The Energy Candle

(5 min read)

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“Where you place your attention is where you place your energy.”

Joe Dispenza

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Imagine every human being as a candle, more specifically a candle in a glass bowl or jar. Just like the ones you take out onto the balcony, terrace or garden table in the evenings. A candle’s flame offers us light, warms our hearts and makes our homes cosy and comfortable. We as human beings are doing just the same with our way of interacting with others: a smile or tender touch, a calming or uplifting word here and there, or just our presence. Even the tiniest gesture can have a huge impact if well placed.

 

Take a moment and think about the following questions: Does anyone in your life have this gift of making everyone around them feel comfortable or have you been told by others that they feel that way around you? If you have been told, how do you feel about it? Maybe close your eyes for a moment, take a couple of breaths and remember…

 

And now try to remember how you feel after interactions within your closest or most regular relationships. Do you feel energized and rested or rather like having a siesta? Taking the time to make this observation is especially important for any highly sensitive persons as we tend to give a lot of energy to other without even realising it.

 

Let’s go back to the image of the candle and its flame. There are two types of candles and depending on your awareness, upbringing or learning process, you are either one or the other.

 

The first candle is the one I mentioned in the beginning. The glass jar represents your physical body and the wax of the candle your internal battery or energy depository. The flame stands for all the beautiful gifts, gestures and services you give to others. A flame takes the energy to burn from the wax of the candle and when this wax is all used up, the flame goes out and we need to replace the whole candle with a new one, which costs us time and money. And in the meantime, there is no flame available and therefore no light, warmth or cosiness to give to anyone.

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Let’s take this example into our real life and compare it to a social situation like a dinner at a big restaurant with friends. Introverts and highly sensitive persons like us struggle with such a setting. At first, we are all smiles and laughter, we make everybody feel welcome and listened to, and so on. After a while, however, our energy level drops and we begin to feel drained. We can’t concentrate anymore on what is being said, we get easily irritated by small things and we start to long for a quiet place where we can rest our ears and minds. If we stay for too long, our flame will go out and we will leave the dinner empty handed, feeling disappointed, because leaving like this makes us feel unsociable and not really able to have fun.

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The challenge with this type of candle is that you can’t simply refill it. You always need to withdraw the old wax, replace it with a new one and lighten it. If you are on time, you will be able to use the old flame to lighten up the new candle. If the flame has gone out, before you had the chance to use it, you will have to find and rely on an external fire source, which is way more difficult to do as there isn’t always one available. If this is you, it’s recommendable to always have new candles in stock at home, because otherwise it will be quite time-consuming to get a new one when the old one is out of wax. With no candle and no flame to give yourself light, energy and positivity, it can be quite a challenge.

 

A nice way to avoid this is to learn and observe in order to become a refillable candle with liquid wax, also known as oil lamp. Sounds promising, right? Imagine your body is made of glass just the same, but it’s a closed recipient with a little whole on the top where the wick sticks out and another opening, at a little distance from the wick, which is closed by a perfectly fitting glass plug. This glass body contains the liquid wax or oil, our source of energy. The beauty of this lamp is that it can be refilled at any given moment and while the flame stays where it is and therefore without interrupting the flow of light, warmth and cosiness. This is an important point, because the light, warmth and cosiness aren’t just meant for others. Some of it (or a lot) needs to be given to ourselves. And if the flame goes out, we’re not capable of giving ourselves anything and we need to rely on the external sources mentioned before to give us a new spark that restarts our flame. It’s a situation of dependence.

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Let’s go back to our social situation. Imagine us introverts as an oil lamp. What can we do? We can constantly find little sources of energy for ourselves in order to maintain our lamp as full as possible until the event is over and we can fully recharge at home. This could be a 5 min walk outside in the fresh air, a moment of disconnecting from the conversation and meditating with our eyes open, 5 min going to the toilet and escaping the noise or changing places if it would help to sit next to a different person.

 

As said in the quote at the top, where we place our attention is where we place our energy. So instead of giving all of our light and energy to others, we can choose to give some of it to ourselves instead by focussing on our body and its needs, even if it’s just for a short while. It works wonders.

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A curious side note here: An extroverted oil lamp would fill up during the same situation; up to the point where the flame becomes bigger and bigger. Imagine …

 

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Some questions for self-observation:

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• Which of the two candles are you right now?

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• How do you recharge best and do you experience a lot of situations in which your flame goes out and you need to find a spark to lighten it again?

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• How are your loved ones?

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Think about all your relationships: your partner, friends or family. How do you feel after spending time with them? Do you experience physical reactions like headaches, indigestion or back pains? It can also be subtler. Sometimes I yawn around people or in certain situations, or I feel like lying down and having a siesta, or I need a lot of chocolate. All those reactions tell me that I am using more energy than I have to offer and that I need to do something about it. Sometimes I simply need to exit the situation, sometimes I need to have a cry to flush out some bottled-up emotions or the pressure that I am feeling inside, and other times I just need to talk about it with someone who is present and who understands.

 

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Your body talks to you. Are you ready to listen?

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Observe and stay curious. And if you would like to share your experiences with me, write me an e-mail. I will be happy to hear from you.

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