Emotional Vampires? Seriously?

When jargon creates victims

A few years ago, an EHI student sent me an article in DailyOM by Dr. Judith Orloff.  The article, Combating Emotional Vampires, was an excerpt from Dr. Orloff’s online course of the same name.  I generally appreciate Dr. Orloff’s work, and of course, Dr. Orloff didn’t invent the term Emotional Vampires, she’s using it because it’s in the current lexicon.  But I don’t like the term Emotional Vampires at all.

Also called Energy Vampires, Emotional Vampires are people who drain your energy – either consciously/maliciously or unconsciously without malicious intent. The phrase is catchy – Emotional Vampires – huge teeth, ready to drain your energy, seeking you out unawares, wreaking havoc as they steal your mojo, wiping you out.  I’m sure you’ve come across one or two before.

What if you are the boss of your energy?

The problem is – you’re still responsible for who you are and what you do with your energy.  So the term Emotional Vampire makes the other person wrong, and YOU the victim!  Now how’s that working for you?  I mean, it’s totally fine for the other person to be WRONG – who wouldn’t want that? (joke) The problem is – YOU are the hapless victim who gets sucked dry and feels helpless to do anything about it!

And that’s where I go ballistic.  Well, not really, but it does get my dander up! You see, that victim mentality – you at the affect of the behavior of someone else – renders you helpless, hopeless, hapless and mojoless and to be honest with you, that just won’t do.

We all have to get our game on, take up our authority and own our energy fields.  You own your clothes, right?  You own your car, your furniture, your computer, right?  Well darlin’, you own your energy, too.  And it’s up to you to take care of yourself and how you ride.

Emotional vampires vs. emotionally sensitives

Another thing that really disturbs me about the Emotional Vampire concept is that it sets us up to be in polarity – me against you, us against them.  The Vampires vs. the Sensitives.  Someone gets vanquished, overwhelmed, wiped out, perhaps even ill.  While the other mucks about stealing energy, in a perhaps unconscious feeding frenzy, wiping out the good guys encountered in their path.

And you know what else bothers me about the Energy Vampire construct?  We buy the Sensitive a pass for being easily overwhelmed, unable to manage groups of people, the mall, Wal-Mart, parties.  These good people self-marginalize and wind up relegated to fairly small circles of people with whom they feel safe.

So listen up, Vampires.  Get your act together.  Develop your awareness of what you’re doing with your energy. Own your own energy!

And listen up, Sensitives.  Get your act together.  Develop your awareness of what you’re doing with your energy. Own your own energy!

Because in reality, the solution for Sensitives is the exact same solution for Vampires.  Both groups need to learn to own and manage their energy, setting their chakras for the triumvirate awareness:  Self-containment, Self-awareness and Self-responsibility.

Vampires pull on the 2^nd chakra of others. That’s where they’re getting the majority of the mojo that feeds them.  They’re doing so because they’ve already expended their own 2^nd chakra energy.  Their 2^nd chakras are too open and in need of constant feeding.

Sensitives set their 2^nd chakras too open, rendering them easily depleted, and believe it or not, overly sensitive. Sensitives are appreciated for their ability to join with others in their pain, sorrow, joy and elation. They do so by merging their 2^nd chakra with the 2^nd chakra of whomever they’re with at the moment.

How exactly is that different from an emotional vampire?  Sorry folks, it’s not different – it’s the same thing.

Vampires lack boundaries on their energetic field, thus they are out of relation to themselves and easily infiltrate the energy of others.

Sensitives lack boundaries on their energetic field, thus they are out of relation to themselves and easily infiltrated by the energy of others.

If we all learned to set our chakras (imagine a kindergarten class where 5 years olds are taught to set their energy centers for Self-containment, Self-awareness and Self-responsibility!), there would be no such thing as Vampires or Sensitives!  There would just be You and Me and Him and Her and Us, All of Us!

So, while I have zero interest in taking pot shots at colleagues – whether or not I agree with their point of view – I have a huge interest in reframing this conversation.

Practice setting your chakras. Pay attention to your energy. Refuse to give in to the Vampire theory. Settle in to the Autonomy reality. Own your own energy!