Category : Truth Heals
7 Tips for Getting a Friend Through a Divorce
When the Dalai Lama says that his religion is kindness, you may think that he’s being a little simplistic. But have you considered what it means to be kind? It means really listening to others, allowing your friends to open their hearts and listening to their problems without judging them, then finding the right response that may lead them gently in a new direction.
A classic time to be truly kind is when one of your friends is going through a relationship breakup. The end of a relationship is one of the most difficult upheavals many people will ever face. It’s an emotional roller coaster that you would like to help your friend survive, but how do you do that?
Here are 7 tips for how you can help your friend navigate this emotional mine field.
- Be careful not to assign blame. Your friend may be blaming his soon-to-be ex, thus fanning the flames of anger. Or he might be blaming himself for failing to keep the relationship alive and healthy, and is angry at himself and guilt-ridden. You can remind him that not all relationships are meant to last forever, and the romantic relationship can transform into one of friendship, which is especially important if children are involved. Suggest he find a place where he can express his anger safely and release his guilt, such as in group therapy.
- Encourage your friend to express her feelings, whatever they are. If she’s being stoic, remind her that emotions that aren’t expressed can get trapped in the body where they can do physical harm. She can take up beating pillows or kick boxing or going down to the beach to holler at the waves, whatever it takes to let the emotions run their course.
- Help him understand that this is a period of significant loss. Loss of a significant other can be worse than death, and requires a mourning period and great personal adjustment. Grief is normal. He may be losing all their mutual friends, where he lives, even his pets. Remind him he has the opportunity to gain a better understanding of who he is by himself, without having to defer to another, an understanding of what he really wants in life, and what he needs to do in order to heal himself. All of which require time.
- Reassure your friend that her sex life doesn’t end when the relationship does; in fact, it may improve. She is still attractive (no matter how old she is) and worthy of finding love again, when she is ready. Her self-esteem need not be lessened by divorce, and there’s no need to “prove” her desirability by jumping into another relationship right away. And if your friend is of the gender of your own preference, don’t think jumping into bed with him/her is an act of kindness, it’s not. Stick to being friends without “benefits.”
- Help him with practical matters that may be new to him, like setting up a kitchen and cooking. He’d probably love help with moving, getting settled in the new place and making new friends. Above all, stay in touch with him so he doesn’t feel alone.
- It’s very therapeutic to watch others going through the same things you are. Watch movies with your friend that can help her express what she’s feeling, from “The First Wives Club” and “War of the Roses” to “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Waiting to Exhale,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “Wonder Boys,” and a host of others.
- We all “get by with a little help from our friends.” Be the friend who can make your friend laugh.
As Oprah has said, “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” Now that’s the kindness of a true friend.
Capital Punishment Punishes Everyone
Troy Davis was murdered by the state of Georgia on Wednesday, September 21st, yet there remains much doubt about his guilt. Justice seems to have taken a lethal injection in the Davis case – in my opinion, capital punishment is itself a crime. When we deliberately execute someone, we diminish our own humanity.
The only good to come out of the Davis execution is that it has ramped up the forces of those of us who want to see capital punishment abolished. If only it wasn’t such a handy platform for politicians who want to be seen as “tough on crime.” Just look at Rick Perry in Texas, whose constituents cheer his stand on the death penalty.
There are other ways to keep murderers from harming anyone else. I know there are evil people out there. I know there are those who deliberately set out to harm others. But capital punishment is a crime against humanity.
The Help
As many of you may know, I’m a movie buff. I love sitting in a darkened theater and being swept away by a good story. Now that it’s fall, it’s movie time again and I’ll be posting reviews of the ones that may open your heart, challenge your beliefs or expand your horizons. Sometimes a movie comes along that triggers a deep emotional response and brings up memories. That happened to me recently when I saw The Help.
I grew up in northern California, far from the segregated South, but my mother gave me a taste of the old South right in my own home. One of the fixtures of my childhood was Mamie, our “help,” who worked for my mother half a day every day and all day on holidays. She came to work for our family when my mother was a young pregnant bride of 19, married to my 41-year-old father, her former boss and a prominent politician. Mamie, who was my father’s age, was always there for me from the time I was born—a loving presence in stark contrast to my mother’s coldness and indifference to me. I adored her.
Just like in the film, my mother insisted on being called Mrs. King (although Mamie called her other employers by their first name) and I was always Miss King. She served our meals and then ate her own in the kitchen. When I was old enough to question my mother about that, she said the help always ate in the kitchen, no matter what color they were.
It was a confusing situation. I certainly didn’t think of my family as racist. My father was a bleeding heart liberal who spent every holiday driving around town giving away clothes and money to the needy. My mother came from a working class background; her own Portuguese mother had taken in sewing and cleaned houses. Why didn’t she treat Mamie more like an equal?
Although I knew that all the “colored” folk lived on the South Side, the poorest part of town, it never occurred to me to question why. As children, we accept what is without question. I knew about the South Side because Mamie lived there, in what was basically a shack. When I was old enough to drive, one of my chores was to drop off the family laundry and ironing at Mamie’s in the morning and pick it up again in the evening.
I left the movie and spent the rest of the evening thinking about Mamie and my family. My mother was considered a kind employer (one of Mamie’s sons still calls my mother once a year to see how she’s doing). Mother insisted I come home from college to be at Mamie’s bedside as she was dying in the hospital. Mother was the only white woman who attended the black funeral when Mamie died at 56 from heart failure (not surprising after eight children and a life of hard and often demeaning work).
As my emotional reaction to the movie gradually faded, I began to question the beliefs I had grown up with about discrimination, about prejudice. As children, we so readily accept situations as normal, as being “just the way things are.” This is why it’s so important to examine our beliefs, so we can shake ourselves out of complacency and come to a more conscious understanding, so we don’t pass along to future generations the same sorrows and injustices.
If you haven’t seen The Help, I recommend it. One of my clients who grew up in Mississippi with a black nanny wept copiously throughout the film. But even if this particular situation is not one that you experienced personally, have you experienced discrimination based on your class or race or religion? Conversely, what have you felt and believed about those who are of different class or race or religion from you?
In the spiritual universe, we are all One. There is no doubt about that. By examining the hidden traces of prejudice and discrimination that you may hold, you can free yourself from whatever hinders you from experiencing that unity.
Isn’t it amazing what a good movie can do?
Mr. Manx, Cat Extraordinaire
More than 10 years ago, we moved to yet another horse ranch, a sprawling 20-acre spread backing up to a nature preserve, a magnificent property covered with high grass and ancient oak trees just a few miles from the shores of the Pacific. We no sooner arrived, with our horses and dogs, than the displaced seller called, ashamedly telling us he had been forced off his property some months earlier by a restraining order sought by his ex-wife, an order that denied him access to his children and property. He seemed resigned about all that but quite upset about a manx cat he loved that might still be somewhere on the property, starving to death.
We promptly began a hunt for the little tabby cat with no tail he described, and spotted him at dawn the next morning, running into a drainage ditch in which he had been living down by the barn. He was emaciated. The vet guessed he might be some 5 or 6 years old and recommended frequent feedings to bring him back to health.
We named him “Mr. Manx” and placed food out for him twice a day. He rapidly gained weight and, feeling more like himself, began hunting again, proudly presenting us every morning with a gopher or two twice his size – dragging them into the house through the dog door and dumping them at the base of the stairs, where I would stumble over them in the dark as I came down in the morning.
As summer moved into fall and the weather cooled, Mr. Manx let it be known that he could easily give up his raucous outdoor lifestyle and move indoors, explaining that his favorite activity wasn’t really hunting, but napping: that cat could nap anywhere at the drop of a hat. He ingratiated himself with the house cats and set a sleeping example no other acquaintance of mine has ever matched – he could sleep so well, he could almost sleep standing up. No matter where you turned that first winter, he’d be asleep nearby: always finding a patch of sun, at the base of the glass door or on a windowsill, or protected from the wind, sunbathing on the upper deck. I was going through a difficult menopause those first years Mr. Manx joined our family, unable to sleep much at all myself, and I used to imagine that the cat was sleeping for me.
One day I realized that Mr. Manx was no longer thin and starving; in fact, he was overweight. Seriously overweight. We realized that he had developed an eating disorder from his days of near starvation; that darn cat just couldn’t stop eating, fearing that food might one day again become scarce. He continued to gain weight until his belly touched the ground and I could no longer lift him.
About the same time, I admitted to myself that my dream horse ranch had a fatal flaw. During the exciting days of escrow and purchase, I had met with several horse trainers who all praised the beauty of the land but, once we were on it, we found that it was really too steep for horses and humans alike. As one fencer put it, “Lady, you’ve got yourself a pyramid here, not a horse ranch.” The house was at the top of a mountain and the horses and barn at the bottom of a draw, and in-between was a no man’s land of rolling oak forests, hiding wild turkeys and coyotes and bobcats and the occasional mountain lion that would stand and stare as I fed and mucked the horses alone at night, giving the twilight an eerie quality.
Never one to let the grass grow under my feet, I again took up the arduous search for yet another perfect ranch property and, many months later, stumbled on one just a few miles away. By that time, Mr. Manx had become a key member of our family and I obsessed about the difficulty of moving him, knowing that cats don’t move easily. But Mr. Manx had other ideas, and jumped in my car the day of the move, telling me that crating him wouldn’t be necessary, he was ready to go. At the new ranch, he took over the kitchen and it was impossible to sit for a meal without having that 30-pound cat at your back, sharing your chair with you. He was especially fond of reading with you late at night and loved Seinfeld reruns; they were his personal favorite.
That ranch was the last of our properties that Mr. Manx hunted: when we moved from there, he announced he had retired from hunting and sought a promotion to full-time housecat, one that he surely deserved. When we moved on, first to Santa Barbara, where we briefly flirted with being citified, which worked not at all, he slept on the deck, totally disregarding the multi-million dollar view of the city, the mountains, and the ocean just below.
He much preferred our next place in the Santa Monica mountains of Malibu, another grand ranch at the end of a long single lane along a cliff, with incredible valley and ocean views and bevies of butterflies hovering nearby. This time, the bobcats and mountain lions brazenly came right up to the house, taking your breath away, and Mr. Manx elected to live totally inside, only venturing out into the special cat cage we constructed for him that had its own oak tree for his napping pleasure. It was at this house, an amazing two-story French country home set in a meadow with its own lake full of frogs that serenaded you at night, where the horses roamed free, that Mr. Manx began the practice of traipsing around, especially late at night, singing a plaintive song, sounding not happy but not unhappy either, just using his voice and keeping it tuned up. He wasn’t fond of that ranch because I insisted on sleeping the better part of the year in a tent, way out on the edge of the cliff with the horses, quite some distance from the house, and he wanted me close by. Once I moved back in for the winter, he was happy again, and slept at my feet as I wrote my first book. He always said writing was easy, like falling off a log, but I never found it so.
The years went by and I began to think Mr. Manx immortal, never aging, always ready to help me write a paragraph or two, eat lunch, or take a nap. But he died suddenly this evening, with no warning whatsoever. He was having trouble breathing as he was raced to the vet, who declared Mr. Manx quite old, geriatric really, and already in the throes of moving on. He seemed unperturbed by all the fuss and quietly expired, with as little fanfare as he had lived. The moment he left his body, I could feel his enormous spirit everywhere, filling me and then the space around me, no limits to him now as he expanded.
What is it about cats that makes them think they are ageless, that allows them to spring effortlessly from floor to kitchen counter if there’s tuna anywhere to be found? Don’t they know they’re elderly and should be on a walker or at least be carrying a cane? What is it about cats that allows them to enjoy every moment of every day, totally present, never worrying for one second that they’re getting old or fat, as Mr. Manx was for sure, or wrinkled or infirm? Always enjoying every second of every day, the breeze, the sights and the sounds, and only wanting your company, to be with you watching the setting sun.
Clear Skies Ahead
In California, where I live on occasion, the earth shakes periodically, and fire scorches our “golden” hills. On the East Coast, wind and water have been the elements of destruction lately. We tend to forget about the power of Mother Nature until she grows fierce and threatens our usual way of life.
Irene brought us back to reality. The name Irene comes from Greek mythology, where she is the Goddess of Peace. Tell that to the folks who have had to abandon whole towns and communities near overflowing rivers and streams. This peaceful lady did something no one has ever been able to do before: totally shut down New York City mass transit and mandated the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying areas. The “better safe than sorry” refrain is only heard, it seems, when disaster is imminent, not in the planning stages before we build our homes and businesses in flood or fire zones, or sitting on top of major earthquake faults.
Many of us were glued to the Weather station or to our favorite news programming for days as we watched Irene crawl up a thousand miles of coastline. There’s a part of us that loves to watch Mother on a rampage, as long as we’re not the ones directly in her path. It awakens the desire to break free of all restraints, to go wild, to throw dishes and break windows, to dance in the wind and wash away complacency in a roaring flood.
We forget that we, too, are governed by the same elements as nature: fire, air, space (ether), earth, and water. Millennia ago, the seers of ancient India recognized this fact when they created the first medical system, Ayurveda, which is based on balancing the elemental energies, called doshas: vata is air and space, pitta is fire and water, and kapha is water and earth. Ayurvedic practitioners understand what aggravates each dosha, and what food and lifestyle choices can bring it back into balance. Ayurveda also has a regime for purification, called panchkarma, that eliminates toxins from the system.
Natural “disasters” are purification on a big scale. The old gets swept away, bringing the opportunity to reevaluate the strength of infrastructure and the health of our governing bodies. They bring out bravery—like risking electrocution to save a child—and compassion for the victims. They unite us as we work together to save a city or rebuild what has been wrecked. There’s no one to blame—no terrorists, no evil megalomaniacs. Just an acceptance of what is beyond our control and an understanding of what must be done. Not a bad lesson to remember when the skies clear.
Catalogue of Regrets
There’s a wonderful line in the Paul Simon song, “Everything About It Is A Love Song,” that goes: “Open the book of my vanishing memory, with it’s catalogue of regrets. Stand up for the deeds I did, and those I didn’t do.”
Ah, regrets. We all have our own catalogue of them, divided into the things we’re sorry we did and the things we’re sorry we didn’t do. I imagine there’s a long list of politicians who are sorry they unzipped outside of marriage—not at the time, perhaps, but certainly when the media caught them and public indignation forced their resignation. What regrets heads of state must have about ordering troops into war, or is it only us civilians that regret “collateral damage” to innocents? Do Congressmen regret the bills for the public welfare that they didn’t vote for because of political posturing?
Do rock stars and entertainers regret their wanton use of drugs, prescription or otherwise? If only we could hear from Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and host of others. And we could tell them about our regrets: the way we were mean to someone, the way we hurt those we loved, the time we wrote that email we never meant to be seen but we pushed the Send button anyway. Or the things we didn’t do because we were afraid—of rejection, of pain, of our status.
Regrets can be so tricky. Imagine being harmed by something that didn’t happen! And the regrets we carry can manifest as physical ailments. Many of my clients made themselves ill over sorrows tied to chances not taken, roads not traveled, relationships not pursued.
For example, Dynasty, a 40-year-old mother of three, came to me with neck pain so severe that she had used up her sick leave and vacation time because she was unable to get off her couch. Doctors labeled her neck problems as stress related, but she couldn’t find relief. I asked her about regrets and silent sorrows. She took a deep breath, a few tears fell, and Dynasty told me how sad she still felt about not being at her mother’s deathbed six years earlier. BINGO! We had just found the answer to her neck trouble. My advice to Dynasty, who hasn’t had a recurrence of the phantom neck trouble, was threefold:
- Voice the regret. No matter how illogical it is, no matter how much we understand that we can’t change the past, no matter how over it someone thinks we should be. Speaking the words out loud begins to release it from your body. Find a trusted person, an isolated mountaintop, even a loyal dog, but say the words out loud. In Dynasty’s case, she need to say: “I regret not coming home to be with my mother when she died.”
- Look at how that regret has shaped your life. Did you grab onto other relationships with a stranglehold? Did you avoid getting close to people so you couldn’t lose them? Did you march along with a smile on your face to shut the door on the pain? Or did you recognize the gifts that came to you from this kind of pain? Did you learn to cherish your family and treat them kindly? Did you learn to never miss an occasion to tell someone you love them? Did you begin following your doctor’s orders to maintain your good health? Recognize the effects these regrets have had on shaping your life. Some will be unpleasant to look at, but chances are, you have also gained some positive lessons as well.
- Release the regret. Yes, it shaped me and taught me things–good and bad. Yes, it took root in my body and showed up as a sore neck, or a bad back, or ulcers, or knee trouble. Release yourself from this regret. Go to a peaceful outdoor spot and choose a natural item, like twigs or pebbles, as a symbol of your main regret. Sit quietly with your item, and when you feel ready, whisper the regret out loud one more time. Then release the pebbles off the side of a hill, or toss the twigs into a running stream. Watch them disappear and accept that you are no longer held by that sorrow.
When your regrets are based on actions you did, such as the chaos and despair your heavy drinking inflicted on your family, have you forgiven yourself even if those you hurt have not? Share your honest regrets with those you have hurt. Try the Hawaiian forgiveness exercise in my book, Be Your Own Shaman.
Regret is an acid that eats at you. It can be tricky to tease out, because we internalize it so subtly. But by getting it out in the open, into the fresh air and sunshine, and releasing the shame and sorrow from your body, you can find freedom from your own catelogue of regrets.
Intimate Relationships
An intimate, stable relationship is the crucible in which we learn how to stand strong in our own individuality. It’s not an easy task. We need to trust each other, to feel emotionally “safe,” in order to bring forth the full expression of who we are. Unfortunately, a lot of us think a relationship should look like the one the romance industry promotes, full of hearts and flowers and sexy lingerie. We picture ourselves walking hand-in-hand along the riverbanks of Paris, sharing Mai Tai’s on the beach, gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes across a candle-lit table.
The truth is that our bodies are programmed so that the early infatuation we experience will pass in roughly six to twelve months. At some point, either you or your partner may want to run away from the relationship. I need time alone. You’re smothering me. Or you don’t spend enough time with me, you’re always at work or with your friends. What statements like those really mean is I’m trying to figure out who I am and what I want.
As you reach the infamous seven year mark in a relationship, either partner may feel the strong need to run. And when women enter perimenopause, the compliant little wife may suddenly become a fierce tiger, and scare her partner. As men and women hit their mid-forties to mid-fifties, they may develop more of the heavier qualities of the earth, sleeping more or becoming inclined to depression. Or they may exhibit too much of the fire quality, become overly driven and ambitious and rushed. Or they may develop too much air quality and become anxious and worried and have trouble sleeping. These are classic times for one of the partners to have an affair, or many affairs.
Most relationships crack because of lack of trust brought on by either financial or sexual factors. If your partner is not contributing to the monetary welfare of the relationship—can’t get or hold a job (especially in this economy), gets an inheritance and blows it on a Porsche instead of a college fund for the kids, or develops a gambling addiction, for example—money is the main factor in the loss of trust in the partnership.
One of the most common betrayals of trust happens when your partner (or you) has an affair, which is pretty difficult not to take personally. Ideally, it would be nice to be able to forgive and move on, but a lot depends on the circumstances. Was it a single one-night stand? A long-running affair? Many different partners? There are few relationships where one or the other partner doesn’t at least think about straying at some point. But looking outside the marriage is really just a diversion from the basic issue, which is finding ourselves. However, it is a compelling diversion that basically switches our attention from our present partner’s needs to the new partner’s needs. . . and often duplicates the problems we had with the last partner.
I work with so many people who blame themselves when their partner cheats or lands them in financial difficulty. The key point to remember is that your partner’s behavior says more about the problems your partner is trying to resolve from his or her past than about anything directly related to you.
Unfortunately, when we’re betrayed or our trust is broken, we tend to shut down our heart. When a dog is hit, it cowers close to the ground. Well, we do the same thing if our heart is hurt. If we don’t open our heart and let the pain move through, how can we be open to new experiences of love? This is why it’s so important to clear the energy from past relationships out of your personal energy field and out of your body (see the shamanic technique, the “Sweeping Breath,” on page 117 of my book, Be Your Own Shaman). That old relationship can slow you down and make you feel confused, unfocused, unhappy, lethargic or, worse, it can make you toxic and sick.
I’d like to pass on to you the two biggest tips that I have learned in over thirty years of marriage: First, if you meditate every day with your partner, you’ll find it’s pretty easy to get along. Secondly, when you are really upset with your significant other, begin every statement with how you feel. Start the sentence with “I feel horrible when you say such and such,” instead of saying, “You always say...” That gives the other person a chance to realize the impact they are having on you instead of going immediately on the defensive.
As you grow in your emotional health, your relationships will reflect a more mature intimacy, which in turn allows you to be fully who you are. If your relationship can survive the power struggles and betrayals, it means you have healed the wounds inflicted in the battle of the sexes for nurturance, power, and self. You realize you can separate from each other and come back together without losing yourself, and you can finally claim the prize of real intimacy.
Scared of Your Emotions?
When you see a mother with her baby, are you jealous? Or are you relieved it’s not you? Or maybe angry that she could have one, but you can’t? What about your feelings about your partner, or lack of? How do you feel walking in to work? When your kid flunks a test? When your computer crashes?
Are you afraid of what you feel? Scared that the emotion will cover you over like a tsunami and drag you out to sea? Take over your life?
If you’re trying to heal yourself, you will have to learn to release the toxic emotions you buried because you were afraid to feel them. You won’t want to dwell on the feelings as they come up or beat yourself up about them or try to change them. You’ll want to observe the emotions as if they are passing clouds—you feel the emotion arising, acknowledge it, and then watch as the storm clouds blow away.
Of course, it takes some time to be able to get comfortable with your emotions and not get caught up in them. I remember being in a courtroom as a young attorney during the time I was learning to name and acknowledge my emotions. I would write down what I was feeling in the margins of my brief, which was usually jealous, jealous, jealous. That’s how I felt about all those other lawyers who seemed so self-assured. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable with my jealousy and to stop trying to make it disappear. But when I did, I was able to uncover the fear that had created the jealousy, so I could then deal with it.
If I were to ask you, What are you feeling right now? would you be able to answer?
Here are words for some of the emotions, to get you started.
- Fear is always the basis of the other emotions. It ranges from anxiety and nervousness (including worry, distress, dread, dismay) to fright, horror, or shock that can lead into panic, terror, or hysteria. Or maybe you’re just shaking in your shoes or have butterflies in your stomach!
- Jealousy includes envy, wanting what other people have, or you can be filled with resentment, bitterness, or spite.
- Anger goes from irritation to rage. You can be annoyed, mad, furious, disgusted, or spiteful. Do you see red? Maybe your anger is nothing more than displeasure or pique rather than being infuriated.
- Sadness moves from feelings of self-pity to suffering hurt or anguish or grief. We can be wounded, upset, devastated, or simply unhappy, miserable, or gloomy. Maybe you’ve just got the blues.
- Shame can come from disgrace or dishonor, humiliation, embarrassment, or indignity. It is closely related to guilt—remorse or plain old regret.
- On the other hand, you can be filled with love and affection, be cheerful, proud, full of optimism and joy. Are you content and happy? Hopeful? Maybe blissful, in good spirits, without a care in the world.
As you can see, there are a lot of choices when it comes to naming your emotions. Let your choice be guided by your “gut feelings.” When you feel a sense of connection with a particular word, write it down in your journal and try to elaborate on what is causing it.
Now can you answer the question: What do I feel right now?
Just pick a word. It would be nice once in a while to have words like peaceful, happy, and cheerful. But whatever the word is, be really honest about it. Don’t try to change it and don’t criticize yourself; instead, congratulate yourself for the awareness. Absolutely everything starts with awareness.
Shame on Him, Not on You
Powerful men in the public eye seem to think they can have their way and get away with it all. But eventually they get caught, and the litany of their lies and excuses is embarrassing. Just look at the apologies offered by Anthony Weiner, DSK (the Frenchman vs. the hotel maid), John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenagger, Bill Clinton, and a host of others over the years.
Some broke the law, like Edwards using campaign money to fund his trysts, while others simply lost the public trust and broke their wives’ hearts. These woman had to deal with public humiliation as well as with their private suffering over their husbands’ betrayals.
Read my blog, “Weiner: Shame on Him, Not on Huma,” in the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-king/weinershame-on-him-not-on_b_873436.html for more on this topic and be sure to comment on it there; would love to bring this shameful behavior more into the open, where it can be healed.
When Caring Too Much Causes Illness
While much of the regret we harbor inside comes from our own actions (infidelities we’ve had, accidents we’ve caused, debt we’ve gotten ourselves into) as well as from those important things in life we failed to do (opportunities unexplored, love not shared, forgiveness unspoken, once-in-a-lifetime events not attended), sometimes regret stems from something that has nothing to do with us. Something we have absolutely no control over or say in. Sometimes regret—those feelings of grief, sorrow, and remorse—come from our exposure to the world’s innumerable tragedies and devastations.
We all feel how small the world has become through the advances in technology. With a mere click of the mouse or remote control, the whole world comes into our lives and living rooms. On a daily basis, many of us witness unimaginable violence and suffering. Kidnappings, murders, suicides. Genocide, terrorism. Natural disasters that leave millions in their wake. Public figures coming to tragic ends as they lose battles with drug addiction or disease. And, of course, a national and global economy on the brink of depression. The daily news provides no shortage of things to feel empathy for, and for those who continually tune in with an open heart, this constant negative input eventually takes its toll on their psyche and physical health.
The mind-body connection dictates that what enters our consciousness also enters the rest of our being. When we take in the energy from the outside world, and attach to it emotions such as sorrow and remorse, that energy has to go somewhere. Unless we release it, which few know how to do, it goes into our body, where it blocks our energy field, causing stagnation and, ultimately, a physical or mental disease condition. I hear this complaint all the time at my energy healing workshops. I see the havoc too much empathy is having on people’s lives.
At a recent seminar, for example, 20-year-old Mandy joined me on the stage, complaining of recurring bladder infections. Talking with her, I learned that she was a passionate, empathetic young woman who worked for an animal rescue while attending school part-time. Her frequent health problems kept her from work at times, and she regretted that she was not able to devote more of herself to saving the plethora of homeless animals.
Mandy is clearly a person who feels deeply. Not only does she advocate for the animals at the shelter, but she also went to Louisiana after the Gulf oil disaster to help with the devastation that happened to people and animals there. As we talked about her terrible regret over the devastation to the Gulf and the wildlife that make it their home, the picture of her health became clear.
In Mandy’s energy field I picked up a great deal of bitterness, the result of frustration about all the animals she felt powerless to help. This unprocessed bitterness was the cause of her bladder problems. While her heart was in the right place—she wanted to do her part to alleviate the suffering in the world—she wasn’t aware that she was allowing her need to help overpower her ability to help, leaving her feeling frustrated and bitter.
Many people, like Mandy, feel that selflessness is the only way to be a “good” person, that anything less is narcissistic or self-centered. I adamantly disagree. I see all the time the kind of toll this takes in people who come to me for help; it’s in their energy fields and in the various dysfunctions of their life, including emotional pain and, for some, like Mandy, illness of the body.
Please don’t get me wrong, empathy and compassion are high virtues. Of course they are. They are the reason I do the teaching, speaking, and energy healing work I myself do. They stir us to alleviate suffering and to uplift others where we can. But we all have to know the point at which it becomes too much to handle. Where the wise adage of “Moderation in all things” has gone out the window. When we give too much of ourselves, taking us off kilter, it doesn’t do anyone any good. As we’ve seen, getting bogged down in the tragedies of others, distorts our energy centers, or chakras, blocks our healthy energy flow, and lowers our own vibration to the point of disempowering us and making us susceptible to dysfunction and disease.
So, what can you do if you’ve already depleted yourself to the point of anger and resentment, disempowerment, and/or illness? The following simple steps can help pull you out of a regretful state and reverse any blockage accumulating in your energetic, emotional, and physical systems. They are powerful tools for self-healing that bring emotional pain relief as well as act as energy healing to the body:
- Take time for yourself. This was the first thing I recommended to Mandy, who wasn’t doing any of the things a girl her age would normally do. We all need time for ourselves, time to just be—to relax, unwind, socialize, play. We need time to enjoy being alive without an agenda of getting something done. Otherwise, life tramples our boundaries and some of our essential needs go unmet. Talk about the perfect recipe for anger and resentment! You’ll see this all the time in the healing professions, where people give, give, give and never get in return. They become overwhelmed with anger and resentment, which, of course, only adds to the toxic energy buildup in their energy fields and bodies that then manifests as disease. It also detracts from the quality of service they have to give. Bottom line: Before we can give to others, we need to first fill our own wells.
- Tune out some of the negative and tune in more to joy. Go on a “news diet,” cutting down on the amount of death and destruction you take in and adding in its place something lighter, like play. While it’s important to know what’s going on in the world (which you can do, by the way, by skimming Internet news sites for about two minutes), you don’t have to witness every replay of the World Trade Center crumbling or every dying bird in the Gulf. Instead, add to your day some laughter and joy. I watch one rerun of Seinfeld every night an hour before going to sleep to get my laughter quota and to take a few minutes to relax my mind. You’d be amazed at what a powerfully renewing “therapy” this is.
- Uplift the planet by raising your own consciousness. Instead of trying to rescue the world in person, which will eventually deplete you, try uplifting the world by raising your consciousness. The easiest ways to do this, which you know about already if you have read my spiritual self-help book Truth Heals, are through journaling, meditation, and prayer. Writing in a journal helps you clear out your emotions on a daily basis. It’s great emotional hygiene! When I first began journaling to heal myself of cancer, I took a notepad around with me and jotted down every emotion I had, as often as I had them. I wrote it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—anger, jealousy, resentment, you name it. When journaling, nothing is off limits. In fact, the uglier the better, as you need to get those toxic emotions out, to keep them from building up and creating energy blocks that can ultimately cause disease.
Meditation and prayer expand our consciousness and allow us to connect to and communicate with a higher source. As we begin vibrating at a higher frequency, we lift others up—just by our presence. Think of meditation as simply connecting your consciousness to the unified field for a certain period of time, where your consciousness sends out ripples into the vast ocean of consciousness, ever expanding at a higher level. Prayer, especially when it takes the form of gratitude for the perfection that lies just outside our human view (for example, visualizing the Gulf in all of its former glory) can also create the very state we desire. Certainly more productive than wallowing in helplessness and overwhelm, this can also do more for healing the situation than traveling to the disaster site to lend physical support, which may be unrealistic for many. From my own remission from cancer, plus years of training and working with people around the world, I know for a fact that journaling, meditation, and prayer have a tremendous, tangible power to heal.
- Redefine what it means to be of service. Many of us think that being of service needs to be grand, and so we give more than we can afford. Usually, this giving is out of a need for approval and acceptance. Deep inside, we don’t feel we are enough, and so we compensate. We’re so desperate for approval that we lose all sense of our boundaries and self-care. But being of service is really just about love. It’s the “chop wood, carry water” instruction from the famous Zen proverb: Take what nature has given you, just be exactly where you are, and do what you do with an attitude of love. Elevate others; mean them well. Intend them happiness and health. When you align your actions with those intentions, you’ll be of service to everyone you meet. And, don’t forget to include yourself in those you care for!
These few changes can dramatically improve your emotional health as well as the state of your body. The love, care, and service you give needs to be from a balanced and filled place.
One final cautionary word about empathy for all the aspiring healers out there: We all do empathic healing naturally, mostly with our family members and pets—where we take their pain and illness into our own energy fields and bodies to “process.” One of the first things I teach someone who wants to become a healer is how not to do that! That’s because empathic healing requires you to take in another’s negative energy through your own body in order to move it out of them; fine on occasion, but not as a daily practice. For more information about becoming certified as a healer in my 21st Century Energy Medicine Program, visit http://www.deborahkingcenter.com/21stcenturyenergymedicineprogram/.