Close your eyes and think about the dessert that you like the most. Think about the last time you ate it and how it made you feel. What was its flavor? Where were you when you ate it? What were you doing?
Close your eyes and think about that moment. If you do it, I bet your energy changes.
You start feeling in a certain way, connected to that moment. You feel excited and have this sense of desire. You feel absorbed by the taste and the experience itself. You feel like you want to go back there.
And while you feel all these, everything else disappears.
You have no problems, no worries, no thoughts, no mental garbage. It’s all gone.
Coming back to the present moment, when you are reading this article, you may feel like there’s no energy. You don’t feel anything special, like when you ate that dessert. At best, you feel neutral. You feel like there’s nothing to feel.
That’s fine.
All I wanted you to realize is how it feels when you experience that flow of energy. Now you know how to spot it next time it will happen. And trust me, it will!
Now you have a point of reference for what to look for and that is very important. You know how to recognize it. And because of that, you’ll be able to follow it.
What happens if you follow it and you fail?
Keep following the energy.
Everything that happens to us is a lesson for us to learn from, as long as we stay in a positive state.
Instead of saying “my life is over”, say “from this experience I’m learning that …”. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
According to my fatalistic beliefs (the ones that I used to have and I don’t anymore), I should have been dead by now. Last year, I set myself a death wish (I know, it sounds weird) and I strongly believed that by March, this year, I would be dead.
Well, I’m still here and I believe I’m not leaving anytime soon.
Since the autumn of 2024, I followed the activities that gave me energy so many times and I failed almost every time. But if I don’t look at the result (the failures themselves), then I realize that my life was full of lessons that I had to learn.
I had to learn to set boundaries so people won’t take me for granted.
I had to learn to better describe what I bring to the table so there’s no confusion.
I had to learn to work with others and find those that complete my skills instead of trying to do everything myself.
And the list goes on.
But I got where I am today. And this place is amazing. And yes, I still struggle with a few things.
I am more optimistic than I ever was. I am more at peace than I ever was. My state of mind doesn’t depend on external events.
All the lessons from these past two years helped me understand life and how life works beyond identity and ego, beyond time and space, beyond wants and needs.
Therefore, I say to you, follow whatever gives you energy. Follow it all the way!
When you follow the energy, opportunities unlock
Have you ever done something, without no other reason than just feeling like you have to do it and, when you did it, something unexpected but very positive happened?
It happened to me a few times.
I meet people in very random ways and I got to spend quality time with them.
I learned new things about old ideas and it changed my way of looking at them.
And probably the coolest one, because of synchronicities, I visited Japan.
I was on my 2nd Camino de Santiago (walked over 800 KM from Lisbon, back in 2023) and, in the second week, if I remember correctly, I met Naoki – a Japanese who was living in London.
We didn’t speak too much about Japan. In my mind, visiting Japan was too expensive to even think about it.
But later that night, I opened Reddit and the first thing I saw was a post from r/Solotravel of a woman who traveled alone to Japan, for 21 days. Thanks to that post, my mind opened and in 2024 I visited Japan for one month.
That’s because I decided to do the 2nd Camino in 2023. And that happened because I decided to do the first Camino in 2022. And that happened because I heard many people talk about it and I thought it was a very cool experience.
The biggest setback when you follow the energy
If you keep following the energy and you keep failing, the biggest setback is connected to going back to your old thoughts and behaviors.
Following the energy means being in the state that allows you to follow that energy and feel just like you did when you thought about the dessert.
When you’re not in that state, it’s easy to get distracted.
You can get distracted by what your boss said. You can get distracted because there’s no more coffee. You can get distracted by what is going on in the neighborhood. You can get distracted because the stocks went down (or up). You can get distracted by the rain.
Basically, anything can shift your energy and attention.
When that happens, your old thoughts and behaviors come back whether you want it or not.
Therefore, follow whatever gives you energy and let go of whatever drains it.
There’s no need for you to force things into your life just because you think you need them.
With love and optimism,
David
Photo by David The Optimist on Unsplash