Some people just make us feel nervous, drained or depleted after spending time with them. These people are popularly known as energy vampires. It’s good to know how to recognize them and understand why they make us feel the way they do. Also, it’s important to know how to protect yourself from them.
The first thing to know is that we can all be energy vampires sometimes. Also, a person that feels like a vampire to you might be perfectly fine for someone else. Not only can a person take your energy. They can also give you energy you don’t want or can accommodate at the moment. So, be mindful if you are giving more energy than necessary. Also, it’s important to remember here that nobody can take your energy from you if you don’t allow it. Times when people do manage to drain your energy is if they trigger something in you for some reason or if you haven’t set your boundaries straight.
What Does It Mean to Be an Energy Vampire?
People who make us feel unwell or drained after meeting them are popularly known as energy vampires. These are people that feed off your compassionate and caring energy. They try to use you as a doormat or as someone to whom they can dump all their personal problems, real or invented.
Generally they’re self-centered and manipulative. They can be drama queens, always in some big personal trouble. Or the attention seekers. And then there are the naysayers, who always have an objection or a counter argument to what you’re saying. The ‘I know better’ people, the self-confidence thieves, the criticizers, the narcissists. They make everything about them. They are so hungry for the spotlight that they will use every moment they get to make the conversation about them. And they may not even know consciously what they are doing! They just know that it works. They lost their moral compass a bit.
Energy Vampires Are Very Very Hungry People
The best thing is not to take it personally. If it weren’t for you, they would do this to someone else. These people didn’t spend much time looking into themselves.
As Mirjana Andrejevic Petronijevic, Reiki master and healer, explained to us, the energy drainage happens for one of the two reasons, or both:
- we didn’t set our boundaries well, or
- this person triggers something in us.
So, if we don’t establish some boundaries, it’s likely that people will take everything that they can get from us. And also, if you perceive someone as negative, perhaps it’s possible to change your perception. Maybe this person is in pain? That’s not to say that it’s your responsibility to assuage the pain. Understanding the situation can make it easier to understand what’s going on, and whether it’s your trigger being activated or if it’s something that has nothing to do with you.
This is also a great time to learn about healthy empathy. Knowing how to show a healthy dose of empathy means that you will not take on more than feels good for you. It’s about showing respect and compassion for yourself and what feels right for you. You have to take care of yourself first. This is a super important thing to remember when dealing with energy vampires.
Our Research on Energy Vampires
We administered a little questionnaire to 35 people to see how they felt about energy vampires.
To our question whether they know anyone who they consider an energy vampire, 94.3% said yes. These were usually family members (44.1%), acquaintances (29.4%), and coworkers (29.4%), and less so close friends (20.6%), neighbors (11.8%) and employers (5.9%).
The most common types of energy vampires were those that:
- complain all the time (52.9%)
- criticize everything (41.2%)
- blame everyone else without ever taking responsibility (if you recognize yourself here, perhaps take a look at our article on how to stop feeling like a victim.)
- are full of drama (35.3%)
- make you feel guilty (29.4%)
- are annoyed all the time (26.5%)
When we asked our survey participants how they deal with energy vampires,
- 58.8% said that they avoid them
- 50% said that they shorten the time they spend with them
- and only 23.5% said that they tell them to stop doing it
The graph above shows us that most people avoid having an open conversation about this.
If the person is not important to us, then this makes sense. The problem arises when these people who are our loved ones or someone close to us. Instead of speaking up and standing up for ourselves, we compromise the quality of that relationship. As mentioned, maybe this person doesn’t even know what they are doing or how it’s making you feel.
How to Deal With Energy Vampires
1. Learn to say ‘No’.
We showed you here how to use yoga for that. Read that article to see how yoga can help you set healthy boundaries
2. Limit your time with them.
Know how much you can take. Perhaps go for coffee with them, but don’t invite them over afterwards.
3. Say that you’re tired.
They feed off of your energy, so if there’s no energy coming from you, they will walk away.
4. Remain cool.
They also feed off of any reaction you may give them. Especially if they are aggressive, for example. So, keep breathing and do not overreact.
5. Check in with someone who knows more about them.
Especially in the case of gaslighters, do ask someone else how they feel about the person.
6. Protect yourself.
Imagine a glass mirror in front of them. And focus on that mirror instead of them. If in a public space, imagine a pyramid of mirrors around you. Or, imagine a glass wall surrounding you. In there you are safe. Also, you may say a prayer to a deity you believe in. Or you can wear white clothes because it reflects everything, not just the light, but also other people’s energy. (Sadhguru)
7. Cleanse afterwards.
Take a shower after spending time with them to cleanse. You can also give yourself a salt scrub.
8. Treat them like a cactus.
I read this somewhere on a blog. Just treat people like cactus trees. No expectations from a cactus, right? And they are prickly, so you might as well expect them to poke you if you come too close to them.
9. Develop the skill of healthy empathy.
Then, you will know when you are giving more than it feels right for you.
10. Be grounded in yourself.
That’s the paradox of empathy – the more anchored you are in your sense of you, the better you can sense others. If you feel overwhelmed, remind yourself of the physical space between you and the other person. Sense the boundaries of your skin. Remind yourself – not my circus, not my monkey.
11. Practice discernment.
Ask yourself non-judgmentally: “How is this person making me feel? Where do I feel it in my body? Why do I feel this?”
12. Let your emotions pass through you
If you do sense strong physical reactions to someone else’s emotions, you can also try to let these pass through you.
13. Wish yourself well.
Say in your mind, “May I be well, may I be safe, may I be happy.”
14. Learn to get centered.
As we mentioned in our article on centering, ask yourself many times a day “How am I” and really stop to think about it, feel your body and all its sensations. Remember that you have a body. And respond positively to this fact. Check in, ‘how is my body now’. This question helps you develop awareness, and awareness gives us choice. Having choices over how we want to be is a beautiful thing. And when we are centered in ourselves, nothing can shake us up.
15. Lastly: Speak Up About It
Speaking up is a great way to preserve your energy if this person or the relationship is someone or something you care about.
Example 1:
The other day I was having lunch with a great great friend of mine, a sweet soul loved by many human beings on this planet. I like to be quiet during a meal simply because I can’t put my energy on two things at the same time. Talking about the food we eat is fine for me, but talking about other subjects I really don’t like.
My friend on the other hand loves to talk. And I know this. She had mentioned before that when she doesn’t eat with her husband, she turns on the TV because it’s too quiet for her. So, knowing her well, I didn’t say anything. But as she kept on and on and on, I felt my mood go down. She noticed something was off, asked me what it was, and I said it was nothing. I didn’t want to be rude.
Then she started asking me questions. For me that was the line. I said “I don’t talk while I eat,” and she kept quiet. After that I laughed and let out a sigh of relief (it was a huge relief!), to which she replied: “Thank you!” Because she knew something was off, she just couldn’t tell what it was. Was my friend an energy vampire at that moment? Of course not. I just needed to speak up about what I need.
Many unpleasant situations can be avoided when we speak our mind and say what we like and don’t like.
Example 2:
I have another acquaintance who loves to talk. To make things worse, he is a student of philosophy. It means that there’s a fair share of philosophizing he likes to do. I don’t mind this because he’s smart and I like philosophy. What I do mind is when I try to talk about the things I do, such as embodiment, for example, he interrupts me because he knows best. He did this several times. This really triggers me because listening to another person is a sign of respect in my book, and especially because I listen to him.
So, I got pretty agitated when he didn’t listen to me. And I told him that. He denied having interrupted me, we quarreled a bit and then made up. After a while we started talking about something else and he was about to interrupt me again, but then he stopped and said: “Shit, I almost did it again.’ To this I said, ‘Thank you!’ I was so happy because he realized it.
So, sometimes people do things unconsciously. Calling them out on it is a good way to get them to stop. Of course, it might get awkward, but basically you are fighting for your rights.
Example 3:
An acquaintance who has a beauty salon told me she has a friend who, when she comes over, complains about the same thing over and over again. Then my acquaintance simply told her kindly “Please, you told me this story so many times, I don’t want to listen to it any more,” to which her friend apologized and stopped doing it.
So much can be avoided if you just say how you feel. Setting your boundaries doesn’t have to frighten you. The easiest thing is to speak how you feel, without polishing or mincing your words. Just be honest. If they don’t like it, that’s up to them. It’s up to you that you send your message across kindly and compassionately.
How to Go About Speaking Up?
It’s simple. Talk about yourself and how you feel in the given situation. Use the pronoun ‘I’ more and ‘you’ less, so you don’t put the other person on the defense mode. The formula which you can use and which we covered in our article on mindful nonviolent communication is pretty straighforward:
When (make an observation) happens, I feel (express your feeling) because I need (express your need). Can you please (make a specific request)?
Example:
“When you complain about your boss, I feel drained because I heard that story many times, and nothing ever changes. I feel a need to have conversations with you which are more productive than that. Can you please skip talking to me about your boss in the future?”
There are more ways that breathing, meditation techniques and yoga poses can help you communicate better. We covered that in detail here.
Conclusion: Take Care of Yourself First
As the flight attendants like to say, put on your mask first. Try not to lose yourself in other people’s intentions and needs. Always stay with yourself. This is the best way to know if someone is giving or stealing energy from you. And if they are stealing, here we suggested about 15 different ways to go about this. Good luck and stay strong.
Tatjana Glogovac, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active
Learn more about Tatjana by reading her bio below.
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