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The Invisible Lion: Flatpack Instructions for Life
Something is missing in your life. So, you go to a store and buy what you need. You get the flatpacked furniture home, open it up and spread the pieces out on the floor.
But there's no instructions.
You have everything you need. It's there on the floor. Getting it to work together in a way which actually solves the problem you started your day with is a huge challenge.
You ask friends. Each of them has a different opinion. You try it their ways. Sometimes you get close. But it's not right. You laugh at your failures. The problem remains.
A family member drops by. She knows what you should do. You try that too. That doesn't work either. Which makes you annoyed and frustrated. You tell her to go away.
You sit alone, baffled, frustrated. Lost. Still trying to solve the problem. Still with everything you need spread out on your sitting room floor.
Then a stranger rings your doorbell. He gives you something. It tells you how it works. It is the instructions. You put your furniture together and set it up in the house. The problem is solved. You clear away the mess.
Now everything is better. It's hard to remember what was missing before, or the confusion you had to deal with.
I am that stranger.
These are the instructions.
The Invisible Lion
Flatpack instructions for life
But there's no instructions.
You have everything you need. It's there on the floor. Getting it to work together in a way which actually solves the problem you started your day with is a huge challenge.
You ask friends. Each of them has a different opinion. You try it their ways. Sometimes you get close. But it's not right. You laugh at your failures. The problem remains.
A family member drops by. She knows what you should do. You try that too. That doesn't work either. Which makes you annoyed and frustrated. You tell her to go away.
You sit alone, baffled, frustrated. Lost. Still trying to solve the problem. Still with everything you need spread out on your sitting room floor.
Then a stranger rings your doorbell. He gives you something. It tells you how it works. It is the instructions. You put your furniture together and set it up in the house. The problem is solved. You clear away the mess.
Now everything is better. It's hard to remember what was missing before, or the confusion you had to deal with.
I am that stranger.
These are the instructions.
The Invisible Lion
Flatpack instructions for life
- GenresNonfictionPsychology
452 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2019
35 people are currently reading
262 people want to read
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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