Creative Energy is already sending you messages about where you’re on the right track in your life and creative career, but the majority of people are unaware of the information they receive.
Below is a quick exercise to help you recognize one way Creative Energy is already talking to you.
3 Question Energy Audit
When you FINISH doing anything, ask yourself:
Was that energy-giving? Energy-draining? Or energy-neutral?
Energy-giving
Think of how you feel after a great creative session. That’s your personal benchmark for something that is energy-giving.
For every creative I’ve ever known, when they get up after writing, painting, composing, or art-ing in whatever medium they choose, they have gained energy. They describe feeling:
· Energized
· Bright
· Clear
· Happy
· Engaged
· Invigorated
· High
· Like they want to do it again
· Any other giddy modifier you want to throw in here
Often this feeling is accompanied by a physical burst of energy. (Some physically performative creatives may be bodily exhausted after a practice or performance, but the mental and energetic gain is still overall energy-giving—which is often why they can’t go to bed for a few hours after performing.)
If something is energy-giving, great—that means you’re on the right track. Try to work this activity into your life on a regular basis.
Energy-neutral
Think of something you do mindlessly every day, like turn on the coffee maker, feed your pet, or water a plant*. That’s your personal benchmark for something that is energy-neutral.
Energy-neutral is exactly that—neutral. When you finish with the task, you’re neither drained nor invigorated. It’s just a part of human-ing.
Neutral tasks often leave you thinking or feeling:
· Absolutely nothing, because it’s a mindless, rote, activity to you.
· You can take it or leave it as your mood and need dictates.
· You don’t mind the task but are ambivalent about it in general.
· You don’t walk away feeling like you want to take over the world, but you also don’t want to cry yourself to sleep.
· “Meh.”
· “I could do that again but wouldn’t go out of my way to make it happen.”
If something is energy-neutral, it’s fine—many times it’s a necessary part of humaning that keeps your physical world in order. It can also be a great gate-way activity into something energy-giving, or away from something energy-draining.
BEWARE THOUGH energy-neutral tasks occasionally turn into procrastination traps. This week, as you complete your Energy Audit, if you notice you’re spending a ton of time on energy-neutral tasks you may be avoiding some deeper emotional, physical, or energetic work. (We’ll talk more about that later. For now, all you have to do is become AWARE of how things feel energetically after you complete the task.)
Energy-draining
Think of a time you got in your car and felt instant relief to be done and away from whatever just happened. Or when you finished something and immediately wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, or for a week. That’s your benchmark for an energy-drain.
A few energy-drains for me include: packing suitcases, hanging out with certain people, working at a corporate job, and shopping.*
Some signs an experience is energy draining include:
· Exhaustion
· Anger
· Resentment
· Sadness
· Guilt
· Loneliness
· Fear
· Obligation
· Numbness
· Rumination
· Wanting to Escape
· Immediate need to self-medicate
· Physical Illness
· Crying
An energy-draining experience may drain you for a few hours (dinner with someone you don’t like) to a few years (a death of someone you love).
You will never completely rid your life of energy-draining experiences. Illness, death, and natural disasters are constants in the world and may impact you at times, but you do have a choice about what energy-draining situations you knowingly participate in.
If something is energy-draining, you have an opportunity to learn something about yourself and practice some skills you are likely uncomfortable with that still need mastery.
A Few Notes About Learning to Look Through an Energetic Lens
· One person’s energy-giving is another person’s energy-neutral or draining.
· Experiences can (and will) flit between categories as you evolve.
· You can apply this test at any time to any aspect of your life.
The more time and attention you dedicate to energy-giving tasks the happier and easier your life becomes. The sooner you accept energy-draining tasks are there to teach you an important lesson, and you master that lesson, the sooner the experience will transmute to energy-neutral or giving.
Why an Energy Audit Is Important.
The language of energy is something you intuitively know, but most of us have consciously forgotten. The audit is a way of opening your conscious awareness to what energy is trying to communicate to you. At this time, you do not have to do anything with the information. This is simply about layering in a new observational perspective and attuning your senses to hearing the language of Creative Energy.
You can think of the attunement process like a song your grandmother used to sing you when you were a toddler. You completely forget about it as you grow up, but then one day thirty years later you’re walking down the street and someone whistles the tune. You pause, wondering why it sounds so familiar. Then slowly, over the next month, bit-by-bit, the melody comes to you, and eventually you get curious and go find the words. A few years later you have a kid, and you sing it to them.
For the rest of today use the 3 Question Energy Audit to OBSERVE, NOTE, and become AWARE if the way you’re spending your time is energy-giving, draining, or neutral.
Share in the comments about what you find! It’s always curious and fun thing to see what others get/lose energy from.
*This is completely personalized to your lived experience. (i.e. I’m energy-neutral about vacuuming, my roommate finds it energy-draining. Conversely, they find grocery-store runs energy-giving; I find the store energy-draining. And, yes, over time our household chores naturally delegated themselves to the person who found the task energy-giving or energy-neutral.)