If you have ever asked yourself that question, you are definitely ahead of the crowd—just the practice of checking in with yourself puts you in the Winners Circle of Life, simply because you’re being self-aware.
Meanwhile, I’m right there with you. This was the question I asked myself—several times in the past week—when I got surprised by my veeerrry short fuse.
After spending the past two weeks doing a deep dive on how to transform “sticks” into “carrots” by using my Energy Questions, I was totally surprised to be asking myself this question.
What’s weird is that I only paid attention to it when it was my third time asking. Fortunately, I had just learned a new distinction—one that turned on a lightbulb in my brain to help me to recognize that some new Communication Sorcery was afoot.
On Sunday morning at 5 am EST, I joined my fellow Integral Change Worker Coach (and dear friend) Cindy Ho and her wonderful husband, Shrijesh Khada, for their illuminating session, “Crowds, Strangers and Shields.” Based in Sydney Australia (where it was 7 pm), Cindy and Shri are what I would call Energy Geniuses. They are both introverts and highly sensitive people, so managing their own energy well keeps them both engaged in the world in powerful ways that support their important mission in life.
In this session, they shared their Energy Secrets for Success with the world—and I was immensely thankful that I woke up so early to join them. The good news is that I have their permission to share my greatest takeaway with you: it’s the one missing piece of my own energy puzzle that completes everything we’ve been talking about for the past two weeks. (You can find them both on Facebook—and Cindy on Instagram and LinkedIn. Please tell them I sent you!)
Cindy and Shri have invented an Energy Meter™. (Just because it’s imaginary doesn’t make it any less powerful!) Here’s how it works: Imagine your Energy could be measured by a meter that is calibrated with four conditions:
- BLUE: You are grooving with the Universe and brimming with energy and your version of delight
- GREEN: You are immersed in your work or play, getting things done and easily engaged
- YELLOW: You’ve been using up all of your BLUE and GREEN Energy for around two hours or so, and you need to recharge yourself physically, mentally and emotionally to keep your momentum going. This is your warning that your “battery” needs charging. The indicator that you’re in this condition is that you will start to have a VEEERRRY SHORT FUSE.
- RED: You are exhausted—so you have no energy and no interest in anything. If, despite your depleted resources, you continue to walk around like “business as usual”, you are in danger of coming to physical harm. When you ignore this condition, it’s only a matter of time before serious PHYSICAL consequences kick in. (If only you were a computer or tablet or phone, you would simply shut down until you were recharged enough to turn back on—unfortunately some of us humans have to get really sick or have accidents to get the message that we are totally operating on FUMES).
It was astonishing to me that I had never heard about this Energy Meter before. Then I realized: this is not common knowledge! It took Cindy and Shri to map out their own experience and CREATE it for me to find out about it.
Now my goal is to support them in getting the word out to everyone on the planet.
So here’s your Everyday Communication Sorcery Opportunity this week: Recognize the condition of your Energy!
- When you have enough energy, it’s much easier to handle any difficulty that comes your way. When you regularly check in with yourself throughout the day, you will get really skilled at noticing where you are on your personal Energy Meter.
- It’s very gratifying to catch yourself in the BLUE and GREEN zones—as you pay attention, you can start to experiment with your own self-care to see how to nourish yourself to stay in those zones as long as you can. You’ll also begin to notice fluctuations in your energy that were invisible to you before you knew about the Energy Meter™ so you can stay on top of recharging yourself before you get into the YELLOW zone.
- Now you know the signs of being in the YELLOW zone. My Sunday Discovery has already helped me tremendously—now I’m completely clear that this is the source of anyone’s “feeling like an A***ole.” Here’s why: we simply don’t have enough physical energy to be positive or engaged. So we are PUSHING ourselves—beating that proverbial “dead horse” with a STICK—and that is the perfect recipe for our default energy level to be Level 1 (WHY ME??) and Level 2 (WHOSE BUTT DO I NEED TO KICK??) where we can only brandish that stick.
Play of the week: This week, I invite you to consider the possibility that using your own Energy Meter will help you tremendously to keep yourself OUT of the YELLOW zone—or at least give you a heads up that you’re there.
You can easily find out whether this is true for you with 3 simple steps:
- At random times throughout the day this week, pay attention to the condition of your energy, using your brand-new ENERGY METER™.
- Give yourself permission to recharge when you need it—and if you need to, why not simply imagine that you are made of the same stuff as any piece of highly-sensitive electronic gear? Obviously, you require frequent recharging to for optimal performance.
- Should you find yourself “feeling like an A**hole,” be generous with yourself and take it as a signal from your body to stop whatever you’re doing and recharge physically (often this can be as simple as moving around and re-hydrating every hour or 2!) Add on some mental or emotional recharging if you need it (this can be as simple as listening to your favorite music or getting a big hug!) The more you do this, the easier it gets and the more creative YOU get.
Try out these three steps and see what happens. As always, the Big Win here is to consider the possibility that practicing Communication Sorcery will benefit you—something you can only prove one way or the other by trying it out.
Important Note: All you’re doing this week is exploring.
There’s no way to screw this up.