Positive Energy…
THE MISSING LINK IN HEALTH AND HEALING

An Interview With Dr. Judith Orloff

Judith Orloff, M.D., is an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA with twenty years in practice. She is also an intuitive, from a long line of intuitives, which include her grandmother, mother, and aunts. Judith has pushed the envelope of what a physician can be by integrating her gift of intuition with her conventional medical training. Her work has been featured on CNN, PBS, and NPR, and has appeared in USA Today, O Magazine, and Self. Judith’s new book, Positive Energy: Ten Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love (Harmony Books, April 2004), addresses the hidden energy crisis that threatens our world. And no, she’s not referring to oil and gas, but rather to the energy crisis in our daily lives. We’re running on empty — rushing around, barely keeping up, enslaved by computers and cell phones, trying to live a normal life while dealing with ever-present personal stresses and geopolitical threats. And what’s worse, we’ve come to accept this exhaustion as normal.

Judith’s work is made accessible thanks to Judith’s down-to-earth, practical guidance highlighted by interviews with some of Judith’s personal heroes including Rosa Parks, Quincy Jones, and Shirley MacLaine. It’s personal because it begins with you, the individual. But the implications go beyond the personal. When we live passionately with an open heart, changes occur that ripple out to the world.

SML: Your new book, Positive Energy, is very timely. We live in difficult times. There are the everyday stresses of our personal lives which are always there, and then there’s the world situation, terrorism, environmental destruction and so on. They all effect us in some way.

JO: That’s why I wrote this book. A hidden energy crisis is threatening our world. We’re inundated by violence in the news, and we’re faced with negativity every day. What tools do we have to cope with it? We must learn what drains our energy and how we can protect ourselves!

SML: I love how you share the stories of patients as well as your own struggles with honoring your own energy. You don’t set yourself up as a perfect person. You’re real.

JO: I know how hard it is to respect our energy without a conscious strategy. For years I ran around the country giving lectures nonstop, which led to my energy crash. As committed as I was to helping other’s connect with their intuition, I was ignoring my own exhaustion. I’m not the type who sails through life. I trudge. I fall down. I pick myself up and keep going. Like many of us, I teach what I need to learn. Honoring my energy is a hard earned lesson I want to share with you.

SML: What is energy psychiatry?

JO: Energy psychiatry is a term I coined to describe a new type of psychotherapy that I practice. It addresses the subtle energetic underpinnings of health and behavior. It’s a subspecialty of energy medicine which views our bodies and spirits as manifestations of subtle energy.

SML: What does subtle energy feel like? How can we become aware of it?

JO: Our bodies are made of flesh and blood, but they’re also composed of energy fields that project beyond the body. The best way to feel these is to notice how you respond to others. Who gives you energy and who drains you? It’s all a function of subtle energy.