Introvert: 5 Surprising Ways You Are Leaking Energy

I like to think of our energy like a bathtub full of water. Preferably this bathtub is full or close to it, meaning that we feel vibrant and we have lots of energy to spare for the things we love to do.

The reality is a little different. Most of us have some pretty damaged energy bathtubs without a lot of water. Some are empty or almost there, we feel exhausted and drained, without the energy to live our lives the way we want.

This may appear as feeling overwhelmed, burn-out, plodding through our days with no spark to speak of, or even dis-ease, pain or illness.

So what gives? Why are most of our bathtubs looking and feeling worse for wear? Let’s stick with this bathtub metaphor for a little while longer. You see, a few key things can drain our bathtub, often without us realizing it’s even happening.

Whether a big hole punched in the bottom or a tiny pinprick, an energy drain is an energy drain. The reality is that, especially as an introvert, you are at your best when you are not draining off energy to places where it is not being used effectively or where it is actually working against you.

So let’s discover the five main areas where energy leaks happen:

1. Checking in on the adrenals.

Years ago, I was with a client who had spent her life caring for everyone and everything else. Can you relate? She was finally debt-free, retired, and living alone in her sixties after raising two children single-handedly.

When I asked her to check into her adrenals energetically she laughed, saying they looked like little Mexican jumping beans. When we gave these endocrine glands, in charge of everything related to survival, permission to relax, she exclaimed “They’ve just fallen over and they can’t get up!”

And that is how most of our adrenal glands are feeling. These little glands are often on overdrive and act up whenever there is something our mind perceives as a stressor.

Notice how I said perceive? The truth is that stress looks different for each person. To stop this drain on our energy it is essential to look at how fired up your adrenals are daily and if necessary give these little fellows permission to chill out and stop launching into a flight/fight response every few minutes.

A supplement for adrenal support can go a long way towards replenishing you and your adrenals for years to come as can a regular relaxation practice such as yoga, meditation, or my favourite, regular massages! The more you prioritize relaxing your adrenal glands, the happier and more energetic your whole body and mind will be.

2. Worry, worry, worry.

Yes, these may seem like tiny pinpricks in your bathtub of life, but even pinpricks can be a major energy leak over time.

Most of us have heard multiple versions of the phrase “worry is as effective as _________ (insert very ineffective thing here)” but it still doesn’t stop us from doing it.

We find ourselves lying awake in the middle of the night thinking incessantly about a problem that we realize hours later we can’t solve no matter how hard we think about it. We worry about something we have no control over at all. Or we think of all the terrible outcomes of a certain worrying situation (and our minds can think up some fairly brutal scenarios).

Yes, worry is definitely a drain on our energy sources. But what can we do about it? First, if you are a worrier, learning to ground is a powerful way to get into your body and out of your head.

My favourite way to ground is to imagine I am a tree with deep and powerful roots right down into the earth.

As soon as I imagine that, my energy has shifted from being entirely in my head, like a swarm of bees, to my body where I can use it to be aware of something vitally important – the breath. Your breath is an essential tool in shifting worry and stopping the drain.

In fact, the diaphragm (the large muscle under the ribs that aids with the breath) can be thought of as the body’s emotional garburator, processing all of our emotions and either turning them into wisdom or letting them go. So when you focus on using it to do just that, all that worry can head right in there and you can synthesize it into great compost/aka wisdom!

3. Our beliefs are our biology.

Here’s something crazy to ponder. Each one of us carries around countless beliefs that affect how we behave, how we think, and how we feel about every experience we have.

And these beliefs are usually unconscious, meaning that we have very little, if any awareness of them being there.

Plus, they can actually be paradoxical, meaning that you can have two belief systems that are completely opposite.

For example, if you’ve been saying an affirmation daily that “I am supported by the universe” but as a child you developed a belief that “The world is a dangerous place.” These beliefs are going to butt heads and generally, the childhood belief wins out.

When every experience and person is seen through the lens of “the world is a dangerous place” it causes a big energy leak because you don’t feel safe and unfortunately, that belief lends to not great things happening for you. So how do we change it?

Thankfully, there are some incredible healing modalities out there that work specifically with these deep-seated beliefs so they no longer need to run your life without you knowing it.

BodyTalk, the modality I work with is excellent for shifting them, as is Psych-K, EFT, hypnotherapy, and many more. You’ll be amazed at how your life shifts and your energy levels increase when your beliefs about yourself and your world change.

4. Unresolved trauma.

The culprit behind the huge holes in our energy bathtub. When we experience a trauma, the first thing that happens is that it is processed by the liver and the liver meridian to see what needs to be done.

If we don’t have the tools available to us at the time to work with it, it gets stored somewhere in the body to get dealt with later. This can mean a few things.

One is that the area where it is stored away becomes weakened and can be prone to injury and/or dis-ease. Two, this memory is stored in the cellular memory and is triggered by similar events. For example, if you were in a car accident when you were five, your cells will remember and be re-triggered when you experience a similar feeling or sensation (eg. seeing a car accident in a movie).

This re-triggering may cause similar emotions, sensations (even pain), and many times, a re-traumatization of the body leading to mobilization of the flight/fight systems and/or an emotional overreaction. Saying that this is an energy leak is an understatement.

The trouble is that the majority of these traumatic experiences are tucked away in the subconscious mind away from our conscious awareness or they are from childhood or even fetal life and out of our realm of recall.

So how do we work with them? This is one of the reasons I love working with BodyTalk. As a BodyTalk practitioner, I go back into the cellular memory and work with these events, clearing the emotional charge and creating the drain.

The breath can work wonders and deep and mindful breathing can connect us to these events and be a tool to work through the emotions surrounding them.

We fortunately live at a time where we have access to powerful modalities and tools to heal trauma and find our vibrancy again!

5. What scares you?

Believe it or not, our fears are a major energy leak, tantamount to small but mighty holes in our energy bathtub.

This is because the natural energy of fear is a contraction which means not only adrenal fatigue but tension, lack of clarity and focus, and a general feeling of dis-comfort and dis-connection. And fear is one of those things that all of us have. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t trust them!

Fear is an absolutely natural response and is an important feedback system to keep us safe.

The trouble happens when we fear even those things that are not dangerous to us (but our brain and body think that they are) and are helpful to us. For example, when we fear success because we fear rejection and judgment and being different from everyone else in our circle. Can you relate?

Alright, take a moment to breathe. Phew. Yes, fear gets all of our survival systems on high alert and makes us very very tired. How do we work with it? Well, first we need to ground ourselves and get in our skin, or in other words, we need to become connected to how we feel. This is because the biggest helper when it comes to fear is our awareness. We need to become aware of the rising tension levels in our body, the constriction and quickening of our breath, the change in temperature, and even the shift in our thoughts when fear enters the picture.

From this point of awareness, we can draw our attention to the breath, release tension with help from breathing out, and begin to relax the mind.

This is where a daily yoga and meditation practice comes in very handy! If the fear is over the top and untouchable with these daily practices, you may want to consider working with a practitioner or counselor to start the change from the inside out. Either way, working with our fears can be a potent way to positively transform our energy levels and our lives!

There we go! Five areas of your life where you can make simple shifts to create more energy, vitality, and health. As an introvert where restoring and renewing energy levels is essential, working with these areas daily can be profound and transformative.