What's Mine is Not Yours - Finding Our Own Energy

The ability to identify your own energy is one of the most powerful things you can do. Not just occasionally, like in meditation or crisis, but consistently.

This means building interoceptive awareness, which is your capacity to sense the internal state. It is a foundational component of emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, and self-trust.

The more fluent you become in reading your internal state, the less reactive you are to external forces and the more consistent your decision-making becomes.

Let's Find Your Energy!

Rub your palms together and count to 15. Pull your hands apart ever so slightly, maybe an inch or two. Do you feel tingling, warmth, a push or pull? The energy in between? That's YOUR energy - your heat.

Your nervous system processes internal and external experiences constantly. By stimulating your palms, you're increasing sensory input and giving your brain a clearer, more tangible "read" on your own energy field.

Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Where do you feel tension in your body? Relax into the tension. That's your energy.

Just like a muscle at the gym, repetition makes the muscle bigger and creates more awareness. At first, you'll likely only be able to identify your energy in moments of calm and silence - by yourself, like in meditation. But with consistent daily practice, you will be able to identify your own energy during other times of the day.

When you can feel your energy in real time, you begin to notice subtle shifts: a sudden tightness in your chest, a drop in your mood, or a wave of anxiety you can't explain. These physiological signals are often the first sign that something has changed - either within you or around you.

Once you can feel your energy more often, then you start to notice when your energy shifts. And when your energy shifts, you can ask yourself objectively why it shifted.

Daily Practices That Help You Identify Your Own Energy

Meditation is the most common way of identifying your own energy in a daily practice or regular routine. But with that comes more, and that can be daunting for some people. Read about the practical guide to meditation.

If you aren't interested in meditating right now, that doesn't rule you out from being able to identify your own energy. A simpler way is to check in randomly throughout the day with yourself.

It can be hard to remember, but we can use technology to help us remember to check in with ourselves. Set daily reminders on your phone that pop up and say, “Where are you right now?” or “How are you feeling?”. When the notification appears, stop what you're doing for 5 seconds and scan your body and mind to see how you're doing. While this simple reminder is not as impactful as 5 minutes of meditation a day, meaning your muscles won't build as quickly, it's a good way to start bringing in awareness to yourself in the present moment throughout the day.

You can do them in combination too!

Here Comes Trouble

Trouble starts when we don't pay attention. We go through the day consuming the energy of inanimate objects, like a coffee machine that isn't working properly, to how our significant other feels when they get home from work.

For example, if you wake up feeling calm but leave a conversation feeling drained, that shift is a signal. Without awareness, you might assume you're simply tired or in a bad mood. With awareness, you can recognize you picked up on someone's tension.

It's not just people - rooms, workplaces, and events can hold and transmute energy. We can walk into a space and instantly feel more tense, calm, inspired, or unsettled.

What we consume—whether it’s a tense conversation, a movie, or the steady drip of social media—directly affects our state. If your energy always dips after scrolling, that’s a sign to curate what you follow.

But simply recognizing this helps you separate environmental influence from your own state.

These energies build on top of each other and become what we identify as us if we do not notice the difference between our own energy and what is around us. That’s why they say, “You are who you hang around”. But the reality is, if we can identify our own energy and what is someone else’s, we can actually protect our energy.

So when we notice energetic shifts, if it is coming from us, we can dig into whether it’s our thoughts, circumstances or feelings. And correct from there.

This skill isn't just for self-awareness. It directly influences your choices, relationships, and resilience. When you know what's yours, you can have clearer goals, set true boundaries, and conserve emotional energy. Life becomes more intentional.

How To Tell If What You're Feeling Is Yours or Someone Else's

Please note: this does require regular practice of identifying your own energy. See above.

At first, it can be hard to tell what’s yours, and what’s not. Sometimes you might feel both your own emotions and someone else’s layered together. That’s normal. That’s what we are trying to unweave - which parts are ours and which are theirs. We can only manage our own.

It might even become easier at times and harder during high-stress or emotional periods later on. That is also okay. The goal isn’t perfection - it’s just to build enough awareness to pause, separate the layers, and choose how you respond.

This will be similar to identifying feelings, grounding emotions and releasing emotions. It is what helps us to decide if we need to pause or go do something else.

1. Pause what you're doing and name what you're feeling. A list of emotions.

2. Scan for physical cues. Your body knows. Are your shoulders tight? How are you breathing?

3. Rewind and reflect. Did I feel this way 5 minutes ago? Did something external trigger this? If the emotion wasn't there until a certain moment, environment or interaction, it may not be yours.

4. Separate thought from emotion. Ask: Are these my thoughts or someone else's? Is this something they are in pain about? If so, is it actually about me?

5. Use clearing statements to release. "That wasn't mine," or "I feel safe, clear, and present."

6. Recenter. Reconnect to your energy by breathing deeply, planting your feet on the ground and visualizing light around you.

7. Don't act right away. Give yourself space if you can once you recognize you've taken on someone else's energy.

8. Quick Reset for When You Can’t Step Away. If you realize you’ve picked up energy that isn’t yours but can’t leave the situation, take one slow breath in. Silently say “release” as you exhale, and imagine a bubble around you containing only your own energy. Even 10 seconds of this can help you stay centered in a busy or tense environment.

We don’t need to become energy experts overnight. We just need to begin paying attention.

If you don’t know what’s impacting your energy, you will live through life sleepwalking, operating out of a place of the surrounding energy instead of what’s truly inside of you.

When you choose to pay attention to your energy, you reclaim choice in every interaction. You begin living from your center, not from the swirl of the world around you. That’s not just awareness—it’s self-leadership.