Give Me 30 Minutes and I’ll Teach You How to Let Go of the Past

Jay Shetty 0:00 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. 70% of adults in the US 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. 61% of patients with first-episode depression and 51% with recurring depression 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. Gabor Maté 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. You're carrying something that was never meant to be yours to begin with. Let's get into it.

Speaker 1:36 The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

Speaker 1:39 Jay Shetty.

Speaker 1:40 The one, the only Jay Shetty. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:45 Dr. Gabor Maté 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 illness, or disconnection in your relationships. For example, nearly 80% of autoimmune patients report a significant emotional stressor before onset. 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 changing who you are. It's about coming back to the parts of yourself you had to leave behind.

Speaker 2:33 I often say to people, "You're gonna have pain one way or the other."

Jay Shetty 2:37 Yes.

Speaker 2:38 Which pain would you like?

Jay Shetty 2:39 Mm. Mm.

Speaker 2:40 'Cause sometimes in life there's no pain-free options.

Jay Shetty 2:43 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:44 You can have the pain of suppressing yourself-

Jay Shetty 2:46 Mm-hmm

Speaker 2:47 ... for the sake of being accepted, or you can have the pain sometimes of being yourself and not being accepted.

Jay Shetty 2:53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:55 You're gonna have pain one way or the other.

Jay Shetty 2:56 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:57 And I have my own bias, that the pain of not being ourselves ultimately is by far the greater and the more chronic pain.

Jay Shetty 3:06 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:07 And that the pain, the short-term pain of being ourselves brings liberation-

Jay Shetty 3:11 Mm

Speaker 3:11 ... and genuine independence, which means I can have genuinely independent the relationships with other people who are willing to accept me as independent.

Jay Shetty 3:19 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:20 You know? But in the short term, which pain do you want?

Jay Shetty 3:24 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:25 Not... There's no pain-free option.

Jay Shetty 3:27 [laughs]

Speaker 3:28 You know?

Jay Shetty 3:28 Yeah, for sure. That you reminded me of this beautiful idea that Thich Nhat Hanh shares that there's familiar pain and unfamiliar pain.

Speaker 3:39 Mm.

Jay Shetty 3:39 And these are our two choices. And the challenge is we're so scared of unfamiliar pain-

Speaker 3:45 Yeah

Jay Shetty 3:46 ... that we would rather choose familiar pain-

Speaker 3:48 Yeah

Jay Shetty 3:49 ... and go through the same pain because we know how it's going to feel.

Speaker 3:53 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 3:53 And we think, "Oh, at least I'm aware. At least I am conscious of how bad it can get."

Speaker 3:59 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 4:00 But hearing you speak, being independent or being dependent both has pain.

Speaker 4:06 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 4:07 And, but the pain of dependence far outweighs the pain of independence.

Speaker 4:13 Well, just put a bit of a nuance in there.

Jay Shetty 4:16 Mm.

Speaker 4:16 Ultimately, I mean, I mean, Thich Nhat Hanh also talk about inter-being.

Jay Shetty 4:20 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:20 How we all inter-are.

Jay Shetty 4:22 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:22 So in a certain sense, we do depend on each other, you know? And, and that's okay. The question is, do we depend on any- each other authentically or inauthentically? The fact that I'm independent doesn't mean that I'm not gonna reach out for help.

Jay Shetty 4:36 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:37 Or that I won't offer it.

Jay Shetty 4:38 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:39 But it does mean that I will be honest with you, and I won't pretend to be somebody else that I'm not-

Jay Shetty 4:47 Mm

Speaker 4:47 ... so that you'll accept me.

Jay Shetty 4:48 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:48 You know? So there's anything interesting word difference be- between two phrases that sound very familiar. One is called individualism, and the other is called individuation.

Jay Shetty 5:00 Mm.

Speaker 5:01 Now, rugged individualism is, "I don't need anybody, and I... You know, it's me against the world," and this is the North American capitalist ideal, you know? Well, human beings never would have evolved had we been those rugged individualists.

Jay Shetty 5:15 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:16 The rugged individualists wouldn't last more than one generation.

Jay Shetty 5:19 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:21 But individuated means that we can be ourselves, truly ourselves, in genuine relationship with others.

Jay Shetty 5:30 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:31 Not rugged individualists.

Jay Shetty 5:33 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:34 I, I mean, the most boring people are rugged individualists 'cause they all look the same, you know? [laughs] So, so you can be, um, individuated and be truly yourself-

Jay Shetty 5:46 Mm

Speaker 5:47 ... and still belong and still vulnerably-

Jay Shetty 5:51 Mm-hmm

Speaker 5:52 ... desire human contact.

Jay Shetty 5:53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:54 You know?

Jay Shetty 5:54 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 5:55 I, I couldn't agree more. I think there's a lot of rhetoric around, "Well, don't care what anyone else thinks," and, "It doesn't matter," and, "You just do your own thing." And-

Speaker 6:05 Yeah

Jay Shetty 6:05 ... 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 didn't care what anyone thought-

Speaker 6:15 Yeah

Jay Shetty 6:16 ... it wouldn't be that healthy because we would do all sorts of obscene, horrific things.

Speaker 6:22 I'd phrase it differently.

Jay Shetty 6:23 I'm intrigued, yeah. I'm intrigued.

Speaker 6:24 Yeah. I don't care what anybody thinks, but I do care what I do and how it affects other people.

Jay Shetty 6:31 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:31 You know, so th- th- there's another, uh, spiritual teacher, Gunaratana, he wrote a book called, uh, Mindfulness in Plain English.

Jay Shetty 6:40 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:40 Which I've just been working through recently, and, um, he's talking about a higher morality that comes from being true to yourself and in touch. And he says, "Well, you don't need rules anymore because it's like St. Augustine said, uh, love and do what you will."

Jay Shetty 6:56 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:57 So if you actually love the world, you don't have to give yourself rules because that love will dictate-

Jay Shetty 7:02 Mm-hmm

Speaker 7:03 ... how you act towards other people. I can't worry about what other people think. Look, if I worried about what other people think, I would not have written any of my books, 'cause each of my books challenge the, the reigning orthodoxy in, in, say, medicine, you know, or whether it's around attention deficit or stress and disease or addictions. I mean, every time I write a book, I'm saying something that ... I'm not saying that I invented it, but that I have come to understand and-

Jay Shetty 7:28 Mm-hmm

Speaker 7:28 ... fervently, uh, believe and wanna communicate. But I can't worry about what other people think.

Jay Shetty 7:33 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7:34 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 I ... But that doesn't mean that I can, that I can ignore other people's experience.

Jay Shetty 7:45 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7:46 So as long as my intention is purely to speak a truth, and I do so with integrity, I can't worry about what other people think.

Jay Shetty 7:55 Yeah.

Speaker 7:55 I, I, I can't.

Jay Shetty 7:56 Yeah.

Speaker 7:56 But that doesn't mean I'm gonna go around just doing terrible things-

Jay Shetty 7:59 Mm-hmm

Speaker 7:59 ... 'cause I don't care what, what you think. As, as long as I'm convinced that what I do, if I ch- if I've done that kind of inventory-

Jay Shetty 8:07 Mm

Speaker 8:08 ... and I haven't always.

Jay Shetty 8:09 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:10 But if I do an inventory about, well, what is my intention here?

Jay Shetty 8:15 Is there a hierarchy of pain or hierarchy of trauma?

Speaker 8:19 What do you mean by hierarchy?

Jay Shetty 8:21 I feel like people feel like, well, this trauma's worse than this trauma, and this trauma is better than this one. We often hear about that as a conversation. Is that accurate?

Speaker 8:30 So one could say so, uh, 'cause if you look at a child who's, say, sexually abused as opposed to a child whose parents just can't honor and accept and, and validate their emotions, well, my God, you're talking about two different set of experiences so that there's certainly horrific things happen 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 were my four-year-old. You come to me and you say, uh, "Dad, I'm afraid of so-and-so." And I say, "Snap out of it. Only cowards are afraid. Now get out of here and take care of yourself." And then you went to your mom and said, [crying] "I tried to talk to Daddy, but he," you know. Would it be helpful for your mother to say, "Oh, snap out of it. Think of all the kids that are being sexually abused. Think of all the starving kids. Think of all the kids that are being bombed. What are you complaining about?" Would that be helpful?

Jay Shetty 9:39 No.

Speaker 9:40 So that it's not a helpful game to play. I don't compare people's traumas. Uh, 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-

Jay Shetty 9:54 Mm

Speaker 9:54 ... or much worse than yours. So objectively, yes. Practically, it's not a helpful distinction.

Jay Shetty 10:02 Mm.

Speaker 10:03 Uh, 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 you asked me to stitch it up, it wouldn't be helpful for me to tell you that, "Oh, what are you worried about? There's people with broken arms out there," or people with broken ... You know. So no, it's not a helpful-

Jay Shetty 10:22 Mm

Speaker 10:22 ... thing to engage in, even though there's truth in it.

Jay Shetty 10:27 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:28 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 12 months tell me about that in their experience. Yet 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 you whole. You mentioned grief and the new, uh, the song "Pieces" in the new album.

John Legend 11:18 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:19 There's a, there's the beautiful lyli- lyric, "Let your broken heart learn to live in pieces."

John Legend 11:24 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 11:24 And I just, I literally just haven't stopped thinking about that.

John Legend 11:28 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 11:28 Because I think that there's so much about us that's constantly trying to get everything to fit.

John Legend 11:35 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 11:35 And even with the heart, we're trying to become whole again.

John Legend 11:37 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 11:37 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-

John Legend 11:43 Well-

Jay Shetty 11:43 ... idea?

John Legend 11:44 ... the 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, of memory and th- that it'll come back. Um, it doesn't mean you can't heal. It doesn't mean you can't recover. But it does mean that that grief will, will still be a part of who you are, a part of your story. Effectively recovering from that means not forgetting it, not that it didn't happen, but learning to live with it-

Jay Shetty 12:20 Yeah

John Legend 12:20 ... and learning to continue, uh, to live with it and, and, and experience life and joy and pain and all the things that come in life afterwards. Um, continue to, like-Live on

Jay Shetty 12:32 Yeah

John Legend 12:33 um, despite the fact that this grief won't ever leave you completely.

Jay Shetty 12:37 Yeah. It's almost, it's almost like we're asking the wrong question-

John Legend 12:41 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 12:41 ... where it was like, "How do I move on? How do I get over this?"

John Legend 12:43 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 12:43 And you're saying, "Well-

John Legend 12:44 And you're saying you're gonna... I'm saying you're gonna carry it. It's, it's pa- 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. It's always gonna be part of who we are, and I'm fine with that. Like, it's part of who we are. It's... We carry it with us and it, and it's okay.

Jay Shetty 13:09 Yeah. And that, and I'm sorry for your loss-

John Legend 13:11 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 13:11 ... and I'm le- you know, that, I mean, I don't think there's pretty much anything harder to go through than, than what you went through.

John Legend 13:17 Yeah. I, I've never been through anything harder.

Jay Shetty 13:19 Yeah. Yeah

John Legend 13:19 But it just means, you know, when you live long enough, you're gonna go through something like that. Uh, and figuring out how to continue to live as you carry that with you-

Jay Shetty 13:30 Yeah

John Legend 13:31 ... is, um, is what the song's really about.

Jay Shetty 13:33 Yeah. And often we find that those traumatic and difficult experiences can break people apart, but you gr- you, you focus on growing-

John Legend 13:40 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 13:40 ... closer together.

John Legend 13:41 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 13:42 What, what do you think is that difference? Like, your, your values are so clear. I can tell in this interview. I'm like, values of children, of family, of love-

John Legend 13:48 Mm

Jay Shetty 13:48 ... of kindness, of connection. Like, how do you in moments like that, is it that your values just drive you forward? Or like how do you make sure? Because I think sometimes people just have experiences that derail their everything else that's going right.

John Legend 14:02 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 14:03 Yeah?

John Legend 14:03 And I don't know-

Jay Shetty 14:04 Yeah

John Legend 14:04 ... because like I think part of it is just we are, we were already on a great foundation where we really respected and loved and enjoyed-

Jay Shetty 14:12 Yeah

John Legend 14:12 ... being with each other, respected 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 through pain, you know? Um, and I think we both committed to doing it, like doing the work that we needed to do to get through it.

Jay Shetty 14:33 Yeah. No, I'm happy to hear that.

John Legend 14:35 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 14:35 And, you know, my prayers and-

John Legend 14:37 Thank you

Jay Shetty 14:37 ... and good wishes are with you and the family-

John Legend 14:38 Yeah

Jay Shetty 14:38 ... because-

John Legend 14:39 Yeah. And I think having already had two kids together was-

Jay Shetty 14:44 Yeah

John Legend 14:44 ... um, definitely helpful because they just bring so much joy into our lives, and, and laughter and fun, and they, they're a great focus for our energy.

Jay Shetty 14:55 Yeah.

John Legend 14:56 And so even when you're going through deep grief o- on, on losing a pregnancy, you still have these two beautiful babies that you love.

Jay Shetty 15:02 Yeah.

John Legend 15:03 And I think that was certainly helpful.

Jay Shetty 15:05 Next, we'll hear Oprah and Dr. 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 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. 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?

Oprah Winfrey 16:00 Ooh, what a great question, Jay. I thought trauma, prior to my conversations with Bruce in, in doing this book, I thought trauma had to be a big, g- gigantic thing, experience. You had to go through a tsunami, literally a s- if not literally a tsunami, a tsunami-like crisis in your life. A fire, 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 microaggressions in a person's life that causes them to have their own worldview. Whatever that worldview is for you is different fr- 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 'cause b- both are equally as toxic. And so I'd always, you know, just 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 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 no sense of wholeness and love for yourself, there's going to be, uh, 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 loved, and then how they were able to process it, that, 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.

Jay Shetty 18:28 I love that. I,

Jay Shetty 18:29 I, I think it's a, a brilliant distinction between, you know, what we think is trauma and what, what trauma can be for all of us. I have one last question I wanted to ask you before we dive in to the conversation with Dr. Bruce Perry. It's this idea, you've interviewed so many influential, successful people, and people of all different backgrounds and walks of life.And so often their success is actually built on their trauma.

Oprah Winfrey 18:54 Ooh.

Jay Shetty 18:54 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?

Oprah Winfrey 19:08 That is deep, layered, complex question.

Jay Shetty 19:10 [laughs] Sorry.

Oprah Winfrey 19:10 So this is what I-- this is where there's many, many layers to that. What I, what I realize is that if you come into success and fame, and particularly fame, because fame is its own world and definition because it really is based upon what other people think of you, so fa-- because y- fame isn't what you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you. Um, when y- 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 you're supposed to do with that fame, it-- whenever somebody likes you or doesn't like you, that determines whether or not you are having a good day or a bad day, and you are-- you have lost control of your o- your own life. So I think what fame teaches you quickly is to grow the wholeness within yourself so that you're not controlled by others' outside opinions of you.

Jay Shetty 20:26 That is a beautiful answer, and, and I think it will resonate with so many because so many of us are on that journey to, you know, be successful or be famous or be rich or whatever it may be, but to hear it from that perspective is, is truly refreshing.

Jay Shetty 20:40 I wanna ask you both this first question to start with, is h- why is it so important to make this switch from us thinking what is wrong with you to what happened to you?

Oprah Winfrey 20:54 Well, I, I, let me answer that because I first, uh, came across this question of what's happened, what, what, what, what, what happened to you when I was doing an interview with Dr. Bruce Perry a couple of years ago for 60 Minutes story I was doing. Now, I've known, uh, Dr. Perry for over thirty years. I first started interviewing him in the early nineties, late eighties, early nineties on The Oprah Show when we were talking about, uh, 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, I think it's because of where I was in my life at the time. Um, 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 with Dr. 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 aha, aha, aha in my brain.

Jay Shetty 22:17 [laughs]

Oprah Winfrey 22:18 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 not just for children that you ask that question, but it's really everybody. And that moment, Bruce, as I've said to you many times, Dr. Perry, 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 to that person. I wonder what-

Jay Shetty 22:50 Mm

Oprah Winfrey 22:50 ... happened to them younger that caused them to be this way." So all of the labels that you just gave, Jay, uh, there, there is a world of labels. There is, you know, overachiever. There's, you know, obsessive compulsive moms, 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 is actually shaped from the crib."

Jay Shetty 23:32 Wow.

Oprah Winfrey 23:32 "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.

Jay Shetty 23:49 So beautifully said, and I, I wish my brain had aha moments that sound like that, Oprah, too, so. [laughs]

Oprah Winfrey 23:55 [laughs] Aha!

Jay Shetty 23:57 [laughs] I love that. And Dr. Perry, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 24:04 Well, I, I, I come at this from a slightly different perspective because I have a long history of being a history fan and had studied history, uh, 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, I think most 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 shape 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, it leads to a completely different approach to getting to know somebody. You're, you, you, you enter the interactionWith a curious mindset, you're curious about like, what, what's going on? I mean, i- i- and, and it really, I think, is, as Oprah says, it, 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.

Jay Shetty 25:15 Yeah. For me, that reframing that you both have so beautifully illuminated in this book is, is so subtle, but it's so powerful because it removes that judgment, it removes that, uh, negative observation, that criticism, that, that fear that people feel on the receiving end of that as well. To me, just that switch of question is, is so powerful, and, you know, when I, when I was diving into the book, there were, there were moments where I just... I was so grateful to you for what you shared, 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 hos-

Oprah Winfrey 25:58 Breaking a plate. Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 25:59 Right. Exactly. Breaking a plate. 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 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?

Oprah Winfrey 26:31 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, Gail is the first Black person I ever met who wasn't whipped as a child. I mean-

Jay Shetty 26:47 Wow

Oprah Winfrey 26:47 ... she was the first person I ever encountered. So it is a part of the Black culture to not just spank your children. Uh, almost everybody you run into of a certain age was whipped as a child. So that-

Jay Shetty 27:01 Mm-hmm

Oprah Winfrey 27:01 ... was such the norm for me that writing about it, um, for the first time is the first time I a- actually recognized, oh, this is not a normal thing.

Jay Shetty 27:14 Mm.

Oprah Winfrey 27:14 Um, so to-- Really, I was in a boardroom having to confront someone in my 40s, and I had so much anxiety about the fact that I was gonna have to have this confrontation with somebody. And it-

Jay Shetty 27:33 Mm

Oprah Winfrey 27:33 ... it just, just, just the most, um, n- normal disagreements would cause me a great sense of angst and worry and, "Oh my God," and, "What's gonna happen?" And I just said, "What... Where is this coming from? What, what... W- 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." And I realized, Jay, that even though I had the power, I still felt that every confrontation I was gonna get a whipping.

Jay Shetty 28:20 Mm-hmm.

Oprah Winfrey 28:20 That a whipping was gonna result. That, that-

Jay Shetty 28:24 Wow

Oprah Winfrey 28:24 ... thing that c- 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 every confrontation, I'm gonna get a whipping, and at the end of it, that person's gonna be mad at me, and at the end of it, that person's gonna 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 know, perceived power, 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, um, having to be subservient to other people's ideals of what it means to be a child, meaning you are seen 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 people will like you.

Jay Shetty 29:38 Mm-hmm.

Oprah Winfrey 29:38 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 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 I, that I did not. So that what happened to me was ingrained in a way that, you know, literally, uh, caused me to be a major people pleaser for, for a great deal of my life.

Jay Shetty 30:20 Thank you for sharing that, 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.

Oprah Winfrey 30:32 Right.

Jay Shetty 30:32 Uh, we, we don't even realize that it, that there's anyth- it was just normal to you. You just expected it. Did

Jay Shetty 30:38 you know that maternal stress during pregnancy can increase 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 pregnancyWith Anita, we see that just because you inherited something, it doesn't mean you have to carry it. Healing is about choosing what moves forward with you and what stops with you. What, 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 treated like trash in Brazil-

Anita 31:27 Yes

Jay Shetty 31:28 ... the people in the favelas.

Anita 31:28 For so long.

Jay Shetty 31:29 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?

Anita 31:37 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 wanna retire right now, I can, and I will live comfortably-

Jay Shetty 31:57 Mm-hmm

Anita 31:58 ... for the rest of my life. But all of a sudden, I was just here minding my business, and a 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, uh, work in the streets to get food to my babies, and to..." And I would be like, "Why am I thinking this? Why am I doing that? Why?" And then I did this session with, um, my shaman, and she said, "This is not your thought. You got this thought..." The same way we get DNA from our parents in, like, the hair, the eyes, the body, we can get from thoughts-

Jay Shetty 32:38 Mm-hmm

Anita 32:38 ... and energy, behaviors, and we don't realize that. So I told her, "Oh, for real?" And then we did a session to clean this, right? To remove this from me 'cause 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 gonna lose everything, we're not gonna have money, this and that?" And that was, like, right before my, my birthday of 30 years old birthday. So she said, "Yeah. Um, when I got pregnant from you, your dad lost his job, and I felt like we were not gonna have money to feed you guys, and I would need to work in, in houses as, like, a housemaid or something to buy food." And I was like, "Wow, that makes to..." And she spent the whole pregnancy with this fear of not having the money to feed us, so she was fearing it. And there is, like... I- I produced a movie with a friend of mine called Me, and, um, it talks about this, the, the, the thoughts, the negative thoughts that your mom carries in the pregnancy-

Jay Shetty 33:52 Mm-hmm

Anita 33:52 ... becomes, um, neuropeptides in your, in your, in your brain, so that's why you have these thoughts. And I was like, "Wow, Mom." And I did the, the session with the lady, and I got b- I never had this thought again. And then I was doing my birthday. It was 30 years old, so special, da, da, da. And I, I, I had this place that I wanted to do in Brazil, and for some reason, every place I was trying, it was not available.

Jay Shetty 34:23 Mm-hmm.

Anita 34:23 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 this j- 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 g- let's go." So I sent my dad the invitation, sent to my dad. I said, "Oh, Dad, the party this year is gonna be here." He was like, "Oh, my God, daughter, this address is the..." And my dad didn't know about the, the c- talk I had to my mom, nothing, right? And he's my best friend, but I, I didn't mention him. Um, he goes, "Oh, my God, daughter, this address used to be the company's address that I got fired when your mom was pregnant."

Jay Shetty 35:10 No way.

Anita 35:10 And I was like, "I'm dead."

Jay Shetty 35:12 [laughs] Wow.

Anita 35:13 Like, we're here celebrating my 30 years old with a party, like, full of everything that we were always afraid of not having.

Jay Shetty 35:20 That's crazy.

Anita 35:21 And the same address? That's crazy. Where in life does it... That, for me, was such an answer-

Jay Shetty 35:29 Yeah

Anita 35:29 ... from the universe, right? And I was like, "Wow, this is so meaningful." And life is full of these, these situations that, for me, are not coincidence at all.

Jay Shetty 35:40 Yeah. That's, that's incredible.

Anita 35:42 It is.

Jay Shetty 35:42 That's really powerful, and I love that full circle moment.

Anita 35:45 Agree.

Jay Shetty 35:46 And, and

Jay Shetty 35:47 I, and I love... I mean, the movie that you made, is that out? Where can we watch that? Me?

Anita 35:50 The name is Me.

Jay Shetty 35:51 Yeah.

Anita 35:52 My, my f- a friend of mine, the one introduced me to this shaman, uh, she did it, and then she called... She asked me to help her producing it and, um, uh, sharing with the platforms and everything, so I was helping her on this final, uh, touch of the movie. And it talks about this, about how you can get heritage from your parents-

Jay Shetty 36:16 Yes

Anita 36:17 ... not only in your blood-

Jay Shetty 36:19 Yes

Anita 36:19 ... physical, but also mental-

Jay Shetty 36:22 Yes

Anita 36:22 ... and karmas that come-

Jay Shetty 36:23 That's brilliant

Anita 36:24 ... from your mom, from your grandmother-

Jay Shetty 36:26 Mm-hmm

Anita 36:26 ... from, because it comes from father to daughter-

Jay Shetty 36:30 Yeah

Anita 36:30 ... you know? And, um, it's important to clean it-

Jay Shetty 36:33 Mm-hmm

Anita 36:34 ... to, to work on it because otherwise, we're here with no purpose.

Jay Shetty 36:38 Mm-hmm.

Anita 36:38 We're not... We, we get... We spend all this time here, and we don't figure out what's your purpose. What are you here for, you know? And I always had in my life this, um, desire to understand. And when I was a kid, I was very like that already. I used to dream a lot, about a lot of things. My mom tells me that I used to wake up and see people and, um-I was always very connected. I used to tell them everything that was gonna happen in my life.

Jay Shetty 37:11 Yeah, you had visions of how this... Yeah.

Anita 37:12 Everything. Everything. I used to tell them like, "Oh, I'm, I'm gonna sing here, I'm gonna do this. Our house is gonna be like this, like this." I w- I used to g- give them details of everything. And, um, my, my dad, he was always very stressed with work, and he tells me that I used to come to him and say, "Dad, don't worry. In the end, everything's gonna 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 gonna be a singer. I'm gonna do this, and this, and that."

Jay Shetty 37:48 [laughs]

Anita 37:48 And it's so fun when he tells me because I was actually describing so precisely what, precisely what was gonna happen.

Jay Shetty 37:56 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.

Anita 38:13 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 38:13 And I feel like even those types of changes-

Anita 38:16 Yes

Jay Shetty 38:16 ... were linked to this kind of internal change that was going on.

Anita 38:20 100%.

Jay Shetty 38:20 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. But here's the good news. The moment you begin to understand it, you've already begun 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, 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 loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Maté on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

Speaker 39:30 Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a, a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft, and green, and vulnerable