Consider this a cautionary love note to artists and open-hearted, joyful people of the world: energy vampires feed on you!  The brighter you shine, the more these little demons will rise from nowhere and carefully, masterfully attempt to suck your life of joy.  Your friends, co-workers, family and even random incidental strangers can be culprits.  And yes, of course, your home can also contribute to the “draining” of your life force, which is a double-whammy.  Does this mean that you should live in a bubble? Lock yourself in your house? Stop socializing? Nope.  If you are on a roller coaster in your life, it may be time to do a little “people, places & things”  housecleaning to get the energy vampires off your back.  Here’s a bunch of ways to spot and stop the horrible highs and lows brought on by energy suckers in your home & your life!!

6 Ways To Protect Your Energy From Vampires.

1. Get real with yourself about the intentions & actions of the people around you.  Do you …. consistently make excuses for someone (I’ve known them forever!  They owe me money, so… I know how they really are, sorry for how they are being…)??? Find yourself feeling more bad than good after conversations???  Feel pressured to drink, do drugs, break the law?   If you are met with teeny-tiny seeds of doubt about your self worth after spending time with someone, spend a little less.  If you are feeling like you are drowning after spending time with someone, consider stepping away for good if the relationship is not precious.  If its family, work it out from a high place, maybe even with some professional (therapist?  councilor?) guidance.  No matter what you do, get very clear about people’s INTENTIONS & ACTIONS.  If you support someone in their self-destruction you will destruct in the process, so take this to heart!!!

2. Make sure your plumbing drains well.  Drains provide the “circulation” in your home.  The problem when drains and pipes  are clogged, blocked, leaking or concentrated in one area (like over a bedroom in a loft, etc) is that they literally DRAIN the life out of you and/or mirror the ways in which energy is blocked in your body and/or life.  Yes, that’s a ton of and’s and or’s to say that bad plumbing =  major energy vampire.

3. Create a safe list of people to share the important stuff with. Julia Cameron advocates an exercise in the Artists Way that can save your artistic life from vampire energy.  I’m paraphrasing here, but this is the gist of this compartmentalization/ self-protection exercise:

On a cheat of paper, draw a circle. Inside the circle write out the subjects (your music, your writing, your relationship, your special project) that you are developing that you want to protect while they grow.  Write in the circle the people who you can trust to 100% support you (often there are very few, sometimes none, but don’t worry, there will be!)  Outside the circle, write the people who you truly want to protect these subjects from for the moment.  Use this as a guide.  (For more specific & life changing stuff check out The Artists Way & watch your world transform!) 

4. Boundaries are a good thing! Take care of yourself first.  Don’t help people in spite of yourself.  You aren’t a good person because you drop your life to help people that play games, mess with your head, want to use you, are jealous of you or all of the above, you are a MARTYR.  You are not a saint.  Help people who help themselves or who truly need your help in a time of need.  The random nuisance that shows up at your door trying to drag you to away from your work for a day to service their needs, the complainers, the dramatic suitors, the host of characters that crawl out of the woodwork asking you to fix their problems are NOT GOOD PEOPLE TO DROP YOUR LIFE FOR!  Do you want to look back in five years and realize you spent 2012 at the mercy of every person you ever met you wanted to complain, bitch & moan to you, or would you like to look back and see this as the year you had a creative breakthrough and started to flourish?!!!  Alanon is a great group to help you learn to deal with CODEPENDENCE.  In your home, adding more metal, grey, white and clearing counters and surfaces adds metal energy which helps reinforce your sense of healthy boundaries.

5. Shut off your phone & computer a few hours before bed.  You want to have space? Want to really rejuvenate?  Cell phones, computers and TV’s suck the life out of your life.

6. Only post things all over social media that you are ready to be critiqued for, big-time.  If you want to keep yourself from falling prey to the critics that can kill your groove, don’t put your journal on Tumblr or your deepest secrets on Twitter, don’t announce the good news that *might* happen on Facebook before it happens… Don’t do it unless you are prepared to hear things less than kind all in the name of “being constructive.”

You will never regret protecting yourself from the hell of life-sucking energy vampires.  If you value your life you have no time to lose! xoxo Dana

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And, if you want to dive in to your own personalized feng shui in a modern, practical way, Say hello to Feng Shui 101.  Its the guide I made for you to create your own personalized feng shui at home, in the office, wherever you may be… in 8 weeks.  It’s not filled with strict rules or what you “must” do.  Its filled with information, questions, exercises and even videos and classes to help you confidently create amazing spaces with killer feng shui and live with more flow.   Learn more about the 8-week feng shui adventure & grab your copy to get started right HERE…   And, as always, please let me know what happens!  xoxo Dana