Is there something from childhood you still carry?
How do you think it still affects you today?
In this special compilation episode of On Purpose, Jay revisits some of the most transformative conversations on trauma, healing, and resilience. Featuring insights from Dr. Gabor Maté, John Legend, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Bruce Perry, and Anitta, Jay uncovers how unaddressed wounds can quietly shape the way we live, and more importantly, how we can begin the journey toward understanding, growth, and true healing.
From Dr. Gabor Maté’s wisdom on the unseen toll of suppressing our authentic selves, to John Legend’s candid reflections on grief and loss, each conversation uncovers a unique layer of what it means to hold pain and still pursue growth. Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry invite us to shift the question from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me?”—a powerful reframe that transforms shame into compassion. Anita’s story of releasing inherited fears reminds us that even generational wounds can heal when we bring them into the light.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Recognize Hidden Trauma
How to Grieve Without Losing Connection
How to Reframe “What’s Wrong” Into “What Happened”
How to Understand the Impact of Childhood Neglect
How to Transform Inherited Fears Into Strength
How to Begin Healing Through Awareness
Healing is never a straight line, but every step you take toward understanding yourself is a step toward freedom. When you give yourself permission to feel, reflect, and release, you begin to transform what once held you back into a source of strength to move forward.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty.
Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.
Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
01:45 Choosing the Pain That Frees You
05:55 Free Yourself from Outside Opinions
08:15 Trauma Is an Unhealed Wound
10:28 Learning to Carry Grief with Love
15:05 How Childhood Neglect Shapes Adulthood
18:29 Building a Grounded, Centered Self
20:40 The Power of Asking “What Happened to You?”
25:15 The Hidden Impact of Spanking Children
30:38 Maternal Stress Can Transfer to Children
35:47 Choosing to Break Generational Trauma
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first lesson of trauma is that it always leaves
a mark, even if you can't see it. If you've
ever asked yourself, why do I react like this? Why
does this sadness feel deeper than it should? Why do
I carry a pain I can't explain? Then this episode
is for you. Seventy percent of adults in the US
(00:23):
have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives.
But trauma isn't always loud. Sometimes it looks like overachieving people, pleasing,
or even emotional shutdown. Sixty one percent of patients with
first episode depression and fifty one percent with recurring depression
(00:45):
reported childhood or recent trauma. But here's the good news.
You can literally rewire your body's relationship to the trauma
it carries. So today we go deeper to understand what
trauma really is, how it hides, and what it takes
to finally heal. You're going to hear from Dr Gable
(01:07):
Matte on the emotional cost of hiding who you are,
John Legend on grieving without closure, Oprah Winfrey and Dr
Perry on the power of rethinking trauma, and Anita on
inherited wounds and generational fear. Here's the lesson. You're not broken.
(01:30):
You're carrying something that was never meant to be yours
to begin with. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Jay Sidi, Ja Shendy, Dr. Gable Matte delivers a powerful truth.
When you hide who you really are to survive your childhood,
that survival can turn into lifelong trauma. That suppression can
show up later as anxiety, chronic or disconnection in your relationships.
(02:03):
For example, nearly eighty percent of autoimmune patients report a
significant emotional stressor before on set. Studies show that burying
our emotions early on can increase our chances of developing
depression or addictive behaviors in adulthood. The good news is
that suppression doesn't have to be permanent. Healing isn't about
(02:27):
changing who you are. It's about coming back to the
parts of yourself you had to leave behind.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I often say to people, you're going to have pain
one way or the other. Yes, which pain would you like?
Because sometimes in life there's no pain for your options
mm hm. You can have the pain of suppressing yourself
for the sake of being accepted, or you can have
the pain sometimes of being yourself and not being accepted.
(02:54):
You can have pain one way or the other. Now
I have my own bias that the pain of not
being ourselves Ultimately it's about far the greater and the
more chronic pain, and that the pain, the short term
pain of being ourselves brings liberation and genuine independence, which
means I can have genuinely independent the relationships with other
(03:16):
people who are willing to accept me as independent. You know,
But in the short term, which pain do you want?
There's no pain for you options.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, for sure, that you reminded me of this beautiful
idea that Tikna Han shares, that there's familiar pain and
unfamiliar pain, and these are our two choices and the challenges.
We're so scared of unfamiliar pain that we would rather
choose familiar pain and go through the same pain because
(03:51):
we know how it's going to feel exactly, and we
think or at least I'm aware, at least I am
conscious of how bad it can get. But hearing you
speak being independent or being dependent both as pain. Yeah,
but the pain of dependence far out weighs the pain
(04:12):
of independence.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, just put a bit of a nuance in there. Ultimately,
I mean, I mean technadon also talk about inter being.
How we all in there are so in a certain sense,
we do depend on each other, you know, and that's okay.
The question is to be dependent in each other authentically
or inauthentically. The fact that I'm independent doesn't mean that
(04:34):
I'm not going to reach out for help or that
I won't offer it, But it does mean that I
will be honest with you, and I won't pretend to
be somebody else that I'm not so that you'll accept me.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So there's anything interesting word difference between two phrases that
sound very familiar. One it's called individualism, and they're it's
called individual suation, not rugged individualisms. I don't need anybody
and you know, me against the world, and this is
the North American capitalist ideal. You know, well, human beings
(05:12):
never would have evolved had we been those rugged individualists.
The rugged individuals wouldn't last more than one generation. But
individuated means that we can be ourselves, truly ourselves in
genuine relationship with others, not rugged individualists. I mean, the
(05:35):
most boring people are rugged individualists because they all look
the same, you know. So you can be individuated and
be truly yourself and still belong and still vulnerably desire
human contact.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know, yeah, I can agree more. I think there's
a lot of retro around. We don't care what anyone
else thinks and it doesn't matter, and you just do
your own thing. And it's almost that's almost a bitter
response as well, because we do have to care what
people think. If we lived in a world where you
(06:14):
didn't care what anyone thought, yeah, it wouldn't be that
healthy because we would do all sorts of obscene, horrific things.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I treace it differently.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I'm intrigued. Yeah, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, I don't care what anybody thinks, but I do
care what I do and how it affects other people,
you know. So there's another spiritual teacher, Gunner Rotana. He
wrote a book called Mindfulness and Plain English, which I've
just been working through recently, and he's talking about a
(06:44):
higher morality that comes from being true to yourself as
any touch and he says, well, you don't need rules anymore,
because it's like Saint Augustine said, love and do it
you're will. So if you actually love the world, you
don't have to give yourself rules because that love will
dictate how you like towards other people. I can't worry
(07:06):
about what other people think. Look, if I worry about
other people think, I would not have written any of
my books, because each of my books challenged the reading orthodoxy,
insane medicine, you know, or whether it's or under tention, devastated,
or stress and disease or addictions and mayfi. I'm I
write a book, I'm saying something that I'm not saying
that I invented it, but that I've come to understand
(07:28):
and fervently believe and want to communicate. But I can't
worry about what other people think, or when I make
a political statement. I'm responsible for what I say, how
I say it, but not what other people think about it.
But that doesn't mean that I ignore other people's experience.
So as long as my intention is purely to speak
(07:49):
a truth, and I do so with integrity, I can't
worry about what other people think. I can't, but that
doesn't mean I'm going to go around just doing terrible things.
I don't care what you think as long as I'm
convinced that what I do. If I've done that kind
of inventory, and I haven't always, but if I do
(08:11):
an inventory, but well, what is my intention here?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Is there a hierarchy of pain or hierarchy of trauma?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
What do you mean bierarchy?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I feel like people feel like, well, this trauma is
worse than this trauma, and this trauma is better than
this one. We often hear about that as a conversation.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
So one could say so because if you look at
a child who says sexually abused, as opposed to a
child whose parents just can't honor and accept and validate
their emotions, well, my god, you're talking about two different
set of experiences, so that there's certainly horrific things happen
(08:54):
to some people to wound them, and other people suffer
wounds in a very different way. But the question is
is it useful to make that distinction. It's one thing
to recognize it. But let's say let's say you're my
four year old. You come to me and you say
that I'm afraid of so and so, and I say,
(09:16):
snap out of it. Only cards are afraid and to
get out of here and take care of yourself. And
then you went to your mom and I said, I
tried to talk to daddy. But you know, would it
be helpful for your meta to say, well, snap out
of it. Think of all the kids that are being
sexually abused, Think all the starving kids, Think all the
kids that are being bombed. What are you complaining about?
(09:38):
Would that be helpful? So that, it's not a helpful
game to play. I don't compare people's traumas. Trauma simply
means a wound, and people are wounded in all kinds
of ways. When I try to help people, the least
helpful thing I can do is to tell them that
somebody else's trauma is much worse than mine, much worse
than yours. So objectively, yes, practically it's not a helpful distinction.
(10:04):
People are wounded and you have to tend to the wound,
whatever it is. You know, if you came to me
with a cut on your arm and he asked me
to stitch it up, it wouldn't be helpful for me
to tell you that, oh, what are you worried about?
These people with broken irons out there or people with
broken So no, it's not a helpful thing to engage in,
(10:25):
even though there's truth in it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, in this next conversation, John Legend opens up about
the intensely personal loss of losing a child and how
he and Chrissy didn't avoid the pain but rather walked
it together. One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. I've
had so many friends and family members over the last
twelve months tell me about that in their experience. Yet
(10:51):
the silence around pregnancy loss can be just as painful
as the loss itself. John's story is a reminder for
us all grief isn't something that can be solved. It
just needs to be seen. The point isn't to get
over it. The point is to get through it without
losing the love, the honesty, and the connection that makes
(11:14):
you whole. You mentioned grief, and then the song pieces
in the new album there's the beautiful lyric let your
Broken Heart learn to Live in Pieces, and I just,
I literally just haven't stopped thinking about that because I
think that there's so much about us that's constantly trying
to get everything to fit, and even with the heart,
(11:36):
we're trying to become whole again. Like there's always that concept,
but you're like, let your broken heart learn to live
in pieces? Like where did that come? From like that. Well, idea, the.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Idea of the song is that we never completely shed
or forget this trauma that we may go through in life,
this loss, this heartbreak, like we'll remember it. There'll be
times when we'll feel those pangs of memory that it'll
come back. It doesn't mean you can't heal, it doesn't
mean you can't recover, but it does mean that that
(12:07):
grief will will still be.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
A part of who you are, a part of your story.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Effectively recovering from that means not forgetting it, not that
it didn't happen, but learning to live with it and
learning to continue to live with it and and experience
life and joy and pain and all the things that
come in life afterwards, continue to like live on despite
(12:34):
the fact that this grief won't ever leave you completely.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, it's almost it's almost like we're asking the wrong question,
where it was like how do I move on? How
do I get over this?
Speaker 4 (12:43):
And you're saying, well, you're saying you're gonna I'm saying
you're gonna carry it. It's part of your life now,
it's part of your story, part of who you are.
Like I said with Chrissy, like I've seen so much
growth through our grief and through our tragedy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's always going to be part of who we are.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And I'm fine with that, Like it's part of who
we are, it's we carry it with us and it's okay.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, and that and I'm sorry for your loss, and
I you know that. I mean, I don't think there's
pretty much anything harder to go through.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, I've never been through anything harder, But it just means,
you know, when you live long enough, you're going to
go through something like that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And figuring out how to.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Continue to live as you carry that with you is
what the song is really about.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And often we find that those traumatic and difficult experiences
can break people apart, but you focus on growing closer together.
What do you think is that difference? Like you your
values are so clear I can tell in this interview,
like values of children and a family, of love, of kindness,
of connection. Like how do you in moments like that?
Is it that your values just drive you forward? Or
(13:53):
like how do you make sure? Because I think sometimes
people just have experiences that derail their everything else that's
going right.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah, And I don't know, because like I think part
of it is just we we were already on a
great foundation where we really respected and loved and enjoyed
being with each other, respect each other's values and the ways,
you know, the things we saw in each other's character
that we fell in love with were still there. But
I think you also have to like commit to working
(14:26):
through pain, you know, And I think we both committed
to doing it, like doing the work that we needed
to do to get through it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No, I'm happy to hear that, and you know, my prayers.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And I think having already had two kids together was
definitely helpful because they just bring so much joy into
our lives and laughter and fun, and they're a great
focus for our energy. And so even when you're going
through deep grief on losing pregnancy, you still have these
(15:01):
two beautiful babies that you love, and I think that
was certainly helpful.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Next, we'll hear Oprah and doctor Perry, who challenge what
we think trauma should look like. You don't need a
violent or dramatic event to be traumatized. Neglect, lack of validation,
or emotional absence can be just as damaging. In fact,
emotional neglect is one of the most common and overlooked
(15:42):
forms of trauma. Oprah reframes the question for people exploring
their own traumatic history from what's wrong with me? To
what happened to me? That small shift, that one question
can completely transform how we see ourselves and how we heal.
(16:02):
What do you think was something that you misunderstood or
had an incomplete understanding of about trauma that has now
become more complete or more deep.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh, what a great question, Jay I thought trauma prior
to my conversations with Bruce in doing this book, I
thought trauma had to be a big, gigantic thing experience.
You had to go through a tsunami literally, if not literally,
a tsunami, a tsunami like crisis in your life, a fire,
(16:41):
a hurricane, a tragedy, a car accident, a stabbing, somebody died.
And it was through co authoring this book with him
that I understood that it was the consistent little things.
It was the aggressions and micro aggressions in a person's
life that causes them to have their own worldview. Whatever
(17:05):
that worldview is for you is different from me. So
the biggest, the biggest learning for me is that trauma
doesn't have to have a great big old capital t
on it. It's really how you were loved, and that
neglect and trauma are hand in hand because both are
equally as toxic. And so I'd always you know, just
(17:25):
like you with your you know, millions of listeners. I
over the years of interviewing people, it was my greatest classroom.
I was always paying attention to what people were saying
and paying attention to their lives. And what I understood
and could articulate not through science but just through my
(17:49):
own observation, is that, oh, people are as dysfunctional, as unhappy,
as disoriented in their lives based on how far they
are from the center of themselves. And the center is
where wholeness lies, as you know, and so where there
is no where, there is no center, and there is
(18:11):
no sense of wholeness and love for yourself, there's going
to be disarray, chaos, confusion, and you know, dysfunction in
your life. And I saw that over and over and
over again, that people behave based on how they were
(18:33):
loved and then how they were able to process that
in a way to love other people. And so Bruce
just gave me the science for that. What this book
did is gave me the science for it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I love that. I think it's a brilliant distinction between
you know, what we think is trauma and what trauma
can be for all of us. I have one last
question I want to ask you before we dive in
to the conversation with doctor Bruce Perry. It's this idea.
You've interviewed so many influentials, successful people, and people of
all different backgrounds and walks of life, and so often
(19:05):
their success is actually built on their trauma, and so
their success doesn't often satisfy them. What have you seen
has been that transition when they go beyond their success,
they heal their trauma to actually find true success for themselves.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
That's deep layered, complex question. So this is what this
is where there's many.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Layers to that.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
What I realize is that if you come into success
and fame, in particularly fame, because fame is its own
world and definition, because it really is based upon what
other people think of you. So because fame isn't what
(19:52):
you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you,
if you come into that and you don't have a grounded,
centered self, you will be controlled by the outside instead
of the inside. And if you come into that not
in the fullness of knowing who you are and what
(20:13):
you're supposed to do with that fame. Whenever somebody likes
you or doesn't like you, that determines whether or not
you're having a good day or a bad day, and
you have lost control of your own life. So I
think what fame teaches you quickly is to grow the
(20:36):
wholeness within yourself so that you're not controlled by others
outside opinions of you.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That is a beautiful answer, and I think you will
resonate with so many because so many of us are
on that journey to be successful or be famous, or
be rich or whatever it may be. But to hear
it from that perspective is truly refreshing. I want to
ask you both this first question to start with is
why is it so important to make this switch from
(21:04):
us thinking what is wrong with you? To what happened
to you?
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Well, let me answer that because I first came across
this question of what's happened what happened to you? When
I was doing an interview with doctor Prus Perry a
couple of years ago for sixty minute story I was doing. Now,
I've known doctor Perry for over thirty years. I first
started interviewing him in the early nineties, late eighties, early
(21:32):
nineties on the Oprah Show when we were talking about
raising children and how important it is those first zero
to six years. So I've been hearing about what it
means to nurture and support the brain early on. It
wasn't until that conversation a couple of years ago. I
don't know whether I think it's because of where I
(21:55):
was in my life at the time. I opened a
school in South Africa. I've had these wonderful, brilliant girls
who come from traumatic backgrounds grow up and have really
serious mental health issues. And I was trying to at
the time figure out, what are we doing wrong at
our school? Something's really wrong here. And in that interview
(22:18):
with doctor Perry, he said, you know, most people ask
the question when kids are not behaving the way you
want them to behave of what's wrong with them? We
really should be asking about what's happened to you? And
something went oh in my brain. It was like a
major moment, like I got it in a way that
I hadn't received it before, and I realized that it's
(22:40):
not just for children that you asked that question, But
it's really everybody and that moment, Bruce, as I've said
to you many times, Doctor Perry, change the way I
saw my relationships, how I saw my own life, how
I interacted with people. And even in politics, where it
was so crazy in the past four years and everybody's
(23:00):
always talking about what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, I
would always say, I wonder what happened to that person.
I wonder what happened to them younger that caused them
to be this way. So all of the labels that
you just gave, Jay, there's a world of labels. There
is you know, overachiever, there's you know, obsessive, compulsive moms,
(23:22):
soccer moms, there is the desire to, you know, please
people all the time. There's a multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple
labels that refer back to what happened to us. And
so I will just say this one of the things
that Bruce says in the book. Each of us comes
into the world with our own worldview, and that worldview
(23:45):
is actually shaped from the crib. And you get from
the world what you project into the world, and you
project into the world what you were raised with and
what you were raised around. So That's why what happened
to you is the essential question.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So beautifully said. And I wish my brain had a
ha moments that sound like that outward too, So I
love that, And doctor Perry, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Well.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
I come at this from a slightly different perspective because
I have a long history of being a history fan
and had studied history growing up, and was very well
aware of the relationship between the things that happened in
the past playing a major role in how things were
functioning currently. And I think that that's I think most
(24:43):
people are able to kind of make that connection. But
as I became a biologist and learned about the development
of the human body and the human brain, it became
clear that we have our own personal history and that
the things that happened in our life shaped the systems
in our brain that influence how we think about things,
how we feel about things, and how we behave And
it really it leads to a completely different approach to
(25:08):
getting to know somebody. You enter the interaction with a
curious mindset. You're curious about, like, what what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I mean?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
And it really, I think is as Oprah says, it
really opens up this new perspective on understanding a person.
You can be much more empathic with them as opposed
to being so judgmental.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah. For me, that reframing that you both have so
beautifully illuminated in this book is so subtle, but it's
so powerful because it removes that judgment. It removes that
negative observation, that criticism, that fear that people feel on
the receiving end of that as well. To me, just
(25:52):
that switch of question is is so powerful. And you know,
when I was diving into the book, there were moments
where I just I was so grateful to you for
what you shared. And you know, you open up about
the story about how your grandmother used to whip you
over the smallest, most insignificant things like spilling a glass
of water and this hars right exactly, breaking a plate
(26:16):
and this harsh, this harsh behavior was normal for you
as a kid. And you said something in the book
that really stood out to me. You said that the
long term impact of being whipped turned you into a
world class people pleaser for most of your life. I
want to know how did you become aware of that
(26:37):
connection between that experience as a child and how it
was being lived today and how did that start to
help you on your journey?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Well, thank you so much. I'm so moved that you
were touched by that story because I until I was
a full grown adult and I met my best friend
Gail Girls, the first black person I ever met who
wasn't whipped as a child. I mean, she was the
first person I ever encountered. So it is a part
of the black culture to not just spank your children.
(27:13):
Almost everybody you run into of a certain age was
whipped as a child. So that was such the norm
for me that writing about it for the first time
is the first time I actually recognized, oh, this is
not a normal thing. So to really, I was in
(27:36):
a boardroom having to confront someone in my forties, and
I had so much anxiety about the fact that I
was going to have to have this confrontation with somebody,
and it just the most normal disagreements would cause me
a great sense of angst and worry and oh my god,
(28:00):
and what's going to happen? And I just said, what
where is this coming from? Why am I so afraid?
When I am the one in the power seat. I
am Oprah Winfrey running the Harpo Studios. My name spelled backwards.
I'm the person in charge, and in order to have
a disagreement with somebody, I go through so much angst.
(28:25):
And I realized Jay, that even though I had the power,
I still felt that every confrontation I was going to
get a whipping, that a whipping was going to result,
that that thing that used to come up inside me
when I had to walk to get my own switch.
Oh where is this feeling coming? I'm feeling like in
(28:48):
every confrontation, I'm going to get a whipping, and at
the end of it, that person's going to be mad
at me. And at the end of it, that person's
going to say, you better not act like you're mad.
You know all the things that happened to me as
a kid. So it wasn't until I was a full
grown adult in my own seat of you perceived power,
(29:08):
feeling those feelings of anxiety and anxiousness having to have
the slightest bit of confrontation. So what I say in
what happened to me is that being beaten as a child,
having to be subservient to other people's ideals of what
it means to be a child, meaning you are seen
(29:30):
and not heard. So I've grown up to have this
big personality, but being raised in an environment where children
are seen and not heard and your opinions do not matter.
So what happened to me taught me that my opinions
do not matter. Keep your opinions to yourself, and do
whatever you can to please other people so that other
(29:52):
people will like you, so that other people will not
be upset with you. And I will have to tell
you it is also for me, not for everybody else,
but for me. One of the reasons why I was
so susceptible to sexual abuse because I had been taught
(30:13):
and trained not to speak up for myself, that whatever
somebody wanted to do who was older than me or
in a position of authority, that they had rights that
I did not, So that what happened to me was
ingrained in a way that you know, literally caused me
to be a major people pleaser for a great deal
(30:34):
of my life.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Thank you for sharing that full journey, and just I
really gravitate towards that statement you said around how we
when we normalize something, we don't actually even recognize the
trauma in it. We don't even realize that there's anything.
It was just normal to you. You just expected it.
Did you know that maternal stress during pregnancy can increase
(30:57):
the child's risk of illness by up to sixty percent.
In our final conversation, Anita shares how she discovered that
her fear of losing everything despite all her success, was
actually inherited from her mother's anxiety and stress during pregnancy.
With Anita, we see that just because you inherited something,
(31:20):
it doesn't mean you have to carry it. Healing is
about choosing what moves forward with you and what stops
with you. What were the biggest traumas that have stayed
with you, that have come up for you that you
feel you've carried because you obviously grew up in the
favelas you grew up you know, not in the easiest
of circumstances. I think you mentioned yourself that you're almost
(31:41):
treated like trash in Brazilian people in the firstlace, so
long and so like, tell me about what are the
traumas you felt you've held onto from your childhood that
are now coming up that you're healing now.
Speaker 7 (31:53):
So there's this one interesting situation in the path of
this healing thing. There was this one thought that was
always coming to my mind. Right, I was here being Anita.
I have three different houses, I have everything I need. Okay,
if I want to retire right now, I can and
I will live comfortably for the rest of my life.
(32:15):
But all of a sudden, I was just here minding
my business, and I thought would come to my mind.
What if I get pregnant and I lose all my
money and I don't have money to survive, and then
I need to work in the street to get food
to my babies and to and I would be like,
why am I thinking this? Why am I doing that?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Why?
Speaker 7 (32:37):
And then I did this session with my shaman and
she said, this is not your thought. You got this
thought the same way we get DNA from our parents,
and like the hair, the eyes, the body, we can
get from thoughts and the energy behaviors and we don't
realize that. So I told her, oh, for real. And
(33:02):
then we did a session to clean this right, to
remove this from me because it's not mine. It comes
from my family. So I did the session and I
talked to my mom. I said, Mom, have you ever
had this thought of like that you were going to
lose everything? We're not going to have money, this and that,
and that was like right before my birthday or thirty
years old birthday. So she said, yeah, when I got
(33:28):
pregnant from you, your dad lost his job and I
felt like we were not going to have money to
feed you guys, and I would need to work in
houses as like a housemaid or something to buy food.
And I was like, wow, that makes total. She spent
the whole pregnancy with this fear of not having the
(33:52):
money to feed us, so she was fearing it. And
there is like I produced a movie with a friend
of mine called Me, and it talks about this the thoughts,
the negative thoughts that your mom cares and the pregnancy
becomes neuropeptides in your in your brain, so that's why
(34:14):
you have these thoughts. And I was like wow, mom,
And I did the session with the lady and I
got I never had this thought again. And then I
was doing my birthday, who was thirty years old so special,
and I had this place that I wanted to do
in Brazil, and for some reason, every place I was
(34:36):
trying it was not available. I was trying everywhere, Oh
not available because of this not available. Because of that,
I closed one place. No, not available anymore. So there's
just this one place, just this one spot. And I said, okay,
let's go. What can we do. It's the only spot.
Let's let's go. So I sent my dad the invitations
(34:57):
and to my dad, I said, oh, Dad, the party
year is going to be here. He was like, oh
my god, daughter, this address is. And my dad didn't
know about the talk I had. So my mom nothing
right and he's my best friend, but I didn't mention him.
He goes, oh my god, daughter, this address used to
(35:21):
be the company's address that I got fired when your
mom was pregnant. And I was like, I'm dad, wow, Like,
we're here celebrating my thirty years old with a party,
like full of everything that we were always afraid of
not having and the same address. That's crazy, we're in life.
(35:43):
That for me was such an answer from the universe, right,
And I was like, Wow, this is so meaningful and
life is full of these these situations that from me
are not coincidents at all.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, that's that's incredible. It is that's really powerful. And
I love that full circle moment. I agree, and I
love I mean the movie that you made is that out?
Where can we watch that me.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
The name is me, my friend of mine, the one
introduced me to this shaman. She did it, and then
she called she asked me to help her producing it
and sharing with the platforms and everything. So I was
helping her on this final touch of the movie. And
(36:28):
it talks about this, about how you can get heritage
from your parents, not only in your blood physical, but
also mental and karmas that come from your mom, from
your grandmother, from because it comes from father to daughter,
you know. And it's important to clean it, to work
(36:51):
on it, because otherwise we're here with no purpose. We're
not we get We spend all this time here and
we don't figure out what's your purpose? What are you
here for?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
You know?
Speaker 7 (37:02):
And I always had in my life this desire to understand.
And when I was a kid, I was very like
that already. I used to dream a lot of about
a lot of things. My mom tells me that I
used to wake up and see people, and I was
always very connected. I used to tell them everything that
(37:25):
was going to happen in my life, visions everything. I
used to tell them like Oh, I'm gonna sing here,
I'm gonna do this, our house is gonna be like this,
like this. I used to give them details of everything.
And my dad, he was always very stressed with work.
(37:45):
And he tells me that I used to come to
him and say, Dad, don't worry. In the end, everything's
going to be great. You will see you're so smart,
you're so cute, you're so nice. In the end, you
will see you're not gonna worry about any of this.
I'm going to be a singer. I'm going to do
this and that. And it's so fun when he tells
me because I was actually describing so percisily with precisely
(38:11):
what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, I mean, you've It sounds like you've made so
much spiritual investment in transforming your mind, your heart, your energy,
your space. And at the same time you've also made
physical changes, like I was learning that you also were
on birth control and then you left birth control, and
I feel like even those types of changes, yes, were
(38:32):
linked to this kind of internal change that was going on. Right.
So many of us carry pain we didn't ask for,
grief that feels unresolved, patterns that don't make sense until
we look deeper. What these conversations show us is that
trauma doesn't always look obvious, but it always leaves a mark.
(38:55):
But here's the good news. The moment you begin to
understand it, you've already been to heal. The healing begins
when we stop blaming ourselves and start reframing to understand
it more deeply. What am I carrying? Where did it
come from? And what would it look like to let
it go? Whether through self reflection, therapy, spirituality, or storytelling,
(39:19):
every step toward awareness is a step toward freedom. Thank
you so much for watching. I hope you'll subscribe so
that you never miss a video and continue your dedication
to feeling happier, healthier, and more healed. I'll see you soon.
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
(39:42):
heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Everything in nature goes only where it's vulnerable. So a
tree doesn't go o where it's hard and thick, does it.
It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.
The first lesson of trauma is that it always leaves
a mark, even if you can't see it. If you've
ever asked yourself, why do I react like this? Why
does this sadness feel deeper than it should? Why do
I carry a pain I can't explain? Then this episode
is for you. Seventy percent of adults in the US
(00:23):
have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives.
But trauma isn't always loud. Sometimes it looks like overachieving people, pleasing,
or even emotional shutdown. Sixty one percent of patients with
first episode depression and fifty one percent with recurring depression
(00:45):
reported childhood or recent trauma. But here's the good news.
You can literally rewire your body's relationship to the trauma
it carries. So today we go deeper to understand what
trauma really is, how it hides, and what it takes
to finally heal. You're going to hear from Dr Gable
(01:07):
Matte on the emotional cost of hiding who you are,
John Legend on grieving without closure, Oprah Winfrey and Dr
Perry on the power of rethinking trauma, and Anita on
inherited wounds and generational fear. Here's the lesson. You're not broken.
(01:30):
You're carrying something that was never meant to be yours
to begin with. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Jay Sidi, Ja Shendy, Dr. Gable Matte delivers a powerful truth.
When you hide who you really are to survive your childhood,
that survival can turn into lifelong trauma. That suppression can
show up later as anxiety, chronic or disconnection in your relationships.
(02:03):
For example, nearly eighty percent of autoimmune patients report a
significant emotional stressor before on set. Studies show that burying
our emotions early on can increase our chances of developing
depression or addictive behaviors in adulthood. The good news is
that suppression doesn't have to be permanent. Healing isn't about
(02:27):
changing who you are. It's about coming back to the
parts of yourself you had to leave behind.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I often say to people, you're going to have pain
one way or the other. Yes, which pain would you like?
Because sometimes in life there's no pain for your options
mm hm. You can have the pain of suppressing yourself
for the sake of being accepted, or you can have
the pain sometimes of being yourself and not being accepted.
(02:54):
You can have pain one way or the other. Now
I have my own bias that the pain of not
being ourselves Ultimately it's about far the greater and the
more chronic pain, and that the pain, the short term
pain of being ourselves brings liberation and genuine independence, which
means I can have genuinely independent the relationships with other
(03:16):
people who are willing to accept me as independent. You know,
But in the short term, which pain do you want?
There's no pain for you options.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, for sure, that you reminded me of this beautiful
idea that Tikna Han shares, that there's familiar pain and
unfamiliar pain, and these are our two choices and the challenges.
We're so scared of unfamiliar pain that we would rather
choose familiar pain and go through the same pain because
(03:51):
we know how it's going to feel exactly, and we
think or at least I'm aware, at least I am
conscious of how bad it can get. But hearing you
speak being independent or being dependent both as pain. Yeah,
but the pain of dependence far out weighs the pain
(04:12):
of independence.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, just put a bit of a nuance in there. Ultimately,
I mean, I mean technadon also talk about inter being.
How we all in there are so in a certain sense,
we do depend on each other, you know, and that's okay.
The question is to be dependent in each other authentically
or inauthentically. The fact that I'm independent doesn't mean that
(04:34):
I'm not going to reach out for help or that
I won't offer it, But it does mean that I
will be honest with you, and I won't pretend to
be somebody else that I'm not so that you'll accept me.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So there's anything interesting word difference between two phrases that
sound very familiar. One it's called individualism, and they're it's
called individual suation, not rugged individualisms. I don't need anybody
and you know, me against the world, and this is
the North American capitalist ideal. You know, well, human beings
(05:12):
never would have evolved had we been those rugged individualists.
The rugged individuals wouldn't last more than one generation. But
individuated means that we can be ourselves, truly ourselves in
genuine relationship with others, not rugged individualists. I mean, the
(05:35):
most boring people are rugged individualists because they all look
the same, you know. So you can be individuated and
be truly yourself and still belong and still vulnerably desire
human contact.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know, yeah, I can agree more. I think there's
a lot of retro around. We don't care what anyone
else thinks and it doesn't matter, and you just do
your own thing. And it's almost that's almost a bitter
response as well, because we do have to care what
people think. If we lived in a world where you
(06:14):
didn't care what anyone thought, yeah, it wouldn't be that
healthy because we would do all sorts of obscene, horrific things.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I treace it differently.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I'm intrigued. Yeah, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, I don't care what anybody thinks, but I do
care what I do and how it affects other people,
you know. So there's another spiritual teacher, Gunner Rotana. He
wrote a book called Mindfulness and Plain English, which I've
just been working through recently, and he's talking about a
(06:44):
higher morality that comes from being true to yourself as
any touch and he says, well, you don't need rules anymore,
because it's like Saint Augustine said, love and do it
you're will. So if you actually love the world, you
don't have to give yourself rules because that love will
dictate how you like towards other people. I can't worry
(07:06):
about what other people think. Look, if I worry about
other people think, I would not have written any of
my books, because each of my books challenged the reading orthodoxy,
insane medicine, you know, or whether it's or under tention, devastated,
or stress and disease or addictions and mayfi. I'm I
write a book, I'm saying something that I'm not saying
that I invented it, but that I've come to understand
(07:28):
and fervently believe and want to communicate. But I can't
worry about what other people think, or when I make
a political statement. I'm responsible for what I say, how
I say it, but not what other people think about it.
But that doesn't mean that I ignore other people's experience.
So as long as my intention is purely to speak
(07:49):
a truth, and I do so with integrity, I can't
worry about what other people think. I can't, but that
doesn't mean I'm going to go around just doing terrible things.
I don't care what you think as long as I'm
convinced that what I do. If I've done that kind
of inventory, and I haven't always, but if I do
(08:11):
an inventory, but well, what is my intention here?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Is there a hierarchy of pain or hierarchy of trauma?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
What do you mean bierarchy?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I feel like people feel like, well, this trauma is
worse than this trauma, and this trauma is better than
this one. We often hear about that as a conversation.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
So one could say so because if you look at
a child who says sexually abused, as opposed to a
child whose parents just can't honor and accept and validate
their emotions, well, my god, you're talking about two different
set of experiences, so that there's certainly horrific things happen
(08:54):
to some people to wound them, and other people suffer
wounds in a very different way. But the question is
is it useful to make that distinction. It's one thing
to recognize it. But let's say let's say you're my
four year old. You come to me and you say
that I'm afraid of so and so, and I say,
(09:16):
snap out of it. Only cards are afraid and to
get out of here and take care of yourself. And
then you went to your mom and I said, I
tried to talk to daddy. But you know, would it
be helpful for your meta to say, well, snap out
of it. Think of all the kids that are being
sexually abused, Think all the starving kids, Think all the
kids that are being bombed. What are you complaining about?
(09:38):
Would that be helpful? So that, it's not a helpful
game to play. I don't compare people's traumas. Trauma simply
means a wound, and people are wounded in all kinds
of ways. When I try to help people, the least
helpful thing I can do is to tell them that
somebody else's trauma is much worse than mine, much worse
than yours. So objectively, yes, practically it's not a helpful distinction.
(10:04):
People are wounded and you have to tend to the wound,
whatever it is. You know, if you came to me
with a cut on your arm and he asked me
to stitch it up, it wouldn't be helpful for me
to tell you that, oh, what are you worried about?
These people with broken irons out there or people with
broken So no, it's not a helpful thing to engage in,
(10:25):
even though there's truth in it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, in this next conversation, John Legend opens up about
the intensely personal loss of losing a child and how
he and Chrissy didn't avoid the pain but rather walked
it together. One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. I've
had so many friends and family members over the last
twelve months tell me about that in their experience. Yet
(10:51):
the silence around pregnancy loss can be just as painful
as the loss itself. John's story is a reminder for
us all grief isn't something that can be solved. It
just needs to be seen. The point isn't to get
over it. The point is to get through it without
losing the love, the honesty, and the connection that makes
(11:14):
you whole. You mentioned grief, and then the song pieces
in the new album there's the beautiful lyric let your
Broken Heart learn to Live in Pieces, and I just,
I literally just haven't stopped thinking about that because I
think that there's so much about us that's constantly trying
to get everything to fit, and even with the heart,
(11:36):
we're trying to become whole again. Like there's always that concept,
but you're like, let your broken heart learn to live
in pieces? Like where did that come? From like that. Well, idea, the.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Idea of the song is that we never completely shed
or forget this trauma that we may go through in life,
this loss, this heartbreak, like we'll remember it. There'll be
times when we'll feel those pangs of memory that it'll
come back. It doesn't mean you can't heal, it doesn't
mean you can't recover, but it does mean that that
(12:07):
grief will will still be.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
A part of who you are, a part of your story.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Effectively recovering from that means not forgetting it, not that
it didn't happen, but learning to live with it and
learning to continue to live with it and and experience
life and joy and pain and all the things that
come in life afterwards, continue to like live on despite
(12:34):
the fact that this grief won't ever leave you completely.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, it's almost it's almost like we're asking the wrong question,
where it was like how do I move on? How
do I get over this?
Speaker 4 (12:43):
And you're saying, well, you're saying you're gonna I'm saying
you're gonna carry it. It's part of your life now,
it's part of your story, part of who you are.
Like I said with Chrissy, like I've seen so much
growth through our grief and through our tragedy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's always going to be part of who we are.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And I'm fine with that, Like it's part of who
we are, it's we carry it with us and it's okay.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, and that and I'm sorry for your loss, and
I you know that. I mean, I don't think there's
pretty much anything harder to go through.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, I've never been through anything harder, But it just means,
you know, when you live long enough, you're going to
go through something like that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And figuring out how to.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Continue to live as you carry that with you is
what the song is really about.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And often we find that those traumatic and difficult experiences
can break people apart, but you focus on growing closer together.
What do you think is that difference? Like you your
values are so clear I can tell in this interview,
like values of children and a family, of love, of kindness,
of connection. Like how do you in moments like that?
Is it that your values just drive you forward? Or
(13:53):
like how do you make sure? Because I think sometimes
people just have experiences that derail their everything else that's
going right.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah, And I don't know, because like I think part
of it is just we we were already on a
great foundation where we really respected and loved and enjoyed
being with each other, respect each other's values and the ways,
you know, the things we saw in each other's character
that we fell in love with were still there. But
I think you also have to like commit to working
(14:26):
through pain, you know, And I think we both committed
to doing it, like doing the work that we needed
to do to get through it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No, I'm happy to hear that, and you know, my prayers.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And I think having already had two kids together was
definitely helpful because they just bring so much joy into
our lives and laughter and fun, and they're a great
focus for our energy. And so even when you're going
through deep grief on losing pregnancy, you still have these
(15:01):
two beautiful babies that you love, and I think that
was certainly helpful.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Next, we'll hear Oprah and doctor Perry, who challenge what
we think trauma should look like. You don't need a
violent or dramatic event to be traumatized. Neglect, lack of validation,
or emotional absence can be just as damaging. In fact,
emotional neglect is one of the most common and overlooked
(15:42):
forms of trauma. Oprah reframes the question for people exploring
their own traumatic history from what's wrong with me? To
what happened to me? That small shift, that one question
can completely transform how we see ourselves and how we heal.
(16:02):
What do you think was something that you misunderstood or
had an incomplete understanding of about trauma that has now
become more complete or more deep.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh, what a great question, Jay I thought trauma prior
to my conversations with Bruce in doing this book, I
thought trauma had to be a big, gigantic thing experience.
You had to go through a tsunami literally, if not literally,
a tsunami, a tsunami like crisis in your life, a fire,
(16:41):
a hurricane, a tragedy, a car accident, a stabbing, somebody died.
And it was through co authoring this book with him
that I understood that it was the consistent little things.
It was the aggressions and micro aggressions in a person's
life that causes them to have their own worldview. Whatever
(17:05):
that worldview is for you is different from me. So
the biggest, the biggest learning for me is that trauma
doesn't have to have a great big old capital t
on it. It's really how you were loved, and that
neglect and trauma are hand in hand because both are
equally as toxic. And so I'd always you know, just
(17:25):
like you with your you know, millions of listeners. I
over the years of interviewing people, it was my greatest classroom.
I was always paying attention to what people were saying
and paying attention to their lives. And what I understood
and could articulate not through science but just through my
(17:49):
own observation, is that, oh, people are as dysfunctional, as unhappy,
as disoriented in their lives based on how far they
are from the center of themselves. And the center is
where wholeness lies, as you know, and so where there
is no where, there is no center, and there is
(18:11):
no sense of wholeness and love for yourself, there's going
to be disarray, chaos, confusion, and you know, dysfunction in
your life. And I saw that over and over and
over again, that people behave based on how they were
(18:33):
loved and then how they were able to process that
in a way to love other people. And so Bruce
just gave me the science for that. What this book
did is gave me the science for it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I love that. I think it's a brilliant distinction between
you know, what we think is trauma and what trauma
can be for all of us. I have one last
question I want to ask you before we dive in
to the conversation with doctor Bruce Perry. It's this idea.
You've interviewed so many influentials, successful people, and people of
all different backgrounds and walks of life, and so often
(19:05):
their success is actually built on their trauma, and so
their success doesn't often satisfy them. What have you seen
has been that transition when they go beyond their success,
they heal their trauma to actually find true success for themselves.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
That's deep layered, complex question. So this is what this
is where there's many.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Layers to that.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
What I realize is that if you come into success
and fame, in particularly fame, because fame is its own
world and definition, because it really is based upon what
other people think of you. So because fame isn't what
(19:52):
you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you,
if you come into that and you don't have a grounded,
centered self, you will be controlled by the outside instead
of the inside. And if you come into that not
in the fullness of knowing who you are and what
(20:13):
you're supposed to do with that fame. Whenever somebody likes
you or doesn't like you, that determines whether or not
you're having a good day or a bad day, and
you have lost control of your own life. So I
think what fame teaches you quickly is to grow the
(20:36):
wholeness within yourself so that you're not controlled by others
outside opinions of you.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That is a beautiful answer, and I think you will
resonate with so many because so many of us are
on that journey to be successful or be famous, or
be rich or whatever it may be. But to hear
it from that perspective is truly refreshing. I want to
ask you both this first question to start with is
why is it so important to make this switch from
(21:04):
us thinking what is wrong with you? To what happened
to you?
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Well, let me answer that because I first came across
this question of what's happened what happened to you? When
I was doing an interview with doctor Prus Perry a
couple of years ago for sixty minute story I was doing. Now,
I've known doctor Perry for over thirty years. I first
started interviewing him in the early nineties, late eighties, early
(21:32):
nineties on the Oprah Show when we were talking about
raising children and how important it is those first zero
to six years. So I've been hearing about what it
means to nurture and support the brain early on. It
wasn't until that conversation a couple of years ago. I
don't know whether I think it's because of where I
(21:55):
was in my life at the time. I opened a
school in South Africa. I've had these wonderful, brilliant girls
who come from traumatic backgrounds grow up and have really
serious mental health issues. And I was trying to at
the time figure out, what are we doing wrong at
our school? Something's really wrong here. And in that interview
(22:18):
with doctor Perry, he said, you know, most people ask
the question when kids are not behaving the way you
want them to behave of what's wrong with them? We
really should be asking about what's happened to you? And
something went oh in my brain. It was like a
major moment, like I got it in a way that
I hadn't received it before, and I realized that it's
(22:40):
not just for children that you asked that question, But
it's really everybody and that moment, Bruce, as I've said
to you many times, Doctor Perry, change the way I
saw my relationships, how I saw my own life, how
I interacted with people. And even in politics, where it
was so crazy in the past four years and everybody's
(23:00):
always talking about what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, I
would always say, I wonder what happened to that person.
I wonder what happened to them younger that caused them
to be this way. So all of the labels that
you just gave, Jay, there's a world of labels. There
is you know, overachiever, there's you know, obsessive, compulsive moms,
(23:22):
soccer moms, there is the desire to, you know, please
people all the time. There's a multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple
labels that refer back to what happened to us. And
so I will just say this one of the things
that Bruce says in the book. Each of us comes
into the world with our own worldview, and that worldview
(23:45):
is actually shaped from the crib. And you get from
the world what you project into the world, and you
project into the world what you were raised with and
what you were raised around. So That's why what happened
to you is the essential question.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So beautifully said. And I wish my brain had a
ha moments that sound like that outward too, So I
love that, And doctor Perry, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Well.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
I come at this from a slightly different perspective because
I have a long history of being a history fan
and had studied history growing up, and was very well
aware of the relationship between the things that happened in
the past playing a major role in how things were
functioning currently. And I think that that's I think most
(24:43):
people are able to kind of make that connection. But
as I became a biologist and learned about the development
of the human body and the human brain, it became
clear that we have our own personal history and that
the things that happened in our life shaped the systems
in our brain that influence how we think about things,
how we feel about things, and how we behave And
it really it leads to a completely different approach to
(25:08):
getting to know somebody. You enter the interaction with a
curious mindset. You're curious about, like, what what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I mean?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
And it really, I think is as Oprah says, it
really opens up this new perspective on understanding a person.
You can be much more empathic with them as opposed
to being so judgmental.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah. For me, that reframing that you both have so
beautifully illuminated in this book is so subtle, but it's
so powerful because it removes that judgment. It removes that
negative observation, that criticism, that fear that people feel on
the receiving end of that as well. To me, just
(25:52):
that switch of question is is so powerful. And you know,
when I was diving into the book, there were moments
where I just I was so grateful to you for
what you shared. And you know, you open up about
the story about how your grandmother used to whip you
over the smallest, most insignificant things like spilling a glass
of water and this hars right exactly, breaking a plate
(26:16):
and this harsh, this harsh behavior was normal for you
as a kid. And you said something in the book
that really stood out to me. You said that the
long term impact of being whipped turned you into a
world class people pleaser for most of your life. I
want to know how did you become aware of that
(26:37):
connection between that experience as a child and how it
was being lived today and how did that start to
help you on your journey?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Well, thank you so much. I'm so moved that you
were touched by that story because I until I was
a full grown adult and I met my best friend
Gail Girls, the first black person I ever met who
wasn't whipped as a child. I mean, she was the
first person I ever encountered. So it is a part
of the black culture to not just spank your children.
(27:13):
Almost everybody you run into of a certain age was
whipped as a child. So that was such the norm
for me that writing about it for the first time
is the first time I actually recognized, oh, this is
not a normal thing. So to really, I was in
(27:36):
a boardroom having to confront someone in my forties, and
I had so much anxiety about the fact that I
was going to have to have this confrontation with somebody,
and it just the most normal disagreements would cause me
a great sense of angst and worry and oh my god,
(28:00):
and what's going to happen? And I just said, what
where is this coming from? Why am I so afraid?
When I am the one in the power seat. I
am Oprah Winfrey running the Harpo Studios. My name spelled backwards.
I'm the person in charge, and in order to have
a disagreement with somebody, I go through so much angst.
(28:25):
And I realized Jay, that even though I had the power,
I still felt that every confrontation I was going to
get a whipping, that a whipping was going to result,
that that thing that used to come up inside me
when I had to walk to get my own switch.
Oh where is this feeling coming? I'm feeling like in
(28:48):
every confrontation, I'm going to get a whipping, and at
the end of it, that person's going to be mad
at me. And at the end of it, that person's
going to say, you better not act like you're mad.
You know all the things that happened to me as
a kid. So it wasn't until I was a full
grown adult in my own seat of you perceived power,
(29:08):
feeling those feelings of anxiety and anxiousness having to have
the slightest bit of confrontation. So what I say in
what happened to me is that being beaten as a child,
having to be subservient to other people's ideals of what
it means to be a child, meaning you are seen
(29:30):
and not heard. So I've grown up to have this
big personality, but being raised in an environment where children
are seen and not heard and your opinions do not matter.
So what happened to me taught me that my opinions
do not matter. Keep your opinions to yourself, and do
whatever you can to please other people so that other
(29:52):
people will like you, so that other people will not
be upset with you. And I will have to tell
you it is also for me, not for everybody else,
but for me. One of the reasons why I was
so susceptible to sexual abuse because I had been taught
(30:13):
and trained not to speak up for myself, that whatever
somebody wanted to do who was older than me or
in a position of authority, that they had rights that
I did not, So that what happened to me was
ingrained in a way that you know, literally caused me
to be a major people pleaser for a great deal
(30:34):
of my life.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Thank you for sharing that full journey, and just I
really gravitate towards that statement you said around how we
when we normalize something, we don't actually even recognize the
trauma in it. We don't even realize that there's anything.
It was just normal to you. You just expected it.
Did you know that maternal stress during pregnancy can increase
(30:57):
the child's risk of illness by up to sixty percent.
In our final conversation, Anita shares how she discovered that
her fear of losing everything despite all her success, was
actually inherited from her mother's anxiety and stress during pregnancy.
With Anita, we see that just because you inherited something,
(31:20):
it doesn't mean you have to carry it. Healing is
about choosing what moves forward with you and what stops
with you. What were the biggest traumas that have stayed
with you, that have come up for you that you
feel you've carried because you obviously grew up in the
favelas you grew up you know, not in the easiest
of circumstances. I think you mentioned yourself that you're almost
(31:41):
treated like trash in Brazilian people in the firstlace, so
long and so like, tell me about what are the
traumas you felt you've held onto from your childhood that
are now coming up that you're healing now.
Speaker 7 (31:53):
So there's this one interesting situation in the path of
this healing thing. There was this one thought that was
always coming to my mind. Right, I was here being Anita.
I have three different houses, I have everything I need. Okay,
if I want to retire right now, I can and
I will live comfortably for the rest of my life.
(32:15):
But all of a sudden, I was just here minding
my business, and I thought would come to my mind.
What if I get pregnant and I lose all my
money and I don't have money to survive, and then
I need to work in the street to get food
to my babies and to and I would be like,
why am I thinking this? Why am I doing that?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Why?
Speaker 7 (32:37):
And then I did this session with my shaman and
she said, this is not your thought. You got this
thought the same way we get DNA from our parents,
and like the hair, the eyes, the body, we can
get from thoughts and the energy behaviors and we don't
realize that. So I told her, oh, for real. And
(33:02):
then we did a session to clean this right, to
remove this from me because it's not mine. It comes
from my family. So I did the session and I
talked to my mom. I said, Mom, have you ever
had this thought of like that you were going to
lose everything? We're not going to have money, this and that,
and that was like right before my birthday or thirty
years old birthday. So she said, yeah, when I got
(33:28):
pregnant from you, your dad lost his job and I
felt like we were not going to have money to
feed you guys, and I would need to work in
houses as like a housemaid or something to buy food.
And I was like, wow, that makes total. She spent
the whole pregnancy with this fear of not having the
(33:52):
money to feed us, so she was fearing it. And
there is like I produced a movie with a friend
of mine called Me, and it talks about this the thoughts,
the negative thoughts that your mom cares and the pregnancy
becomes neuropeptides in your in your brain, so that's why
(34:14):
you have these thoughts. And I was like wow, mom,
And I did the session with the lady and I
got I never had this thought again. And then I
was doing my birthday, who was thirty years old so special,
and I had this place that I wanted to do
in Brazil, and for some reason, every place I was
(34:36):
trying it was not available. I was trying everywhere, Oh
not available because of this not available. Because of that,
I closed one place. No, not available anymore. So there's
just this one place, just this one spot. And I said, okay,
let's go. What can we do. It's the only spot.
Let's let's go. So I sent my dad the invitations
(34:57):
and to my dad, I said, oh, Dad, the party
year is going to be here. He was like, oh
my god, daughter, this address is. And my dad didn't
know about the talk I had. So my mom nothing
right and he's my best friend, but I didn't mention him.
He goes, oh my god, daughter, this address used to
(35:21):
be the company's address that I got fired when your
mom was pregnant. And I was like, I'm dad, wow, Like,
we're here celebrating my thirty years old with a party,
like full of everything that we were always afraid of
not having and the same address. That's crazy, we're in life.
(35:43):
That for me was such an answer from the universe, right,
And I was like, Wow, this is so meaningful and
life is full of these these situations that from me
are not coincidents at all.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, that's that's incredible. It is that's really powerful. And
I love that full circle moment. I agree, and I
love I mean the movie that you made is that out?
Where can we watch that me.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
The name is me, my friend of mine, the one
introduced me to this shaman. She did it, and then
she called she asked me to help her producing it
and sharing with the platforms and everything. So I was
helping her on this final touch of the movie. And
(36:28):
it talks about this, about how you can get heritage
from your parents, not only in your blood physical, but
also mental and karmas that come from your mom, from
your grandmother, from because it comes from father to daughter,
you know. And it's important to clean it, to work
(36:51):
on it, because otherwise we're here with no purpose. We're
not we get We spend all this time here and
we don't figure out what's your purpose? What are you
here for?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
You know?
Speaker 7 (37:02):
And I always had in my life this desire to understand.
And when I was a kid, I was very like
that already. I used to dream a lot of about
a lot of things. My mom tells me that I
used to wake up and see people, and I was
always very connected. I used to tell them everything that
(37:25):
was going to happen in my life, visions everything. I
used to tell them like Oh, I'm gonna sing here,
I'm gonna do this, our house is gonna be like this,
like this. I used to give them details of everything.
And my dad, he was always very stressed with work.
(37:45):
And he tells me that I used to come to
him and say, Dad, don't worry. In the end, everything's
going to be great. You will see you're so smart,
you're so cute, you're so nice. In the end, you
will see you're not gonna worry about any of this.
I'm going to be a singer. I'm going to do
this and that. And it's so fun when he tells
me because I was actually describing so percisily with precisely
(38:11):
what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, I mean, you've It sounds like you've made so
much spiritual investment in transforming your mind, your heart, your energy,
your space. And at the same time you've also made
physical changes, like I was learning that you also were
on birth control and then you left birth control, and
I feel like even those types of changes, yes, were
(38:32):
linked to this kind of internal change that was going on. Right.
So many of us carry pain we didn't ask for,
grief that feels unresolved, patterns that don't make sense until
we look deeper. What these conversations show us is that
trauma doesn't always look obvious, but it always leaves a mark.
(38:55):
But here's the good news. The moment you begin to
understand it, you've already been to heal. The healing begins
when we stop blaming ourselves and start reframing to understand
it more deeply. What am I carrying? Where did it
come from? And what would it look like to let
it go? Whether through self reflection, therapy, spirituality, or storytelling,
(39:19):
every step toward awareness is a step toward freedom. Thank
you so much for watching. I hope you'll subscribe so
that you never miss a video and continue your dedication
to feeling happier, healthier, and more healed. I'll see you soon.
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
(39:42):
heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Everything in nature goes only where it's vulnerable. So a
tree doesn't go o where it's hard and thick, does it.
It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.
Host
Jay Shetty
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