Every time somebody tells me to protect my energy, a part of me wants to tell them to go fuck themselves. Not because they mean bad. Because of what that sentence actually says.

Listen to it. Protect your energy. It’s saying there’s something out there that can take it. That you’re a battery, and everybody else is the thing draining you.

That’s not self-care. That’s fear with a nice font.

What “protect your energy” tells your subconscious

Your subconscious doesn’t argue with you. It doesn’t fact-check. Whatever you assume, it takes as an order and builds it.

So when you walk around protecting your energy, the order you’re placing is I’m under attack. You walk into the room guarded. You leave drained. And then you say, see, I knew it.

No. You ordered a room full of energy vampires, and it delivered.

This is the whole idea behind Chapter 9 of You Are Not You: your life doesn’t print what you want, it prints what you assume. Assume you’re prey and you’ll keep finding predators.

Who is draining you, really?

Here’s the question nobody asks. Who is “they”? The coworker? The ex? Your mom on the phone? The stranger with the bad vibe?

Most of the time, “they” is you in a different costume. It’s your own old program, projected onto whoever’s standing closest. The drain is real. The source isn’t who you think.

The shield is the product

Look at how much stuff gets sold to keep you protected. Crystals, sprays, cord-cutting sessions, protection rituals. In Chapter 12 of the book I call it the superstition industry. It sells you your own power back at retail.

And it works on you the same way the fear does. They don’t feed on you by touching you. They feed on you by keeping you scared enough to keep buying the shield.

What to do instead of protecting your energy

1. Drop the phrase

Words are orders. Stop placing that one. You’re not a phone at 12% hiding from chargers.

2. Catch the assumption

When you feel drained after being around someone, ask what you assumed walking in. Usually it’s something like this is going to suck or they’re going to take from me. That’s the order. Name it: that’s the old program.

3. Check your state before you walk in

Before anything that matters, check where you’re at. If you’re already braced for attack, reset first. A few slow breaths. One line from your scripts. Walk in as the person who owns the room, not the one hiding in it.

4. Be the lion, not the sheep

Lions don’t protect their energy. The whole field is theirs. That’s not arrogance. It’s just a different assumption about who you are.

5. Guard the gate, not the battery

There’s a difference between guarding your energy and guarding your gate. Chapter 21 of the book is about choosing what you let into your head: what you watch, who you listen to, who gets the best hours of your day. That’s not fear. That’s you deciding what gets installed.

The point

Nothing is attacking you. You were never a battery. Stop ordering the attack, and watch how many “energy vampires” suddenly lose interest.

Related: nobody can put a spell on you and the voice in your head isn’t yours.