Identify Your Energy Leaks

Several people have told me recently that they’re consumed by the news. It’s so upsetting to see the additional injustice, the renewed cruelty, the mind-blowing vengefulness, the gleeful destruction. Although it’s awful, it can be addictive.

Why? Looking at the news can feel like you’re doing something. That’s a big hook, for me and for those I’ve been talking with. Remaining uninformed, taking in a pervasive sense of powerlessness, feels passive and victim-y. So we shake off that bad feeling and take action! Yeah! We’ll start by catching up on the news, to get our responses up to date.

Even with the best intentions – once I’m caught up, I’ll call my senators and representative, I’ll sign up for the local action committee, I’ll redouble my boycotts, I’ll volunteer at a community organization – it can happen, too often, though, that taking in the news wipes out our forward energy. As a result, we do none of those well-intentioned things that day.

This doesn’t mean we’re bad people. Our brains are handling the onslaught as well as possible. Limiting our news sources to written media, excluding video and audio, for example, can reduced the neurological impact.

Leak? What leak?
Image by CESAR AUGUSTO RAMIREZ VALLEJO from Pixabay

Energy leaks existed before January 2025, and they’ll outlast whatever happens next. Now may be a particularly good time to consider them, though, because we’re likely more susceptible than ever to their wiles. Here are some places to start identifying your own.

What’s an energy leak?

An energetic leak or drain (a leak that grew bigger) can appear in many ways: discouraged mood, lethargy, chronic disorganization, procrastination, overcommitted time, distraction, franticness, overactive inner criticism or bullying, irritability, dogmatism, perfectionism, clutter, and so on. You might say that the leaks are the places where our creative flow gets diverted from a clear, moving stream off into clogged-up, murky bogs.

Recognizing your leaks is the beginning, not the end, of a process. Once we can see them, it’s often tempting to attempt extreme action to eliminate them. This often results, however, in frustration and more of the same undesired circumstances. Instead, by acknowledging our energetic leaks and drains, we can begin to reduce them, even scheduling routine reviews for ourselves into the future to continue an ongoing leak-reduction campaign.

Causes of these energetic drains and leaks are myriad. An ignored leak can become a drain, sapping more of your energy more rapidly. (We’re in trouble when our drains start to resemble a flood.)

That’s a lot of leaks
Image by Hermann Traub from Pixabay

Leak-detection questions

One way to get a handle on your energetic drains and leaks is to take a relaxed, comprehensive look at your life in all its complexity, and ask yourself these questions.

What can I strengthen? 

What can I release? 

Your answers to these questions will be uniquely yours. To give you a sense of the possibilities, here are some ideas:

What can I strengthen?

• My resolve to get in the studio every morning
• My gratitude practice
• The habit of saying NO to requests for my time and talent from people I don’t like or respect
• The boundaries that protect me from overconsuming the news
• The habit of exercising once a day for at least ten minutes

What can I release?

• The relationship I have with my acquaintance/friend X, who complains about their life and criticizes me.
• My habit of complaining.
• The sense of doom and powerlessness I feel, especially after overconsuming the news (see above)
• The frustration I keep feeling when I think about that unfinished project.

From your answers to those questions, begin to identify and describe some of your energy leaks. Again, to give you a sense of how this works, we’ll start a list from the sample answers in the bullet points, above.

Examples: Leaks & Drains

Ignoring studio in the AM

I say I want to get into the studio every morning, even for just a little while, but I let myself get distracted by social media late at night and then I have trouble settling into sleep, which makes me groggy and cranky in the morning, without enough hours of sleep. Then I don’t want to go into the studio, and I sometimes stay away. Instead, I tell myself that having a cup of coffee and “me time” is really better for me because I’m too tired to do anything creative anyway.

Forgetting gratitude

I know that listing three or more things I’m grateful for at the end of each day is something that really feels good, and helps me believe I’m not just plodding through my life. But when I’m dropping off to sleep, I forget all about doing my gratitudes, and lose the chance to sweeten up my nighttime. I feel bad about it the next day, but that hasn’t helped me remember at night.

Not saying NO

Even though I realize that there are ways to say no that I am theoretically comfortable with, I still hear this inner voice that tells me being polite, or just going along, is more important than standing up for what is important to me. Early childhood training, I guess.

Permeable boundaries

I know how important it is to dip in, and then dip out, of the perpetual news cycle. I let my need to stay current distract me. If I check my social media feed once too often (which these days is almost all bad news), my entire day suffers.

Neglecting exercise

Ten minutes is an intentionally small amount of time, because I wanted to make it seem like no big deal to get some exercise in every day. But even knowing that, on some days I’ll put it off, telling myself I’ll get to it later on, after I’ve done 1, 2, and 3 first. And by then I’m distracted by a task or an email or a problem, and before I know it, the day has disappeared. I know that I am happier and healthier when I move purposefully every day.

Toxic acquaintance/friend

I’ve known Z for years, and they’ve been helpful to me in the past, in my career and even as a friend. They are routinely self-absorbed, critical of others, including me, and negative in their view of the world. How can I turn my back on them now? I have begun to wonder, is my obligation to maintain the relationship more important than my values, or my wellbeing?

Complaining

I know it’s a habit I want to release, and yet I still find myself kvetching about situations, or moaning about bad luck, or otherwise putting out fruitless negativity. Even though I don’t want to keep doing this, it still is happening. I feel like it saps my creative juices every time I do it.

Sense of doom

It’s tricky to find a resting point between abject fear and total denial. Yes, in fact, the geopolitical and economic situations are looking bad, trending toward dire. Civil liberties in the US are being shredded. And yet, for any of us to get on with our lives, care for our loved ones, and work toward a better future, we must compartmentalize to some degree.

Haunted by the unfinished project

I feel like I could get more done in a creative session if I kept my focus on a clear channel forward. Instead, part of my awareness is diverted by intermittent thoughts about the unfinished project that I abandoned almost a year ago. It’s like it’s a zombie, wandering into my work space and distracting me from my current project.

More leak-detection questions

You can also ask yourself these questions:

What do I feel trapped by?

What regret is regularly on my mind?

What am I routinely angry about?

Now that you’ve seen some examples of the many forms that energetic leaks can take, try listing a few of your own. Just a few. Know that identifying and repairing leaks can gradually become a regular part of your creative life, and it makes sense to bear that in mind and be kind to yourself by starting manageably small.

To do this, look at

• Emotional states
• Feeling of open loops – unfinished business that distracts and deflates and diffuses energy
• Worry
• Your body responses
• Anxiety
• Habitual behaviors that you don’t like
• Belittling, bullying, mean, or scornful thoughts inside your head
• Etc

As you’d expect, this is the start of an ongoing process. Once you identify a handful of leaks and drains, you can start to repair them. I’ll explore that part of the process in a future post.

Note: This is a preview of material from my next nonfiction handbook for creatives. I’d love to know what you find interesting and/or helpful when you consider your energy leaks and drains. If you drop me a line, your responses will help me focus the writing so it’s useful to the creative community. Thanks in advance for your guidance!

~Anne

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