Energy Vampires (I’ll Pass)

When I was a child my family took me to the aquarium in Chicago.  I was obsessed with sea life and was delighted to see so many different kinds of species of fish and other creatures.  I was having a great time until our guide led us to an exhibit and I saw something so horrific that I never forgot it.  

There was a large fish with what seemed to be a smaller fish swimming very close to it, moving in perfect unison. I remember saying to the guide, “oh that’s so sweet, he has a best friend with him”.  The guide, a young tall pimply kid said, “well, yeah, sort of”.  “ That smaller fish is a parasitic fish.”  “What’s that I asked”.  “It means it’s attached to him, it’s feeding on him”.  That absolutely horrified me.  I Yelled at the guide with tears welling up in my eyes, “well someone needs to take it off of him right now”!  “We can’t”, the guide said.  “He’s been attached to him for so long, if we separate them, the larger fish will die”.  

That lesson lingered with me throughout my life, as I would  observe this kind of dynamic in many, many relationships. Throughout my dating life, I found myself tangled up with several narcissists and many addicts.  I was always surprised when I realized that I’d managed to find myself in that same situation yet again.  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, even if my spelling is total shit (which you the reader will never know, and anyone that has seen anything handwritten by me surely does know), and yet it still baffles me how long it took me to realize that there was most certainly a pattern here, and the only constant in it was me.  It’s easy for empath’s to become people pleasers and codependents.  When you feel so much in people and the environments around you, it feels impossible to ignore it. 

I thought it was my loving heart that led me to believe that I could love the pain out of someone but what that energetically broadcasted was “ I need someone to need me”, and the “loving the broken person back to health” idea later turns into a slightly different message which is basically, “ You’re fucked up, but youn have potential.  I can fix you. Do what I say”. LOL! It takes a special kind of person to jump at that opportunity, wouldn’t you say? 

Years ago I started to go to Al-anon, and I learned more there than I ever learned in therapy, and that shit is free!  (They invite donations and everyone there is more than glad to give what they can).  So here is what I learned there. My then ex was addicted, in a very extreme way to alcohol, but I was addicted to him.  My obsession with him, with anyone around me who was hurting or broken was all consuming because I NEEDED to be needed.  I needed it like my life depended on it, and without being needed by someone, I felt like my life had no real meaning.  

There was someone that really actually needed my attention, and that was myself, but at the time I was ignoring her and looking for other people to save and fix to avoid that big job. Now, it’s fairly obvious to point out that need is not the same thing as love, and yet it can be very easy to confuse the two.  Years ago I took pride in thinking I knew how to make someone want me, need me, become dependent on me, as if it were romantic. Now I see it very differently.  I see it as one empty person looking for another to glom onto. I see it as an outdated idea that really never worked in the first place- kiss a frog and they turn into a prince?  No, you kiss a frog, the frog is still a frog,  and now you’ve got a shit load of warts.  

A lot of time, energy and emotion can be saved if we could just allow ourselves to see the truth and accept it.  People’s actions tell us everything we need to know, but we can be so blinded by our own desires for how things could be, that we refuse to see things as they are.  This is why cultivating our intuition, building and holding our power, investing in and loving ourselves is so so important.  It’s important for anyone, but it’s especially important for any sensitive human being, because when our hearts are already full, we do not need to manipulate others to get our needs met, nor are we willing to allow ourselves to be manipulated.

Now, let’s talk about energy vampires.  What does that really mean?  We live in two worlds (probably more) simultaneously.  The dense world that we see when we look around, and the energetic world that infuses all of it.  When I say vampire, I don’t mean like the cheesy ones from the movies.  That is just symbolic of something much more subtle, much more dangerous, and much more a part of our natural world than most people realize.  Now it should be noted that  just because something is dangerous doesn’t automatically mean it’s evil.  A rattlesnake can bite and potentially kill me, but it’s just being a rattlesnake, there’s no malice in that.  The Sun is self regenerating, always burning and always creating it’s own light.  The moon doesn’t glow because it generates it’s own light, it is reflecting the light of the sun.  It is seen everywhere in nature that there are creatures that learn to live in harmony WITH one another, and those that take what they want FROM another.  Obviously nature isn’t always kind and it isn’t always fair, but for us human beings, we are equipped with something profoundly powerful,  so much more powerful that any of us even realize.  Something that can make our time on this earth heaven, or absolute hell.  That something is, choice.

We can choose.  We can choose who we want to be around, and whom to have close. We can choose what we want to do with our time, and what to think about.  Every single day we are making hundreds of choices without even realizing it.  You choose to go into the bathroom to take a pee.  Yes that’s a choice, you’re not choosing to go outside to pee- or maybe you are).  You choose to go to work, and not stay home today.  You make choices all day every day.  Things may happen in our lives that we didn’t choose, but then we choose what those occurrences mean to us.  Choice is one of the most powerful gifts we have in this life and once we really grasp that fact, we will become VERY deliberate about what we choose.

Now I will finally circle back to my point.  In this world, there are light makers, and there are light takers.  If someone shows you that they are a taker, believe them.  I mean… Believe them the first time, and then simply step out of the way and let them pass.  If someone is a light maker, you will know it, because being around them feels light.  It’s not hard work, it’s not draining, or heavy.  Takers leave you feeling disoriented.  When you are around light makers you will feel seen, heard, and appreciated as you are, and you don’t feel depleted after being with them because when you are with them you feel like they give back to you as much as they take, or more, without keeping tabs.  Not all takers are bad, they are just doing what they do, like the little parasite fish is doing what it does, but here’s the thing- parasites creep me out, just like people who are looking for some good loving energy to steal because they haven’t made their own creep me out.  Now that I am a bit older, and a much wiser empath I will say this, “The light takers no longer interest me, it’s the light makers I look for,  recognize, and align myself with, and whenever a thirsty, crusty little succubus come sniffing around me looking for a fix, I just exercise this tremendous gift of choice I’ve been given and simply say to them…“ahhh no thanks, I’ll pass”.