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September: Protecting My Energy, Choosing What Enters My Inner World

Sep 27

4 min read

I promised I'd meet you again at the end of the month, to tell you how I lived this exercise, and this September, myself.

September wasn't a spectacular month. But rereading my notes, I can see it shifted my question.

Portrait of a smiling woman crowned with flowers, in golden light with butterflies and a sparkling background. (AI-optimized image)

Protecting My Energy: The Question That Changed

I thought I was working on this: which relationships do I want in my life?

I caught myself asking: what am I still willing to let into my inner world?

This idea had been following me since the start of the month. When certain people keep mistreating you, you can end up mistreating yourself. If someone keeps telling you that the way you love yourself is wrong, one day, you take that voice in. And you no longer know how to love yourself any other way.

Cultivating gentle relationships, then, wasn't only about hoping others would be kind to me. It was also about refusing to let my relationships teach me to treat myself worse.

Noticing What Each Encounter Does to Me

I watched closely what happens after interactions.

After a lovely outing, I need quiet time. Not to do nothing. To let the good moment settle in me, a bit like letting dough rest before working it.

After an unpleasant interaction, it's the opposite. The scene replays in my head for hours, sometimes days.

So I started treating my energy after an encounter as information. I no longer ask only whether a relationship is “good” or “bad.” I look at what it produces in me.

September also let me put words on my hypersensitivity. In-person exchanges take more energy from me than virtual ones. Some video calls exhaust me. Even the good moments need to be digested. And my inner world takes the time it needs to process what comes from outside.

Before, I asked myself: why am I like this? Now I ask: how do I live wisely with the way I work?

I even made a little discovery: a walk after a video call noticeably shortens the time I need to find my balance again. It sounds so simple. But I'm starting to know how I work.

Before, I tried to hold on. Now, I'm learning to recover.

Daring to Reach Out, Despite Everything

This month, I also stepped up my LinkedIn outreach for my work as a strategic writer and LinkedIn ghostwriter for life coaches and career coaches.

I'll admit I went in with some apprehension. When you're hypersensitive, reaching out to strangers means exposing yourself to being looked at, to silences, sometimes to curt replies.

And yet, I was lucky to cross paths with kind people, even caring ones. Some conversations have already led to interesting collaborations, which I'll probably tell you more about in October.

I'm not saying it will always be this gentle. But it reminded me of something important: protecting my energy doesn't mean shutting myself in. It means choosing my doors.

Letting Go of What Doesn't Have to Stay

A little ritual kept me company this month, inspired by Louise L. Hay. When someone has upset or hurt me, and my mind replays the scene on a loop, I tell myself:

“I bless you with love, I release you, and I let you go.”

It's not magic. But it helps me avoid granting permanent residency, in my head, to the interactions that hurt me.

I no longer want to scatter my energy everywhere. Ruminating endlessly. Justifying myself constantly. Absorbing other people's emotions. Or treating every exchange as something I have to “manage.”

I want to be able to simply tell myself: this is mine, this doesn't belong to me.

A Door Opening

And then, there was also my late daughter's birthday.

For several years, this date carried a particular pain. But this year, something changed. Once the date had passed, I didn't feel what I used to feel. I felt lightness.

Like a door opening. Like the arrival of a new era. For the first time in more than seven years, I felt I had finally arrived somewhere.

I won't say more here, because some things are better lived with discretion. But I wanted to note it. It's not a detail. And it falls, I think, at the precise moment I was exploring gentle relationships.

What I'm Carrying Into October

If July was the month I started becoming, and August the one where I learned to give myself permission, September was the month of discernment.

I no longer ask only: how can I be gentler with myself? I ask: what deserves my energy, my attention, my time, and my inner space?

Here's what this month taught me:

A gentle relationship is one where I don't constantly need to protect myself.
A pause isn't an escape. Sometimes it's the way back to myself.
My hypersensitivity is information I take into account, not a flaw to fix.
I can deeply appreciate someone and still respect my need to recover.
Not everything that crosses my mind deserves to stay there.
I don't need to become less sensitive. I need to become a better guardian of what I expose my sensitivity to.

And now that I've observed what soothes me, what nourishes me, what overloads me, and what hurts me, one last question remains: will I trust what I observe?

That will be October's theme: trusting my inner voice.

So tonight, I'm opening my EstellyHappy notebook, and I'm inviting you to do the same, if your heart says yes:

What do I choose to let into my inner world, and what do I let go?

Journal Happy Moments EstellyHappy – Madras & Birds

Buy Now

The Journal Happy Moments Madras & Birds helps me keep track of the good moments worth taking in. The Carnet de Notes Positives Madras & Colibris holds what I set down so I can let it go more easily. They're available in the shop.