What You May Be Stealing from Others & Not Even Noticefeatured

I am in the process of a grand transformation. I feel it in my bones and in my everyday.

I feel it when I have a conversation with someone, when I really see them, instead of treating them like another checkpoint on my race of the day.

I have noticed a shift in the universe as I walk through life the most present I have ever been. People take time to see me. People are gifting me time, energy, and things solely because they feel connected to me when they interact with me.

And it makes me wonder – where have I been my whole life?

Sidenote: I may tell you more about what led to this transformation at a later date – mostly because, right now, I do not have enough useful information to share with you that will be helpful to you on your own journey. So stay tuned for that.

But let me just say this: I was chugging along, doing what I thought “I was supposed to be doing,” and then suddenly none of that made sense. “Why do I have to do what everyone else is doing?” I thought.

I don’t. And neither do you.

Just because you chose a path that seemed to make sense when you were 18, doesn’t mean it was the right one. I mean, I honestly hope you wake up one day and think, “I can be so much more than what I initially thought I could be.”

On this path to reinvention in my 30-something era, I have had the privilege of truly connecting with a ton of humans on the daily.

And one thing I keep noticing with my fresh perspective – in conversations, in relationships, in everyday interactions – is how often we take from each other without noticing.

I am not talking about stealing money or robbing people. I’m talking about a different, quieter, but also very scary kind of taking.

The kind that hides behind rushing around all day or simply not paying attention to the person who is standing right in front of you.

Energy stealing.

The opposite of this kind of robbery is the practice of honoring energy, or non-stealing, which we call “Asteya” in yoga. And while it sounds simple on the surface, it goes so much deeper than not taking what is not physically yours.

Asteya, on an energetic level, is about not taking what was never offered to you in the first place.

In conversations, if you’re forming your response while someone is still speaking, you’re ghosting them in real-time.

In relationships, guilt is not a love language. Neither is making someone else carry what’s yours to hold when their burden is already heavy enough.

While working, credit is not a limited resource, and withholding it is theft.

With time, chronically being late says “my time matters more than yours,” and I would rather not honor yours (even when you don’t mean it to come off that way).

In desire & comparison, every moment you spend wanting that influencer’s life, you’re completely missing out on your own (aka stealing from your own experience).

Out in nature and in spaces, taking up more space than you need communicates that you don’t trust there’s enough and believe you are the worthiest of them all.

In delegation and asking, there’s a difference between inviting someone to help you and quietly outsourcing your discomfort onto them. One comes from humility…the other comes from selfishly not wanting to feel the weight of something that was always yours to carry.

Have you ever met a person who bulldozes into every room they enter and just begins to dump all of their issues onto whoever happens to be there?

That, my friend, is an “energetic vampire,” practicing the exact opposite of “asteya” or non-stealing.

So before you stand in a line at the grocery store and decide to be on your phone for the whole interaction // before you call upon someone for help with something // before you reach out to someone because your burden seems too heavy to carry…

Ask permission.

And before you even ask permission…take a moment to pause and look inward. Ask yourself, “Am I inviting their gift, or am I taking their precious energy because I would rather deplete theirs than mine?”

Here’s a little secret I am learning in this very moment, when I have time to truly be present in every moment of the day: when you stop pulling from people, you become a safe place for them to exist within. They feel it. They don’t know why, but something in them deeply exhales when they’re around you.

They open up more and tell you more stories. They laugh more easily. They show up authentically as themselves, maybe for the first time in a long time, because being in your presence doesn’t cost them a thing.

That’s the real gift of Asteya. You stop being someone people need to quietly recover from, and you become someone people actually want to come back to over and over again. 

And that…It’s contagious.

I am feeling and seeing it every day for myself.

When people feel whole and safe around you, they go out and create the same container for others – maybe without even noticing it.

When you actively practice non-stealing, your own inner work becomes something that impacts people you’ll never even meet. That’s not a woo-woo concept. That’s abundance in action – doing what it was always meant to do.

Abundance moves. Abundance multiplies. Abundance can spread when you decide to do the work.

So, opt out of being an energetic vampire whenever possible and see how abundance begins to surround you. People will react differently to you and even begin gifting you things you may feel you don’t even deserve.

And Love, let me let you in on another little secret: You deserve it ALL.

Love Deeply and Forever,