You finished sharing bagels and smear in the break room with your co-workers. Everyone laughed at the joke that funny guy told. You walk out of the room with a smile on your face but as soon you round the corner into the hallway, you felt like the wind left your sail.

The smile left your face. You arms feel heavy. You sigh and realize you are tired.

Weird, huh? You weren’t tired a few minutes ago.

What happened?

What if … vampires ARE real?

I’m not talking about the Count Dracula vampire, I’m talking about an energy vampire. You know, someone who either steals your energy or takes pleasure in making sure everyone around feels as bad as they do.

You know the most common type: Negative Nancy that never has anything good to say. Those are easy to recognize. But there are sneakier energy vampires that can cost us feeling good.

This energy vampire might say negative or mean things with a smile on their face. If you look and listen with only physical eyes and ears, it’s confusing. The person looks and sounds positive or even happy. You maybe even engaged in what they were talking about! You nodded your head, or laughed. Maybe other people did, too!

You feel bad and replay things in your head. Maybe you ask yourself, “Did I really just laugh at that?” or “Did I really say that?”.

You don’t believe or even agree with what was being said, but there you were, yucking it up with everyone else. It has you shaking your head in confusion and frustration!

Sound familiar? I get it.

The Vampire Connection

If that sounds familiar, chances are you are intuitive or empathic – you could even be a people-pleaser. You know what people are feeling before they tell you. Reading situations is easy for you. You make people comfortable. People often say to you, “How did you know?” Or “You are really easy to talk to.”. I bet you like being able to anticipate people’s wants and needs before they say it out loud.

When you are intuitive, empathic or a people-pleaser, identifying energy vampires is tricky because you like making other people feel good. Energy vampires feel good when they drain you of your energy. That works out for them since you are drawn to people that feel better because you are in the room.

It’s confusing! What normally makes you feel great (making other people feel good) exhausts you. That’s why you walk away feeling heavy or tired when moments ago you were laughing and joking.

So, what do you do?

To start, stop judging yourself. Let me assure you, nothing is wrong with you. This is common!

But you can turn this into your super power! (more on that in upcoming blogs) But first, you need to protect your own energy. How? I’m glad you asked!

Click here to get my FREE PDF checklist for 7 ways to increase and protect your energy

Zip up. It’s not a one and done thing. You should zip often often.

Start at your pubic bone and making a zipping motion. Pull up past your belly button, past your face and over your head. Repeat three times. You’ll be amazed at how great protecting your own energy feels.

Zip up

This works by creating an energetic bubble. You will still be able to understand people, and how they feel. But you won’t feel it.

It will be less confusing to figure out how you feel. It will be easier for you to know when something is negative and you can disengage.

Maybe you need to do some other things, too. Try putting some space between you and that person. If they are part of your daily life, maybe you can’t put physical space between you. But you can change the subject. You can start doing something else. You can somewhere else. No matter what you do, be assured, you aren’t crazy.

Give this a try and let me know how it works!

All my love,

Brenda