“Mind and body are two lanes on the same road”

By Gert van Leeuwen

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in developing Critical Alignment Yoga and Therapy.
In particular, I want to thank Oep Schilling, Misha Rybachenkov, and Derk Sauer, who formed the board of the Foundation that took over my work after I had a serious accident. I would also like to thank all the students who have followed me throughout this process.

I started teaching at the age of nineteen, and I have never stopped. After meeting my teachers Sjoman and Dattatreya in the early 1980s—whom I studied with intensively for many years—my vision of yoga began to change, partly thanks to Sjoman, who strongly encouraged collaboration with doctors and psychologists. Eventually, I wrote several books, including Stop RSI (2001), which received a lot of attention. Before starting to write my new book on therapy, I considered revising Stop RSI, but I decided not to, as I had gained too many new insights since then.

In my previous book, Critical Alignment Yoga, I described the physical side of CA in depth. In short, it comes down to “moving without willpower.” Although the book also included a meditative aspect aimed at fostering higher awareness, the psychological dimension received far less attention compared to this new book.
The effort to move without relying on the tensions stored in the body led to the following formula:

Relaxation – Movement – Coordination – Strength.

After writing that book, I began to pay much more attention to the psychological side. I was encouraged to do so by Dick Bakker, the founder of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the Netherlands, and a friend with whom I collaborated on a joint project in Groningen. He once said to me, “You explain everything clearly during an intake, but aren’t you curious about who they are?”

That remark struck me deeply, and I began to explore it further. I asked myself why people were drawn to CA and tried to place myself in their perspective. The answer was clear: they wanted to free themselves from tension that had built up over a lifetime.

“What is tension?” became an important question for me, and it led me to (repetitive) stress and trauma.
These are often tensions rooted in our childhood, the effects of which—such as mental images and survival strategies—can continue to haunt us throughout life. I began to focus on understanding and, more importantly, breaking through them.

Survival strategies such as anger and jealousy create conflict. Although they once served a function in our lives, the question is whether we still need them as adults. When we were young and dependent, they provided us with a form of safety, which is why they are frequently difficult to recognize in ourselves. They still feel safe and thus unconsciously become part of our identity.

However, when we experience chronic pain or illness, these patterns resurface and can be observed. “Fight your disease” is based on this idea—but to be honest, who is fighting whom? Beyond the technical aspects of recovery, my new therapy book also explores these themes. The subtitle of the book is therefore: “Mind and body are two lanes on the same road.”
The meaning of the word Yoga is “to connect.” This is the opposite of conflict. This book discusses in detail how one can connect with an injured body.

Another important part of the book is based on the fact that worldwide research has shown that 90 percent of lower back pain cannot be medically diagnosed. How can someone be treated without a diagnosis? And yet, lower back pain remains the number one chronic pain condition. For this reason, I introduced the concept of self-diagnosis in the book—enabling readers to diagnose themselves. This also applies to the upper back and related complaints, since the medical world still often assumes that the upper back should be curved.

After diagnosing yourself, you will find a number of lessons at the end of the book that can help you overcome both physical and certain mental issues. I wrote this book with great joy and consider it, together with my previous book, as brother and sister. They belong together because they complement and strengthen each other.

I wish you much joy in reading and practising!

Gert van leeuwen

Buy the book here!