Emotional Freedom Part 5 of 17: The Psychology Behind Emotions
July 21, 2009 by dr. lam · 6 Comments
This is the fourth “secret” that Orloff describes in getting in touch with our own emotional condition so that we can harness the best of ourselves and dismiss the worst. What she means by psychology in this circumstance is the reasons behind why we do what we do and think what we think. There is oftentimes a psychological impetus for our behavior based on certain programming and conditioning that we are subjected to as we grow up…what Don Miguel Ruiz refers to as domestication.
In light of that, Orloff asks her readership to delve into the positive and negative aspects that have been imparted to oneself from parents. We oftentimes can take the best from our parents as well as the worst aspects. Separating all of that out can help us sort through what we should preserve and what we should remove from our lives. She notes that sometimes an individual acts exactly the opposite way of a parent’s coping mechanism in order to distance himself/herself from the parent. This may not always be beneficial either.
She tells the story of Connie, a 23-year-old single working mother, who was a victim of child abuse herself, who passed on that legacy to her children through uncontrolled, violent behavior that she deemed “sickening” but could not resist her actions. With repeated attempts, she failed to disengage. It took recognizing the psychological impetus for her actions and then going through psychological therapy that offered fruitful mechanisms to perform when stressed to help her to fully relinquish her cyclical behavior. Unlike Maxwell Maltz who believes that we can arrive at our destination without regard to our past, Orloff believes that it can be enlightening and instructive..
Some of the negative attributes that i attained from my father was his righteous anger about certain behavior but I have learned to let that go. However, I was able to also take his great humor and love for life. My mother carries with her anxiety about many things, which I am learning to let go (as is she) but she has tremendous compassion and love for others. I hope that by seeing where I have come from that I can celebrate the best of my parents and relinquish any of their foibles, as we all have.
Emotional Freedom Part 4 of 17: The Energy Behind Emotions
July 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Emina, my work colleague and friend, has stimulated my interest in the field of emotions and how they can revolutionize our personal and professional life. She has given me the insight to work on an intuitive level with my own emotions so that I can harness them for their positive potential and avoid the destructive negative side that they carry.
A book that I have not read but have seen in movies, referenced by Emina, and Dr. Orloff, is Dr. Masaru Emoto’s book The Hidden Messages of Water that shows his high-speed photographs of frozen water crystals that he observed when people conveyed positive emotions like “I love you” versus hateful tones like “You make me sick”. He found that with positive messages the water crystals appeared rainbow-hued snowflakes and with negative thoughts conveyed appeared like muddled, fractured shapes.
In life, when we speak we can impart with our words and tone an aura of positivity or transmit negativity. When we seek vengeance, we drain our own energy and that of everyone around us. When we pass healing forward, we give that beauty of healing to all those around us. Our energy has unlimited potential when we become beaming towers of “high energy”, i.e., not caffeinated, anxious laden creatures but quite the contrary, ones that radiate peace and love to all. I look forward each day to impart that love to all of my patients whom I cherish as well as my staff and to every single person I encounter for the day. I refer you to perhaps my favorite blog or one of my favorites about energy states for your better understanding if you have not read it before from Wayne Dyer’s Power of Intention.
Emotional Freedom Part 3 of 17: The Spirituality Factor
July 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 9 Comments
If we are consumed with harnessing our emotions just to make our bodies better, then we are quite near-sighted. We are as humans spiritual creatures, yearning for something beyond the mere physical and the mere mortal. God, or if you do not believe in a Higher Power, then a divine unity of all our spirits is an innate part of who we are. Without a spiritual component, we lack in a word meaning. Our emotions are tied to this spiritual yearning.
Orloff says we must ask, “How can a situation–any situation–help me grow and develop loving-kindness toward myself and others?” If we see our emotions as an ability to help ourselves grow and to help those around us, then we can seek a higher purpose beyond our biology and comfort for wanting to only exercise powerfully positive emotions. As a western-trained physician myself, I found my curriculum wholly wanting in this arena, as did Dr. Orloff. I am filling in that gap. I am very “spiritual” with my patients. I love their presence with me, and I love sharing healing and love with each one of them. When people meet my staff, they also say the same thing about them. I think many people notice the spirituality in my staff because they are imbued with the same love that I have.
Whenever we feel small or limited by our own biology, we should turn to a higher spirituality to see the greater PURPOSE of why we are here and we should use our emotions for the greater good, both for ourselves and for others
I will begin posting my blogs routinely every morning at 5 am on an automatic schedule. That way anyone who likes to read blogs very early in the morning can do so. I welcome any thoughts or suggestions about that.
The Voice of Knowledge Part 3 of 4: Emotions are Real
January 21, 2009 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
In The Voice of Knowledge, Ruiz conceives of emotions as an effect (rather than a cause) and genuine (rather than false). What? Let’s take the example of a dog. A dog does not know that he is a dog. He is just living his life (as we did as children before the voice of knowledge entered our lives). Let’s say that you come home every day and pet the dog, feed the dog, walk the dog, and hug the dog. The dog will mature as a dog that is affable, fun-loving, and positively responsive. Let’s say that instead when you come home in an angry state, you kick the dog, you beat the dog, and you ignore the dog. The dog will live in fear, might bite you, or run away. Are the emotions that the dog is feeling genuine or false? They are genuine, real emotions that are in response to an external cause.
This analogy will help you understand that when we respond in a certain way, our emotions are real and authentic. However, they are an effect that we may not want to have, e.g., anger, envy, hatred, etc. They are an effect that must have a cause. The cause (if we are talking about a negative cause) is the cause that is created by our telling each other lies and not being true to ourselves. If we live by the four agreements (be impeccable with your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; and always do your best), we will be free of the cause and thereby free of the effect. If someone tells you his or her lie that you are not good enough, you might respond naturally with self-pity, hatred toward the other person, etc. However, if you don’t believe that lie and remain free of the emotional poison that is leveled at you, then you will not suffer a negative emotional effect. Tomorrow, we will end our discussion with how do we begin to escape the unwanted causes so that we don’t have unwanted effects obviously with reference to the four agreements as the bedrock source material.
9/11 (Belated) Remembrance: Emotional Memories and Harnessing Them
September 12, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I am sorry that I did not dedicate yesterday’s blog to 9/11, which, of course, is a very special day here in the U.S. I didn’t think to do so until the morning of during my surgery since I typically write the blog the night before or a couple of days in advance. Anyway, here is my blog.
I was at a business forum meeting about 2 weeks ago, and our invited speaker showed a photo of the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and asked, “What emotions does this event engender?” As expected, the answers were fear, sadness, not feeling safe, etc. She then asked, what were you doing on that day? Of course, every single individual recounted what they were doing that day. For a different generation, the assassination of JFK would conjure up that level of remembrance.
For me, I remember very vividly that I had finished a facelift and heard something about a plane crashing into a building and my making some stupid, flippant remark as a joke. Of course, an hour later I apologized for my stupidity as I didn’t understand the gravity of the events until a bit later. I felt tremendous sadness and also disillusion about my career choice. I felt it was trivial beyond measure. Of course, now I would not trade it for the world, as I love what I do, and reading this incredible card that I received yesterday from a patient who flew in to see me from California almost brought me to tears and reinforced why I am on this planet.
I remember waiting to be called down to the tragedy to help out since I had recently left months prior from New York City and was in upstate New York for my fellowship in facial plastic surgery. But, of course, everyone had already died and there was no need for help. That made me feel even more helpless. My girlfriend when I was in NYC actually saw the plane hit the building as she was going to work. My sister was supposed to work nearby at a restaurant since she had just gotten back from 6 months abroad travel in Asia but called in sick that day. She could smell the carnage wafting northward for quite some time. She was hosting a Japanese girl whom she had met on her travels for a short time, and the girl had no way of getting home. The letter my sister received from her was of gratitude for a kind soul to help her when no one else did.
I won’t go into all of the details of what I learned from that business session but I will do so over a few, separate blogs. However, the point of what Dr. Gardner, our invited speaker, was talking about was the power of emotions. If I asked you what you were doing on September 11, 2000, you probably would have no idea unless it was your birthday or some other special event.
We tend to only remember things that have an emotional impact on us rather than an intellectual one. However, we too often ignore the power of emotions and regard ourselves as a purely intellectual creature. We are far from that. Emotions drive our behaviors, habits, beliefs, and what I am talking about is memory. Emotions can profoundly shape us. They are not always bad. They can help shape us to do and to feel and to think good things. I hope all of you can look at emotions as a good thing. Close your eyes for a moment and think of a good time in your past. Mine was thinking of my dad and me eating sherbet in Hong Kong at the country club. More about that memory in a future blog…