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The Invisible Lion: Flatpack Instructions For Life
How to Tame your Nervous System! This book is funny, well-written, and grounded in
science. Most importantly, it’s useful. Whatever your history or trauma, it explains in the
simplest terms what happened and how to fix it.
The Invisible Lion connects the outcomes and patterns we can’t make sense of in our
daily lives with the physical systems and evolutionary processes that got us here. More than
that, it provides a pathway through and out that is a simple and intuitive plan to change
one’s life for the better.
Your life is like flat-packed furniture; full of opportunity to build something, and yet has
missing or incomprehensible instructions. This book is the instructions. It was written for
you so that you could build a better life.
Are you ready?
Do you want to overcome your struggles and get back to living the life you always
wanted? Whether you’ve suffered breakups, divorce, abuse, loss, assault, accidents or
reversals of fortune, Benjamin is able to explain what has really happened to you in simple
terms, connecting evolution and biology to the outcomes and patterns we can’t make sense
of in our daily lives. And then you can change. Is that what you want?
If so, get it now.
science. Most importantly, it’s useful. Whatever your history or trauma, it explains in the
simplest terms what happened and how to fix it.
The Invisible Lion connects the outcomes and patterns we can’t make sense of in our
daily lives with the physical systems and evolutionary processes that got us here. More than
that, it provides a pathway through and out that is a simple and intuitive plan to change
one’s life for the better.
Your life is like flat-packed furniture; full of opportunity to build something, and yet has
missing or incomprehensible instructions. This book is the instructions. It was written for
you so that you could build a better life.
Are you ready?
Do you want to overcome your struggles and get back to living the life you always
wanted? Whether you’ve suffered breakups, divorce, abuse, loss, assault, accidents or
reversals of fortune, Benjamin is able to explain what has really happened to you in simple
terms, connecting evolution and biology to the outcomes and patterns we can’t make sense
of in our daily lives. And then you can change. Is that what you want?
If so, get it now.
- GenresNonfictionPsychology
455 pages, Paperback
Published April 23, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 20, 2021
For those of us who believe we can simply think ourselves through life, think again.
Much of our behavior is driven by threat and survival systems deep in the brain.
We can live unaware (as many of us do) of how the unresolved terrors and challenges of early life - until they are resolved - show up in our life as invisible lions.
Since we cannot time travel back to those events, we create new enemies, convinced that they are the genuine thing. But instead, to varying extents, our left brain, cognitive mind simply "uses" them in order to justify the level of activation - whether fight, flight, freeze, collapse, cry for help, fawn or drive to conform - we are experiencing.
Benjamin Fry, who has been there and who walks the walk and talks the talk, offers theory and practice to time travel through our bodies, in order to locate the unresolved events in our past and discharge them.
If that happens, and this book may just help you get there, you might find that those invisible lions (whether they are bosses, colleagues, scapegoated others) will diminish and cease looming over us, driving outrage, helplessness, paralysis or despair.
Right now, in our world, there are enough real predators and predations to face. It becomes more imperative that we work with the invisible lions and unresolved events of our past to lower the load. Otherwise, we become doomed to living in life-shortening and emotionally contracting survival physiology.
Take a med and stuff it all down? You might feel better, but you've done nothing to dispel the survival physiology which continues to drive illness and and dysfunction beneath the numbing. Do some online therapy for your depression and anxiety and you can expect the same result. You may convince the impressionable aspects of your mind that you're okay, but your nervous system will continue to fire off as if you remain in the midst of life threat.
Perhaps one day, there will be a revolution in the way we approach "mental health" - as we move towards addressing the body/mind in a relational and social context. Part of that revolution will be addressing the nervous system and our unresolved survival responses which drive almost all of our chronic illnesses, as well as much of our collective un-ease.
Books like Benjamin Fry's Invisible Lion not only provide instructions for living a calmer life, but also move us in a direction of more effective and more truthful approaches to our suffering, stuckness and malaise, both individually and collectively.
Much of our behavior is driven by threat and survival systems deep in the brain.
We can live unaware (as many of us do) of how the unresolved terrors and challenges of early life - until they are resolved - show up in our life as invisible lions.
Since we cannot time travel back to those events, we create new enemies, convinced that they are the genuine thing. But instead, to varying extents, our left brain, cognitive mind simply "uses" them in order to justify the level of activation - whether fight, flight, freeze, collapse, cry for help, fawn or drive to conform - we are experiencing.
Benjamin Fry, who has been there and who walks the walk and talks the talk, offers theory and practice to time travel through our bodies, in order to locate the unresolved events in our past and discharge them.
If that happens, and this book may just help you get there, you might find that those invisible lions (whether they are bosses, colleagues, scapegoated others) will diminish and cease looming over us, driving outrage, helplessness, paralysis or despair.
Right now, in our world, there are enough real predators and predations to face. It becomes more imperative that we work with the invisible lions and unresolved events of our past to lower the load. Otherwise, we become doomed to living in life-shortening and emotionally contracting survival physiology.
Take a med and stuff it all down? You might feel better, but you've done nothing to dispel the survival physiology which continues to drive illness and and dysfunction beneath the numbing. Do some online therapy for your depression and anxiety and you can expect the same result. You may convince the impressionable aspects of your mind that you're okay, but your nervous system will continue to fire off as if you remain in the midst of life threat.
Perhaps one day, there will be a revolution in the way we approach "mental health" - as we move towards addressing the body/mind in a relational and social context. Part of that revolution will be addressing the nervous system and our unresolved survival responses which drive almost all of our chronic illnesses, as well as much of our collective un-ease.
Books like Benjamin Fry's Invisible Lion not only provide instructions for living a calmer life, but also move us in a direction of more effective and more truthful approaches to our suffering, stuckness and malaise, both individually and collectively.
July 8, 2025
The Invisible Lion has had a huge impact on my recovery from trauma. After going through a period of traumatic stress, I often felt constantly on edge — stuck in a state of hypervigilance where I couldn’t relax or feel safe, even when nothing was actually wrong. This book helped me understand why that was happening, and more importantly, what I could do about it.
Benjamin Fry explains things in a way that just makes sense. He puts words to feelings I didn’t even realise I had, and helped me see that what I was going through wasn’t madness — it was my nervous system trying to protect me. That understanding alone gave me a sense of relief I hadn’t felt in years.
What I found most helpful was learning how to actually come down from that constant state of alertness. It’s not just theory — it’s practical, it’s reassuring, and it gave me tools to slowly start feeling safe again in my own body.
If you’re healing from trauma or living with the effects of chronic stress, I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s gentle, honest, and absolutely essential.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews