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Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: Why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed. Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The listener is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.… (more)
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And it is this world Levine put his attention to. He observed the ways in which an animal 'shakes off' the intense energies after the traumatising event subsided. A human on the other hand has a tendency to thwart these instinctive reaction. Our reasoning neo-cortex comes in the way. As a result the intense energies have no way to discharge and the body has to find other ways to stay in balance. Symptoms arise that can seriously and structurally impede a person's healthy and joyful experience of life.
Levine's method to heal does not involve longterm therapy in which the traumatising event is relived again and again. It involves sensing your body and tracking the trauma energies. Once these are discovered you are encouraged to make the instinctive and natural body movements needed to discharge the energies. Levine's method is as simple as it is effective because it knows how to harness our instinctive and natural capacity to heal.