How to Generate Positive Emotional Energy to Counter Negativity  Part II of an Interview with Judith Orloff, M.D. by Alissa Lukara

 

ALISSA LUKARA: In your book, Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress & Fear into Vibrance, Strength & Love, you discuss how much energy emotions contain. Negative emotions, you write, can drain us and sap our spirits. Positive emotions on the other hand can reanimate us and open us to more joy and inner peace. You show people how they can transform negative emotions and generate positive emotional energy. Let’s go through some of the tools for transforming the different emotions—beginning with fear.

 

JUDITH ORLOFF, M.D.: One of the emotions that can really drain you is fear. Everyone experiences it. Some fear comes from outside sources. Some fear can be self-induced. It can come from the negative thoughts in your own head. You might say to yourself. “This won’t ever happen. I’ll never get into relationship. I’ll never be successful. I’ll never be healthy again.” These fears rotate around in your mind and create negative energy within the self. If you’re an intuitive empath, you might even take on other’s people’s fear. I offer tactics for de-energizing it.

 

De-energizing Fear

 

Tactic #1: Name your fears, so they can’t surprise and ambush you. Don’t censor yourself. Let all the fears come up, from “I’m not smart enough” to “I’ll end up alone in a nursing home.” Afterwards, thank the fear for sharing itself. Then, consciously move into your heart by looking at your concern from a compassionate perspective. For instance, replace fear with faith by stating to yourself, “I’ll be cared for, not abandoned, in my time of need.”

 

Tactic #2: Listen to your intuition to see if the fear is based on an actual situation that jeopardizes your well-being. Let’s say you’re walking down the street and sense that the teenagers across the street are dangerous. That’s an intuition, something you listen to. You don’t walk in front of them. Trustworthy intuitions are neutral, compassionate or convey information. You can feel them on a “gut” level. They never beat you up.

 

But if you find yourself listening to the same old fears in your head of, “I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty or handsome enough,” these fears must be questioned. Fears aren’t true if the content is demeaning or cruel and lacks the clarity of feeling on target.

 

Tactic #3: Another technique that helps is prayer. Sometimes fear just grips you and won’t let go. You do everything right. You pin down the fear. You tune in. You know it’s irrational, but you can’t shake it. In that case, say a prayer to lift your fear. That’s calling on a spiritual reality or higher power to come in and help a little bit.

 

Tactic #4: Make a gratitude list. Focus on what’s going right and working rather than on the fears. At first, take at least 10 minutes. It’s okay to list what you often take for granted. Your health. Your home. Friends. Granny’s sweet potato pie. Adding to the list and reviewing it daily combats fear.

 

Tactic #5: Don’t absorb other people’s fears. Decide what’s your fear and what’s other people’s. If you suspect a fear is someone else’s, distance yourself from the source. Move at least 20 feet away, because then, you’re not picking up on the person’s energy field. See if you feel better. If you do, you’ve been picking up the other person’s fear.

 

Also, if the other person says, “I’m so anxious,” and suddenly you’re anxious, you’re most likely picking it up. A patient, who was a medical student, talked to a friend who was failing anatomy. She walked away fearing she’d fail, too—even though she’d never had that fear before. She absorbed the fear of her friend.

 

It’s important to take a deep breath and detach from other people’s fears. Breathe them out. When you feel a fear inside you, visualize the fear going out with the breath. Breathe in strength and clarity. Breathe out tension and fear.

 

ALISSA : There’s so much fear in the atmosphere right now—with the world situation. It makes it even more essential to have tools like yours to deal with it. Let’s move onto another prevalent emotion:  Anger.   

 

Positively Releasing Anger

 

JUDITH: Anger is a negative energy you do not want to hang on to. It gets stuck in the body. It causes physical problems. It results in tiredness and exhaustion. It’s important when you experience anger to be aware of it.

 

Follow a 48-hour rule. For the first 48 hours you’re angry, you can vent to a therapist and friend. You can write in a journal. Let the anger energy out in some way, though not necessarily to the person you’re angry at. Just get it out of your system.

 

After that, begin to ask it to lift. Don’t hold onto resentment. It’s negative energy that will drain you.

 

ALISSA : Many people—even those who’ve worked on themselves—seem to have difficulty dealing with anger, even admitting they have it. They feel like they shouldn’t have it or shouldn’t express it. Particularly, if they consider themselves kind or compassionate.

 

JUDITH: That’s a philosophy about anger that people need to reevaluate. Everybody has anger on this earth. And it’s part of our path of evolution to deal with it. If you repress your anger, it goes inward and makes you exhausted. It’s energy, and it turns against you. If you hold onto it, it can even make you sick. See it as something to work towards letting go. The purpose is to increase your positive energy.

 

ALISSA : What if after 48 hours of working with anger, it doesn’t lift?

 

JUDITH: Then, it’s hit a button in you that’s really important. I’d go to a therapist or work with why it’s not lifting. The anger may be the result of a serious insult or a betrayal that happened. Or a loss. The resolution will naturally take more than 48 hours. Because dealing with it takes looking at the whole gamut of what it feels to be betrayed—including the sadness and loss that’s a part of it. After 48 hours, you don’t let go of 100 percent of the anger, but at least you’ll be on the road to getting to another place with it.  

 

Converting Self-Loathing to Self-Love

 

ALISSA : Another emotion you mention is self-loathing. Many people write to me at Life Challenges concerning self esteem issues.

 

JUDITH: There are so many people who have some degree of self-loathing. Everybody has a thread of it. Unless you had parents who were totally supportive and loving to you. We’re human beings. We all have negative emotions to deal with. We just need to be as kind to ourselves as possible when we deal with them.

 

The first step is to recognize the self-loathing. Then, there’s an exercise for releasing it.

 

Write in a journal. Survey people from your past and present life, who imparted negative messages to you—especially family. These stop you from seeing how worthy you are today.

 

List the negative messages, even if they’re painful. Most will be obviously false. Even if you’ve believed them most of your life, know that this is your opportunity to see and believe the truth about yourself instead. Perceiving yourself positively isn’t egotistical. It’s healthy and builds energy.

 

Even if you find a criticism contains a grain of truth, how something is said is so key. We can all improve, but we need to use compassion, not derision with ourselves and others. In your journal, jot down what in your life needs work. Then, address it in yourself –with kindness and gentleness. Use this exercise as a way to love yourself and others more and combat darkness. And, never accept people’s arbitrary negative statements about you—no matter how much you love them or what experts they supposedly are.

 

ALISSA : That’s so important. You can’t stop self-loathing by judging yourself for what you perceive needs improving in your life—or by being down on yourself for having self-loathing in the first place. The first person to deserve compassion in our lives is ourselves. Let’s move on to the next emotion—worry.

 

Worry Versus Concern

 

JUDITH: Nothing about worry, which is the mental stress that comes from anticipating the negative, expands energy. It’s a form of spiritual disengagement.

 

Worry needs to be differentiated from concern. There are certain very real issues in life that might concern you. Having a sick child. The state of world. Worrying, however, is a form of suffering. It takes concern to different level.

 

If you’re a worrier, I recommend a simple 2500-year-old Buddhist meditation that builds loving kindness. Say to yourself:

 

May I be free of worry

May I be well

May I feel safe and at ease

May I be at peace

 

Repeat it as many times as you need to. This will help lift the worry and shift negative to positive.

 

Letting Go of Shame

 

ALISSA : The last emotion you discuss is shame.

 

JUDITH: Shame is a negative emotion that comes from feeling defective. It’s a sense of worthlessness or inner torment. John Bradshaw describes it as “a deep cut felt primarily from the inside.”

 

We develop shame from our parents. We’re like little ducklings imprinting on the mother’s behavior. If the mother is ashamed—about whatever, we take on that shame ourselves. There’s the shame that comes from being abandoned, neglected or abused.

 

Psychologists have all sorts of ways to deal with shame. But I like to use a little flower cure that often helps people. It’s very practical. For every shame you feel, choose a flower. Perhaps a daffodil for being ashamed of your body. A lilac for feeling like an outsider. An orchid for being overly sensitive. You make a bouquet and take it home. Whenever the shame arises, let the associated flower remind you of your capacity to lift shame, to forgive yourself and appreciate your own beauty.

 

ALISSA : That’s such a lovely way to transcend a very painful emotion.

 

Is there anything you’d like to say in conclusion about converting negative emotions to positive energy?

 

JUDITH: To develop positive energy, to really have as much as you’d love to have, so that you can lead a life where you’re happy and have self-esteem, you’ve got to make a commitment to deal with the negative emotions inside yourself. It’s an ongoing process. I’ve been in psychotherapy most of my adult life dealing with various negative emotions, because I want emotional freedom. I don’t want to be bogged down by that negative energy.

 

I want to encourage everybody to have that exploration. You don’t heal these emotions overnight. It’s this ongoing process of freeing yourself. And building positive energy. Every time you begin to heal even a little bit, you get more energy. And that’s something that you want.

 

ALISSA : I don’t think people are always conscious of just how draining all the negative emotional issues are. You work helps bring awareness to that and gives practical ways to deal with them.

 

JUDITH: That’s why I wanted to write Positive Energy. To show: This is how you build positive emotion. This is how you build positive sexuality. This is how you build creativity. This book gives strategies for exactly how to do it. Most of us aren’t taught those skills as children.

 

To read Part I of this interview, which is on energy vampires, go here.

 

Judith  Orloff, M.D. is the author of Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress & Fear into Vibrance, Strength & Love,  Dr. Judith Orloff’s Guide to Intuitive Healing, and Second Sight. She is a board certified psychiatrist, a practicing intuitive, and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA. She also has a private practice in Los Angeles, and is an international workshop leader on the interrelationship of medicine, intuition, and spirituality. Her work has been featured on CNN, PBS, A@E, Lifetime NPR and in many national magazines and newspapers Dr. Orloff's website is www.drjudithorloff.com. You can also find out more about Positive Energy here.

 

Alissa Lukara is the author of the memoir Riding Grace: A Triumph of the Soul (Silver Light Publications, February 2007) and president and founder of this nonprofit website, Lifechallenges.org, which provides individuals in 97 countries worldwide with the self help tools they need to cope with and transcend adversity. Riding Grace chronicles Alissa's 12 year quest through the dark night of adult chronic fatigue syndrome and childhood sexual abuse to accept the unacceptable and find wholeness and healing. She offers inspiring workshops and presentations to groups, drawing on her personal healing experiences and the larger perspective she gained from them and empowering people to use challenges to transform their lives. Lukara’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Conscious Women, Conscious Lives, the secret of salt: an indigenous journal, and Ashland Magazine.  She can been seen hosting the Southern Oregon community television program, “Transcending Life Challenges.”  A Reiki Master, Lukara is currently studying to be a family constellation practitioner which is based on the work of psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. She now makes her home in Southern Oregon with her family. You can write to Alissa at info@lifechallenges.org  For information: www.ridinggrace.com.