Energy for Your Life: The Blog

Does Being Late Steal Time and Energy?

2009-03-11T22:33:00.003-04:00

You bet it does! You know it does. Here's some energetic food for thought.

You probably have at least one. I have one. You know, the person who can never seem to get to wherever you've previously agreed to meet on time. Perhaps that person is even you. I hope not.

There's so much energy lost because one person doesn't show up on time. An incident can create a domino effect in your and in every other person who's involved's lives - directly or indirectly. Everyone will be energetically impacted because of even one person's tardy behavior. Think of it: a gathering is like a bowl of energy that is filled with all the participants' energy. And when someone is late, that gathering has a 'hole' in it until that last person arrives at which point the energy hole gets plugged up.

I used to be that type of a person who was late far more often than I was on time. That was part of my personal make up from my mid-teens to my mid-20's. Even then, I realized there were other things happening - negatively-emotionally-charged things. I didn't know what they were, but I did want to find out. I knew that what I was doing wasn't good for myself or my employers, especially. And I'd sure cheezed my share of friends off too. To think about it, I'd never associated personal energy use with being late. Not yet. That was to come, though. But I was ready to change.

After reading Alan Lakein's book: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life in my mid-20’s, I decided it was time to be more respectful of my own time and my life. The benefit was that I'd also get a much better handle on how I used my own energy. And a key benefit was that I also became much more respectful of everyone else’s time and, of course, their energy.

Lakein’s book made me realize that by being perennially late, I was actually trying to control people via my actions. The thought that I was doing that bothered me - a lot. Plus, I'd never thought of being late as being a condition of being a controlling person. That idea so shocked me that I realized I didn’t want to be that type of person any longer.

Also, in those days, I hadn't even really considered the spiritual consequences of being late once let alone as a lifestyle behavior of choice. It can't be a good thing, karmically, to be always on the wrong side on a watch face of Mickey’s longer arm.

After I'd read Alan Lakein's book, I started to experiment with how I was using my time and began to think of why I had tended to be late so often. I'd make it a point to arrive on time or even early – a shock to all who’d known me since I'd been a teen. I’d make it on or before our meeting time:

· even if I didn't have a drop of makeup on;
· even if I hadn't had my coffee yet that day or was hungry;
· even if I didn't look fully turned out;
· even if I hadn’t washed the car;
· even if I had to leave someplace where I was having fun;
· even if I had forgotten something (other than major things);
· even if I’d known the person forever and they were perennially late;
· even if I’d never met them before in my life and would never see them again after that meeting;
· even if I didn’t really want to be there; and the biggest one of all (for me anyway)
· even if it meant that I’d have to wait for the other person.

This meant that when I had to meet people and do things that were important to me, I knew I'd be there. That's because I had learned how to master my use of time. But there were some other great benefits.

I was done with making excuses. I no longer had to give a song and a dance of reasons for why I'd arrived late, because I'd be there. I'd show up on time. I no longer had to worry and spend my own energy fretting about what I'd tell people as to why I was late, because I'd know I'd be there when we'd agreed. And it got so that people could not only expect me there. They could actually rely on me, something that was quite impossible while I was still in 'I wanna be late' mode.

Yes, it took some practice until I knew how to plan my days so I would be on time. And it was a while before I could enjoy the journey of getting to my destination or meeting. I actually came to enjoy getting to places so I didn’t look like I’d been in a blender, run over by a truck, or had the frenetic look of a commodities trader on a bad day. There were still a few core problems with why I was doing what I was doing (that's a topic for another blog). But before I had a few epiphanies and made being on time my habit of choice, I had way too many outings where I'd be driving there like a crazy woman and end up still being just on time.

At least I'd made progress. But the surpise to me was why I had been stealing not only my time by being late, but also my own energy. It seems that one of the core issues that I'd figured out I'd been compromising by being late was my self-respect -– not just having been disrespectful of the person I'd kept waiting. The reason the person who's late lacks self-respect is that they often want to trigger a 'negative' emotional response from the person who they've been keeping waiting. Being late can be a sign of a person who lacks self-respect. I also learned, much later, that being late steals the subtle emotional and mental energy of all people involved.

I'll write more about how being late impacts our energy and our lives in my next blog. And with any good luck, the one person still in my life who is chronically late will happen across this note and realize that I hope they can become not only more respectful of my energy - but theirs too.

Conscious Energy

2009-03-04T11:02:00.000-05:00

Most people are tired these days. What's worse is they're tired of being tired. If anywhere from 40% to 80% of us are saying were always tired, depending on the study, it's time to change what we're doing - big time.

The biggest challenge I've seen is that people these days don't want to settle for the status quo any longer. They want to not only find their life's purpose, but they want to get more and higher quality energy that they can use every day. Many are also fed up with their own less-than-ideal life patterns that they're ready to make good on promises they've made to themselves. They want their dreams back and not to just talk or write about them.

Many people I've spoken to lately are no longer interested in the generic or the common. Although they value the simple and commonality. Many folks want to not only find inspiration but be inspiring. Many people want to find themselves, but not at the expense of their loved ones or their families. And so many wish to deepen not only their spiritual insights but to actualize their truest spiritual connection with God. And it's now not seemingly unreasonable for many people want to change the world and fully expect to be able to do it too. Hooray for us all!

Changing ourselves is key though. If we don't change, deeply, madly and truly, we're not going to make real headway energetically. And to change ourselves, we need to break old habits, start and reinforce new healtier ones and get out of our own back pockets so we can do what we came here to do.

Changing the world after we change ourselves is also good. In fact, it's the best thing we can do for each other! The world's going to change anyway - one way or the other - so we might as well all get together and change it for our common and highest good - in the short- and the long-term.

But getting back to the idea of personal reformation: to change the world, you have to change what you've been thinking about and how your emotions may have been distracting you. You're also going to have to get some extra energy flowing to get your life going in more positive directions as well as make those needed and desired changes.

That's where I hope this blog proves to be useful to you. I've had periods of my life, due to illness and extreme stress, where I've had no or low energy. Or where my ultra-low energy levels made me wonder if I'd ever accomplish anything in my work. Or if I'd ever do anything to find, let alone actualize, my life's purpose! My low energy levels also compromised what and how much I could do with my family, relationships, and I litereally put a damper on almost everything I did at one point. But I didn't want my life to stay that way, so I fought my way out of my low energy slump and I did it the only way I could: by creating one positive moment at a time.

I figured out what personal energy use habits I had (and have) that either would give me energy or, basically, steal it from myself. I also learned to become aware when I'd use patterns in that were beneficial or detrimental to me - energetically speaking. I began to work with friends, family, clients, with workshop attendees, and as an executive coach, facilitator, team and large project leader, and even with seemingly perfect strangers, to help them figure out what would work for not only getting back energy, but so it would work effectively for them in their real lives.

This blog is the outcropping of 15 years of research, experimentation and results that I know have helped me and many others from all walks of life all over the globe. I'll share ideas and hope you'll come here to look for ideas, solutions, encouragement, and to find a deeper sense of awareness. I also hope to give you suggestions so you can let go of and replace your own less energizing life patterns so that you'll get ahead of your personal energy curve. That way you can do what I've been able to do, and that is basically whatever it is you want, have and love to do.

I'd also like to hear from you so that we can foster genuine change, trade personal stories, share spiritual insights and grow our community spirit. Hopefully, together, we can figure out what works for many of us so we can make a real difference in each other's lives.

The musings here will be mine. But I'll share ideas from friends, leading thinkers, and those whose actions not only inspire, but who encourage us with their positive vibes. That way, we can all get our lives into the bandwidths that will cause positive change. And getting, using and sharing positive vibes is the real name of this game called life.

I'm one of the fortunate ones: I recovered from the chronic fatigue I had in the early 1990's. Honestly, I thought I'd never be able to work a 'normal' day let alone live my life with any degree of gusto and health ever again. Happiness was hard to come by when I was sleeping so many hours away.

Now, I have the kind and quality of energy that allows me to do things that I could only dream about during my illness. In fact, I've been on a pretty good roll since the mid 1990's, and feel extremely grateful for what I'd learned during my healing. I'm even more grateful now for your giving me an chance to share these ideas with you. I hope they help.

I'm finishing writing my book, Energy for Your Life: The Essential Guide these days. I'm also a senior consultant to technology and environmental companies. When I was ill, I could barely finish my day at the office and would crash for 2 to 14 hours (yes, 14 hours) when I'd get home. The next day, I'd have to drag myself off to work again, and pray I could get through another day. My weekends were spent sleeping, and my life became pretty unglued pretty fast.

Now, I have to make myself slow down because I have so much energy flowing through me. What a luxury! What a gift! And I learned how to never go back to those old lifeless days and catatonic sleeps.

These days, I'm also building http://www.energyforyourlife.com/ as well as my other site http://www.foodsforyourlife.com/ . I hope they'll soon be a resource you can check and rely on as you find your own way back to an energy-filled life. Check back here to see what kind of ideas you can get too.

Here's to your having all the positive energy you could ever want, need or give away.

Julia