Over the years, during class and beyond, people have asked me how to deal with ‘energy vampires’, those people who suck our energy and make us feel exhausted. Those people who have a loooooong sob story and a ‘poor me’ story, and life has treated them sooooo bad. People who just want to talk and talk and unload all their woes and all their troubles onto you. I was reminded of this type of person a few nights ago when I was attending a function and from out of nowhere an energy vampire descended and began to feast on me!
The short answer is: run for the hills! That’s exactly what I did with this particular person, and here’s why. You can try to save them, change their mind, let them see the light, support them and listen emphatically, and do all the other things we’re taught to do (ie. Be NICE) but the truth is, they will not change an ounce of what they’re doing – they will not suddenly wake up having spent an hour feasting on you and declare “eureka! I see the light! From now on I shall only be optimistic and positive and vibrate love!” NO! They will say “phew, that feels better, I need to do more of that unloading – where’s the next victim I can talk to?” OK, of course they are not thinking of you as a victim – but that’s what you are. No matter how much you ‘support’ them, listen to them, sympathize with them - it will never get better until they can see for themselves the cycle they have got themselves in.
I am writing about this because too often we get trapped into thinking that we need to ‘support’ our friends and family and we spend far too much time hanging around in negative energy instead of positive energy. As a weekend Reiki class will teach you, hanging around in positive energy for a prolonged period of time can be a really cool thing to do! Perhaps redefine what ‘support’ means to you. For me, it simply means ‘to help another person’ and I mean that in the very literal sense. Often I withdraw myself from people or situations because I know that I am of no true help here – I may be able to provide ‘relief’ but not true and lasting ‘help’. And frankly, relief is simply prolonging the pain. If you really want to help you friends and family, you’ll focus on yourself and keep blazing the path towards the light.
What that means for me is spending time with myself and with the things I truly enjoy doing. Spending time with my children and soaking up their purity, spending time with yoga and meditation, and reminding myself frequently during the day how incredibly lucky I am to be a spiritual being having a physical experience. I take the time to hang out with positive people, I take the time to find these people and nurture the relationships. To me, being positive and loving and beaming out this energy is the most helpful thing I can possibly do, and if we all took the time to focus on being positive and loving, what a different world we’d live in today!
Comments