our day. To do this exercise, take a clean sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of the page. On one side write the word CHARGE and on the other DISCHARGE. Now, have a think about this and try to write down the things you do, the places you go to and the people you engage with hat either give you energy or cause you to lose energy. Try not to think in terms of one being good, the other being not so good; we need both processes to go on. As an example, receiving new energy does not necessarily mean that the energy is of a good quality, while too much energy can lead to problems with the nerves and mental faculty.
We each react differently to particular circumstances and at different times. As an example, for a person on a particular day, walking in the countryside can re-charge them while on another day it can cause them to lose energy. Many other factors contribute to the natures and kinds of process we have. However, at a simple level we can understand things about our daily processes and perhaps why we feel the way we do, and these might include ingredients such as:
- Some people might cause you to feel tired when you deal with them; others might energise you. It might vary from day to day, but have we all not experienced or suffered those people who constantly drain your energy by the nature of their engagement with you?
- Does your work environment energise or deplete you, and what do you think makes the difference? Do different energies reside, as an example, in corners of rooms than those in large spaces? Do particular plants give us energy? Do certain kinds of layout, lighting systems, physical constructions affect our energy levels?
- What things do you do that make you feel well, energised and refreshed? What things do you do that cause the opposite? Laughing is an enormous release of energies, and can be particulary effective in using up some of the day's unwanted processes. Sometimes when we are tired from a day's work we may feel that all we want to do is to rest, but often doing something active may cause us to feel more energised than watching television.
- Are there particular times of day when you have more energy than others? As an example, our batteries may be re-charged in the morning, but this does not necessarily mean that we access or register the energy better in the mornings, as some people will feel most energised in the afternoons or evenings.
- What films have energised you, what music and what literature? Some art will draw energy away from you while other art will energise.
- What aspects of your work give you energy and what seem to take energy away? Are there ways you can change how you do things to improve this? Might different attitudes affect how much energy we are able to access?
- What emotions charge you and what emotions deplete you? As an example, when we get angry or depressed we can exhaust large amounts of our stored energy. Likewise, feelings of love or inspiration can seem to charge our systems.
- Which foods give you energy and which make you lethargic and apparently short of energy?
- What ways of thinking give us energy and what ways of thinking might rob us of energy? Can you find examples of how you might think about a challenge you face in different ways, and how one way might provide access to new energies and one might deplete our stores of energy?
This exercise only gets us into the threshold of this large subject. Nevertheless even a basic awareness of these territories is essential in understanding how and why we do what we do.
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