The Ten Commitments

Your parents were writing the opening lines to the screenplay of your life by the time you arrived onstage, and for much of your existence you have been reading from the script you were handed. If your story is unfolding as you hoped it would as a child, you have probably intuitively implemented the principles of this book. You are among the fortunate ones who have learned to commit consciously to your dreams until they manifest. If however, deep in your soul, you suspect that you have not yet realized your full potential and are worthy of more, then this book is for you. The Ten Commitments is for people willing to become the change they want to see. It is for those who can embrace the idea that free will is the greatest gift to humanity, and that despite what has happened up until now, we are capable of writing a better next chapter. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The Ten Commitments is offered as a guide to sanity.

As a doctor, I have been privileged to hear the challenges and intimate problems of my patients for more than three decades. Distress takes many different forms. For one person, it may be attacks of anxiety or bouts of depression. For another, it may be unrelenting pain or fatigue. Acute or chronic life overload may manifest as a host of physical concerns including insomnia, digestive problems, or immunological vulnerability. Weight problems, eating disorders, migraines, and high blood pressure are often expressions of underlying inner turbulence. Regardless of the stated reason a person comes to a doctor, there is inevitably a core experience of discomfort – either physical or emotional. People are in pain and want to get out of it. And, I often find myself asking the same question of my patients: Are you willing to do things differently in order to have a different outcome?

Releasing Your Past

There is value in understanding how you arrived at your present situation. Chronic emotional and physical health concerns can reflect early discord. Seeing the connection may be beneficial, as long as you do not add insult to injury by taking on too much responsibility for a condition that has other important factors outside your control. Knowing your father was ill tempered may help gain insight into your irritable bowel syndrome. Acknowledging that your mother was emotionally remote may help you understand your eating disorder or anxiety attacks. Honestly looking at your past can be helpful in appreciating the current condition in which you find yourself. At times, it can even be liberating.

However, life is short and spending years trying to “get to the bottom of the problem,” may not be the most successful strategy. It is possible to understand clearly why you are unhappy, but still not be any happier. It is possible to know why you have made bad choices in the past, but this knowledge may not enable you to make better ones now. The most important principle of healing and transformation is: For our lives to change, we have to change.

There is a skill in charting the course of your life, which requires finesse and timing. Seeing the bigger picture and making more conscious choices, is a path of power and subtlety. It requires clarity of purpose and purity of intention. It requires commitment.