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July 26, 2004

It is with great pleasure that I share with you the gift that Judith Orloff, M.D., has become a contributing author to our site. Judith has a magnificent the new book out called POSITIVE ENERGY: TEN EXTRAORDINARY PRESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSFORMING FATIGUE, STRESS, AND FEAR INTO VIBRANCE, STRENGTH, AND LOVE.

This book is absolutely intriguing, as is Judith herself. She is an extremely gifted intuitive and combines her personal background as an intuitive with her expertise as a physician. Judith is the type of physician we all wish we had, quite frankly...In addition to her "cosmic credentials", Judith is a board-certified psychiatrist and assistant clinical professors of psychiatry at UCLA.I know you'll enjoy reading Judith's articles and her books. I consider her among my dearest friends, but aside from that bias, I also consider her to be a true visionary.
Caroline Myss

The healing path is so fraught with ups and downs, we must remember to laugh. As a physician and intuitive, I know how vital it is that we honor the area of subtle energies, the invisible realm that science has yet to acknowledge. If you are an intuitive empath who absorbs the negativity of others into your body I hope this excerpt will be helpful to you. Generating the positive energy of laughter is one way to combat negative thoughts, feelings and the draining vibes from people. Laughter is a way of circulating positive energy in our bodies and in the world. For more information about laughter, pampering, and play please refer to Chapter 7 of the book.

With love,
Judith

Positive Energy: The Tenth Prescription: Revel in Laughter, Play, and All-Out Sillyness

Laughter is a key to generate positive energy. Physically, muscular tension loosens clearing wreckage of exhaustion; Emotionally, laughter raises your spirits and softens rigid defenses. Subtle energy-wise, your system is filled with positive vibes which ease all that ails you. Studies abound lauding how laughter heals: it elevates immune response and endorphins (our body’s natural painkillers); relieves stress, anxiety, and depression; prevents heart disease. Imagine: Allergic welts shrank after patients watched Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” Physician Norman Cousins, beloved father of laugh therapy, treated his own pain from a life-threatening joint disease with a ten minute daily dose of laughter.

I’m a big prescriber of laughter in Energy Psychiatry. Not the contrived or canned kind, but laughter from the soul. Just as I guide patients, I’d like you to sense when your funny bone is legitimately hit, an energetic place that resonates. True laughter is a surrender to hilarity; a sound, a smile, a heart opening. You feel it in your chest, or your whole body may shake. Also, notice that prior to a joke, there’s an air of expectation, a subtle shift in consciousness and attention, the promise of mood transformation. But faking laughter is like faking orgasm; no positive energy to be had there. Since I’ve never gotten most conventional jokes, I know the awkward position of hating to fake a smile but being afraid to offend or seem clueless. Now I just make a joke out of my not getting it: that feels more authentic and relieves me of the negative fallout of pretending to be something I’m not.

Energy comes from humor. However, each of us, even the crotchety, must locate our sense of what’s funny, raucous or wry. Although jokes often elude me, I really respond to the spontaneous comedy of life itself. I get a huge kick out of quirky little things. Children squealing as they pop bubble wrap. Or when I look back at the night I once took a sleeping pill, then hallucinated that my mattress was trying to communicate with me! As for those jokes I do get, I love the middle eastern Nasruddin stories. He’s the legendary mystic trickster-sage (to whom numerous websites are devoted). It was once told that when Nasruddin left home he’d carry the front door with him. When asked why, Naruddin replied, “It’s a security measure. This door is the only way someone can get into my house so I keep a close eye on it.” Of course, now the place is wide open! I’m always tickled by such gentle, victimless satire of our human fears.

Intuitively I can read from a patient’s energy field if they’ve been regularly laughing. Jillian, a free spirit florist who often chuckles has a light quality to her energy with lots of space between the molecules that surround her. I can sense this levity from many feet away. Fred, a thoughtful but emotionally repressed scientist, wants to laugh more but has yet to learn how. His energy field gives off a tautness, conveys a ponderous thud. I also sense an invisible skull cap compressing his head, especially the intuitive center. When patients laugh in sessions, it feels like joy-as-energy showering me and my office; these vibes linger for hours. And unlike traditional Freudian analysts who perhaps too fastidiously temper their responses, I don’t hesitate to laugh with patients. Humor can be a doctor’s psalm--the ability to see our weaknesses, bear them, even smile at them. Of course, I never undermine the serious issues at stake. But a humorless therapist is dead weight in the healing process, hinders upliftment. You can’t intellectualize someone into the value of humor. We therapists must model what we teach.

In Energy Psychiatry I consider loss of laughter a crime against psyche and spirit. With my patients, laughter’s absence never gets by me; I make it my business to notice when it’s missing, and help them recoup it. Otherwise, laughter-less, they’re unknowingly living in energetic poverty. We don’t ordinarily equate lack of laughter with deprivation, but, from an energy perspective it is.

Why don’t we laugh more? The crux is always that somewhere, somehow our inner child’s energy got squelched (An implosion of life force I’ll train you to reverse). I’ve repeatedly seen this dynamic play out in patients and myself. Unhappy childhoods, early losses, or overly serious parents can jam-up our laughter. Excessive work and no escape from current problems do it too. We may not even know when our sense of humor wanes, or perhaps we never had one. The secret is recovering our inner child who has silently slipped underground for refuge.

How to Energetically Nurture Your Inner Child and Laugh More

• Reclaim your inner child?s life force
  Every grown-up has an inner child. Both are distinct energetic aspects of our life force. Your inner child may need urging but it wants to be embraced. For starters, bring out your baby or childhood photos. Really look at them. The photos can rematerialize shelved energy. Next, promise to honor that child?s needs. For example, I promised mine: ?You?ll never have to smile for a camera again unless you want to--?an expectation I despised when growing up. Recall ordeals you had to endure; vow no repeats. Reclaiming your inner child will safeguard laughter and restore dormant life force.
• Find activities your inner child loves
  Explore what your inner child genuinely finds fun or funny. First, recall activities from your youth that made you smile. Miniature golf. Bugs Bunny. The fast-forward chipmunk voice you get from inhaling a helium balloon. Memories can get rusty laughter synapses cranking.
• Seek out people who laugh.
  We absorb funniness by osmosis. Hearty laughers spread those positive vibes to us. What counts most, though, is the energy behind the laugh, not just sound or facial expression. Take the Dali Lama?s infectious giggle which comes from a place of love and wonder--its healing energy goes straight to our hearts. The other extreme are people who have grins on their faces, but whose laughter often stems from malice or psychic pain. So confusing. They?re laughing, yet you?re being slimed with negative vibes. Don?t be fooled; trust your energetic assessment.
• Set you intention to laugh as much as possible
  From the moment you wake up in the morning, look for things to laugh about. Regularly laughing buoys our energy field, reverses learned seriousness. If our parents had said at breakfast, ?Be sure not to miss out on any laughs today,? it?d be a lot easier. But most didn?t, so we have to teach ourselves.
• Play with children
  Children have PhD?s in play; their lack of inhibition is contagious. Spend time with them. Be filled by their positive energy.

To purchase this book please go to this link. Positive Energy

Judith Orloff M.D is now part of the Myss Expert Forum located in the resource section on the home page of myss.com and can be reached through her website www.drjudithorloff.com

Judith Orloff, M.D is a board certified psychiatrist and practicing intuitive, author of the new book Positive Energy: Ten Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear Into Vibrance Strength and Love. Dr. Orloff is also author of the bestsellers Guide to Intuitive Healing and Second Sight. She is assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and an international workshop leader .

Dear All:
I am soooo pleased and delighted to introduce to you a new contributing treat to Myss.com expert forum – The Lipstick Mystick. She is the Ann Landers of the New Age. I am sure you’ll enjoy the read……and the advice. It’s just a pleasure to have her on board the Myss.com crew. Please send your questions and comments to
LipstickMystick@Myss.com
Enjoy!
Caroline

The Lipstick Mystick

Perhaps your best friend is tired of hearing your problems. Even worse, you've grown weary of having them. Well, you're in luck; relief may be just an e-mail message away. Confide in the Lipstick Mystick 'cause she's all ears…...that is, until she opens her big mouth!

"Is your job unrewarding? Do you find yourself in yet another dissatisfying relationship? Is your tush the only aspect of your life that seems to be forever expanding? This is where an objective opinion - like mine - can be helpful. We all have blind spots, you know, those missing puzzle pieces that prevent us from seeing the entire picture. So we blame.…we kvetch.…we project….until we are finally prodded to confront the big, vague questions about the nature of our lives. Still, all the while we overlook the little answers through which bits of our soul are exposed. Enough Already!!! The Lipstick Mystick has grown impatient! There's only one solution: It's time we start examining our life through the mundane….Why? Because it all mundane and it's all spiritual and it's all grist for our transformational mill.
So let's 'tawk'…."Together, we can uncover the greater yearnings of your soul through the seemingly small events of daily life….because personally, I believe that's where God lives: in between the mood swings, weight fluctuations, and nothing to wear days….as well as the crumbling of old love and the exhilaration of love renewed."
Combining humor and wisdom filtered through her Brooklyn background, The Lipstick Mystick offers sound advice to anyone who has ever felt discombobulated by the contents of a perfectly ordinary day. From the mundane to the Mystical, she addresses it all:

"I can't decide whether to...
"Am I giving too much? Am I receiving too little?"
"How can I know if he/she is my soul mate?"
"If he/she isn't my soul mate, is it okay to merely mate with this soul?"
"Letting go..."
"Again with the forgiveness???"
But perhaps you're still wondering, "Why should I share my concerns with a total stranger?" Well, let's start by getting you even better acquainted. Beneath the gloss of Juicy Rouge lipstick resides a Mystick, a woman who through years of practice and training as an Intuitive Consultant has developed the capacity to recognize the relationship between the components of our physical lives and our spiritual journey. The Lipstick Mystick offers you a loving yet no-nonsense approach to guidance that reflects a socially conscious, sexually aware spirit. Her focus is to provide you with a "higher" perspective that not only increases your ability to deal with everyday issues, but deepens your spiritual understanding. Like a straight forward friend, The Lipstick Mystick calls it as she sees it! And you can bet it's crystal clear.
With New Age savvy, The Mystick fills the Prada pumps left vacant by America's advice-giving foremothers: Dear Abby, Anne Landers, and Erma Bombeck. So go ahead, take advantage of the confidentiality of cyberspace and e-mail her your concerns. Your best friend will be glad you did.

Letter # 1
Dear Lipstick Mystick,
Several years ago, I married my husband for the 2nd time after divorcing once. My husband starts out being very nice to me. He's a high roller and we live the good life for a while. But he is very controlling and tells me what to say, what to wear, etc. Then he starts being very moody. I never know when he'll come home and get nasty with me and blame me for everything that is going wrong in his life. He has hit me a few times. He tells me to get out and that he wants a divorce. When I start packing, he gets nice after a while and says we should try again. I always wind up going back. What gives???
Signed,
Miserable but driving a Jaguar

Dear Le Mis,
Your self worth, that's "what gives." If this is "the good life," what in your world constitutes "the bad life???" Driving a Chevy??? Hear me on this, Ms. Mis, because any Mystick worth her Juicy Rouge Lipstick would convey to you this sentiment: LEAVE. Pack yourself a lunch, hop in your beloved Jaguar and floor it!!! Arrange to stay with friends or family and locate a counselor (or a Lipstick Mystick) capable of guiding you -- both literally and symbolically -- into freedom from the "golden handcuffs" that shackle you not only to your husband, but to the numbing inertia of your own shadow....
Because here's the illuminated lowdown, Ms. Mis, also known as TRUTH:
You are an intensely bright, creative woman with an ego the size of a lentil. Early on you faced a choice: Cultivate your own ego or marry one......preferably a Jaguar driving one. And so Ms. Mis, in the interest of survival, you sold your soul for a car and the illusion of Big Daddy's protection. And who could blame you? Fearing homelessness you chose voicelessness.....an understandable, albeit, misguided impulse toward life -- from a girl whose entire sense of self fit inside a legume!! Now, many years older, somewhat wiser, and significantly more miserable -- you hear a faint call to consciousness...Or maybe it's Big Daddy bellyaching in the distance ... Either way, history -- in all it's repetitive glory -- once again presents the choice: Cultivate your own ego OR remain married to one. Sensing a shot at an authentic "Good Life," your stifled spirit was moved to inquire, "What gives???".....an otherwise casual question interpreted by the heavens to mean: "Bring my Truth out from the shadows so I can develop the self worth necessary to engage with life as an empowered Human Being." All that from "What gives???" One can only wonder what would come of, "Who knew???"
Which brings us to the all important: "What now???"
Glad you asked....Because Madam Mystick is about to reveal the exact instructions with which to retrieve your spirit from Big Daddy's Pawn Shop: You, Ms. Mis, are going to start generating small triumphs through wise choices that lead to self esteem. For instance:
You, and only you have the authority to determine what you wear. You and only you have the authority to determine what you say. Period. Those two decisions will harvest the material on which to build a foundation of self esteem based in triumphant choices. And, by the way, Ms. Mis, it's Madam Mystick's personal belief that your contract with Big Daddy is DONE. FINISHED. OVER. His job was to manage your ego until you were strong enough to construct your own. You have begun to break ground, now move on.....or out. And send Big Daddy a thank you card -- he did an outstanding job of making the "Good Life" miserable enough to spark your desire for an "Authentic Life."
Good luck, Ms. Mis-tik
Love,
The Lipstick Mystik

“Meryl is a very gifted and compassionate practitioner of the healing arts, and has invested years in her education and training, earning her certificate of completion in Counseling Intuition. She is also the founder of The Martin Method, a highly effective, integrative healing modality. I am extremely proud to have Meryl as a faculty member of The Caroline Myss Educational Institute. In addition to all the gut healing wisdom Meryl has developed through years of working with people, her natural gifts are a caring and devoted heart. And now we are discovering yet another one of her talents -- Meryl has managed to create a character who heals through humorous wisdom ~~ The Lipstick Mystick.”
------Caroline Myss

Please send questions, comments, feedback -- but NO whining – to Meryl at: Lipstickmystick@Myss.com. For further information and private consultations, click on: www.MerylMartin.com

The Lipstick Mystick should be used for general information only. Advice given here is not intended to provide a basis for action in particular circumstances without consideration by a competent professional.