The *Best* Question I've Ever Been Asked

A couple years ago I was having a conversation with a colleague - the kind that immediately feels like a friend - and in talking over our weekends I shared that my husband took the time to go golfing, which was a relief! You see, in the chaos of our home life raising little kids, when he takes the time to go golf he comes back so much more himself and like his fuel tank is topped off. She then asked me a question that will forever be one of the single best questions I’ve ever been asked - “What fills up your cup?” 

It hadn’t dawned on me until then how little time I had focused on identifying what gives me energy (though I could for sure tell you what was draining me) and how even less time I allocated to making sure I was doing these things. It is incredibly astute and, energetically speaking, incredibly important to getting the life we want and the most out of the life we have. 

Many months later, I had a mentoring session with a renowned energy healer and teacher, and, in assessing my creator field (the culmination of the energetics we are sending out into the ethers that result in our reality), he shared that I was so tired because I wasn’t prioritizing my joy. This almost felt offensive because I love my life, and I have created so much change and opportunity that my younger self would be ecstatic over. I said as much, and he said to me “You move forward through blunt force, which works, but it costs you.” Touché. 

His advice was to seek out the things that made me happy and do them, without agenda or towards any tangible purpose, because the energy would fill me up and create even more powerful change in all the areas I was focusing on. 

Deep down I knew he was right. Even before that, when my colleague asked me that question, an inkling had been nagging me for months that something was missing. My own intuition was telling me to revive the sense of joy and delight that I was witnessing in my husband after he came home recharged from a round of golf and watching my toddler son as he played and jumped in bouncy houses just for the fun of it. 

These days I believe that, more than knowing what you want, knowing what gives you energy is the most powerful question you can ask of yourself. You see, when you know what gives you life it gets so much easier to understand what you really want out of living. 

Our ego and the weight of other people’s expectations can play out some crazy mental gymnastics that rationalize what we are supposed to be doing, but the energy? It never lies. If it increases - that’s a go. If it decreases, well that’s telling you something that is worth paying attention to. 

Reflections: 

• Take a look at your schedule from the last week and create three categories: “Energy-giving”, “neutral,“ and “energy-depleting”. Where does everything you did fall? If possible, go back a month… or even three. 
• What gives you the most energy of everything you have done? How does this let you know what you really want to be doing each day?
• What depletes you? How can you minimize this?
• What activities give you high energy for low investment? How can you increase their frequency?