Judith Orloff - Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear Into Vibrance, Strength, and Love

When its over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms...

I dont want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Im grateful to the many people whove sustained me in my writing:

Richard Pine, literary agent, ferocious believer in my work and steadfast ally. Betsy Rapoport, beloved editor, whose caring, humor, and intelligence always inspire. Shaye Areheart, publisher, woman of spirit, and champion of this project. Thomas Farber and Susan Golant, who helped me structure and shape this book. Coleman Barks, sweet lover of language, intuition, and truth. Stephan Schwartz, friend and mentor, intrepid explorer of consciousness. Im also grateful to Tina Constable, Penny Simon, and Katherine Beitman at Harmony Books, and to Heidi Krupp, for disseminating my work to the world.

I offer special thanks to the entertainers and notable figures whove given interviews for this book: Jamie Lee Curtis, John Densmore, Eve Ensler, Wavy Gravy, Amy Gross, Quincy Jones, Naomi Judd, Goldie Hawn, Larry King, Norman Lear, Kenny Loggins, Shirley MacLaine, Rosa Parks, Cheryl Tiegs, and Iyanla Vanzant.

In addition, my appreciation for life stories, suggestions, and soul support to: my two(!) psychotherapists, Richard Metzner and Regina Pally. Also: Hafsat Abiola, Lori Andiman, Barbara Baird, Michael Beckwith, Laurie Sue Brockway, Ann Buck, Janus Cercone, Paula Cizmar, Laura Crouse, Jennifer Cook, Molly Malone Cook, Elizabeth Cox, Larry Dossey, Dan Duncan, Linda Garbett, Weili Gu, Catherine Ingram, Tom Justin, Jonathan Kirsch, Michael Manheim, Mary Morrissey, Caroline Myss, Mary Oliver, Dean Ornish, Dean Orloff, Phyllis Paul, Charlotte Reznick, Sharon Salzberg, Lisa Schneiderman, Madeleine Schwab, Hayden Schwartz, Mark Seltzer, Danny Sheehan, Don Singer, Christina Snyder, Leong Tan, Suzanne Taylor, Roy Tuckman, Cynthia Watson, Mary Williams, Beth Zacher, Zuleikha. Finally, gone but not at all forgotten, my parents Maxine Ostrum-Orloff and Theodore Orloff, still guiding me, now from the Other Side.

Finally, I am indebted to my patients and workshop participants from whom I continue to learn so much. Please note Ive changed their names and identifying characteristics to protect their privacy.

INTRODUCTION TO THE POSITIVE ENERGY PROGRAM AND ENERGY PSYCHIATRY: CLAIMING YOUR
ENERGETIC POWER

ARE YOUR FOREVER IN A RUSH, staving off exhaustion? Are you desperately overcommitted, afraid to say no? Do you have fang marks from being bled dry by energy vampires? Does the onslaught of violence in the news leave you drained?

A hidden energy crisis threatens our world. Our high-tech, volatile society thrusts many of us into chronic physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion. Bombarded by information overload, burned out by enslavement to beepers, e-mail, faxes, and phones, we sink into technodespair. Meanwhile, geopolitical realities grind us down. Were confronted with hostile forces on a global scale. No surprise: our energy suffers. Most alarming, weve learned to tolerate tired, joyless states as normal. We must shift this socially condoned pattern of madness, no matter what external threats are looming. Using extraordinary solutions to liberate energy, Ill show you how to alleviate tensions that can do you in and how to design a life that nurtures and supports you.

In this book I want to introduce you to Energy Psychiatry, a term Ive coined to describe a new kind of psychotherapy I practice that addresses the subtle energetic underpinnings of health and behavior. Its a subspecialty of Energy Medicine, which views our bodies and spirits as manifestations of subtle energies, what indigenous cross-cultural healing traditions revere as life forcea concept thats missing in mainstream health care. This is a travesty: theres no way to fully grasp who we humans are without it. Energy Psychiatry mixes traditional medicine with an explanation of how we can maximize our life force in everyday ways. It distills a broad body of knowledge about subtle energy and specifically applies it to psychiatry, an increasingly prescription-dependent field that could use a little reinvention. All the healing arts can benefit from my approach too.

As a board-certified psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with twenty years in practice, I now believe that the most profound transformations can take place only on an energetic level. Ive met a slew of people whove spent lots of time and money in intellectually oriented therapies hoping that rational insights alone can bring the joy they seek. Its truethe mind will set you on the path, and the depth of emotional healing can be phenomenal. However, as much as I encourage and work with both traditional and complementary therapies, my approach coordinates them with a conscious rebuilding of subtle energieslearning to wield the raw power of your life force itself.

My style as a psychiatrist has never been to play it safe just to satisfy some status quo. To offer my patients all thats in me, Ive pushed the envelope of what a physician can be. Along with my conventional training, Im also an intuitive, descended from a long line of intuitivesmy grandmother, mother, and aunts, including Aunt Bertha, the Tarot-toting undertaker. In Energy Psychiatry, I integrate nonlinear messages from images, knowings, and interpretations of energy fields to help my patientsa potent alchemy that strengthens my practice of medicine. (Ive described my struggle to blend intuition with the academic world of science in my books Dr. Judith Orloffs Guide to Intuitive Healing and Second Sight.) What I do isnt just a job. Its my lifes passion. I consider sessions with patients sacred time. For fifty minutes, each one becomes my world; my attention is total. I listen to what they say, and what they dont say. Its exhilarating to track my patients with both intellect and intuition, to function as a finely tuned instrument, a medium offering surprise prescriptions to what often seems unsolvable.

The problem is, we physicians arent taught the full story about energy in medical school. Ive always been incorrigibly curious, with a rebellious streak, and I have no qualms rejecting what doesnt ring true. (Like my female predecessors, I shot out of the womb stubborn and strong!) No wonder that as a medical student the conventional dull take on energy never jibed for me. Professors, who looked bored themselves, taught us that energy was like gasoline: we fuel up with a healthy diet, sleep, and exercise, then set out to face the world. (Even these basics were mentioned only as a tag-on to the hard core sciences.) Our energy level is gauged by how much we accomplish. When our tanks are low, we just refuel. As deeply grateful as I am for my medical educationI consider it Mystery school trainingIve come to realize that this traditional model of energy is stuck in the Dark Ages. It grasps energy only in its crudest form. To plug into a far vaster source, we must also draw on the dormant, subtler energies that lie beneath. In most people, they remain only potential.