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Energy, Energy Patterns, Energies, Energetics, Vibes – What Does it Mean When Referring to Someone’s Energy?

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Energy is the ‘stuff’ from which the selves that make up our psyche are made. Each self is an energetic pattern and has its own energy that you can perceive.

Your rational self has an impersonal, cool energy. Your emotional self has a more personal, feeling energy (and the quality of the energy varies, depending on the emotion you’re feeling). The energy of your Business Self is entirely different to the energy of your Vulnerable Inner Child or Playful Inner Child, and to that of your Inner Responsible Parent.

You are made up of a number of different selves and so have a number of different energies, or energy patterns, available to you.

For example, if the primary selves you identify with most are the Rational Mind and the Pusher, then your energy will feel quite cool and fast, even tense. You will be more comfortable relating to people in an impersonal, businesslike manner, maybe even not pausing long enough to connect with others at all.

If, however, your primary self is a Nurturing Mother, your energy will feel warm and caring. You will feel comfortable in close contact with people who welcome your warmth and take well to your nurturing.

It may be that you use an impersonal energy at work and a more personal energy at home, or maybe you feel more comfortable using one type of energy over another.

The Energy You Use Affects Your Relationship Experiences

The energy you use will determine the nature of the interactions you have with others.

For example, if your energy is always open, you may find you are often influenced by other people’s emotional states and can even take those states on as if they were your own.

People with very open energy are often ’empaths’ or ‘highly sensitive’. You can quickly become exhausted being so energetically open and available and are more easily manipulated by other people than if you were more closed off.

If you don’t have the ability to draw on a more impersonal or protective energy to help you create boundaries, you leave yourself vulnerable to the energies and agendas of others.

On the other hand, if you are always closed off energetically, you are probably not being energetically fed yourself, and may feel disconnected from others, and them from you.

Finding Balance with Your Energies

By learning to have greater control of your energetic state, you can affect the quality of your interactions with the people in your life.

So if you are usually very open, accepting and warm energetically, you might like to sometimes have the choice to be less open.

For example, in personal relationships when you need time and space for yourself or when someone you hardly know asks you for a large favour which you would rather say ‘no’ to.

Having more choice in how you use your energies is also beneficial for your health and safety.

The following exercise will give you practise controlling your energy.

Exercise to Master Your Energy Field

The next few times you go to your local store, cafe or anywhere else you have to interact with a stranger, try varying the energy you use each time you interact with the person.

• One time go in and say ‘hello’ with a really open, warm energy. Feel you are energetically reaching out towards the person. Feel as if your heart is open to them.
• Another time tone down the warmth and be a bit more cool, but not quite impersonal.
• The following time, be impersonal. Behave in a professional and businesslike manner, and make no effort to be warm towards the shopkeeper. Keep yourself energetically distant.

Take note of the response you get each time.

You can practice this with a friend or with your partner too, and ask for feedback.

Try variations of these energies and find what feels most comfortable for you.

See if you can become aware of what kind of energy you usually use with friends, family and colleagues.

Try to adjust the energy you use to best suit your needs and those of the situation.

How to Use Your Energy to Connect More Consciously in Your Relationships

When you become aware of the energy you automatically use or rest in, you then also become aware of how that affects your relationships.

So if you want to connect more deeply with your partner, and you don’t know why it’s not working, first consider what the energy you are identified with is.

For example, if you recognise that your energy is closed off and there’s a bit of a protective wall around you, then you can work on opening it up a little and extending your energy field toward your partner when you’re engaging with them.

On the other hand, if your efforts at connection are met with resistance, consider if you are being unknowingly invasive with your energy, and your partner has built a wall to keep some of your energy out.

We tend to find ourselves in relationship with people who have the opposite ‘default’ energy to ours and so being in a relationship is a wonderful opportunity to become more aware of ourselves and how we use our energies.

And the more aware we become, the more choice we have to draw on the energies we want and need in various situations.