How to Handle Bad Energy in Your Spaces and Places
The question I’m asked most often is some version of this: ‘How do I deal with a coworker I don’t get along with?’ Or, I’m about to run into someone socially who drains me, but I can’t fully cut her out. How do I manage?
If you’ve ever felt your chest tighten, your breath shorten, or your nervous system spike just thinking about being in the same room as someone, you’re not imagining it. Before we ever name energy, the body knows.
As someone who has experienced (& written about) adult ghosting and the quiet Grief of female friendships changing, I know bad energy the moment I feel it. If you’ve read the Cut’s article on mean mom group culture, you know this isn’t niche behavior. It shows up in Hollywood, on playgrounds, and inside boardrooms. Running into those black cloud people can trigger fight or flight, sending Anxiety through the roof.
You might have the job of your dreams or work alongside incredible people, but the one person you have to interact with most often feels like a constant drain. Whether it’s verbal toxicity, passive aggression, or subtle power plays, when someone’s energy interrupts your field, it can be as disruptive as picking up your phone fifty times a day. It pulls you out of yourself.
If, like many of my clients, you’ve made a commitment to protect your peace, that thick, dark, molasses-like energy can feel invasive, almost sci-fi in nature. You are not imagining that some people and places carry an energetic weight that repels, drains, or disturbs. Highly aware people notice it instantly. Body language shifts. The room feels off. Silence lands like a pinprick.
A few recent examples of energy I flat out dislike:
Seeing a Mean Mom at Christmas school party. Being at a favorite things event with a Mean girl who avoided me despite me introducing her to the entire Lehigh valley. Having someone text-attack me on a group chat after Volunteering my home for a team building pizza party. My BIL speaking down to me about my current role, clearly unaware of my former career expertise. A Family member passive aggressively discuss my Dad’s Health. You get the point. At the ripe old age of 49, I no longer hold onto or put up with the nonsense.
The first instinct is almost always internal. We turn the spotlight on ourselves.
Did I do something wrong?
Did I cause this shift?
Do I deserve this tone or treatment?
Is there something about me that invited this?
If you’re still reading, it tells me something about your desire to remove yourself from the energy vampires.
A N D… you are willing to look at your own patterns. Sensitive, aware women often over-index on responsibility, wanting to understand their role so deeply that they forget to draw a boundary. That courage is real, but it must be paired with discernment.
When someone is allowed to linger too long in your energetic field, small leaks begin to form. The good news is that your own aura is highly responsive. With awareness and intention, you can close the gaps.
So how do we deal with a colleague who thrives on anger, gossip, or control? Or the social situation where avoidance isn’t an option?
1 -Shortening exposure-
if someone will be at an event, arrive a little later and know when you’re leaving. Politeness does not require endurance but self preservation requires some planning. In professional settings, structure your time. Schedule tighter meetings that start at 9.15 am knowing you have a 9.30 client call. When you build in natural endpoints you accomplish the to do list and avoid the passive aggressive long calls. Protect the edges of your day.
2- Create physical distance –
Sit farther away. Choose different seating. Enlist a trusted friend to help create buffers in social settings. If you’re traveling for work, check in early, decline unnecessary dinners, and keep your Sleep space energetically clean. What you absorb during the day follows you into rest.
3- Take breaks–
Step away. Go quiet, stop talking or justifying. Let your nervous system reset in a bathroom stall, a hallway, or a moment of fresh air. Stillness is a shield. Chances are you are not the only one who thinks this energy is the big blob from the center of a fiery volcano.
Clean energy moves with purpose often in vibrant circles or long vertical stripes. It has continuity. It shows up as full, contained structures, fluid motion, or a sense of being encased and whole, like nothing is leaking out or reaching in.
At the end of the day, protecting your energy is not avoidance. It is stewardship. You are not required to fix, heal, confront, or understand everyone who disrupts your field. Your responsibility is to remain regulated, radiant, and intact. Treat your energy like the luxury asset it is. Reserved seating only. Let the dragons circle elsewhere.
NEW – Monthly – Intuitive Energy Clearing
*Join me Monthly for small group energy shifting calls
*You’ll receive group reiki, understand the month’s cosmic patterns, moon energy an hear messages from my clairvoyant gifts.
