I’ll show you how to manage the inner light bulbs you haven’t even heard of, but you keep powering them in vain. Just listen.
If it’s true that we are formed by energies that bind our soul, conscience, and physical particles, then mastering our energy could be an ultimate goal. So said, there is this noble truth and harsh reality when you ask yourself – how am I managing my energy? Do I do it at all, isn’t it just flowing through me?
Well, my observation is – most of us don’t pay attention to it at all. Not because we don’t care, but we do not know how – we do not have a proper framework that would help us to manage this valuable resource. High energy, usually, is an advantage. Women prefer men who act actively; bosses reward initiative; life generally gives back to those who dare. And if you dare – you do have to generate that constant flow of energy to overcome obstacles or afford wasting it on those failures that preceded the success.
So energy is essential, and you need a lot of it to throw yourself into new ventures, try ideas, or just start something new, like a business. You also need the energy to get over hard times, overcome failures, and sustain losses. If you are a manager, a part of your job is to activate your people, give them energy, spark it within and make sure it flows. When the team is low on it – add more. But to give something, you need to have a disposable surplus of it.
How is this surplus created? In a certain way, we are tubes through which the energy flows. We inhale it with every breath, consume with food, gain it while socializing or playing and disperse while breathing out. We spend with every thought we process, every action we take. It flows through us like through a tube, in a constant cycle. We utilize it in activities like thinking, growing, working, sharing emotions, or being socially available, but also while worrying or digesting unhealthy, heavily processed. We need it for change or healing.
The healthier we are, the more physically and emotionally fit – our tube gets broader and more energy can flow through us. When we exercise, do physical work, eat smarter or meditate, we increase our flow – the ability to intake and give energy. Once our tube expands – we can steadily manage to do more or use it in a short burst when we access our reserves.
Some people do not have such reserves, nor their energy balance is positive. When you spend more than you have at disposal, your mind and body experience stress. In the long run, it gets you exhausted.
You certainly saw people who are so low in energy from being deeply depressed that they can not afford to function normally, they do not enjoy anything and seem barely struggle to survive. Their accessible resources may be so low, that they spend time curved in an embryonal position not able to break that negative cycle without the help of therapy or medicaments. Their energy flow is broken. And since they do not perform many physical activities, most of that enormous energy consumption is done by the brain. It can be as draining as that.
There are many available guidance on how to focus on your physical fitness and eat well, but there are less practical solutions of how to approach the energy used by your mind. Of course, there is meditation, mindfulness, stoical philosophy, but all those beast are tough to master. I have not seen many people riding them successfully. Simply, there are available life-changing solutions, yet not everybody can use them. One would need something more accessible.
The brain consumes enormous quantities of energy if used correctly, of course. Thinking, it figures, is a costly process.
And guess what – the thoughts you are aware of maybe like only 10% of what your brain processes. The rest happens in deeps of your mind – served invisibly by core brain parts. We are aware only of the material in our working memory – we remain unconscious of most of the input that feeds the brain and also most of the decisions it makes. Therefore we can only control or change something if we’ see’ it consciously.
Most of the efforts oriented in therapy or coaching are focused on increasing that field of view. They help you notice and broaden the area where you can influence and change your emotions or thoughts. You can only work in this area. If you are not aware of something – you can not change it.
It is interesting how the brain processes the flow of thoughts. It would be complicated to handle every single unit of information piece by piece; therefore, our mind binds them together into threads seen as one file. In therapy, there is this notion of ‘gestalt’ – describing how humans typically see elements by grouping them, recognizing patterns, and simplifying complex images to perceive some aspects as a whole. We create gestalts to group our thoughts into objects that we can store and manage easily. In effect, those objects grab and maintain our attention and energy.
Once an object starts to function in our mind, it gets an individual ‘life’ and, to function, it requires energy. Every gestalt needs to be nourished. You can easily imagine gestalts as light bulbs that shine inside of your mind, and each one has a cord, through which it draws energy. The energy you need to supply.
You can serve hundreds of such bulbs at the same time. The bulbs differ in size, the bigger they are, the wider is the cord and amount of energy they draw. The bulbs ‘live’ and they evolve with time. They may grow becoming very important, in some cases attracting our attention up to the level when we feel almost exhausted. When they connect with strong emotions, they become especially demanding. Think when you are in love, or you strongly desire something or think your career or social position is in danger. These can be pretty strong feelings.
You have them, they flow through your head, mostly unmanaged. Each one is drawing a substantial amount of energy, sometimes months or years before new gestalts emerge, pushing old ones into oblivion. They are tricky. Some – even hidden or forgotten – they still draw energy. In some instances, they may be forced so deep, suppressed so strongly, that they never surface. They are entirely denied, yet still drawing energy. Imagine what amounts of energy this requires during time.
We continuously create new gestalts. Some of them fade quickly; some of them persist and need to be fed. If we open and nurture too many of them, our system slows down, sometimes to a point where we can’t do anything else and just serve those open processes. In some cases, our system is so overloaded, that all we can do is to coil and retreat from current reality or entirely from life. Being emotionally exhausted and our energy depleted.
Hopefully, most of us see milder shortages. The reason we may lack of energy is: we are not managing those bulbs. Our mind creates them at will and feeds as emotions flow. There is no escape from this. And when there is no discipline of thought – you are vulnerable, open to various suffering from deficits.
What can one do? Naturally, you want to free our energy by decreasing the number and size of the bulbs.
There are there basic things we can do:
1. Close/switch off a bulb by completing the task (fulfilling the original reason why the gestalt was created) and reclaim the energy it consumes while occupying your mind.
Closing a bulb is the best way to regain energy. You certainly remember a relief once a difficult task is completed or an urgent problem solved. Remember the last time when you decided to tell the uncomfortable truth or reconciled with someone dear finally? Or maybe when you closed a long-negotiated deal? You can feel the sudden burst of energy that is freed up and immediately available to you. In some cases, you will also notice how exhausted you were and how your body was strained.
Not all closed bulbs will give you so immediate and bright feeling, in smaller cases, you won’t feel it immediately, but the compound effect of those small changes can be enormous. It is an excellent strategy to start switching off the small bulbs as the initial success can power the challenge of the more difficult issues.
2. Decrease the size of energy it draws by putting the cause in the right perspective.
We often tend to give more significance to present or future events than they deserve. We overestimate their social influence over our life or utterly wrongly judge their importance. Our monkey mind always finds something to worry about, and once a problem resolves itself – it immediately finds another one.
Most of our fears never realize, they grow in the present moment and occupy our heads. Almost everyone worries about things that never happen, and if they occur, they usually tend to be less problematic than we had anticipated before.
The thing is we do not have the proper judgment on our life events till they are long past, a history. Last time you broke with your love or spouse – it hurt a lot, you might even though its the end of the world, but today you certainly see it in a little different light – probably you are OK.
It was such a big thing only then – the time gave it the right meaning, and sometimes it served you well (meaning you met someone special you would not have met if you had stayed with the former person). Sometimes you may be afraid of an exam or a med procedure, yet finally, we are all still here – mostly in good shape. Meanwhile, new problems had emerged, and now they dwarf the old ones.
People, to a certain degree, can decide what and haw absorbs their attention. There are many ways to control such decisions like reflection, meditation, or an application of Stoic philosophy. Yet they require practice or training. From my experience, the easiest way to get immediate results is to change your perspective.
Let me give you some examples: we tend to focus on the downside of problems. We see them bigger or out of proportion. But when we talk ta a friend, or we can compare it with a previous experience, then we see how exaggerated our perception is or find out the positives of the situation. Maybe see that the probability is much lower or the fate not decided yet.
3. Decide not to power a bulb anymore and switch it off as a result of a conscious decision.
If you followed every idea that ever comes to your mind – you would be simply lost. Fortunately, we are programmed to choose what we want to do and what not. It creates a space for a decision. Letting something that had already established presence in your mind is hard, but if your resolution is firm and what’s very important comes both form your head and your heart – this will be easier than you think.
If you decide to close a bulb – just do it. Make sure to avoid skimming on the surface without facing the real thing. If you close the problem in your mind, but your heart won’t follow – you will be only deluding yourself, and there will be no energy gain.
‘Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.’
Lin Yutang
There are bulbs buried so deeply that we will never discover them, but many of them can be brought to light and dealt with once you became aware of them. You can’ imagine how much relief you can feel when it happens. You can not run from them the whole life, or you will never have the energy to do something extraordinary in life.
Of course, there are more ways to use this framework, but if you just stick to these three points – you will be able to sort out what’s in your head and save a lot of energy. Don’t squander it around like a cheap coin. Time and energy are the most basic and more valuable resources you have at your disposal.
So, start closing your bulbs. Not all of them are worth carrying in your mind. Set your priorities straight, and you will discover how to declutter your head. If you are not able to close the big ones – start switching off the smaller bulbs. The released energy can be recovered and used for more demanding challenges.
If you can not control what’s in your head, the flow of your thoughts, or emotions – how can you achieve control over your life or lead/manage other people? Do not waste it on unnecessary entanglements; start doing things beneficial for the world and yourself.