Filling Your Emotional Reservoir

In the last couple of weeks I’ve learned a huge life lesson which has impacted the way I deal with certain aspects of human interaction and I really wanted to share this with you.

I’ve always been an ‘absorber’ and by this I mean emotional empathy has been an integral part of my personality. I have learnt from a very young age to listen to people with my heart, and so when a person is talking to me, I feel so much of what they feel. This works well if I am around happy, positive people but more often than not, this trait in me has always attracted the opposite. While having emotional empathy and an acute sense of what people are feeling is a blessing it has until now been somewhat of a curse to me. This is mainly due to my not understanding how this exchange of energy works and not being in control of my own energy.

I am sure that almost every person has felt this – when you talk to someone, even a short conversation can leave you feeling a loss of vitality, a change in mood from positive to negative and a drain on your spirit. This is because the person you have just interacted with was ‘vibrating’ on a lower level than you at the point of interaction; in short they were feeling lower than you were. This caused a flow of energy between you and them – a natural way of redressing the balance, so some of their negative energy flowed into you and some of your positive energy flowed into them. They leave feeling better than before they met you and you leave feeling worse. This happens to everyone, but there are some people who live in a constant state of sadness and negativity and interacting with these people can cause great damage, especially if you come into contact with them on a regular basis.

I have always attracted these people into my life and have greatly resented the time and positive energy taken from me when I interact with them. You see I am a bit of a soft touch – and while this tenderness and empathy is crucial for my music and vocation it has been a most difficult burden to bear in my day to day life. I did however realise that the only thing I could change was the way I interacted with people. Still, it was difficult to get past the resentful feelings towards these ‘positive energy usurpers’ and so each time I tried to protect myself from them I did it with a little anger and this anger of course only fuels the negative energy – it weakened my resolve and gave power to their need to take positive energy. No matter how I tried, all the various techniques I used always failed to yield the kind of result that I needed which was to stop allowing my positive energy to drain out of me. I can’t stop people wanting positive energy, but I wanted to be able to control how much I was sharing – that was the key.

Last week I had a revelation about this situation. So much of my life energy comes from my emotional state. Some people get their energy from doing physical things, some from mental, some from spiritual, but my energy source is mainly emotional – and that makes sense as it is the core of what I do; making music and singing is all about giving form to feelings and emotions. I realised that there was a leak in my emotional reservoir; so before I even begin to fill it up, all the positive energy and good feelings just drain away. This also explains why I can feel so utterly exhausted – I’ve been virtually running on empty this whole time. Which begs the question, how will I start to feel once my emotional reservoir has been filled up? I’m pretty excited about that!

So, I had to plug the leak and as I am sure you can imagine, that’s easier said than done. Eventually after much soul searching I realised that it didn’t much matter why and when the leak had emerged, what mattered now was that I plug the leak. That meant making some major changes – learning to only give to people what I want to give and more importantly, what I can give. It means being able to say to a ‘positive energy usurpers’, I’ve only got 10 minutes to talk because I am really busy. It means taking control of my emotional reservoir and monitoring its levels every day. It means replenishing my own emotional reserves and filling it with what I need, when I need it.

With this new found understanding of myself and how to nurture my own needs first, I feel so lifted. I feel free of those restraints – being held down can take a serious toll on your spirit. I’ve been stuck in this pattern my whole life and I cannot begin to describe how emancipating it is to be in charge of my emotional reservoir. So, now I begin the process of filling up this Hoover Dam of emotion and as always with me, it starts and ends with music....

My go to guy for filling up my emotional reservoir is Miles Davis – nobody does it for me like Miles!

Kick back, close your eyes and let the music float in...

Miles Davis - So What

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEC8nqT6Rrk