Don't have enough time for what is important to you? Do secondary matters take away all your strength? Do you live as if "not your own" life? This, my friend, is an imbalance of vitality! Practical psychology has life hacks that will help you keep your energy budget down: trust yourself, not others; forget about being true to yourself; enjoy the rejection and don't forget about the seals.
Most of my clients want to have good health, a dream job, family support, close relationships for the soul, an interesting hobby and socializing with friends - and, of course, all at the same time. For the whole complex of these benefits to "work", forces are needed - but what kind?
In scientific psychology, the concept of "psychic energy" is considered frivolous and unproven, and even unprovable: we have not yet learned how to measure our psychic energy in the same way as physicists measure the energy of physical bodies, and how we count calories.
In psychoanalysis, this concept was subjected to large-scale criticism and comprehension, turning into sexual, aggressive energy, libido energy, etc. Now it is practically lost to psychology - given over to esotericists, yogis and various teachers of life.
However, in practical psychology, psychic energy remains a hot topic. Each person is well aware of their own energy status and has their own thermometer for measuring energy: “I don’t have enough strength / time / emotions for a relationship”, “I don’t have enough for sports”, “I don’t have time for rest”, “I will have strength, I will take care of health / repair / sex / yoga "or" I have so much strength - I will do everything and move mountains."
If you are missing something in order to finally live the life that you will be happy with, then you need to find a balance of life. I call this process the establishment of energy accounting, when you need to allocate budgets for new items of expenditure and find how to replenish them.
What is "energy balance"
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The energy balance consists of two parts: what gives energy and what consumes it. In a good version, you have time for everything - that is, spend as much as you need to - and maintain a reserve for unforeseen circumstances that happen periodically.
Working with a psychologist basically begins with a statement of the fact of dissatisfaction with the existing balance: for example, too much time is taken up by the family and children, or, conversely, the work takes everything; diseases, both our own and others', take away resources - also a frequent case; or, in general, there is excessive disharmony in the form of depression or mania. If you are happy with everything and do not feel that you are missing something important, you live "your" life - then everything is in order with your balance.
A good energy balance means that a person will be present in areas of life that are important to him - and this requires a competent distribution of forces, attention, energy and resources.
A bad balance is subjectively felt as an excessive expenditure of energy without the corresponding return - then it is an excessive expenditure of energy that causes chronic fatigue; or as unspent, unfulfilled - then it is underspending, causing boredom or even depression.
With a chronic waste of energy, the psyche will sooner or later recover, but the question is how she will do it. Drug addiction, alcoholism, somatic diseases are also options for barbaric restoration of balance, for example, when a person goes into a binge to rest, and disappears on business trips to spend less time with his family. Even some psychiatric patients in the hospital take a break from their lives.
These people do not yet have other ways to conduct their energy accounting. But these are, of course, extreme options.
Energy is an important part of a relationship
It happens that a client comes to a psychologist to solve a problem in a relationship, but finds the problem of energy balance. Very often you can hear: "She does not have time for me - she works a lot, does manicure, goes to sports and meets with friends." Or: “I don’t know when to go on dates: work until eight, children from a previous marriage, mom needs help,” etc.
After working with the problems of fear of intimacy, due to an unsuccessful past experience of relationships, the problem of balance inevitably arises: in the energy budget of a person, there are no articles for relationships.
It may seem like he doesn't really need a close relationship because other things are more important. Everything is more complicated: such a person does not know how to change the balance, and therefore maintains the form once found. But if you do not consciously allocate energy for relationships, then time and energy will never appear on them.
Finding balance becomes more difficult - and more interesting with age
With age, we want to live better, so the intention to master our mental resources and effectively structure energy expenditures becomes more relevant.
Age is the “customer” of the balance change. As a child, parents monitor our energy and we adopt their energy budgeting patterns. For example, the proverb “done the job - walk boldly” is one of the basic parenting instructions, especially if the parents do it themselves.
Then a revision takes place: the parental models of energy accounting are revised, their own balance structure is formed: gradually we understand what is important to us and to what extent. Age crises play an important role in the development of the development of the energy balance - the periods in which we revise our attitudes, some balance items are reduced, others disappear altogether, new ones appear, etc.
And if in their youth the majority have enough strength to do whatever they want, then gradually the natural reserve of strength is depleted, and there are more items of expenditure. Then the balance becomes a matter of conscious life creativity.
At the stage of the appearance of a family and children, the system becomes more complicated: you want to simultaneously pursue a career, earn money, raise children, meet friends and travel, create, and sports and health become mandatory items of expenditure. How can all this be done when you still need to sleep at least eight hours? Plus add to this difficult periods, deadlines, projects, illnesses, aging parents, intense feelings and … balance becomes very difficult.
To maintain it, you will have to complicate your psychological structure. Therefore, I tell clients that changing the energy balance requires psychological development and the acquisition of new skills - an upgrade of the psychological system.
How to work on the problem of energy balance
It is better to work on energy balance during calm periods of life, outside of acute stress and situations. Psychological work on it includes several stages.
Why balancing things is so hard: self-distrust
You have conducted an internal audit, discovered imbalances and the most important urgent needs for you now. The first difficult step is ahead: to believe that this is all true, and not a temporary weakness.
Not everyone, but many need time to legalize within themselves and feel entitled to judge their life by their inner feelings - they are too accustomed to trust other people's opinions and criticism. It takes time to believe yourself.
Ideally, we all need the support of loved ones to change. But after revising your energy accounting, some people may lose your attention, so expecting support from them is at least naive.
Commitment to your decisions is an obstacle
Most people are sure that loyalty to life decisions made in their time characterizes them on the good side, and stability and perfectionism are a trait of a strong personality.
If you already got down to business, give him everything! Other people depend on you! Can't be thrown halfway! I am the person who always works hardest and best of all! I started a family - now I have to lay down my bones and make it perfect! I will make unhappy parents happy! My children will do every possible activity in the world! I started improving my body and now I am doomed to spend my whole life in the gym, otherwise everything is in vain! I started this business, gave it ten years of my life, it doesn't matter that mostly I work for my employees, and not they work for me - I will carry the cross further! You have to endure for friendship, or money, or family, or career, or fame, or love!
Perfectionism is the beloved child of imbalance! We make enough such "vows of loyalty" with ourselves, substitute your own version.
To maintain outdated forms of oneself, one needs serious energy overexpenditure, because in order to remain the same, one has to rape oneself a little - or a lot -.
To overcome the obstacle to fidelity, you must have the right to change your old image or your old image, that is, become a person who has changed priorities. Talking to a counselor can support you as you gain the right to change and abandon outdated choices.
The problem of rejection: why is it a pity not to choose something
Alexander Mokhovikov, a respected gestalt therapist and psychiatrist, said that there is no problem of choice, but there is a problem of rejection. It is not so difficult for us to make a choice, but we are in the throes of rejecting potential opportunities and alternatives: choosing a certain man or woman means rejecting potentially suitable partners with whom everything could be happy, easy and simple.
If the agony of rejection keeps you from accepting the risks and consequences of your own choices, then you will have to chronically suffer, rejecting anything or anyone and wasting an enormous amount of energy on this.
The problem with refusal is that by refusing, we may seem "bad" to ourselves. For example, deciding to end a difficult exhausting or exhausted relationship that takes up a lot of energy, we can suffer from conscience, because it can be relationships with very close people: friends, parents, love partners … To maintain such a difficult relationship, we suppress our feelings for people with whom there is no adequate exchange of energy. You have to endure a lot or hold back all the time. These efforts create a veritable black hole that drains psychic powers. Sometimes all the energy is spent just to withstand and not explode.
So step two is to stop being true to outdated forms of yourself. And behind it - and the third step: to reject all the variety of possibilities in favor of your own choice.
The Ideal Trap: The Best Self Is A Dangerous Illusion
“We must strive for the ideal, for the best version of ourselves,” - my clients often repeat these phrases heard in childhood. With their help, parents can force their child to redo their homework or get a better grade in school. We must strive for perfection, for the version of some neighbor whose grass is greener and legs are longer.
For childhood, this is a good option: you really have to somehow neuroticize children so that they not only play and sit back, but also strive for something. But for an adult, an ideal can - and often does - become a psychological illusion, a trap that prevents one from reconsidering one's priorities. The ideal trap is a big problem for many people, the core of a huge number of different neuroses.
The ideal in modern Western culture is a psychological illusion: it lies in the fact that it is necessary or even possible to achieve it.
For example, in the topic of energy balance, the desire to find an endless source of strength and become Superman who manages everything in general will be illusory. But energy is not an infinite amount. Buddhists consider inhalation and exhalation, chemists study antioxidants and telomerase length, psychologists look at satisfaction with themselves and life: we consider them a very accurate indicator.
A well-calibrated ideal that you have chosen consciously and without self-deception, corrected by reality, ceases to be an ideal and turns into a plan - it often becomes the result of working with a psychologist. But the unattainable ideal looming before our eyes not only does not help to figure out what to do in life, but also does not make it clear what kind of person you are, what kind of energy balance you have at this stage of life, what you are capable of and what you are not (or capable only in extreme conditions).
In other words: the ideal doesn't work.
It is not necessary to completely abandon the ideal, you can develop a respectful attitude towards it, give it an honorable place in the Pantheon of personal philosophies and continue to motivate children with it to try better. But it is better to choose realism for everyday use.
A realistic view of yourself implies a professional attitude towards your own needs and limitations: if you need 8 hours of sleep or no less, sleep. And people who sleep 6 are other people with their own problems.
The fight for seal rights
Finally, a couple of important secrets.
The first secret of a competent energy accountant: Respect the rights of seals - that is, allow yourself to periodically DO NOT DO ANYTHING. No shame or guilt.
Look at the seals: do they have much shame? I regularly sell indulgences to my clients: I tell them that they can do nothing on the weekend, not meet with anyone, not consume culture, but simply be blunt. This is very important for balance, in addition, the seal will still take its toll if it needs to.
By respecting the rights of seals, you can control the energy balance yourself. If not, then the balance will control the body through disease. Some generally rest only when they are ill, because they cannot do otherwise. But in this case, you are dealing with sick seals, and it's a pity for them.
The second - and very simple - secret: changing activities can be a source of energy. Some people find it difficult to switch: they prefer to immerse themselves in one thing and get stuck in it, and then do nothing at all, because they get too tired. All competent fitness trainers will tell you that it is better to work out a few short workouts a week than three times of no pain-no gain training. A feat is always a waste of energy. Sometimes it is impossible without it, but outside of special circumstances it is just self-indulgence. Switching saves energy and gives more: the brain loves variety.
The third - dramatically important - secret: you need to regularly replenish your energy reserves. This is as important as brushing your teeth or eating three times a day.
Loneliness, nature, sports, sex, socializing, food - this may be what works for you. How do you know what works for you? Just try it!
Look for recreational activities that you haven't tried. One client of mine is practicing a new, sometimes quite extreme holiday experience for her birthday. Every year she does something out of the ordinary (this year she jumped with a parachute) - it helps her to learn new ways to renew her energy resource and get through the usual birthday blues.
There is such a harmful belief that we have an infinite amount of energy and that each of us can become Mr. Energizer, who has the power "for everything", like the gods of Instagram - the main thing is to strain a little more. Social media feeds this illusion from morning to night, and a multi-million dollar industry has developed around endless self-improvement. The harmfulness of this idea is obvious: from time to time, every Mr. Energizer finds himself at the bottom of the energy pit, completely devastated, sick or hating people. Of course, this is not shown on social networks.
Remember that individual psychic energy, the very one that we do not yet know how to measure, is not an infinite amount. And we cannot change that, just as we cannot cram the twenty-fifth hour a day.
But to master science to competently manage their life balance, as my practice shows, every person can. The main thing is to find time for reflection.
Elena Leontieva, clinical psychologist, gestalt therapist, author of the books "About psychos", "Private practice"
