Changes at the Table of Our Life

Accepting Change as We Learn and Grow

As we reflect on another year with gratitude, we ready ourselves for a New Year. New Year’s Day often represents an opportunity to make new resolutions that can impact both our health and our important relationships. Sometimes these changes prompt us to also make new observations about the table of life at which we have been sitting.

Are those at our table sharing some of their own invigorating energy or have they become needy for some of ours? Do the discussions at the tables of our life bring new opportunities to explore and grow or are they filled with endless chatter about external events? Are there some individuals seated nearby with whom we have not yet been able to engage in a “same page experience?”

When we decide to reorganize and re-channel the energy at the table of our life, it’s important to understand its possible sources.

Energy of Self

Each of us has opportunities to monitor and manage how we expend both external and internal energy. 

Our external energy manifests itself in daily interactions with our family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances; often these encounters occur spontaneously, triggered and then influenced by external circumstances.

Our internal level of energy is influenced by a number of factors unique to oneself: physical (e.g., sleep, nutrition, exercise), emotional (e.g., awareness, regulation, balance), and core (e.g., positioning, practices, resources).

It’s important to identify ways to balance our internal energies versus external forces which is accomplished by identifying and practicing our personal values in productive ways.

Energy of Others

It is very important to consider the amounts and types of energy that others bring to the table. 

Others, like ourselves, have external and internal energy—however, we often have no clue about where or how they are sourcing their energy. Plato is credited with saying, “Be kind. Every person you meet is fighting a difficult battle.”

It can be difficult to be kind when you have to work with a person who seems to drain all your energy. Common examples include the classmate who’s not pulling their weight on a team assignment or an employee who keeps making excuses for their poor performance. Our rendition of Plato might then be: “When your problems continue to become my problems, we have a problem.”

Synergy of Energy

Discovering the best way to integrate the energy that we bring to that provided by others is a challenge worthy of our consistent best efforts.

Taking time to inventory our own values—what matters most to us—is an important way to begin. Connecting with people who share our sources of meaning naturally adds energy and value to our lives and  allows us to reconsider, if necessary, with whom we wish to share a table.

Then we can go about the process of adding or removing placemats from our table of life. Granted, there still may be some that cannot simply be removed (e.g., bosses, colleagues, family); however, with thought, when necessary, we can rearrange the seating plan to provide more comfortable patterns of closeness and distance. As our understanding and reflection evolves, it’s even possible that we will one day ask ourselves, “What major new goals can be achieved by this group’s steadily increasing energy and initiative?”

As life necessarily brings change, we have almost unlimited opportunities to thoughtfully reposition ourselves and those who we invite to join us at our table.