Know Your Energy Focus – In or Out?

No matter if you’re an introvert or extrovert, knowing whether your energy is focused inwardly or outwardly can significantly contribute to your happiness and satisfaction levels. Everyone has energy cycles, ups and downs, inward and outward, and you’re the one who knows your own cycle best.

When you’re focused internally, it’s a good time to honor inner guidance and to do some self-reflection. When the focus is external, you can take advantage of the energy to interact with others and the world for your expansion and growth. Both are excellent modes for learning about yourself, but recognizing which energy state you’re in can make the difference between catapulting your growth or inhibiting it.

Pay attention to recognize if you’re feeling internally or externally focused:

Internal Energy Focus

• You prefer and enjoy solitude
• You want to limit your social interaction
• You have an urge for inner reflection or self-exploration
• You experience less energy or want to expend less effort

External Energy Focus

• You want to engage with people
• You gain energy from interactions with others
• You share creative ideas, energy, and output for feedback and exchange
• You have excess energy to expend

Recognizing your energy state is important for aligning your thoughts, feelings, and actions. If you’re in an inward state, but push yourself to engage outwardly because you think you “should,” you do more harm than good for your growth. Likewise, if you stay inwardly focused when your energy would be better served through outward engagement, you’re also limiting yourself.

Why do you sometimes ignore your energy state and do the opposite of what it’s guiding you to? There’s societal pressure, family demands, and internal limitations. Friends press you to come out with them, family invite you to events, and you have your own judgments about yourself. Becoming aware of all forms of distraction can help clear away confusion so you can identify, respect, and ideally embrace your energy state.

Energy can fluctuate day to day, but there are often longer cycles of inward and outward focus, for weeks or months, and that’s ok. You can allow for the ups and downs and use them to your advantage.

For the last few months, I’ve been in a very definite inward focus, mainly because I’m pregnant. This is my first pregnancy and the experience has been nearly all-encompassing, leaving me little energy beyond managing my physical and emotional needs. I’ve been less engaged on the blog and other forums and more focused on diet, exercise, and researching baby equipment (overwhelming!).

For awhile, I felt badly about neglecting my passion for writing and engaging with others until I realized that my creative energy is still there, it’s just being channeled into forming a new human being! Then I was able to let go of self-judgment and allow myself to embrace the inner focus. I was also able to recognize when the focus began tipping into isolation. At that point, I began to push myself to re-connect with others. When I allowed myself to be in each energy state, I accepted myself, and allowed my body and mind to focus on what was necessary for health.

Tune in to Your Energy for Growth

Take a moment to tune in to your energy state. Ask yourself where you prefer to focus your energy now – are you feeling more internal or more external? How do you know? Use the lists above. Ask yourself these questions:

• What kinds of activities do I most want to do?
• Where is my creativity and what do I want to focus it on?
• Who do I want to spend time with?
• What area of growth feels most up for me right now?

Whether your energy is inward or outward, give yourself permission to accept and embrace the cycle.

Sometimes an inward focus means “doing less” – fewer social engagements, fewer “to dos” on your list, fewer overall activities. It may be hard to let go of these activities, which many of us have been trained to believe defines a “productive” life. But doing less externally might mean allowing room to do more internally, whether that’s reflection or meditation or rest or simply leaving space for your clarity or insight to unfold.

If you’re in outward mode, take advantage of the energy to gather information, ideas, and input that will inform your creativity and your passions. It may take some time for all the stimulation to “gel” and become clear ideas, so just enjoy the interchange and the flow.

Where are you on the energy cycle continuum? Leave a comment below to share.

Photo by Vultar Bahr on Unsplash