Favorite Quotes: What Happened to You?

I recently finished the book What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey. 

One of the best classes I took when I was working on my degree in Marriage and Family Studies was called Family Stress and Coping. In that course, we studied stress theory and resilience. I was absolutely fascinated by what I learned, and the topic of resilience has been of interest to me ever since. 

If I could have a super power, it would be perfect recall. I hate that I can't retain everything I learn in life. It frustrates me. And now that it's been five years since I graduated (and almost seven years since I took Family Stress & Coping), so much of what I learned is gone! It's devastating to me.

Anyway, this book was a great refresher on resilience, and I quite enjoyed it. It appealed to my personal interests and education. 

Here are some of the quotes I liked and want to remember:

"When you find an addiction, do not be ashamed. Be joyful. You have found something that you have come to this Earth to heal. When you confront and heal an addiction, you are doing the deepest spiritual work that you can do on this Earth." - Gary Zukav, Spiritual Teacher

(My commentary: This is my favorite quote from the book. It completely blew my mind and made me feel ready to acknowledge and confront some of my own issues).

"The most powerful form of reward is relational. Positive interactions with people are rewarding and regulating. Without connection to people who care for you, it is almost impossible to step away from any form of unhealthy reward and regulation. This includes alcohol overuse, drug overuse, eating too much sweet and salty food, porn, cutting or spending hours on video games. Connectedness counters the pull of addictive behaviors. It is the key."  -Dr. Perry

"If you are loved, you learn to love." -Dr. Perry

"Our major finding is that your history of relational health - your connectedness to family, community, and culture - is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity. This is similar to the findings of other researchers looking at the power of positive relationships on health. Connectedness has the power to counterbalance adversity." -Dr. Perry

"...a meaningful dose of therapeutic interaction isn't forty-five minutes once a week. When you're dealing with an intense trauma, we've found that the "tolerable" dose is only seconds long... You can stand the emotional intensity of visiting the wreckage of your trauma-fractured life for only a few seconds before your brain starts to do things to protect you from the pain...It is the therapeutic dosing that really leads to healing. Moments. Fully present, powerful but brief." - Dr. Perry 

(My commentary: This quote was to illustrate that long conversations about traumatic experiences aren't always what a person needs. Sometimes we want our kids to "talk about it" - thinking that's what will help them heal. Dr. Perry shared examples of just spending a quick five minutes with victims of trauma and letting those moments add up over time as they built trust rather than having the victims "talk about it" at length)

"Ten thousand years ago, humankind had the genetic potential to read a book, yet not one single human on the planet could read; the genetic potential to play the piano existed, yet not one person could play; the genetic potential to dunk a basketball, type a sentence, ride a bicycle - all that potential existed, but it all remained unexpressed." -Dr. Perry

(My commentary: This makes me wonder what we have the potential to achieve but haven't yet had the opportunity)

:...all of us tend to gravitate toward the familiar, even when the familiar is unhealthy or destructive. We are drawn to what we were raised with." -Dr. Perry

"We feel better with the  certainty of misery than the misery of uncertainty." -Virginia Satir, Psychologist

"When someone is very upset, words themselves are not very effective. The tone and rhythm of the voice probably has more impact than the actual words...simply be present... You can't talk someone out of feeling angry, sad, or frustrated, but you can be a sponge and absorb their emotional intensity. If you stay regulated, ultimately they can "catch" your calm." -Dr. Perry

"Even though we live in an amazing country filled with good people, I believe that collectively we're less resilient. Our ability as a people to tolerate stressors is diminishing because our connectedness is diminishing...Conversation, for example, promotes resilience; discussions and arguments over family dinners and mildly heated conversations with friends are - as long as there is repair - resilience-building and empathy-growing experiences. We shouldn't be walking away from a conversation in a rage; we should regulate ourselves. Repair the ruptures. Reconnect and grow. When you walk away, everybody loses. We all need to get better at listening, regulating, reflecting. This requires the capacity to forgive, to be patient. Mature human interactions involve efforts to understand people who are different from you. But if we don't have family meals, don't go out with friends for long, in-person conversations, and communicate only via text or Twitter, then we can't create that positive, healthy back-and-forth pattern of human connection." -Dr. Perry

(My commentary: This coincides with some research from Dr. John Gottman, who specializes in marriage. He has found that it is not a lack of fighting that makes a strong marital relationship, but the repair process after fighting or disagreeing. You need to disagree, to argue, to "fight." It's how you recover from it and move forward that makes your relationship strong). 

"...the rate of invention is now exceeding the rate at which we can problem-solve." - Dr. Perry "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." -Isaac Asimov, Biochemist

"When you've lived through adversity, you can come to a point in your life where you can look back, reflect, learn, and grow from the experience. I believe it's hard to understand humankind unless you know a little bit about adversity. Adversity, challenges, disappointment, loss, trauma - all can contribute to the capacity to be broadly empathetic, to become wise. Trauma and adversity, in a way, are gifts. What we do with these gifts will differ from person to person." -Dr. Perry