Don't give away all your beans

There is a great show called Astrid on PBS about a young woman who works in Criminal Archives in France. She has incredible skills around finding patterns, processing a large amount of data and distilling it into important conclusions and intersting findings. She can also remember just about everything she has ever read. She also has Autism. Astrid is quite brilliant and eventually partners with Raphaelle, a policy inspector, to solve active crimes. She loves the work, especially solving complicated puzzles of cause and effect, but the work takes its toll on her including sapping her energy, over-stimulating her nervous system, and causing her at times to completely physically and mentally to shut down.

In her social support group, the leader one day hands her 10 dry beans and tells her that this trick helped him enormously and may work for her too. Every time a situation is particularly demanding or she engages in a conversation, meeting or event that leaves her feeling drained in some way, she takes away one bean from the stash in her hand (or pocket). At the end of the day, the goal is to have at least one bean left, if not several.

This is a really fantastic, and practical way to manage your energy if others and events tend to drain you. I love this practice because it's simple, straightforward, and visual. Also, if an event or interaction is HIGHLY stimulating, good or bad, you may need to "expense" more than one bean. This is a great tool for managing one's energy throughout the day.

I use this simple exercise all the time and what it has done is allows me and my clients to manage energy levels throughout the day, and week, knowing when its time to shift and do something that restores energy.