Embodied strength training can transform your life.

Most people at one moment in their lives experience trauma. Lifting Heavy Things empowers its readers to use any form of exercise, from strength training to cycling or walking, as a tool of healing.

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A celebrated strength trainer and trauma practitioner offers a fresh and empowering approach to healing and thriving after trauma.

In this innovative title, celebrated trainer and trauma practitioner Laura Khoudari brings a fresh approach to healing after trauma, using strength training as an embodied movement practice. Compassionate, witty and fastidiously researched, Khoudari’s debut, Lifting Heavy Things, is a breakthrough title that will empower and inspire you to develop resilience and build emotional and physical strength through working out with weights, while mindful of the ways that trauma can compromise the wellbeing of the mind and body.

With humor, tenderness and grit, Lifting Heavy Things takes readers on a journey of personal revelation and integration, helping them to lighten their emotional burden and build deep inner strength to lift all of the heavy things that life may bring with greater ease.

In Lifting Heavy Things, you’ll learn about:

  • Managing chronic pain

  • Creating the conditions for training and healing

  • Understanding how trauma shows up in life

  • Using embodied movement practices as a tool to comfortably re-inhabit the body

  • Navigating interpersonal relationships during and after the healing process

  • Why you don’t have to tell your trauma story (to everyone)

  • Thriving with and moving beyond trauma

Book Reviews

  • The Hollywood Digest

    “Whether you are someone suffering from acute trauma and/or someone looking for a meaningful and personalized exercise routine, there’s something for everyone in Khoudari’s new book.”

    – GARTH THOMAS

    Review at the Hollywood Digest

  • The Magic Pen

    “It’s a first person-narrated look at trauma – what causes it, the impacts it has on mind, body, and soul, and what someone can do about said effects on both a physical and physiological set of levels.”

    – CYRUS RHODES

    Review at the Magic Pen

  • Readers' Favorite

    “This book goes beyond the physical to address and embrace the idea that healing through strength training encompasses the entire person.”

    – TAMMY RUGGLES

    Review at Readers' Ravorite

What people are saying

  • “A steady, worthy companion for anyone interested in undertaking embodied healing work.”

    — Licia Sky, cofounder of the Trauma Research Network

  • “An empowering guide for anyone who wants to experience exercise as an act of self-care. More than just an introduction to lifting weights, this book shares a new way of relating to your body.”

    — Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of Movement

  • “I wouldn't be surprised to see a new movement revolution sparked by Laura's genre-bending book. Lifting Heavy Things has 'raised the bar' by revealing how movement can be the satisfying basis of healing trauma.”

    — Dan Cayer, Alexander Technique teacher and contributor to The In-Between Newsletter

  • “A unique and beautiful book on working with trauma and healing in an embodied way. This advice is both deep and practical, and can by used by anyone interested in a stereotype-breaking story about trauma and how we might heal from it.”

    — Ethan Nichtern, author of The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path

  • “Lifting Heavy Things takes an innovative and timely approach to addressing trauma. This powerful, embodied practice, combined with a gentle and compassionate emotional perspective is brilliant. This is a book I will use in my practice with clients working to heal trauma.”

    — Haven Fyfe Kiernan, LICSW, psychotherapist and trauma specialist

Book Talks

Did you read Lifting Heavy Things and now want to share its lessons with your community or organization? Would you like to engage in a lively conversation with me and ask me questions tailored to your community’s needs? Using a fireside chat format, book talks are an excellent way to do just that. 

These events allow you to explore the themes in Lifting Heavy Things in a way that aligns with the people that make up your community. You are the expert in you after all! 

This program is designed for audiences as small as 20 or as big as the audience that your venue can hold. Ideal for:

  • Workplace Wellness Programs

  • Wellness Retreats

  • Health and Wellness Centers

  • Fitness Studios

  • Continuing Education Programs for Wellness Professionals