Review: David Simon’s Free to Love, Free to Heal
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(Chopra Center Press, $22.95, 193 pages)
By Willa McLean
“Emotional pain binds our hearts and makes us sick. To regain genuine health, we must be free to love.” This is the compelling message that author David Simon M.D. proclaims in his book. Free to Love, Free to Heal”
Before he became a medical doctor, Simon was an anthropology student, exploring humanity’s earliest communities and cultures. In “Free to Love“, he integrated his knowledge of ancient Indian ayurvedic healing traditions to develop a five-step process to heal our bodies, by healing our emotions.
David Simon - Practicing Physician, Innovative Researcher, & Insightful Teacher
In his years of listening to clients carrying emotional baggage, Dr. Simon has identified six core storylines: the absent parent, the impaired parent, the sick parent, the distracted parent, the controlling parent and the abusive parent. He shares evocative cases of each type and provides compassionate healing advice on how to release the emotional residue.
There is a wonderful chapter on yoga and meditation with beautiful illustrations and exercises on engaging the body and breath in preparation for identifying your toxic beliefs.
“What is wrong with me?” Evocative Questioning involves asking the right questions and listening to your heart for the answers.
As Dr. Simon guides us through his five-step healing process, he provides the right questions, and encourages written responses. “It is as if by getting the words onto paper, the emotionally painful experience loses its grip on your heart.”
After you have identified your toxic beliefs, and dug deep into your past to discover the roots, “Free to Love” suggests some very dramatic, concrete scenarios to physically cast out your demons, and go onto a state of unbounded awareness. “Buddhists call it nirvana, and Hindus refer to it as moksha. In Christianity, it is known as grace.”
David Simon writes with such eloquent compassion of clients who have come to him with obesity, or anorexia, depression, digestive problems or chronic pain. To him, they are all manifestations of lack of love.
Simon also very effectively shares some of his own personal experiences. He once consulted a neonatologist about his toddler daughter who insisted on crawling into their bed at night. He quotes the specialist’s observation. “It’s funny that most single adults I know, spend their waking time trying to find someone to sleep with, yet we expect babies to sleep by themselves,”
Other quotes: “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission”- Eleanor Roosevelt, and “We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better”- Maya Angelou.
After reading “Free to Love, Free to Heal“, we’ll all know better “As human beings, we have the gift of free will. It is our decision whether or not to unwrap the present.”
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