Managing Energy Vampires

Have you ever come in contact with a person, maybe even a group, that left you completely drained and in a bad mood?

Most people have I’m sure and there are varying degrees of this experience. Sometimes you can feel a slow drain or a small discomfort. Other times, you will be left completely wiped out.

There are many ways we come in contact with these energy vampires. Sometimes they are our friends, our family or our clients.

It is not always done consciously, but being aware of the energy of the relationship can help you set stronger boundaries.

In the end, you decide if the relationship is beneficial or not and how you can protect your health from these interactions.

Here are 3 types of energy drainers and how you can establish proper boundaries.

Energy Vampires #1 – Attention Seeker

They are the kind of people that likes to take a lot of space. You may often feel small in their presence. They usually crave attention, support, and validation. There is little room for a 2-way relationship. Energy flows one way and it’s towards them.

You can observe this in a coffee shop conversation when one person is monopolizing the conversation. Continually bringing it back to herself and her life. There is very little room for the other person to speak. The conversation is often about them or their strong opinion of a subject.

You might not always notice this kind of drain. However, you are often left feeling unheard, unsupported and unimportant.

It is important to note that these people often lack self-love (even if it doesn’t seem this way). And on many levels, feel unsupported, unimportant and unheard themselves.

The best thing you can do when you have relationships with attention seekers is to truly listen to them. When you feel they have had their share of the stage, you have to ask for your turn.

Something like: ‘I’m so happy to hear about everything that’s been happening with you. I also have a few things of my own I’m excited to share. Would you mind if I take my turn now?’

If the person keeps interrupting you, then you must speak up and share how you don’t feel respected and important when that happens. Sometimes, we must do respectfully what feels really uncomfortable at first to establish our personal boundaries.

Energy Vampires #2 – Time Eater

These are the kind of people that just suck up your time. They might require a lot of unnecessary communication back and forth by email or over the phone. They often need help for one little thing, which ends up taking a whole day.

They also often like to talk a lot. Which is great if it’s something you enjoy as well, but not always when you are more introverted or hadn’t planned such ‘chit chat’ in your schedule.

Like the attention seekers, those people often don’t have any bad intentions. They just might not have the same priorities as you. They are sometimes lost and have no clear goals or dreams of their own they are working towards. They might also feel lonely and unloved.

In this case, the best thing you can do is be clear with yourself, then with others, what you can and cannot do. Once you have defined what is not acceptable, you have to learn how to say no.

Every time you say ‘yes’ to someone or something, you say ‘no’ to yourself. Sometimes it is appropriate, acceptable and desirable. Other times it can derail you from your plan and it can have detrimental effects on your health, your finances, and your family.

Energy Vampires #3 – Guilt Tripper

This is a stronger kind of energy drain and can be very noxious to your health. Sometimes the guilt trip will be apparent, other times it will be very well disguised. You might even start to feel really bad for something that is not your responsibility.

The problem with guilt trippers is that they cannot accept their situation and will look for others to blame instead of looking at the deeper reason why things are not working out for them.

They will often feel like victims and will have a convincing point of view on how they’ve been wronged. However, they will often identify the wrong cause of the effect and rarely look within for the cause.

They have deep seeded anger and frustration, and will often use pity to acquire the energy of others to fill the void created by the vortex of anger.

What you can do in these scenarios is to limit the amount of time spent with guilt trippers in your life and to choose your friends and relationships carefully. Observe any feelings of guilt, pity or shame that are bubbling from you and diligently refute what is not yours to take.

Guilt trippers often lash out energy cords into the energy field of others. Through these cords, they can acquire vital energy to fuel themselves and can cause the other person to ‘download’ negative emotions and beliefs.

In Conclusion

The clearer you are in your boundaries as well as letting others know what is acceptable to you or not, the less invasive these types of people will be in your life. It might even shift the types of people and clients that you attract.

Energy drain through cording and emotional resonance affects many people on levels most are unaware of.

managing energy vampires