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And me, Simone Boyce.
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 At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers and amazing guests like Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Paul McCartney.
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Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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 I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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SPEAKER_03
Hey everyone.
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SPEAKER_03
Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I'm so excited to be talking to you today.
0
SPEAKER_03
I can't believe it.
0
SPEAKER_03
My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out and
0
SPEAKER_03
 I cannot wait to share it with you.
0
SPEAKER_03
I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book.
0
SPEAKER_03
I read the audio book.
0
SPEAKER_03
If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 8rulesoflove.com.
0
SPEAKER_03
It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love.
0
SPEAKER_03
So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour, Love Rules.
0
SPEAKER_03
 Go to jscheddytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more.
0
SPEAKER_03
I can't wait to see you this year.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I am just honored, humbled, and grateful today because I have the honor of speaking with the one and only Oprah Winfrey, the person who's inspired me to start this podcast, to have the conversations that I get to have,
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 every single day and inspired me to believe that wisdom truly can be viral.
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It can be contagious.
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SPEAKER_03
It can truly change people's lives.
0
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So I'm excited for you to hear more from her and Dr. Perry in a moment.
0
SPEAKER_03
But we got to chat to Oprah just before this wonderful book tour event we did.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so Oprah, welcome to On Purpose.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
0
SPEAKER_04
 I am excited.
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SPEAKER_04
I did not know that I inspired you for this.
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SPEAKER_04
I did not.
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SPEAKER_04
I had no idea.
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SPEAKER_03
I've always wanted to tell you, and I'm glad I get to tell you in this way.
0
SPEAKER_03
I grew up watching you, and you made me believe that conversations about consciousness and purpose could reach every person on the planet.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And that gave me so much confidence as a young man that this was the work that was so deeply needed.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so thank you so much.
0
SPEAKER_04
Well, look at what I did.
0
SPEAKER_04
Who knew that?
0
SPEAKER_04
Who knew that?
0
SPEAKER_04
You know, Maya Angelou said to me years ago when I'd come back from doing my school in South Africa, the opening of the school, and I was
0
SPEAKER_04
 She wasn't able to attend, so I came directly from South Africa to Maya's house, Jay.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I was sitting at the kitchen table, and she was teaching me how to make biscuits.
0
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And I said, oh, Maya, the school's going to be so— that school's going to be my legacy.
0
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It's going to be incredible.
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And she said, you have no idea what your legacy is going to be.
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 because your legacy is every life you touch.
0
SPEAKER_04
Your legacy isn't one thing.
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SPEAKER_04
Your legacy is everybody who was moved to, who watched your show, who went back to school, who got out of a domestic violent relationship, who changed the way they saw things.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so now I'm looking at you, Jay Shetty, a part of my legacy.
0
SPEAKER_03
 That's the most wonderful and beautiful thing to be a part of.
0
SPEAKER_03
I'm so humbled, and I meant every word.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, we're here today to talk about a big part of your legacy, which I think is this beautiful book called What Happened to You that you've co-authored with Dr. Bruce Perry, who we'll be speaking to in a moment.
0
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But I want to ask you, how did you meet Dr. Bruce Perry in the first place?
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How did you connect?
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SPEAKER_03
 And where did that relationship start your learning and your journey towards understanding what happened to you?
0
SPEAKER_04
Well, years ago, in the late 80s, early 90s on The Oprah Show, we met talking about early childhood development and how what you do with children from zero to six was the most important years because you're really cooked by six.
0
SPEAKER_04
You are who you're going to be.
0
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That personality is set.
0
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And...
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 Then I was working on a bill that would require child abusers, child molesters, to have a database.
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There would be a database for child molesters in the country.
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SPEAKER_04
 I called Dr. Bruce Perry and a bunch of authorities on child sexual violence to my house.
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SPEAKER_04
There was a National Child Protection Act that was signed that I went to Washington, I think, with Bill Clinton.
0
SPEAKER_04
And because in the early 90s, there wasn't a database for all the child abusers, and you could just go across state to state lines.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so I started working with him early.
0
SPEAKER_04
When I opened my school in South Africa, Jay,
0
SPEAKER_04
 taking girls from traumatized backgrounds who were just like I was growing up, who were smart, who were passionate, who wanted to succeed in their lives, but didn't have the means.
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So I went from village to village to township choosing these girls.
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 I built this beautiful school.
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I chose every sheet, every towel.
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I made it a beautiful aesthetic for them.
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And I thought they're going to just now have these magnificent lives.
0
SPEAKER_04
Well, the first three days, girls were having really strange behaviors and like running out of the rooms and crying in the classrooms and having breakdowns.
0
SPEAKER_04
I call Bruce Perry, Dr. Perry, from South Africa and said, I don't know what is going on here.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And he said, I think your girls are suffering from PTSD.
0
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And I said, how can that be?
0
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Nobody's been to war.
0
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So he explained to me the way the brain works if you've been raised in an environment where every day you're just worried about, are you going to get food?
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Are you going to survive?
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Are your parents going to keep their jobs?
0
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You're literally constantly in this state of anxiety.
0
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And then you bring a child into an environment where
0
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 They're not six people sleeping in the bed.
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It's just you in the room.
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You're alone.
0
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That now causes anxiety because your brain isn't accustomed to operating in calm, in discipline, in order.
0
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And so that's when I started working with Bruce at my school.
0
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So he's been a major influence for me.
0
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And then
0
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 We did a story together for 60 Minutes where this question of what happened to you came up, where he said people always ask the wrong question when they're dealing with children with behavioral issues.
0
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They say what's wrong with that child instead of what happened to them.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And that was the biggest aha for me.
0
SPEAKER_03
It is the biggest aha.
0
SPEAKER_03
When I heard you frame it in this book, it's truly, as I'm going to talk about later on, it's truly the simplest and subtle but most powerful reframing.
0
SPEAKER_03
I wonder, you share so many honest and open and vulnerable stories in this book.
0
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What do you think was something that you misunderstood
0
SPEAKER_03
 or had an incomplete understanding of about trauma that has now become more complete or more deep?
0
SPEAKER_04
Oh, what a great question, Jay.
0
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I thought trauma, prior to my conversations with Bruce in doing this book, I thought trauma had to be a big, gigantic,
0
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 thing, experience.
0
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You had to go through a tsunami, literally, if not literally a tsunami, a tsunami-like crisis in your life.
0
SPEAKER_04
A fire, a hurricane, a tragedy, a car accident, a stabbing, somebody died.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And it was through co-authoring this book with him that I understood that it was the consistent little things.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was the aggressions and microaggressions in a person's life that causes them to have their own worldview.
0
SPEAKER_04
Whatever that worldview is for you is different from me.
0
SPEAKER_04
So the biggest learning for me is that trauma doesn't have to have a great big old capital T on it.
0
SPEAKER_04
 It's really how you were loved and that neglect and trauma are hand in hand because both are equally as toxic.
0
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And so I'd always, you know, just like you with your, you know, millions of listeners, I, over the years of interviewing people,
0
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 It was my greatest classroom.
0
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I was always paying attention to what people were saying and paying attention to their lives.
0
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And what I understood and could articulate, not through science, but just through my own observation, is that, oh, people are
0
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 as dysfunctional, as unhappy, as disoriented in their lives based on how far they are from the center of themselves.
0
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And the center is where wholeness lies, as you know.
0
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And so where there is no
0
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 where there is no center and there is no sense of wholeness and love for yourself, there's going to be disarray, chaos, confusion, and, you know, dysfunction in your life.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I saw that over and over and over again, that people behave based on how they were loved.
0
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 and then how they were able to process that in a way to love other people.
0
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And so Bruce just gave me the science for that.
0
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What this book did is gave me the science for it.
0
SPEAKER_03
 I love that.
0
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I think it's a brilliant distinction between what we think is trauma and what trauma can be for all of us.
0
SPEAKER_03
I have one last question I wanted to ask you before we dive in to the conversation with Dr. Bruce Perry.
0
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It's this idea that you've interviewed so many influential, successful people and people of all different backgrounds and walks of life.
0
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And so often their success is actually built on their trauma.
0
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 And so their success doesn't often satisfy them.
0
SPEAKER_03
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?
0
SPEAKER_03
That is a deep, layered, complex question.
0
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So this is what I... There's many layers to that.
0
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What I realize is that if you come into success and fame, and particularly fame,
0
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 because fame is its own world and definition, because it really is based upon what other people think of you.
0
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Because fame isn't what you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And if you come into that not in the fullness of knowing who you are and what you're supposed to do with that fame, whenever somebody likes you or doesn't like you, that determines whether or not you are having a good day or a bad day.
0
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And you have lost control of your own life.
0
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So I think what
0
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 Fame teaches you quickly is to grow the wholeness within yourself so that you're not controlled by others outside opinions of you.
0
SPEAKER_03
That is a beautiful answer and I think it will resonate with so many because so many of us are on that journey to
0
SPEAKER_03
 be successful or be famous or be rich or whatever it may be, but to hear it from that perspective is truly refreshing.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I was going to say this to you, and why I was so happy to see this book being released, what happened to you, for anyone who's listening right now, is because we have a mutual friend, who I won't mention right now, but we have a mutual friend, and he said to me that once he asked you a question, and his question was, Oprah, what do you know to be true?
0
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Out of everything you've heard, what do you know to be true?
0
SPEAKER_03
 And he told me that the answer you said to him was that whatever a child experiences from zero to five is going to define how they live out the rest of their life.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so he shared that with me a few years ago.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then when I saw this book come out, I go,
0
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 Finally, we actually have an answer.
0
SPEAKER_03
I so believe that.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I just think that that is such a true, true statement.
0
SPEAKER_03
I'm not a parent yet, but when I am, I'll definitely be trying my best to practice.
0
SPEAKER_04
You know that those younger years, the younger the children are,
0
SPEAKER_04
 the more influence you have, not only on who they become, but on what their brain becomes.
0
SPEAKER_04
Because if you're surrounded by chaos and dysfunction and loudness and disorder at a zero to two months,
0
SPEAKER_04
 It means the synapse in your brain doesn't form in the way that it does in children who have had that.
0
SPEAKER_04
And you are more likely for behavioral problems, health problems, all other problems in life, just because you didn't get what you needed from zero to two months.
0
SPEAKER_03
That is what is so amazing.
0
SPEAKER_03
 Crazy.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oprah, I'm going to ask you a fast five.
0
SPEAKER_03
These questions have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum, so they're super tight.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oprah Winfrey, these are your fast five.
0
SPEAKER_03
The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever received?
0
SPEAKER_03
When people show you who they are, believe them the first time, from Maya Angelou.
0
SPEAKER_03
Beautiful.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay, second, what is the worst advice you've ever received?
0
SPEAKER_04
A lawyer told me not to purchase Hanna.
0
SPEAKER_04
 Hanna was for sale.
0
SPEAKER_04
I mean, Hanna, the city of Hanna, 5,000 acres were for sale.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I had a lawyer who told me not to do it.
0
SPEAKER_03
Amazing.
0
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Okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Uh, question.
0
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That's another, another day, another story.
0
SPEAKER_03
Question number three.
0
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Um, what is something that people value that you no longer value?
0
SPEAKER_04
Hmm.
0
SPEAKER_04
 cars.
0
SPEAKER_04
I went through my car phase.
0
SPEAKER_04
I went through my car phase.
0
SPEAKER_04
I have had every kind of car and now I don't care.
0
SPEAKER_04
Now I'm getting around on a scooter.
0
SPEAKER_04
I love that.
0
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Literally.
0
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Question number four, one lesson or breakthrough from this book you really want people to understand.
0
SPEAKER_04
 I want people to understand, most importantly, that when you are arguing with a friend and they act like they can't hear you because they're arguing so strongly back at you, they really can't because of the way the brain is structured.
0
SPEAKER_04
So when you're in fear mode, anxiety mode, when you're really amped up,
0
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 You just need to, both of you need to calm down, take a walk, take a break, and come back.
0
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That's what I want people to understand.
0
SPEAKER_04
And also, the thing that I just shared with you earlier is that you think you are protecting your children or that you are being okay when you're doing destructive things around your young children when that is really when, literally, they don't have the language, but they're taking in the energy and the frequency.
0
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 and they're absorbing it all.
0
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And fifth and final question that I'm going to ask you, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
0
SPEAKER_04
It would be a law that allowed for at least 12 minutes of stillness every day, just for people to come to themselves.
0
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That's what it would be.
0
SPEAKER_03
 Thank you so much.
0
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Oprah, I can't wait to meet you.
0
SPEAKER_03
I look forward to it, and I'm so grateful for this time with you.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much.
0
SPEAKER_03
I recently had the chance to host a virtual book tour stop with Oprah and Dr. Perry, and now I want to share it with all of you.
0
SPEAKER_03
This was an exclusive event that I was invited to host, and I'm getting to give our On Purpose listeners exclusive access to listen to it right now.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much, and make sure you leave a review.
0
SPEAKER_03
It makes a huge difference to On Purpose.
0
SPEAKER_03
 Hello everyone.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much for being here with us this evening.
0
SPEAKER_03
I am so excited to welcome you all to the first virtual book event for What Happened To You.
0
SPEAKER_03
My name is Jay Shetty and I will be your host tonight along with our friends at Books Are Magic Bookstore out of Brooklyn and Semicolon Bookstore in Chicago.
0
SPEAKER_03
 I feel extremely honored and grateful to have this opportunity to interview Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah.
0
SPEAKER_03
The book came out today, so I know none of you have read the book yet, but this conversation will prepare you to truly allow this book to enter into your hearts and minds and inspire you to take out some time for stillness, to experience every single word when you read it.
0
SPEAKER_03
 But I was fortunate enough to receive an early copy, and I have to tell you, it's phenomenal.
0
SPEAKER_03
The stories, the studies, and the steps inside this book will truly help you heal, build resilience, and help others that you love so much.
0
SPEAKER_03
I can't wait for you to read it.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And without further ado, let me introduce you to the co-authors of this groundbreaking work.
0
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Dr. Bruce Perry is a renowned brain and trauma expert who spent the last 30 years researching children's mental health.
0
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And of course, Oprah Winfrey, the person whom I was fortunate enough to watch growing up.
0
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And what happened to me, Oprah, was I got to see you change lives every day.
0
SPEAKER_03
So you have led the way for so many of us
0
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 to benefit from the work of scientists and thinkers like Dr. Perry, whose life-changing work is the reason we're here today.
0
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Welcome, Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah.
0
SPEAKER_04
 Excited to be here, excited to be here, and especially excited to be here for Books Are Magic and Semicolon in Chicago because I love going to my own local bookstores and love the support that bookstores bring to the community and love that we are all able to be supportive of our local bookstores.
0
SPEAKER_04
Jay, so excited that you're excited about the book.
0
SPEAKER_04
I'm excited that you're excited.
0
SPEAKER_03
 I'm very excited.
0
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I'm extremely excited.
0
SPEAKER_03
And Dr. Perry, thank you so much for this opportunity.
0
SPEAKER_01
It's my pleasure.
0
SPEAKER_01
I'm happy to be here.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I'm also excited that you liked the book, because as you probably know, when you work on a project for a long, long, long time, you lose perspective on how it's perceived.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I think it'll be fun to see how people like it over the next week.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, because it's stories and science.
0
SPEAKER_04
It's stories and science.
0
SPEAKER_04
Stories and science.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And that's what I loved about it, that this book was in fact a conversation or multiple conversations.
0
SPEAKER_03
And today we get to have this first conversation.
0
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So I want to start off with a question that actually comes from one of these beautiful paragraphs that you both start the book with.
0
SPEAKER_03
And if you don't mind, I'd love to read from it.
0
SPEAKER_03
And this section says, do I have your permission, both of you, if I could?
0
SPEAKER_03
Please, Jay, please read.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_03
 So you both say this book is for anyone with a mother, father, partner, or child who may have experienced trauma and if you've ever had labels like people pleaser, self-sabotage, disruptive, argumentative,
0
SPEAKER_03
 checked out, can't hold a job, or bad at relationships, used to describe you or your loved ones, this book is for you.
0
SPEAKER_03
Now, I don't know anyone who's never been told one of those things.
0
SPEAKER_03
I know I've heard some of them myself as well.
0
SPEAKER_03
And we've all heard those labels.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I want to ask you both this first question to start with.
0
SPEAKER_03
 is why is it so important to make this switch from us thinking what is wrong with you to what happened to you?
0
SPEAKER_04
Well, let me answer that because I first came across this question of what happened to you when I was doing an interview with Dr. Proust-Berry a couple of years ago for 60 Minutes Story I was doing.
0
SPEAKER_04
 Now, I've known Dr. Perry for over 30 years.
0
SPEAKER_04
I first started interviewing him in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s on The Oprah Show when we were talking about raising children and how important it is those first zero to six years.
0
SPEAKER_04
So I've been hearing about what it means to nurture and support the brain early on.
0
SPEAKER_04
It wasn't until that conversation a couple of years ago.
0
SPEAKER_04
 I don't know whether I think it's because of where I was in my life at the time.
0
SPEAKER_04
I opened a school in South Africa.
0
SPEAKER_04
I've had these wonderful, brilliant girls who come from traumatic backgrounds grow up and have really serious mental health issues.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And I was trying to, at the time, figure out, what are we doing wrong at our school?
0
SPEAKER_04
Something's really wrong here.
0
SPEAKER_04
And in that interview with Dr. Perry, he said, you know, most people ask the question, when kids are not behaving the way you want them to behave or what's wrong with them, we really should be asking about what's happened to you.
0
SPEAKER_04
And something went, aha!
0
SPEAKER_04
 in my brain.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was like a major moment, like I got it in a way that I hadn't received it before.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I realized that it's not just for children that you ask that question, but it's really everybody.
0
SPEAKER_04
And that moment, Bruce, as I've said to you many times, Dr. Perry,
0
SPEAKER_04
 changed 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 always talking about what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, I would always say, I wonder what happened
0
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 to that person.
0
SPEAKER_04
I wonder what happened to them younger that caused them to be this way.
0
SPEAKER_04
So all of the labels that you just gave, Jay, there is a world of labels.
0
SPEAKER_04
There is, you know, overachiever.
0
SPEAKER_04
There's, you know, obsessive compulsive moms, soccer moms.
0
SPEAKER_04
There is the desire to, you know, please people all the time.
0
SPEAKER_04
There's a multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple labels that refer back to what happened to us.
0
SPEAKER_04
 And so I will just say this.
0
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One of the things that Bruce says in the book, each of us comes into the world with our own worldview.
0
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And that worldview is actually shaped from the crib.
0
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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.
0
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So that's why what happened to you is the essential question.
0
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 So beautifully said.
0
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And I wish my brain had aha moments that sound like that Oprah too.
0
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I love that.
0
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And Dr. Perry, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
0
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 Well, 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
0
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 the things that happened in the past playing a major role in how things were functioning currently.
0
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And I think that that's, I think most people are able to kind of make that connection.
0
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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 shape the systems in our brain that influence how we think about things, how we feel about things and how we behave.
0
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And it really,
0
SPEAKER_01
 it leads to a completely different approach to getting to know somebody.
0
SPEAKER_01
You enter the interaction with a curious mindset.
0
SPEAKER_01
You're curious about like, what's going on?
0
SPEAKER_01
I mean, and it really, I think, is as Oprah says, it really opens up this new perspective on understanding a person.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can be much more empathic with them as opposed to being so judgmental.
0
SPEAKER_03
 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
0
SPEAKER_03
 that fear that people feel on the receiving end of that as well, to me just that switch of question is so powerful.
0
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So what I want to do now is I want to ask you both questions throughout the different chapters of the books as no one really has it till today.
0
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And I'd like to start with you Dr. Perry and ask you what
0
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 What happened to you?
0
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What inspired you to study child trauma?
0
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You know, where did your journey start and why did it become so important to you?
0
SPEAKER_03
Because obviously this is something that you've done for decades.
0
SPEAKER_03
Tell us about the beginning of that journey.
0
SPEAKER_01
 Well, it started kind of randomly because when I went to college at Stanford, they have a freshman seminar process where they take incoming freshmen and they assign them to some eminent faculty member.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then for every week for the whole year, you meet with that person and you get to know their work and have conversations.
0
SPEAKER_01
It's a great experience.
0
SPEAKER_01
 And I was randomly assigned to Seymour Levine, who is the grandfather and now great-grandfather of almost all of the big stress researchers in our field.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he had just been doing a series of studies looking at how you could take a little rat pup and give it a tiny little bit of stress, handling stress.
0
SPEAKER_01
You just take it out of the litter, hold it, and then put it back after a certain period of time, and then let the animal grow up.
0
SPEAKER_01
 And then when they looked at those animals, their brain was very different than the brains of animals that didn't have that tiny little stress.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I thought that was stunning that you could have an experience that was literally minutes long, and it would influence in a lifelong way, the functioning of this really critical set of systems in your brain that are involved in how every organ in your body functions.
0
SPEAKER_05
 When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it's powerful.
0
SPEAKER_06
That's where The Bright Side comes in.
0
SPEAKER_06
A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's bringing you a daily dose of joy.
0
SPEAKER_06
I'm Danielle Robay.
0
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And I'm Simone Boyce.
1
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 Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters.
1
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We've covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy, but The Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new, and get into some friendly debates.
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That's right.
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Join us five days a week to see how life can look from The Bright Side.
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We'll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you.
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Whether it's relationships, friend advice, or figuring out how to navigate life's transitions, we'll talk through it all together.
1
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 Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_04
Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_05
It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
1
SPEAKER_04
 like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
1
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We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
1
SPEAKER_04
And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
1
SPEAKER_04
So let's figure this stuff out together.
1
SPEAKER_04
This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
1
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 We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
1
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And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
1
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All that plus so much more.
1
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Let's learn about all of it and then some.
1
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_07
 Guess what, Bango?
1
SPEAKER_07
What's up, Will?
1
SPEAKER_07
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_06
 I know, that's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
1
SPEAKER_06
It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it's called Earthquake House.
1
SPEAKER_07
Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there.
1
SPEAKER_06
Why don't we just tell people about our show instead?
1
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, that's a better idea.
1
SPEAKER_06
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions.
1
SPEAKER_06
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
1
SPEAKER_06
Is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto?
1
SPEAKER_06
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
1
SPEAKER_07
 Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
1
SPEAKER_07
How do dollar stores stay in business?
1
SPEAKER_07
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
1
SPEAKER_06
There absolutely is.
1
SPEAKER_06
And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
1
SPEAKER_06
But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_07
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_08
 And from that point forward, I was studying the development of the stress response systems in animals and then got into clinical work.
1
SPEAKER_08
And it's interesting, you know, going back to what Oprah said about labels.
1
SPEAKER_08
 When you go into mental health and start to get trained, there is a manual that people use, the DSM, and it's full of labels.
1
SPEAKER_08
And it's based on the symptoms that somebody has.
1
SPEAKER_08
And basically it's a big book that says, what's wrong with you?
1
SPEAKER_08
And it doesn't say what happened to you.
1
SPEAKER_08
And so I was a developmentalist and I had been studying the brain and I went into this field and I'm like, wait a minute, there's about 30 different ways that you can become inattentive.
1
SPEAKER_08
 You know, you can have attention problems from hyperthyroidism and developmental trauma and, you know, lead toxicity and all kinds of things.
1
SPEAKER_08
We need to ask, you know, we need to get to know the people that were giving these labels.
1
SPEAKER_08
And if we did that, I think that we would stop giving them labels and start giving them some solutions.
1
SPEAKER_00
 Absolutely, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for sharing that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And Oprah, as you were saying earlier, the book is full of stories and the science.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when I was reading about your own childhood stories and traumas in this book, it's difficult at times and it's challenging, but at the same time, your level of honesty and transparency is
1
SPEAKER_00
 is genuinely such an inspiration for myself and countless other people who are struggling as well and you know when I was diving into the book there were moments where I just
1
SPEAKER_00
 I was so grateful to you for what you shared.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, you open up about a story about how your grandmother used to whip you over the smallest, most insignificant things like spilling a glass of water and this harsh, right, exactly, breaking a plate.
1
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And this harsh, this harsh behavior was normal for you as a kid.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you said something in the book that really stood out to me.
1
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You said that,
1
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 The long-term impact of being whipped turned you into a world-class people pleaser for most of your life.
1
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I want to know, how did you become aware of that 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?
1
SPEAKER_02
 Well, thank you so much.
1
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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, Gail was the first black person I ever met who wasn't whipped as a child.
1
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I mean, she was the first person I ever encountered.
1
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So it is a part of the black culture to not just spank your children,
1
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 almost everybody you run into of a certain age was whipped as a child.
1
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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.
1
SPEAKER_02
So to really, I was in a boardroom having to confront someone
1
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 in my 40s, and I had so much anxiety about the fact that I was going to have to have this confrontation with somebody.
1
SPEAKER_02
Just the most normal disagreements would cause me a great sense of angst and worry, and oh my God, and what's going to happen.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I just said, where is this coming from?
1
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 Why am I so afraid when I am the one in the power seat?
1
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I am Oprah Winfrey running the Harpo Studios.
1
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My name's spelled backwards.
1
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I'm the person in charge.
1
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And in order to have a disagreement with somebody, I go through so much angst.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I realized, Jay, that
1
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 Even though I had the power, I still felt that every confrontation, I was going to get a whipping.
1
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 that a whipping was going to result.
1
SPEAKER_02
That thing that used to come up inside me when I had to walk to get my own switch.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh, where is this feeling coming?
1
SPEAKER_02
I'm feeling like in every confrontation, I'm going to get a whipping.
1
SPEAKER_02
And at the end of it, that person's going to be mad at me.
1
SPEAKER_02
And at the end of it, that person's going to say, you better not act like you're mad.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, all the things that happened to me as a kid.
1
SPEAKER_02
So it wasn't until I was a full grown adult in my own seat of
1
SPEAKER_02
 you know, perceived power, feeling those feelings of anxiety and anxiousness, having to have the slightest bit of confrontation.
1
SPEAKER_02
So what I say in
1
SPEAKER_02
 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 and not heard.
1
SPEAKER_02
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.
1
SPEAKER_02
So what happened to me taught me
1
SPEAKER_02
 that my opinions do not matter.
1
SPEAKER_02
Keep your opinions to yourself and do whatever you can to please other people so that other people will like you, so that other people will not be upset with you.
1
SPEAKER_02
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
1
SPEAKER_02
 because I had been taught 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.
1
SPEAKER_02
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 of my life.
1
SPEAKER_00
 Thank you for sharing that, that full journey.
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
We don't even realize that it's, that there's any, it was just normal to you.
1
SPEAKER_00
You just expected it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that really brings us nicely, Dr. Perry, to this, this thought about what's something you talk about, how we're loved in the book.
1
SPEAKER_00
 And, you know, you say that a common phrase people use whenever a child acts out is that he or she must not have been loved as a child, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
And in the book, you go on to explain that how it isn't a matter of how many hugs and kisses you received as a kid.
1
SPEAKER_00
So for the parents watching,
1
SPEAKER_00
 And I'm sure there are many parents watching.
1
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And for those of you who are watching right now and enjoying this conversation, I highly recommend to make sure that you go and order yourself a copy of the book.
1
SPEAKER_00
But for those of you that are watching, and Dr. Perry, when you think about this, what should parents be thinking about differently or doing differently that many of them may be missing today in the idea of wanting to give love?
1
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And often our perspective on what love is or our definition of what love is feels like hugs and kisses.
1
SPEAKER_08
 Well, first of all, to clarify, hugs and kisses are nice things, and they can be part of a really positive, loving environment.
1
SPEAKER_08
 But one of the things about the brain is that these systems in our brain that allow us to form relationships and maintain them in a healthy way, the systems that allow us to love and be empathic and become ultimately humane, these systems develop like any other system in the brain that require repetition, repetition, repetition.
1
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That when you want to get better at piano, you have to practice your piano.
1
SPEAKER_08
When you want to get better at reading, you need to read and read and read.
1
SPEAKER_08
 And if you want to develop the capacity to form a healthy, loving relationship, you need lots of tiny little doses of attentive, attuned, responsive, nurturing interaction with people around you.
1
SPEAKER_08
 And, you know, a lot of people grow up and, and again, this is this, this is language that's not uncommon in our world is that it's the quality and not the quantity.
1
SPEAKER_08
You know, so if you give your child a little quality time, then that is somehow supposed to overcome the fact that you're gone for five days of the week.
1
SPEAKER_08
 And it just doesn't it doesn't do that.
1
SPEAKER_08
You know, children need your presence, even if it's your neutral presence.
1
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And they come over and they give you a hug and they wander away.
1
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They come over and they ask you a question and they wander away.
1
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And they need lots of tiny little doses of positive interaction.
1
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And now one of the challenges in our modern world is that we have so many isolated single caregivers, parents who may have multiple children who need that.
1
SPEAKER_08
 And since in the modern world, we've moved away from having aunties and grandparents and neighbors playing a role in this sort of community caregiving model.
1
SPEAKER_08
We've got tons of exhausted, overwhelmed caregivers who are trying to do their very best, but there's just no physical way possible that they could meet all of these needs of these children.
1
SPEAKER_08
And so I think that that's a big, that's,
1
SPEAKER_08
 a burden that our society needs to address and think about how to create more relationally enriched environments to support our young parents, because the vast majority of them would do the right things.
1
SPEAKER_08
They'd just be drawn to do the right things if they weren't exhausted, worn out, worried about housing, worried about food.
1
SPEAKER_08
You know, we structurally contribute to the inability of these caregivers to provide those loving environments.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, one of the things Dr. Perry says in the book, Jay, is that we're the only country in the world that does this, that we're the only country that expects a single mother to be everything and all things, you know, to children, whereas other countries where there is, number one, a greater respect for the elders and the elders' involvement in the child's development and aunties and cousins and family members.
1
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And so when you don't have that,
1
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 These moms, which I feel so deeply for, moms who are trying to do it all.
1
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It's impossible to be able to do it all.
1
SPEAKER_08
 It is.
1
SPEAKER_08
And the thing for an infant and a child growing up, love isn't the feeling the parent has for the child.
1
SPEAKER_08
Love is an action, right?
1
SPEAKER_08
Love is sort of night after night, after night, after night, getting up and meeting their fundamental needs when they're hungry, thirsty, cold.
1
SPEAKER_08
And over time, as they build in these neurobiological capabilities,
1
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 to mature, then you can move to more emotional variations of that equivalent of love.
1
SPEAKER_08
So now that we're adults, we can actually say, you know what, there's somebody in my past, who was present attentive, and I love that person.
1
SPEAKER_08
And and if you if you know, that's that is love, but your ability to sort of
1
SPEAKER_08
 build that much more advanced neurobiological capability emerge from thousands and thousands and thousands of repetitions of these loving, nurturing relational interactions.
1
SPEAKER_02
 I think that's such a great point because as I grew older, and it wasn't just my grandmother whipping me, but other people, I remember getting a whipping once and having one of my relatives say, I'm whipping you because I love you.
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, it certainly didn't feel like love, certainly didn't feel like love.
1
SPEAKER_02
But I know that for that generation, the idea of,
1
SPEAKER_02
 I'm going to keep you in line and I'm going to make sure you're disciplined and that you're going to obey and do the right thing, in their minds might have felt like love, but certainly did not feel like or was interpreted by me to mean love.
1
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I think for anybody who's listening to us or watching right now, and I know if you are culturally raised the way I was,
1
SPEAKER_02
 you have a lot of pain behind those whippings.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I remember doing a show on the Oprah show years later, talking about should children be spanked and a black woman stood up and said, well, I got beat every day and I was in the choir and my father beat me in front of the whole congregation in church and I turned out okay.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I'm like, did you really?
1
SPEAKER_02
Because nobody, anybody who's ever been hit realizes the humiliation of that.
1
SPEAKER_02
What you feel more than anything
1
SPEAKER_02
 even as a little kid, is the humiliation of it.
1
SPEAKER_02
And what you are being told in that moment is that you have no value, that you are worth nothing, that you are so worthless that I get now to lay my hands on you and physically beat you.
1
SPEAKER_02
So it takes a lot.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I would have to say that
1
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 It was a lot for me to overcome to begin to understand that my life was of value.
1
SPEAKER_02
And as I say in What Happened to You, what did that for me were relationships with my teachers.
1
SPEAKER_02
I could cry right now thinking about
1
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 the teachers who stood in the gap for me and made me feel valued, made me feel important.
1
SPEAKER_02
So it was only at school or speaking in church that I felt a sense of I mattered.
1
SPEAKER_02
 that there was some meaning and purpose for me in life.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so when I was talking to Bruce on 60 Minutes, I said, Bruce, please explain to me why I'm not crazy.
1
SPEAKER_02
Because I grew up in these circumstances where I should have no self-values, no self-worth.
1
SPEAKER_02
But Bruce, as he explains in What Happened to You, you don't have to have it come from your family.
1
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 other relationships with people who are nurturing, supporting, caring, and actually just see you.
1
SPEAKER_02
So the reason why I love school so much is because that's the place that I felt seen.
1
SPEAKER_00
 Yeah, it makes me so happy to hear you both give people the permission to realize that they don't have to have it all figured out and that they can't have it all figured out and that it's, we're all trying to be the perfect parent, the perfect person, the perfect professional, the perfect partner and perfection's impossible as it is, but
1
SPEAKER_00
 Even that striving for you giving everyone the permission to realize and also i love that point i was just made around how this is not just what's happening at home it can be.
1
SPEAKER_00
I tend to amplified by what happens at school or it can be nurtured and nourished and improved as well by what happens in one of the things you talk about the book.
1
SPEAKER_00
 when we're talking about the need for rhythm and balance.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that's what I think this book does so beautifully is what this book allowed me to do was feel vulnerably, but then project that onto a framework of how to think about it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, and I think that that is such a refreshing thing because often we're told to be vulnerable and be open and then you, you let it all out and then you're like, Oh, well, this is just a mess.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don't know where to put it all.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, this book allows you to kind of go, okay, well,
1
SPEAKER_00
 That makes sense, and this is how I place this.
1
SPEAKER_00
How do you recommend for people to find the time to create rhythms?
1
SPEAKER_00
I know you say you block out the Sunday to be with yourself and spend time walking in nature, trying not to be distracted.
1
SPEAKER_00
For anyone right now who's saying, I recognize from hearing both of you that I must have some trauma, where do I find the time to unpack it?
1
SPEAKER_00
How do I make time for that?
1
SPEAKER_00
And where do I start?
1
SPEAKER_02
 Well, you start with understanding that your cup being full is how you allow yourself to give to other people.
1
SPEAKER_02
You can't give what you don't have.
1
SPEAKER_02
You can't love if you haven't been loved.
1
SPEAKER_02
You don't even know how to begin to do that.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I think it begins with fundamentally understanding that you are worthy enough, you are valuable enough, you matter enough to give yourself
1
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 the love that you deserve.
1
SPEAKER_02
And that starts by taking out time for yourself.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I have my own rhythm and pattern.
1
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I know that if I go six days and then by the seventh or eighth, don't give myself a break, that
1
SPEAKER_02
 Lots of other things give that I'm not as alert.
1
SPEAKER_02
I'm not as attuned.
1
SPEAKER_02
I'm not as centered.
1
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I'm not as focused.
1
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So I know that that is my limit.
1
SPEAKER_02
I cannot go beyond a certain amount of days.
1
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And for me, walking in nature is my solace.
1
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It is where I feel that I am one with all and all being, you know, all creation.
1
SPEAKER_02
 you know, connected.
1
SPEAKER_02
For other people, it may be dancing, it may be music, it may be knitting, it may be whatever it is that brings some kind of rhythmic pattern into your life.
1
SPEAKER_02
Actually, it was Bruce and I were walking on my campus in South Africa, and there were a group of girls dancing, literally on the lawn, because Lord knows they love to dance.
1
SPEAKER_02
And Bruce says, Oh, that's not just fun.
1
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I said, Oh, they're just having fun.
1
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And Bruce said, Oh, they're not just having fun.
1
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They actually are healing themselves.
1
SPEAKER_02
 because the rhythmic pattern, that's why when you've been in an argument with someone or you're in the middle of an argument with somebody, if you just go and take a walk or you go and turn on some music and you start dancing, if you just have some form of movement, you feel better.
1
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That's number one.
1
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Number two, one of the most important things, most important takeaways from what happened to you, I believe,
1
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 is understanding how the brain works.
1
SPEAKER_02
And that diagram that's on page 26 or 27 about the inverted brain being like a triangle.
1
SPEAKER_02
So you see that beginning with the brain stem, that's the lower part of the brain, all the way to the cortex and through the limbic area, you understand that
1
SPEAKER_02
 We're looking at it right there.
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You understand that when you're upset or in fear or angry or are in an antagonized state and you're trying to reason with a person, a child, your spouse, your boss, your friend,
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 they literally cannot hear you because the reasoning part of the brain is in the cortex and what you're saying is only reaching the brain stem.
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So whenever somebody is dysregulated, which is what that is, being anxious and fearful and yelling and screaming, the thing to do is to calm yourself first
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 then you will be able to help that other person get calm and regulated.
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That's how you get to reason.
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But if you both are just yelling at each other, literally, and you're going, you don't hear me, and you don't hear me either, and you're like, they actually cannot hear you.
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That's what I thought was so fascinating.
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I think I explained it well, right?
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Yes, I'm just sitting here smiling.
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Do you concur?
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Dr. Perry, do you concur?
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I just want to make sure because- I do, I do.
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This is actually a lot of fun.
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 Oprah's just become a neuroscientist, so we're going to expect you to now tell a story to trade places.
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But it's so amazing to hear you explain that, and that's exactly what I meant by giving a framework to really look at it in such a clear way.
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 in a way that we're often not encouraged to see it because it sounds too difficult or too complicated, but to simplify that idea is that here's what you think is going on and here's what's happening inside your brain.
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And Dr. Perry, when you dive into the science, you quote a study and a survey
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 that said that almost 50% of children in the United States have had at least one significant traumatic experience, but a lot of people will still deny ever having experienced trauma.
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A lot of people will feel uncomfortable.
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 admitting and accepting that they have experienced some trauma.
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What are some of our misconceptions around what trauma is and how it affects us?
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And would you mind explaining what sort of experiences are defined as traumatic to help us expand our definition?
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 So most of us first heard the concept of trauma, as we're talking about it now, in context of post-traumatic stress disorder and combat veterans.
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And so even within our field in psychiatry, the majority of people who studied trauma and looked at trauma were looking at the effects of these horrific events, exposure to combat, death of a soldier next to you,
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 you know, the thing to understand around trauma, but over time, the people like me who are studying the stress response systems in in animal models.
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 we're very well aware that it's not necessarily these big traumatic events that are easily identified by everybody as a trauma that will lead to the changes in the brain that cause the problems.
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And so certainly if you do have these events, that can be a problem.
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So natural disaster, house fire, car accident, abuse of all sorts, that's certainly traumatic.
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 But probably the most important thing, and I think the thing that's impacting more children and adults than anything else, are experiences that are patterns of stress activation where you have no control over the experience.
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It's not predictable and it's prolonged, it's ongoing.
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And I think to some degree, the experiences of the last year
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 uh are uh an example for many people of a prolonged set of uncontrollable and unpredictable stressors and we've all felt sort of our baseline level of tolerance is going down we're a little bit more tired we can handle situations a little bit less and so what we've been studying is
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 the combination of these experiences where you are not in control of your life.
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And it may be a child who's living in a domestic violence environment where he or she is not the direct target of all of this stuff, but there's so much unpredictability about when the fighting is gonna happen.
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And there's so much unpredictability about whether mom is gonna be in a good mood today or a bad mood, or dad's gonna be angry or not angry.
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And that can lead to these physiological changes
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 that increase your risk for physical health problems, mental health problems, and learning problems.
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And so that's kind of where we're moving in the field is this recognition that you don't just have to have some sort of capital T trauma in your life to be impacted by trauma.
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And in fact, if you are
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 a minority in a majority culture, you're going to get all kinds of experiences where you're getting these relational interactions that are sending the signal that you don't belong, which will activate your stress response, which can over time accumulate and influence your physical and mental health.
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 Yeah, thank you, Dr. Perry, for, you know, illuminating on that point, because I think for so many of us, as you rightly just said, that we feel that trauma only means trauma with a capital T. And so we often disregard, we often let these things just fade away and, you know, put them under the carpet and just not really give them enough emphasis and focus because we don't see them as being significant.
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And so, yes, Oprah.
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I wanted to say that
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 One of the most important points I think Dr. Perry makes in What Happened to You is that neglect is as toxic as trauma.
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And so even though you might not have had a trauma with a big T, it boils down to, did you get what you needed?
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And I have done so many interviews, as I know you have too, Jay, with people who are raised in the same family.
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 Everybody in that family has a different experience.
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And sometimes siblings are arguing about a thing that happened because from their point of view, it felt like one thing.
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And from the other person's point of view, it felt like another thing.
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Well, that is the reality of life, that you can have two children, four children, six children raised in the same household, and they experience the love of their parents differently.
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 And not all the kids could have gotten what they needed, and some of the kids got what they needed.
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So neglect is you not getting what you needed for your worldview, for your personal approach to life, your sense of self.