Bring Your Energy Back Home

I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand things that were never mine to solve.

Why did they do that?

Why did their tone change?

Why are they sitting in the car instead of coming inside?

Why did that person react that way?

Why doesn’t this bother them the way it bothers me?

Why can’t they see what I see?

Why?

Why?

Why?

For a long time, I thought this was simply part of being perceptive.

I notice things.

I notice changes in energy. I notice inconsistencies. I notice when someone’s words don’t quite match their behavior. I notice the subtle shift in a room before anyone says something is wrong.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with being perceptive.

But I’m beginning to understand the difference between noticing something and becoming responsible for understanding it.

Because somewhere along the way, my perception became a job.

If I could understand what someone was thinking, maybe I could predict what they were going to do.

If I could understand why their behavior changed, maybe I could prepare myself.

If I could make sense of something confusing, maybe I could finally relax.

I wasn’t always searching for an explanation because I was curious.

Sometimes I was searching because uncertainty didn’t feel safe.

When Other People Become Our Compass

Carl Jung wrote about the enormous amount of psychic energy we invest outside ourselves—in other people, relationships, projections, fears, desires and the things we cannot stop thinking about.

And that idea stopped me.

Because how much of my energy has been living somewhere other than me?

How many hours have I spent wondering what someone else meant?

How many conversations have I replayed?

How many times have I tried to understand someone’s behavior long after the moment itself had passed?

Something happens once in the outside world.

And then I experience it twenty more times inside my own mind.

That’s energy.

And when we have learned to orient ourselves by reading other people, their behavior becomes information we believe we need.

Someone becomes quiet.

What happened?

Someone pulls away.

What did I do?

Someone behaves differently.

Something is wrong.

Someone misunderstands us.

I need to explain.

Someone questions who we are.

I need to prove myself.

Without realizing it, we can begin using other people’s behavior as a compass for our own internal world.

If they’re okay with me, I can relax.

If they understand me, I’m safe.

If I know what’s happening, I can prepare.

If I can predict what comes next, I won’t be blindsided.

Except there is a terrible cost to living this way.

You are always somewhere else.

Inside someone else’s thoughts.

Inside someone else’s motives.

Inside tomorrow.

Inside the thing that might happen.

Inside the explanation you still haven’t found.

Anywhere but here.

Anywhere but yourself.

What Is Actually Mine?

I walked into therapy recently feeling very small.

There are circumstances in my life right now that involve scrutiny, uncertainty and decisions that carry enormous weight for me.

And I wanted control over things I simply do not control.

What someone thinks.

What someone believes.

What someone says.

What conclusion someone reaches after looking at pieces of a life they have never actually lived.

My therapist kept bringing me back to one question:

What do you have control over?

At first, it almost feels insufficient.

Because when something matters deeply to you, you don’t want control over your little corner of it.

You want to control the outcome.

But I can’t.

So we started talking about my values.

Compassion.

Empathy.

Emotional regulation.

Community.

The things I want my boys to understand about themselves and about the kind of men they will someday become.

Sometimes I have them repeat after me:

I am strong.

I am handsome.

I am capable of big things.

And somewhere in that conversation, something inside me shifted.

Because I realized I have been teaching my children something I am still learning myself.

Know who you are, even when the world around you is telling you something else.

I Do Not Have to Audition for My Own Identity

There are things happening around my motherhood that I did not choose.

There are things I cannot control.

And for a long time, so much of my energy has gone toward defending, explaining and proving the mother I know myself to be.

Until I realized:

They are asking me to prove I am the mother I already know I am.

And those are two very different things.

There are external processes I still have to participate in.

There are questions I have to answer.

There are circumstances I have to take seriously.

Bringing my energy home doesn’t mean pretending those things don’t matter.

It means understanding that they do not get to become the authority over who I am.

Their scrutiny belongs to them.

Their questions belong to them.

Their assumptions belong to them.

My conduct belongs to me.

My values belong to me.

What I pour into my children belongs to me.

How I show up today belongs to me.

The outcome?

That isn’t entirely mine.

And maybe one of the hardest parts of healing is accepting that.

Perception Is Information, Not an Assignment

I’m also learning that I don’t have to stop noticing things.

I don’t need to become less intuitive.

Less observant.

Less sensitive.

Less me.

I just don’t have to chase everything I notice.

Someone behaves differently?

I noticed.

Someone’s energy changes?

I noticed.

Something doesn’t quite make sense?

I noticed.

And then comes a question I haven’t always asked:

Is this mine?

Sometimes the answer will be yes.

If something affects me, violates a boundary or requires a response, I can act.

But sometimes?

No.

I noticed something happening in another human being.

And I can leave it there.

I don’t need to crawl inside their mind and find the explanation.

I don’t need to anticipate what happens next.

I don’t need to prepare for every possible outcome.

I don’t even need to know why.

Maybe this is what discernment actually looks like.

Not becoming blind to what is around us.

But becoming rooted enough within ourselves that we can see something happening across the room without immediately leaving ourselves to go investigate it.

Bring It Back Home

This may be one of the biggest lessons I am learning:

My attention is mine.

My energy is mine.

And every time I spend it trying to control someone’s perception of me, decode someone’s behavior, predict an outcome I cannot predict, or understand something that isn’t mine to understand, I am spending a piece of myself.

So now I am learning to bring it back.

Back to my values.

Back to my children.

Back to my writing.

Back to the life actually happening in front of me.

Back to the person I am becoming.

Back to myself.

And maybe this is what returning home really means.

Not finally understanding everyone.

Not predicting every danger.

Not getting every answer.

Not making sure nobody ever misunderstands you again.

Maybe home is the place inside yourself where you no longer need all of that before you are allowed to feel steady.

Where you can say:

I noticed.

I don’t know why.

I may never know why.

And I am still okay here.

Because the goal was never to become so perceptive that nothing could ever surprise me again.

The goal was to become so rooted in myself that I could trust myself even when it did.

I don’t need to spend every ounce of my energy defending who I am.

I want to spend more of it being who I am.

And maybe that’s where my power was all along.

Preserve what is yours.
Release what was never yours to carry.
Become who you are when all that energy finally comes home.