WEBVTT - Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:12.920 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio High 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:17.159 Family Secrets Listeners. It's Danny. I'm very excited to be 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.520 sharing a special bonus episode of Family Secrets with you all. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.800 At the end of January. To celebrate the paperback publication 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.240 of my memoir Inheritance, I did a series of live 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.520 podcast events around the country and the first of these 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.680 was at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.320 the renowned trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.800 the Score, Dr Bessel vander Kolke. After all, when it 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.680 comes to family secrets, trauma is inevitably involved. But when 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.720 Bessel and I sat down for our conversation, we none 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.040 of us had any idea that we were about to 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.480 enter a time of collective trauma. This will be a 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.680 two part special bonus episode my conversation with Bessel today 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.520 and then we'll share the conversation with the audience in 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:23.200 Portsmouth tomorrow. Good evening, everyone, it's great to be here. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.560 It's great to be here with Bessel. It's amazing to 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.759 see this turnout on a late January evening in Portsmouth, 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:37.720 UM or anywhere really, um in this gorgeous theater. So 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.240 I was I was thinking about I've been thinking for 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.679 a while about coming here and doing this special live 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.000 episode of UM of Family Secrets with Bessel as my guest. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.800 And I was thinking about, I love full circle moments, 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.960 and this feels like one to me. About three winters ago, 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.919 um I reached out to Bessel. We have a mutual friend, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.639 the yogi and yoga philosopher Stephen Cope, and um I 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:15.080 was in uh complicated state. I had recently made the 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.960 discovery about a huge family secret of my own after 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.440 casually doing a DNA test, recreationally doing a DNA DNA 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.240 test the way I think of it, and discovered in 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.960 pretty short order that my beloved dad who raised me 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.000 had not been my biological father, which was something that 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.680 had never entered my mind. And so I was in 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:45.400 this state of really almost a kind of relationship to 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.840 my own self, my my identity, my body, my face 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:57.280 in the mirror. UM that felt traumatizing, um and shocking. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.400 And I was walking around really feeling the physical symptoms 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:07.480 of that, the dizziness, the lightheadedness, the floatiness, and UM. 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.919 So I reached out to Bessel and he very kindly 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.240 agreed to meet me and we spent an afternoon talking 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.800 by a fire on a winter day, and I couldn't 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:19.520 have imagined, as it's been true in my life so 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.080 many times, that it would just be three short years 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:28.280 later and I would have synthesized this um metabolized this 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:35.000 experience into a book, Inheritance, and that then I would 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:40.920 simultaneously create this podcast, which was a happy accident. Um 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:45.200 just really briefly, I wrote this book about my family secret, 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.520 about my being the family secret, and then all of 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.560 a sudden people started telling me their's. And the very 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.520 first time that that happened, it was a friend of mine, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:00.680 the Buddhist mindfulness teacher, Sylvia Borstein, and she had just 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.240 read the manuscript of Inheritance, and it prompted her to 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.560 tell me a story of a family secret of hers. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:08.480 And I was on the other end of the phone, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:10.960 and I thought, I wish I was recording this. And 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.400 that is the entire way that this podcast was born. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.960 But one of the things that I've noticed in now 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:21.000 to going on three seasons of the podcast as thirty. 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.560 This new season is launching next week. It will be 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.960 thirty guests that I've spoken to, which is not it's 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.520 not really a scientific sample. But I've noticed a few things, 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.560 and one of the things that I've noticed is that 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.039 every guest of mine, at some point or another, no 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.680 matter what their story is, does use the word trauma. 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.359 And I guess I wanted to begin by there's a 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.440 there's a line from The Body Keeps the Score which 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.880 I just reread, uh and re underlined and felt new 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.960 things about. I think The Body Keeps the Score is 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.520 a book that you can probably come back to multiple 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.679 times and life and read it differently and have different 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.080 um different moments in it and different concepts in it 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:11.919 that are underscored. But I figured that you wrote the 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:17.680 book probably in around and you wrote that we're over 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.960 ten years. Yeah, you didn't write it in but as 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.640 you were writing this um at this point you wrote, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.719 we're on the verge of becoming a trauma conscious society. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.359 So I guess I wanted to ask you what you 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.840 meant by that then, and how does that sit with 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.800 you now seven years later. Well, I think that's a 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:45.320 very tough question because believe in this sharply divided world, 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.400 and at the same time that I no hundreds of 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.680 people around the country who are doing amazing work. I 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.520 know people who have these yoga programs in the Baltimore 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:01.120 Into City schools. I know people who have Shakespeare the 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:06.839 Kansas City, Kansas prisons, and just amazing programs, singing with soldiers, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.480 working with horses and people are easy. There's enormous layers 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.480 of consciousness and really getting it. And then our mainstream 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:22.040 society becomes more and more rooted in there's destructive capitalist 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.400 world of how can we make more money and destroy 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.280 about a little bit faster so that we can make 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.800 more money, which is just a stolishing including medicine itself. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:37.080 Of course, psychiatry very much so, of living with a 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.440 crazy diagnostic system, giving people labels that don't make any sense, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.680 that have no scientific validity. And at the same time 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.000 there's other group of people who don't get paid by insurance, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.520 who you know, who are not part of the system. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.880 Be the discovering a lot and they see the difference 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.360 becomes a larger and larger in a way UM and 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.159 I don't get it, it's very much, but you see, 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.200 so it becomes right now, So it becomes larger and larger. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.159 And yet at the same time there's more and more 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:15.000 of an identification of UM and experience, a piece of history, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:21.160 a parent and aspect of childhood, um as as being 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:26.760 identified as trauma. More and more, it seems, I mean, 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:32.720 your book has it came out three years ago, four 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.960 years ago, and there's a reason why your book is 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.160 occupied the top three spots of the New York Times 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:45.640 Paperback nonfiction bestseller list for an entire year. Um, people 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.480 in airports are thinking, I know what I'm gonna read. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.240 I'm not gonna read Daniel Steele. I'm not going to 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:54.520 read Danny Shapiro. No. Also because it's the next book 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.840 you read. You know. So what what do you think 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:04.720 that that that hung is about. That's again, it's a 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.040 tricky question. I see it, and I see so I'm 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.040 so impressed that I live in a particular world. People 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.000 ask me all the time what was happening in the world. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.200 I said, I don't know. I just know the people 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.720 I know and know the people who come to see me, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.640 the people who I hang out with, the people who 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.040 want to share their work with me, and I meet 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:30.120 always enlightened, very thoughtful, very mindful people. At the same 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.840 thing to people I don't see like you on your 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.280 stories about I said, and I don't know how large 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.080 this is, you know, and so I don't know, but 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.480 I know that that there's many places, almost every place 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.400 that I go to. I meant, people who do amazing 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:51.080 things in terms of getting into your body, telling the truth, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:56.120 speaking openly, trying to lead an authentic life. Interestingly, also 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.400 in Silicon Valley, which is the hubble of the world 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.160 in some ways, where there's all the money and all 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.720 these immature people doing amazing things and crazy things, and 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.320 yet people are also really searching for how do we 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.400 keep ourselves together, how do we pay attention to each other? 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.000 And so there's a very serious effort to understand how 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.319 we can make safe, safe and energizic places for each other. 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.360 My mind just went to the quote unquote wellness movement 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.400 as something that's kind of adjacent to this in a 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:39.360 way where I think we, meaning we who think about 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.440 these things are thinking about the body more and more 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:48.000 as the place that is the locus of where it 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.400 all gets expressed. I mean, there's a moment in your 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:54.240 book probably several where you talk about god instincts, right 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.360 or And I remember when I was reading that thinking, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.040 I have never in my life had a got instinct 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.839 and followed it and regretted it, and I have had 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.480 got instincts and ignored them, and that that leads to 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.439 you know, walls and trouble. I think, but that the 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:19.160 idea that we're listening listening to our body is more Yes, 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.720 we are, you know, in certain circles at the same 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.719 time that we know the importance of the body and 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:32.440 being saved together. Our published school systems are abolishing um 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.760 recess our bodies, theater are abolishing sports and giving kids 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:42.040 tests to substitute for that. One of the Obama's worst 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.319 appointments are you, Duncan, who who just ramped a little 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.120 test gets wrote completely ignoring the natural thing that the 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.880 kidneys to do is to play at the horse about 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.560 and to feel your body RelA ship other bodies. And 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.200 so you have these layers that live side by side. 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.920 Um um. I don't know the prevalence of idolt. I 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.920 see a lot of good things happening, but I see 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:09.520 a lot of bad things happening at the same time. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.000 Let me, for example, the dean of my medical school 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.400 UH called me and said, I've read your book, and 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.520 I think you can really help us because we have 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.400 a terrible problem with burnout more of our doctors, law 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.600 of suicide, people leaving people being horribly depressed. And can 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.920 you help us? I said, I'd love to h and 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:41.720 then she said, but you cannot change the system. I guess, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.040 so where should I help you if you're unwilling to 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.079 actually look at the fact that you're only allowed to 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.120 see people for seven minutes and not from a long 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.920 term relationship with them, which is the well spring of 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.000 human wellness is long term relationships, as your books A 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.680 beautifully talks about. You know, we're basically law people who 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.000 like to belong to groups of people, and that's our essence. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.680 And if you live in a completely alienated, uh corporate world, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.160 all the connection get ignored and loyalty doesn't get rewarded 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.560 and you're not on the right track. Well, and of 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:23.280 course you're talking about the ground of childhood as as 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:28.640 where so many tracks get laid that once they're laid 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.600 are the question really is how we're able to or 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:40.559 whether we're able to adapt to act to have efficacy right. Um. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.440 I think generally, if you have resources, you can find 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.679 all kinds of ways to really change yourself. You do it. 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.800 Change yourself is actually engage in things that dive actually 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.880 contradict what you were. You're holding your body. So when 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.400 you're stiffened up, taking tang or dancing lessons would be 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:06.319 very good. Be just justin tune with somebody else. I 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.280 talked a lot about singing. We know a lot about 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.480 the new ablehold. You're singing about us to the brain. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.839 Singing together is marvelous thing. It really makes you feel 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:20.320 cheerful and the mystic and connected. But we don't sing anymore. 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:23.520 You can still go to singing camp or take a 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.640 workshops where we do sing. So when you say resources, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.880 what do you what do you mean by resources? Like, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.320 if you have the resources, you have resources? What what 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.000 are we? What are resources? You need money, you need 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:43.920 time off, you need to access, have access to stuff. 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.120 And maybe a little community like enforcement, maybe a rich 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.400 community in terms of resources. There are yoga classes, their 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:59.800 tychi classes, they're choirs, their places and double a A meetings. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.280 These were people can come to and actually meet each 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.559 other and get to know each other. Maybe that's why 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:10.040 people moved to place like like it needs to be around, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.800 it needs to be visible. We'll be back in a 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:23.800 moment with more family secrets. We were talking backstage about 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.120 one of the patients that you write about in your 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:30.120 book who really didn't have the kindergarten teacher, who really 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.080 had a very very difficult childhood. I mean one would 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.000 say not a lot of resources right available to her, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.120 who ended up more than okay, you know, with a 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:46.760 with a with a very fulfilled life. How does that happen? See, 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.120 nothing is linear, you know, it's like that leads to death, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.000 and that leads to death. But you say she had 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.280 no resources, which of what I said, But I said 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.480 it was horribly abused by both of her parents. But 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.000 a mid music together at home. And I think something 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.200 like making music together and just letting it hang out 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.440 and getting into his people can be enormously powerful to 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.040 just to get things you cannot lie and play music 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.920 that there's truthmaking and and getting the stone fight and 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.120 get doing it to write mom and stuff like that. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.640 That's interesting. Tomorrow night, I'm going to be in New 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.840 York City and my guest is this UH singer songwriter 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:34.120 named Alison Moore. And Allison was I mean, she's she's 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:39.760 the daughter of two Nashville country singers. Father was an alcoholic. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.320 They made music together, all of them. The two sisters 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.040 and the father and the mother, and then when she 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.000 was fourteen, her father shot and killed her mother and 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.520 then turned his gun against himself and committed suicide. And 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.160 I've thought a lot about Allison in preparation for talking 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.960 to her and her sister Shelby Lynn, who are both beauty, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.680 beutiful singer songwriters, and I think a big part of 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.080 what had to have saved them in some way was 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.320 was music and the memory of the music that they 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.480 made with their with their parents when they were all together. Yeah, 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.920 I would think that, like we talk backstage about our 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.960 lived just backgrounds, I bet that yon Kipper services still 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.880 move you deeply, even though you may not practices. I 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.560 still love back data start like that from my background 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:35.240 and it's it's it's the it's the ground of um. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.640 You know. I was. I was telling you that I 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.920 wrote this memoir called Devotion, and one of the things 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.040 that I discovered after it was published, I was expecting 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.280 because I because I was raised observant in a very 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.400 strict home, I was always envious of people who were 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.360 brought up with nothing because I thought that they just 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.760 meant we got to choose, you know, uh, with no guilt. 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.720 You know, you could just pick from the Smorga's board 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:05.679 of religions. And what I was struck by and learned 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.840 just from people responding to me to the book was 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.840 that the people who were brought up with nothing were 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:18.919 actually the most lost and confused in their spiritual life, 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:24.320 and that growing up with anything gave people either something 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:29.120 to remember or something to to rail against. But it 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:35.120 was something formative, living up with rules and structures. And 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.960 when they call liturgies, it's very important, and we will 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.840 believe in literature. You get up and every Saturday you 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.480 do a particular thing, and every fortune July you do 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.000 another thing, and you know what to look for, a 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:52.200 certain regularity to life, and little predictability and a little 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.840 thing of At that time, we're really to go to 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.920 devote ourselves to something that we do together, which oledge 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.679 of course, do you make noises together, you move together? 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:06.920 And I think being vased in something like that is 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:15.879 very important. You talk a lot about um action as being, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:22.399 and you're you're talking particularly about um the kinds of 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.000 capital t traumas you know, as I think of them, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.760 UM where someone is trapped or someone is in a 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.520 burning car and can't save the people around them, or 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:39.000 someone is violently attacked and can't move, and the inability 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:48.280 to take action somehow embeds itself and makes UM recovery 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:54.760 or reprocessing more complex. Or it's a combination of two things, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.920 so that basically, when you're exposed to something horrenda's you're 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:04.240 automatically meant to move or meant to do something. If 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.080 at that point you don't move or do something, the 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.320 horror wors to trigger your brain to move, actually go 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.720 in a different direction, take a different path, take a 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.520 path into collapse and helplessness. So when people started messing 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.880 with you, the normal thing is like get the hell 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:27.000 away from me and to move. UM. The thing that 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.479 happens to many people has when something scary it happens, 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.520 they collapse and come forth. So it's the opposite of 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.040 fight or flight. Yeah right, it's we need to collapse 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:43.360 that keeps people going. So it's actually just I um. 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.639 I said. There's a program called Impact used to be 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:51.080 called model mugging where you train women who I think 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.200 it happens to many people, particularly women who have been abused. 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.560 They bodies stand to be collapsed of I can't do 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:04.000 anything or anything I'm good for it. And they teach 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:09.760 them martial arts and to fight and to recreate the 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.680 most scary thing into lives and to take action where 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.240 they couldn't take action before. To my mind, a beautiful 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:20.080 program to help people to get out of that physical 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.960 sense of helplessness. And you don't become a tough broad instead, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.600 he just becomes become a person who walks through the 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:34.120 world with self confidence. Well, there's so much. I mean, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.880 I was very struck by the story that you tell 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.520 very early in the book about family friends of yours 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:49.119 and their little boy who were very close to the 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.240 towers on nine eleven UM. And it was his first 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.280 day of school, I think. And um, so he saw 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.080 a lot as many people didn't many children did. And 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.760 his parents had you know, you visited parents. Um, we're 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.960 processing what they were processing. But it was a very loving, um, 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:16.479 safe grounded family environment. And actually and I walked through 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:22.000 clean up side on September fift They knew the rescue worker, 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.480 so we we were in the sten stuff. We did 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.520 something we didn't just talk about home and and and 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:34.920 and the boy came as well. So he then draws 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.320 a he makes a drawing and it's a drawing of 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.400 the buildings, and the buildings are on fire, and there 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.240 are there are people jumping from the buildings, and then 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.960 there's something that you can't quite make out at the 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.920 bottom of the drawing, and it's a black circle. And 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.080 you asked him what was his name? Um, what's what's 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.600 the boy's name? No? No, no, yeah, no, what's the 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.560 what's what's the blacks circle? And he says, that's a trampoline. 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.480 Is so moving? That's a tramp and and what you 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.399 describe as the way that he found an adaptation that 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.200 his his mind was able to was able to imagine 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:19.280 alternatives very much. Can they talk about your book? You 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.960 find out it's this horrendous piece of news, that dirty devastation. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:30.800 Next thing, you go online and find out who that relative. Maybe, 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.880 so you immediately get to keep gear and do something 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.239 instead of pretending like, okay, didn't happen. Let me just 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:43.120 keep that very fooled, like everything is normal. You immediately 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:47.840 goes into action, including lying your bed and contemplating what 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:50.680 what you were going to do. But your own story 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.320 is it is a remarkable story about resilience itself. And 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.520 you use what you do best, which is finding words, 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.879 And you wish, said everybody, because finding words is a 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:06.200 beautiful thing. I felt, I've never been more grateful to 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.679 that this is what I do. Um, although I also 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.479 think it's kind of a chicken and egg situation, like 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:15.439 is this what I do? Because this was always the 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:19.479 story that was lurking, It's impossible to really pry them apart. 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.120 There's some way in which this was always the story 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.520 that was lurking beneath all the other stories. I always 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.280 wrote about family secrets. All my novels were centered around 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.119 the corrosive power of secrets and families. And then I 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.359 started writing memoirs. No one was more surprised than me. 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:39.800 Why was I writing memoirs. I wasn't particularly interested in 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.600 my own life, but I was digging for something, and 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:44.880 I was using my life sort of as a laboratory 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:49.960 to try to make inquiries into things that I was interesting. Interesting, 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.679 m you could make it interesting. Not everybody can do that, 0:23:54.840 --> 0:24:01.080 you know, well, I was like trying to always put 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:04.280 together what belongs with what It always felt like a puzzle. 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:08.240 And then the answer to the biggest puzzle of all, 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:10.720 you know, the line and inheritance, where I write I 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.080 always knew there was a secret when I didn't know 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:17.040 the secret was me. That's right, I think that. And 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.000 so we're just finishing up our work book for a book, 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.439 and we invite people to write all the time. And 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:27.400 also my organized way to just start writing. Take a glass, 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:32.040 start writing about the glass. See what comes up. By 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:35.520 free writing, sooner or later, piece of yourself start getting 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.359 revealed much better than if you and I talked to 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:42.280 each other, because if I talked to you, I meanly 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.560 worried about better, you will like what I'm saying. But 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.120 I think I'm smart. But if you write to yourself 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:50.520 that critic concurce teme because I'm just going to write 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:53.159 some nonsense. You can't do that because you have to 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:57.399 make a living, do it. We'll be back in a 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:06.320 moment with more family secrets. When I teach Larger treats 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:08.280 a couple of times a year, there's an exercise that 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.119 I love giving the group and it's based on a 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.000 book that came out in the eighties by a writer 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:16.520 named Joe Brainerd. And the book is called I Remember, 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.280 which are two of the most evocative words when put 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:24.520 together in the English language. If you begin with the 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:27.800 words I remember, you will finish that sentence and then 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.560 drop down a line and then begin again. I remember 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:33.480 dropped down the line. And then it becomes associative. And 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.480 I sit from where I sit, and I look out 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:38.040 at a room full of people and they're all writing. 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:42.439 No one stops, and and then they discover things. And 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:44.080 then I have them go back to their rooms that 0:25:44.200 --> 0:25:50.040 night and say, now right, I don't remember you don't 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:52.639 necessarily shared it with people. That's the important Say yes, 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:56.439 you're right for yourself and find words for your inner world. 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.520 That it's actually your book, also your in this piece 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:03.919 of truth, and you're basically dumbfounded, and you talk about 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:08.320 my quotation from trauma that trauma is a known verbal experience, 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:12.639 and then you start finding words to begin to borgainize 0:26:12.640 --> 0:26:16.399 you relationship to yourself, which is beautiful. Well, I I 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:18.600 quote you in in the book, and it's actually from 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:21.320 the interview that you did with Christa Tippett Um that 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:24.120 I was driving along and it absolutely just you stopped 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:26.679 me in my tracks, which was, Um, it's the nature 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:28.879 of trauma that it doesn't allow a story to be told. 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:33.800 And I realized I realized something interesting about writing about trauma. 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:38.320 Because when I began Inheritance, I started writing right away. 0:26:38.400 --> 0:26:40.919 I was writing on index cards. I was trying to 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:44.720 remember because my brain was kind of injured a little bit, 0:26:44.720 --> 0:26:48.800 so words, I thought, thoughts that I wanted to retain. 0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:50.960 I was afraid I wouldn't be able to bring them 0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:55.199 back or remember. And then I started actually writing, and 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:57.720 I wrote about two hundred pages as I was researching 0:26:57.760 --> 0:27:00.639