How to protect yourself from an energy vampire?
Energy vampires also choose victims according to certain criteria. Who and why is sucking out our vital energy, how to stop being attractive to them? How to protect yourself from an energy vampire?
Mosquitoes prefer to bite the "sweet": those who emit more carbon dioxide have a high lactic acid content in the blood and a higher body temperature. Energy vampires also choose victims according to certain criteria. Not at the level of the body - they smell the chemistry of our unconscious. How to protect yourself from an energy vampire?
The forces from us suck out our own fears of people we do not understand. You can protect yourself from painful interaction with them by learning something about them that they themselves do not know about.
After a fleeting contact with them, you feel like a dried lemon peel. They know exactly how to hit the quick. Their methods are sophisticated and varied: to fish out the most intimate and it hurts to hit there, drip on the brain for a long time and tediously, criticize, manipulate, yell, devalue, painfully remain silent, prod, make you feel under the plinth. Insidious. Ominous. Merciless.
Who and why is sucking out our vital energy, how to stop being attractive to them?
The main sign of energy vampires
People are not poisonous in and of themselves. An uncontrolled desire to sprinkle with reproaches and unfounded criticism, to offend, to put a spoke in the wheel of others arises when it is impossible to please yourself in any other way.
Tension builds up and at some point pours out on others by accusing them of their own misfortune. Such people unconsciously make claims to others for what is good for them. And then he kicked the kitten - exhaled. He insulted someone from an anonymous account in a dispute or yelled at a subordinate - he felt a release.
In order to feel the beat of life, we strive for a change of impressions. And if you can't get good emotions, all sorts of things are used. Just to diversify your kaleidoscope of perception. Only an unfortunate person unconsciously seeks to do nasty things to another.
An effective remedy for the energy vampire at work
Sasha carried on herself the lion's share of the company's projects; most of the operations could only be fully performed by her. Only she knew what kind of "piece of paper" was needed and how to draw it up correctly so that the matter would move forward, only she had answers to all questions in her baggage of experience. She was always the last one to leave work - after all, her participation was necessary in all current affairs. At the same time, she received unreasonably little thanks from colleagues and management.
Instead of sincere thanks for the quality work, only reproaches and nagging flew in her direction every day. Either her lipstick is too bright, or the font in the commercial proposal is “somehow different,” or her hair “like a lion's,” or the folders on the table are not right. The boss scolded her like a negligent daughter, not feeling the boundaries of what was permissible in business communication.
Sasha was ready to work, completely devoting herself to the cause, but the constant "injections" tormented her. I waited for the weekend, just to take a break from my superior "bloodsucker".
A psychoanalytic perspective on the situation reveals how to protect yourself from the energy vampire at work.
The boss really treated her employees like daughters. She took care of their well-being, scolded when they did not dress warmly in the cold, picked up makeup that was inappropriate for the situation, did something, in her opinion, not perfect. For them, she wanted the best - to get married, have children, but in the meantime, they did the best job. Who else will tell them if not her?
Considering herself more experienced in business and in life, she did not notice that times had changed, that her own business was no longer proceeding according to the laws to which she was accustomed. Once the solid ground of her own professionalism became more and more shaky, there was no real knowledge left that she could convey. Only echoes of the former feeling that "she knows better." When your work, your experience is no longer needed by anyone, tension grows inside. What to teach them if they know everything themselves? It remains to teach. Somehow, only other people's shortcomings, shortcomings, shortcomings are seen by themselves.
The director herself every day experienced an unconscious fear of being out of work, becoming unnecessary. The desire to share experience was looking for a way out. It turned out clumsily, because in stress such people, instead of constructive criticism, unreasonably denigrate. They see people through the distorting mirror of their own dissatisfaction with life.
Why did Sasha more often than others fall under the hot hand? Someone does not care, but she was very worried. Only from her emotional reaction to the next remark, the boss received feedback. There was a feeling she needed so much that at least someone she would teach wisdom, even if she had done some pain before.
Understanding a person, his shortcomings, which he unconsciously projects onto others, we acquire a new skill of interaction. The question no longer arises: "Why do I need this?", but there is an answer that I can give a person who acutely feels a threat to his authority. I can ask for advice, I can listen with interest to his opinion, I can patiently and calmly substantiate my point of view, I can sincerely thank and do my job as well as I can, only without false sacrifice, but with a feeling of interaction with the team and personal responsibility for the work done.
I can even decide to leave a job that is not satisfying in some way. Having recognized yourself as a real person, you grant yourself the right of a conscious choice.
Vampirism at home - a way to recognize and neutralize
Often we perceive as vampires those people who require our more attention. We suspect those closest to us wanting to use us. Children throw tantrums just to get what they want, mom always pours out a burst of unnecessary information and pricks the most painful, as if it gives her pleasure, dad only does what he complains about health, then the president, then the system of the universe, and the husband just indifferent to everything.
A lump of experiences accumulates, the feeling grows that for all household you are just a function. Iron shirts, pack up a briefcase, cook dinner, take to the doctor, wash, clean, please. The squirrel is in the wheel, and while the wheel is spinning, no one will pay attention to what the squirrel is like.
Where does this exhausting feeling come from that you are an inconspicuous and useless screw that everyone just strives to scratch?
Fragile natures often hide their souls under an impenetrable shell. Let no one know what you are really worried about, dreaming, what the future is. Let it forever remain in a children's diary, in dreams, in tears on the pillow that no one will see. In a state of deprivation of happiness, it seems to her that the solution to her problem is in the answer to the question of how to protect herself from the energy vampire husband. The superwoman doesn't cry. Doesn't share feelings, doesn't trust - they won't understand anyway. They will laugh, devalue, offend.
Fear of pain prevents us from opening up to those closest to us. A big heart, which could envelop all the household with a wave of its love, is limited to performing everyday tasks in relation to them. And most of all it suffers from this itself. Shrinks from lack of sensory interaction. Only emotional exchange gives the owner of the visual vector a feeling of happiness. And if it is scary to open up to the closest, they become the most distant. After all, you expect a response and understanding from them, you make them responsible for your joy, and instead of warmth, the question of how to protect yourself from the energy vampire at home comes like a wave.
Pulling your real self out of the protective shell, feeling your heart's desires and getting to know others, being able to listen to and share your innermost - without these skills, a person with a visual vector cannot stop feeling used.
Three best ways to defend against energy vampires
My openness is my armor
It seems that if you open up to people, show your feelings, your imperfections, you will certainly be offended, humiliated, betrayed. But it works the opposite way. Really opening up to others, you go to them with a white flag. And that changes everything.
That's how you come to a new place of work. While you are not sure of anything, you can shine with little. I would hide the results of my labor far into the bowels of a computer, without showing it to anyone. I'll figure it out myself someday, I will decide for myself what's what. Years in … twelve. But the matter requires a result here and now. To admit that you don’t know something, that you need help in something, means taking a step forward, raising your colleagues to the level of teachers, stepping off the pedestal of invented perfection in order to find the optimal solution to work problems together. Only in engaging interactions with others can you feel safe among people.
I understand - I'm not afraid
There are people who seem to be building an invisible impenetrable wall, they cannot be reached. You talk to him about the most important things, cry, laugh, try to please, and in return - indifference and silence. When you don't get feedback on your emotions, you feel uncomfortable. Coldness repels. You start to avoid such contact. And if this is a close person and you can't run away from him, you have to think about how to protect yourself from the energy vampire in the family.
The owners of the sound vector, with all their inner disposition to a person, cannot express themselves as emotionally as people with a visual vector. In an attempt to draw out emotions from them, they are more likely to close their shell even more tightly.
How to open it up and make contact pleasant for both parties?
- Never raise your voice when talking to him. Switch to screeching - he won't speak to you again.
- Be able to put feelings into words. Only meanings dispose such a person to close interaction.
- To understand what is important to him, to be able to hear not himself, but another in a conversation.
A wide road to the senses
Sensual openness is not an exalted display of one's soul; it is a willingness to feel the other. But what to do when you are ready to understand another person and share his trouble, and he cannot answer you in kind?
Sveta was always ready to listen to her friend. She could call for any reason: either her salary is delayed, the guy doesn't call, the dress doesn't fit. In response to the mournful stories, she received not just indifferent ears, she empathized with Sveta with all her heart, she herself sometimes burst into tears, listening to another friend's drama. It seemed to her that there was a kindred soul in the world, as fragile and vulnerable as herself. But when Sveta needed support, her friend brushed it off, turned the conversation over to herself and soon ended it, rushing to shop.
Having similar qualities in some way, we begin to see ourselves in others. And here I would be in her place … and she … It does not fit in my head why a person does this, because "I would never have done this / I could not do that."
The properties of the visual vector, despite the similarity, manifest themselves in different people in different ways. We all need an emotional connection. But someone develops to a level where they are able to empathize with the feelings of another, while someone has received emotional trauma on the way of becoming and has not learned to see more widely than oneself. Such people do not know tears of joy for another person, they do not know how to believe in someone, to dream so that someone's desire will come true. Their feeling of happiness shrank to the extent of their own reflection in the mirror.
You can protect yourself from disappointment in such communication by giving your emotions a wider platform for expressing yourself. Do you want your feelings to be heard and understood? Express them in poetry or music, in a script or a picture, in a sincere conversation with those who also dream big and who need support in the implementation of their idea.
The main amulet against energy vampires
Each of the 8 billion people strives for pleasure every moment of their lives. We are attracted by those people who can bring us pleasure and receive it from us. All life is in this interchange.
The format of this interaction is determined by our innate properties of the psyche and internal state. Do we know what brings us real pleasure, or are we each time surprised by the coincidence of circumstances that again led to the same "trough"?
When we ourselves have not yet found our source of joy and security, it seems that everyone around us just wants to stab us in the back. Are we ready to cooperate ourselves with an open heart, or, seeing all potential enemies, keep our fists ready behind our backs?
When we manage to take off our armor and turn to people with sincere feelings, then fear has no place in our hearts. Instead of self-defense against imaginary energy vampires, we begin to understand others, consciously choose our environment and enjoy contact with people.
