4 out of 4 stars
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I happened on Dominique Bourlet’s book, Happy Healing, kind of serendipitously. I have been nursing a couple of sports injuries for a while and have been rather fed up with the impact they are having on my activities. Thus, when I saw that this book was about holistic healing, I figured that it might teach me some valuable skills.
I shall start by opining that this book may not be for everyone. If the reader is an absolute believer in Western medicine, she may find herself skeptical of Bourlet’s methods, which have virtually nothing to do with Western medicine and thus involve no x-rays or prescription medications at all. However, if our reader is open to alternative therapies, she might do well to take a leap of faith and delve into this book.
Dominique Bourlet is of the opinion that the body basically has everything it needs to heal itself, and that illness is largely the result of a disconnect between the mind and the body; in other words, pain is not a problem in itself and should not be treated like a malignant thing that needs to be quelled at any cost. He instead makes the paradigm shift that pain is a symptom of a deeper problem, but that the solution lies within the sufferer as the pain carries a message that the sufferer needs to hear. Once the sufferer and the pain are able to establish a line of communication, the pain can articulate its message, and the pain should then diminish, sometimes and hopefully to zero. Bourlet says that total diminution of the pain make take several efforts.
The process Bourlet outlines is not a rapid cure. He describes patients who have come to him for repeated visits in an effort to cure their pain, and have been either impatient for a rapid cure or are just skeptical of his system. As I read the book while thinking irritably about my torn meniscus, I, too, wanted a rapid cure. As someone who is sometimes impatient with things that seem extremely New Age, I did perform a suspension of my disbelief and kept reading. Bourlet wants his readers to personify their pain and, having done so, to see their pain as a suffering entity with a valuable message to communicate. The pain must then be named and given a physical appearance (I named my left knee “Carlos”). Thus begins the conversation with the ailing body part, which Bourlet calls by the acronym BOP. I spent some time trying to check in with Carlos a bit, who seems to be irritated by my hard use of him, especially as I am no longer young, and my refusal to slow down when he is struggling. Fair enough, but now what? How do I appease Carlos? Will this conversation magically repair my meniscus?
Dear Reader, this I cannot say at this point. However, and interestingly, after reading the book and doing the first few steps of the process rather quickly, given my time constraints to review the book, I did notice that the pain feels a little less severe and, when I try to do a slightly more aggressive yoga posture involving my left knee, I am better able to do so than I was last week. Carlos, it seems, has lost a bit of his fight, so I will continue to follow Bourlet’s methods and see what transpires.
As for the book itself, it can be a slow read at times. Bourlet’s writing style has a dreamy and meandering quality to it, and he sometimes says in 200 words what he might have said in 15, as well as doing a bit of digressing. I found myself wanting him to get on with it and hit the bullet points, cutting the narration short. At the same time, it is a pretty fast read and it is not unpleasant or difficult. He obviously has great faith in his method and has enjoyed success with it, and his point here is to instruct his audience in a different way to address pain, not just to entertain. I rate this book a 4 out of 4; I think Bourlet’s method has potential and I am open to continuing my practice of it.
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Happy Healing
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