How to Work With Energy (As An Introverted Writer)

“We are energetic beings,” a voice resounds, “interconnected like a giant web. We are all one, reflections of each other’s states.” A crowd shares in a disbelieving laughter that begs the question: Who’s this crackpot?

“False. We are all ‘His children,’ created in His image. At the same time, we are fallen and flawed, and He is our only chance at redemption,” a rival voice declares. A large portion of the crowd sign off on this one; the idea of an exclusive, male-led salvation is delicious. But those who didn’t get picked first in P.E. aren’t necessarily buying it.

Do we create our own happiness, or can we only pray for it? Are prayer and creation the same thing?

“NO!” the exclusives admonish, angry at the question and eager to give The Right Answer. 

A small, dreamy group begins to describe how a mushroom told them the real truth: that we really are all one divine being sharing a human experience. The Exclusives tout this as evidence to not listen to another word they say. 

What use is talking to a mushroom when there’s an invisible Man in the Sky taking round-the-clock requests?

The remainder of the crowd agrees with none of this. They believe everything is random—that there is no rhyme nor reason to anything that occurs. That you live once, and then become dust. 

But is this simply a way to shirk accountability, to claim that life can only ever happen to you rather than because of a greater plan?

Zoom out a little further, and we’re all buried under layers of missing context, trying to make sense of a few stray hints. It becomes clear that we’re all just using different languages to describe the same thing: We can sense that we’re energetically tapped into one another, and into the world around us. 

So where does our awareness go from there? 

The gentle frenzy of a literary convention

We don't often speak about energy because it's hard to define. It's not a language the world teaches fluently—it’s more like a hum beneath everything, a frequency we either tune into or drown out. But it’s impossible not to feel it.

This year’s AWP Conference was exactly what you’d imagine for a group of bookworms coming together: gentle, watery, empathetic. A glittering mirage of nodding heads; understanding gazes; stunning book and magazine covers worthy of judgment; brightly-colored, pattern-heavy outfits. An echo of sighs in introvert—a symphony of your work changed my life: It made me feel less alone.

It was very different from the content marketing conference at that San Diego hotel or the cannabis retail conference at the Javits Center in New York City: i.e., everyone else at the book conference dreaded “networking” as much as I do, and made no effort to mask that. 

I found comfort in the collective sigh of relief—Something about being able to say, “I dislike networking” empowers you to do the very thing you just admitted you don’t like. 

It was at AWP that I first consciously allowed myself to merge with an energy I preferred. To stop resisting the softness in the room. To float instead of anchor. I didn't need to overcompensate. I didn’t need to perform. I just needed to be—a reader among readers, a writer among writers, a human in the quiet permission of being.

Fitness Expo—Let’s Go!

If AWP was mist, the Anaheim Fitness Expo was pure voltage.

Ripped bodies, bright lights; protein powders with names like Warfare and Annihilate; influencers doing squats in metallic shorts; boxers butting heads in a concrete ring.

The energy was neither gentle nor introverted. It was a firehose of intensity with two choices: tense up and reject it, or surrender and play.

A younger version of me would’ve shut down. This isn’t for me. I’m not this kind of person.

But if it’s in my reality, then it is for me. I just have to find my place in the flow.

The key to working with energy is to stop judging it. Stop assigning a moral quality to your environment; instead start listening. Ask yourself, How can I show up as this version of me, just for today? What can I learn from being this loud, this alive, this embodied?

I didn’t need to become someone else—I just needed to honor the fact that I’m allowed to be many things. A body can lift weights and whisper poems. A soul can prefer solitude and still be lit up by spectacle. 

Energy in motion

We are energetic beings. Every choice we make—every emotion we feel—requires energy to sustain it.

It takes energy to be kind. It takes energy to be cruel. It takes energy to ignore your intuition and energy to follow it. Even doing nothing is not neutral; it’s a choice.

Think about the different ways you feel it: the collective hum of people enjoying a concert. The swell of tears during an emotional film screening. Someone walking into the room with a mood heavy enough to tip the walls. Laughing so hard with someone you love that it feels like your atoms rearrange.

The real shift happens when you realize you’re not just reacting to energy—you’re creating it.

To become aware of energy is to become aware of your power. Because once you see the pattern, you can decide if you want to keep playing the same game.

You might notice: every time you overextend yourself, you feel resentful. Every time you set a boundary, your body relaxes. Every time you honor your truth, something clicks into place. You start to see energy as currency—precious, non-refundable.

And just like that, you start to play with it. You start to realize: your energy is your responsibility. No one else’s.

Protecting your energy 

Protecting your energy doesn’t mean building walls. It means building filters. It means saying no when you mean no. It means knowing you’re allowed to change your mind. It means walking away from chaos, even if it’s familiar. It means trusting that your softness is sacred, and your fire is too.

If energy is your compass, fear is the static. It clouds the signal. It tells you you’re not ready, not worthy, not capable. But fear isn’t truth—it’s a test. 

The truth is, you are the signal. You’ve always been tuned in. The work is just learning how to listen, and then daring to respond.

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