“Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.” – Peter A. Levine
Drawing upon healing traditions that go back thousands of years, Peter Levine, PhD has created a method of healing trauma that has the power to revolutionize the mental health field. His modality, Somatic Experiencing (SE), takes the client on an inward journey to where they can access their own body's wisdom and instinct toward wholeness.
His books Waking the Tiger and In an Unspoken Voice share his methodology. One of the most stunning demonstrations of SES can be found on YouTube. In the video, Peter helps an Iraq War vet overcome a persistent facial tic by guiding his body to complete a movement sequence that had been abruptly interrupted by the explosion of an IED.
His new book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, is a deeply personal, courageous, and clear-eyed look at the events, forces, and people who shaped Peter's life, worldview, and work. It's not for the faint of heart. Peter recounts a brutal rape that was perpetrated upon him at the age of 12, as well as deeply unsettling family scenes from his childhood.
He also talks about the dreams and synchronicities that have guided his path — and the ones that he ignored to his detriment.
One chapter pays homage to the women who influenced his professional and personal development, including body and breathwork pioneers Charlotte Selver, Magda Proskauer, Ida Rolf, and Mira Rothenberg. Another chapter explores his relationships with brilliant men of science, including Ilya Progogine, René Thom, Leon Harmon, and T. Berry Brazelton. Much of Peter's life and work has been to integrate the archetypically masculine world of measurement and replication and the archetypically feminine domain of spirit and intuition — a synthesis that lends SE much of its power.
In our conversation, we talked about dreams. I asked Peter why meaningful dreams come to him, and how others (me!) might go about inviting dream insights. He responded with many stories and suggestions that I'm already incorporating into my evening and morning rituals.
At one point, Peter referred to the unconscious as “she,” and spoke of it as a source of great wisdom. Given my familiarity with the neurological basis of his work, I had thought of the unconscious as a more or less infantile part that was concerned solely with survival. I thought all it could do was fight, flight, freeze, fold, or socially engage (based on Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory).
Peter shared his understanding, following Jung, that the unconscious contains drives and impulses beyond those of physical survival. He cited the drive for wholeness, referenced in the subtitle of In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness.
We talked about his year-long “active imagination” mentoring by Albert Einstein in a California restaurant, and his later discovery that Einstein had saved his parents' lives when his mother was 8 months pregnant with Peter.
We also spoke about the Dine (Navajo) ceremony to reintegrate returning warriors from battle to community, and his encounters with healing and wisdom teachers from a variety of ancient lineages.
The mic drop lines, for me:
“Given the right tools, trauma won't rule.”
“We can stop reliving and start living.”
Enjoy!
Links
Learn more about Peter and Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) at somaticexperiencing.com
An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, by Peter A Levine, PhD. It's also available at Ergos Institute, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Amazon UK, Inner Traditions, Books A Million, and Bookshop.org.
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, by Peter A Levine, PhD
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, by Peter A Levine, PhD
Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Herman
Children with Emerald Eyes: Histories of Extraordinary Boys and Girls, by Mira Rothenberg
Let There Be Light — John Huston's movie about healing trauma in US servicemen following WWII
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem, MSW
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk, MD
The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, by Stephen Porges, PhD
Dr Howie Jacobson
This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).
My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.
Here are three gigs that I do:
1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation
I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.
At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.
My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.
2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance
I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.
We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.
The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.
3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams
I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.
So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.
You CAN Change Other People!
Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.
What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.
Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.
Music
The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.
It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.
You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.
Gratitudes
Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.
Disclosure
This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.
Dear Dr. Jacobson,
Your interview of Dr. Levine is excellent and elucidating.
I found some remarks at the end troubling as a reflection of the media bias in our times.
The media presentation of the Oct 7th war is responsible for the remarks both of you have made. It would behoove men of your intelligence and sensitivity to look deeper into the reality.
To quote Golda Meir who famously said “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. “
If Hamas built one shelter for their civilian population for every tunnel they engineered, there would be many less casualties.
In 1957 at a talk in Washington she said “ Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.“. This was before it became well known that the Arab school child is taught to hate and kill Jews from kindergarten. In UNRWA run schools.
The major reason why there are less civilian deaths in Israel than Gaza is that Israel promotes life. The jihad mentality glorifies death.
Very little effort is required to find answers to the questions of A)what were the political views of most of the villages and small communities attacked on Oct 7 2023. B)how many times has the Red Cross visited hostages C) Is it legal according to International Law to use hospitals as military bases
recommended reading is from time immemorial by Joan Peters.
Then I challenge you to find an intellectual and historian who can trace the Jew hatred in Israel today to the Mufti of Jerusalem’s meetings with Hitler. Your parents trauma is intertwined with that of our children who have been dealing with suicide attacks, random shootings and knivings, kidnappings and missles A reason the death toll in Gaza is so devestatingly high is they don’t build shelters and their militants insist on staying in civilian areas.