Where Is Your Energy Leaking?

Maybe you don't need more energy. Maybe you need to stop leaking the energy you already have.

At our Open House this summer, I gave a short talk about something I think about all the time: contraction versus expansion.

Contraction comes from fear, scarcity, competition, proving, protecting and survival. Expansion comes from love, joy, purpose, passion, curiosity and possibility.

And here's the tricky part: you can get a LOT done from contraction.

You can build the business. Hit the goal. Take care of everyone. Keep all the balls in the air. Push through. Perform. Produce. Accomplish.

It works.

But it comes at a cost...

That's what I call energy leakage.

Having Energy Isn't the Same as Having Access to It

We tend to think about energy as something we need to acquire.

Sleep more. Eat better. Exercise. Meditate. Take the supplement. Drink more water. Go on vacation.

All helpful.

But think about your energy like water filling a bathtub. You can turn the faucet on full blast, but if the drain is wide open, it doesn't really matter how much water is pouring in. You're trying to fill something that's leaking just as fast as you're filling it.

We do the same thing with our energy.

We keep trying to add more while enormous amounts of what we already have are being spent managing fear, replaying conversations, worrying about what might happen, resisting change, seeking validation, living out of alignment or immediately chasing the next accomplishment.

Maybe the answer isn't always turning up the faucet.

Maybe we need to look at the drain.

And that requires a very different question:

Where is my energy going?

Let's Talk About Chakras for a Second

Chakra is a Sanskrit word often translated as wheel or vortex, and the chakra system is one framework humans have used to understand the energetic body.

If you've taken Reiki training at SHINE, you know we've been teaching students how to test the chakras as an indication of someone's frequency for almost 15 years. That approach is much more common now. When we started teaching it? Not so much. 😂

But here's something important:

IMO, chakras are one of many ways we try to explain who we are energetically.

Different traditions and cultures have created different maps. Traditional Chinese Medicine works with meridians and qi. Taoist traditions describe dantians. Yogic and Hindu traditions have extensive teachings around chakras, nadis and prana.

Different maps. Different language. Different interpretations of something humans have been trying to understand for a very long time.

Chakras may be the most familiar framework in the Western wellness world, but they're still a framework.

And over the last two decades of doing this work, I've developed my own way of looking at these energy centers.

I Don't Believe a "Closed" Chakra Is Bad

This has bothered me forever.

Someone gets their chakras tested and hears that one is "closed," and immediately:

Oh no. What's wrong with me?

Nothing. You're human! In a physical body. Experiencing contrast.

Open and closed isn't good or bad. It's data.

I've always taught that a closed root chakra, for example, can show up during periods of enormous growth and transformation. You may be right in the messy middle—who you were doesn't fit anymore, but who you're becoming hasn't fully landed yet.

Is that bad?

Hell no.

That's why we're here.

So over time, I stopped being interested in labeling energy centers as simply open or closed and became much more interested in another question:

Where might your energy be leaking?

That question eventually became the foundation for my Seven High Frequency Healing Energy Centers™.

Seven Centers. Seven Places to Notice.

These loosely follow the traditional chakra locations, but the language reflects how I've come to understand the patterns after years of working with people.

01 — Transformation + Growth: Energy may leak when you're holding onto an identity, relationship, habit or version of yourself you've already outgrown—or waiting to feel completely ready before making a move.

02 — Creation + Possibility: Leakage can look like talking yourself out of ideas, putting your desires behind everyone else's needs or becoming so practical that you stop imagining what's possible.

03 — Celebration + Receiving: You accomplish the thing...and immediately move the goalpost. You struggle to receive the win, enjoy where you are or let anything actually be enough.

04 — Illumination: This is contribution. It's the part of you that expands when you're using what you've been given in service of something beyond yourself. Energy can leak when you know you have something to contribute—your gifts, wisdom, creativity, leadership, service—but you're not expressing it. There is a cost to withholding what you came here to give.

05 — Conversation + Belief: The stories you tell yourself and others become the place your energy goes—replaying conversations, assuming the worst, repeating limiting beliefs or continuing to describe a reality you desperately want to change.

06 — Perception + Wisdom: You already know, but keep asking. You second-guess yourself, seek another opinion, search for more validation and give outside voices more authority than your own inner knowing.

07 — Connection + Alignment: You're going through the motions. Life may look perfectly fine from the outside, but you're disconnected from yourself, your purpose, your values or the feeling that any of it actually means something.

You may recognize yourself in several.

I certainly do.

I'll Tell You Where Mine Leaks

03 — Celebration + Receiving.

This one has my name written ALL over it.

I am a creator. I love building things. I love an idea, a possibility, a vision and the momentum of making something that didn't exist yesterday exist today.

The problem?

I can spend months creating something, launch it, watch it succeed and approximately eleven seconds later my brain goes:

Okay, great. What's next? 😂

Excuse me, Cortney.

Could we perhaps take twelve seconds to say, Hey, good for you. You just created that thing you couldn't stop talking about for six months.

This is why I don't think energy leakage means something is wrong with you.

My ability to create is one of my greatest gifts.

But every gift can have a place where energy escapes.

For me, the practice isn't becoming less driven. It's learning how to receive what I've already created before racing toward the next thing.

That's a very different conversation.

And Then There's Center 05

This one is especially important to me because it demonstrates why I don't use the traditional chakra definitions as rigid rules.

The fifth center corresponds with what is commonly called the throat chakra. The simplified interpretation of a blocked throat chakra is often something like:

You're not speaking your truth.

Sure.

Sometimes.

But after years of doing this work, I think Conversation + Belief is much bigger than whether you're speaking up.

What story are you telling?

About yourself. Your marriage. Your body. Your business. Your childhood. Your money. The person who hurt you. The thing that isn't working.

And how many times have you told it?

Because here's where it gets interesting.

You cannot continually rehearse the story of what is while expecting your energetic state to embody something completely different.

If every conversation reinforces this always happens to me, nobody supports me, my body never cooperates, people always leave, I never have enough, this is just who I am—you're not simply describing your experience.

You're continuing to participate in the story.

That doesn't mean pretending something isn't happening. It doesn't mean bypassing reality or slapping a positive affirmation over something painful.

It means becoming aware of whether the story you're telling is helping you move toward the reality you want—or keeping your energy anchored to the one you're trying to leave.

That's leakage.

Which Brings Us Back to Contraction

Contraction isn't bad either.

Your nervous system contracts for a reason. Fight-or-flight is designed to protect you. There are moments when urgency, focus and even fear can mobilize enormous amounts of energy.

The problem isn't visiting contraction.

The problem is building your house there.

When contraction becomes the way you operate—constantly protecting, proving, anticipating, competing, controlling or surviving—it requires energy to maintain.

That's why someone can be incredibly productive and completely depleted at the same time.

Expansion is different.

Expansion gives energy room to move. Joy creates energy. Purpose creates energy. Curiosity creates energy. Passion creates energy. Possibility creates energy.

You stop using so much of your available energy defending against life and have more of it available to actually participate in life.

This Has Become a Much Bigger Part of My Work

The Seven High Frequency Healing Energy Centers™ started as a way for me to describe patterns I kept seeing.

Now they've become part of how I think about frequency altogether—and part of the deeper work I teach inside High Frequency Healing™ certification and mentorship.

Because energy work, to me, isn't simply about someone putting their hands over you, balancing your chakras or changing your frequency for you.

That doesn't hold for long.

It's learning to notice your own energy: where it expands, where it contracts, where it flows, where it leaks—and eventually, how to steward it differently.

So I Created an Energy Audit

Not a test.

Not a diagnosis.

And definitely not another internet quiz designed to tell you everything that's wrong with you. 😂

I created the Midlife Energy Audit to help you notice which of these seven centers may be asking for your attention right now.

You may discover that you're leaking energy by resisting a transformation that's already happening. Maybe you're abandoning your own desires or withholding something you're here to contribute. Maybe you're telling an old story. Maybe you're asking everyone else for an answer you already know.

Or maybe, like me, you need to stop for five dang minutes and celebrate what you've already created.

Whatever comes up, remember:

It's data.

That's all.

And data gives you somewhere to begin.

Take the free Energy Audit here: https://www.theprimetimeproject.com/midlife-energy-audit

Maybe your next level isn't about turning up the faucet. Maybe it's finally noticing what's been going down the drain.

xo,

💚 Cortney