How To Move To Anabolic Energy for Greater Health, Wealth, and Success
In a prior post I wrote about the seven energy levels: two catabolic and five anabolic.
When a specific event triggers a stress response, we immediately go to catabolic energy and become a victim, angry, or somewhere in between.
Whenever I go to a government office like the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), I experience stress because there is always a surprise. This could be a form I did not bring or an extra step that would make the visit longer. My reaction is usually of frustration. ‘Why you (the DMV) did not publish this information on your website?’ Sometimes, I get to play victim – ‘why do bad things happen to good people?!’
Amid frustration, how many times have we said something unkind to our partner, child, or coworker?
When we stay longer than necessary in low energy levels we are not accessing our higher levels of energy, the levels of creation and genius.
What if we could gain back control, better manage stress triggers, and move up faster to anabolic energy levels? What if we could tap into the highest energy levels more frequently, especially for our key goals? What if we get to model a different behavior for the important people around us?
Here are three actions we can do to move to anabolic energy levels.
1) Bring yourself to the present moment
As I practice mental fitness, I find ways to bring myself to the present moment.
When I am at the DMV (or any other government office) and I find out about the extra step once I am there, I take several deep breaths to bring myself back to the present moment.
This short delay allows us to override the brain’s stress reaction so instead of yelling at the DMV employee, we can focus on how to solve the situation at hand.
Other ways to bring yourself to the present moment include rubbing two fingertips paying so much attention that you can feel the ridges of both fingers. If using a stress ball, pay attention to both how the surface feels and the squeezing motion.
A tip I read in the New York Times is to pay attention to objects’ colors and either say them aloud or in your mind. For example, blue shirt, brown table, red flower.
The moment we bring awareness to our emotion, it starts to lose its force. It is like opening the pot’s lid while boiling water allowing the gas to escape so there is less force for the water to spill out of the pot.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” Maya Angelou, American poet, and civil rights activist
2) Invoke empathy and compassion
Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have and know. In the same way that I should not expect a five-year old kid to do complicated math, I should not expect the DMV employee at the window to be responsible for the website’s lack of content. He or she has probably been yelled at for the same reason several times already.
Empathy is one of the most powerful human capabilities. Even though there are people who are more naturally empathetic than others, we all can learn and practice empathy skills.
Even if you do not manage to provide the “perfect empathic response”, showing some empathy is better than nothing.
“Learning to stand in someone else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen.” Barack Obama, 44th American President
3) Pick your battles
Depending on the specific event we may need to set boundaries, talk about emotions, and make amends.
For smaller things, we can manage and process them in the moment. We do not need to have epic conversations for every little thing that upsets us.
I will not talk about my feelings for the lack of information on the website with the DMV employee. But I will use time and energy to have a challenging conversation with someone on my team to course correct before things get out of hand.
Stress is in the eye of the beholder.
Sometimes an event can trigger a response of epic proportions. Later on we may discover that the event was not the cause. Something deep down, not processed in the past, unexpectedly resurfaced and the boiling water exploded out of the pot.
“Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others, because the world outside you is only a reflection of the world inside you.” Unknown
One more thing before you go
We are capable of overriding our brain’s unconscious stress response.
When we operate from the non-stress part of our brain, we tap into our creativity, intuition, and inner genius. We see solutions to bring something to reality that we are uncapable of accessing when we are under stress.
A positive mindset creates abundance and possibility regardless of our circumstances or initial outcomes.
As we practice moving from catabolic to anabolic energy, we will access high levels of energy more often. We will operate at a different frequency, with higher clarity, and from a place of wisdom.
Which of these actions will you try first? Please, let us know in the comments.
Source: iPEC Energy Leadership
As a leadership coach, I enable talent to achieve bold goals with high standards. My mission is to empower underrepresented women in the financial industry transition from mid to senior level leadership positions using mental fitness to achieve peak performance, peace of mind, and healthier relationships.