Peter Levine, welcome to the show. Thank you. I want to hear a lot about your personal story,
but let's start with somatic experiencing. Can you just give me,
and by extension everybody listening, a brief description of what that is? Sure. Sure. sure. When I first started on my path in the mid
to late 1960s, early 70s, I had the disadvantage, no, no,
I had the advantage to not know the trauma, which would 14 years in the future would be
listed as an incurable disorder or even a brain disease that could at best be managed
with medication and with helping people change their negative. thoughts? So I didn't know that was supposed to be the
way things are. And so I had a very, very different experience
of what happens in the body. So for example,
you walk outside and you see somebody's been injured, somebody has fallen off a bicycle,
and your guts twist, you've got a little yuck. And then you go out and you look closer and
you see he's really been injured. So you go. to call 911, but your guts are still even
more twisted. And so what happens, what might happen is
that night, not saying this is traumatic, but just as
an example, that night you may be laying in bed and all of a sudden you see images of
the earlier that day with the person was injured. And again, your guts twist up. Now, if that becomes... becomes chronic, the
body is then telling the brain that there's threat, there's danger, there's injury,
and you better watch yourself. But it's something that comes from the body. I think of this sometimes as a part of us
that is also very wise, that is very cognizant. that is not just the mind, but it's really
incorporating the body. And two years ago,
I guess it was two years ago, I received the last Lifetime Achievement Award from the psychotherapy
network here. And they had a picture in the magazine at
the beginning, you know, those puzzles that have a gazillion
parts, like a thousand parts. and that one part was missing, and the caption was the
missing part. So I think there's now more of a recognition
among people in different fields of how important the body is and how our bodies respond to
threat and how our bodies can perpetuate threat and danger. even though there is no real threat or danger. So that's really how I began my work. - Let me see if I can state some of that back
to you, make sure I've got it, that something difficult happens to us, maybe
we could call it traumatic, something difficult happens to us, and then we store that experience
in our body and relive it. involuntarily. And if we don't pay attention to how the body
is doing that, then it can create long -term damage. Exactly. It can linger and linger and linger. And we can even start experiencing physical
symptoms such as irritable bowel, if this goes on in a chronic way. So, it's like... like, we sometimes think
of it as being as trauma as being psychological, but it's very much somatic. It's very much something that registers in
our body and that we can change that, we can shift that. I could, if you want, do a little example
with you and with the people who are viewing the webinar. Sure. Sure. So there's a nerve that goes from the back
of the brain down through the diaphragm until all of the organs below the diaphragm,
particularly the gastrointestinal system, but it also goes to the heart and to the lungs. And this nerve is the largest nerve in the
body, but what many people don't know is that 80 % of that nerve is actually sensory. It's tasty. information from our guts and bringing it
up back into the brain. So if our guts are twisted, we're going to
feel this anguish. You know,
Charles Darwin, one of my great heroes, Einstein and Darwin, he knew about this nerve and he
called it the pneumogastric nerve. So pneumo,
lung, gastric, gastric nerve. system. And he also realized that it was responsible,
and this is really amazing how he came to this,
that it's responsible for gut wrench and heartbreak. And I couldn't even add something that's more
prescient or more to the point than Darwin's observation. So if we can change the signal from the viscera,
from the gut, then the trauma sensations can then start to recede. So here's the example,
and I'll demonstrate it, and you can do it if you want with me. So I take an easy full breath, and on the
exhalation make the sound "voo" coming from the belly as though it's coming from the belly,
well it really is coming from the belly. And let the sound and the breath go all the
way out and then just wait for the breath to come in filling belly and chest and then
repeat. So I'll demonstrate here "voo" and I'll let
the breath and the sound go all the way out. the way out. And then wait for the breath to come in, filling
belly and then chest. And once more. So do you want to do that with me or any of
the people who are listening, watching? Yeah. Let me just jump in with a question. question. I can imagine there are some people who are
like, this seems weird. Yes,
yeah, it probably is weird, but the question is, does it really do something? Does it work? Does it actually do what you want it to do
or need it to do? So it is weird, but if you think about it
physiologically, this is weird, but if you think about it physiologically, there are
some people who are like, this is weird, but if you think about it physiologically, there
are some people who are like, receptors in the in the guts Sometimes call the enteric
brain or the second brain It's a really massive network of neurons in the whole gastrointestinal
system And there are these different Receptors that are signaling
from our guts back up to our brain What's happening and how to be able to change that? So So again, the idea is very simple, and
also different kinds of sounding techniques have been used literally for thousands of
years, and they probably wouldn't stick around if
they weren't valid. So again, just one of the things in somatic
experiencing, we try to find the persons, their curiosity to invoke their curiosity. And so if you, your listeners, you are wanting
to be curious about that, I'll just lead you through the exercise. And if it doesn't feel right or it feels too
hokey or it doesn't, it feels maybe difficult to do or it might be even a little bit frightening
to do, so just let it go and just listen and watch
as I'm doing it or as we're doing it. it. So are you game? I am game. I just want to sum you up before we dive in
here. What you're saying is, sure, this may feel
forced, but, and this is my addition here, lots of things including exercise, meditation,
therapy, feel forced and weird and uncomfortable. Yep. And yet, if you want to treat the difficult
experiences, this is the trial. the demons that are living in various aspects
of your mind and body, here's an evidence -based way to do it. Who cares whether it feels weird? Exactly. And we've done a fair amount of research now
with outcome studies. And the last one was published in the Journal
of Traumatic Stress, which is the gold standard for trauma reasons. So it's not without validation. But again, the inner validation to me is what's
the most important. All right. Having said all of that, let's get weird. Yeah. Let's get weird together. So Dan and your viewers, easy full breath
and on the exhalation, make this sound voodoo. vu, vibrating it in your belly. So you're now getting this feeling, instead
of gut wrench, it's gut opening or gut warmth or whatever comes up,
you could, images might even come up. So easy full breath, vu, we'll let the breath
and the sound all the way out. And the vu is on the out, so I do it even. easy full breath in and then I start the full
exhalation and then wait for the breath to come in on its own Filling belly and chest
and then repeat it again. Okay? Let the breath come in,
filling belly and chest, and again, and just notice then any sensations,
bodily sensations, feelings, images that might come up, or thoughts. Actually, I developed this exercise specifically. specifically working with people who had panic
attacks. But just curious what you were noticing when
you were doing the exercise. Yes, and as you know, I'm a panic attack connoisseur. I suffer myself. I felt immediately like warmth roll over my
shoulder. and down into my guts. Exactly. Exactly. In other words, you were opening to these
good sensations rather than the gut wrench sensations. That's the idea because sometimes you can
switch out of this fairly quickly, but not always because sometimes again, where
people have had histories of tremendous abuse and trauma. I mean, partly what I write about. in the autobiography is that it takes time. Because when I started teaching this work,
people expected that this would work in one or two sessions. And sometimes it does, but sometimes it takes
repetitive work, especially when we have a lot of early childhood
trauma. And then I, and then, but it's also possible
to to heal even the deepest of traumas, but sometimes it's more not just a miracle,
but a hard work miracle. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed your book,
because it doesn't say, "Well, this is the cure. This is going to take care of everything,"
because sometimes it does, but often it takes continue. work. - Just to say a little bit more about my experience
doing the VU thing. - Please. - I experienced after two breaths,
'cause we only did two, though a rush of warmth in my torso, notwithstanding the fact that
consciously, I was experiencing a lot of self -consciousness and fear that my audience was
gonna think I lost my fucking mind. That makes two of us Right again, I mean like
you say it, you know It doesn't make sense in some way,
but again, you can look at it in different ways Just the phenomenological change, which
is just what you reported but also knowing the physiology of the nervous system and and
have the vagus nerve isn't responsible for regulating our basic sense of goodness,
of awareness, of opening to different bodily and perceptual experiences. There's been a lot of work now or a lot of
interest in psychedelics and I think they sometimes can be valued. But I think sometimes also one has to be cautious
about their use. And that people have to be prepared for it
and there has to be follow -up. And the body is the way to prepare,
the royal route to prepare for this, and to follow it up. So it's not just the person is just taking
this drug and then, you know, whatever happens, it happens. But you have to be cautious. But unfortunately, that can be problematic. And actually, in the book, I talk about this
as promises and pitfalls to really examine this and its use. And especially when we can come to the body
so directly without these catalysts. So anyhow, again,
what sticks is what's really what's happening, and having those feelings of warmth. Now, I can explain that in terms of a different
parasympathetic nervous system. My very, very dear friend and colleague, Stephen
Poorjays, if you haven't had him on, he'd be a good person to have on. And we've been very close. close friends for like since 1975, 1976. And he talks about three systems, the sympathetic
nervous system, the fight or flight system, the shutdown system, where the vagus nerve
is overactive and the guts just keep turning. And then also what he calls a social engagement
system. And that should be the one. that you should be our default as primates
and as mammals. So in other words, when we are not in fight
or flight and we're not in the shutdown state, our natural impulse is to connect with others,
to make eye contact, to share something together, to share a meal, to share a movie. And again,
these are ways that we desire contact with others. So it's not about brute force anymore, but
it's about cooperation. And cooperation comes from being open in our
nervous system to that inner regulation. I'm very intrigued. And I do want to come back later to psychedelics. But let me just stay with the basics of SE,
somatic experiencing. You just showed us one brief. and sounding technique. I would imagine that within somatic experiencing,
there are other techniques that you use. Oh yes, many, many other, many other. You know, often people present with physical
pain and usually physical pain is due to bracing and and bracing in the body against being
hit or even bracing against certain feelings, certain emotions, particularly sadness, grief. But if we bring our attention to our bracing,
usually the person will report, for example, that they're feeling pain in their shoulders. And so I oh, it's very interesting. As soon as I said those words,
your shoulders went up a little bit. - You're right. - It's very interesting. But again, the idea is what's underneath the
pain. And it's usually a bracing pattern,
bracing against injury, bracing against threat, bracing against emotions. But so for example, are you willing to beam
another? round as a guinea pig? I am putty in your hands. Okay. So, I can see, again, there's a fair amount
of tension in your shoulders. Yes. So, I want you to explore what might happen
if the tension in the shoulders increased even a little bit. What kind of movement might, there you go. And then, just letting the shoulders let go. go. Next time, do this,
but do it very slowly, just the smallest amount here I'll demonstrate. So instead of going like this, I just raise
it just the smallest amount and then I let it go. And then rest there for a moment. And then again, just let the tension increase,
let the shoulders move up towards the ears and let them go. It's incredible. It's the same like on rush, again, over the
shoulders and down into the gut feeling of warmth from that very simple move. Exactly. So, which it really, people ask, well, what's
the goal in therapy? For me, the goal is feeling more alive, feeling
more connected, feeling more present in the ear. here and now. And again, this is energy that got locked
in our bodies. And once we connect to that energy and release
that energy, we feel a lot of this vitality. So if you're willing to take one more step,
I'm going to give you a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step,
I'm going to give you a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step, I'm
going to give you a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step, I'm going to
give you a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step, I'm going to give you
a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step, I'm going to give you a sentence
to say, if you're willing to take one more step, I'm
going to give you a sentence to say, if you're willing to take one more step, You say the
sentence because in my words they might not mean anything or make mean something completely
different But the words I invite you to say I'm alive I'm alive and again just notice
what happens I Go right from the swirling stories into my in my head south of the neckline
to the body Right. Okay, let's add one more thing. I'm alive and I'm real. I'm alive and I'm real. Yeah. And again, it just kind of noticed dropping
down more into your belly, into your body. So yeah, so yeah, to me the goal of successful
therapy therapy, whatever method is that the person feels more settled in themselves and
more alive and more connected to this what Carlion called the true self or the deep self,
the part of us that's there was there before any trauma and will be there forever. We just need to connect with it. And we need to connect with it. do that, or one of the ways of doing that
is connecting to the trauma, but then moving through the trauma. I've done no small amount of talk therapy
in my life, but I've not had any therapist ever direct
me to my physical sensations. That seems like the key difference,
if not the key difference. between somatic experiencing and traditional
talk therapy. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And somatic experiencing, one of the things
that is somewhat unique about it is that it works from the bottom up,
from the sensations that you were describing to our feelings, but also to our emotions,
but also to our thoughts. And the idea in somatic experience. is to work from the sensations, but also connect. So it's not that talk therapy is bad or anything,
but it's limited. And it's limited to the degree that we're
not able to sense and feel these things in our bodies. You know,
You know, in somatic experiencing, it's not a therapy per se, but really what it is, is
it something that helps people do what they do better. So somebody who's even a talk therapist, and
we've had many, many, many of our trainees came from them, from being talk therapists. And then getting some of these tools to also
work with the body greatly enhances their ability to work also with the mind. So, but just talk therapy alone without reference
to the body, I think it can be limited and in any case can take a long, long time to
work. Again, I'm not saying that just doing something
like this is a, a miracle, but it really facilitates and amplifies the shifts that we're all looking
for as we connect to that deeper part of ourselves. You may have explained this already, but would
you mind putting a very fine point on it? What is, in what way does somatic experiencing
getting, you know, working with your body and the sensations
in your body, how does that heal trauma exactly? Yeah, well, in a way you could say trauma
is a disorder of disembodiment, of dissociation from our bodies, or our body's
fragment to extremely painful situations. Thank you very much. And those pieces are thrown asunder. So how can we bring those pieces together
and hold them together in a cohesive way? So again, if we can reference, you know, for
example, some of those pieces are thrown asunder. So how can we bring those people are very
much in their head. And if I start working with them,
um, it seems like there's no place to go because they don't have any reference to the body. But then they, we're talking, having a conversation
and something comes up and I can see there's some excitement with the person. And I'll say, wow, it seemed like when you
just told me about playing with your dog this morning, "it seemed like something happened
inside. "Are you aware of anything that's going on
right now "in your body?" So again, you just gently kind of lead the
person to the body from wherever they are. I was asked to see this young man who was
on the spectrum, on the autistic spectrum. And he lived up in the Bay Area,
but so he would come down for four days, you know, once a year. So when he first came down, he had his computer
and he wanted me to have my computer and he would email me and then I would respond with
my computer. So it was in pop. impossible for him to actually be with another
human being, with contact. Well, the second year,
pretty much the same. Then the third year, he opened his computer
and then closed it, and he started to talk. And then the fourth year,
he had met this young lady, a very lovely young lady. lady, and then they got married. And now every Christmas, New Year, is they
send me a wonderful family picture of their child. That was, I think, his four or five -year
-old child. And so it was about meeting him where he was,
starting computer to computer, 'cause that was where his comfort level is. And then gradually bringing people or him
and people into it. to some reference to the body when something
excites them, when something turns them on. So is that relatively clear? - I mean, I love that story. I guess I still don't quite understand the
mechanism by which connecting with your bodily bodily sensations will help you move trauma
through. How exactly does that work? But remember, trauma is what's locked in the
body. Again, that example, we go out and we see
that injured person and our bodies go yuck. If it's severe enough, our bodies stay yucked
and our bodies continue to talk to the brain and saying, "This is bad." bad." And then the brain says,
"It must be bad," and gets even more contracting in the body. So I think really the key is because it's
locked in the body. It's only by connecting to the body that we
can unlock it, or it's mainly through the body. There's another thing that I think is maybe
is useful, is that there's been a lot of research. coming out lately about interception, and
interception is the body sense. And in a number of these research studies,
they said if the person can become just not even,
like things like you were becoming aware of, but just their heartbeat, that it greatly
changes their, improve their mental health and their physical health, one small thing. So I think this is a field now, which is beginning
to blossom about interception. And you could say that this interception is
approach, the way I use it, is in healing the wounds of trauma and betrayal. - Yeah, so just to state that back to you,
the insomatic experiencing through techniques like breathing and vocalizing or mental healing,
working with your shoulders or your posture or or anywhere in the body That's being held. Yes, you're getting us in touch with where
Tension trauma is being held so that it can move through exactly. You said it better than I've been saying it
Well, what does all this have to do with the the evolutionarily wired? fight flight freeze respite that we have and
that all animals have? Yes, that's right. Well, again, our response to threat or danger
generally is the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight that mobilizes us for
action. But then when we're feeling overwhelmed or
when, you know, with the COVID, people had such fear of the COVID, but it's not not something
they could see and it's not something they could flee from. So the one thing that they can do is shut
down in the body. And this is my theory, and I've worked with
a number of people, so I don't wanna say that this is a proven fact,
but I've worked with a number of people who have had this post COVID, long COVID, and
their body has stayed shut down. And then when we're gradually able to move,
help them move out of shutdown, then some of the chronic fatigue becomes less,
in some cases considerably less. So again, if we're in fight or flight,
we mobilize for action. If we're overwhelmed and we're shut down with
freeze and collapse, then we can move out of shutdown. cuts us off from connection. Well, connection to ourselves, our bodies,
but connection to others. Because when you're either expecting danger,
you're not gonna want to engage with a person, especially if you're in a state of shutdown. You just want to get through the day, but
then you're not gonna want to engage with a person,
it stays stuck, then we have to work and see where it's become stuck and then move out
of it. And then sometimes say an acknowledgement,
or as you did, it's like an affirmation where you said, "I'm
alive. I'm alive and I'm real. I'm alive and I'm present." Because, again, that's a recognition of the
importance of what happens when we begin to connect with our bodies. bodies, that we feel more present, we feel
more alive, we feel more grounded, we feel more ascented. And there's no greater reward. There really is no greater reward. At least, that's how I see it. If I'm listening to this and I'm intrigued,
some listeners may not have access, at least not immediately to a somatic experiencing
there. What are some things that we could, what are
some practices we can take that we could put into our lives immediately? And maybe you've already listed them and demonstrated
them already, but I wanna pose that question to you anyway. - I mean, many people meditate that's become
more and more common. But what if you, instead of meditating, on
your thoughts, which is what most meditation is, about if you meditate also on your body. You know, I was invited to Thich Nhat Hanh
Center in Plum Village, the meditation center. And one of the things that I really had sympathica
with. is that most of his meditation, especially
until people really became proficient at this, was what they called walking meditation. So when you're walking, you naturally connect
with your body. And then they would do those kind of meditations,
walking meditations, and then they would meet in groups of 12 or 15. underneath the plum tree, and they would share
with each other, remember the social engagement system, what they were experiencing, what
they were learning, how they were relating to their bodies. So again, just if you're doing meditation,
also try to do walking meditation and feel how your body moves in space and time. and and that alone that re -inhabiting of
our container even without therapy per se could that help us move through our ancient
wounds yeah yeah yeah I mean I think bottom line is it will enrich our lives and why not
do some that enriches our lives whether we have major trauma or not. I mean, truly there are not many people that
haven't had some wounds. I mean, the word for trauma in Greek is wound
and then the word for wound in old German is trauma or dream. So, find ways to enrich our lives, just do. to stimulate our dream talk, our dream world,
our dream body, you know, many people are, alright, I suggest to people that they write
down dreams. And because often dreams are taking us in
the next direction. But taking dreams, and when I have a dream,
I will actually, what I will try to do is look at pieces of the dream, parts of the
dream, and then with my awareness go from the dream to what I'm experiencing in my body. So using the dream as a way to come into the
body. body, maybe could even be called the dream
body. So again, there are so many things that are
enriched by body sensing, by body awareness, by interceptive awareness,
that it makes sense for everybody to practice this. And as I said, the one example of just the
study with just having a person become aware of their heartbeat. I mean, without feeling their pulse, but just
hearing their heartbeat, that makes a significant difference in their wellbeing, just doing
that. So it's something that maybe I'm being repetitious,
but it can enrich all of our lives, any of our lives. And it is, I believe, the royal root in working
with the effect of trauma, but just having a person become aware of their heartbeat,
that makes a significant difference in their wellbeing. trauma that's been on the body. Actually one of the people who wrote the endorsements
for the book, I mean, I'd best O 'Vanderker, he said,
nicely, "Peter is a wise and kind pioneer of somatic therapies who has been a beacon
for clinicians all over the world for understanding and dealing with the physical impact." imprints of traumatic stress. And he wrote a book called "The Body Keeps
the Score." And again, I think what we're seeing is, again,
this used to be fringe, Dan, when I talked about this to audiences back in the '60s and
'70s, I really received, well, basically a hostility. How could I say something so... so outlandish? And it was probably dangerous to have people
become aware of their bodies. But that's not that way anymore. I think really at this point, it's not no
longer fringe. It really, you know,
with research and with, you know, with different ways. of connecting to our experience, I think
it's now clearly a part of, maybe not completely in the mainstream, but
largely now in the mainstream. What has, I imagine, somatic experiencing
has been studied quite a bit. Could you give us a sense of what the research
indicates? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there are different kinds of
these. research. The research that I mentioned initially, which
was a study that was carried out, I think, was in Israel, actually, where there
was a lot of trauma. And it would just really look at the metrics
for trauma. So there are different scales that you can
use to measure trauma. And the And just doing, I think it was like,
I believe it was like six sessions that they dramatically dropped the level of trauma. And this lasted for, I think, follow up at
six months, if I'm correct. So that's what you wanna do. This is called basically an outcome study. We've done some physiological studies of what
happens. when people are in different states. We've done a little bit of that. We've done research on applying it to different
situations, for example, for marriage and family work
and worked with children, particularly first aid, because children are always going to
have their accidents, especially once they're two years old. They can get into all kinds of trouble. You know, they're out on their skateboards
or whatever, and they can get hurt and they can get scared. This may be swallowing marbles and then being
rushed to the emergency room. So if the parents are able to be there with
the child and support the child, be there by the child's side,
maybe asking the child if it's okay for you to put your hand down. on the back, on their back. And then the kinds of reactions that you were
just describing, Dan, that's what the children often describe. So it's, again, like I said, somatic experience
is not just a therapy per se, but it's about how to multiply the effectiveness
of many different approaches, many different kinds of therapies, including cognitive therapies. So it sounds like you're saying the more we
can heal ourselves, get in touch with our own wounds, our own body, let it move through,
we can become like nodes of healing in the larger world. Yes. Yes. And that would be my deepest hope. that when we heal from ourselves,
we can also help others, people who are close to us. But I think ultimately we can also begin to
heal people who are further and further out in the world. And my God, if the world has never ever needed
healing, it certainly needs it now. now. I was doing a training many years ago. It must have been at least 20 years ago in
Israel. At that time,
it was possible to also have Palestinian therapists come and And so somebody asked me the question,
well, what if you don't know what your trauma is? Can you still work with it? And I said, yes, you just need to have some
symptom. It could be pain. It could be some haunting, but that's all
you need. And so this man volunteered,
a man named Chaim. And he was actually one of the pioneers of
developing psychoanalysts. therapy for Holocaust survivors. So he said that he had been having back pains
for 30 years. So it's interesting that he mentioned specifically
30 years, because that means he, in some way, his unconscious, pre -conscious knows something,
subconscious knows something is going on 30 years ago. So when I start working with him after a while,
while, his body would go into waves, his fingers would become ice cold, then they would become
warm, then he would be able to take full easy breaths,
and then rhythmically, full easy breaths would come and go. And finally, at the end, you could just see
he was sweating so deeply that this shock had been discharged. discharged. And especially because, and the reason we
later found out is when he was an army doctor and his battalion was ambushed and the only,
everyone died, but he fell out of the truck backwards into a ditch on his back. And so the horror and terror got locked into
the back in the form of pain, physical pain. So... So, you know, I could see people were deeply
moved. So I asked if anybody wanted to share something
if Chaim was okay with it, what they were noticing in their own experience in their
own bodies. And this one woman stood up after a while,
elegant woman, she was from Gaza Mental Health. And she said, Chaim, when you came up to work
with Dr. Levine, I was proud of you. that something bad would happen to you, that
you would be traumatized, because you, your people have traumatized my people, have
humiliated my people, have destroyed, killed my people. But something happened when I started to shield
in my body something about what you were maybe feeling in your body and I realized time,
until we find peace within ourselves, within our bodies, we'll never find peace with each
other. And I don't want to make this sound like a
panacea, but I think this is an important thing to cultivate,
to be able to know that when we're reactive, it's probably because there's some trauma
that's been. active reactivated or activated so how to
work with those and how to use that to heal to our Families to our children our families
to our communities and even maybe even to our countries I mean my god right now,
you know, our country could use a dose of healing itself As you may know this show 10
% Happier has a companion app where you can go and learn how to put into practice all
the great things you learn here on the show. As I like to think about it, it's like in
college, the podcast is the lecture and the app is the lab where you can go and pound
all of the wisdom from the show directly into your neurons. The app is also called 10 % Happier. It's available wherever you are. you get your apps. Go ahead and download it today. You described earlier that trauma is in when
we're traumatized often we dissociate because and it makes sense we're trying to escape
the experience. Many people who are carrying trauma with them
now really resist and find terrifying the notion of reoccupying the body with good reason. So, what do you say to folks like that who
hear about somatic experiencing and say, "Oh, that sounds horrifying." Yeah. When people first connect with their bodies,
they may experience a contraction. But if the person is guided,
and I describe, you know, quite a bit how I was guided due to it for myself or my own
healing in the book, that you do feel worse for that moment. But if you're guided, this contraction will
then move to an expansion and then another contraction and then another expansion. Oh, here I have one of my toys, I forgot. So, we start to connect with the traumatic
sensations which we dissociated from. so we start feeling contraction in our bodies. But then when we're guided, we feel an expansion,
and then another contraction, and then another expansion, and another contraction, and another
expansion. So in somatic experiencing, we never take
the person right into the trauma. It's not like an exposure therapy, because
that can be be Retraumatizing, but I call this titration. We just touch into those sensations and move
from contraction to experience I call that pendulation like the movement of a pendulum
contraction expansion contraction Expansion so yes,
it can be frightening at first But a therapist who knows what they're doing is able to take
the person through that fear and into greater connection and greater expansion. You mentioned your childhood traumas and you
write about them in your new book, An Autobiography of Trauma. Yeah. Particularly, you tell a pretty horrifying
and very violent story that, for example, own childhood. Are you comfortable discussing that here? I won't say I'm 100 % comfortable, but yes,
I'm open to sharing it. But I want to preface this. In somatic experience, like I just said, we
don't go right into the trauma. So when I was having these symptoms, which
were basically from a violent attack and a rape to keep my family from testifying against
the trauma, I was like, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to
be able to do this anymore." And I was like, "Oh, I don't think I'm going
to be able to do this anymore." So our whole family, our life was threatened. But obviously I don't want, or the therapist,
my student isn't going to take me directly into that. But I came to this following memory. When I was four or five years old, my parents
came into my bedroom, must have been in the middle of the night. or early in the morning, and they laid a train
track underneath the bed all the way around in an oval into the room and then back into,
then back also again into the, under the bed. And then the train was going around the tracks. So when I awoke, I was just thrilled. And when I worked with,
what did it mean to feel thrilled? thrilled? I could feel that in my body. I felt excited. I felt it turned on. And I jumped out of bed and I ran to the transformer
and I changed the speed and I made the the the the horn go to toot. And that memory let me know that I was cared
for. for and loved, even if it was only for a relatively
short period of time. And one of the things that is characteristic
of people who have just experienced even the smallest amount of love in their childhood,
that these people will be okay, that with good therapy, they will be okay. And then, then my guide took me gradually
into dealing with what led to the rape and how I was able to heal that. And I think when I decided to write the book,
it was only for myself. It was really as a personal excavation. And, but,
I think it was a personal excavation. friend of mine said, "Peter, I think you really
should publish this as a book because it could help other people with their own traumas,
with their own healing, and particularly, you know, with telling their
own stories." But it was too personal. It was too raw. and I was really afraid to
do it. And she, she's, she really encouraged me and
she said, Peter, maybe just think about it. So we were talking about dreams. I had the following dream. I'm standing by an open field and in my hand,
I have reams of paper and they're typewritten. So obviously it's some kind of a manuscript. But I don't know what to do with it in the
dream. Then I look to the left, I look to the right,
and then in my indecision, this wind comes from behind me and takes the
pages and scatters them into the meadow to land where they may. And that then said,
"Yes, I'm going to tell the story." and let it land where it may. Parts of it I think are inspiring, parts of
it I think will be, well, will be valuable to people who have their
own traumas or are interested in the nature of trauma because I use my story as a way
of illustrating, not just talking theoretically, but about
how I came to Chiron. Chiron in Greek mythology, and now we think
of Chiron as the wounded healer, that as therapists, it's behoven to us to
do our own healing. Because if we don't do our own healing, we're
going to be limited in what guidance we can give to people who are coming to us for their
healing. So, again, I think this is part of an important
part of our healing. my life and important part, not the whole
story, but important part of the autobiography of trauma, a healing journey. So anyhow, there were many, many different
things in my life, some were just exciting, some were amazing, some were almost incredible
that they even happened, but enriching, enriching for me. And I think this is important part of my life
believe will be enriching for the readers. - Just to recap a little bit, when you were
growing up, your dad ended up being called as a witness
in a mafia trial, and then the mob tried to intimidate the family to convince your father
not to testify, and as part of that, of that, you were violently
attacked in a nearby park, if I recall. That's right. And a park which had previously been a refuge
for me. I would love to go there after I'd come home
from school. I would drink my milk and peppers, farms,
mint cookies, and then I'd run into the park and go through the bushes down to a running
track. And I would run and I'd feel like I was in
the water. the power in my legs, the strength in my legs
and that's where we started when we were gonna go to the rape itself. So again,
not all at once, but again, at one time when I was going down to the bushes, something
was wrong and there were these thugs wearing these Marlon Brando hats and I had to run
and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and
I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and
I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and
I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and I had to run and
I had to run and I had to run knew something was wrong and the hair on my back was standing
up and then I was thrown to the ground. And again, they wanted my parents to know
what happened to me so that that would intimidate them to not testify. But I didn't,
I was too ashamed. 'Cause it's often what happens when people
are traumatized. They have tremendous amount of shame. I was shamed to tell my parents about it. I hid it hidden from them. I actually kept it hidden from myself. And until I was able to follow these symptoms
and be guided, they lay also out of my reach, but they were there haunting me. Haunting me and then waiting for me to. to make this uncovering. Also, it was not just this event,
but the milieu of, you know, because the mafia sent over there a lawyer, and so we, my brothers
and I knew something was terribly wrong, but it was never talked about. And finally, when it became talked about,
well, it actually had never really became talked about. It was just left in the back. And so that was an additional thing because
again, it's not just the trauma that happens to us. What I say in an unspoken voice, one of my
other books, is that trauma is not so much or not just what happens to us. but rather what we hold inside in the absence
of that present empathetic other. And so my parents couldn't be that for me
because, again, they were under such a struggle of how they would survive, and at a time we
were experiencing some degree of of poverty because my father's business,
his father's company went out of business. But again, all of these things can be healed. And the trauma itself, I'm mostly healed in
one or two sessions. But the other things, the milieu takes more
time, and at the beginning we were talking about this as being healed. the hard work miracle to really feel supported
by others. And one of the things when people wrote their
endorsements in the book, I was so deeply touched by those endorsements that I felt
their support. And in a way, their support was coming to
me belatedly from the support that I didn't have as a child. So So, and when I talk about that,
it does bring waves of sadness and joy and how deeply they supported me and how important
their endorsement was in helping me really take that last part in healing. - Well, the somatic experiencing sessions
where you worked on this. trauma, what was that like? Well,
I mean, of course it was frightening, but my guide knew not to expose me to this all
at once, to just touch into it. And also to go back and forth between, remember
those positive images that I had of being cared about, of being loved, of shifting back
and forth between those and the other traumatic images. So not just the trauma images, but shifting
back and forth. That's an important aspect. You know, there are also other parts of this
that were very important in my development. I don't know if we have time. I maybe I can briefly make When I was developing
somatic experiencing and also working on my doctoral dissertation,
there was a restaurant, and if you think this is going to, what would four was going to
sound woo -woo, this is probably going to sound even more woo -woo. I would go to my favorite restaurant,
the Beggars Banquet, and I would, the waitresses of the Beggars Banquet, and I would go to
my favorite restaurant, the Beggars Banquet, they knew me. They invited me in. I usually started my meal with a bowl of warm
soup with French bread, crunchy on the outside, soft and white moist
on the inside. And I would have something that I was writing
on and I worked when I was there. At one moment, I saw a shadow coming to the
other side of the table. And I looked up and it was an image of Albert
Einstein. And of course I knew that it was an image
and it's what Carl Jung called, oh gosh, what did he call it,
type of imaging. imaging that's very real, that's idetic. And that that image is very important in our
imaginary, that imaginary image. So of course, at one part, I knew this was,
I was imagining this. I knew I was imagining it. But at the same time, it seemed almost real. And I was eight, and I would ask the professional,
questions, and then he would ask me questions about my questions, kind of the Socratic method. And this went on for a good period of almost
about a year. And, oh, act of imagination, that's what you
call it. So again, the rational part of me knew that
this was just an imaginative process, but that I could gain much from it. And so I could say went along with it. And it was something that I felt deeply moved
every time we had this dialogue with us. So again, I figured this is something that
simply is an imaginary image of active imagination. There was no reality to this. except some 30 years ago, 35 years ago. I was visiting my parents who live in New
York and I was coming back from spending the day at museums and I walked into the apartment
in the Bronx and they were sitting on the sofa and I noticed in the bookshelf there
was the theory of relativity by Einstein. So, So that provoked me to mention to my parents,
especially to my mother, my experience with Einstein,
my imaginary experience with Einstein. And my mother said, "Those weren't imaginary." And I said, "What?" She said,
"When you and your father were... when I was... pregnant, eight months pregnant with you,
your father and I were canoeing on this lake in New Jersey. And a wind squall came and tipped the canoe
over. And we couldn't ride the canoe and we were
certainly going to drown. And again, it would have been the end of my
life as well, of course, before it started. And but then a small sailboat came along and
there were two people in the sailboat. sailboat and they rescued my parents. One was a older man and the other one was
a young woman and they introduced themselves as Albert Einstein and his stepdaughter. And so my mother reasoned that because he
saved my life in that moment of life threat that somehow we would stay connected. I know this sounds totally weird. And sometimes it only racially when I have
the courage to even talk about this, because I would be afraid of people thinking I was
weird. But I'm not afraid of that anymore. I think I've earned in getting this workout
to literally 75 ,000 people worldwide. It's... it's out. Other people are sharing that burden. It's off my shoulders. And the question, have I done enough,
which I try to address in the book, I can say yes, absolutely I've done enough 'cause
it's on the shoulders of these other people, these 60 people who are teaching semantic
experiencing. But the question is, am I enough? I think that is a work in progress. And that was really what I was trying to ascertain
in writing the book for myself. Was am I enough? And what does that mean? And what does it mean to me? And what does it mean to others who are around
me? Who care about me and who I care about them? I find it fascinating that so many... men
of science, women of science, people of science have these metaphysical and mystical suspicions
and convictions, really, that they're afraid to talk about
until they can reach a degree of comfort that it can no longer destroy them. - Yeah, Dan,
thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that, for saying that. I appreciate that. - I would imagine you're not alone. - No, no, I don't think so. And again, if that really inspires other people
to have those kinds of active imaginations. You know,
sometimes as children, our parents say, you're just imagining things or just imagining ghosts
or whatever, rather than saying, then saying, "Tell me about it." that imagination,
at that images, you know. So yeah, and I think, I mean, Einstein and
his theories, he talks specifically about how the images informed the development of
his theories, how important it was for him. You know, he said something like, you know,
studying children's, studying physics is children's play. play compared to studying children's play. And I think he really, really, really appreciates
imagination and how important imagination is and how he gifted me with this gift of
imagination. So I would say, don't let anybody tell you
your imagining things. See where they take you. And that way, I would say, don't let anybody
tell you your imagining things. And that way, I would say, don't let anybody
tell you your imagining things. was, again, with my book, I made to follow
the truth no matter where it went. I started with a quote from a Jewish quote. Why did that go? What is truer than truth? Answer the story. And I really hope that all of you will tell
your stories. If it's only for yourself. to do that, and if it's to write about it
and to publish it, I wish you well. May you stand tall and walk in beauty. - Let me ask a practical question. This loops back to something you said a while
ago. You talked about this memory of your parents
building a toy train track around your bed when you were four or five. Is that a practical question? that the rest of us could adopt that to re
-inhabit moments of feeling love, connection, support as a way to fortify us
in moments of difficulty? Yes, they're always there if we are willing
to open to them, if we trust enough to open to them,
they're always there or we wouldn't have survived, really. really. I truly believe that we all have these moments
of joy, of being cared for, of being excited. Yeah, I think that's part of the human condition. I mean, we may have had a lot of bad stuff
happen, and many of us do. do, as so did I. But I am convinced that even before trauma,
we had this experience of being cared for, of being loved. And that will be there after we die. It will always be there. It will be with us. And if we believe that there is, there are
such things. images, I think you'll find they show up,
you know, if, you know, they say, what is it? What's that saying? Well, anyhow, if you build it, they will come. So if you believe that that's a possibility,
I think you'll find that and it may may involve also writing down your dreams and exploring
your dreams and relating what the dreams are showing you to what's going on in your body,
in your organism to find greater vitality, greater aliveness, greater here and now presence. You said something about how those moments
moments of support, love, connection will be there after we die. But how do we know, how do you or how does
anybody know what's going to be there after we die? You got me on that one and actually the last
chapter in the book is "Living My Dying." And it's really about starting to to face
my mortality because at the age I am, there are many more years behind me than in
front of me. And so I don't know what will happen. And I guess the question I ask myself is,
can I stay curious? Yes, can I trust that when it happens, this
part to me will look occur. I apologize for this here. This is the part of me here. When I had that experiences,
experience is another experience of joy. And this is who I want to return to. It's he who I want to accompany me when I
leave this life. Well, you were a cute baby. Thank you. Thank you. So how would that, how would that like full
body joy, joy version of Peter, how would that version
of you accompany you when you die, what do you imagine practically? You know, you're going to get me thinking
about this, really thinking about this. You know, somebody, I think the Stan Kellerman
wrote. that when we've lived our life fully, we're
not afraid of death. And I must say, I'm not there yet. And I think I have a lot more living to do. And again, I think that's one of the things
that motivated me to write the book. To really look at where my next in live will
be. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think death is a great mystery,
what Carl Jung called the Mysterium Tremendum, that we do not know. I don't know what it will be like, what will
happen. And part of me is scared, but part of me is
like, I have more things I want to do here in my life. life that bring me greater joy You know, there's
an expression in in in the Hebrew They called tecum alum Which means to leave the world
in a better place than you found it And I hope in mice in one small way that I have
left the world In a better place, and I think that also will support a more
a more peaceful passing. So basically, I don't know what it's gonna
be like. I get hints. My dreams sometimes take me along that pathway. But I continue to ask myself this question,
what will it be like? Will I feel loved? Will I feel accompanied? accompanied?" And I hope so, but I don't know for sure. I don't think any of us knows for sure,
but as we open into our lives, more fully into our lives, I think then we'll be more
fully embodied and ready to shed our bodies as we change our form,
as we leave our bodies and go. into a place yet unknown in this mystery of
this tremendousness. - Well said. It's a beautiful place to leave it. Let me ask you, Peter, before I let you go,
two questions that I generally ask at the end of interviews. The first is, was there something you were
hoping to talk about that we didn't get to? - You know, know, it was a very full discussion. I found myself animated, I found myself emotionally
touched. I feel that I'm taking some of this,
our interview with me into my life. And I hope I'll actually have the wherewithal
to look at the... podcast when it's played. But I can't think of anything more than I
would wanna add except for the parts of my life that are yet unfinished. And I hope that I'm moving to finishing those
parts. - I hope so too. And I will take many aspects of this interview
with me going forward as well. And so let me just finish with this question,
which is, can you please remind everybody of the name of your new book, the names of
your older books and anything else you want us to know about? - Okay,
the newest book is called An Autobiography of Trauma, A Healing Journey, by Peter A.
Levine. I also wrote, my first book was Waking the
Tiger, which I created for you. which I wrote in 1992, but didn't get published
until '95 or '06, called "Waking the Tiger Healing Trauma." And then my main book for clinicians,
but also to relay people, is in an unspoken voice, in an unspoken voice, how the body,
the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Really, much of the time. of our conversation this time. And then I wrote another book on memory, because
many lay people and therapists as well don't really understand the difference between normal
memory and traumatic memory. And so I wrote a book titled "Trauma and Memory,
Brain and Body in the Search for the Living Past." So I gave it a try. that gives me another good feeling that I
leave that with people to read and to learn from and maybe to remember me by. Yeah, to remember me by. And you can go to the website, Trauma Healing,
to somaticexperiencing .com. There's also a link to traumahealing .org. And if people want to find therapists in their
area, because we have trained therapists in like 44 different countries, you can get that
information from their website, from their website. I'm glad you mentioned that. We will put links to everything that Peter
just mentioned in the show notes, so if you're on the go, you can just come back to the show
notes and click on them. Meanwhile, Peter A. Levine, thank you very
much for coming on today. Gladly. And thank you, Dan. Dan.
