The Energy Exchange Which Occurs in Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse is typically invisible to most people including the abuse victims themselves. In fact while victims of emotional abuse may be aware of feeling sad, upset or lack lustre, they may not truly know why they feel this way. Adding onto this the fact that emotional abusers are often times quite charming and endearing personalities, and you begin to understand how emotional abuse is often quite hard to detect.

Photo courtesy http://www.playbuzz.com/johnmr10/is-your-current-relationship-emotionally-abusive

Understanding the Energy Exchange of Emotional Abuse

You are energy. Beyond your organs, blood and water which makes up 70% of your body, are the chemicals and molecules and atoms. The core components of atoms are very minute particles which when keenly observed are nothing more than highly vibrating pockets of energy. Some people intuitively understand that we are energy but may refer to this as spirit. While it can be argued that energy and spirit are one and the same, in this blog series we will view spirit as an attribute of energy which may be positive or negative but energy itself is neutral.

Understanding that you are energy and that energy is the essence of who you are will help you to understand the interactions that occur between abusers and victims. All abusers are thieves. Have you ever understood the term ‘steal my joy’? Well abusers are out to do just that! However they don’t want to just steal your joy, although that may be a consequence of what they do. No, they want to steal your energy. Abusers are people who typically always feel low in energy (and I don’t mean physical energy) and they don’t know how to top up on this energy from Source and refuel themselves through positive and healthy practices. So they do the next best thing – they steal it from you.

Imagine this very subtle but real example of emotional abuse. You and your husband have to go out to a special function in a few days. You know that he sometimes questions your choice of clothing and so you are quite preoccupied with trying to find the perfect dress – the one that will make him look at you approvingly. You believe you found such a dress in your wardrobe, a pretty little number that you have not worn in years but which is practically still brand new as you only wore it once before. You are particularly drawn to it because you remember how much he raved about it, the one time you wore it years ago, and you really hope to get the same response from him. You put it on and you look at yourself appreciatively. You look fantastic despite having a kid or two. In fact the few additional pounds have all settled into the right places and it looks like you are now properly filling out the dress as it snugly holds your shapely body in a tasteful manner.

Finally on the night of the event, you put on the dress and wait for your husband’s verdict. He is upset with his boss and since the event is work related, he is in an especially grumpy mood. He looks at you and for a moment there is a very pregnant pause. In that moment, you start doubting yourself - you’re not as thin as when you first bought the dress and maybe you look silly instead of sexy!

So there you are biting your bottom lip and awaiting the end of his inspection and of course he senses your self-doubt. Finally he says –

‘So you know that I have this really important company dinner and you could not even make the time to buy a new dress? Is that old dress the best thing you could have chosen to wear? Don’t you know how important it is for me to make a good impression to my co-workers or is it your plan to embarrass me? Besides that dress is for a thinner person! It’s fitting you too snug! Have you forgotten that you are a mother?’

You go and change your clothes, and even though you take only a few minutes to get into another dress, you have to hear him fuss some more because now you are making him late! By the time, you reach to the dinner, you would notice though that his mood has brightened up considerably and as you walk through the entry doors of the event your husband is in full show mode and is every bit the charming and pleasant conversationalist that you first met and fell in love with. He may even whisper an apology into your ears and tell you that he did not mean to hurt your feelings; he just needed to tell you the truth. He may even go so far as to promise to take you shopping to get you a whole new wardrobe. This no doubt, will perk you up as you thank your lucky stars that you have such an amazing husband. You start looking forward to your shopping expedition with the manner he recently demeaned you all forgotten.

Reviewing the Exchange of Energy in the Example Above

1.       Your husband\abuser does not feel good about their self. Maybe they feel wronged by someone or maybe they are dealing with long repressed emotions or trauma from their childhood but consequently their energy is low.

2.       They need to feel good about their self and they need energy. In the scenario above, the husband may have even tried to pick a fight at work (emotional abusers are often very charming in the interview phase and upon first meeting them. After a while, their colleagues tend to drift away from them as their true negative behaviours begin to surface with time.) The people who work with this guy however don’t feel a need to feed him the energy he so desperately needs and so he comes home in a bad mood.

3.       You are there waiting for his approval on the dress you have carefully selected. As a victim, you are very codependent and your need to have his approval only serves to advertise to him that your energy is available for stealing. It’s like leaving your car unlocked and unattended in a rough neighbourhood – you are basically begging someone to steal it from you!

4.       When he delivers his hurtful words to you, the desired effect is obtained. The moment you feel as though the wind has been knocked out of you is the moment the energy leaves your body. Some of us are sensitive enough to feel a pit or drop in our stomach. The solar plexus chakra is located there and that is the seat of your confidence and that’s why we actually feel a drop in energy there. Your face appears to fall and you look downcast because our energy level is easily reflected on our faces.

5.       With the desired effect obtain, your abuser actually feels a boost in his moral. He may continue to chide and deride you, feeding on your energy until he feels sufficiently topped up.

6.       In public settings it is important to him that you look and reflect how he feels because he sees you as an extension of him. (Note: We are truly all ONE but in LOVE. We are all extensions of God the Father – the God of LOVE. Codependents don’t see you as an extension of their Higher, True Self but of their lower energetic self which is not healthy!) So once you are in public, he wants you to brighten up. If you look all sad and sour that may reflect negatively on him and so he says something nice to you and may even apologize. Truthfully abusers don’t really need a public setting to turn around and play Mr. Nice Guy. Once their energy feels high, they don’t like it if you are feeling low around them and so they will try to perk you up so that you now match the high they are on. This is particularly true of narcissistic abusers and this very quality makes them highly unsympathetic and unable to relate to you when you are having a genuine low spell or are dealing with some grief. This up and down nature of relationships with emotional abuse however, is also what makes the abuse quite insidious and particularly toxic.

7.       You feel happy but for all the wrong reasons. The apology offered was not really an apology. When he told you sorry for hurting your feelings but he just had to tell the truth what he really said is “It’s too bad your feelings got hurt because I’m such an honest guy!” In this ‘apology’ he never acknowledges that he should not have said what he said. In fact he vindicates himself!

8.       You are looking forward to a shopping excursion with your darling controlling hubby and reaffirming to him and yourself what he has already stated – that you don’t know how to dress yourself and that he needs to be there to help you choose your own clothes. In giving in to his subtle control, you are further guaranteeing to him the continuous supply of your glorious divine energies. You are not holding any to yourself. You are willingly giving them over to him on a platter.


You my wonderful, divine sister are not operating in the fullness of your God given goddess nature. Spending time watching your thoughts, being mindful, meditating, praying, singing, dancing and any activity that makes you reconnect to your soul allows the goddess within you to awaken.  Communing with the Eternal Mother-Father-Creator-GOD helps you to remember who you really are. Your energy is sacred to you. Don’t give it up so easily. The next time your abusive partner says something hurtful to you, take a deep breath and ask yourself three questions in this order:

Is this statement of me true?

Was it necessary for him to say this to me?

Could he have expressed the same thing to me in a nicer way?

These three questions are three gates and only those words which were first filtered through love can pass through all three gates. From the moment one of these gates refuses to open, dismiss the statement and simply tell your partner “I hear you but I don’t wish to receive what you are saying into my spirit.” You then walk away with your energy, leaving his energy tank on empty.

Do not engage in lengthy conversation or arguing for getting you worked up and angry is another way your energy gets stolen.

You are waking up and that is why you are here. You may falter and succumb to your abuser’s tactics despite reading this but don’t beat yourself up. It takes time to un-learn unhealthy practices. The simple act of becoming more aware of how energy works in abusive relationships is the first step to better managing and protecting your energies. Actually awareness is the key to awakening.

You would notice the first time you effectively hold onto your energy instead of giving it away, your abuser may be confused. They may even try harder to steal your energy by saying something even more hurtful. Do not rejoice outwardly (as this may aggravate the situation) but rejoice in your heart, knowing that you have successfully deflected their plans to ‘steal your joy’.

Like Esperanza you need to sing "I'm not gonna waste my precious divine energy, trying to explain and feeling ashamed of things you think are wrong with me." Enjoy the music of this beautiful, divine sister in her performance below.

Love, light and blessings

Elizabeth Energy       

 “I’m not gonna waste my precious, divine energy, trying to explain and feeling ashamed of things you think are wrong with me.” - Precious by Esperanza Spalding