Risa F Kaparo - Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Embodied Mindfulness – Transform Pain, Stress, Trauma, and Aging

All of us find ourselves confronted with the tension between having a body and being some-body. We have to meet the challenge of integrating these two ways of relating to our body. Dr. Kaparos book can help us accomplish this integration and reap the fruits of mind-body wholeness. For this help she deserves sincere gratitude.

DAVID STEINDL-RAST, Benedictine monk, cofounder of gratefulness.org, and author of Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness

If all of Dr. Kaparos research and experience led to nothing more than expansion of your spine, the implications for your health would be enormous. Chiropractors should take huge notice. Her work, developed from her own personal healing journey, helps you experience the oneness of your body and spirit. Awakening to this essential truth can lead to a personal transformation in healing and conscious awareness.

ROBERT JAY ROWEN, MD, editor in chief, Second Opinion Newsletter

Dr. Kaparos passion for awakening and how that relates to the human nervous system has revealed many practical applications for all those who are exploring this new horizon. The inclusion of sensations and somatic intelligence assists in allowing the conversation between our older brain and the cortex to come into alignment, which allows for the embodiment of awakening. Her work and expression of what she has discovered in her journey resonates with the latest research that is helping so many. May her contribution benefit all beings.

ISAAC SHAPIRO, author of Outbreak of Peace, It Happens by Itself, and Burning Questions

This book is a precious gift to those who are open to healing and transformation. It is also the fruition of many years of work filled with Dr. Kaparos dedication and heart. I pray that it reaches and helps many people.

ANAM THUBTEN RIMPOCHE, author of No Self No Problem

Dr. Kaparo is a true original, and a genius at getting results. Awakening Somatic Intelligence offers the surprising keys to transforming your physical structure from the inside out. You will never experience your body the same way again because of the deep context Kaparo offers. This is a book that is on the leading edge of psychology, neurology, biology, and mindfulness.

STEVE BHAERMAN, coauthor (with Bruce Lipton) of Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There from Here

Dr. Kaparo outlines an exquisite feedback system to enhance and accelerate the benefits of mindfulness-based practices, laced with the strength of her compassion and dedication to her compelling work. This comprehensive book is a culmination of her discoveries and insights; she shows us how to love those who are sufferingright into their own healing.

TRUDY GOODMAN, founding teacher of InsightLA and contributing author of Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy: Deepening Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness, and Mindfulness and Psychotherapy

Though Dr. Kaparos work is still new to me, I almost immediately recognized her work as a missing link between the physical and spiritual. She has been the only one who has guided me to an understanding of how these two aspects, physical and spiritual, interpenetrate and are one and the same. She then gives a map to explore this as a real practical experience, not just philosophy. Because the path to her understanding was entirely experiential, she has been outside any spiritual system, which showed me how the spiritual is inherent in nature, not something born of Eastern or Western spiritual or religious traditions.

This knowledge almost immediately switched my inquiry away from looking for the spiritual or being on a path, to having an appreciation and direct experience of the vast beauty that I am composed of, and the incredible intelligence that is the foundation of my being. I have been able to relax and trust the process of awakening for the first time, not as something to figure out, but as something to rest in and savor. This understanding has allowed my potential and talents to be actualized much quicker, and has accelerated my authentic creative process.

DEMIAN MCKINLEY, somatic therapist and internationally renowned yoga teacher

Research in the areas of neurological plasticity, interpersonal neurobiology, and sensorimotor/somatic treatment of traumatic states has only recentlyoften with the advent of cutting-edge instrumentationvalidated and replicated the concepts and methods presented here, discovered by Dr. Kaparo over thirty years ago. Kaparo deserves recognition as a pioneer; she is the only person of whom I am personally aware who has formed her ideas through both her personally developed rehabilitation and subsequently applied and validated clinical experience in transformational healing. Her system is unique.

STAN FRIEDMAN, PhD, clinical psychologist in private practice, Los Angeles, California

In her excellent book, Risa Kaparo shares with readers her process of learning to navigate the ocean of life through a series of contemplative exercises that allow the readers mind-body experience to release and awaken to the freedom that is our true nature. This is one of the most comprehensive presentations available of learning how to be in the active experience of moment-to-moment presencing, getting in touch with the subtleties of ones own physical, non-dual integration with life itself. I highly recommend this wise and nuanced book that needs to be read a number of times to glean the fullness of its wide spectrum of wisdom teachings. This is a great addition to ones personal library of spiritual guidance.

RABBI DAVID A. COOPER, author of God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism

This book represents a breakthrough in healing the mind/body split. It offers an artful, exquisitely subtle and integrated way of navigating the interior of the bodymind that is naturally good medicine as well as a means to greater awakening.

DANA ULLMAN, regular writer for The Huffington Post and author of The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy

Copyright 2012 by Risa F. Kaparo. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Embodied Mindfulness is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.