Will I love When the Body Says No?

This is another unconventional recommendation because it’s not only about grief. Maté is a medical doctor whose work focuses on the damage that unprocessed emotional trauma—including grief—does to the body and how to process emotions in a way that is less likely to lead to physical disease.

I think this book is a necessary complement to books about complicated grief because it provides an understanding of what happens when we do not allow ourselves to fully experience grief in a safe and supported manner, and provides insights into how to do so.  

In this book, a medical doctor makes the connection between suppressed emotions, especially anger and rage, and disease in the body.

When we live inauthentic lives, our bodies manifest this self-abandonment through auto-immune issues (literally the body turning against itself). He notes that women especially have the tendency to abandon themselves to serve others which creates repressed resentments that come out as disease in the body. It helped explain my painful bout with shingles which became a turning point for me in committing to living for myself instead of others.

From his years as a palliative and family physician, Dr. Maté recognizes that the physical and emotional shut-down and illness resulting from trauma or chronic stress is a natural response to overwhelming experiences. He sees beyond the standard medical model to treat his patients as whole people, not disconnected body parts or diagnoses. In this book, he shows that what medicine considers psychosomatic or imaginary is in fact a biological survival mechanism; and advocates for a compassionate and holistic approach to healing over the mechanistic medical norm. Case histories and personal insights show that unresolved trauma patterns get transferred from… show more.

This book was a game-changer for me in terms of my understanding of the link between pain and stress. It was absolutely fascinating to see how various body systems failed under stress and how Gabor outlined the case studies from his patients to illustrate this. The amazing thing with these stress-related illnesses was that pain comes before many of them manifest. So being able to explain the true meaning of pain and the importance of preventing other disease processes, became my mission after finishing his amazing book.

It’s a simple theme, but it takes Gabor Mate’s wisdom, storytelling abilities, and compassion to make it real. When we lose the ability to say no, our bodies will do it for us. It’s such a profound idea. It speaks both to the colossal disconnect of our medical system and the deep intelligence of the human body. 

If there is just one book that all energy healers should have read it is this one. Moving beyond conceptual considerations in the genesis of disease, physician Gabor Maté takes the reader into the heart of the stress-disease connection in its many and varied manifestations. A plethora of real-life cases instructs us in the vagaries of ill-health that nevertheless share a common foundation - a stress reaction rooted in early childhood trauma. In doing so Maté clearly demonstrates the enormous leverage that we, as individuals, have over our own health and well-being. By acknowledging the deep sources of stress that… show more.

Filled with moving stories of real people, this is a book that I’ve often recommended to my clients when their physical health is compromised. This book examines the mind-body connection, helping people recognize what their body is trying to tell them through chronic illness, and often resulting in positive change.