How to Deal with Energy Vampires

Is there someone in your family that drains your energy, that perhaps even verbally or emotionally or mentally abuses you, and God forbid physically abuses you?

We call those people energy vampires, people that drain you off your energy. Now, energy vampires are all around us, but sometimes those energy vampires are relatives

and sometimes they're family members. And when they're family members, it becomes a lot more difficult and a lot more challenging in making a decision

on how to deal with them. The first step really is to make a decision yourself whether you want to continue to allow people around you to give them permission to drain your energy.

Because remember, for every bit of energy they drain from you, it's energy that you could have invested in the people and things that you love. It's energy you could have invested into your passions,

your hobbies, into your dreams, to manifesting your goals, anything that you want in your life. But if these people are consistently in your life and they're consistently draining your energy,

then you really have to think and ask yourself, why is it you're permitting them to drain your energy? So what do you do? If it's a family member, if it's a sibling,

if it's a parent, someone really close in the innermost circle of your family that's draining your energy. For me, there's always comes down to two questions

when it's a family member or relative. What is the damage being done? That's the first question. And the second question is,

is it tolerable or is it not tolerable? Now, what is the damage being done? Let's look at a simple example. Imagine I had a leaky roof.

My ceiling has a leak and every hour, one drop of water falls down, just one drop every hour. I could put a cup down below, a small towel, an old towel. It's not really a problem.

That problem is tolerable. I can live with that. If water was gushing out of my ceiling, I can't live with that. So something needs to be done.

Similarly, you have to ask yourself if you have a family member that is an energy vampire, who's always been an energy vampire, meaning that you've known them for three decades and for the three decades you've known them, they've been an energy vampire, then you have to ask yourself, what is the damage being done?

Can I tolerate it? If the damage being done is too much to you and you can no longer tolerate it, then you need to do something about it. Because if you don't, that person is perpetually wearing away at you, eating away at the

fabric of your nervous system, of your emotions, your mind, your soul. and breaking you down. And everyone can be broken. Everyone can be broken.

I used to live in Hawaii in my Guru's monastery, and Hawaii is made out of lava rocks. Lava that's been hardened and become, that's formed the island, and there were lava rocks all over the monastery.

These lava rocks were really hard and often quite sharp as well. If you were walking on an barefoot, you could easily cut yourself sometimes. But the lava rocks in the river that was flowing next alongside the monastery border, all the lava rocks in there were nice and smooth.

You could sit on them, they were river rocks, but they were all made of lava rocks. How did they get smooth? Over time, the river flowed, the water flowed over these rocks, making all the sharp edges round and blunt until it became beautiful round rocks,

no longer sharp anymore. But the consistency of the water flowing over these sharp rocks made them nice and rounded. Similarly, if you have an energy vampire in your life who consistently, over weeks, months, years, is eating away at the fabric of your soul, your mind, your emotions, by perpetually being negative, verbally abusive, mentally abusive,

then they're gonna break you down as well. They will take away your confidence, they will eat away at who you are and what makes you you. So you have to make a decision, do I want this person in my life or not? And you have to use wisdom to guide you on how you want to move forward with this person in your life. If

it's tolerable, then you want to be wise on how you interact with the person, set some clear boundaries and clear guidelines and minimize your interactions as well with the energy vampire. If you deem that energy vampires are no longer tolerable in your life, then you no longer

want to communicate with the person. You can set a rule where you say you are affectionately detached from them. You no longer going to interact with them. You no longer going to talk to them.

They are welcome back in your life if they're willing to be uplifting or just neutral. But if they're not willing to be uplifting, then you're not willing to interact with them anymore. It's a difficult decision to make.

If you don't make that difficult decision, you give them permission to beat up on you. And the more they beat up on you, the less you are you, the less you can give your love and care to the people and things that need you. So don't permit that in your life.

Don't allow them to destroy your life because you have one life and it's the most precious gift you have. You should protect it, even from the people that are family members.