Do you know how to protect your energy? If you’re an empath, you already know how easily your emotions can get drained. Sometimes it can be difficult to establish healthy boundaries, especially if you’re a parent. And with more people working from home, some find it to be nearly impossible to achieve a work-life-balance. 

Protecting my emotional energy is something I used to struggle with in the past. Before I became spiritual, it was so much worse. I couldn’t figure out how to fix the situation using logic and psychology alone. But I’ve finally found a way to keep things more in balance. I’m here to share my best tips and tricks on how to protect your energy.

How to Protect Your Energy

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13. Palo Santo and Sage

One of the quickest and easiest ways to protect your energy quickly is to spiritually cleanse your home by burning palo santo and sage. This is supposed to give the energy of your space a quick refresh. It can help you calm down, and reduces anxiety…It smells good, too. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a placebo effect, because it really does work almost immediately after I burn palo santo and sage.

Recently, I learned from a shaman that she drank a dieta of sage tea for an entire year to help protect her energy. I purchased a bag of sage tea online, and started brewing it…WOW. It actually does reduce my anxiety significantly. I was also surprised at how good it tasted, with even a natural hint of sweetness.

12. Stop Giving Out Free On-Demand Therapy to Your Inner Circle

If you’re an empath, you’re the sort of person who makes others feel comfortable with pouring their heart out. It’s an amazing, loving quality to have. But sometimes, this can be a huge burden. Suddenly, you’re giving out free therapy to everyone you know. This can be intensely emotionally draining. Personally, whenever I listen to someone vent, I feel like my batteries have been completely depleted. But since I love these people, I kept doing it, anyway. I’m an empath, and I have strong intuition that makes me feel what they are feeling. It’s hard to be productive for the rest of the day, because I’m so caught up in someone else’s problems.

Does this sound like you? Remember- therapists earn $75 per hour listening to people’s problems. Your time is valuable, too. You don’t have to immediately drop everything to listen to this person, and have it ruin your day. It’s more than okay to schedule a time when you feel emotionally ready, which I’ll get into next.

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11. Set Boundaries For Listening and Giving Advice

When you’re a loving, empathic person (especially Cancers) you’ve got Big Mama energy. You might be used to dropping everything you’re doing to show love and support to your friends and family. However, this lack of boundaries is unhealthy. If you do this often enough, people expect this of you.

You have the choice to put up boundaries about when you’re emotionally ready to listen. If you know that talking to your friend during lunch will leave you drained during the rest of the work day, you can say something like;  “I don’t have time to talk right now, because I have a deadline with work. But can we talk at 9pm?” By doing this, you are respecting your own time and boundaries. And it’s honestly a lot better to let your friend cool off, first. Once they have had some time to process the event they want to vent about, you’re going to get a much more mild and manageable version of the story a few hours later. 

10. Start Journaling

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you just need to release these emotions somehow. One of the best ways to release these feelings is to write them down in a journal. It’s truly cathartic to write things down. I’ve been journaling since I was young. It’s a lot like going to therapy. This can help you sort out your emotions without judgement, and often come to solutions to problems on your own.

9. Speak Up 

Remember that no matter how much someone loves you, they can’t read your mind. Even if you drop huge hints about feeling exhausted, drained, or annoyed, your partner may not pick it up right away. Some people are just terrible at interpreting subtle signals. Speak up, and let them know that you can’t handle something. No one will understand your triggers until you tell them first.

Recently, my brother and I have both gotten into the habit of saying, “I need to protect my energy right now.” As soon as one of us says it, this clicks immediately. We are both empaths, so we both strongly feel the emotions of others. But that doesn’t mean we forget sometimes how much our works can affect the other. If you have friends and family who can understand this too, they will respect when you’ve hit your limit. Even if they don’t fully understand or embrace spirituality, if you say “I need to protect my energy right now”, they’ll stop to wonder what you mean by that. It may actually help them realize that they need to protect their energy, too.

8. Meditate

If you’re an empath, and you haven’t already started a meditation practice, what are you doing? Seriously. Once I started meditating, it literally changed my life. I only mediate between 15 to 30 minutes per day. Just this small amount of time helps me protect my energy throughout the day. It’s amazing. Click here to check out my recommendations of free meditations you can find on YouTube. 

7. Stop Wearing Black

According to an Indian guru named Sadhguru, you should stop wearing black if you want to protect your energy. He went on to explain how black absorbs all colors, while white reflects all colors. So if you believe in the existence of colors in auras, chakras, and other powerful energy, the colors you wear matters. According to this theory, if you wear black, you’re more likely to absorb the emotions of everyone else around you. As someone who wears black almost every day, I’m telling you that this is easier said than done to give up your black clothes. But in certain situations, you may want to choose a lighter color.

All my life, I’ve heard people say that when they wear bright colors, they feel a lot happier. I assumed this meant that they feel happy when they look into the mirror and are reminded that they look so bright. However, now that I understand this concept from Sadhguru, I wonder if these people somehow could feel the difference in the colors they wear throughout the day. I’m 100% NOT suggesting that you throw away your black clothes. But just try out some different colors and see how you feel.

6. Use Visualization Techniques to Calm Yourself Down

For some empaths, going into a crowded bar or party can be a nightmare. When you can feel the energy and emotions of so many people around you, it can be overwhelming. Some people suggest visualizing a glass wall in-between you and the other person. Sometimes, I imagine myself surrounded by a protective bubble when I’m a passenger in a vehicle, since I get nervous on highways.  This can help calm you down and remember that it’s okay to block out these outside emotions.

5. Spend Time in Nature

Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, sometimes the best thing to do is just go out in nature. Even in the most urban areas, you should be able to find a park. Enjoy the shade of a tree, look at flowers, and listen to the birds sing. As human beings, we are part of the Earth. We’re not meant to stay cooped up inside all of the time. Sometimes, just taking a walk in the woods can be enough to refuel your emotional energy levels.

Another thing you can try is “grounding”, also known as “earthing”, which is just taking your shoes off and standing on the Earth. You don’t have to go on a whole trek through the woods barefoot. It could be just a few minutes on the grass in your backyard, or on the beach. This is supposed to help connect you to the planet, and it’s apparently very good for your mental and physical health.

4. Wait Until You’re Emotionally Ready to Have a Hard Talk

Once you learn how to recognize your emotions better, you should also learn how to avoid situations that are going to trigger you. It could be as simple as me saying, “I had a really hard day at work. If we talk about this issue right now, it might end up in a fight. So can we schedule a time to go over this in the morning when I’ve had some sleep?”

I’m not suggesting that you avoid your issues completely. If you promise to talk about something later, keep that promise. And even if the issue is urgent and needs to be discussed immediately, at least you gave the other person a warning. They understand where you’re coming from, and will be less likely combative if the information rubs you the wrong way.

3. Don’t Over-Schedule Your Days

One of the easiest ways to accidentally drain your energy is to schedule too much for yourself. Now that most people are working from home, you have to decide for yourself how much you can really accomplish in 24 hours. If you feel overwhelmed and exhausted all the time, it might be a sign that you need to give yourself fewer things to accomplish every day.

2. Keep Comfort Items With You

If you have an issue with protecting your energy, you may also have been diagnosed with anxiety or panic disorder. One of the suggestions for people with panic disorder is to keep comfort items nearby. This could be a blanket, a stuffed animal, fidget spinner, hard candy, or anything else that comforts you and distracts you from worry. A friend of mine who works in retail takes a book and a water bottle to work with her, so that she can get absorbed into the story instead of thinking too much about the feelings of the customers in the store. Find something that works for you.

1. Learn How To Separate Your Emotions From Others

Last and certainly not least is that you need to learn how to separate your emotions from others. It has taken me until I was 31 years old before I recognized the difference. Before, I wasn’t a spiritual person at all. So I didn’t believe it was possible for me to be an empath or pick up on the emotions of other people. I assumed it was all on me. Now, I can identify who the emotions actually belong to, and let them go.

I am able to do this by stepping back and ask myself, “Where are these emotions coming from?” Am I really in a bad mood, or is this negativity lingering from someone else in my family who’s going through a hard time? Once you learn to know the difference, it helps tremendously.