How To MOVE ON, LET GO & LEAVE Your Past In The Past | Julia Samuel

Julia Samuel 0:00 If you're self-medicating with busyness, with alcohol, with sugar to block feelings, nothing can improve. You cannot fix what you don't face. [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:16 The spiritual teacher Ram Dass says, "If you think you are enlightened, go and spend a week with your family."

Julia Samuel 0:22 [laughs] That's amazing. That should be in my book. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:27 What is your reaction to a quote like that?

Julia Samuel 0:29 My reaction is that, you know, our family is wired in us. It's wired in us genetically, in our felt sense, in our responses to life, and we're programmed from our family and how we go out into the world. So when we go back into our family, whatever age we are, we go straight back to our early roots of family, but also all of our beliefs, our senses, and our fault lines. So, you know, my kind of belief in the book is that you need to know your family if you're really gonna know yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10 As a psychotherapist, when did that first become clear to you? Did you start off working with individuals, and then at, at some point did you sort of figure out that I can't really help this individual make sense of themselves without knowing their upbringing, their family, and so on? You know, you know, help us understand what happened there.

Julia Samuel 1:33 Well, in my training as a therapist, you know, 33 years ago, obviously we learn that y- it is your upbringing that you kind of carry into adulthood, and so that affects how you are psychologically. But the most of the training is you work with one person one-to-one, and so you hear about their family, their partner, their parents, their siblings, but you never meet them. And really it was only in lockdown that I thought, "This is my opportunity to work with whole families," because I can gather them together on Zoom in a way to get a whole family into a room is virtually impossible, and everybody's at home. And I think families are the most interesting, important aspects of ourselves. Um, you know, every client that has ever walked through my door has always talked about the family they're making or the family that they came from. It's an enormous part of us.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:32 You know, you're very experienced as a psychotherapist, so is, is it fair to say then that it was only in lockdown, so in 2020, that you first started getting complete families together? Is that the first time?

Julia Samuel 2:46 So complete... Well, multi-generation families. So I, you know, when I worked in the NHS, when a child was dying or had died, I'd work with the parents and the children and their siblings.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:57 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 2:57 And sometimes I would go to their home if they were really ill. Um, but I had never worked with a great-grandmother, a grandmother, a daughter, and a grandchild ever. And, you know, I don't, you know, there are family systems therapists, but they probably only work with parents and children. So it's, it's unusual as far as I know to work with multi-generations, but of course, it gives you unbelievable insight.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:24 A theme that comes up throughout the book, I think it's one of acceptance in the sense that your family is influencing you and how you're acting right now in your life, whether you think they are or not. And unless you go back in and I guess self-examine those various patterns and relationships, and therefore accept the reality of those patterns and relationships, it's very hard for us, I guess, to make changes.

Julia Samuel 3:56 I think that's... I completely agree, and that it's more generations than we, I think-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:02 Mm

Julia Samuel 4:02 ... recognize. So I, you know, one of the understandings, and I got it through the book but also from research, is that the unprocessed trauma from one generation, it goes down each generation until someone is prepared to feel the pain. And so part of what I'm saying in the book is you may feel that there's something wrong with you, that you were born this kind of vulnerable person or highly sensitive person, and my message, it may well not have started with you. Look up. Look at the untold stories, the secrets, the hidden things that have been untold, and you may well discover a suicide, a child's death, a loss, a, someone going broke, whatever it is that has been hidden. Because in the past, people like my generation said, "What you don't talk about isn't gonna hurt you." And actually, what we know is that those secrets, and they can be... It sounds more judging saying lies, but they're basically lies. [laughs] You know, they hurt you in the present until you allow yourself to hear them, feel the loss of them, and then you protect the next generation. It stops with you. You don't pass it down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:25 You say lies. I guess some of these patterns or unwritten rules in families may start out as a bid to avoid pain and feeling the reality of what happened so we can move on and get past it. But then at some point, as you say, they're, they're lies because they're not, they're not real. But they may well be unconscious lies.

Julia Samuel 5:53 Very much unconscious lies. And, you know, part of the process of adapting to a very difficult truth Is denial. You know, when I'm given bad news-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:06 Yeah

Julia Samuel 6:06 ... my first response is, "I'm not gonna look. Turn away. [laughs] I don't want to deal with it." And you know, I'm a freaking therapist with decades of therapy [laughs] and I know that that's my default response. Like, I don't want this to be true, I'm not gonna face it. And then over, you know, depending how, the bigger the loss, the bigger the denial-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:28 Yeah

Julia Samuel 6:28 ... because it ha- affects you more.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:30 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 6:30 But with me, you know, recently there was, I, uh, uh, found out some news that I, was very unwelcome, and it took me probably two months to turn towards it and allow myself to face it and begin to deal with it. So that we all go at our own pace. But also, to some extent, we need the luxury of being able to feel the pain. So my parents' generation were, you know, their grandparents fought and survived the First World War, they fought in the Second World War. They didn't have any of the psychological knowledge we now have.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:04 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 7:05 And they were under threat. Their main imperative was to survive and get on, and as you've taught many times on your, on our podcast, our amygdala doesn't care what you feel. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:15 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 7:16 All it cares about is that you need to live, and so just push for your survival, whatever the cost psychologically. And that's what our parents, and most of us do. But if we have the luxury of the space to reflect and learn stories and grow, then we, I do think, feel the pain of it, and I think we do thrive and feel safer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:41 Yeah. I think it's very comforting for many of us, I would imagine, to hear that you, as such an experienced psychotherapist, you've written three brilliant books, even you struggle when something happens that you don't want to happen.

Julia Samuel 7:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:56 It takes you a bit of time to accept it. So I think that's comforting that we can all go at our own pace, but I think it also speaks to incredible self-awareness, right? It sounds like you know your pattern. When something happens or when something triggers me or when something comes up that I don't like, I know my default response, and I would say that a lot of people don't. They are, they're just reacting day to day without understanding, oh, I have a pattern here. And in my experience, certainly seeing patients if it comes to lifestyle change, I've seen that people can pretty much do anything for a few weeks. You know, they, they get a blood test they don't like or something happens, they're like, "Right, that's it, I'm gonna change." Two, three, four weeks, five weeks, they can do it.

Julia Samuel 8:47 No more sugar. I'm gonna exercise every day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:49 Yeah. But usually, for many people, it then slips back again, you know, unless they really understand what role was that behavior serving in their life. You know, alcohol was helping me cope with my stress. Therefore, you can't just white-knuckle it. You have to understand, well, where is the stress in my life? Can I help manage some of that better? And then I will have less need to drink as much alcohol, for example. Um, and I guess what I love about the book the most, you, you've got these beautiful family case studies, and I challenge anybody to not see themselves and elements of their family patterns in at least one of those stories, if not in many of them. And I think that's what's really comforting about the book, is that you think, "Oh man, I'm not alone. Like, it's not just my family. Other families have got issues as well."

Julia Samuel 9:49 Yeah. And that the most personal is the most universal.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:53 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 9:54 And that's what I... You know, one of the difficulties as a therapist is, is confidentiality, and I think the wisdom from decades of therapy has very rarely got out into the world because of the issue of confidentiality. And so although I completely disguise all of the families so no one would recognize them, only they recognize them-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:18 Mm

Julia Samuel 10:18 ... I think their wisdom can change people's lives. I think seeing that, you know, we all live as a family on a spectrum of function and dysfunction, no perfect family exists. And I think particularly now with social media, you see these sort of perfected images of life. But knowing that families are both the source of our greatest joy and strength and kind of sense of belonging in the world, but also the source of greatest pain and where you hate most and where you make your biggest mistakes [laughs] because they're the people that we invest in most and care about most.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:00 Why is it that some families, when an adverse life event happens, why is it, in your view, that some families pull together when that happens, whereas other families seem to break apart and really struggle? Are there any, I guess, common themes that we can learn from?

Julia Samuel 11:21 I mean, one of the things, like in the, there was the Bryan family, whose daughter had died.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:26 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 11:26 Amani. And there were two sides of the family, from the mother and, um, the father. And one of the things that was incredibly moving, and also extremely painful, was that when this child died... So at moments of big change, that is when families are under pressure because we all respond to it differently, and we find, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:47 Yeah

Julia Samuel 11:47 ... the death of a child, she was three years old, is a devastating loss. And so all the preexisting fault lines come into play, and all the previous losses are accelerated. So your losses from the past come with your losses from the present.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:03 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 12:03 And so this family, what happened with Angela and Keith, who, whose daughter had died, was that they both had very then very difficult relationships with their siblings. But Keith had a powerful, amazing mother, Patience. You know, she'd come from Antigua in the 1950s, and she had experienced enormous racism, um, but she had this amazing influence on her children, and they listened to her, they respected her, and they deeply loved her. Whereas Angela's mom had died, and her father was a really nice guy, but he wasn't so invested in family. He didn't pull the siblings together. So I do think it's our par- you know, adult parents of children and grandparents have enormous power and influence to hold families together at times of crisis, to enable them to both feel the pain and have their different stories. And, you know, in this, in that story, Keith and his mom conflicted about lots of different things, but by listening to each other, hearing each other, allowing their differences, they could then come together. And interestingly, it was the stepson, Linford, Angela's son, who also had a lot of wisdom. I think the power in families is when we allow each member of a family to have a voice and influence and shape each other and be heard, and not have to be right or wrong, and not have one truth or one way of being, because then you grow and have strength from a much broader base and not such a shallow base.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:52 Do you see a type of rebound effect whereby someone who's gone inside to figure out their family and their patterns and realize that they were brought up a certain way and certain aspects they thought possibly weren't that helpful, so they then revert to the other extreme with their own children? Um, I certainly feel like myself, I think that's happening. Like, I don't feel, I don't know if it's culturally or generationally that it's not that my brother and I weren't heard necessarily, but I'm not entirely sure in our culture that, you know, it's like, "Oh, the kids, what do they know?" kind of thing. Whereas I feel, and I give my wife huge credit here because I think she's been a huge part of this, but one of the big values we have as a family is if the kids want to say something, we listen, and we pay attention, and I want to make sure that they feel heard. So in your experience of working with families, do you see this kind of rebound pattern where people are almost rebelling against what they had and in sometimes, yeah, they try and rebalance, but sometimes potentially go to another extreme that may not be as helpful?

Julia Samuel 15:12 I think that's right. I mean, you know, children now have a much, you know, greater voice. I mean, I was very much brought up, and maybe you had a, a, a slightly different version of children should be seen and not heard. Shut up, you know? [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:26 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 15:27 And children now do have a voice, and I think one of the difficulties now in giving children a voice is that perhaps sometimes they have too much power.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:38 Mm.

Julia Samuel 15:39 And so, you know, there's power dynamics in families, and there's communication in families, and so children do need to be heard, but they also need the boundaries of safety of who holds responsibility-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:51 Mm

Julia Samuel 15:51 ... for the family when they're children and who fundamentally makes the tough decisions, because it's overwhelming for a child to have too much power. What I think happens in families is if your mom, for instance, started ticking you off for bringing them up a particular way, that could cause conflict. Whereas if she was willing and open to see you be a different parent to her and embrace it and allow it, that is a lovely restorative thing for the whole family.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:23 I know from talking to patients and friends that many people, many parents of young kids, and I guess maybe slightly older kids, feel that when they go to their parents or the children's grandparents, that there's a bit of a judgment going on because if they're choosing to bring up their kids differently, then sometimes their own parents don't really understand that and say, "Well, you know, it was good enough for you. You know, why is it not good enough for your kids?" I know there will be people listening to this right now who probably feel that that's what's going on in their lives. Do you have any, I guess, helpful guidance for them as to how they might start to navigate that?

Julia Samuel 17:10 I would name it. Like, talk to your mom and dad about that, you know, they were really great parents for you and acknowledge the strength and the gratitude and the love that you got from them. And also acknowledge that how I see things is, is slightly different about having to eat at the table or, you know, I don't know, all these different, having to be in bedtime at a particular time or the different rules that you have and ask them what they think. So rather than telling your parents, "I'm doing it differently to you because you made such a bad job of it" [laughs] , it's like collaborate with them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:46 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 17:46 Like you would a teenager in a way with a, with a grandparent, I would say, "Listen, we're trying this out. What do you think?" Include them, so it isn't a behavior that's used as a kind of weapon to criticize them, but as a connection between all of them that you want their wisdom, and you want their understanding, and they may agree to disagree. You know, one of the aspects of the book at the end is twelve touchstones to wellbeing. You know, one of the big ones is being able to have honest conversations and multiple views, and that you can allow that. But the only way you can do that with your parents is by modeling it. So testing it, and do it with small stuff. So don't go in with the biggest thing that you're trying to change. [laughs] Start with small things. So open a conversation, um, and ask their opinion, what they think.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:39 I guess at the heart of an improved, and in some ways, a more enlightened relationship with our families, is the ability to communicate well. We can take this beyond families because, you know, last time you came on the podcast, I, I remember telling you a story about one of my patients who all I did for her was just to listen without judgments, and that was a form of communication that allowed her to get to know herself better and actually improve her depression without medication, without me actually maybe doing much apart from listening. And this skill of communication, particularly with your family, I guess, 'cause if you're feeling triggered about something, it's quite hard to have that conversation, isn't it? You know, you say start with small things. I think that's great advice for people because if you're going for the big things, it's very hard for that anger or that frustration that frankly has built up for many years, it's, it's really hard for that not to come out, at least at the start. Is that your experience as well?

Julia Samuel 19:48 Yes. I, I do. And maybe do it while you're doing something so it's not too intense and eyeballing. So it could be that you go for a walk and talk, or you're cooking something together in the kitchen, so you're chopping onions together-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:02 Yeah

Julia Samuel 20:02 ... or that you're doing something that's collaborative and shared, so you feel like you're on an, in alignment-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:10 Mm

Julia Samuel 20:10 ... in the behavior that you're doing. Um, and acknowledge maybe that you feel a bit nervous about asking them or, you know, acknowledge what you're feeling as well as what you're saying. And I agree that a huge part, unrecognized part, particularly today about communication, is listening.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:30 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 20:30 You know, I think it's the key. Um, and you, you know, one of the things that they may try out, but it may sound too, um, sort of psychological, is, "Mom, I'd love to know what you heard me say."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:44 Mm.

Julia Samuel 20:44 "Dad, what do you think I'm saying?" Because it, them in the process of repeating what they've heard you say helps them make sense of it for themselves, and it slows them down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:56 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 20:56 And in the slowing down, they have a broader base from what they feel, so it's not their first response. It's a calmer, more reflective response.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:06 Yeah. No, I love that. Such a helpful tip and, and the idea that it slows things down and allows you to process it, I, I really, really like that. Uh, it's something, you know, I think, I hope many doctors deal with their patients, so as a way of just checking we're on the same wavelength. When you have been working with families, have you had to coach them on how to communicate better?

Julia Samuel 21:31 Yeah. So the Rossi family was a family in the book where the father, Matteo, died 40 years before-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:39 Yeah

Julia Samuel 21:39 ... by suicide. You know, trauma has no timeframe. It lives on in the memory, ignited by sight, sound, touch, and smell, and that trauma was as alive in the partner of Matteo, Sarah, and their three children 40 years after his death, and it was being played out in every aspect of their lives, every decision, and influencing them in sometimes very devastating ways. And so part of my role was to take responsibility and slow it down so that I could reflect what I saw was happening between them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:18 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 22:18 And the, so the mother, you know, was... The children were very young when he died, and she did an amazing job of bringing them up and all of that, but she was furious [laughs] and traumatized. And so my role was to let them not have to worry about each other.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:38 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 22:39 And so I could say, "Well, what I understand that you're saying is...," and, "What you're feeling is...," and, "What I can see the impact of what you're feeling is on your mom or your sister is this." It gives them a moment to go, "Oh." [laughs] A bit like what you said, your side. So I reflect back often what I observe, and in doing that, they understood each other from a completely different perspective, r- not, not just their own lens, and could meet and support each other from a different perspective. And, you know, the mother in the end said, "I was too frightened to ask you how it was for you." And so it gave her the courage to then ask them how it was for them and for her to hear the answers.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:34 These 12 touchstones at the end of the book, which, you know, just fabulous and, and are gonna be so helpful for people, number six is set boundaries, and I don't think the idea of boundaries even made sense in my family growing up. I don't think there was such a thing as a boundary, and of course, there can be many reasons for that. Certainly with my family, immigrant families to the UK, there's no family around. It's just us. You know, we don't have uncles and aunts close by. You know, most of the family were in India. So I guess there's all kinds of reasons why families may not have boundaries. I know many people struggle with this, and then if we start to go on that journey inside at looking at ourselves, looking at our family upbringing, and then start to put in place boundaries, it can be very challenging, and it can start to, um, [lip smacks] expose, I guess, fault lines in the system. So that is a key touchstone, you know, set boundaries. How can people start and go through that process of setting boundaries?

Julia Samuel 24:49 I mean, that's a huge question, and it is vital, boundaries. I guess the first step is awareness, and to look at yourself and think about the different types of boundaries. You know, there are emotional boundaries. There's physical space boundaries, like your bedroom or someone n- taking your clothes. There's boundaries of, um, [lip smacks] uh, time. You know, how much time you'll get, how much time is expected for you to give. So there are many, many different types of boundaries, and if someone listening, if they began to think of, say, um, a space boundary of, like, when they feel emotionally intruded on, the way to do that is to remember a conversation with a family member and try and go inside and be aware of what happens in their body. So is there something that happens? Do they feel tight in their throat? Do they feel a, a kind of shaking in their stomach? Do they feel this instinct, like they want to step back, and this sort of thing like, ooh, and a kind of wave that overcomes them? And, you know, with all of these things, there's spectrums. So it could f- you f- could feel that at, like, 2 out of 10, or you could feel that, like, 10 out of 10. And but if you're aware of it, then you can begin to explore with yourself what is that about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:17 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 26:17 Is that early from childhood? Is it from what's happening now, that they're asking more of me than I'm willing to give, and I feel like I'm drowning? And then begin to think, "Well, how can I both be loving and respectful of what this person's needs are, but also turn to myself with compassion and recognize my own needs, and set boundaries that work for me?" Because if I am overwhelmed, often what happens is you completely cut out.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:48 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 26:48 So, you know, one of the difficulties in families is that at the time of a crisis, you may feel overwhelmed of what's asked of you, and people don't quite know how to manage that. So they shut down and pull away or get angry and attack because of all these different conflicting feelings. But actually, underneath it might be because you care so much. But what you're voicing isn't what you're [laughs] isn't the, the reason underneath.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:19 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 27:19 It's your defense.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:23 This idea of awareness, it requires people to do something that I guess I feel is becoming less and less common these days, which is sitting with yourself, having a practice of solitude where you're not consuming something on social media or distracting yourself. The ability to sit with yourself and allow yourself to feel in your body what's coming up, for some people, that's a big step, you know, especially these days. Anna Lembke, who came on the show a few months ago, this addiction specialist, said smartphones are the modern-day hypodermic needle.

Julia Samuel 28:03 Brilliant.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:04 Yeah, which is pretty provocative, but actually, there's a huge amount of truth in that. So I know I talk to my patients a lot about even five or 10 minutes a day of solitude where they can sit with themselves and allow things to come up. How important is that for someone if they are going to then change some of the relationships in their lives? How important is it that they get to know themselves a bit better first, or can they simply get to know themselves through their interactions with their family?

Julia Samuel 28:39 I think it's both/and.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:40 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 28:41 Um, you know, you cannot fix what you don't face. So if you're self-medicating with the hypodermic needle of your smartphone, with busyness, with alcohol, with sugar, with all of the things that are at, uh, you know, within arm's reach at any moment to eat our feelings, to block our feelings, then we have no idea [laughs] what is the hole in our heart or the overwhelming feeling that we have inside, and that can set up a really massively neg- as you've seen with your patients, terrible negative spiral where nothing can improve. Because you have to know something is disturbing you to be able to look at it, feel it, name it, and then begin to address it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:34 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 29:35 And you can do that in very small ways, like you say, like, five minutes, just, you know, do that thing that I talk about in my other books, focusing of, you know, turning your attention in, breathing, seeing what you f- feel, you know, being aware of what you feel and naming it, and that gives you tons of information. You know, emotions are transmitters of information that need to be expressed and allowed through your system. The things you do to block what you're feeling block your system and keep you stuck in a dysfunctional system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:14 Yeah, so powerful. And I think sometimes People think that, you know, I'm eating well, I'm, I'm sort of moving, I'm focusing on my sleep, but not spending any time on their emotional regulation and figuring out why they get triggered or annoyed at little things. It's so, so important. You know, we, we see so much research now that an inability to forgive, feeling hostile, feeling angry, you know, these things are associated with all kinds of negative health outcomes, autoimmune disease, cancer, heart disease, stroke, right? These, these unexpressed emotions are not benign, right? If you don't do something with them, they're gonna eat you up, aren't they?

Julia Samuel 31:00 They do. There's that AA frame, HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. It's a very good-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:09 Yeah

Julia Samuel 31:09 ... trigger warning, if you like, and you could be all of those things at the same time. [laughs] I don't know if that meets what you're saying, but what I completely agree with is unless you're aware of what is going on inside you, and you respond to the messages of y- of what is going on inside you, and you meet the needs of those messages, you will go on feeling as bad, and that increasingly gets worse over time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:38 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 31:39 And to answer your question, you can do it in relation to yourself, but, you know, I'm a therapist. I definitely believe you learn a lot about yourself from journaling or from conversations. So sometimes people don't know what they're feeling until they voice it or until they write it down, and I think walking and talking is a really good way with a really close friend. Even talking into your phone, you know, journaling to yourself using your voice memo. Sometimes voicing it releases your unconscious to say words that you didn't even know that were in you that surprise you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:11 Yeah. It's so powerful. A- and I completely agree. I have a really good relationship with this lady called Helen Hall, who, um-

Julia Samuel 32:19 Your running person.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:20 Yeah, she's amazing, and we probably exchange WhatsApp voice messages, I don't know, four or five times a week.

Julia Samuel 32:26 Fantastic.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:26 Really regularly. And it's just incredible that you start off, you're not quite sure, and by the end of this five-minute message, you've kind of figured something out.

Julia Samuel 32:35 Yes. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:35 You know, it's like verbal journaling. And yeah, there, there's something powerful about that. I think that tip you gave about when you have to have a difficult conversation or maybe broaching a topic that hasn't been broached before, do it whilst you're doing something else together. I think that's, you know, I think about me and my kids, you know, s- you get... Things come up differently. When you're both engaged in something, you're not looking at each other. It's not like Daddy's saying, "Okay, you know, so how was it?"

Julia Samuel 33:04 Do your homework. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:04 Yeah, or, or, you know, "How was school today?" You know, "What happens?" You know, "Oh, what... " You know, it's, it's, I've learnt that actually if we do something together and we're not looking at each other, actually things start to come up, and it, it's just much more non-threatening, isn't it?

Julia Samuel 33:20 Much more. So as a family, we have a puzzle that's always on the go.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:24 Right.

Julia Samuel 33:24 And it's quite a big puzzle that's in the corner of the room, and my children, my grandchildren, they come in, and it's a, a lovely place where you can be around the table, nobody speaks, and then, and you can kind of jostle who found the bit and, you know, the competitiveness. But then you can begin to have a conversation about something that's difficult or tricky or that everyone is able to have the space to do, s- 'cause puzzling is slow. Um, and that's a lovely way of doing it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:55 Does it also act as a warm-up in the sense that to go from nothing, like if you were gonna go for a run, you were trying to do, I don't know, a fast 5K at your parkrun. I think most people understand it's unrealistic to pull the car up, stand on the start line, and then be able to run fast if that was your goal. Is that similar in terms of communication in the sense that, you know, you can't just show up at your mum's house and then look her in the eye and try and go through something? Is there something about that, that puzzle game that almost, it kind of warms up all the interactions in an unthreatening environment, which then allows you to go deeper?

Julia Samuel 34:36 Yes, completely. And you can have conversations with your mum while you're doing a puzzle like, "Mum, what did your mum believe about sex?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:46 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 34:46 "What did your, what were your mum's values about money? What was your mum's upbringing? What was the things that she found difficult?" And so you can begin to find the stories, the untold stories from the generations before-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:01 Yeah

Julia Samuel 35:02 ... which may help you make sense of the story that is unvoiced in you that is disturbing you unknowingly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:09 Julia, I imagine some people would have just shied away when you said, [laughs] um, you know, "You can ask your mum, what did her mum think about sex?"

Julia Samuel 35:17 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:18 Right? So for, for anyone listening who did shy away then and thought, "No way can I even start that"-

Julia Samuel 35:23 Could you say that to your mum?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:24 Well, you know, I'm talking about the listener, but if I was thinking about myself.

Julia Samuel 35:28 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:28 You know what? So I feel that my relationship with my mum is about as authentic as it's ever been. It, there's been some challenges over the past years, but on the other side of that, there's a real trueness. There's, um, there's real boundaries now in a way that in the past there never were.

Julia Samuel 35:49 And both of you kept the boundaries, right? It couldn't just be you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:53 Yeah. I think it definitely has been challenging, but I feel it's in a really good place now. But in answer to your question, could I say that to my mum? You know, I'm gonna have to sit with that. I, I, naturally I think no, but you know what? I possibly could these days. You know, I actually think I could. You know what?

Julia Samuel 36:13 She might be delighted to be able to talk about these things that are never talked about. It might be liberating for her.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:20 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 36:21 But she wouldn't quite dare 'cause it might freak her son out to say, "Do you know what my mum thought about whatever?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:26 What's really interesting is that my default to answer that question is kind of like, "No, of course, I couldn't." But actually, as I think about it, and I think about the things that we have spoken about over the past two or three years, things that no way would I speak to Mum about 20 years ago or 10 years ago, I think actually I probably could now. I probably could. But maybe the last time you were on the podcast, I'm not sure I was in a place where I could have done. So I think that's really powerful.

Julia Samuel 36:54 And I think the other thing that came through in my book is that grandchildren's relationship with their grandparents can be so much, so liberating in comparison to their relationship with their own parents. You know, there was the Thompson family-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:11 Yeah

Julia Samuel 37:11 ... which was three generations, and the youngest daughter was going to university during lockdown, and when she came back from university she went to stay with her grandmother, not her mother, because in their parents' house there was masses of meetings, noisiness, and a lot of tension, and different fights about the rules of lockdown like most families [laughs] in the country had. And she went for the solace of her grandmother. And so she could have conversations with her grandmother that were too intense to have with her own mother, 'cause as parents we carry so much responsibility, we carry so much guilt, we're so invested in it, and we don't want to have these things where they let us know what we did wrong because it goes against-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:55 Yeah

Julia Samuel 37:55 ... everything that what we wanted. Whereas, you know, this grandmother, she was liberated. She did, she felt free to be able to tell her daugh- her granddaughter anything that she wanted, and it, it was a fantastic relationship. I imagine your daughter and son will have that with your mum.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:12 You know, as you say that, I used to see my grandparents once every two years. They lived in India, we lived in the UK, so every two summers we'd go to Calcutta for six weeks. And so, you know, happy, happy memories of seeing your cousins and your family and your grandparents. But I didn't know them in my day-to-day life. And I-

Julia Samuel 38:31 There was no FaceTime, there was no Zoom, there was-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:33 There was no Fac- exactly. You know, for all the negatives of certain aspects of technology, of course, there are so many incredible benefits as well. Whereas I see my own kids, and they see their grandparents all the time. They see my mum all the time. They see, uh, Vid's parents all the time. And I think sometimes, you know, Vid and I were chatting that it, it's wonderful to see their interaction. It's different. There's less kind of pressure-

Julia Samuel 39:00 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:00 ... in some ways.

Julia Samuel 39:00 Some pressure, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:01 You know, the grandparents are not really telling them about the homework or various other things, right? So it's a different dynamic. And what-

Julia Samuel 39:10 And they have more time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:11 And they've got more time, exactly.

Julia Samuel 39:12 Often.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:13 Often.

Julia Samuel 39:13 Not always.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:14 And one of the most powerful, I think, messages from the new book, and I'm not sure this is spoken about enough, is the benefit of other relationships, grandparents, siblings. I think we talk a lot about our parents. What I've covered that with, you know, this incredible Dr. Gabor Maté on this show several times about, you know, how our parents and our early childhoods influences so much of our adult lives. But I love the way you've, through storytelling of real-life families, and sometimes it almost feels like fiction the way you've written it. It's really quite beautiful.

Julia Samuel 39:56 Oh, thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:57 Um, the impact of grandparents and siblings and great-grandparents, and I thought we might spend a bit of time on one of the eight families in the book, the Bergers.

Julia Samuel 40:08 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:09 I was just literally mesmerized. You know when you read something where you just suddenly stop and everything around you just goes quiet because you're just engrossed? That was how I felt-

Julia Samuel 40:20 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:20 ... for much of this book, but particularly with that family. And I wonder if you could start out by just summarizing who this family are. And then I want to talk about various aspects of this family, because I feel that it speaks to so much, like transgenerational trauma, for example. I think it's beautifully illustrated through this family's lives.

Julia Samuel 40:44 So this family is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family that live in Manchester, near you. And I worked with, um, four generations of that family. So I worked with Kati, who was the great-grandmother, who was a survivor of Auschwitz, who'd done the Great March, and who had been born in Hungary, and her entire family was murdered during the Holocaust. She came to this country age 16, and she married another Holocaust survivor, Isaac. She had three children, and so I worked with her daughter, Anna, who was in her 60s. She had five children, and I worked with her daughter, Rebecca, and then her g- granddaughter, Kati's great-granddaughter. Yeah, it's very rare for me to see on a screen five generations. It's incredible. How they were together, the power of the relationship between them all, was extraordinary to witness and incredibly humbling.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:45 If we go into Kati's story a little bit, there were so many things about her and her experience in Auschwitz that, of course, informs who she is. I mean, that's the understatement of the year. [laughs] Um, but there was an incredible spirit that I got of forgiveness and gratitude and, and literally being grateful for everything. And there was one moment where you were describing the, I think the words of one of the family members, was like, "Oh, you know-" Kati or mom or grandma never has a bad word to say about anyone. If someone's behaving a certain way, she goes, "Oh, they must be having a bad day. There must be something going on in their life." And I read that bit over and over again because reading that about Kati, of course, I reflected on my own conversation with someone called Edith Eger.

Julia Samuel 42:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:40 Um, someone who also was in Auschwitz. When I spoke to her last year, she was 93 years old, and there was an incredible spirit of forgiveness and gratitude.

Julia Samuel 42:52 And a sparkle.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:53 And a sparkle. And you think, wow, you have had your family murdered. You have seen the lowest of the low of what humans are capable of, yet there was such gratitude and forgiveness.

Julia Samuel 43:10 So what I saw with Kati was that she was a sparkly, bright 91-year-old. And, you know, when I talked to a neuroscience professor, he said she was very likely a sparkly, bright teenager, which was why Mengele didn't choose her to go into the ovens, why she might have been given extra bits of food and bread-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:35 Right

Julia Samuel 43:35 ... um, while she was, um, at Auschwitz, which could have allowed for her to survive. And she also had within her the secure and loving attachment of the parents she'd been brought up by, so she had a lot of robust love. And the other thing she had, and she said it in the book, was, "If I was old with children, I wouldn't have survived, but I was young, and I had hope." And she had hope that she was going to live, and every day she called on that hope. And that hope gave her meaning through the trauma. So a lot of people who survived Auschwitz psychologically died in Auschwitz. So, you know, like Isaac Bashevis Singer, he killed himself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:23 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 44:23 Um, and they felt, had survivor's guilt. Kati did not have survivor's guilt. She felt the meaning she had was to meet Isaac, to be a loving couple, and to bring up her children, to have children, and that was what kept her alive. And she obviously has this also genetically wired, you know, this predisposition-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:49 Yeah

Julia Samuel 44:49 ... to be the type of person that she was. And th- that was extraordinary to witness. Uh, what was also fascinating to witness was seeing her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren look at her with such reverence, and that she gave them a model about living that was actually very hard to match-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:11 Yeah

Julia Samuel 45:11 ... and very hard to live up to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:15 When I had the chance to interact with Edith, it changed who I was. Right? I wasn't the same person after that conversation as before it. How was it for you getting to know Kati, hearing an incredible experience like she's been through? What did it do for you?

Julia Samuel 45:36 Yeah, I was very much changed by it. You know, I'm married to a Jew, so I have a particular interest in Jews and Jewish life, and obviously the Holocaust has, has loomed large in our family. And I was scared before I saw her about hearing about the murders and the suffering and the, you know, the torture that, that she witnessed. And, you know, that's one of the things I, I turn away from in [laughs] in my daily life. I wouldn't choose to do that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:09 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 46:09 And yet, there I was in my warm room thinking, "I don't want to hear this." And that felt bad, you know, because the least I can do is have the courage to hear her story. And so that was quite a wake-up call. Like, what you don't look at, you can't learn from.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:27 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 46:27 And so I needed to, um, at least hear her story and feel my fear and do it anyway. But also really humbling about the things that we mind about seem so ridiculous in comparison to how she lived and how she survived and what that means for her. That in the end, the only thing that matters in life is love, the love for your family, for your children, for your neighbor, for your community, and in the end, nothing else really matters. And that, I've known it, but I learned it again anew-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:09 Yeah

Julia Samuel 47:09 ... in a way that felt very profound.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:14 Kati's approach and philosophy on life, you just mentioned in some ways was an impossibly high bar for her kids, for her grandkids, for her great-grandkids to live up to. Because on one hand, she can go, "Isn't that incredible," right? Yeah. Always look on the bright side. Be grateful for every day. But she lived that, so she got that deep understanding of that through her

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:45 experience. And as she beautifully said in the book, "Lived experience cannot be replaced by theoretical insight." And if we look at that phrase through the lens of transgenerational trauma, first of all, perhaps you could explain what that is and how it gets transmitted for people. But then I really want to get to this understanding that if her family have some of that trauma within them, even though they weren't in Auschwitz, in some ways that must be incredibly problematic because you've got it, but you didn't live it. So how do you kind of reconcile those two things together?

Julia Samuel 48:22 And you don't legitimize it, so you think there's something wrong with you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:25 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 48:28 So to answer your first question, there are different ways of transgenerational trauma. And the meaning of it is that a devastating experience, an overwhelming experience that happens to one person gets passed down to the next generations in a family. And they get passed down in different ways. So it can be if you've had a traumatic experience, like Cathy, that your behaviors are very kind of traumatized, that you're often very frightened.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:58 Mm-hmm.

Julia Samuel 48:59 You may be very short-tempered. All the things that Gabor Mate talks about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:02 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 49:02 That it sort of takes over your personality, and you're constantly triggered in fight, flight, or freeze.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:07 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 49:08 So it's very hard for you to feel safe in your body to love and connect to others. And so th- your behavior gets passed down to your children. And it can also be passed down by the kind of, uh, psychological problems it gives you. You might become schizophrenic, and so as we know, um, mental health disorders get passed down from, you know, parents with mental health problems pass those down to their children too.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:36 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 49:36 But then the thing that we're looking at now is the work of Rachel Yehuda, and many others in Israel, is that it gets passed down epigenetically. And so that means that the heightened level of cortisol that you have in your body that sends your body into code red gets passed down to the next generation through the womb so that that person, although they didn't, they weren't in Auschwitz, they have the wiring of being traumatized, and they respond to life as if they had been in Auschwitz, and they can pass that down to the next generation too. And so that's what I felt with these families. Although they weren't traumatized, they, they had a lot of behaviors of worry. You know, they could never wear stripes. When they looked at chimneys, they thought of Auschwitz. Dogs barking terrified them. So they had a lot of heightened responses that others wouldn't have who weren't the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Um, and then they also said to themselves, "Don't make a fuss." You know, my, my g-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:43 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 50:43 "How can I, you know, I shouldn't make a fuss. I shouldn't be upset. I shouldn't be worried about food." You know, they had quite a, a big relationship with food that was a complex relationship with food.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:53 Yeah. And I guess what, what's so interesting is this idea that you're not just talking about mother to daughter. Y- we're talking granddaughter, great-granddaughter, you know, multi-generational trauma. And I guess that speaks to something you said about earlier in the conversation that the first step is someone willing to go, "Okay, I wanna feel this, I wanna sit with this, I wanna process this to stop it getting transmitted again."

Julia Samuel 51:27 So yeah, if you want to protect your children from the trauma that y- has been passed down to you, you have to feel the pain. There's no way around it. And I felt with Rachel, who was the granddaughter, you know, her mother, Tita, sometimes says, said something like, "It's al- almost like you were in Auschwitz." Um, and that that would s- kind of undermine her. But actually, once she recognized and could allow herself to acknowledge it is like she's been in Auschwitz physiologically-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:59 Yeah

Julia Samuel 51:59 ... in her heightened alert system. So once she allows that, names it, she can deal with it. You know, this thing, what you don't face, you can't fix. So she was beginning to deal with it through our sessions and is dealing with it now, and she feels very, very different woman from what I saw when I first worked with them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:21 My wife's parents lived in Kenya when the coup happened, uh, in 1982. And, you know, literally overnight, government overthrown, gunmen at the door. Um, you know, people in the, in the town and village getting raped, and people going around with guns, right? And, you know, Viv's dad talks about for a few days at least, that they would have to double lock all the doors, put things in front of the doors, you know, really barricade-

Julia Samuel 52:56 Barricade

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:56 ... yeah, f- for real safety because at the time w- you know, no one's talking about-

Julia Samuel 53:02 They'd been murdered

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:02 ... your psychological well-being. You're just talking about getting through and surviving. And what's really interesting, and I thought about this as I was reading your book, you know, my wife has certain tendencies in the evening, not in the day, around safety. You know, where the kids are sleeping, you know, uh, is the door shut? But it's interesting, isn't it? Because some of transgenerational, uh, patterns of trauma might be because you were there somewhere at the time, and you could feel it from your parents. But I guess in other ways, or for other people, it may be that actually, no, it's just been passed down through the womb, this kind of preset genetic wiring that you then take into many interactions, if not every interaction of your life.

Julia Samuel 53:53 And that you're constantly thinking about at some level safety and danger.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:01 Mm-hmm.

Julia Samuel 54:01 That, you know, that is what the cortisol does for us, is that we are under threat, and our key is to survive. And in order to feel emotionally connected, we need to feel safe in our bodies, safe in our mind, safe around our kitchen table. And I imagine with your wife, once she's done the behavior of locking the doors, takes a breath, um, and kind of acknowledged to herself, "We're safe now," then that allows her to be open and connected with you. And so that isn't a, that's a pretty- ... kind of good behavior [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:38 Yeah

Julia Samuel 54:39 In some ways, if she, um, didn't do it because she thinks I'm bonkers, why am I, you know, shutting the doors and locking the windows? Um, but then she would be constantly on alert. So it's a, it's a, you know, it's a pretty sound thing to be doing for her. And I would say anyone listening, th- y- you would have a version of your story.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:04 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 55:04 You know, you don't have to have been Auschwitz, a Holocaust survivor, to have a version of this story. All of you, when you look back and do a genogram, will have versions of what happened that isn't told or is told and that is alive in your body. And, you know, trauma i- is resolvable, and not everybody has trauma. I think sometimes people, look, kind of think everybody has trauma. That isn't the case. But you may have sort of subtle cues that you can't make sense of.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:34 Yeah. I love the way that each chapter starts with a genogram.

Julia Samuel 55:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:40 And, uh, as you were talking there, I thought, you know what, maybe I'll-

Julia Samuel 55:43 Do one

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:43 ... I wanna do one. You know? And just plot one out. My own family in various things. B- is it something you can do yourself?

Julia Samuel 55:49 Definitely you can do it yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:50 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 55:50 And if you look at partition for your family, Calcutta-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:53 Yeah

Julia Samuel 55:54 ... you know, all the story of that, your grandparents, your great-grandparents-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:59 Yeah

Julia Samuel 55:59 ... the Empire, all of that, what's been passed down to you, th- that would give you a lot of information.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:10 One of the many striking moments in that chapter on this Burger family was when you mentioned that Kati struggled in lockdown. I wasn't expecting to read that, and from your words, I don't think you were expecting to hear that. I'd love your perspective on that, someone who has survived Auschwitz and seemingly coping with life very well on the other side, struggles with the lockdown. What's going on there?

Julia Samuel 56:47 Well, I was shocked that she really found it very, very difficult. Um, and what we understood together was even in Auschwitz, she had her community, so there were three or four people in the camp that they all supported and helped and saved each other. She'd come from a secure family where there was a village, and there was a lot of connection. So the thing that terrorized her, in some ways more than Auschwitz itself, was isolation. Because she, she used food, she was a fantastic cook, and even at 91 she went on the bus to buy her own food, and all the neighbors like outraged that she should do it, but she loved that sense of agency, that she could do it for herself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:35 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 57:35 But she was generative. So she would make food, give it to her children and her grandchildren, and that would ... A purpose and meaning and feel that she had connection to others. When lockdown happened, no one was allowed in her house. She actually went to stay with her daughter-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:53 Mm

Julia Samuel 57:53 ... for a while, but she always didn't want to make a fuss.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:56 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 57:56 She always wanted to be independent. But it was very isolating for her, and she was really scared and got very low from it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:07 Yeah. So powerful to hear that.

Julia Samuel 58:11 We're wired to connect.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:12 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 58:13 Love and connection to others, in the end, is more important than anything else.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:21 And one of the reasons why lockdown has been so toxic and harmful to so many people-

Julia Samuel 58:30 Many people

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:30 ... because of that, we are wired to connect.

Julia Samuel 58:33 And I think the therapy rooms for the next decades will be filled with the losses, the injuries, the wounds-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:43 Yeah

Julia Samuel 58:43 ... from lockdown.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:44 So do I. I hope I'm wrong.

Julia Samuel 58:46 I hope I'm wrong.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:47 But, uh, I, I think people have changed. Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel, so please do take a moment to press Subscribe, hit the notification bell, and now back to the conversation. I remember after, can't remember which one it was in the UK, first or second one. I remember when the gyms opened. I remember going to the local swimming pool, the leisure center. I think it had been shut for five months, from, from recollection, and, um, I was chatting to the receptionist, was paying my money to go in and was saying, "Hey, how's it going?" And I went in, and after the swim we ended up having a chat. And I said, "How's it been?" And, uh, I, I can't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember this. He said, "People have changed. We get a lot of people in h- here, you know, in their 60s, maybe in their 70s. Five months ago they were vibrant, engaged, happy. They would come in and there were chats. There would be a spark in their step. And now people are coming in and they're, they're insular, they're withdrawn, they're not saying anything." And that was over a year ago, I think. And I was like, wow, people are literally changing. And of course that depends on who you are, what your life is. Do you have an ability to work, or have you retired? You know, of course all those things play a role. But man, I hope we're wrong, Julia, but I, I have a suspicion [laughs] that we're not going to be. Um-

Julia Samuel 1:00:19 Because connection grows our brains.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:22 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:00:22 Our neural network ... grows through social connection, social connection within our families and into the communities. And when that is vibrant and alive, which we didn't quite realize how vibrant and alive it had been-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:38 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:00:38 ... it is our superpower. Talking to the swimming pool man, talking to your barista-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:43 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:00:44 ... talking to the, you know, I used to talking to people at the Wilmslow Station.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:47 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:00:47 You have these very sweet, like, two-minute conversations, and they give you, you know, that little act of kindness or energy. I was in a waiting room with someone. We were chatting. You know, there, there's a very nice human spirit of us, kind of we're all in this together. The, the devastation of the isolation was this, that I am alone in this, and I didn't know what to do with the fear, the isolation, and now going out is a kind of place of danger, not a place-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:20 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:01:20 ... of safety and connection. And I hope that will change fast-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:25 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:01:25 ... that people will feel safe. But, you know, [laughs] like I said in my first book, the process of change takes much longer than the event. So the adaptation process is, is a long one, particularly from being kind of, um, brittle and shut to dare to trust to open up. And I would suggest to people, do small things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:45 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:01:46 Like, go out and go for 10 minutes with someone, or go for a walk. You know, do things small first-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:52 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:01:52 ... in order to begin to trust.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:55 One of the things I really, I guess, appreciated and enjoyed about this book, which I'm not gonna stop raving about because-

Julia Samuel 1:02:02 Thank you [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:03 ... I want everyone to read it. Like, I get so many authors on this show, but... And, and many of the books I, I really, really like. This one is special. It is super special 'cause I think it gets to the heart-

Julia Samuel 1:02:13 That means a lot, Rangan, coming from you. Thank you

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:15 Well, it really is, and I think it gets to the heart of who we are, and I think it's gonna help people understand their lives better, themselves better, which I think is then gonna have so many knock-on effects. You've been very open. You've been very vulnerable in places, and if we stick with the Berger family, I know Dina. There was a time, as you were recounting that story, that I felt you were almost owning up to, like, a bit of unconscious judgment. And judgment potentially is, is overly extreme, but almost that you, because of your experience, know what would be better for her or thought you might know what would be better for her, and it was so powerful when you understood that she had a very different perspective. Could you explain, first of all, who Dina is, where she fits in in this family, and some of the learnings you had in terms of, I guess, your own inbuilt thoughts and arguably prejudices-

Julia Samuel 1:03:20 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:20 ... against a certain way of living?

Julia Samuel 1:03:22 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:22 Is that fair to say?

Julia Samuel 1:03:23 It is fair to say. I mean, and we all have prejudices-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:25 We do. We do

Julia Samuel 1:03:26 ... and, and judgments. The, the important thing as a therapist is to be aware of them and not act out on them. But I was really pulled. So Dina was the great-granddaughter-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:37 Of Katty

Julia Samuel 1:03:37 ... of Katty. So she was 25. She was married with a daughter of her own, Leah. And, you know, the cultural or- orthodox community live in a very different way to one that I know and I kind of validate and believe in, in that, as a woman, she wasn't really educated to work. She was sent to seminary in Israel when she was 18, but the men are kind of go out and do the professions. Some Orthodox Jewish women have some professions, like a dental nurse or, um, working in a GP practice.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:14 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:04:14 But not careers, and they're kind of thought of as on the shelf if they're not married by the time they're 23, 24. You know, it's a very old school [laughs] in the way that we looked, like 19th century attitude to women, where their main role is to be a wife, to have children, and to take care of the family. And both with, with all of the women in that family, it pushed my button about women's power, women working, women being out in the world, and women being equal. And for me, as a woman, I... Working has saved me many times, and I wasn't brought up to work. So I was brought up just to get married. Um, my twin brother was brought up to kind of have a career, and I had an old-fashioned upbringing. So I've kind of fought, [laughs] you know, strongly to have my own identity that is completely separate from the family I was born into or the family that I'm married to. Um, and my husband's incredibly supportive of me, and so the two have kind of merged now. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:20 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:05:20 But, you know, I had this kind of striving to prove something, I think.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:25 Mm.

Julia Samuel 1:05:26 But also to kind of get in with stuff, to... I don't know what it is, to kind of push through.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:34 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:05:34 And I see myself as a cart horse, you know? I never had huge dreams, but I just would have one aim, and I'd plod at it, you know, until I got qualified. Then I'd get in the NHS. I'd plod at that. I was there 25 years. You know what I mean? I, I'm not, I didn't have massive dreams, but I just worked hard all the time, and I loved the difference between work and home and how my identity changed. I loved working in the NHS. I love doctors. And so there was a bit of me that was kind of raging against this... not against, but for her freedom. Like, if you were my granddaughter or my daughter, I would want you educated, getting out there, being in the world. And they-- I would be on my bicycle, and there'd be this kind of rant in my, [laughs] my head. And I-- And they lived in me. I dreamt about them. They were part of me for weeks and months, long after I finished writing about them-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:31 Yeah, can imagine

Julia Samuel 1:06:32 ... as all the families are. You know, people live in you. You dream about people you don't even know, that they really hit you in your consciousness. They, they come into your unconscious. And what I realized was I was looking at it from completely a wrong lens. She was completely happy in the environment that she's in, and the big thing that I hadn't acknowledged was their Jewish identity, both the religious identity-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:01 Mm

Julia Samuel 1:07:01 ... and the spiritual identity, and that sense of belonging and safety, that from the history they came from, they w- were committed and chose to give up all sorts of freedoms. No, it wasn't even thought of as freedom because of their faith, because of their survival, and that that gave their life meaning, satisfaction, and joy. And they looked at me like slightly, "Poor you. You're not part of us." I mean, they weren't condescending, but it was very much they felt they had a kind of answer for living. And what I really had to acknowledge was if you look at the level of loneliness and isolation in the UK today, they actually do have answers- [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:51 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:07:51 ... that we are ignoring because they are not lonely. They have this sense of community that everyone helps each other in time of crisis, which we could learn from.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:02 I mean, it's so powerful to hear that. It's so powerful to hear you acknowledge your perspective, of course, which you're entitled. We're all entitled to our perspective, but one thing we're not that good across society at doing is understanding that someone else has got a different perspective. They have a different version of living, and someone can be completely satisfied in that version. And as you were saying that at the end there about look around at our modern secular society where we go and follow our dreams and we move for work, you know, loneliness is on the rise. We are becoming-

Julia Samuel 1:08:41 Anxiety is on the rise. Depression is on the rise.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:44 Yeah. You know, families are struggling to bring up their children in isolation away from their communities, yet we still think that-

Julia Samuel 1:08:54 We know best

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:54 ... we know best. You know, this is progress. This is human progress. And to be really clear, I am not at all for one minute suggesting that women having more opportunity than they used to is anything but a good thing, right? Of course, it is. But hearing that report from Dina, w- as you just described it, it really makes you think. You know, it makes me think also, Julia, of this... I remember at a practice I used to work in, I was there for seven years, and I, I remember this, that there was a couple, a young couple, and their baby died.

Julia Samuel 1:09:35 Oh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:35 I, I can't remember how old the baby was, but within a few months. And I think they were coming in to see me, and, you know, you're looking through the notes first and you've, you've seen what's happened. And I was quite junior at the time, so that, there's a bit of probably discomfort in me as a doctor as to how am I gonna, you know, handle this, you know? I'm gonna see the parents now. And they said something which has never really left me. They had such a strong commitment to their faith. They said something to the effect of, "This was God's will, and God always has a reason." And I can tell you at that moment, I didn't quite understand that. I was a lot younger. But actually, it got them through, right? It really did. They... You know, I didn't see them that much, so I can't say for 100% that there's no problems. Of course there was pain, there was grief, but that sense of connection to-

Julia Samuel 1:10:41 A higher power

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:42 ... a higher power, rules of living, right? They just accepted it, and, and it was... I, I really learnt a lot that day.

Julia Samuel 1:10:50 Yeah. It's, I think, one of the difficulties of 21st century life is that we kind of think we have the agency and control over all these profound things, living and dying-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:03 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:11:03 ... health, ill health, and that we're failing when they happen, that death is a failure, you know? And what I... You know, one of the reasons I wrote about the Bergers is I think ignorance w- is where you get prejudice. You know, not knowing people's stories is where judgment blooms, and I had the judgment, although I was with them, and they taught me. They taught me what r- the research shows, is that having a spiritual belief, people do tend to be happier, less fear of death, and more content. I'm not saying everybody should have one-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:40 No

Julia Samuel 1:11:41 ... but the research backs it up.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:42 Yeah, it really does. You know, there, there's this whole idea of infinite choice.

Julia Samuel 1:11:47 Yes. You talk about this in your new book.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:49 Yeah, there's a whole chapter on it, because I, I kind of feel that we have just a barrage of choice in every aspect of our lives. You know, let's call really trivial stuff, like you go on a music app, you can literally listen to pretty much any tune that's ever been published, or you go onto Netflix and you can see hundreds, thousands of films, right? And we think more choice is a good thing. But actually, too much choice becomes a stressor, a- and there's always this feeling that, "Have I made the right choice? Would life have been better had I done that?" Whereas, I guess what I hear from this story is actually, it, for certain aspects of their life, there isn't that much choice. It's like, this is how you live, right? These are the kind of rules of engagement for life, and maybe many people don't question them. It's like, this is how we live- And by not having the choice, would you say it's fair to say that choice was limited, but by limiting that choice they were happier and more content?

Julia Samuel 1:12:53 I would definitely say. They had a sense of calm and satisfaction, and they weren't searching. They weren't looking for something on the other side, the grass is greener or the, you know, 36 television or thousands of television channels. They invested their hearts, their minds, and their time to the significant aspects of their life that mattered to them most, which was their family, their community, their faith, and for the men in the family, their work, in order to, to bring home, um, you know, to pay for their lives. And that sense of simplicity, if you like, was immensely satisfying and rewarding. It didn't mean that they didn't suffer or that they didn't have difficulties or that they didn't have conflicts, like we all do. But they, they weren't constantly hungry, looking to fill the hole in their heart, like you talk about in your book. They, they were very satisfied with their sense of belonging, their faith, who they were, and how they lived.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:10 You've mentioned a couple of times in this conversation we want to feel safe in our bodies. What does that mean?

Julia Samuel 1:14:18 I think what that means is that when we are not safe in our bodies, it means that at some level we're on alert, kind of looking for danger. That limits our capacity to really connect with ourselves and other people. So when we feel completely safe and calm, like I do now talking to you, I can notice what you're showing in your face. I can be aware of what's going on in my body. I can be aware of the thoughts coming through my head, choosing what I'm going to say, discarding what I choose not to say, and that our bandwidth of connection is broader.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:03 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:15:03 That I feel that we are emotionally and psychologically and physiologically kind of aligned-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:09 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:15:09 ... and connected with each other. If I was nervous, I'd be speaking very fast. I'd say the first thing that came into my head, and I wouldn't be able to look at you properly because I would be kind of looking all around. So my attention span, my emotional-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:24 Mm

Julia Samuel 1:15:25 ... bandwidth i- would be limited. And then of course I'd walk out of the room, and I'd feel a bit dissatisfied.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:31 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:15:31 I'd feel a little bit empty. Whereas when I'm safe in my body, I'm safe in my heart, I'm safe in my mind, I'm safe in my environment, it's like having a wonderful meal.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:43 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:15:43 It's like you really, I said what I believed. If other people don't like it [laughs] or don't agree with me, that's interesting.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:50 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:15:51 You know, I want to hear what they think. But I feel like I've said what I, is on my mind, is true for me in this moment with you now, and I can leave it behind without it kind of ruminating in my body-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:05 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:16:05 ... all the 50 different versions of what I could have said.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:09 Time clearly must play an important role in our ability to feel safe in our bodies. So if we take this podcast, for example, you say butterflies in your stomach at the start, a little bit nervous. And again, for me, I'm surprised to hear that because we communicate quite regularly.

Julia Samuel 1:16:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:27 We know each other well.

Julia Samuel 1:16:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:28 You've been on the show before. So it's-

Julia Samuel 1:16:30 I really like you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:31 Uh, yeah, a- and the feeling's mutual.

Julia Samuel 1:16:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:32 And so I think, okay, that's interesting. Um, so I didn't know that. Going back to the realities before, I didn't know that. One of the reasons I have made the intentional decision a few years ago to make these long conversations is ... Again, I didn't think of it through the lens of feeling safe in one's body, but I've always observed that the second half of the conversations, to me at least, are always better, deeper-

Julia Samuel 1:17:02 More expansive

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:02 ... more authentic. Yeah, more expansive. And that kind of makes sense. You know, we've spoken about warming up a relationship before, right? And, and I feel, yeah, we're starting off, we're warming up. You know, you've traveled up, and we're just getting to know each other again in this very intimate environment. You know, this podcast table is, you know, it's pretty thin, you know? We're sitting very close-

Julia Samuel 1:17:22 It's nice

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:22 ... to one another.

Julia Samuel 1:17:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:24 But then as you, presumably your system calms and you sort of relax more, then we can get deeper and deeper. And then if we-

Julia Samuel 1:17:35 Less performative.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:36 Less performative, exactly. Whereas, you know, on Radio 2 I do 20-minute interviews. And yes, you can do a good interview in 20 minutes, but I, I can't say I find it as nourishing as something like this where it's, uh, yeah, I feel uplifted afterwards when I've had them face to face. Surprisingly not always when I've had them on Zoom. So we're talking about families. We're talking about how people can get to know themselves better through understanding their familial patterns. If we're so busy with our lives and we don't really have time to nurture those relationships with our families, how important is time in our ability to feel safe in our bodies?

Julia Samuel 1:18:21 I think time has a, an enormous part to play in, you know, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. And if a value for anyone listening is family and, uh, people in their family, one of their questions to themselves is, "Am I prioritizing my time to spend with my family?" And if I want to have kind of soulful, meaningful conversations that will live on in me decades after maybe my dad has died, I need to create that time. You know, so in the same way like being around the kitchen table, when you first sit down, there's a clatter and you're kind of chatting about your day, but as you go on through the conversation around your kitchen table, then you can begin to bring up, "I'm a bit worried about my job. I'm worried about my teenage daughter who's developed an eating disorder in lockdown," all those different things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:21 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:19:21 You need time, and we need to prioritize it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:27 I mean, the research is, again, pretty clear on this, that people who value time over money are happier. And, you know, I totally understand this can come across as insensitive, and people will think, "Well, it's okay for some people. They've got the luxury of that." And of course, there's an element-

Julia Samuel 1:19:44 It's true

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:44 ... of truth to that. But actually, Ashley Williams did this study and showed that even in conditions of poverty, people who value time over money, they can have really positive effects that are much longer-lasting than just the money saving. It, it, it's really incredible research.

Julia Samuel 1:20:01 It's incredible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:02 And it, and it makes you think, wow, we're all different. We've all got different lives. Ask yourself, though, where might you be able to prioritize time a little bit more than you currently do?

Julia Samuel 1:20:13 And to kind of meet that also is that one of the definitions of being loved is being known.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:22 Mm.

Julia Samuel 1:20:22 Known as you find yourself to be, not just the, the you that you put on, the kind of performance you that you put on. And one of the things that came across in every single family I worked with, this was their family, and yet there were whole aspects of them that they did not know. So you cannot know your family by not having those important, sometimes difficult, but always useful conversations, and that takes time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:56 On the subject of time, these 12 touchstones that you finish the book with that, you know, if people read that, they're gonna learn so much about how they can improve their own relationships with their families. Number eight is time for fun, and I starred that one. Why I starred it, of course, we're all gonna resonate with different ones, aren't we? The ones that we feel intuitively are relevant for us. And, you know, the reason for me that's such a big one is I feel that so much of my interactions with my brother are around caring for Mom.

Julia Samuel 1:21:33 Your chores, the to-do list.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:34 Yeah.

Julia Samuel 1:21:34 The whose turn is it?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:34 It's all about who's going round, who's giving breakfast, okay, who's done that, who's been to the bank. And I, I figured out over the last few months that we never do anything fun together. Like, all we do is talk about Mom and who's doing what. And actually, that is having a cost-

Julia Samuel 1:21:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:51 ... on our own relationship. And I've been thinking, well, how can I start to do more fun things with my brother? You know, we used to go and do stuff. We used to play snookers together at the snooker club.

Julia Samuel 1:22:02 I was gonna say snooker. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:04 Yeah, we used to go and do that or, you know, maybe go to a football game together.

Julia Samuel 1:22:07 Hike. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:08 Yeah, whatever it is. And so that one really spoke to me. Out the 12, and you wrote them, of course, which one would you say at the moment is the one that means the most to you?

Julia Samuel 1:22:25 I think the one that means the most to me is the one that I'm worst at [laughs] , which is fighting productively. Is that where you love people, you are gonna fight, and disagree, and suffer, have joys, have pain. And we can't avoid conflict in our families, and I'm really bad at fighting. I get scared. I want to run away. And I'm being taught by my children how to fight so that you can say the difficult things, you can, you know, really be honest. But that isn't like using words as weapons of destruction to kind of attack somebody, but to say what you're angry about, to kind of step away for a while, 'cause obviously in the heat of the fight, you can't repair. But that in families, that thing of rupture where you fight and then proper repair where you make up and you heal and you learn to know each other in a different way is, I think, incredibly powerful. And my children are teaching me, you know, that, to how to do it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:34 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:23:34 ... because I really don't like it, and they are forcing [laughs] forcing me to. And we feel closer because I, you know, I avoided it during their childhood, and they would say, "Mom," you'd, you always would say, "Don't fight. Don't fight. Stop fighting." And so now they're teaching me that you can fight and you can s- feel closer, and actually feel liberated-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:57 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:23:57 ... that you can have this fight, and then really love someone more afterwards-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:02 Yeah

Julia Samuel 1:24:02 ... which isn't what my experience had been.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:05 Julia, to finish off this conversation, I wanted to read something from your book, if I may. "When families function effectively, they are adaptive, shifting systems that respond to individual feelings and external events more positively and supportively than dysfunctional families." I think that beautifully, in a nutshell, sums up a huge part of the ethos in this book. I feel inspired to inquire more with my own family on the back of reading it. I think pretty much every reader is going to feel the same way. Families are complex. They're dynamic. They're fraught with problems for many people. What are some of your final words for people who have been inspired by this conversation, want to make changes, want to get to know their families better, but perhaps don't know where to start?

Julia Samuel 1:25:07 I think maybe the first step is to turn to themselves with compassion, to be compassionate towards what their feelings are, to let themselves know that probably it didn't start with you, this feeling that something isn't quite right. And to dare to begin to explore, to look up to your parents or across to your siblings or, you know, talk to your children about things that have been bothering you that you have never dared voice or name or allow. Um, and start small.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:49 Julia, it's been a pleasure talking to you. You have written a quite wonderful book, Every Family Has A Story: How We Inherit Love and Loss. I look forward to the next time we get together.

Julia Samuel 1:26:00 Thank you, Rangan. It was a real delight talking to you. You are a real inspiration to me, and I have learned so much from you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:09 Thank you.

Julia Samuel 1:26:09 So thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:09 [upbeat music] If you enjoyed that conversation about how to leave your past in the past, I think you are really going to enjoy this one about the things that you can do to stop procrastination.

1:26:19 So many people get stopped by procrastination. You know what you need to do. The issue is how do you make yourself take actions?