This morning I experienced a revelationary moment! So what happened is, that I had listened to a podcast earlier this week, and the podcast lasted for about 28 minutes. So this podcast involved this particular person who was talking about repeating a positive mantra and by how doing that can change your life and can make good things happen. The mantra was included things like, “Abundance flows to me.”
Look, I’m not going to lie. I listened to the entire thing and I thought to myself, “What a load of bullshit!” It puzzled me. This person has a massive following. I’m not going to mince my words. I was baffled and puzzled by it because I just thought, “What a load of old nonsense.” I mentioned it to my partner and said, “Why would people find that useful?” I’m not going to tell you who the podcast was from, because that would be very disrespectful from what I’ve just said about it. And also because it’s my choice to listen to it, nobody’s putting a gun to my head. But not only that, as you’re going to hear, I have realised that despite my cynicism, this podcast must have been swimming around my subconscious the entire week because of what I am about to tell you.
So fast forward to this morning I was having a fitness training session. I’ve had a good week of it, but it was like any other morning, any other given morning. I was doing my training session, and I realised that I felt amazing, maybe a nine out of 10. I felt good. I felt on fire. And again, that happens sometimes with training. That’s partly why I do it. But I just had this moment of clarity. That’s the word I’m looking for. Clarity. I realised I had this recognition. I felt amazing. And it was more than the usual kind of buzz that I get from training. Super positive, excited, just at one and just really good.
I questioned myself “Why am I feeling like this? Why am I feeling so good?” I did this training session yesterday, I was puzzled. I recognised it as energy, energy at its purest form. I just felt completely energised. I have been reflecting about energy in general.
I hadn’t realised it, but I think that my general energy levels have dropped off a bit pre the pandemic lockdown. On paper things were going really well. My clinic has been up and running for over five years.. I have been spending less time there, having an amazing clinic manager there now. I was able to carve out more and more time to be away from there.
So as I say, on paper I should have been feeling really, really good about everything. I recognise now that I wasn’t, that my energy levels were actually quite low. Despite the fact that I was spending less time at the clinic, both myself and my partner were working very, very hard. He works very long hours. He’s got a very, very stressful job. We both typically work around six days a week. Even when I’m not actually at the clinic, I’m very rarely doing anything these days that is not work related.
I’m not looking for sympathy at all. I’m just painting you a picture. So if we are at home, we are both on our laptops working away, very little downtime. We both visit our parents every Sunday who live in Essex, we live in London. My partner’s father is really quite unwell and has been for a number of years now. My mother is elderly with dementia and I am very kind of conscious of how much time she has left. So after a six day week, on the seventh day we generally go back visit our parents. Usually on a Sunday we’ll get home around 8pm have dinner go to bed and then it’s Monday again! It is very full on.
With the little downtime we have we tend overcompensate with too much food, too much alcohol, those quick fixes, those fast highs that you live to regret.
Lockdown has given people time, I can see now having had the lockdown time, how amazing time is and again, even though the two of us have worked our way through lockdown, it has just been different. The rushing around has stopped. The visits to our parents have stopped, which again, don’t get me wrong, is really sad. I think we both feel quite responsible for bringing joy and fun into our respective parents’ lives. So not seeing them has been tough, but it has also meant that we’re not running around like headless chickens and completely exhausted the whole time.
So back to my epiphany. I realised now that the energy that I normally have, had been depleted and my love of the clinic, and life there was starting to wane a little bit. I had started to lose direction. I can see it with such clarity now, it’s crazy. I think when I felt that feeling of energy today as well, it really made me realise that when I look around and see people who are living life to the fullest potential, and by that, I don’t mean that they’re the richest or the hardest working or whatever. I mean, literally enjoying life and getting the most out of it. Every person that pops into my head are people who I would say are highly energetic, they are highly energised, you can feel their energy. That is what I felt running through my body this morning. This energy. And it was, “Wow. Hello! This is good. I feel good!”
Lockdown has been very difficult in lots of different ways but, because of the element of time I have made some quite big decisions. Some of the decisions are actually really scary and daunting. Some people might even say that they are a bit crazy. I have realised that this is the foundation for my renewed energy. I feel passionate again. I feel excited and challenged and full of energy because of the decisions.
It’s really exciting. I have really good self-awareness and I think lots of nurses do. I think it also comes with age as well. The older we get the better we understand ourselves. We know why we do stuff, triggers, why we behave badly, what makes us tick.
What makes me consistently feel good, and wakes me up in a good mood is training and keeping alcohol to a minimum, and really being careful with my diet. So for me, I know how to hone my energy on a physical level. If you can identify those things for you that help to elevate your energy levels, and try and find time for them, try and incorporate them into your life. If you are stuck in a situation where you are feeling de-energised, de-motivated, uninspired then you have got to start somewhere. Identifying how you reenergise yourself and then purposefully and deliberately trying to engage in those activities to do that, so that you can physiologically increase your energy levels, will help with your drive with everything.
So I want you to try and spend a bit of time assessing and reflecting on your current energy levels. As I have done, try to think of the people that are in your life, real people, not famous people, celebrities, or people in magazines, but real people who are in your life that you know, that you look at as people who are living fulfilled lives. Don’t use money as a bench mark. I mean people who are happy and vibrant and seem to be relatively content.
I want you to gauge what their energy levels are like. I am pretty certain you will notice that their energy levels are very, very high. We need to work out how to foster deliberately and purposefully energy levels especially when we are going through periods when they are not naturally high. So there it is – that is your challenge, I want you to start with that straight away. I want you to really, really focus your awareness. Then I want you also to really try and reflect on times when your energy levels have felt really high. Really good. And what has been going on in your life at that point in time?
What were the energy levels like and how were they like that? What was going on? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? What ambitions did you have at that point in time? What goals did you have at that point in time?
Energy levels are maximised by your actual habits that effect physiological changes and by your mindset – your commitment to goals and dreams. In order to do that, we need to practice some deliberate and purposeful self-awareness (Abundance flows to me!?)