REVIEW: Laura Khoudari — Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time (BOOK)
Laura Khoudari proves herself to be a unique amalgam of elements with the release of her new book, entitled Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time. On the one hand, she’s a wholly knowledgable personal trainer, speaking succinctly about some of the toughest and most rewarding workouts the reader can pursue as they make their way up the ladder to recovery. On the other hand, Khoudari comes from a place almost akin to psychotherapist or psychiatrist. While decidedly left-brain in her approach, she speaks eloquently about the nature of trauma, particularly how trauma of all kinds (be it physical, mental, or something in-between) can be affected by actual, physical changes that undergo one’s body and subsequently, one’s neurochemistry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.laurakhoudari.com/
Speaking of her own physiological response to her respective trauma, Khoudari provides an uncommonly generous and deeply personal portrait of her own struggle to reclaim herself — all of her, on a mental, physical, and even spiritual playing field. “While I assume(d) my corporeal form did not actually vanish at any point, I was gone in another sense,” she writes. “I (had) dissociated. It was around this age that I really began to try to vanish, especially in the gym or at recess.” Her own sharing of painful aspects of her past is a selfless and deeply moving analogy that instantly hooks the reader, making the steps she subsequently took and subsequently lists for the reader all the more convincing in their effectiveness. This includes everything from a theoretical checklist to follow for one’s mental health, to the various regimes covered in multiple chapters concerning extensive and exhaustive workouts aimed at combatting the physical effects traumatic experiences ultimately bring.
The heart and soul of Khoudari’s book inevitably lies within the twelfth chapter, entitled Healing Your Relationships and Finding Connections. “We are all interconnected,” she writes. “Our actions affect a larger ecosystem of people, places, and things outside of us. This is never clearer than when we experience trauma, as in this state, we often withdraw, act out, pick fights, or disappear…” This is arguably what really starts to set Khoudari’s hard-earned wisdom and philosophy apart. Whereas many holistic practitioners, trauma specialists, and personal training figures often put the focal point of their presentational qualities on you — the theoretical journeyer — Khoudari does so but within the context of something bigger, something grander.
Something ultimately beyond yourself, but whose presence being acknowledged by you will lead to the culmination of your healing. “When you’re healing from trauma, your behavior changes yet again,” she states. “…Each change within you has an impact on your relations with others, so after you’ve started healing work, don’t be surprised if you look around and realize your relationships are crying out for healing work, too…It need not wait until the end, for healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You need others along the way — for motivation…and for support.”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/dp/192805577X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_CGZR7KWT0541ADVVZKSB
In a nutshell, Laura Khoudari’s book is an informative, genuinely helpful guide to the pros of how physical exercise can lead to psychosocial growth. But it’s what’s beneath that, specifically Khoudari’s open heart, that really helps elevate Lifting Heavy Things to something more than just another title in the nonfiction sub-genre where it resides. It’s an actual, literary accomplishment.
Colin Jordan
