Do you ever feel drawn to help others but then realize that it’s depleting your own energy? When help is needed, it can be very difficult to balance supporting others with maintaining your own internal wellbeing.
Chinese Medicine and Qi Gong offer some important insights into how you can support others while still staying centered and grounded. By understanding these principles, you’ll be able to truly support your family and community without compromising your own mental, emotional, or physical health.
In this blog, you’ll discover these important principles and how to apply them in your own life.
To understand how helping others impacts your energy system, it’s important to recognize how energy flows in the world.
When you support others, there’s an exchange of energy that takes place. Typically, the person providing support essentially gives some of their energy to whomever they’re helping. Energy can take many forms, including mental, emotional, physical, or financial, to name a few.
Helping someone solve an intellectual problem requires mental energy, while talking with someone about a loss might require emotional energy. Moving someone’s furniture is physical, while giving them money is obviously financial energy. Often, there’s a blend of different forms of energy when you support others.
Now, think about a great big lake that has streams flowing into it and a river that flows out. The lake is your own internal reservoir of energy. If your lake is constantly letting water flow out through the river but the inflowing streams are dry, eventually your river will run out of water. Similarly, your own internal energy will become depleted if you overextend yourself by helping others without caring for your own personal needs.
Supporting others is a worthy cause, but it’s important to be mindful of how it’s impacting your own internal energy. If energy is only flowing out and not being replenished, your wellbeing will suffer. Additionally, in the long run, you’ll have a reduced capacity to truly be of service to your family and community.
Another poignant analogy is that of a fruit tree. If an orchard keeper only picks apples and lemons from their fruit trees, the fruit trees will wither and stop producing fruit. In order to enjoy a bountiful harvest of fruit year after year, the orchard keeper must carefully tend to their orchard. This might include watering, tilling the soil, pulling weeds, or protecting young seedlings from hungry deer.
With careful tree maintenance, the orchard keeper can continue to pick delicious fruit and give it to whomever they like. Similarly, in order to have the capacity to support others and live a fulfilling life, you too must tend to your inner orchard as well.
There are many ways to cultivate your own energy and wellbeing. For starters, it’s important to recognize that you need to give yourself love and attention. When you recognize that you require nurture and support (just like anyone you might be supporting), it becomes easier to do self-supporting activities.
Once you’ve acknowledged that you have your own needs, it’s time to decide what activities help you feel nourished and fulfilled. Exercise, spending time in nature, art, music, and dancing are just a few activities that can fuel you up and help you feel abundant.
When it comes to balancing your own needs with helping others, it’s important to always maintain perspective on both yourself and whomever you’re helping. Even when you’re deeply involved in supporting another person, try to continually check in with yourself and be aware of how you’re feeling. Are you tired, emotionally drained, or feeling overwhelmed or anxious? When the answer is “yes,” it’s probably time to voice your needs and take a step back.
Every activity in life takes some amount of energy, but supporting others can sometimes be especially energy-intensive. Therefore, individuals who are in a support role may need to stay particularly vigilant when it comes to monitoring energy levels. If you’re in an intense support role, it’s often best to plan specific periods of time to step away and focus on yourself. Then, communicate this decision to everyone involved, including whoever you’re supporting.
Additionally, it’s not uncommon for empathetic individuals to experience the thought that taking care of yourself is selfish. As the fruit tree analogy teaches us, there is nothing selfish about attending to your needs. Not only does maintaining your wellbeing allow you to be happier, but it also empowers you to sustainably contribute from a place of abundance.
If you sometimes find it difficult to attend to your own needs, or you simply want more ways to cultivate your own internal wellbeing, be sure to check out our
Thirty-Day Qi Gong Challenge.
Qi Gong is a practice that is specially designed to boost your internal energy and wellbeing. This allows you to have more vitality and abundance to enjoy the activities you love, as well as be a more supportive member of your family and community.
Qi Gong teaches you how to maintain a healthy balance within your own internal energy system so you don’t become depleted. Life can be difficult at times, so everyone needs something they can turn to in order to get replenished and grounded.
And it’s easy to maintain that inner balance with the seven-minute routines inside our 30-Day Qi Gong Challenge. Each day for 30 days, you’ll receive a brand-new seven-minute Qi Gong routine. Even just seven minutes of self-care can completely recharge your internal batteries.
Click the banner below to learn more and get the 30-Day Challenge.
