The timing of your workouts could be quietly shaping your energy—for better or worse.

When it comes to optimizing the flow of prana in and around your body, when we do certain activities can have a significant impact on our energy—and the rest of our day. You can actually organize your schedule in a way that supports the natural states of your chakras that follow different physical activities.

Lifting weights is a perfect example. There's a simple timing trick you can use to influence the state of your energy centers—so you’re energetically aligned for whatever you have planned that day.

When we lift weights, our energy centers (chakras) tend to contract. Think of this like a portal that shifts from being wide open to partially closed. The chakras, which are spinning energy vortices, temporarily reduce in size—like the lens of a camera narrowing its focus.

Now, you might be thinking this sounds like a bad thing—but it’s not. It’s simply a different energetic state with different benefits.

When our chakras are large and open, we tend to be more sensitive to subtle energies. We can pick up on the emotions of others more easily, anticipate what someone’s about to say, hear more acutely, and even experience heightened compassion and intuition. All of these are valuable qualities.

But—there are times in life when being less sensitive is actually more useful. If you know you need to be focused, grounded, or mentally insulated (such as during a stressful workday or emotionally charged conversation), slightly contracted chakras can help. They keep your energy more internalized and stable.

This is where timing becomes a powerful tool.

I’m a big fan of writing motivational quotes on a whiteboard—anything that gives me a little extra push to shift my mindset.

If you're like most people, you're not immune to the advances of modern technology that put social media and the news right in the palm of your hand—from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. If you’re someone who regulates your intake of these things, I applaud you—and so does your energy.

But for the rest of us, you've probably noticed that after scrolling through certain content, you're not exactly inspired to do your best work or feel joy. That’s because words carry energy.

When we consume things—especially negative or fear-based messages—they leave an energetic imprint. That imprint influences how we feel and how we act.

This is why it helps to keep uplifting words in your environment. If you tend toward self-doubt, try writing something like “You are stronger than you think” on a whiteboard, a sticky note, or your phone's home screen. Even if you don’t believe it yet, seeing those words repeatedly will begin to shift your energy.

One of my favorite teachings of Master Choa Kok Sui is the simple idea that “awareness creates transformation.”

It’s easy to gloss over a phrase like that. But if you sit with it for even a moment, the truth of it becomes hard to ignore.

So many habits in people’s lives go undetected—not necessarily by others, but by the individuals themselves. These habits often have a negative impact, either directly or through their ripple effect on others. And the same is true for our emotional energy.

Fear, anger, anxiety—these aren’t just “personal” feelings. They radiate outward. Energetically speaking, they contaminate the aura. And yet, because we’ve experienced them for so long, we start to see them as part of our personality—rather than temporary energy states we can shift.

Take fear, for example. Left unexamined, fear can wreak havoc on our internal world—and also affect those around us. But here’s the tricky part: the one feeling the fear often doesn’t even realize it.

Let’s say you’ve always claimed to hate spiders. That’s just “how you are.” But pause for a moment—could it be fear? And if so, when did you stop seeing it as fear and start seeing it as identity?

This is where awareness becomes the catalyst.

If you consciously decide that fear is something you no longer want driving your life, you begin to see it differently. The moment you recognize, “Ah, this is fear”—the energy begins to break down. You’re no longer entangled with it.

As Master Choa teaches: