The Energy Audit

This 15-minute guided Energy Audit is a reflective, mindful experience for anyone who feels tired, overwhelmed, or stretched thin.
Through gentle teaching, guided mindfulness, and journaling prompts, you’ll explore where your energy is being drained, what nourishes you, and how small shifts can create more ease and sustainability in daily life.

This is not about time management or productivity. It’s about listening to your body, honoring your capacity, and learning how to care for your energy with kindness. Grab a pen and paper, a journal or an electronic writing tool and hit play to follow along.

You’ll leave feeling clearer, lighter, and more connected to yourself, understanding where your energy leaks and how you can reclaim it.

Transcript

Welcome to this Energy Audit.

I'm really glad you're here and this session is for anyone who feels tired in a way that sleep doesn't really fix anymore.

It is for those of us who carry a lot of responsibilities and the emotional,

Often invisible,

Labor the mental load and the expectations that rarely make it onto a to-do list.

I know many of us blame ourselves for feeling drained,

For being tired all the time and we think we need more discipline or better routines or maybe we lack motivation.

But most of the time,

The problem isn't effort and it isn't capability or capacity.

It isn't even time,

It's often energy.

And this is really an invitation to slow down and look at your life with honesty and kindness and understanding where your energy goes.

And my goal for you is that by the end of this session,

You will have a clearer sense of what gives you energy and what takes your energy and just understanding where your energy might be quietly leaking as well as have a few ways to rework that so that whatever feels heavy can be reframed.

And it's not about fixing yourself or even your environment.

It's about giving yourself the space to listen to yourself,

To what your body says,

To your inner wisdom and really understand that own fixed resource of energy and how you can in a way optimize it so that you can show up as yourself.

So let's arrive together here.

Sit in a way that's comfortable and supportive for your body.

You don't want to do this lying down.

You don't want to fall asleep here.

But I want you to be comfortable and allow your shoulders to soften and move towards the back so your collarbone and your heart opens and clench your jaw and take a slow breath in through the nose and fully exhale.

And if you've been thinking or doing or responding and caring just for the next little while,

Know that you don't need to solve anything or do anything.

Just bring your attention to your body.

How are you feeling in your physical body and in your emotional body?

Notice where you feel tired or where you feel tense.

See where it lives in your body.

And also notice where you feel okay or even calm.

Your body's already giving you information about your energy.

It just takes time to relearn to listen to what your body is telling you.

So let's take one more slow breath together.

If you've had your eyes closed,

You can open them now.

And now from that grounded and calm place,

We'll move into our audit.

Time is fixed,

Right?

We all only get 24 hours.

Everyone gets the same amount.

And it is unfortunately really fixed.

But energy is not fixed.

We have different energy levels to begin with.

And also energy levels rise and fall based on how we live and what we carry,

What we tolerate.

It affects us seasonally,

Cyclically.

Especially if you're a woman,

There are cyclical pieces to your energy.

And your energy affects how patient you feel,

How connected you feel to yourself and to other people.

Your energy depends on how you show up in relationships and how overwhelmed or grounded your days can feel.

All of this is connected to your energy more so than it is to your time.

And when you feel depleted,

It's often because we say yes when we mean to say no.

And when we carry emotional responsibility for other people,

When we multitask constantly,

When we don't rest or only rest with guilt,

And generally when we put ourselves last on our own priority list.

So today's energy audit helps you see those patterns more clearly without judgment,

But with clarity and some steps on how to move forward.

So look at a moment in just a typical week or two of your life.

So have a look at your calendar and take a typical week,

Not a perfect version,

Just a real week.

And picture your days from morning to night.

So just see what's on your agenda on a daily basis,

Week to week.

And ask yourself,

Where do you feel that your days are really full or crowded?

Where do you move straight from one thing to the next?

Where do you feel rushed or behind?

Just look at your calendar and see where you disappear from your own schedule.

If we're very busy doing,

We often forget to be.

And it's not about blame.

It's about awareness.

And what you're seeing is not a reflection of your character.

It's not a personal failure if you're very busy.

In fact,

It's very typical.

It's very normal.

And it's information.

I just want you to acknowledge how busy you are and how society tells us that that equals worth and how that's just not true.

So now I want you to take a journal or a piece of paper or my journal that I have.

And if you don't have my journal,

Just draw two columns.

Label one column energizing and the other one draining.

And I want you to think of the typical day you have ahead of you,

The typical week,

And begin to place parts of your life into each column.

So look at activities you do,

Whether it's work tasks,

Or different conversations and meetings you're having,

Even your relationships,

Your household responsibilities,

Your parenting activities,

Your social commitments,

Even your daily habits and mental patterns.

Just think of each of these in turn and decide if they are energizing or draining to you and put them in their correct column.

And energizing doesn't necessarily mean easy.

It just means it's something that gives you back something in some way.

It can still be time consuming or even challenging at times,

But if it gives you something back,

It's energizing.

And draining doesn't necessarily mean bad.

It means it costs more than it returns.

And I want you to be really honest.

There's no right answer.

There's sometimes guilt if we realize,

You know,

A parenting activity,

For example,

Doesn't energize us but drains us.

And that's okay.

Just give yourself the space to put them in the right column and you can pause the recording here as well to just finish this exercise.

And when you have put everything into either energizing or draining,

I want you to look at everything that is in the draining column.

So right next to each of the draining pieces in your draining column,

I want you to write one of three letters,

Either E for eliminate,

D for delegate,

Or R for reimagine or reframe.

So ask yourself what could be eliminated,

Right?

Maybe the house doesn't need to be vacuumed daily.

Maybe it can be a reduction.

Maybe you can do it every other day.

Or maybe you run errands every day,

But really you could combine them and run them once a week maybe.

And then ask yourself what can be delegated.

So this might be to a partner,

A child,

A friend,

A co-worker,

A team member,

Even paid help if that's accessible to you.

Maybe someone has already offered you help in a department and you simply didn't accept because you didn't think you could,

But maybe you could.

And for what can't be eliminated slash reduced or delegated,

Ask how it could be reframed or reimagined.

Reframing is really an incredible skill to have.

So maybe a school pickup that you find draining could become a short walk first so that you find you're combining it with something energizing and positive.

Or maybe cooking dinner isn't something you can eliminate,

But maybe you want to listen to your favorite podcast or music when you do it.

Or maybe you can lighten a task because you lowered a standard on it or you give it a specific time frame that you work on it,

Not just all day.

And I'd like you to just look over your list now and assign one of those letters to each item.

So D for delegate,

E for eliminate,

And R for reframe or reimagine.

So you can ask yourself,

What could be smaller?

What could be slower?

What could be shared?

What could be simplified?

And if it is work tasks and you lead a team,

Maybe you can find ways to empower other people by delegating something.

And the same goes for your family.

It can be very motivating and empowering to delegate something to your child.

Even a small child can help with something small.

And then I also invite you to look at the column of energizing and circle a few things you really want to protect.

So this might be something that you really enjoy doing and you want to make sure that you find the time for that.

So once you have completed your draining column,

And you can pause the recording to finish that,

Go over and look at what's on your energizing column and see how you could protect more of that.

So for example,

Let's say you have decided that you don't need to vacuum every day,

But only every other day,

And that would give you 20 minutes every other day to do something else.

What can you on your energizing column do more of?

Maybe it is you really want to do some yoga or do some breath work or meditate or one friend of mine really wanted to protect taking care of her plants,

Something like that,

Something that energizes you.

How can you do more of that?

And you can pause the recording again if you like and just see what can be protected on that side more.

Now,

As we come to a closing,

I want you to think of this as caring for yourself with the same attention that you give to everyone and everything else.

You deserve a life that feels supportive,

Not just productive.

And I want you to remember that you can come back to this audit anytime.

It can be,

You know,

It might change as things go on,

So it might be worth doing a few times.

And just before we close,

I'd like you to just do a little mindfulness practice.

So close your eyes and imagine your energizing activities feeling protected and supported in your life.

Notice how your body responds to this exercise and imagine the items from the draining column feeling lighter,

Feeling less urgent,

Less heavy.

And just place one hand on your heart if it feels right.

And you might want to repeat silently or to yourself out loud,

My energy matters.

My energy matters.

I will choose responsibly.

I will choose responsibly.

I do not need to carry everything.

I do not need to carry everything.

Let's close this with a slow breath in and out.

And I hope you can reflect on these columns and on what we've did today here.

And you can think about this and journal on this if you like.

What did I learn today about where my energy is drained and what small shift could help me reclaim it?

I hope this was valuable to you and I'd love to hear how it went.

Take care.

Bye for now.