Speaker 1: Pushkin, Wait you want version? Was it a New Year's party?
Speaker 1: I'm asking my friend Mit classical literature professor Stephanie Frampton
Speaker 1: to recall some ancient history. I've requested that she tell
Speaker 1: her version of the story of how we first met
Speaker 1: many many years ago. My memory is it was at
Speaker 1: our friend's house off the shelf, you, Paul bend and
Speaker 1: you're like, when I was in high school, I was
Speaker 1: really good at Latin. So embarrassing, Okay, So it turns
Speaker 1: out I was a huge nerd in high school, and
Speaker 1: I was kind of obsessed with all things Latin. I
Speaker 1: studied that ancient language for three whole years, and as
Speaker 1: a senior, I spent an entire semester translating an important
Speaker 1: Latin text, the Inid, by the famous Roman poet Virgil.
Speaker 1: But I didn't just translate the Indid. I got kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with it, and being the type a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Latin scholar that I was, I, for some
Speaker 1: strange reason, decided that there was one and only one
Speaker 1: proper way to translate the first sentence of the Inid,
Speaker 1: which in Latin is arma virum quai kano. Back then,
Speaker 1: when some scholar or author translated Arma virum quai kano
Speaker 1: in a way I didn't like. I kind of thought
Speaker 1: a little less of them. I know your huss varies ends.
Speaker 1: So when I first met Stephanie at that party many
Speaker 1: years ago and heard that she was an expert on
Speaker 1: the literature of ancient Rome, I couldn't help. But quiz her. Okay,
Speaker 1: new friend, So how would you translate Arma virum quai
Speaker 1: kano I sing of arms and of a man. I'm
Speaker 1: into that. Technically the correct answer is I sing of
Speaker 1: arms and a man, not I sing of arms and
Speaker 1: of a man. But it's fine whatever. Stephanie still passed.
Speaker 1: But what a great opening, right, I sing of arms
Speaker 1: and a man. The Ania is about an armed struggle,
Speaker 1: but it's more importantly about a man. A Eneas an
Speaker 1: ancient hero who weathers great dangers and sorrows, a guy
Speaker 1: who endures the worst possible tragedies a person can possibly
Speaker 1: go through and somehow finds a way to grow from them.
Speaker 1: And that's why I wanted to share virgil story with
Speaker 1: you today, because Aeneas can offer us some important evidence
Speaker 1: based tips for meeting the challenges that life throws our
Speaker 1: way and resiliently rising above them, and that makes Eneas
Speaker 1: a fitting fictional subject or yet another episode of happiness
Speaker 1: Lessons of the Ancients with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. Virgil
Speaker 1: is everyone's favorite Roman poet, and he becomes sort of
Speaker 1: the first superstar poet in the Roman world. We last
Speaker 1: heard from my friend classics experts Stephanie Rampton when we
Speaker 1: talked about the happiness lessons we can derive from the
Speaker 1: great Greek poet Homer. I like to think of the
Speaker 1: Inid as the best fan fiction there is of Homer.
Speaker 1: Homer was a towering figure in ancient literature, and Virgil,
Speaker 1: who lived hundreds of years after Homer, found lots of
Speaker 1: inspiration at his work. In fact, Virgil liked Homer's epics
Speaker 1: so much that he gave them a reboot with a
Speaker 1: Roman twist. Virgil rewrites those for his hero a Eneas.
Speaker 1: Aeneas was a kind of minor character in Homer's original epics,
Speaker 1: but Virgil put him at the center of the action.
Speaker 1: And that's because, at least according to some legends, Annius
Speaker 1: wasn't just some nobody. He was the guy who would
Speaker 1: eventually found Rome. Well, that's what the Romans say, the
Speaker 1: Greeks didn't care that much about that side of things.
Speaker 1: And so here's the simplified version of Virgil's Enid. It
Speaker 1: starts at the tail end of a royal love triangle,
Speaker 1: one that's so bad it results in an epic war
Speaker 1: that destroys an entire ancient city, famous Troy. It's the
Speaker 1: site of a great battle between two great ancient peoples,
Speaker 1: the Trojans and the Greeks, who have come on mass
Speaker 1: to get back Helen because she's the wife of Menelaias.
Speaker 1: This is the very famous Helen of Troy, indeed, or
Speaker 1: alternately Helen of Sparta because she's the wife of Menelaus.
Speaker 1: The Trojan prince Paris comes along and she decides to
Speaker 1: leave her Greek husband Menelaias and go back to Troy
Speaker 1: with Paris, which probably didn't make the Spartans all too happy,
Speaker 1: not at all. And the Spartans kind of rally together
Speaker 1: all of the ancient Greek peoples and they sail across
Speaker 1: the sea to Troy and set siege to the city
Speaker 1: to try to get Helen back. No spoilers, but how
Speaker 1: does it go for the Trojans? Doesn't go well for
Speaker 1: the Trojans. You might remember how the Greeks sneak their
Speaker 1: way into Troy. They pretend to call off the siege
Speaker 1: and leave the Trojans with what seems like an odd, yeah,
Speaker 1: ever so kind parting gift, a huge wooden horse. The
Speaker 1: Trojans wheel their strange present inside the city these high walls,
Speaker 1: never guessing that there were legions of Greek warriors hiding inside,
Speaker 1: just waiting to spring out for a surprise attack. Who
Speaker 1: could unfold in speech that night's havoc? Who it's carnage?
Speaker 1: Who could match our toils with tears? The ancient city
Speaker 1: falls for many years, a queen in heaps. Lifeless corpses
Speaker 1: lie scattered amidst the streets, amid the homes, and hollowed
Speaker 1: portals of the gods. Everywhere is cruel, grief everywhere, panic
Speaker 1: and full many a shape of death. The attack was
Speaker 1: so vicious that Virgil's hero Eneus is one of the
Speaker 1: only Trojans to escape the city was completely raised by
Speaker 1: the Greeks. All of his fellow Trojan princes were dead
Speaker 1: or captured. He leaves his hometown in complete ruin and
Speaker 1: sort of burning around him. He loses his wife in
Speaker 1: the escape, he manages to get away with only a
Speaker 1: few of his men, his father, his son. They hop
Speaker 1: on a boat and are blown around the Mediterranean. They're
Speaker 1: nearly shipwrecked many times. They are attacked by monsters and
Speaker 1: have an encounter with the Cyclops, who tries to eat them,
Speaker 1: amongst other things. So it was pretty bad. Yeah, it sucked.
Speaker 1: Encountering the Cyclops is majorly bad news. Here's the gory
Speaker 1: picture that Virgil paints of one of those giant one
Speaker 1: eyed cannibals. He feeds on the flesh of wretched men,
Speaker 1: and they're dark blood. I myself saw when he seized
Speaker 1: in his huge and two of our company and smashed
Speaker 1: them on the rock, and the spattered courts swam with gore.
Speaker 1: I watched while he devoured their limbs, all dripping with
Speaker 1: black blood cloths, and the warm joints quivered beneath his teeth.
Speaker 1: Remember when Stephanie described The Indian as the best Homer
Speaker 1: fan fiction ever, that's in part because Virgil continually succeeded
Speaker 1: in outdoing his predecessor in terms of the hardships he
Speaker 1: sprang on his poor hero. Consider, for example, how Virgil's
Speaker 1: Aeneid goes next level on what happens to Homer's epic
Speaker 1: hero Odysseus. The cyclops we know from the Odyssey is
Speaker 1: a very dangerous creature who likes to eat men. In
Speaker 1: the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men are attacked by one
Speaker 1: and they barely survive. And Virgil does homer one up
Speaker 1: and has Aneas's men attacked by a whole mob of cyclopses,
Speaker 1: and they barely get back onto their ships and sail away.
Speaker 1: So why did Virgil choose to give poor Aeneas so
Speaker 1: many extreme trials and tribulations. The reason had to do
Speaker 1: with who Virgil was writing for, his fellow Romans. The
Speaker 1: men of Virgil's time hadn't exactly been chased by man
Speaker 1: eating giants, but they had been through decades and decades
Speaker 1: of bloodshed. It is the end of a century of
Speaker 1: constant warfare and in fighting. It's the period of Caesar
Speaker 1: and the civil wars following Caesar's rise to power. Like Eneas,
Speaker 1: many Romans had lost their homes and their loved ones.
Speaker 1: They'd felt a sense of collective loss for generations, a
Speaker 1: feeling that Eneas's creator, Virgil, had also known firsthand. Part
Speaker 1: of the background of his story is in this period
Speaker 1: of strife and civil war, his homeland, his property gets
Speaker 1: confiscated as part of payments to soldiers for civil war, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: So he kind of has this chip on his shoulder
Speaker 1: a little bit about what's come before and feeling like
Speaker 1: it was all a little bit unfair. Virgil and his
Speaker 1: fellow aramatized Roman citizens closely identified with the tragedies that
Speaker 1: befell Enius, but they also really admired how Eneas made
Speaker 1: it through all those tragedies because in the end, Annius
Speaker 1: didn't lose his home and endure countless monster attacks for nothing.
Speaker 1: Aeneas's tale is a redemption story, one that came with
Speaker 1: a huge sense of purpose and meaning. In spite of
Speaker 1: all his losses, Eneas was faded to become the man
Speaker 1: who had found Rome. Yeah, his journey did suck, but
Speaker 1: Eneas was set to achieve so much after all his
Speaker 1: trials and tribulations. With that tale of redemption, Virgil was
Speaker 1: able to hold up a mirror to his fellow Romans.
Speaker 1: He was reminding them, Yeah, you've had some tough times,
Speaker 1: but you survived, and now it's time to flourish once again.
Speaker 1: It was a message that especially resonated around the time
Speaker 1: The Indian was written, as Rome's new emperor, Augustus, was
Speaker 1: taking the throne. Augustus is Caesar's great nephew and heir
Speaker 1: and finally sort of gets to be the main guy
Speaker 1: in charge of Rome and starts a period of kind
Speaker 1: of relative stability, and Virgil's poem as in some way
Speaker 1: a celebration of that. But the ancient Romans aren't the
Speaker 1: only ones who can learn from Virgil's epic celebration of
Speaker 1: growth through suffering. When we get back from the break,
Speaker 1: we'll hear about what modern readers can learn from Aeneas's
Speaker 1: ancient redemption story. We'll learn that Aeneas uses a special
Speaker 1: psychological technique that helps him and his men overcome their pain,
Speaker 1: a strategy that science shows we should probably all be
Speaker 1: using when we find ourselves going through a tough time
Speaker 1: and want to feel better. We'll hear more about this
Speaker 1: effective ancient resilience technique when the Happiness lad returns in
Speaker 1: a moment. It's the most successful poem in the history
Speaker 1: of European languages. Arguably sounds free impressive. Yeah like me.
Speaker 1: A Professor Stephanie Frampton is a big advocate of Virgil's
Speaker 1: epic the Eneid and the role that can play in
Speaker 1: helping us to understand the psychology of resilience. It's known
Speaker 1: as the best poem in the best language. Obviously, Homer,
Speaker 1: the Iliad, the Odyssey have a huge impact and are read,
Speaker 1: but Greek isn't as prominent a language in the sort
Speaker 1: of subsequent history of Europe for all sorts of reasons,
Speaker 1: mostly because of the Catholic Church. Latin is a language
Speaker 1: that's spoken in Europe actively from the first millennium BC
Speaker 1: through the eighteenth century through nineteen nineties New Bedford High School. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I first read the Indiad as a teenager, I
Speaker 1: was struck by how well the poem's hero Eneas was
Speaker 1: able to rise above the terrible tragedies he endured, which
Speaker 1: was no small fee, since the poet Virgil didn't shy
Speaker 1: away from sending terrible stuff. Enius's way. To quote my
Speaker 1: own high school translation of Virgil, Aeneas was much buffeted
Speaker 1: by the winds of fate. I mean, the dude lost
Speaker 1: his wife and his homeland, He was trapped in numerous
Speaker 1: deadly squalls at sea. He even had to face a
Speaker 1: rabid cyclops mob. But what I was most impressed by
Speaker 1: is the fact that Eneas didn't shy away from all
Speaker 1: the bad stuff or try to suppress what he went through. No,
Speaker 1: he kind of relished focusing on it. Take for example,
Speaker 1: what happened soon after Eneas and his men crash onto
Speaker 1: the coast of Carthage after enduring a terrible storm. They've
Speaker 1: been shipwrecked, They've found themselves on the shores of this
Speaker 1: strange land. Eneas and his men were soon welcomed by
Speaker 1: this strange land's residence as well as their queen, Dido.
Speaker 1: Dido wanted to be hospitable, so she invited the Trojans
Speaker 1: to a big feast, the first great meal Aeneas's men
Speaker 1: had had in months. That's the first time that they
Speaker 1: have found a place where they feel like maybe they
Speaker 1: can be a little safe for a moment and reflect.
Speaker 1: At the celebration, the queen asks Nias to tell the
Speaker 1: story of how he and his men wound up shipwrecked
Speaker 1: on the beach outside their city. And at this point
Speaker 1: Eneas could have tried to do the polite thing, you know,
Speaker 1: share a few vague particulars about what happened, but not
Speaker 1: get into too many of the unpleasant details, as that
Speaker 1: probably would have ruined the celebratory mood. But that's not
Speaker 1: what Eneas did. Too deep for words, Oh Queen, is
Speaker 1: the grief you bid me renew? How the Greeks overthrew
Speaker 1: Troy's wealth and woe for relm the sights most piteous
Speaker 1: that I saw myself, and wherein I played no small role.
Speaker 1: Annias really went there. He spent an entire chapter of
Speaker 1: the poem walking through the terrible, sordid, gory details of
Speaker 1: literally every single bad thing he and his men went through,
Speaker 1: and he has recalls the moments when he's leaving Troy,
Speaker 1: with the city burning around him, he puts his father
Speaker 1: on his back to carry him out of the city.
Speaker 1: He grabs his son's hand and has him follow it
Speaker 1: along at his side. Enias describes turning back and sort
Speaker 1: of seeing his wife has gone missing. He's lost her
Speaker 1: in the melee, and he goes to the ships and
Speaker 1: tries to sort of rally some of his men together
Speaker 1: and flee on the water. Such words he spoke while
Speaker 1: sick with deep distress. He feigns hope on his face
Speaker 1: and deep in his heart stifles his anguish. Enias didn't
Speaker 1: downplay any of the trauma he experienced. He described it
Speaker 1: in as much detail and with as much candor as
Speaker 1: he could, which didn't make for a very pleasant dinner
Speaker 1: party conversation. Many of us would choose not to be
Speaker 1: as open as a Enias was in discussing the negative
Speaker 1: experience as we've endured, we'd probably assume that none of
Speaker 1: our friends wanted to hear about all our drama. We
Speaker 1: might figure that talking about our tragedies would likely make
Speaker 1: us feel worse. But the science shows that this is
Speaker 1: a spot where our minds are lying to us, because
Speaker 1: tons of evidence suggests that disclosing our personal tragedies openly
Speaker 1: might be an important first step towards actually healing them.
Speaker 1: Years ago, I came across an interesting finding that people
Speaker 1: who had had a major traumatic experience when they were
Speaker 1: young were much more likely to have long term health problems.
Speaker 1: This is Jamie Pennybaker, a professor of psychology at UT Austin.
Speaker 1: Jamie has been a guest on the Happiness Lab before
Speaker 1: to share his work on the importance of talking candidly
Speaker 1: about our bad times. I later discovered it was because
Speaker 1: people kept it secret. That they still were thinking about it,
Speaker 1: but they were keeping it secret because it was humiliating
Speaker 1: to acknowledge it. And we found that when people were
Speaker 1: asked to write about a deeply troubling traumatic experience or
Speaker 1: upsetting experience that they hadn't talked to other people about,
Speaker 1: that it was associated with better physical health. That people
Speaker 1: went to the doctor last, their immune system got better.
Speaker 1: So that was how I've become so intrigued with this
Speaker 1: notion that if you have something that's bad and you
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about it, you probably should think
Speaker 1: about talking about it, or at least writing about it.
Speaker 1: He's spoken to Holocaust survivors about sharing their harrowing life stories,
Speaker 1: and he's also had college students write down their upsetting memories.
Speaker 1: His research shows that talking in detail with someone you
Speaker 1: trust about unpleasant events, or even just jotting them down
Speaker 1: on paper, can have a surprisingly positive impact. There are
Speaker 1: easily one or two thousand studies that have been done
Speaker 1: since then. Across these studies, it's been associated with reductions
Speaker 1: and symptoms of depression and post traumatic stress disorder. It's
Speaker 1: been associated with people performing better on creative tasks, doing
Speaker 1: better on standardized tests like SATs or MCATs people they
Speaker 1: report being happier, they're mentally healthier, and the biological markers
Speaker 1: have been quite impressive in terms of changes in terms
Speaker 1: of improvements and symptoms of arthritis and immune disorders and
Speaker 1: cardiovascular changes and so forth. There's a decent chance it'll
Speaker 1: be associated with your sleeping better, that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to get along with other people better. You're able to
Speaker 1: get through upsetting experiences the way that we often don't
Speaker 1: if we are sitting quietly and mulling over these issues
Speaker 1: in our minds. Jamie has found that trying to suppress
Speaker 1: our bad memories puts a huge cognitive strain on our brains.
Speaker 1: Our minds simply don't react well when we tell them, hey,
Speaker 1: this thought is kind of sad. Well, let's not think
Speaker 1: about it anymore. And that means that opening up about
Speaker 1: our trauma, whether to a caring friend or just in
Speaker 1: a private journal, can be a huge psychological relief, one
Speaker 1: that comes with all the health and happiness benefits that
Speaker 1: Jamie just mentioned. But Jamie has found that there's also
Speaker 1: a second reason that openly sharing upsetting stories is beneficial
Speaker 1: for us. By putting an upsetting experience into words, It
Speaker 1: forces structure, it forces an organization. There's a beginning, middle,
Speaker 1: and end. It's not blowing off steam. It's not some
Speaker 1: kind of venting or catharsis. Instead, you are coming to
Speaker 1: understand the event and also yourself better. When Aeneas flooded
Speaker 1: his fellow dinner guests with the sad details about losing
Speaker 1: his beloved city and fleeing from a horde of hungry cyclopses,
Speaker 1: he wasn't just complaining. He was giving his mind an
Speaker 1: effective way to make sense of the dangers his men faced.
Speaker 1: Talking about those tragic events allowed Eneas to more carefully
Speaker 1: examined the bravery and skill that he and his men
Speaker 1: showed during those tough times. It gave him a chance
Speaker 1: to reflect on what he learned from all that adversity.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I find interesting about adversity.
Speaker 1: Having the thing that's negative certainly sucks, but by the
Speaker 1: same token, it has the potential to be healing in
Speaker 1: to make us rethink ourselves and rethink our lives. Classic
Speaker 1: scholar Stephanie Frampton thinks that this is an insight that
Speaker 1: Virgil nicely put into effect in one of my favorite
Speaker 1: passages of the Indian the spot where Aeneas speaks to
Speaker 1: his men directly about what overcoming so much adversity can
Speaker 1: mean for their success in the future. Oh, comrades, for this,
Speaker 1: we have not been ignorant of misfortune. You who have
Speaker 1: suffered worse. This also, God will end. You drew near
Speaker 1: to Skyla's fury and her deep echoing crags. You have
Speaker 1: known too the rocks of the cyclops. Recall your courage
Speaker 1: and banish sad fear. Perhaps even this distress it will
Speaker 1: someday be a joy to recall, he says, Recall your
Speaker 1: courage and banish fear. That expression, recall your courage, I
Speaker 1: think in this context is really interesting. The words in
Speaker 1: Latin are ray wocte animos, so call back literally call
Speaker 1: it again to yourself, your animos, your spirit. It means
Speaker 1: both recall as in call it back to mind, but
Speaker 1: it means also have that spirit again, like use it again.
Speaker 1: So it points in both directions. Right, it's memory that's
Speaker 1: working to contextualize their present situation. It's memory that's working
Speaker 1: to give them courage now, and it's courage now that
Speaker 1: will give them strength for the future. It's like you're
Speaker 1: using the past in a particular story about the past
Speaker 1: to remind yourself, Hey, I got through this before, I
Speaker 1: was resilient before, I can do it again. So you're
Speaker 1: like literally using stories about the past to recall something
Speaker 1: really important that you need right now or in the future.
Speaker 1: And we can also think that Virgil is doing this
Speaker 1: too for himself. Right He's saying, Romans, remember what you've
Speaker 1: been through. It is the strength that you need now
Speaker 1: to go forward. It's part of why the book was
Speaker 1: so embraced when it originally appeared. It had this ripple
Speaker 1: effect of saying, if a Eneas's sacrifices were worth it
Speaker 1: for him to get here for us, than our sacrifices
Speaker 1: are also may be worth it for us to get
Speaker 1: to a better place. But Aeneas didn't just tell his
Speaker 1: comrades to recall their courage in that famous passage. He
Speaker 1: also gave them an optimistic framework for how to think
Speaker 1: about and reflect on those sad times in the future.
Speaker 1: He says, perhaps it will someday even be a pleasure
Speaker 1: to remember these things when we get back from the break.
Speaker 1: We'll look at this aspect of virgil psychological insight that
Speaker 1: with an optimistic perspective, we can begin to see our
Speaker 1: past sorrows not as tragedies but as blessings, ones that
Speaker 1: allow us to grow as people. We'll see that Eneas
Speaker 1: is an ancient example of what modern psychologists refer to
Speaker 1: as post traumatic growth. We'll learn what post traumatic growth
Speaker 1: is and why this concept can be so essential for
Speaker 1: feeling resilient during bad times. The Happiness Lab will be
Speaker 1: right back. Through varied fortunes, through countless meds, we journey
Speaker 1: towards Ladium, where Fate promises a home of peace. As
Speaker 1: Aeneas helps his men process they're still fresh memories of
Speaker 1: the sacking of Troy and their horrific escape across the sea,
Speaker 1: he stays focused not just on all the trauma they endured,
Speaker 1: but also on their brighter, better future. Aeneas reminds his
Speaker 1: men that in spite of all they've been through, they're
Speaker 1: still headed for Latium, where Rome stands today, in the
Speaker 1: hopes of fulfilling their destiny of founding a great new city.
Speaker 1: In this way, Eneas focuses not just on the past, which,
Speaker 1: as we learned before, can help him process the grief
Speaker 1: he's been through, but also on the future and all
Speaker 1: the prosperity it might bring. Aeneas's tendency to keep an
Speaker 1: optimistic eye on what's to come was best illustrated in
Speaker 1: a pivotal passage in the Inid in which he takes
Speaker 1: a journey to the land of the Dead and gets
Speaker 1: to see visions of just how amazing the empire he's
Speaker 1: about to found will turn out. For this, the kind
Speaker 1: of foundational moment is in book six, when he goes
Speaker 1: and visits the underworld, and not only does he see
Speaker 1: his father, who's died at that point, but he also
Speaker 1: sees all of Romans to come, including Augustus and his family.
Speaker 1: Turn hither, now, your two eyed gaze, and behold this nation,
Speaker 1: the Romans that are yours. Here is Caesar, and all
Speaker 1: the seed of Lullus, destined to pass under Heaven's spacious sphere.
Speaker 1: And this, in truth is he whom you so often
Speaker 1: here promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of a God, who
Speaker 1: will again establish a golden age in Ladium amid fields.
Speaker 1: Once ruled by Saturn. He will advance his empire beyond
Speaker 1: the Garriments and India to a land which lies beyond
Speaker 1: our stars. If he kind of gets this preview of
Speaker 1: like all the awesome stuff to come exactly. And it's like,
Speaker 1: because of this, because of what you're going through, we
Speaker 1: get to have the realm of today. So the Aeniad
Speaker 1: is kind of this incredible story, right. It's aneas this
Speaker 1: dude who's like fleeing from his homeland with his old
Speaker 1: dad on his back and like trying to grab his
Speaker 1: kid before everything burns to rubble. But ultimately it's the
Speaker 1: story of the founding of the most important empire ever.
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of this like trauma turn to
Speaker 1: growth sort of story. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I really enjoy it still to this day
Speaker 1: is it's kind of like the Roman poetry version of
Speaker 1: what psychologists talk about when they talk about post traumatic growth.
Speaker 1: Post Traumatic growth is a phenomenon that psychologists have become
Speaker 1: more and more interested in. Now you've probably already heard
Speaker 1: about a related concept, what's known as post traumatic stress
Speaker 1: or PTSD. PTSD is a mental disorder that arises after
Speaker 1: people have gone through trauma or other terrible life events.
Speaker 1: But scientists have begun to realize that trauma doesn't always
Speaker 1: only result in long term emotional distress. Survivors sometimes show
Speaker 1: the opposite pattern. After growing through painful life events, people
Speaker 1: wind up experiencing a host of positive psychological changes. We
Speaker 1: know that trauma can lead to long term stress and
Speaker 1: negative symptoms, but there's also evidence that it can be
Speaker 1: a fertile ground for discovering new relationships, for harness and courage,
Speaker 1: and for finding a sense of meaning. This sweet of
Speaker 1: positive outcomes after trauma is what researchers have begun calling
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth. The academic concept of post traumatic growth
Speaker 1: is relatively new, but it's pretty clear that ancient poets
Speaker 1: like Virgil understood it. You find more resilience, you find
Speaker 1: a bigger sense of meaning. You think that because you've
Speaker 1: made it through this trauma of the world has something
Speaker 1: important for you to do. I mean, is that kind
Speaker 1: of the way the poem was thought about back in
Speaker 1: the day. Absolutely, And it's really as to the trauma
Speaker 1: that Rome has gone through for the last hundred years
Speaker 1: in their civil wars. It's an idea that if Eneas
Speaker 1: can get through this, that we all can get through
Speaker 1: this together. We usually assume that upsetting life events have
Speaker 1: to take a real toll on us, that traumatic circumstances
Speaker 1: inevitably lead to negative effects that can last a lifetime.
Speaker 1: But research has shown that there are ways of processing
Speaker 1: our bad life events that at least over time, can
Speaker 1: help us move towards a sense of growth instead. But
Speaker 1: what are some of these more effective ways of dealing
Speaker 1: with bad life events. I can tell you right now
Speaker 1: that what happened to me is a blessing. This is JR. Martinez.
Speaker 1: But it took a lot of work for me to
Speaker 1: get to this point, almost sixteen years later, for me
Speaker 1: to say this to you. Like the ancient fictional hero Eneas, Jr.
Speaker 1: Was no stranger to the horrors of warfare and violence.
Speaker 1: He served as a soldier in Iraq, and his life
Speaker 1: changed in an instant when the vehicle he was driving
Speaker 1: exploded when it was struck by roadside bomb. Jr. Was
Speaker 1: eventually rescued, but he suffered horrific burns. These painful injuries
Speaker 1: ended the then nineteen year old's military career and left
Speaker 1: him scarred and disfigured for life. The identity that I
Speaker 1: had known for nineteen years of my life, my physical appearance,
Speaker 1: what I recognize for nineteen years of my life, every morning,
Speaker 1: every evening, every day in between, when I looked in
Speaker 1: the mirror, that identity is taken away from me, and
Speaker 1: now I'm looking in the mirror and that person that
Speaker 1: I see I do not recognize. I have no relationship
Speaker 1: with that individual, and having to come to terms with
Speaker 1: accepting the fact that the person that I used to
Speaker 1: be has died. That person's gone will never come back. Jr.
Speaker 1: Suffered terribly after his accident and initially showed many of
Speaker 1: the negative effects that come after experiencing trauma. I was drinking,
Speaker 1: I was angry, I was reckless. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: not pleasant to be around. I really wasn't. But the
Speaker 1: tragedy of that bomb blast was also a pivotal moment
Speaker 1: of change in Jr's life. It caused him to realize
Speaker 1: that life was short and that he needed to prioritize
Speaker 1: making the most of it. So, in spite of his scars,
Speaker 1: he decided to follow his dream of becoming an actor.
Speaker 1: He auditioned for a part in a soap opera and
Speaker 1: got it. He eventually became a TV celebrity, a magazine
Speaker 1: cover star, a motivational speaker, and an advocate for disabled veterans.
Speaker 1: That's why he now describes getting blown up in Iraq
Speaker 1: at nineteen years old as a blessing. I'm blessed to
Speaker 1: have a second chance at life. I'm so passionate and
Speaker 1: I have so much passion inside of me because I
Speaker 1: don't want to take this second chance for granted. I
Speaker 1: am trying to live at one hundred percent every single day.
Speaker 1: You can hear more of JR. Story in a previous
Speaker 1: episode of The Happiness Lab called The Unhappy Millionaire. But
Speaker 1: I've included JR. Again in this episode because both he
Speaker 1: and our ancient hero Aeneas are great examples of strategies
Speaker 1: you can use to move towards post traumatic growth, and
Speaker 1: one of those strategies involves trying to manage your emotional
Speaker 1: distress as best you can. This was something that Anneus
Speaker 1: did well, explicitly telling his men to make sure they
Speaker 1: were regulating theirs. Oh comrades, for this, we have not
Speaker 1: been ignorant of misfortune. You who have suffered worse, Recall
Speaker 1: your courage and banish sad fear. Banish your fear, and
Speaker 1: call back those good emotions, says in Us. But former
Speaker 1: soldier JR. Martinez gives us a great method to do
Speaker 1: just that. He found ways to experience gratitude for his
Speaker 1: terrible ordeal. He spent his time intentionally noticing that things
Speaker 1: could have been worse, considering the fact that I was
Speaker 1: trapped inside of a burning truck for five minutes. I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate to only have what I have. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends, and I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: that unfortunately have missing limbs, are more scarred, you know,
Speaker 1: or disfigured. You know, you know, I to some degree,
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky that my skin graphs and the burns
Speaker 1: kind of blend in with my skin tone, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's just in some ways it's not has noticeable oddly enough,
Speaker 1: right like you know, so in that sense, incredibly fortunate.
Speaker 1: But another psychologically effective strategy for getting through tough times
Speaker 1: is finding ways to use your adversity to give back
Speaker 1: by becoming more other oriented in the face of tragedy.
Speaker 1: Annias did this by focusing on taking care of his
Speaker 1: men and making sure they made good on the legacy
Speaker 1: of their fallen Trojans and Jr. Did something similar. He
Speaker 1: realized that he might be able to use his story
Speaker 1: to help others, and I started to kind of piece
Speaker 1: all this together and realize, wait a minute, there's all
Speaker 1: of these lessons and things that I've dealt with that
Speaker 1: everybody else is dealing with, So why maybe I can
Speaker 1: do something with this? So JR. Became a motivational speaker,
Speaker 1: sharing his painful story and the lessons he learned with
Speaker 1: military veterans all over the world. He couldn't serve as
Speaker 1: a soldier any longer, but he could still contribute something
Speaker 1: meaningful to those around him. I can go out there
Speaker 1: and serve in a different capacity because the new uniform
Speaker 1: that I wear are the scars of my body, and
Speaker 1: the new weapon that I have are the words that
Speaker 1: come out of my mouth. And Gr's experience shows a
Speaker 1: common benefit of post traumatic growth connect with others. After
Speaker 1: initially feeling lonely and isolated following his burnt injuries, Jr.
Speaker 1: Soon found that his ordeal increased his empathy for other people.
Speaker 1: He also saw how much of a happiness boost he
Speaker 1: could get from giving back to the people around him
Speaker 1: and by sharing his story. JR. Used a final strategy
Speaker 1: that can help us grow from suffering. He was able
Speaker 1: to find meaning in what he went through. If you've
Speaker 1: been through a tough hardship, you can ask yourself what
Speaker 1: you learn and what new meeting those events have brought
Speaker 1: to your life. It took JR. A while to do this,
Speaker 1: but he eventually saw that his brush with death was
Speaker 1: a way to achieve a fuller life that he couldn't
Speaker 1: have ever imagined before he was burned. Over the course
Speaker 1: of my life, there have been a lot of things
Speaker 1: that I've experienced that didn't make sense in the moment.
Speaker 1: But if you stick with it, if you're patient enough
Speaker 1: over the course of time, the answer then presents itself
Speaker 1: everything I thought I wanted in life. You know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a fresh professional football player and have
Speaker 1: fame and have all this money and be able to
Speaker 1: do all these things. Like if I would have accomplish
Speaker 1: those things, would I be as happy as I am now?
Speaker 1: I've helped a lot of people, at least I believe
Speaker 1: I would be able to make a difference, And I
Speaker 1: think that to me is more important than anything else.
Speaker 1: And this brings us back to Virgil's hero Eneus, who
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, faces even more challenges and bereavements as he
Speaker 1: continues his quest to found Rome, but he does so
Speaker 1: with the knowledge that he's fulfilling a meaningful mission that
Speaker 1: glorious Rome extend her empire to Earth's ends her ambitions
Speaker 1: to the skies. What's more meaningful than, you know, picking
Speaker 1: up your fallen empire to create this new world, to
Speaker 1: create a new home for yourself and the people you
Speaker 1: care about. Yeah, and what Virgil is trying to do
Speaker 1: with the poem. Virgil gives us a hero that has
Speaker 1: been through a lot of sadness but is endeavoring to
Speaker 1: kind of move forward. It's certainly a story that I
Speaker 1: think resonates with readers today. It certainly resonates with my students,
Speaker 1: the sense that they have a goal that they're trying
Speaker 1: to get to. Eneas is trying to get to Rome.
Speaker 1: My students are trying to graduate from MiG Neither of
Speaker 1: these things is easy, and they have to make sacrifices
Speaker 1: along the way and make choices that sometimes looking back on,
Speaker 1: you know they have that sort of reflective self. There
Speaker 1: are maybe which things have gone differently, But the sense
Speaker 1: of kind of moving forward and having a backward glance
Speaker 1: as part of that is I think really important to
Speaker 1: the way that Eneas, the Romans, we all can create meaning.
Speaker 1: Returning to the story of Enius always reminds me that
Speaker 1: even after experiencing the worst of times, there are strategies
Speaker 1: we can use to control our situation. We can call
Speaker 1: back our courage and use strategies to regulate the painful
Speaker 1: emotions that come with negative events. We can find ways
Speaker 1: to use what we've been through to help other people.
Speaker 1: And we can harness the power of sharing stories and
Speaker 1: disclosing our bad memories to process and learn from what
Speaker 1: we've gone through. And remember, telling your story doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you have to share your woes with some unsuspecting dinner
Speaker 1: party like Eneas did. You can follow the lead of
Speaker 1: psychologists Jamie Penny Baker's college students and get all the
Speaker 1: benefits that come from journaling about your tough times privately.
Speaker 1: But the key is that you use that process to
Speaker 1: identify what Eneas and JR. Martinez both found after their
Speaker 1: awful ordeals, that if you look carefully, you can find
Speaker 1: meaning in your painful stories, and that sense of purpose
Speaker 1: can lead to growth and making good on This idea
Speaker 1: of meaning making is how I wanted to end this
Speaker 1: episode today, because chatting with Stephanie about Virgil did take
Speaker 1: me back to our awkward first meeting when I somewhat
Speaker 1: aggressively quizzed her about her Enia translation that obviously wasn't
Speaker 1: a hugely traumatic event, no cyclops mobbing as it were,
Speaker 1: but it still presents the opportunity to use the power
Speaker 1: of stories and meaning making to put things right. So
Speaker 1: just realizing the power of going back to stories that
Speaker 1: at the time were a little bit painful. You know
Speaker 1: where I'm going with this. I'm sorry I was so
Speaker 1: mean about you. Weren't I was a little bit mean,
Speaker 1: But it can be a sort of redemptive story that
Speaker 1: even though absolutely it's drawn us together all of these years.
Speaker 1: It's something we've talked about and laughed about many, many times.
Speaker 1: And I wish I could go back to fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago Laurie and Stephanie and tell her, you guys are
Speaker 1: fighting about the beginning of the INDID. It's a silly
Speaker 1: dinner party. But fifteen years later, you're going to be
Speaker 1: on a podcast. I would have to explained what a
Speaker 1: podcast is at that point. But you're gonna be on
Speaker 1: a podcast, and you're gonna be able to share the
Speaker 1: INDID with the whole world. It's amazing. Huge thanks to
Speaker 1: my friend Stephanie Frampton for sharing all her wisdom about
Speaker 1: some of my favorite ancient mythological heroes. It's now a
Speaker 1: time for the season of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients
Speaker 1: to leave the shores of Greece and Rome and to
Speaker 1: head east to South Asia, where we'll be examining the
Speaker 1: happiness insights we can find in the yoga sutras. The
Speaker 1: sutras are just the truth, so they're the truth of
Speaker 1: the human experience and they can be applied in different
Speaker 1: ways depending on what's going on in your life, and
Speaker 1: the only things that will resonate from the sutras are
Speaker 1: the things that you already know to be true with
Speaker 1: it yourself. I hope to see you next week for
Speaker 1: the latest edition of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients on
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley and is produced
Speaker 1: by Ryan Dilley, Courtney Guerino and Britney Brown. The show
Speaker 1: was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was
Speaker 1: composed by Zachary Silver. You also heard the voice talents
Speaker 1: of David Glover special thanks to Greta Kone, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Carly mcgliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, My agent
Speaker 1: Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: by me, doctor Laurie Santos.