Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy: Tip #3 - Give Up Guilt

Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy is a regular series dedicated to helping people bring more consciousness to their everyday choices in order to live with more confidence, aliveness, and joy. Check out all my tips on my author page.

Spiritual Tip #3: Give Up Guilt

Whenever a family member calls to talk, or asks for a favor or visit at a time when I’m already preoccupied with something else, I often feel guilty saying I can’t. I beat myself up thinking, “What kind of a daughter/sister/niece am I not to drop everything for one of the most important people in my life?”

I’m aware that given my busy life trying to balance the needs of my household with my own personal needs, I’ve got to keep things moving along according to plan just to stay afloat. It hardly even feels like I’m being selfish, since I often feel like I, myself, am being left out of the equation. But I still feel bad because I wish I could be everything to everyone.

Just the other day, in fact, I cut my mom off while we were on the phone because I wanted to exercise. I felt terrible, particularly because she’s always there for me and will talk to me endlessly when I call her. I didn’t want to be inconsiderate of her needs or leave her feeling like she didn’t matter to me.

But my baby had just gone down for her nap, and if I missed my window, it would be another day gone by without my making time to get back in shape. I knew, too, that in the big picture, if I don’t take care of my body, I won’t have the strength, endurance and energy to be as good of a mom to my kids as I’d like, which I’d say is a noble intention.

The problem was that what I wanted in that moment conflicted with what I perceived my mom as wanting, leaving me in the position of having to make a choice. Either I could do what I wanted, but feel guilty that I wasn’t accommodating her wishes, or I could put her first and feel frustrated that once again I didn’t exercise (not to mention I’d miss out on the endorphins that would make me feel good). Neither option would make me happy.

I’m certain that I’m not alone when it comes to this type of situation. Feeling guilty is very common, and most of the time, it’s a needless drain on our energy. The good news is that we can all be free of that feeling because, more often than not, guilt is totally unnecessary.

Just to clarify, guilt does in fact play an important role in the human psyche. Its purpose is to help us do right by others, thereby ensuring our acceptance and safety within our tribe. This kind of guilt is useful.

So, if you are indeed contemplating some untoward action, and feeling guilty as a result, your consciousness is doing its job properly. This is where you wouldn’t want to stop at just feeling guilt. In this case, it’s advisable to reconsider your actions.

However, I’d be willing to bet that you’re not working out some evil plot, but rather, that your intentions are good and the risk of collateral damage to your relationships is low. In fact, more than likely, your conflict is more of an internal one.

Usually what’s really happening is you’re experiencing a battle between your heart and your mind. Your heart knows what’s best in the big picture, and sometimes, but not always, the corresponding course of action may not look good in this moment.

Perhaps you fear it might appear “selfish” to others, so your head cleverly devises a plan to preserve the image your ego wants to hold of you as a virtuous, responsible, and caring person. And what is that plan? You guessed it, to saddle you with guilt! That guilty feeling is your mind’s way of telling you that you do in fact care about others, even if you’re choosing to do something for yourself instead of for them.

Dealing with guilt actually overlaps with an earlier article I wrote about Competing Intentions. And in both cases, the antidote is simply committing to a making a clear, conscious choice. If you just listen to your inner wisdom, trust in your own goodness, and make it okay to follow your heart’s guidance, you will have the glorious opportunity to free yourself of that guilty feeling. And consequently, you’ll be rewarded with a nice energy boost.

All you have to do to unload your guilt is follow these three simple steps:

1. Pause for a few minutes to reflect on the situation at hand, and ask your Self what choices are available to you.
2. Once you’ve defined your options, ask your Self which one will serve you and the greater good most in this particular situation. Be quiet and still while you focus your attention into your heart and listen for an answer.
3. Once you’ve heard the answer, commit to it fully. Communicate your choice lovingly, clearly and respectfully to anyone who needs to know, and move forward without looking back.

The truth is that, in the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter which choice you make. The key is that you make a decision and move forward with gusto and the confidence that you’re making the best choice for yourself in that moment. You’ll find this approach leads to a virtuous cycle in which you’ll feel more joyful and alive, and you’ll have the energy to do more for others while also spreading positivity to everyone around you as a natural byproduct.

Following your heart does not make you selfish; it makes you wise. So what’s there to feel guilty about?!

Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy: Tip #2 - Refrain from Overthinking

Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy is a regular series dedicated to helping people bring more consciousness to their everyday choices in order to live with more confidence, aliveness, and joy.

Spiritual Tip #2: Refrain from Overthinking

During the second year of my Masters program in Spiritual Psychology, there were a few months when I contemplated dropping out, and it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the coursework or find the learnings to be valuable.

It was that, number one, I was pregnant with my daughter, and exhausted and nauseous day and night. Number two, school and all the assignments were demanding, and I felt frustrated having to spend so much time on them when I really desired the freedom to relish in the preciousness of my son, who was in his last year of preschool. As for my studies, I was actually enjoying them so much, in fact, that I felt disappointed over the thought that I might not be giving them my fullest level of focus and attention.

But as I considered the possibility of dropping out, it occurred to me that nothing was forcing me to choose one path over another. So I decided to keep trudging along doing the work until such time I had certainty that hitting the pause button was the right choice. For me, this represented a real about-face in the way I had approached decisions in the past.

We’ve all encountered dilemmas at one point or another that have required us to make difficult decisions. And in our culture, many of us were taught to solve problems with the power of our minds. The issue is that when we seek answers through a mental process alone, we often expend more time and energy worrying than focusing on our true values and priorities. Worse still, all our analysis doesn’t necessarily point us toward the best conclusion in terms of truly solving the core problem, or doing right by our relationship with ourselves or others.

The problem is that all of this rumination puts us in a myopic state whereby we become blind to the full range of information and influences around us that could guide us toward a much more graceful and effective solution. In other words, not only does it drain our energy, but it also compromises our results.

So what did I do differently this time around? I stopped overthinking.

Instead I chose to trust that, in time, as circumstances evolved, I would be able to ascertain my next steps effortlessly. If it became clear to me that if I wanted to drop out, I would talk to the necessary people, explain my situation, investigate my options, and make an informed decision (all very worthwhile jobs for the human mind). And I recognized that in the particular moment I was living in, I simply didn’t have enough information to do anything.

By releasing my concerns, I created space in my own consciousness to be more present to my experience and to access my own inner wisdom and knowing, which gave me the confidence to deal with each ensuing moment as it unfolded. This made it possible for me to experience more grace and ease and allow my answer to find me rather than having to painfully grind along with my overactive mind to try to find it.

I am certain that, if I can, anyone can successfully kick the habit of overthinking by following these three simple steps:

While holding that memory in your awareness, come up with a positive affirmation. For example, “I trust in my own creativity and in the power of the Universe to show me the answer, or my next steps regarding this situation.” (You get extra credit if you write it down and put it somewhere where you’ll see it daily. Or better yet, repeat it out loud to yourself while looking in the mirror before you go to bed and when you wake up. Yes, I know this is totally awkward and hokey, but it really works!)

Think of a time in the past when a solution just presented itself to you. Very likely, this may have happened despite your attempts to control outcomes using the power of your mind.

Commit to letting go of your worries by disengaging your mind from its attempts to find an answer and instead choosing to trust yourself and the Universe to provide it for you.

Seriously, this process is like magic and can save you energy while you making your life a whole lot easier. I encourage you to take the path of least resistance and give it a try. Let me know how it goes!

Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy: Tip #1 - Identify Competing Intentions

Spiritual Tips for Maximizing Your Energy is a regular series dedicated to helping people bring more consciousness to their everyday choices in order to live with more confidence, aliveness and joy.

Spiritual Tip #1: Identify Competing Intentions

My son is at such a special stage in his life. At 6 years old, he’s becoming more independent and emotionally stable, he can read, and he regularly comes up with really cool and amazingly complex ideas of ways to create, play, and solve problems. The best part is that he still likes to talk and play with me. I’m also aware of how much I enjoy spending focused time with him, hearing about his thoughts, observations, and what excites him.

Equally awesome is that when I do things with him, like play Legos or make Rainbow Loom creations, I get to be a kid again myself, and in a way that I thought was lost forever when I first graduated from college and joined the workforce.

The wise woman inside of me knows I shouldn’t miss a moment of this fleeting stage, and that I should be fully present physically, mentally, and emotionally to appreciate and really relish our time together. Yet I often find during the couple of hours between the end of his school day and dinner that as much I really want to fully enjoy my time playing with him, I’m not hearing every word he says, and I’m not feeling as joyful, carefree, and fun-loving as I’d like.

The problem is that I’m not fully present. More often than not, there’s a part of me that hasn’t quite put to rest the project that I wasn’t able to complete before having to stop abruptly to pick him up from school, leaving me feel not only frustrated, but also torn. I desperately want two separate realities with equal fervor — to stay in the flow of what I’m happily working on and experience completion AND be a great mom to him while also partaking in the wonder of his being.

We’ve all had this experience, the feeling of being in one place physically, but entirely somewhere else mentally. At times like that, have you noticed yourself feeling kind of exhausted? If not exhausted, then perhaps just not as happy, fun, patient, or loving as you’d like. For me, it happens almost every day in some form or another.

This dilemma is called “Competing Intentions.” Competing Intentions are really challenging because they cause us to pit one real priority against another. Since we can’t give our full attention to two activities at the same time, we are required to choose one, which is what we end up doing. The problem is that when we choose one without fully letting go of the other, our energy gets drained quickly and our mood can deteriorate.

Furthermore, when part of our hearts and minds are elsewhere, we are not fully present with our chosen activity, sucking away the joy which would be otherwise be available to us in the moment. So, in addition to feeling depleted, we are also not getting to partake in the best of what life has to offer.

But don’t fret, a graceful resolution is available if you pay attention to your internal state and follow these three simple steps.

• As you select one priority over the other, express in words (even if just to yourself) whatever feelings you might have about needing to let go of one thing for another and acknowledge yourself for making a difficult choice.

1. Identify which things are in competition for your focus. Then take a moment to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and go into your heart and then ask your higher Self to tell you which option is your most important priority at this time.
2. Commit wholeheartedly to one activity while setting an intention to be fully present with it, while knowing that eventually you’ll have a chance to come back to the other one.

While these steps are quick and easy, facing Competing Intentions can be an everyday challenge, so I really encourage you, above all else, to be kind and gentle with yourself.

If you have a tried-and-true process for coping when you’re faced with two intentions competing for your awareness, I invite you to share in the comment section below.