How To Elevate Your Energy (Especially During Times Of High Stress)

While living through the last 18+ months of a pandemic, the political division the last few years, the division created by masks vs. no masks, vaccines vs. no vaccines, the battle to dismantle racism, what is happening in Afghanistan, the devastating effects of the recent earthquakes, hurricanes and fires, and really so much more, there has been a lot of loss, uncertainty, confusion, fear, helplessness and emotions running totally wild these days. It is almost impossible to not be affected in some way.

And this is all happening on top of the normal day-to-day stresses and struggles of everyday life, including balancing personal and work responsibilities plus trying to find time to take care of our health and well-being.

I am highlighting all of this collective trauma right now because feeling ungrounded, unsafe and insecure has a huge impact on our energetic health and it is more important than ever to learn how to find inner stability and inner strength. It is important to find stillness and go inward so you can hear and listen to your own intuition.

The more we feel safe and stable in our own bodies energetically, the more we can become pillars of support for ourselves, our families, friends, co-workers, communities and for the world.

If each of us learn to manage our energy, we will be able to handle everything going on around us with more grace. That is not to say things will be easy, but when we learn to manage our energy with more grace, we find that we are better equipped to handle adversity. And the more people moving in this direction, the better for the greater good.

The more people who feel stable and centered, the better, as it is a ripple effect. We are all energy beings. Think about when you are in a room and someone walks in who is filled with anger, ~ you feel it. Think of someone in your life, where their presence is strong, calm and healing ~ we naturally gravitate to that energy.

Creating this in our bodies, can make a positive impact in our own lives and in the world.

How do we do this? How do we come to our center so that we may feel stable within ourselves, aligned with inner truth? How can we learn to tap in instead of tap out? Here are a few practices I use to connect with my center so that I can feel stable within myself, even during the hard days, months or years:

Ground Your Energy

I believe the first step to finding inner stability is always to ground our energy down. The easiest way to do this is to go out in nature (standing outside with bare feet is really great). If you don’t have time to get outside, you can also just simply stand up, close your eyes and feel your feet rooting down into the ground. Feel your emotions and your energy moving low to the ground. Feel the pull of gravity on your entire body. Doing this just for even 1 minute can be super beneficial.

Clear Your Energy

Clear your energy so you are not easily taking on other people’s stuff. I wrote a blog about three ways to do this here.

Calm your Nervous System

We are not meant to be stressed all the time yet in our modern culture, most of us are living in a constant state of fight or flight with the stress hormone cortisol flooding through our bodies on a daily basis. To get out of fight or flight mode, we must bring our nervous system into its parasympathetic nervous state, as it is here that we can respond to life consciously versus react on autopilot (or unconsciously).

I personally use Conscious Breathing and Meditation practices to calm my nervous system and find them very effective.

Conscious Breathing: Taking a few minutes out of your day to consciously breathe can make a huge difference, as it can increase your heart rate variability. "Greater heart rate variability is associated with lower chronic stress levels, better overall health, and improved cognition." (Read more about that here).

Take a moment to try out conscious breathing right now, even just for 1 minute, and notice how your energy shifts. Set your timer for 1 minute. Bring your hands on your lower belly and close your eyes. Inhale for 4 counts as you allow the breath to go all the way down to the lower belly then exhale for 8 counts. Continue this breath as you feel your hand rising as you inhale and falling during the exhale. If you want to take it further, set your timer for 3 minutes, and inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 7 counts and exhale for 8 counts. Meditation: Committing to a daily meditation practice can be life changing. A meditation practice does not have to be super long to be effective, especially when you are first beginning. The most important part is just showing up for yourself each day. Start simple, maybe commit to just 5 minutes a day. Closing your eyes while seated and focusing all of your attention on your breath. Check out my blog post on 6 reasons to meditate here.

And if you want some guidance and accountability for your meditation, check out my next 21 day meditation challenge here.

A Physical Yoga Practice

There are so many styles of physical yoga (asana), that there really is something for everyone. One of the silver linings of the pandemic has been that many teachers have moved online, making yoga more accessible than ever. My go-to yoga teacher right now is Kia Miller, who teaches Kundalini style yoga classes on Glo.

Journaling

A really great way to de-stress and sort through your thoughts is to practice daily journaling. I love Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages. Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*, you literally just write down in your journal anything and everything that crosses your mind ~ and the writing is for your eyes only so you can feel free to be as honest and candid as possible.

A Daily Gratitude Practice

For a quick vibe lift, try this: Every morning when you wake up, OR every night before you go to bed, write down what you are grateful for. Feeling gratitude and appreciation literally lifts our vibrational frequency. Why is raising our vibrational frequency important? To put it simply, the lower the frequency, the denser your energy, and the heavier your problems seem, and the higher the frequency, the more clarity, peace, love, and joy we are able to feel.

Ask for Help

There is no shame in asking for help and honestly, we all need help to get through life! Some days, weeks, months or years we may need more help than others and that is normal and okay. This may be extra support we ask for from our family or friends. OR this may be help we need from a mentor, counselor or spiritual advisor. Exploring options and feeling into what resonates the most is a good place to start.

Be of Service

Just like we need help in certain stages or areas of life, others will call on us for help, too. Or maybe they won't call on us but we will see where we can offer what we have in service to others who need it. Helping others, volunteering or reaching out to a friend who has been struggling to see if they are okay, donating to someone in need anonymously, bringing someone food just because are all ways to show up for others. Helping others not only uplifts others, but also takes us out of our own head space and reminds us that the world is so much bigger than just ourselves and our own problems. It also creates a sense of community and reminds us all that we are in this together.

Practicing even just one of things daily can start to shift your energy and bring you into a more stable and centered vibration. Remember that when we are centered and stable, there is a ripple effect that creates more positivity in our lives and those around us. What will you commit to today?

Photo by Joe Caione on Unsplash