for those activities, what are you doing? Because you're doing something with your time? Are you doing energy-draining activities? What are some examples of energy-draining activities, binge-watching something staying up super late at night, for me anyway, that's energy-draining, staying up much later than I wanted to overwork, you know, staying up late because I'm responding to emails. I don't really drink alcohol anymore. But a huge energy-draining activity could be over drinking, you know, you're out somewhere you have one glass of wine. Next thing you know, you have three needs and get enough sleep. That could be an energy-draining activity. So ask yourself, Am I partaking in activities that are giving me energy or draining my energy? And then again, if you want to clean that up, this is always your choice.

Once you know that you are 100% responsible, you are personally responsible for the life that you create, then, you know, wow, okay, so maybe I don't want to do that anymore. Maybe I'm happy to go out to dinner. But I'm not going to have, you know, I'm not going to drink tonight, or have only one glass of wine, you can set those boundaries for yourself. And the last thing is what we consume. So what you're reading, what you're watching what you're listening to. So if you are watching things that are draining your energy, like, I don't know, what drains energy, it talks, videos, I'm assuming. If you're doing scrolling through social media, those things are energy-draining, like they're not filling you up. If you're reading things that are not sort of filling you up, you know, you have to think like what is it that I want to consume? What is it that I want to listen to? And for me, the way I see it is, my energy is so sacred. And it's so important to me because it's how I show up to the world. It's how I can give of myself, I can't give what I don't have. So if I'm not in like, if my sacred energy isn't being protected, I can't give that to other people. I can't give unconditional love, kindness, and patience to other people when I haven't given that to myself. And so I think about what I consume, and I'm super conscious about it if I'm watching something and all of a sudden a click, if I'm on YouTube, for example, watching a lesson on someone teach me something that I love. And all of a sudden it switches to a commercial. And I don't watch the commercial, I'll take up the volume, I'll look away from whatever I need to do for that to pass because I don't want that in my energy. But I don't know what it is, but I don't want it in my energy. And the same thing to what I listen to, I'm conscious about what I choose to read what I choose to watch what I choose to listen to whom, and when. So before I go to bed, I don't watch, you know, something that I think is going to drain my energy, I don't want to take that to me, like take that with me when I'm going to sleep.

Sleep is a beautiful, sacred time. And I want to make sure that I'm protecting my sleep because that's really important. That's rejuvenating energy. That's giving energy. Alright, so I'm gonna give you so again, you do your own energy inventory, your work, your relationships, your activities, and what you're consuming. Decide for yourself, like, what is giving me energy, what is draining my energy and what's energy neutral, if there are things that are taking your energy away, and you have to do them anyway, because that's going to happen, like taxes, I don't want to do taxes, but I have to do them, then I clean up my energy around the taxes, I clean up my thoughts and feelings around the taxes by just telling myself Alright, this is ideal, but I have to do it, this is part of the job, you know. So again, you accept what it is for what it is because it's part of the job or part of whatever it is you're doing. So I'm gonna give you a few other things that I do. These are just kind of sort of like little ceremonial things that I do for myself kind of mantras that I do to help protect my energy.

So one big one that I do is at the beginning of every day, you know, my sort of my morning routine is I get up before my house wakes up I meditate a journal. And when I'm done with that before I get up and actually go wake up my kids, I will sit crisscross applesauce or sit by myself. And I will say to myself, and I will envision myself stepping into this multi-faceted crystal and I'll say to myself, spirit or source or universe whatever you believe in. I ask that I that my energy is protected today that any negative energy coming to me be transmuted to the core of the universe for the highest and greatest good and that my energy be fueled and filled with my own energy which is rejuvenating. Which is uplifting, which is Loving, and which is joyful. I say that to myself, and then I start my day. And I really start with that small little sort of ceremony mantra, to protect my energy because I know that my energy matters. So feel free to use it for yourself. Again, you envision yourself stepping into this beautiful, multifaceted crystal. And the reason why you envision yourself stepping into that sort of crystal or diamond is that when you see light being reflected onto something that's multifaceted, sometimes it gets reflected right out.

And that's sort of what I want to create for myself, the negative energy coming to me doesn't come towards like, doesn't come inside of me. Instead, it gets reflected away from me, it gets transmuted to the core of the Earth, it doesn't get reflected back out to like the people around me. But instead, it gets transmuted to the core of the earth so that it is changed. And it is transmuted into energy that is uplifting for the highest and greatest good of all. So that's one thing I do at the beginning of my day, feel free to use it, if it serves you, and how I end my day. So when I end my workday, and I do this really intentionally at the end of all my workdays, what I know I'm going to do when I end my work days, I know I'm about to transition and go be with my family, with my husband and kids. And when I'm with them, I want to be with them. 100%, I don't want to be thinking about work, I don't want to be thinking about what I didn't get done, I don't want to be thinking about any of that. So at the end of my workday, and this, by the way, takes two minutes. So feel free to use it if it serves you.

At the end of my workday, I pause, I don't write it down, because I don't really want to take the time to do it. But I just pause and I say, What am I grateful for today? Like, what am I proud of? Like, what did I achieve that I'm proud of? Takes me like 30 seconds, maybe a minute to think about it. And it raises my vibe, just sitting and thinking about what I'm proud of that raises my vibe by itself. And then I say to myself, Okay, as I entered my workday, I asked that all of this energy of my creation for today, remain here, you know, I have my office, and that I can now transition and be with my family and that my energy again, is now filled with my own energy, which is rejuvenating, which is loving, which is kind which is joyful. And then I transition out to be with my family that helps me clean up my energy so that I'm not taking the hustle. If there was any sort of stress any feelings of not enough nests, that that doesn't come with me out to my day. So I invite you to try that for yourself. Try a routine that really centers your own sacred energy. And protect your energy at the beginning of the day at the end of your day.

And remember, you can only give what you have, you cannot give what you don't have. So if you want to be someone that's making this world a better place, giving being kind, you got to protect your sacred energy, or it's going to be really hard to do that. Alright, sweet friends. I love you all so much, and I will see you next week.

Vanessa 28:06
Hey, sweet friends, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to join us in the journey. It's my all inclusive program and the best community out there giving you the education you never knew you needed to help you create a life you love. Join us at Vanessa Calderon md.com forward slash join. I'll see you there.