You felt great an hour ago. What happened?

You walked into the room feeling great.

Then one tense conversation, one curt email, one passive-aggressive comment — and suddenly you're spinning. Replaying it. Wondering if you missed something. Questioning whether you're as good as you thought you were an hour ago. Sound familiar? 

You didn't lose your footing. You absorbed someone else's energy/mood.

Here's the thing most high-achieving women don't realize: this isn't a character flaw or a confidence problem. It's biology. And once you understand it, you can stop letting it run the show.

THE SCIENCE (quick, then we move):

There's a real phenomenon called emotional contagion — the tendency to automatically pick up and mirror the moods of the people around you, until you're feeling what they're feeling. Researchers define it as emotions involuntarily spreading between people, then converging.

And the kicker, from Wharton's Sigal Barsade, whose research pioneered this field: negative emotions tend to dominate over positive ones — because fear and frustration hit the amygdala and trigger fight-or-flight faster than calm does.

So no, you're not "too sensitive."  You're human. The fix isn't to feel less — it's to lead your energy on purpose.

4 WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR ENERGY (AND YOUR WORTH):

1. Name it in the moment. The research is clear on the antidote: awareness. The second you feel the dip, label it: "That's their energy, not mine." Naming it breaks the absorption.

2. Separate the feeling from the fact. Someone's mood is data about them, not a verdict on you. A short reply isn't a referendum on your worth. A tense client isn't proof you're failing. Ask: "What's actually true here?" — and stop there.

3. Anchor to your own evidence. Your worth isn't up for a vote in every interaction. Keep a running record — wins, client results, the reasons you built this. When you're spinning, you don't reach for someone's bad mood. You reach for the facts.

4. Be the thermostat, not the thermometer. Here's the empowering part: if energy is contagious, yours is too. As the leader - in your business, at home or with your clients, you set the emotional temperature of the room. You don't have to catch the mood — you can be the one who sets it.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

You will never control the energy other people bring. But you get to decide whose energy you carry out the door.

Their bad day is theirs. Your worth was settled long before they walked in.

Lead from that!

If you're tired of letting other people's energy dictate yours — that's exactly the kind of work we do together. Let's get you leading from your own center, on purpose.

→ Book a Discovery Call and let's build the structure that keeps your energy yours.

With you in it,

Jody

P.S. This is exactly what we're digging into at The Burnout Proof Workshop on June 10th. If protecting your energy and leading without running on empty is where you're at right now, this one's for you. Sign-ups close June 9th — don't wait. → Save your spot here