Can Your Intuition Help You Heal?
Psychiatrist Judith Orloff, M.D., answers questions about the mind-body connection and explains how inner wisdom can guide your healing
i-village.com
Did you ever have a "gut" feeling about something or someone that turned out to be true? That's your intuition. And according to Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Guide to Intuitive Healing: 5 Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness (Three Rivers Press, 2000), you need to listen to it more often. If you really listen to your intuition and heed your body's signals, you can start to heal your body and keep illness at bay, she says. Here Dr. Orloff describes how intuitive healing works and how you can tap into your internal healing powers.
- How would you describe intuitive healing?
- Can intuitive healing help depression?
- Are doctors receptive to intuitive healing?
- Why is it hard for people to tap into their intuition?
- Why is there an interest now?
- How can tapping into ourselves help us stay healthy?
- How can it heal illness and pain?
- What kind of exercises do you recommend for getting started?
- Do you think doctors are more open now to discussing emotional impacts of a disease?
In a nutshell, how would you describe intuitive healing?
Intuitive healing is listening to your body's signals -- your inner
voice, and heart, your spiritual connection -- to find out how to
become more physically, emotionally and sexually whole. Intuitive
healing is connecting with a potent form of inner wisdom not mediated
by the linear mind to facilitate health and wellness. It involves
listening to the body and asking for inner guidance, steps I discuss
in my book Intuitive Healing. Everyone can learn how to do this.
How can intuitive healing help depression?
Intuitive healing involves listening to "symptoms" such
as depression in deeper ways. Depression is often a signal that
something's off in our lives that needs healing. Perhaps it's a
relationship, a job or an old wound that's crying out to be addressed.
Compassionately tuning into the depression and listening to its
voice will point the way to healing.
Are doctors receptive to intuitive healing?
It took me seven years to write my first book, Second Sight, because
I was so afraid of what my medical peers would say. Physicians can
be a tough group to get through to because of their "statistics
equal reality" convictions. But once my book came out and I
gained more confidence in my message, I saw a huge openness to intuitive
healing in much of the health care community. I speak to large health
care audiences who are hungry to learn this. Many doctors-in-training
are depressed because intuition and spirituality are excluded from
their training curriculum. I get many distraught letters from medical
students, but always encourage them to complete their training to
have the credentials. Recently, I had the honor of speaking to the
American Psychiatric Association meetings on my book Intuitive Healing.
The response there to my work was wonderful. The docs who attended
my talk were mainly from the Midwest in private practice. They wanted
to learn new skills to help their patients. I was very touched by
their sincerity. I believe that we are on the vanguard of a new
health care revolution as profound as civil rights or feminism.
That said, the hard-core surgeon-types still can't wrap their minds
around the fact that there is more to healing than technology. In
time, I'm certain that will change, too.
Why is it hard for people to tap into their intuition?
Our culture worships the intellect at the expense of instinct. We
don't teach our children to trust their gut, their dreams and their
instincts. Instead we teach them to excel in the mind, but not trust
their deeper selves. So we grow up as lopsided adults -- mostly
brain, but little heart and gut. This can cause illness, anxiety,
exhaustion and a sense of being dissociated from what's truly satisfying
in ourselves. The intellect is amazing, but wedding it to intuition
is a recipe for wholeness.
Why is there an interest now?
As a psychiatrist I know there is an epidemic of depression and
fatigue sweeping our country. People frequently aren't getting better
with traditional medicine alone. Thus, attitudes are shifting. I
meet medical practitioners and patients everywhere who rail against
the icy sterility of technological interventions -- no matter how
miraculous -- when simple kindness, love and awe for our inner vision
is sacrificed. My work is to bridge the realm of traditional medicine
and intuitive healing to offer the best to my patients of both worlds.
How can tapping into ourselves help us stay healthy?
Intuitive healing is about listening to the early warning signals
our bodies send so we can act on them to prevent illness. If you
feel tired (an intuitive signal) and keep relentlessly pushing,
of course you will pay a price. It may be more fatigue, or it may
eventually be a heart attack. Our bodies want us to stay healthy
and whole. If we just listen to what our bodies tell us each day
-- for instance, if you get nauseated around a certain person or
exhausted when thinking about a new job -- we can create better
relationships and make better choices. The result is more overall
well-being.
How can it help us heal?
Intuitive healing can help us heal by keeping us in touch with our
bodies' needs, and lovingly answering them. It lets us make truly
informed choices about the doctors we work with, treatment options
and the deeper issues we need to deal with to free bound energy
and promote well-being. I've worked with many patients in pain,
physical or emotional. I've taught them to let the pain communicate
what's beneath it. By going into the pain, listening to its intuitive
language, you can get to the root of it and heal. Maybe you'll discover
anger, past abuse, loneliness, feeling saddled with responsibilities
or that you have to "do it all your own." There are many
emotional contributors to physical pain. Pain will not let up until
its message is heard. Intuitive healing can get you there.
What kind of daily exercises do you recommend for people
who are just getting started?
I'm a big fan of meditation. I suggest quickie three-minute mini-meditations
to learn to tune in. You don't have to meditate for an hour to reap
the benefits, though of course you can. Find a quiet place. Close
your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Then sink into your body. When
thoughts come up -- and they will-- keep refocusing on your breath
and your body. This is a way of switching channels from the busy
mind to finding a place of quiet within. Do this before any big
decisions, to replenish yourself between meetings or just for fun.
The more you practice this, the more second nature a quiet mind
will become. I use this meditation to center myself between patients,
and even in airport bathrooms when I'm frazzled from traveling.
Do you think in the future doctors will be more open to
discussing the emotional impacts of a disease?
Absolutely. There's no way around this. Any doctors who work with
patients and listen carefully and intuitively to what their patients
say can clearly see the link between mind-body. Certainly extensive
research is substantiating the mind-body connection. The National
Institutes of Health Office of Complementary Medicine has reams
of studies backing this up. In my opinion, a doctor who is a true
healer would have to honor the mind-body link to help their patients
fully.
About Judith Orloff
Judith Orloff M.D. is featured regularly in print, broadcast and online media. Her unique and sought-after guidelines on how to recapture and affirm our energy, emotional wellness, and intuition have helped people worldwide to heal. Dr. Orloff's work has been featured in O Magazine, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, Self, Cosmo, The Washington Times, and the New York Post. She has appeared on The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America Health, CBS Early Show, CNN, PBS, and NPR. Dr. Orloff's work is featured on Beliefnet.com, iVillage, WebMD, AOL Health, and she is a blogger for the The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Her national public television special “Emotional Freedom Now!” is based on her book “Emotional Freedom.”
