Energy is real. I do not mean that in a vague spiritual way that sounds good on a poster and means nothing in practice. I mean it in the most practical, lived-in, Tuesday-afternoon way possible. You know the feeling of walking into a room and feeling lighter. You know the feeling of hanging up a phone call and feeling like something has been taken from you. That is not imagination. That is energy. And the people in your life are either adding to yours or quietly drawing from it. Every single day.
The Ones Who Did Not Break
I have two childhood friends who went through circumstances in their teenage years that would have broken most people. Real difficulty. The kind that does not make the highlight reel and does not come with a lesson neatly tied to it. The kind that just happens and you have to decide who you are going to be on the other side of it.
They did not break. And I want to be clear about what that means because I have seen a lot of people go through hard things and come out the other side with all their wounds worn proudly on the outside, using their pain as both a shield and a weapon. My friends did not do that. They went through the fire and came out refined. They are funny. They are generous. They love hard. They have this quality of presence that only comes from people who have genuinely wrestled with life and chosen to keep showing up anyway.
Those are my lifters. Not because they are perfect. But because when I am around them something in me rises. We laugh until it hurts. We argue about ideas we care about. We share books and podcasts and tools we have found that shifted something in how we see the world. We grow together in real time and there is nothing on this earth quite like growing alongside people who are genuinely happy to see you becoming.
The Self-Hating Ones
Then there are the others. And I say this with love because I genuinely believe that most self-destructive people are not bad people. They are wounded people who never received the tools to heal.
But I also believe in being honest. The people I have had to create distance from are the ones who walk through life pointing outward. Everything is someone else's fault. The system. Their family. Their ex. Their boss. The neighborhood. The government. The universe. Everyone and everything except the person looking back at them in the mirror.
That energy is a particular kind of exhausting because it has no bottom. You can pour encouragement into those people for years and watch it disappear without a trace because encouragement without personal responsibility is just a comfortable place to rest before the next complaint.
I do not cut these people off dramatically. I do not make announcements. I just keep upgrading myself and people naturally find their own level. When I am around someone who drains me I put on extra armor, I do my best to slip in one or two things that might land somewhere useful, and then I move on with my peace intact. You cannot want someone's growth more than they want it for themselves. That is one of the hardest lessons love has ever taught me.
How to Know Who Is Who
The test is simple. After you spend time with someone, do you feel expanded or contracted? Do you leave the conversation with more energy or less? Do you feel seen, challenged, inspired? Or do you feel tired, smaller, or vaguely guilty for having things going well in your life?
That feeling is information. It is not to be argued with or rationalized away. It is your internal compass doing exactly what it was designed to do.
People who match your frequency make you laugh. They make you think. They tell you the truth even when it is uncomfortable because they love you enough to do that. They celebrate your wins without keeping score. They challenge you to be more without making you feel like less. When you are with them time moves differently, fuller, richer, more alive.
Those people are not common. When you find them, hold on. Show up for them the way they show up for you. Water that relationship like a garden because it will feed you in ways that nothing else can.
A Word on Upgrading Without Guilt
I want to address something that comes up whenever I talk about outgrowing relationships. People sometimes hear that as arrogance. As if choosing growth means looking down on the people you are growing away from.
It is not that. Growth is not a competition and it is not a judgment. It is simply a direction. And when you are moving in a direction with intention, some people will walk with you and some people will not. That is not a verdict on their worth. It is just an honest picture of where everyone is.
You are allowed to want more for your life. You are allowed to become. You are allowed to surround yourself with people who inspire you to keep going rather than people who need you to stay where you are so they feel comfortable.
She, the creative force behind all of this, did not put you here to shrink yourself so others would not have to grow. She put you here to become fully and completely the person you were designed to be. Do that. Do it with love for everyone in your life, including the ones you are growing away from. But do it.
Your energy is your most valuable asset. Invest it wisely.
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
Jim Rohn