masterwordsmith-unplugged

- By Judith Orloff, M.D.

In my new book, "Emotional Freedom," I emphasize the importance of learning how to stay centered in a stressful, highly emotionally charged world. Since emotions such as fear, anger, and frustration are energies, you can potentially "catch" them from people without realizing it.

If you tend to be an emotional sponge, it's vital to know how to avoid taking on an individual's negative emotions or the free-floating kind in crowds.

Another twist is that chronic anxiety, depression, or stress can turn you into an emotional sponge by wearing down your defenses. Suddenly, you become hyper-attuned to others, especially those with similar pain. That's how empathy works; we zero in on hot-button issues that are unresolved in ourselves.

From an energetic standpoint, negative emotions can originate from several sources. What you're feeling may be your own; it may be someone else's; or it may be a combination. I'll explain how to tell the difference and strategically bolster positive emotions so you don't shoulder negativity that doesn't belong to you.

This wasn't something I always knew how to do. Growing up, my girlfriends couldn't wait to hit the shopping malls and go to parties, the bigger the better -- but I didn't share their excitement. I always felt overwhelmed, exhausted around large groups of people, though I was clueless why. "What's the matter with you?" friends would say, shooting me the weirdest looks.

All I knew was that crowded places and I just didn't mix. I'd go there feeling just fine but leave nervous, depressed, or with some horrible new ache or pain. Unsuspectingly, I was a gigantic sponge, absorbing the emotions of people around me.

With my patients, I've also seen how absorbing other people's emotions can trigger panic attacks, depression, food, sex and drug binges, and a plethora of physical symptoms that defy traditional medical diagnosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than two million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue. It's likely that many of them are emotional sponges.

Here are some strategies from "Emotional Freedom" to practice. They will help you to stop absorbing other people's emotions.

Emotional Action Step: How to Stay Centered in a Stressful World

To detach from other people's negative emotions:

* First, ask yourself, "Is the feeling mine or someone else's?" It could be both. If the emotion such as fear or anger is yours, gently confront what's causing it on your own or with professional help. If not, try to pinpoint the obvious generator. For instance, if you've just watched a comedy, yet you came home from the movie theater feeling blue, you may have incorporated the depression of the people sitting beside you; in close proximity, energy fields overlap. The same is true with going to a mall or packed concert.

* When possible, distance yourself from the suspected source. Move at least twenty feet away; see if you feel relief. Don't err on the side of not wanting to offend strangers. In a public place, don't hesitate to change seats if you feel a sense of depression imposing on you.

* For a few minutes, center yourself by concentrating on your breath: This connects you to your essence. Keep exhaling negativity, inhaling calm. This helps to ground yourself and purify fear or other difficult emotions Visualize negativity as gray fog lifting from your body, and hope as golden light entering. This can yield quick results.

* Negative emotions such as fear frequently lodge in your emotional center at the solar plexus. Place your palm there as you keep sending loving-kindness to that area to flush stress out. For longstanding depression or anxiety, use this method daily to strengthen this center. It's comforting and builds a sense of safety and optimism.

* Shield yourself. A handy form of protection many people use, including healers with trying patients, involves visualizing an envelope of white light (or any color you feel imparts power) around your entire body. Think of it as a shield that blocks out negativity or physical discomfort but allows what's positive to filter in.

* Look for positive people and situations. Call a friend who sees the good in others. Spend time with a colleague who affirms the bright side of things. Listen to hopeful people. Hear the faith they have in themselves and others. Also relish hopeful words, songs, and art forms. Hope is contagious, and it will lift your mood.

Keep practicing these strategies. You don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you're on emotional overload. With strategies to cope, you can have quicker retorts to stressful situations, feel safer, and your sensitivities can blossom.


Adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff's new book, "Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life" (Harmony Books, 2009).


About the Author:

Judith Orloff, M.D. is author of the new book, "Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Harmony Books, 2009)." Her other bestsellers are "Positive Energy," "Intuitive Healing," and "Second Sight." Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition and energy medicine. For more inspiration and Judith's national book tour schedule, visit http://www.drjudithorloff.com

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment.
A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"
The salesman explained
"When I got posted in the Middle East , I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn't know to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters....

First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.
Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.
Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed.
And Then these posters were pasted all over the place
"Then that should have worked!" said the friend.
"The hell it should had!? said the salesman. didn't realize that Arabs read from right to left"

Important to Know Your Customers

Iris Chang shot to fame years ago for her book "The Rape of Nanking" which is about the 1937–1938 Nanking Massacre and atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after it captured Nanjing, then capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It documents the events, based on the author's research, leading up to the Nanking Massacre and the atrocities that were committed. The book also presents the view that the Japanese government has not done enough to redress the atrocities. It is one of the first major English-language books to introduce the Nanking Massacre to Western and Eastern readers alike, and has been translated into several languages. If you have not yet read the book, please do so. I assure you that you will be shocked by its contents!

According to Wikipedia, Chang received hate mail (primarily from Japanese ultranationalists), threatening notes on her car and believed her phone was tapped. She would respond overwhelmingly to any question of the validity of her work. Her own mother said the book "made Iris sad". Chang suffered from depression and was diagnosed with "brief reactive psychosis" in August 2004. Succumbing to her battle with depression, Chang took her own life in November 2004.

Yesterday, BBC News featured the following article. It gives a westerner's perspective of the massacre.

Please read it and leave a comment if you like. I would love to hear your views. Thanks!

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'Good Nazi of Nanjing' sparks debate'

A film about a member of the Nazi party who saved thousands of Chinese during the massacre in Nanjing recently opened in Germany. The BBC's Zoe Murphy looks at the possible impact this unlikely hero's story may have on Sino-Japanese relations.

On Christmas Eve in 1937, German businessman John Rabe visited the mortuary in China's then capital, Nanjing.

He later described in his diary the charred body of a civilian man whose eyes had been gouged out, and a boy of perhaps seven, whose corpse was punctured with bayonet wounds.

"I wanted to see these atrocities with my own eyes, so that I can speak as an eyewitness later," he wrote. "A man cannot be silent about this kind of cruelty!"

The Second Sino-Japanese War was raging.

Japanese troops had stormed the capital, carrying out mass executions and raping tens of thousands of local women and girls, in a six-week orgy of violence that became known as the Rape of Nanjing.

Risking his life, Rabe remained in China and, along with a handful of Westerners, set up a "safety zone" in Nanjing that is thought to have prevented the massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese during one of the bloodiest episodes of the Japanese invasion.

As Germany and Japan were allies, Rabe used his Nazi party membership to do all he could to protect civilians in the zone - including 650 sheltering refugees in his own house and garden.

With a flash of his swastika armband and through sheer force of personality, he intervened in acts of looting and attempted rape by the Japanese troops.

The diaries of this unlikely and unsung hero only became public knowledge in the late 1990s, when they were published in Germany. They have now been made into a film, simply titled John Rabe.

The biopic, which premiered recently in Germany, may stoke historical tensions between Beijing and Tokyo. But it is hoped that Rabe's story may renew debate and ultimately help heal old wounds.

Historical document

The events of 1937 have left enormous psychological scars in China, and the Chinese believe that Japan has not done enough to atone for its militarist past.

China says 300,000 people were killed during the assault on Nanjing. But much to the anger of Beijing, some conservative Japanese politicians and academics have said such figures are exaggerated. Some even deny that a massacre ever took place.

Such declarations also frustrate mainstream historians in Japan and further afield.

William Kirby, head of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, says the exact death toll is not the main issue.

"What you have is a great massacre of a civilian population that goes on for weeks… Nanjing is surrendered but the Japanese proceed to terrorise the inhabitants. These facts are incontrovertible."

Coming to light nearly 60 years after the event, he says that John Rabe's diaries are a powerful new document detailing what happened day-by-day.

Mr Kirby says that Rabe had "no anti-Japanese axe to grind" at the outset.

"He saw the Japanese as a normal army and initially resisted the stories of wrongdoing - he was a neutral outsider."

During the conflict, Rabe wrote: "Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped... If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot.

"What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiery."

Nazi links

The film's director Florian Gallenberger says it was by staying true to the events as described by Rabe that the film achieved neutrality.

"At the beginning of the conflict I think [Rabe] has great trust in the Japanese as German allies to behave in a disciplined and fair way - but when it turns out otherwise he is shocked. He feels it is his responsibility to act."

Please click here to read the rest of the article. Thanks.

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room .... just wait."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged, it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away, just for this time in my life."

She went on to explain, "Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you've put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing."

And with a smile, she said:

If I knew it would be the last time that I’d see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly, and pray the Lord your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time that I’d see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and a kiss and call you back for just one more.

If I knew it would be the last time I’d hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would tape each word and action, and play them back throughout my days.

If I knew it would be the last time, I would spare an extra minute or two,
To stop and say “I love you,” instead of assuming you know I do.

So just in case tomorrow never comes, and today is all I get, I’d like to say how much I love you, and I hope we never will forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you are waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes, you will sorely regret the day

That you didn’t take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss,
And you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,
That you love them very much, and you’ll always hold them dear.

Take time to say “I’m sorry,” “Please forgive me,” “Thank you,” or “It’s okay,”
And if tomorrow never comes, you’ll have no regrets about today.

Poem written by
Norma Cornett Marek

Since my younger days, music has been a central place in my life and now, it is also the same in the lives of both my boys. From the time I left school till after I gave birth to my younger boy in 2002, I was involved in conducting choirs, musical production, composition, recording, playing the keyboard and singing.

The largest musical I ever directed was Joseph, the Dreamer, the drama-dance musical written by Cam Floria, in 1987 which had a cast of 63 and was held for four nights at Dewan Sri Pinang. It was quite an experience as I incorporated rap, ballet and jazz choreographed segments in between the drama and choral presentation which was in six-part harmony. Looking back, it was much ahead of its time in terms of style and presentation although it was a costume drama. It was a good learning experience as we rehearsed six nights a week for six months and I even fainted during one rehearsal from exhaustion! Wonderful memories but more importantly, it was the music and camaraderie that resonated through the years...

Tonight, I am still trying to make sense of what it is all about asking why and how. In such trying moments, I cannot help but remember the following songs which were featured in the musical Joseph, the Dreamer which are indeed like a balm to my crushed spirit.

The first one is "He Will Carry You" by Steve Green and the second clip is my favorite one called "He Opens A Window"....Enjoy and be uplifted...