Protecting Your Energy

Introduction to Gratitude

0:00Hello and welcome to The Art of Gratitude with me, Margaret Alvarez, your creativity coach, artist, art teacher, and mental health advocate teaching you how to use creativity and art for your mental well-being. I am so happy to be back. I know it's been a while. I was not going to give up on my podcast, but I needed some time. And I'm so happy that I took the time to kind of regroup and figure out exactly what I wanted to share and how I wanted to share it.

0:30And today I was inspired to record this episode based on this idea of protecting your energy.

0:43Let me take it back. I don't remember where I was or what I was doing the last episode, but I know that a lot of time has passed. And I've really been trying to figure out what I want to do with my artsy coach and all of the things that I have produced in the past five years. And with that said, I had my summer break. I had a lot of time to myself and some big major life changes happening all around.

1:13And I just needed to kind of process it. And it brought up this idea of protecting my energy. Like, what was I doing? And why did it feel like I was like giving up in a way? And it wasn't that at all. And now that I look at it, I know that it was just me resting, grieving, and really just stepping away so that I could protect myself and focus on myself a little bit.

1:46In the past few months, I have started building out a studio at home so I can take clients at home and so I can start teaching at home, doing workshops. And I'm really excited about that. But before I decided to move forward with my artsy coach and what I wanted to do in the coming years, years, I started to kind of just look at everything and what it is I wanted to do.

Dealing with Loss

2:14And then something happened. We had a death in the family. My Athea passed away in July. And it really made me look at things in a different light, perspective-wise. I needed to grieve and understand, you know, that life changes. And even though I'm 44 years old and I already know that things happen and, you know, that this is life, it still took me a little bit to process it. And I have to be honest, I'm still kind of grieving.

2:47But it also made me think about how we handle these things when we have something happen in our life that affects us in a way that kind of alters your whole game, like what you're doing. And it really allowed me to just step back and not do anything for a while. I had all of these big plans. And when you're a teacher and you have summers to, you know, spend time at home and do all the things that you can't do while you're on a busy schedule during the school year,

3:19you literally make lists in your head of all the things that you're going to do when you're on a break. And it was just a little bit different because I didn't journal, I didn't do art, I didn't, you know, really start anything that I said I was going to do. And I felt stuck, like I didn't know what to do. And then I realized that I was going through a little bit of grief and just processing. And it kind of changed the way that I looked at everything that I had been planning for so long.

3:57And it made me look at everything like, okay, what is my plan? What am I going to do? And although I already had the plan to have this studio built and I had already, you know, we did some things here at home and, you know, there was things that I had planned that I did follow through with. But while those things were happening, I was thinking, oh, I'm going to be home and I'm going to be able to do all these different things. And I just couldn't move. I could not push myself enough to do those things. And I thought, what is wrong with me? Why can't I just, you know, do what I said I was going to do?

4:30And why can't I make videos? And why can't I, you know, start creating art? Like I should be doing that. I should be using this grief and really just focusing that energy and channeling it. Like I teach people and it just wasn't happening. And it made me realize that like, I'm not being lazy. I'm not giving up on my dreams. I'm not doing any of that. It was just the grief that was, was really, um, it just kind of took over. And it made me think about this idea of protecting your energy.

5:02And sometimes that looks like rest or stepping away, you know, or avoiding things that, you know, are going to trigger you. Um, and it could be, you know, things that stress you out. Um, so just really just stepping back and focusing on what is, what it is that you need at, at this moment when you're feeling like, you know, you don't want to do anything. Um, you know, what is it? And like, it made me look at myself with just curiosity of like, why am I acting like this? Like, why is it hard for me to open my journal and work?

5:35Um, why do I just want to sit on the couch and just, you know, think instead of do something? And I'm a very busy body person. I am always cleaning, always moving, always doing things. And I just had lost that motivation. And so it made me think about this. Um, it is important that we protect our energy. And if we are like myself, I feel like I'm a pretty, you know, bubbly, optimistic, happy, you know, trying to inspire people. And I have this vision of what I want to do.

6:08And, and when that all comes to a halt, there's a reason. My body is telling me like, whoa, you know, you need to stop. You need to slow down and you need to reflect like, what is it? And so it's important that we focus on protecting our energy when things like this happen, um, and not look at it, um, as a, you know, for a moment, I was kind of disappointed in myself. I'm not doing all the things I said I was going to do. And we give ourselves, we, we put so much on our plate.

6:38We put so much on ourselves. Um, and we don't realize that, you know, it's too much. And I really had to learn that. Um, you know, yeah, my summer's almost over and I'm, I haven't done X, Y, and Z, but I was able to really like, you know, spend some time with family and really reflect on all the loves in my life. And, you know, it, I turned it around fast enough that I didn't, you know, like I could see it. I could, I noticed it. And so I want to encourage you to think about a time where you did feel like you didn't

7:14want to do anything and, you know, a time where, where something hit you so hard that you, you lost all interest in anything and you just wanted to just kind of curl up in a ball. And, and that is your body telling you that, you know, you need to regroup. You need to give yourself that time. You know, I think a lot of times we try to fight through that. And when we do that, we put it all aside and we bottle it up and then we don't deal with it until something else happens.

7:44And then it really starts to boil over. And so, you know, I want to encourage you to, you know, think about when that's happened to you and to try to prepare for, you know, when it happens again, how are you going to handle it differently? How are you going to protect your energy and instead of, you know, getting down on yourself because you didn't do X, Y, or Z, you're going to give yourself grace. You're going to, you know, allow yourself to veg out if you need to and not do anything.

8:16You're going to allow yourself that break.

Protecting Your Energy

8:19I think that what I notice is that a break sometimes feels like failure or giving up on things and what it is, is really you just protecting yourself and allowing yourself that ease because you need to think about what's going on. And you can't do that if you put too much on your plate. You have to give yourself grace. You have to give yourself time. You have to protect your energy. You have to just, you know, put everything in perspective. And sometimes that means, you know, taking care of what's important, you know, being around

8:53family, even though you had this long laundry list of things to do, what's more important? And to me, I've really learned that experiences are more important than things, that family time is more important than, oh, I said I was going to, you know, do this. I was going to work out or I was going to, you know, start this thing today. Well, you know what, plans change and you just have to kind of give yourself that time. Like what, ask yourself, what's more important?

9:23And this isn't, you know, you giving up on everything and just, you know, oh, forget the diet, forget the working out today. I'm going to hang out with my friends. You know, it is, I need to hang out with my friends. I need that time. And you'll find that like when you do, you know, do something that wasn't on the list, that sometimes that's just exactly what you needed. And I've really learned that you just have to listen to yourself and listen to your body

9:54and listen to your energy and make sure that, you know, you do that because when you don't do that, when you don't protect your energy, when you don't focus on what's important in life, then you lose it. You lose the momentum. You might not have, you might not be as successful in your business or in what you're trying to do when you haven't taken care of yourself. And it all goes back to, you know, if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care

10:24of others. If you have a family, you know, like that's really important. But it's deeper than that. Um, it's a, it's a, it's a rest that you need sometimes that we just in this fast paced world, we just don't give ourself, um, we don't give ourselves enough grace. We are reaching for success. We want money. We want, you know, to keep up with the Joneses as they say, right. And you want to, you know, do all the things you see your friends taking the fancy vacation.

10:56You want to take the fancy vacation and you start to put things on your plate that just aren't, it isn't realistic. And, you know, you have to remember that, you know, it's not real. This is like, what is really important? What do you need to be doing? And how do you need to be doing it? And then at the end of the day, you can always go back to those things that, you know, are important. Like, you know, for me, it's art and journaling. And the minute I got back in my journal, I felt like, oh, I missed you. You know, I needed this and I didn't know I needed it because I needed to process all

11:28the things I was going through. But now I'm here and I'm back and I'm going to do the thing that I love. And it's going to, it's going to be, it's going to feel good because I have so much to say now, um, because I've reflected so much on what I went through. And so I just want to, um, encourage you to reflect on a time that maybe you went through something like this, or maybe you're going through it now and step back and see what you need to do to protect your energy, to protect yourself. Um, and you know, journaling is always going to be something that I hold dear and I encourage

12:03all of my listeners to journal. Um, and so write it out, write it out, write out that situation. And what did you do and what would you do differently? Maybe, um, if you had a chance to do it again, you know, would you force yourself to just keep going, um, and burn yourself out or will you step back next time? And will you give yourself the space to protect your energy, to protect yourself and to, um, to really just do what you need to do for yourself.

12:35And so that is what this episode is about. I hope it has you thinking, um, you know, just make space for that good energy and make space for what makes you feel good. And sometimes making space means taking a break. And that's all I wanted to say today is just, um, think about it and write about it. If you can, uh, create a page about it. You know, I always want to encourage my listeners to journal and, um, you know, I will, I will be sharing on my Instagram, my artsy coach, um, Instagram, just some of the pages that I

13:11created over the summer and the next week. I want people to see, you know, some of the processes I went through. Um, I did not journal all summer long, but I journaled enough and I am now reflecting on all the things that I, you know, have gone through and, and all of the potential things that are happening in my future are really exciting. And so I'm going to share some of that and I hope that you follow. Have a good day. I hope I'm so happy that you're here and I will talk to you again very soon.