The fourth pathway to transformation: trauma

Excerpt from the book “Healing Trauma” by Peter A. Levine: A pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body.

“Trauma is the fourth pathway to awakening. In transforming and releasing ourselves from trauma we must face, as does the newborn child, an uncertain world. It is a world stripped of the illusion of safety, and it obliges us to learn an entirely new way of being. When we enter it, we soon discover that our instinctive energies are not limited to acts of flight or uncontrolled violence [or freeze]. They are our heroic energies, and they can be harnessed. The energies that are released when we heal from trauma are the wellspring of our creative, artistic, and poetic sensibilities, and they can be summoned to propel us into the wholeness of our intelligence.

Trauma is about thwarted instincts. Instincts, by definition, are always in the present, and when we allow them their rightful domain, we surrender to the eternal now. With the full presence of mind and body, we can gain access to the source of our own energy and enthusiasm. […] As we resolve our traumas, we discover missing parts of our being, those that make us feel whole and complete. Our instincts house the simple but vital knowledge that “I am I”, and “I am here”.

Without this sense of belonging in the world, we are lost, disconnected from life. If we learn how to surrender to our inborn knowledge, it can lead us on a healing journey that will bring us face to face with our natural spirituality, our God-given connection to Life”

— Peter A Levine, Ph. D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma. He holds a doctorate in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology from International University.