The title of this article is extremely proactive. And it’s a vastly new concept for me.
Make. Yourself. Available.
It’s not…”Do you happen to be available for negative energy?”
There’s a big difference between “make yourself available” and “happen to be available.” And this difference is the key to your control over your energy. And your time.
The following is a concept I am still working diligently to understand and incorporate in my everyday tasks:
You don’t have to be available for everyone that reaches out to you.
You know that person who calls to bitch about their job or gossip about another person or overall vomit their problems onto you? Yeah…your choice to spend your time on that person is an active choice that you make. You are choosing to let that person paint their putrid negative sludge all over your day. And you’re letting them take up your (precious nonrenewable) time.
I have a bad habit of, when an opportunity arises, looking immediately to my calendar to find an empty space. Someone says, “Are you available for such-and-such?” and I immediately look for my own availability.
Instead, what I am working to do more often is to first ask myself the following questions:
Is this something that is worth my time?
Does this person make me a better human?
Do I walk away replenished or wounded?
What is the emotional cost of the encounter?
When I don’t stop to ask myself these questions, I often just think of an invitation as an obligation. I’m so glad I was invited to any coffee, event, conversation, shindig, or phone call that I say yes.
But, that is not helpful for my emotional wellbeing.
And, more importantly, it’s not remotely productive. In fact, it’s kind of anti-productive. It’s depleting my mental and emotional resources.
See, another person’s negativity can do one of two things to you:
Its spores can float into your nose and mouth and slowly take over your body like a zombie apocalypse.
Or, if you’re proactive, that negativity, like an episode of Star Trek, can relentlessly pelt your positivity force field with laser beams, decreasing its effectiveness and sucking the energy of your ship dry.
Why the heck would you do either of those? I know I don’t want to. But sometimes, I still want to be liked and I feel guilty so I say yes. (I’m working on that).
The thing is that making a choice to just check your calendar when facing a proposition is the passive choice. Stopping for a few moments to consider whether that opportunity is a good one is a significantly more active one. It protects your time, it saves your positivity forcefield power, and it keeps you focused on what matters most.
Happy Monday, Friends!
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Love,
Michelle