Freedom from Pain: Discover Your Body's Power to Overcome Physical Pain
Peter A. Levine
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 1604076631
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
If you are suffering chronic pain-even after years of surgery, rehabilitation, and medication-only one question matters: How do I find lasting relief? With Freedom from Pain, two pioneers in the field of pain and trauma recovery address a crucial missing factor essential to long-term healing: addressing the unresolved emotional trauma held within the body.
Informed by their founding work in the Somatic Experiencing® process and unique insights gleaned from decades of clinical success, Drs. Levine and Phillips will show you how to:
- Calm the body's overreactive "fight" response to pain
- Release the fear, frustration, and depression intensified by prior traumas, and build inner resilience and self-regulation
- Relieve pain caused by the aftermath of injuries, surgical procedures, joint and muscle conditions, migraines, and other challenges
Whether you're seeking to begin a self-care strategy or amplify your current treatment program, Freedom from Pain will provide you with proven tools to help you experience long-term relief.
"Brilliant, practical, and wise, this is an enormously helpful book. I cannot recommend this work highly enough."
-Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart
"This book is for everyone who wants freedom from pain. I have read dozens of books on pain relief and the power of the mind for healing, and this is clearly the best to date."
-Steven Gurgevich, PHD, assistant clinical professor of medicine, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
and progressing up to the area where it feels like your breathing connects with the core of your body (usually through your belly in the center of your body). Then sense your breath as it crosses your belly or diaphragm to the other side of your body. As you exhale, imagine that your breath moves down and through the other leg and foot and out into the earth. Repeat this three to four times, noticing your felt sense of what is different in your body each time. Next, imagine that your breath is a
and destroying the apple by pulverizing it. Finally, take in the juicy nourishment of the fruit. This is what pure healthy aggression feels like. Examine Your Reactions in the Past. Think of a time in the past when you actually expressed your full anger at another person. Maybe you shook your fist, raised your voice, exploded into swear words, shoved him or her, or pointed your finger. What was the effect of your behavior on the other person and on yourself? Notice as you explore the answer to
you feel? What emotions are you aware of? Feel the strength in your shoulders, arms, legs, and feet. Finally, prepare to take action toward the animal that is trying to invade your space and usurp what is yours. Notice what happens as you prepare to fight back and to protect your vital interests. Follow those sensations and movements, staying grounded in your body’s felt sense of your own animal power and strength. Feel how your shoulders, arms, and neck tense as you prepare to strike out. Does
can even incite a greater collapse into depression or helplessness. So understand that if this happens, just rest and then try it again, if you like. Very often, just a few moments of rest is all that it takes for your nervous system to come one more step out of the depression. In addition to circle breathing (see exercise, track 2), you can also learn to create a body safe place by first identifying a place in your body that is a little more comfortable than any other. Once you find this,
depression just after Marti’s birth and her grandmother took care of her during that time. Marti’s sense was that the roots of her own depression were in the loss of her nurturing grandmother and the intrusion of her mother’s anxiety when she returned to the home several months later. Marti had fragmentary images of both her mother and her father physically abusing her throughout her childhood. As an adult, Marti became a competent attorney in human rights, yet in her early forties, she