Not My Circus

Anne: Good day. It's Coffee, Tea, and Consciousness. I'm Anne.

Mel: Good day. Yes, I'm Mel. Thanks for joining us.

Anne: Well, today we're gonna talk about taking on other people's energy.

Mel: Yeah — when do you know you've done it? How do you make it stop? And what do you do? I asked for this topic, so I want to start, because I've got a story I want to share. Annie, I haven't told it to you yet — I wanted to save it for this.

Mel: When we went into a Walmart the other day, it was early evening. We'd just come from our son's soccer game, which he won — I was in a great mood. Like, it was a good night. Not awesome, just good. We were gonna go get some ice cream, and the store that's nearest and least expensive for ice cream would be the Walmart. So we drive, we get there, and I'm in a fine mood. It's like seven o'clock at night. Now, granted, I do tend to tire earlier in the evening than my good friend Annie. But it was still even a little too early for me.

Mel: We go into Walmart, and I start to get this feeling of, "I'm exhausted." And now I'm sort of annoyed and kind of crabby. I was fine. I literally was fine walking in — we were joking, it was fine. And all of a sudden I feel like, my god, I'm so tired. And I'm so exhausted. As we're walking around, I'm saying to Jimmy, "Was I yawning before I came in here?" Because sometimes, even when you've done this a time or two, at first you wonder — is this mine? Is it mine? So I'm tired, and I'm yawning, and I can't seem to stay — and I feel like, fuck, everything is exhausting. I did not feel like that five or ten minutes ago.

Anne: Right.

Mel: I'm yawning and yawning, and I want to go home and go to bed and sink into the covers. It was this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that came on me in literally a minute. So now we're driving home, and it is hard to explain to someone who hasn't noticed this in themselves before — that I don't think that's mine. As we're driving away, I'm mumbling to myself, talking to spirit, saying things like, "Hey, if this ain't mine, you gotta take it off. I was having a good night. I don't think this is mine. And if it's not mine, you gotta take it away from me. Because I'm a human — I've got domain over my own energy, domain over my own human self. I'm not taking on somebody else's something."

Mel: Jimmy's like, "What are you mumbling about?" I said, "Did you notice when we walked in there how tired I got?" Then here was my other thought — I don't actually love Walmart. It's not my first choice. So was it me pulling in what I don't like? So the question was for myself — did I do that even subconsciously to myself? Because we're walking into a store that's not really my favorite, it was cluttered. So was it the humans I was picking up on, or was it the environment?

Anne: Yeah.

Mel: I didn't know. But either way, it wasn't mine. So once I said it, I have this little ritual where I ask spirit to clean me out — give me a good scrub. For me that means I imagine they pour good stuff into my energy, and it overfloods so much that the yucky comes out. That's just how it works for me — everyone's got their own way. I used to do it a little differently, but this tends to work fastest for me to get back to myself. Within five or ten minutes of leaving, having done that, I felt good. By the time we got home I felt back to normal — I wasn't exhausted, I wasn't overwhelmed. So it was taken off. It wasn't mine to begin with, and it was taken off of me.

Mel: The question is, sometimes, how do you know when you're doing it? Sometimes it's fun, too. I had this experience walking into a group — I don't mind a group, but I really didn't want to go. Not that I don't like the people, I do, but I was feeling tired, wishing I'd just stayed home. And then I get there and all of a sudden I start to feel better. That energy, I'm like, great — I don't think this is mine, but this one's gonna work for me, and I do feel better about having that on me. But I still don't want it to be someone else's. I still want it to be mine.

Anne: Well, I was gonna say — the one where you say you felt better, that's a hard one. It's easier to recognize the bad feeling and say, "that's not mine." Like — last summer I was driving and there was a car behind me, and they flipped their car. I got out and ran up to them — they were trapped, couldn't get out. I took on the energy of that lady. I had the worst headache. I remember driving away going, "That's not mine, you gotta take it." And it was taken. I was better about it because I had a routine — I'd put myself in a bubble, which works sometimes and sometimes not. I like imagining a magnet going around my body pulling all the stuff that isn't mine off.

Anne: I have a daughter with major anxiety — we've been dealing with it since birth, basically. So to make my life easier, I would do things even when I didn't feel like it, because I knew the alternative was dealing with her anxiety, which is a lot and frustrating as hell, because when she's at that point you can't talk to her. I think it was a coping mechanism for me, honestly — doing the thing to avoid absorbing or taking it on. Because it's a lot, and it doesn't feel good, and it's not pretty.

Anne: This past week we both had similar things happen — I think we should do another episode on boundaries. One of the things was, she needed a case for her iPad. I went to Target, the case was like a hundred dollars, and I'm like, in no way. So I had to drive nine miles, which doesn't seem far, but in Metro Atlanta it's an hour round trip. I was pissed the entire time. I was so mad I was doing it, but I could also recognize why I was doing it — to avoid her energy, I guess is the best way to explain it. Because I knew what would happen if I came home with nothing.

Anne: So those are mine. But going into Costco, or Michael's — I had to leave. My head starts to feel funky. Not grounded, maybe — you want to run to your car and get out of there.

Mel: I notice too, the more I've discovered it — it used to be I didn't know that wasn't mine. I would just get a random feeling and think, "gosh, I don't know where that's coming from." So for anyone listening — when you start to have that feeling, "hey, where'd that come from?" — that might be an indicator it isn't actually yours. I didn't know I could — I just didn't know it wasn't mine.

Mel: I have this imagination where I put really thick insulation around myself. Like those old-school phone booths — except instead of glass, mine is insulation. I don't want to be so closed off that I don't feel and I can't tell when I shouldn't say something. I used to say to Jimmy, "can't you read the room?" And he'd be like, "what are you talking about?" I didn't know how I knew that stuff — I just knew. And I didn't know he couldn't. I always thought he was kind of oblivious, like, why would you start a conversation that's going to upset someone who's already upset?

Anne: Well, in reality he might know but not know, you know what I mean?

Mel: Maybe. I mean, that's totally possible, no judgment. I just didn't know he didn't know. I remember doing this experiment with the kids — asking, "do you know when someone's sitting in the living room, how they're feeling, just by walking down the stairs?" One of our sons does know, all the time. He spends a lot of time in his own space — he doesn't want to take on other people's stuff, but doesn't know how to protect himself from it either. Another son's like, "I literally don't know what anyone is feeling unless you move a certain way." Our youngest is like, "maybe sometimes, not all the time." Jimmy's like, "you can't tell that." I'm like, no, I know — on Sunday you were sitting still, but I could feel your restless energy, even though you were just sitting there watching a show, feeling shitty about it. And I didn't know other people didn't know that stuff. I thought everyone knew until I started asking.

Mel: For you and your daughter, or me and Jimmy — sometimes it's, "I gotta make my insulation really thick right now, because we're gonna talk about something and I don't want to take it on, don't want to change my behavior because of it." Like you, taking on the case thing so you didn't have to deal with her feelings. It's more than just knowing someone's anxious or upset with you — it's like I can feel it, jagged.

Anne: Yeah — there's lots of parts with her that combine, I think. I'm picking up her stuff, but I'm also picking up mine, because when I try to have a conversation, she wants to shut it down as fast as I try to start it. And I'm not even trying to start it to be an asshole — I'm trying to explain my feelings. Like that time on Friday — I came home and said, "here's your case, but I am no longer doing this because I don't want to deal with your attitude. You knew about this way beforehand, you waited till the last minute, and I did something I didn't want to do because I didn't want to deal with your shit. From now on, if you know something, you need to handle it instead of waiting." And of course as soon as I say that, she's like, "I get it, I get it, enough." Which kind of plummets the mood too, because even though I got some of it out, I didn't get it all out.

Mel: Right. Well — and especially in family, it's tricky not to take their energy on as yours. For Jimmy and me — he's a doer. I thought I was a doer, apparently I'm not — I really enjoy doing very little of anything. But for him, he'll start hearing the words "I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done," and I imagine my insulation getting thicker, because I don't want to suddenly decide I have to do all the things too, just because he feels jagged about needing to do all the things, when I was just gonna sit and watch a show or paint my numbers.

Anne: Right, but you can be aware without taking it on.

Mel: Yeah, I like being aware of others' energy — so I don't start a conversation with someone who obviously doesn't want to have it right now. Not in your daughter's case, that's different, but I don't want to bring a conversation to you that's going to bring you down when it isn't necessary right now.

Anne: Well, and in that case — even if I know that, if I want to have a conversation, maybe it's my ego, I'm sure it is, but I'm not shutting my voice down just because you don't want to hear it right now because you've got a lot on your plate. I've got a lot on my plate too.

Mel: You're just coming into that. I think I'm learning how to manage — I've been spouting for as long as I've been a human. Mel's been spouting shit forever. Now I'm learning the opposite.

Anne: In my house I spout a lot of shit. Outside my house I don't. But to my family, I'm sure they'd say I spout a lot, because I feel safe enough to say it to them. Like my dad — when Tony wasn't working, my dad likes to make up a story in his head. He'd call during that time with numbers he'd made up about how long we should be able to survive without Tony working. So I would try, like you, to do the insulation — "I'm not taking on your shit, this is your shit, not mine, I feel fine." But it was tricky. I hated talking to him during that whole period because it always came back to money, "how are you doing," all of it. I finally told him, "it's none of your business, we're adults, we've gotten this far, we're fine, I'll let you know if you need to worry." And in reality, he didn't need to worry about anything. Funny — when Tony got the job, my dad's like, "oh my god, I've been losing sleep over it." And I'm like, well, neither Tony nor I were losing sleep over it. We were sleeping great. That's more anxiety, right — he just made it up, because he never even knew the numbers, I never told him.

Mel: Right, so the question is — he obviously wasn't picking up on your actual energy, because you guys weren't feeling bad. He was just creating a scenario so he could have more anxiety and worry. He brought that onto himself. It'd be different if you were worried but didn't want to talk about it and he was picking up on that — but in this case, for sure not, because you weren't worried at all.

Anne: Right. And this is the thing that drives Tony crazy — he's lost a couple jobs, been let go, had to find new ones, and I never worried. I never doubted he could find a job. And I don't work, so you'd think I'd be sitting there panicking. Nope. He's like, "you never get worried about that?" And I'm like, "duh, you shouldn't either — I always know we're gonna be fine."

Mel: Yeah, well, it's different when you're the one looking for the job, I guess. Jimmy doesn't know when I — he says he can't feel anything anyone else is feeling. I don't even know that he can feel his own feelings, but he definitely says he can't feel anyone else's. We've talked about it — I'll say, "when I'm sitting in the room, you don't know how I feel?" He's like, "how the fuck would I know how you feel? I don't know." And I'm like, "I know how you feel — you do not know how I feel." So we'd do this thing where I'd say, "you're feeling like this right now," and he'd start to argue, and I'm like, "you're lying, because you don't want that to be correct." He's like, "well, I don't know how to walk around the house then — you get to walk around like normal. At least I know whose it is and why it's there."

Anne: Well, I think Tony's like a chameleon — he'll tell you he can read people, knows what they want to hear, and he'll tell you what you want to hear.

Mel: Yeah — and that's its own form of reading someone's energy, right? How would you know what they want to hear otherwise, especially meeting them for the first time? I know because I'm a bit of a stinker sometimes — I have this friend, and there's this thing I know he doesn't want me to say, and I enjoy saying it. And then he gets mad and leaves. Which is funny — I don't think I do it because I want him to leave, I think I just find it funny. That's kind of shitty, actually. I should probably pause on that one.

Anne: Well, I think it's the same as me — I know I should probably stop, no one's really looking for more, but I want to keep going, because I'm not done yet. If I don't say it now, it's never gonna be said. I'm not missing that opportunity, even if you don't want to hear it.

Mel: Well, I think because I've been saying all the things for most of my life, I'm learning when not to. I'm not awesome at it, but I'm learning. I think, "Mel just wants to say that for the sheer fun of saying it out loud, and I don't think it should be said."

Anne: And I think it's funny — you've been saying the shit, I haven't been saying it, and now we're at opposite ends. You need to start pausing, and I need to start saying it.

Mel: Yeah, I'm working on pausing. It is so fun and easy for me to say — I love confrontation. I love it so much. This is sick, but I'll share it — I think confrontation is such a fun time. I was at a stoplight in our community a week or two ago, and someone beeped at me from behind because I wasn't paying attention to the green light. They did this whole arm-throwing thing, acting a fool. And I thought, if you think you're gonna push me — no. I'm gonna intentionally go slower. I love it when someone decides to ride my ass. Jimmy's always trying to get out of people's way — fuck no, Mel's gonna slow down five, maybe ten miles an hour. It brings me a sick, disturbed amount of pleasure.

Anne: But I'll also say — there's times I'm in a rush and the slowest people pull out in front of me, hit every light, and it's like, "just slow the fuck down, what are you in a rush for?" I don't even know, I just want to get there.

Mel: I consider it my ego, because when I'm doing it on purpose I think, "I'm giving you a great opportunity to be paused." Like that guy at the light — he swerved like he was gonna turn behind me and then didn't, and all I thought was, "god, I wish they would have, that would've been so fun." I told the kids, if I ever get murdered in a car-rage thing, just know it was a good time for me. Other people want to go out during sex or sleeping — for me it'd be a confrontation. But I'm learning how to pause, wait a minute, let spirit open that door, because I want to say the things so badly.

Mel: I do trust right timing, even if I don't always adhere to it. Like — there was a thing with our daughter's family, this house they lived in that burned down, long story — but there was something said to our granddaughter one day that I found too harsh. Because Mel would've jumped in — but that's not my daughter, it's my granddaughter, they're her parents, I trust them, I know they love her. I did feel like there was something I could say that wasn't "you shouldn't talk to her like that" — that wasn't it at all. I said, if that's meant for me to say, you gotta make sure that door is open. The door didn't open that day — it opened the next morning. And when it did, I was like, this is for me to say. They took it really well — great conversation, just a different perspective. I've fucked up five kids, lucky me — but by waiting, I didn't cause a bigger problem, I think. But again, that's for me, because I've been yammering for years saying all the things.

Anne: Well, and that's the thing — I think we've always said if it comes easy, you should do it, that's your purpose. That is not true. The thing you're really supposed to do is one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do. Me using my voice — in my house, yes. Outside my house, that's harder for me to do.

Mel: So for you right now, having those conversations and saying "no, I'm gonna finish my feeling" — I've been finishing my feeling for years, don't worry about me, everyone else is like, "we can't even share a feeling because Mel's always getting hers out, but don't worry, she's not gonna be denied sharing hers." So it is different, and often it's the opposite of what feels right.

Mel: When we're talking about taking on other people's energy — I was at a group meditation, maybe this spring. I like to tell spirit I like to go places sometimes, not often, God, humans are a lot to deal with — but I often like to go. We finished some running, this guy helping us run our energy took us through an exercise, and everyone was settling in. I walked over to a bookshelf, and all of a sudden I felt like I got smashed in the ear — like someone punched me. Sharp smash in one ear. I was like, what? Nobody smashed me. And then I'm overwhelmed with a headache, and I know — it's not mine. I'm standing by the bookshelf, I pause, and thankfully in that instance I'm like, this isn't mine, please take it. It was a crushing head-blow headache, and it took me a minute to get focused. I kept running through the same thing — I know this isn't mine, I have autonomy over my own energy, my own human experience, please take that from me. I didn't even want them to send it back — sometimes I'll say "send it back," but this time I said please just dissipate it, if it's possible. This is unpleasant for anyone who has it.

Mel: By the time we got into the meditation, the pain was gone. But then in the meditation I felt like someone's energy was knocking at me — like someone in there wanted, maybe didn't want me to know, but their energy wasn't right. I was like, hey, I got a rule — if you don't give me permission, I don't touch your energy. No one's asking me anything, we're in a meditation, that's not mine, you need to keep that. I say no to that knock, I'm not answering it. I had an idea where it was coming from, but I said, if this is for me, make sure someone says it to me directly, so I know for sure — the door needs to be open for me to ask a question or mention it. Nothing was ever mentioned.

Anne: I think if — as a person listening — a lot of people don't like being in a crowd, and it brings up almost anxiety. I don't like going to festivals or fairs, no thank you, that's too much energy and I don't want it. And even if you don't know what it is, you're probably picking up energy right then and there.

Mel: Yeah — and even if you don't know, you can just say, "hey, I don't even if you don't really believe it" — it doesn't matter, spirit doesn't care if you believe or not, it still works. You can say, this isn't mine, please take this off me. If it is mine, okay, then maybe help me figure out how it needs to be healed. I remember walking into a store — a sporting goods store, Jimmy and I looking for something for one of our sons — and I got this sharp pain under my shoulder blade. I said out loud, "hey, yo, yo, yo, that is not mine." Jimmy's like, "what's going on?" Not mine, not mine, not mine. So even those little things — walking along and suddenly feeling bad, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's physical. I get a physical, like, "no thank you, I've got enough yuck of my own."

Mel: And I'd even say — if you work in an office and someone comes in and it's just yuck, whatever it feels like — maybe put a sticky note on your desk that says, "if I feel bad after someone comes in, ask spirit to take it away." Because it happens more than we think, to way more people than realize it. I didn't know I was picking up my mom's anxiety when I was a kid.

Anne: Well, and that's the thing with my daughter's anxiety, I feel fucking anxious too, and I wasn't before.

Mel: Right, I'm not, I don't have anything to be anxious about, it's not mine. But it is a tricky bitch, especially when it's in your own house — like when I know I'm about to see my mom and know what she's gonna be bringing. "Make my insulation really thick right now, leave the rest behind." It makes you not want to do things. I do a lot less than I used to, because it takes energy — even keeping the insulation thick, even if you're not bracing, is still taking up energy.

Anne: Yeah, that's true — you never know the energy of what someone's bringing, and if you assume it'll be like it usually is, you're bracing for that.

Mel: Yeah, more energy. It's hard to ease into it and recognize when it's not — I woke up the other night with this horrible pain in the back of my head, never had a headache like that. I said over and over, all day, "if this is not mine, you need to take it," because I still don't really believe that was mine. It did stick with me the whole day, which makes me a little more curious about it. But to this day I still don't think it was mine.

Anne: Well, and I'll say that too — if this isn't mine, you gotta let it go. And if it is, all right, but I don't want anyone else's. It's almost like another boundary.

Mel: Yeah, setting a boundary around my own energetic space. I really only want mine, and honestly only if it's a good time. I know that's not always how it works — but if it is mine, then show me why it's here. There's often a reason for something.

Mel: I can pick up on the dog, too — "God, what's going on, why are you feeling that way, you don't normally feel that way." It's like, quit rubbing me in all the wrong places — that's what anxiety feels like to me. But it's tricky to know for sure. Once you do know, what do you do with it?

Anne: Well, and I notice — when I'm feeling anxious and it's mine, I've gotten to the point where I can see it and know why. It's because I'm looking to the future instead of the here and now — right now, what's happening? Are you fine? Yep, great, okay, let's stay here instead of looking into the unknown. I've gotten better about staying present. I try to tell my daughter, but she's like — I guess she came in to feel anxious and slow down.

Mel: Well, okay — so about energy — our youngest granddaughter cannot be in an elevator or a small enclosed space, since she's been really little, barely knowing what a small space was. She was going to the hospital a lot as a preemie, and it got so bad that she learned to soothe herself, petting herself, "you'll be okay." I told our daughter, "hey, do you mind if I check in and see what's going on for her?" She said that's fine. When I touched her energy, I felt crushed, like in a cave. I asked spirit — if there's something going on with a child that's underage, the parent can ask if it's not necessary and it can be eased off for them. In this instance, spirit said no — this is for them. Something in there for our daughter, something for our granddaughter. So sometimes yes, sometimes it does need to be gone through for a purpose — part of what they came here to experience. For our daughter, I was given some clear guidance she took seriously and made changes based on.

Anne: Well, I started — I hadn't been like this before — whenever I was the passenger in a car, I wanted to lose my shit, always assuming we were gonna crash. Come to find out, in one of my past lives, I was killed in a car accident around the same age I am now. So it made sense why it suddenly appeared. I still have a little of it — Tony doesn't always pay attention, and luckily his car will alert him, and he'll get angry but then admit, "well, that was good, because I really wasn't paying attention." So it's eased, knowing why it came about.

Mel: Yeah, it did come up not long ago.

Anne: Yeah, and it was awful being in the car — I'm like, just let me drive, I'd feel better. So some of this stuff is interesting.

Mel: It is interesting. Before I'd seen any past lives — mine or anyone else's — I always thought, what's the point of knowing a past life? But if you're into reading Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton — fuck, yes, I've had experiences for myself that made it important to know. It explains things. You bring pieces of every life your soul has lived, you can access any of it, and some of it is genuinely helpful — there are patterns and habits that make sense once you know where they came from. And then you get to choose — do I want this? Is it good? Or like you with the car — that lifetime's over, I don't need to keep experiencing that just because it happened once. That can be wiped, or at least dulled, so the fear doesn't crop up like that anymore.

Anne: Yeah, so it isn't so crazy.

Mel: I think that's pretty good — we covered some solid ground. I'd wonder if people are wandering around getting a feeling and never questioning it. I question it all the time now, even when it's fun, even when I like it — it still isn't mine. Maybe it can buoy mine, but let's still let mine be mine.

Anne: Well, and in my morning routine I always say, "get rid of anything that isn't mine, let's pull it out and send it back to sender."

Mel: I used to be good about doing that every night before bed. I've sort of lost the habit — I used to ask them to take stuff off before I went to sleep so I didn't go to sleep carrying it, and do it again in the morning for any residual. This reminds me I should get back into that habit. It's a good one.

Mel: Well — if you've listened, thanks so much. I'm Mel.

Anne: Yes, I'm Anne.

Mel: And it sounds like we're gonna drop another one this week about boundaries — so this'll be a Tuesday-Thursday. If you're enjoying this, please follow the podcast wherever you listen. We'd love it if you left us a message, although — I'm just gonna say this, it's unnecessary, but — I genuinely don't know how to find a comment if you leave one.

Anne: I have no idea either.

Mel: We're really not super on top of that piece. It's not that we don't want to, I'd love to, I just don't know how to find it — I can't quite claim our podcast either, which is bizarre.

Anne: That is weird.

Mel: I'm letting it go for now, obviously not right timing. Maybe I don't actually want to know what people are saying.

Anne: Yeah.

Mel: All right — until next time.

Anne: See ya.