It’s Up to You and ONLY You!

How freely do you give your energy away to others? It’s a question that we should all be asking ourselves daily. Let me clarify, the energy I speak of is not in terms of serving another through acts of service or good deeds. They energy I’m referring to is the energy that each of us has that propels us throughout the day. Again let me be clear, this energy is not the same energy that we would speak of if we were to say, “boy, I’m tired today” or “Wow, I have so much energy, I could run a marathon!” The energy I want to discuss today is that which belongs to you and only you. It is the energy that creates the thoughts you think in your head. The energy that tears you down or builds you up. The energy that makes you feel good or bad. The energy that allows you to accomplish great things in your life or keeps you holding space.

Several years ago, I had a rather interesting conversation with someone I had attended school with many years prior. I wouldn’t call this person a friend but I certainly didn’t think that we were enemies either. On this particular evening, I reached out to share some cutting edge health products and research with him. To be honest, I was sharing this information with him in the hopes that he would be interested in it enough to purchase it for himself and his family. To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to listen. While I don’t think the details of our conversation are necessary to this story, what is necessary to understand is that prior to our conversation that day I was “feeling” good! I was happy, excited, confident, hopeful, relaxed and eager to help. I had already spent my whole day serving others and sharing this potentially life changing information with people that were grateful, that I took the time to do so. Unfortunately, our conversation did not go so well. To say this person rejected me and the information I was sharing, would be a gross understatement. Not only did he reject the validity of the information I offered him, which by the way, had already been scrutinized and affirmed by some of the top scientific minds in the world, he did so without taking the time to inform himself as to why he was rejecting it in the first place. In doing so, our exchange became rather heated and by the end of it, I felt personally attacked.

Has something similar ever happened to you? Maybe you had a great day at work only to arrive home and before you can even walk in the door, your spouse meets you in the garage and “dumps” on you. Or maybe you left home in the morning feeling great! On the way to the office you listened to your favorite songs or motivational book and you felt unstoppable, until you got cornered by a coworker having a bad day or a boss on a rampage. When this happens, what happened to all those “great” feelings you have just moments before? They’re gone right? It’s like someone pulled the plug on your hot bubble bath and left you naked, sitting in a cold, damp, porcelain bathtub. THIS is the kind of “energy” that I am talking about!

Looking back on my conversation that day, by the time we hung up the phone, I was no longer happy, excited, confident, hopeful, relaxed and eager to help him, myself or anyone for that matter. Instead of “feeling” good, I felt down right awful! I was frustrated, angry, bitter, offended and I am certain that my blood pressure had gone through the roof! You see, even though he didn’t take the time to do his own research on the subject, he flat out rejected the information that I was sharing with him. Instead of accepting his choice to remain judgmental and uninformed and simply move on, I took it on myself to convince him that he was wrong, what a mistake! His mind had already been made up. There was absolutely nothing I could’ve said or provided him that would have changed his mind. Nothing! Rather than recognizing this fact and walking away, which would have allowed me to retain most of MY energy, getting into an argument with him had the opposite result. Not only did I allow our conversation to affect my energy that evening, I allowed his words and actions to affect me for many years to follow.

It was like our conversation that day sparked some deep seeded wound or resentment that he had towards me, someone else in his life or possibly himself. For several years this person would appear out of nowhere on the pages of my social media and each time he did the positive energy, that up to that point had been propelling my day forward at wrap speed, was suddenly gone. The worst part of it all??? I allowed it to happen. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine!

How we feel or react to any situation comes down to one word. Choice. We have a choice. Like the favorite books of my childhood, you know the ones that allowed you to choose your own ending, we have a choice. God made sure of it by giving us the power of FREE WILL. Everything we do, every little decision is our choice. It doesn’t matter what someone says to you. It doesn’t matter how they act towards you. It doesn’t matter how they treat you or even why. The ONLY thing that matters is how YOU CHOOSE to react to it.

PROVERBS 26:4 says “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.”  If I could do it all over again, I would have recognized where our conversation that day was going and walked away. Because I didn’t, because I chose to stay and fight it out, I freely and knowingly gave my precious energy away.

The next time you’re in one of these situations, I encourage you to make a choice. (Remember it is YOUR choice) You can either allow yourself to be consumed by the energy that will rob you of your hidden power or you can choose to protect yourself by deflecting, walking away or by allowing your light to shine so bright that those around you can’t help but to become blinded by your awesomeness!

Have a great day and protect your energy!

Kevin