The Indicator Light of Energy

Remember the last post about exhaustion and the holidays....well here we are in the midst of it. Christmas is over, and now we are cleaning, organizing, planning, and getting ready to usher the new year in. It is all positive, optimistic, and rewarding.

But we are still in the unstructured pattern of the holidays.

This morning I woke up not sure what day it was, my responsibilities, my commitments, it was all overwhelming. As I made my coffee, I got a quick visual in my head:

My energy indicator was lit up warning me.

Low energy. Brake. Check in. 

So I did. How did I do that?

I told a friend at work that my indicator light went off. 

I thought about my energy use for the rest of the day.

I packed a lunch to be sure I had fuel.

I delegated and let go of the little things. 

By letting someone in on my energy level, she was able to watch my back. She did it without much to do, but she was able to help me take my own edge off. By thinking about how much energy I had, I was able to not get frustrated and overwhelmed. I ate on time and didn't feel depleted. I felt like I was able to accomplish a lot without using my energy due to delegating (I had movers come clean out a room at the spa today, hired a painter, asked my assistant to do all my marketing tasks, and had made a list of to dos at home that all got done, like the Christmas tree is down). That's a tall order for someone on empty.

Learn to see your warning light and listen to the alert. Then have a plan to correct easily.

Your tool to use is The 50 Point Energy Plan.

Holiday Energy Plan: How to Avoid the Jungle of Exhaustion

I know you have a plan for the holidays: a gift list, a card list, a calendar of events.

But have you planned your energy? Time to start.

You have 50 points a day to spend on energy. Just because it is the holidays does not mean that you can spend your energy wildly. To do so will put you into energy depletion, which will then lead to you getting sick.

This is the 7th Christmas the spa has been open. The first 5 years I led my staff into a jungle of exhaustion. "This way," I encouraged and showed them how my exhaustion led to my sudden illness every season. Around the New Year, I would get violently ill with the worst flu like symptoms.

This is my visual of the jungle of exhaustion.

Now, I plan my energy points around the holidays, and I plan the spa points too.

To stay healthy this is what we do at the spa.

• We do not schedule spa services on Christmas Eve Day. 
• We are closed Christmas Day and the day after.
• We schedule a holiday party for January so we aren't cramming too much in an already crazy month.
• We use hospital grade disinfection on all surfaces daily to keep every client and staff member healthy.
• We make time to get treatments and feel good about ourselves.
• We don't stress about caloric intake and gluten for a week or two.
• We communicate about energy. We ask each other how everyone is feeling. If someone is able to verbalize they are overwhelmed, we listen. 

This is where I lead my team now.

We are happier, healthier, and better able to give the spa treatments we want to give and make connections with each client when we are traveling down this path. 

Use your energy in a way that fits you. 

My friends want me to do the plan for them.

You know you are on to something when one of your best friends from out of state calls you and says,
"Sara, I am totally overwhelmed and have gotten sick this week. I need you to do the plan with me".

This is the perfect example of noticing that the plan needs to be done. It is these moments where we are aware that our energy is depleted, are noticing physical symptoms, and need to get out of bottom dead center.

While she sat in her car, we reviewed her 5 energy pods and figured out where she is mismanaging her energy points.

Want to know where she is depleted and what she needs to do? Stay tuned.....I will let you know next blog post!

Crazy Idea

If my father has a catch phrase, it's "Listen to my crazy idea".

I grew up in a house where crazy ideas were good, and when he said these words, I would always lean in a little closer.

He taught me to have Crazy Ideas  (CI) and to share them.

My current CI is this:

If you have a social security card, as soon as you turn a certain age, say 15, you get a voucher on your birthday to use at a spa/wellness center. Make it a $50 voucher, Happy Birthday from Uncle Sam. You can then use this voucher at places that meet the governments regulations (blah blah blah) and the spa/wellness center can then have a reimbursement system. An easy one.

I have pitched this idea to a state senator even. He rolled his eyes, but this is why I like it.

• It proves that the government cares about the individual.
• It is equal.
• It is powerful to be touched, especially on days that have meaning.
• It would cut down on crime.
• It would reduce health care costs.
• It would introduce the whole population to positive wellness prevention.
• It is fun. 
• It would stir the economy up.

Trust me, there will be more crazy ideas to come. And I hope you lean in.

Sara

The Plan in the News!

http://physical-therapy.advanceweb.com/Archives/Article-Archives/Positive-Energy.aspx

My love/hate relationship......

I love and hate the term "wellness".

I love my concept of wellness, which is being balanced enough to make rational decisions and judgements to keep you from going into chronic energy depletion. That to me is being well.

Insurance companies, corporate America, and others have turned the term wellness into a garbage bin definition  of what they are trying to sell you. Wellness models, wellness practices, wellness strategies. They sound ok, but there is little meaning or substance behind it unless you are focused on prevention.

And to focus on prevention, you have to get way, way, way ahead of it. I take care of myself as a Type I diabetic so that I can prevent complications that can happen 60 years from the original diagnosis. That's a long time to be preventing, and a long view of wellness.

As a physical therapist, all I was doing was treating the pathology that I felt could have been prevented if I had just gotten my hands on you sooner! Doing straight leg raises and ROM after a stroke was not rewarding enough for me. I wanted my client to never have ever been in that place.

I had to leave traditional medicine and my clinical practice in order to practice true wellness. I had to get the insurance companies out of my way, create a spa environment that clients wanted to be in, and use my skills to keep you away from disability. To keep you doing the things you love at 85 years old, I need to see you at 40 for monthly massages.

My mission and passion is to get you to take care of you, to be balanced, and to not think of wellness services like massage as a luxury. You are worth it.

College Kids and Balance

I was invited to speak at Middlebury College to students who wanted to listen to my presentation on work/life balance. It was fascinating and interactive and this is what I learned.

• They feel like they work too much, and school work overrides every other energy pod
• They are aware that they leak energy in technology, but do not have good modeling behavior to learn otherwise.
• They learned that compliments can be a disarming tool for negative behavior. They practiced how to give an authentic compliment.
• They understood that when this plan is used correctly, there is no guilt about having or not having energy. One girl wrote on her paper, "Guilt is dumb".
• They struggle with commitments, either having too many or none at all. Having nothing to do on a weekend causes them anxiety.
• Decisions are difficult for them, and they feel frustrated by how to go about making larger life decisions on classes, study abroad programs, and jobs. They want to know where to put these energy points. (Work)
• They realized that they dont spend enough time being inspired, and want to figure out how to fit that in.
• They learned that sometimes you have to say to someone, "That doesn't work for me".  You don't have to go along with something that is causing more stress than you can handle. We role played an interaction where a demanding project mate wants to do "their" version, and learned how to stop the energy leak and turn the interaction around.

Everyone struggles with similar energy imbalances, whether you are a 50 year old woman with teenagers, or a college student with newfound independence. The 50 Point Energy Plan works for everyone. 

On the Road....

The 50 Point Energy Plan is hitting the road!

I am thrilled and excited about teaching The 50 Point Energy Plan on Monday to Middlebury College Students. The college years are a great time to start thinking about work/life balance, and how to spend your energy in the ways that you want and need in order to stay out of chronic energy depletion. Chronic energy depletion will lead to illness. 

The stories of kids who get run down and get mono, or bronchitis, or generally don't feel well can absolutely begin with more stress, more work, and imbalance of the other energy pods. My job as a speaker is to let them know that they have the power to manage their energy, to know when enough is enough, and to track their energy use.

I am excited to hear what they have to say about energy leaking while at school, the difficulties they have managing their different energy pods, and how technology is affecting their health. The topic of technology is important to me, and I put it in the Environment pod. Limiting and using your technology points is essential to be balanced.

Again, the energy pods are Commitments, Health, Environment, Work and Inspiration. My instinct is that they will feel that Work is the most overused pod and either environment or inspiration is the least used. I will let you know what energy struggles are for 18-22 year olds after I meet with them. I can assure you that their energy struggles are real, and they are impacting their health. 

Balance and Health: The Connection

The connection between personal energy balance and health is undeniable.

When you are out of balance, overwhelmed, and in a cycle of chronic energy depletion you are more likely to become physically ill.

Why?

Your immune system is overwhelmed, your fight and flight hormones are raging, your calming/bonding hormones are not released into your system, your sleep is affected, and your body generally feels run down.

My mission is to give you a system to notice your personal energy Before You Feel Out of Balance.
The 50 Point Energy Plan is a way to trend how you are currently using your energy, and a way to fill the gaps in your energy balance to avoid becoming overwhelmed.

I can show you study upon study where the immune system becomes depleted due to stress. I think most of us are aware that this happens and we can almost our own predict illness. Haven't you ever said, "Watch, now I am going to get sick on top of all this going on".

I am on a mission to keep you as healthy as possible and am developing a tool to make that happen.

A few words from our sponsors.....

Dream sequence........If I were to write a cheesy Infomercial on Energy......

Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and burnt out?

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This plan slices and dices your energy so that you can use it!

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Contact Sara Daly for more details and shipping costs.

Visualize Balance

This is my image of balance. When I asked others their image, I heard the scales of justice, a sandy beach, floating, a yoga pose, walking on a balance beam. Have an image in your head so when you feel like "OUTOFCONTROL!!" you can use your image to ground you.

Here is another quick visualization tip: When you visualize something, whether it be a brand new car, a quiet beach, or strong abs, your brain lights up. The areas of your brain that are used for pleasure and reward light up whether you are actually receiving the reward or if you are visualizing it. Read that again. What an amazing tool.

You get the benefit from imagining what you want as if you have already gotten it. That's why we feel good when we think of the things we want to do once we win the lottery. Try it with other parts of your life.

The first part to having the things you want in life is to actually know what they are first! Visualizing narrows down your desires so that you brain can focus and start to find the positive things you want and need in your life.

More on this tomorrow when we talk about how once you buy a new car, you see about 100 a day on the road when you never saw them before.

Balance

BALANCE:

a state in which a body or object remains reasonably steady, a state in which various elements form a satisfying and harmonious whole and nothing is out of proportion or unduly emphasized at the expense of the rest.

 A state of emotional and mental stability in which somebody is calm and able to make rational decisions and judgments.

This is the definition of balance that I use when teaching The 50 Point Energy Plan. The parts of the definition that makes the biggest impact for me is "reasonable steady". Balance does not imply perfection. Nothing is "unduly emphasized at the expense of the rest". Balance is "rational decisions and judgements". 

These are some of the core principles of the plan. 

If you were to draw a picture of balance, what would that image look like? 

Leave me your thoughts and I will post a photo tomorrow of my balance image.

Why 50?

What does 50 have to do with the plan? Good question.

The goal of The 50 Point Energy Plan is to give you something tangible to work with while describing your energy.  The concept of personal energy is like trying to collect clouds and put them in a box. I wanted to give you a numbers system to quantify your feelings of energy.

In this plan, every morning when you wake up, you have 50 energy points. So does everyone else on the planet. Through research, listening, and coaching clients with chronic energy depletion, I have found that energy use and depletion is focused into 5 main categories, or as I say, energy pods.

Those pods of energy are Commitments, Health, Environment, Work, and Inspiration.

The plan gives you 10 points to use in each category. The goal: to use all 10 in each per day without going over. This gives you "Balance" which keeps you out of chronic energy depletion, and keeps you from getting ill. In my next post, I will describe the my definition of balance, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow morning I start case studies with 3 women who are hoping to transform their energy by completing a 6 week intensive program in personal energy research. I am so excited about it as I cannot wait to write about these moments that they will share with me, and ultimately the reader.

Please comment as you wish below as it helps my blog to be discussed and shared.

Sara

Do you take better care of your Washing Machine than Yourself?

Would you like to feel more balanced and healthy?
Do you wish there was an easy formula for success?

After years of thinking about this problem, which happens to every human on the planet, I realized that I needed to come up with a solution. My solution to chronic energy depletion is The 50 Point Energy Plan.

Besides the fact that chronic energy depletion sounds terrible, it is in fact is terrible. Chronic energy depletion causes illness and disease. There is no nobility in using more energy than we have. There is no reason to feel like we live an unbalanced life. Most of us don't realize we are unbalanced until our bodies yell at us to stop.

You know the reaction when you put a large load of sheets in the washer? And you think to yourself, maybe there is too much in this load, but oh well. 20 minutes later you hear the unbalanced washer smashing itself against the dryer. Your body has a similar reaction when you are unbalanced, throwing stress hormones and high blood pressure around in your body.

When we hear the washer moaning, we go fix it. We re-arrange the load and start it again. We wait to see if its ok, as we know that sometimes we have to open it again and redistribute.

When you are unbalanced, you need to fix it. Immediately. Figure out where you are unbalanced. Have strategies in place to change it today.

That is what The 50 Point Energy Plan is: your solution to the problem of misused energy.

Contact Sara Daly at saradaly77@gmail.com or 802-349-8620 for more details on how to manage energy personally, for corporations, and for speaking opportunities.