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Everyday we have and we use ‘energy’. That energy includes mental, emotional and physical. You generally know if you don’t have enough physical energy. You feel lethargic, unable to move and struggle to prepare for what’s ahead. You also know when you have a lot of physical energy. Your heart races, your pulse is rapid and sometimes you feel like you could could do something for a very long time; forever.
When you don’t have enough physical energy what is the one thing you generally do to ‘get’ energy? Many people eat to get energy. Some people exercise to get energy. Sometimes those are the right things to do, however, there are other reasons you might not have enough physical energy.
Mental & emotional energy
Your mental & emotional energy has an impact on the amount of physical energy you have.
- If you are really nervous about something that mental energy will effect your physical energy.
- Self doubt effects your physical energy.
- Lack of confidence effects your physical energy.
- Negative thoughts effect your physical energy.
- Lack of focus effects your physical energy.
All of these things debilitate your physical energy and dictate what you can and cannot do. Thoughts effect actions and eating more or exercising more is not likely to make you physically feel better. Dealing with the thoughts behind the physical manifestation are likely to be the most helpful.
What does help
It’s important to be aware of the mental or emotional obstacles however small or large so that you can work on improving them. You want to have as many facilitation thoughts and emotions as you can so that they facilitate you reaching your goal is: getting to the Olympics, participating in a game or race, losing weight or exercising.
It is sometimes challenging to be aware of the mental or emotional obstacles getting in the way but is easier to physically ‘feel’ these things. Let me explain: before you go out onto the tennis court to play a match you notice knots in your stomach, a headache and your legs feel heavy. These may be physical manifestations of mental or emotional obstacles. Many times you probably explain them away as something else (not enough to eat, too much warm up, too hot, etc.) because it’s easier to explain them in that way but if you want to reach your goal it’s important to pay attention to these things and decipher what they really mean. For example, as you are walking out to the court and you notice the knot in your stomach think about what is going through your head. Negative thoughts? Self doubt?
Work on what’s behind the scenes
One of my golf clients was struggling to figure out her mental or emotional obstacles. What we did instead was talk about the situations where she felt she played ‘poorly’. For example, she played poorly when she played with people she did not know. She played poorly when she played on a ‘difficult’ course. What I suggested to her was this: in these situations (and others that we talked about) start to pay attention to the physical manifestation. As you are driving over to a course to play with people you do not know how is that showing up in your body?
We talked about the ‘situations’ she noticed herself in when she felt she was playing poorly and then we talked about the physical manifestations. For example, when she was going to play with people she didn’t know she realized she had a stomach ache and a slight headache. Together we went through some deep breathing and relaxation exercises.
The next step was to connect those physical manifestations to what’s going on in her head. She started to realize that when she played with people she did not know she doubted her playing ability, didn’t play her game and then ended up playing poorly.
She came to understand that her physical energy was decreased in certain situations because of her thought pattern which debilitated her playing ability. She has been working on her mental and emotional obstacles to increase her energy and facilitate her her ability to play her game. She is not only playing better but is find enjoyment playing with new people and on difficult courses.
If you need help dealing with building facilitative mental or emotional energy, I am here to help!
Happy start of February!
Dr. Michelle
Photo credit: sodahead.com