We’ve all had it happen: you leave a party, a work event or maybe a family gathering and oooof, where’s your bed already…NAPTIME! But you’re not really tired, exactly. What is it? You felt fine before the event or encounter—but now, it feels like the life has been sucked right out of you.
You’re drained.
It happens to all of us. We get around someone (family gatherings are a usual culprit) and we tank. Maybe it’s your sister’s annoying new boyfriend who hums loudly and thumps his leg every time a song or jingle plays. Or it’s your great auntie who has no concept of personal space, constantly touching your face or wrapping her arm around your waist for the side hug. Or how about the random friend so and so brought over who won’t stop asking, “You’re vegetarian? How do you get your protein?”
I know it seems like when we feel drained, it’s about THEM. What they’re saying, how they’re acting, even simply someone’s literal presence (no words required) can be triggering.
But what if, it’s really not about them at all. What if it’s about You. (I’m writing this for me, too. I’ve got some hella annoying family members. None of them read my newsletter so c’est la vie. And, heck, guaranteed they think I’m annoying too.)
If it’s not about them, though, what is it about? Why do we get drained like this?
Let me explain it with a concept I call “Whose Tuning into Who?” At any given moment, we have the choice to be the Tuner or the Tunee. The trick to this is knowing that you have this profound choice and building up awareness and capacitance around it, like, all the time.
When you are the Tuner, you walk into a room and unconsciously, others are being tuned up, by You. Your good mood is infectious, you feel strong, happy and you exude that, like an aura that exudes around you. You leave the party and everyone feels a little bit (or a lot) better. That is your energy vibing in open frequencies—like a great song that filling a room and you, allowing it all, no judgment.
It’s not just “high vibes, happy vibes”—it’s the whole enchilada range of vibes. That’s important, why? Because “happy-happy all the time” people are hella annoying and also because sometimes being a lightworker means you actually need to be a darkworker. It means, you can take yourself anywhere and the scary, annoying, irritating, troubling stuff that people around you show up with—you step into it with them but…you are the Tuner. You got this. Intelligent love at work.
The “Tunee” on the other hand, that’s when others, wherever they are at on the spectrum, get tuned up people or circumstances around them. We humans are vibrational beings. When we walk into an orchestra of people playing off key, or even one off key person or situation, and we are also off key, not aware and not feeling our natural attunement to our wholeness—because we are human and that happens sometimes, we get tuned up.
I get tuned up when I spend too much time on Twitter or when I watch back to back (to back) MSNBC news programs. One hour is fine. I like to stay informed. Three? Guaranteed I’m drained, bad mood, the world is falling apart, we’re all doomed.
What’s the anecdote? How do you choose to be the Tuner instead of the Tunee?
Here’s how:
- Shift your thinking from here on out. Resist the habit of blaming others or situations for why you feel the way you feel. Harsh, but I swear, this will be a game changer for you.
- Don’t BEWARE, Be Aware! There are no energy vampires out there that can suck you dry that doesn’t require a mutual tuning up. Your powerplay here is knowing how you feel and what you’re thinking about, and being accountable for it, in any given moment.
- Be proactive. Maybe you’ve got an event you need to attend and really, you’ve been in the weeds all day. Struggling. On the verge and edgy. Choose to go and know your limits or simply, don’t go, stay home and take a bath instead.
