Energy, and who gets to set it

Have you ever walked into a meeting or room where someone comes in "hot"? They arrive wound up, distracted, and electric with frustration, and suddenly that atmosphere fills the entire space.

You find yourself waiting for them to shift. You wait for the calm version of them to arrive. Then, you realise something critical: if you do not change the energy yourself, the entire interaction will move at the pace of their state, not yours.

There is a profound difference between the energy someone brings into a room and the energy you choose to meet it with. One is external; it belongs entirely to them. The other is your own internal flow, and that is always yours to direct.

The Storm in the Room

Years ago, I worked with a colleague who consistently arrived busy and running at a hundred miles an hour. Every interaction felt reactive, tense, and uncomfortably close to a fight-or-flight response for everyone present.

Eventually, I decided to find my way back to my own flow rather than getting swept up in his chaos. My method? A bit of terrible humour.

"A polar bear walks into a bar," I said, pausing deliberately. "The barman asks, what is with the big paws?"

He looked even more wound up than before, so I offered another.

"A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt and says, I will have one for me and one for the road."

That was the breaking point. He exploded. "What is with this nonsense? These jokes? I am busy, what is the point?!"

Calmly, I looked at him and explained that I needed to change the state of the room from tense to a space where we could simply be human with each other. Until he found his calm, I was going to keep finding mine.

He stopped, looked at me, and said, "What do you mean calm down? No one has ever said that to me."

Returning to Yourself

That moment stayed with me. It raised questions that we so often ignore in our day-to-day lives:

How do we move through life with so little self-observation that we fail to see our own impact on others?

When we are pulled into someone else's turbulent cycle, why do we stay quiet instead of simply naming it?

I was not an expert in emotional regulation back then. That deeper understanding came much later, through learning my own triggers and discovering how to deactivate them. But that encounter was the catalyst. It was the first time I truly understood that my flow did not have to bend to someone else's storm.

Seek the shelter of yourself in the storm.

Be the place with the warmth and love.

from "Settle", a piece from the forthcoming book, The Innoctrual Voice

Practice & Integration

Reclaiming your state takes deliberate awareness. Here is how you can begin shifting from reacting to someone else's energy to grounding in your own:

1. Identify the 'Hot' energy first

Notice the physical sensation in your body when someone enters with chaos. Does your chest tighten? Does your breathing get shallow? Simply recognising their state as separate from yours stops you from automatically absorbing it.

2. Pause before you match their pace

When someone speaks or acts fast and reactive, our natural instinct is to match their speed. Force a deliberate pause. Take one deep, slow breath before responding to anchor your rhythm.

3. Name the room

You do not need to tell jokes, but you can gently label the environment. Saying something simple like, "It feels like we are rushing, so shall we take a breath before we jump into this?" can interrupt their momentum and bring the room back to a human scale.

Reflection for the Week

Whose energy are you letting set the room today, and what would it take for you to return to your own?