Mira Kirshenbaum’s earliest memories had to do with how fleeting and precious life is. As a refugee and a child of Holocaust survivors, Mira saw how easily people’s lives were swept away when they were unable to come together in strength with others to oppose the forces of darkness. Today we still suffer from that same problem. We face darkness in our lives and it’s hard for us to deal with it because we feel alone.

Currently Clinical Director of the Chestnut Hill Institute in Boston, Mira has dedicated her life to making available to all the information that had been available only to some. She’s done this through her research and writing, her workshops and one-on-one help. Mira has shown that whatever problem someone is trying to solve in life, someone else has found good answers to it. Hers is a highly pragmatic approach, but it has the virtue of providing tested, effective, commonsensical, do-able solutions.

Mira is the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of seven books—all based on presenting the best solutions some people have found to the problems many of us struggle with. Her books range from “Too Good to Leave”, “Too Bad to Stay” to her latest “The Emotional Energy Factor” (out in paperback in December 2003 and just chosen out of hundreds as a finalist in the Psychology category for the Books for A Better Life Award). Mira has appeared on the Today Show, has been featured on a 20/20 prime-time special, and has been taped at her home for an appearance on the Oprah Show, to name just a few. She has a column in Energy for Women magazine.

Please visit Mira at her websites:
www.MiraKirshenbaum.com and www.EmotionalEnergyFactor.com.

SG = Soul Graffiti
MK = Mira Kirshenbaum

SG: WHAT IS EMOTIONAL ENERGY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Mk: At this moment in time all you have are two things. There’s what you’ve done in the past. There’s the energy you have for doing new things in the future. It’s energy that makes our lives possible. It’s energy that turns futures full of possibilities into pasts that makes us proud of ourselves. When you run out of energy, you’re sunk.

But too often we’ve had the wrong idea about energy. We’ve assumed that it’s purely physical. My new research shows that in fact only 30% of a person’s energy is physical. A full 70% of your energy is emotional. It comes from your emotional reserves. It’s created by the things you do to take care of yourself emotionally.

Most people these days are emotionally exhausted. They’re running on empty. In my book “The Emotional Energy Factor” I offer 25 ways to boost your emotional energy, from creating more meaning in your life to praying more effectively to ending worry to being kinder. And I show how to determine which of the 25 emotional energy boosters you need the most.

SG: CAN BEING KIND ACTUALLY IMPACT OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH AND ENERGY LEVEL?

Mk: The ultimate chapter in my most recent book, “The Emotional Energy Factor”, is on kindness. You might wonder how being kind can increase your energy. But emotional energy doesn’t work like physical energy. With physical energy you have to fill up your tank by eating right and getting enough sleep. With emotional energy you have to fill up your tank with a new sense of yourself and your life. Everything you do to feel more like the real person you are, everything you do to feel proud of yourself, increases your reserves of emotional energy. And few things accomplish this better than being kind.

For one thing, when you’re kind you’re saying to yourself, “This is the sort of person I am. And this is what I’m capable of.” Frankly when we’re kind we impress ourselves in the best possible way. We get energy from being the kind of person who is kind. Besides this, we know perfectly well that when we’re kind we’re investing in life and that in the end there will be a high return on that investment. This makes our lives feel like places that will nourish and support us, and this too increases our emotional energy.

SG: SOUL GRAFFITI OFTEN TALKS ABOUT PERFORMING KINDNESS TO ANOTHER. WHAT ABOUT PERFORMING KINDNESS TO OURSELVES?

MK: I’ve always believed, and now I have the evidence to support this, that if you’re not kind to yourself, your ability to be kind to others ultimately becomes dry and brittle. You might continue to go through the motions, but the joy and creativity and satisfaction will be gone. If you can’t be kind as an act of joy, why bother? But if you can’t be kind to yourself, you’ll never create the possibility of that kind of joy. The part of us that gets anxious and depressed is like a little person inside our minds who worries about our ability to take care of ourselves. We get anxious and depressed when we see that we’re not taking care of ourselves. Being kind to ourselves is the cure.

SG: HOW CAN WE INCREASE THE LOVE IN OUR LIVES?

MK: There’s no escape: you have to give love to get love. This can seem like a platitude until you realize what it requires. It means giving love in response to coldness. It means returning anger with love. It means being loving when you feel deprived. It means giving love when it doesn’t seem to make any sense, when it makes you feel like a fool. But it’s only the people who do this who ultimately leave this world with more love than they started with.

One word of caution though. There are some relationships with some people that will never be satisfying. There’s just not a good enough match. The love you have to give is too far from the kind of love the other person needs, and vice versa. When you realize that you’re in a situation like this, you have to move on. You’re planting seeds in an infertile soil, and eventually you’ll run out. But don’t worry. The world is filled with people and places hungry for your love, and more than able to return it.

SG: WHAT ARE SOME KEYS TO IMPROVING DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIPS?

MK: There are many keys to improving difficult relationships. Here are the 3 most important (besides the idea that if you want to get love, you have to give love):

Key #1: Listen. We all think that we’re good listeners, but we can all do a much better job. You haven’t really listened until the other person has run out of things to say, until the other person truly feels heard. Only then will you earn the right to speak. Only then will you really know what’s important to talk about.

Key #2: Know that everyone is scared. If you’re in a difficult relationship, there is something the other person is scared of that has something to do with you. Understand that fear. Empathize with it. Look for ways to help with it. Only then can you get to the point where an untroubled relationship is possible.

Key #3: Know that everyone feels badly about themselves in some ways. The person you’re dealing with who might seem so angry or withdrawn or self righteous is also someone who feels they’re lacking something important. There are lots of smart people who deep down feel stupid. Successful people who feel that they’ve not really contributed very much. Charming people who wonder if anyone really likes them. And when we don’t feel good about ourselves, it makes us mean. Heal your relationships by showing the other person how much you genuinely appreciate them.