What it is: A book about how to recover lost parts of yourself and become more whole by paying attention to somatics(tendencies of the body). There are fun and engaging tools to play along as well, like the “which animal are you when you get defensive” cheat sheet (which I describe a little further down this review).

Description: It talks about how we “check out” of our bodies when things become too intense (the “cold approach,” for example). And how this becomes a habitual pattern that prevents us from being fully Present and in the world.

Christine talks about bringing awareness to habitual movements as common as nail-biting or toe-roots. These unconscious movement “tags” indicate the places where our bodies have become split off from our psyches. When brought to our consciousness and confronted they’ll often tell us very plainly where our psychological suffering originated, showing us where to begin reclaiming more of ourselves and becoming more whole.

Another cool thing she discusses is how when things don’t go our way, we adopt defense strategies…fight, flee, or freeze. Caldwell goes on to identify each of these defense strategies as characterized by particular animals. Which one best matches your defense?

FIGHT
Badger: All-out attack - the person who sits quietly, then explodes into rage…

Bear: Intimidation - gets into funks or “moods,” people learn to avoid them

FLIGHT

Gazelle: Speed, agility - these people are hyper-alert and perceive the world as frightening

Prairie Dog: Uses distraction and hiding out as tactics…hard to pin down

(I’m probably this one—I will change the subject when I’m feeling defensive)

FREEZING

Chameleon: Will appear to agree with you in order to minimize conflict

Turtle: Going still, expressionless, frequently interpreted as stubbornness

Do any of these patterns, or a combination of them, feel familiar to you?

Christine goes on to talk about how to establish physical, emotional and cognitive boundaries so you don’t need these reactive patterns to survive. Good stuff.

Anecdote: Before we started AMP, Decker and I were into learning all kinds of body-oriented healing methodologies….massage, breathwork, Reiki, and Chi Gong…some of them were wackier than others (DNA Activation, anyone?), but all of them focused on clearing out old patterns, stuck emotion, becoming more whole in ourselves, etc…
Anyway, several of the most bad-ass body workers and practitioners who we were studying under at the time all recommended this book.

Potential Turn-Offs: It’s a pretty dogma-free, unassuming piece of work. Not much here for me. It’s basically somatic psychology 101, and focused more on the dynamics than hands-on exercises.

What I Got out of it: I can personally trace breakthroughs I got around becoming less needy to practices I learned from this book. It has helped me to understand and embrace more of myself. I’m more whole as a result of this book. I also use a LOT of what I learned in here to work with clients and when facilitating the AMP course.

Buy th book: Getting Our Bodies Back by Christine Caldwell