1How to Spot an Energy Vampire
Sometimes nothing works. Nothing at all. It doesn’t matter what you do; everything you touch just falls to pieces. Everything goes wrong. Regardless of how hard you try. It still goes wrong.
Fortunately, there are other days when things work out a bit better. You make your way through the day and actually end up achieving a great deal. There aren’t any impending disasters ahead, even though you might be wishing things were working even better.
Other days still, everything just seems to flow. You’re inspired, passionate, motivated. You find yourself spotting opportunities where, weeks earlier, all you could see was doom and gloom. This could all depend on the weather, of course, but it’s more likely that you’re in a state of positive flow, you’re in the zone, the planets suddenly have aligned, or it’s just one of those days.
In the moment, it’s not too important where all the positive energy is coming from. What matters is that it’s there, making you feel good inside. It comes over you, and for a few magical moments you realize how simple it all really is. You wonder why you never thought of it before. The world is yours for the taking. Just get it done!
The sense that you’re absolutely invincible. The realization that you can do whatever you want. You’ve cracked the code, found the right opening, and your energy gushes forth. This is the moment! The feeling that this is it—things are about to go down!
However, strangely enough, just ten minutes later—or thirty seconds later—all of your profound ideas are gone, just like that. Every last thought of a new, bright future has been ground to dust. Your grand ambitions are all shattered.
The prospects that looked so promising only moments ago suddenly seem completely insurmountable. You’re all washed-out. All you see is darkness, and all your strength has disappeared. You don’t feel up to anything right now.
How is it possible to make that transition from exhilaration and delight to bleak nothingness in just a few minutes? Where did all that boisterous boldness and energy go, exactly? Did it all go down some mental inner drain, never to be seen again? And if it did—why? Your day, or week, or year started out so great, and now it all just feels hopeless.
The answer is simple.
You encountered a vampire. A vampire whose calling in life it is to quickly and efficiently extinguish people’s dreams, obscuring anything that so much as resembles a bright future.
An energy vampire crossed your path.
An energy vampire is an uninvited mental squatter, who seems to live to drain everybody around them of all their energy. Energy vampires are sometimes referred to as psychic vampires, too.
Despite your change in mood, you know that what you had planned—a new business venture, a trip you wanted to go on, a relationship you wanted to tell somebody about, a house in the country you found, or whatever it was that was feeding you that amazing energy—was actually not a bad idea. It was all entirely realistic, actually. It’s just that now … you can’t even bring yourself to think about it. Somebody helped convince you it was hopeless.
And as a result, you file it all away in mental storage under “Ideas for the Future.” You’ll have to see. Maybe another time. Maybe never. The idea has been effectively quashed and may never return to you. We all carry countless such ideas around, like mental debris.
Imagine a person who always responds the same way, no matter what you’ve suggested: Weeell, I’m not sure that’s quite right. I think you missed a comma right there. If it happens once, that might not be too bad. You could probably even live with it happening twice, or even three times. But always being corrected, no matter what you’re talking about—how frustrating is that? It even happens when you’re discussing subjects you have a pretty good handle on. Stoneface simply furrows their brow and proceeds to ask twelve different questions, which all convey the same, consistent insinuation: You have no idea what you’re doing. In the end, you’ll hardly dare open your mouth, in case some pedantic bully tries to shut you up.
For another example, consider this: You return home from the hospital after a stay you wouldn’t have wished upon your worst enemy (this is actually a silly expression, as this is exactly the kind of misfortune you might be happy having your worst enemy endure). Perhaps you’re not actively seeking sympathy, but when you explain how sick you’ve been and how scared you were somebody will tell you all about how they actually suffered far worse health issues, thank you very much! They’ll then proceed to deflect all attention from you by relating some lengthy anecdote that you don’t believe a single word of. If you had pneumonia, you can bet this person had double pneumonia! How frustrating is that?
Or how about this: A numbingly complex project has been tossed your way by your optimistic boss, and she is cheerfully celebrating the amazing job you’re about to do on it! Whoop-de-doo! But the more you learn about it, the more you realize that in addition to lacking any kind of plan, the project has such ridiculously overambitious targets that it would take at least a violation of the laws of physics and the participation of two Nobel Prize winners to even seem plausible. When you ask for further instructions, your boss looks at you as though you came from another planet. Rather than support and assist you, she asks you, with ill-concealed displeasure, if you’re sure that you’re still happy to be working there? You’ve seemed so negative lately, you know?
Or, perhaps, it’s just a simple garden project. You’re going to build a new patio. Nothing too huge. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. But then your neighbor interferes. He grins at you from across the fence, hurling some carefully aimed comments at you. And then, just like that, the patio has turned into a hazy mirage.
A real-life example: A good friend of mine heard that I had managed to purchase my dream home after thirty years of hard work. An eighteenth-century house that required a ridiculous number of renovations—just the kind of project my wife and I wanted! I was hoping this person might respond along these lines: What fun! I know this has always been a dream of yours! I’d love to come by and see it. Something like that. Instead, I got this: Oh, really? And then we moved on to another subject.
Was I asking for too much? Well, maybe. But it disappointed me. This was somebody I had been looking forward to sharing the news with. Instead, the conversation gave me a lot to consider, including how envy can change people.
All of these examples illustrate how energy vampires can completely deflate your excitement with a single sentence. It’s crazy when you think about it.
It could also be a matter of navigating an average day, when you’re not facing any particular challenges. That is, until you run into the wrong person on your way from the coffee machine. Suddenly, everything seems to be lost.
Energy vampires can rob you of your enthusiasm without the slightest effort.
But how can you tell you’ve been hit by an energy vampire, and are there ways to prevent it from happening?
Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Erikson
