Speaker 1: Pushkin. These days, whenever I face a serious setback, I
Speaker 1: try to channel the ancient stoics. I try to follow
Speaker 1: the advice of great philosophers like Epictetus, a man who
Speaker 1: was born into slavery but eventually became one of Rome's
Speaker 1: greatest thinkers. Epictetus argued that we have more control than
Speaker 1: we think about how we react to negative events. He
Speaker 1: said we should try to think about life's bad times
Speaker 1: as opportunities to learn and grow. And so whenever I
Speaker 1: face a new problem, I try to treat it as
Speaker 1: a challenge to be overcome. But I'm a pretty lucky person.
Speaker 1: Most of my own personal challenges have, at least today
Speaker 1: knock on Wood, been fairly trivial. Thankfully, I haven't yet
Speaker 1: had to go through anything like the challenges that my
Speaker 1: next guest, Karen Guggenheim had to face.
Speaker 2: Eleven years ago.
Speaker 3: Last week, actually last week last week, my husband caught
Speaker 3: the flu, which developed into a pneumonia, and within ten
Speaker 3: days he was gone.
Speaker 1: Wow, Karen's loss was shattering. People often say that you
Speaker 1: gain strength through adversity, but I think they usually mean
Speaker 1: tinier sorts of adversity, things like not getting some job
Speaker 1: you wanted or flunking your driver's test. But are there
Speaker 1: ways we can grow from the truly terrible events in life,
Speaker 1: things like the grief of losing your life partner Suddenly
Speaker 1: Can the worst traumas imaginable also come with unexpected gifts
Speaker 1: and growth. That's the question we'll be exploring in today's episode,
Speaker 1: and Karen is the perfect person to help us. You see,
Speaker 1: Karen's story is a lovely example of what psychologists call
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth. Now, most of us have heard of
Speaker 1: the phenomena of post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, cases
Speaker 1: in which people struggle emotionally after experiencing a stressful situation,
Speaker 1: but psychologists have also documented the opposite reaction. There are
Speaker 1: certain people who go through a traumatic situation and wind
Speaker 1: up stronger on the other side. They turned their pain
Speaker 1: into growth. As we'll see in this episode, Karen turned
Speaker 1: the pain of her husband's death into a mission to
Speaker 1: improve everyone's well being. Her loss spurred her to develop
Speaker 1: and found the World Happiness Summit, an annual celebration of
Speaker 1: the science of well being where scientists like me get
Speaker 1: to share our happiness findings with people from around the world.
Speaker 1: I had a chance to chat with Karen about her
Speaker 1: story at this year's World Happiness Summit in London. We
Speaker 1: stuck away from all the lectures and panel discussions to
Speaker 1: chat about the journey that began with her husband, Ricardo's death.
Speaker 2: The trauma was on so many things.
Speaker 3: Being in the hospital watching it happen, having the doctors
Speaker 3: come in and trying to save him, telling my children
Speaker 3: that their father had passed. I mean something that I
Speaker 3: wasn't prepared for. Obviously you get prepared for it, but
Speaker 3: was the loss of identity. He was my best friend,
Speaker 3: he was the father of my children, my husband, So
Speaker 3: it was like his death also felt like a death
Speaker 3: for me because in one moment to the next I
Speaker 3: wasn't those things, and so it was really really dramatic,
Speaker 3: and a couple of days after he died, you know,
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, I've been married twenty one years.
Speaker 3: I got married when I was twenty one and he
Speaker 3: died when I was forty two, So I was married
Speaker 3: half my life with this person. I grew up with him, really,
Speaker 3: he was eleven years older, and he was my best
Speaker 3: friend and my advocate and somebody who accepted me completely.
Speaker 3: And so we talk a lot about belonging now, and
Speaker 3: so I felt this huge sense of belonging with this
Speaker 3: person and he was gone, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: well I'm done. This is great everyone, thank you so much,
Speaker 3: but I'll take the check please, because I'm out of here.
Speaker 3: And then for some of us, invariably, it's the voice
Speaker 3: of your mother in your head what about the children?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, what what about the children? And I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god, I can't leave them. This
Speaker 3: is bad enough. What's happened. And now if I'm gone,
Speaker 3: And I don't think that I was suicidal at all
Speaker 3: in that regard, but I think we can be a
Speaker 3: life that if I can say that just being numb
Speaker 3: to life, and I knew that that would be game
Speaker 3: over for them, right, And so I thought, okay, I'm
Speaker 3: going to live. And then I don't know how it
Speaker 3: was let because I didn't know anything about the science
Speaker 3: and I didn't know about you know, the work that
Speaker 3: you're amazing experts to But intuitively, I said, I choose
Speaker 3: happiness because the pain.
Speaker 2: Is so so bad that I got.
Speaker 3: To find a way for it to be great. And
Speaker 3: I don't know how to do that, and what I
Speaker 3: had hould on to is purpose and meaning because I
Speaker 3: could control that. And that was the first thing that
Speaker 3: I learned is life happens, and many times you can't
Speaker 3: control it, but there's always something you can control out
Speaker 3: of the experience. And eventually I accidentally became happy again.
Speaker 3: And when I found out that there was a science
Speaker 3: behind it what I had done accidentally and haphazardly, I
Speaker 3: decided to dedicate my life IF in twenty sixteen and
Speaker 3: create Wahasu to put on the World Happiness Summit six
Speaker 3: months later.
Speaker 1: The World Happiness Summit is now a very big deal.
Speaker 1: It's been held on both sides of the Atlantic and
Speaker 1: showcases cutting edge work and happiness science. Karen Summit has
Speaker 1: now helped people around the world learn effective strategies for
Speaker 1: improving their well being, but her own track for misery
Speaker 1: to post traumatic growth was rather haphazard. I asked her
Speaker 1: about the habit she stumbled upon that helped her find
Speaker 1: her way.
Speaker 3: Some of it has to do with actually things that
Speaker 3: I did. So one of the things that I did,
Speaker 3: I had received this shirt from my nephew that said
Speaker 3: I am happiness and I was not happy, and I
Speaker 3: was not pretending to be happy, but I wore it
Speaker 3: because I said, that's where I'm going. I don't know
Speaker 3: what I'm going to get there, so please have self compassion.
Speaker 3: It takes time, it painful. Things are painful and that's okay, right.
Speaker 3: And we hear a lot of things like, oh, weren't
Speaker 3: you happy always this? It doesn't matter and it's going
Speaker 3: to be as long as it is for you.
Speaker 2: But I can't you.
Speaker 3: Something that really helped me with like Susan David's work,
Speaker 3: is I am sad. I am feeling sad, so to
Speaker 3: be able to vocalize it to a friend or loved one,
Speaker 3: you know what, today I'm really feeling sad. And it's
Speaker 3: funny because my kids are like why and it's like no, no.
Speaker 2: No, I really don't know, but it's okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then you know, it's like you begin to invite moments, right,
Speaker 3: and to begin to invite moments and don't wait to
Speaker 3: be happy to be happy. So, for example, if you
Speaker 3: want to be happier and somebody asks you to go
Speaker 3: for a walk or to have a call or to
Speaker 3: it and you don't really want to try it, because we.
Speaker 2: Know the connection helps us.
Speaker 3: You know, when you brush your teeth you're not having
Speaker 3: a philosophical conversation. I may want to, but I don't
Speaker 3: think I do. You know it's good for your teeth,
Speaker 3: so you do it. So use some of these strengths
Speaker 3: you use for other things with your emotional state, so
Speaker 3: you're committed to other things, maybe to exercise, region, maybe
Speaker 3: to sleep, whatever it is. And so for your well beings,
Speaker 3: start to notice what works for you and reach out
Speaker 3: to people and give yourself permission to laugh.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: That's another one, because we have these prescribed ideas, right,
Speaker 3: and so for example, one of the words I hate
Speaker 3: the most is the word widow, and I always have
Speaker 3: to fill it out single married, widow is like, can
Speaker 3: I just be single? I'm going to the doctor who
Speaker 3: cares you? Right, Because it's a lot of things that
Speaker 3: are tied to that. So you get to tell the
Speaker 3: story about yourself. So start to think who do you
Speaker 3: want to be in your life?
Speaker 1: And who did Karen want to be? She wanted to
Speaker 1: be someone who could share the science of happiness broadly,
Speaker 1: so she could help as many people as possible. But
Speaker 1: that can be kind of tricky. People have lots of
Speaker 1: misconceptions when it comes to maximizing happiness. They don't often
Speaker 1: accept that simple habits like talking to strangers or writing
Speaker 1: a thank you letter can have a huge impact on
Speaker 1: their happiness. As Karen learned more about the science, it
Speaker 1: felt like a leap of faith for her too.
Speaker 3: First, it was putting a foot into an open abyss, right,
Speaker 3: especially if you're just learning about this at first, it's
Speaker 3: almost like it feels like it's Santa Claus, right, and
Speaker 3: you're like, well, I don't know about it. But then
Speaker 3: just be curious, right, and you put that foot out
Speaker 3: and you're like, wait, there's something there, and then you
Speaker 3: put the other foot, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: when you start practicing it habitually, you start to see
Speaker 3: life in what I call technicolor. For me, it was
Speaker 3: black and white before. I was happy, but not fully
Speaker 3: alive because I wasn't connected to my real purpose. I
Speaker 3: didn't even know I should have a I mean, I
Speaker 3: love being a mother, But it was like the waves
Speaker 3: of the water, you know, like I'll be happy and
Speaker 3: then I wouldn't be and then I'd be happy. But
Speaker 3: they didn't know that I could have any purposeful action
Speaker 3: around that. And that's what I've learned that I can
Speaker 3: do something about it because I think.
Speaker 2: We shared this, we got to work at it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so we're not one of those rosy people who are
Speaker 2: just like.
Speaker 3: Hello life, you know, And so this keeps me honest.
Speaker 3: This work really really keeps me honest, and it works.
Speaker 3: It works if you practice it.
Speaker 1: So, like I said, the second thing that we often
Speaker 1: see in these moments of post traumatic growth is the
Speaker 1: idea of social connection. You start to realize the people
Speaker 1: that matter in life. You start to have gratitude for
Speaker 1: the people who kind of helped you along the way.
Speaker 1: You kind of know who really matters and who kind
Speaker 1: of didn't matter, you know as much as you might
Speaker 1: have thought. Is that something that you experienced with the
Speaker 1: death of your husband and this path too.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. It does fine tune that.
Speaker 3: And that's another element of post traumatic growth is that
Speaker 3: you feel more empathy for people.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is that.
Speaker 3: The level of compassion increases, also self compassion, which is
Speaker 3: really really hard again, but you kind of also increase
Speaker 3: that and you understand how what you give out to
Speaker 3: others also needs to be nourishing and self care for
Speaker 3: yourself to be able to do this, because if you
Speaker 3: burn out and are depleted. Then you also can't do
Speaker 3: the work for others. So that's also something I learned
Speaker 3: not to do too much. And I think you've learned
Speaker 3: that as well.
Speaker 1: Take care of yourself in addition to the other people
Speaker 1: in your life.
Speaker 3: Definitely, But when you're talking about people, it has really
Speaker 3: expanded my heart because the pain was so great. So
Speaker 3: I just want to say, with postraumatic growth, you don't
Speaker 3: bypass the pain. Yes, yes, and you go through the
Speaker 3: pain unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And I think part of the pain is kind of
Speaker 1: what gives you the energy and the knowledge that you
Speaker 1: need for that compassion because it's like you felt that pain.
Speaker 1: So when you see pain in other people, you kind
Speaker 1: of want to help, right, Like you kind of know
Speaker 1: what it feels like. You have that kind of instant empathy.
Speaker 1: I remember this in high school. I had a really
Speaker 1: close friend, Jenny Valente, who caught this terrible cancer and
Speaker 1: wound up passing away. It was kind of a long process,
Speaker 1: but in the middle of that, I remember she was
Speaker 1: just like the most empathic person when it came to
Speaker 1: other people's pain. Now, she was like in chemotherapy and
Speaker 1: didn't have hair like her health problems were just so devastating.
Speaker 1: But I remember in high school I had to get
Speaker 1: my wisdom teeth out, which felt like such a silly thing.
Speaker 1: But she was the friend that showed up, showed up
Speaker 1: with flowers, was like ready to be there for me,
Speaker 1: and I genuinely don't know. I mean, she was a
Speaker 1: very empathic person before the cancer, but but it felt
Speaker 1: like it was going through that trauma that allowed her
Speaker 1: to see that other people needed help and what actions
Speaker 1: she could take to do that. It sounds like in
Speaker 1: your story it's been the same. Is that that empathy
Speaker 1: actually comes from the pain. The pain is sort of
Speaker 1: what builds it in some.
Speaker 3: Sense, absolutely, because you're able to feel so much love
Speaker 3: and compassion for people and help people matter. And so
Speaker 3: that for me, I was friendly before, I wasn't a
Speaker 3: bad person. I cared about people, but now to the
Speaker 3: level that I genuinely love putting this event on because
Speaker 3: it makes people happy and that makes me happy.
Speaker 1: Painful events can leave us shattered, but they can also
Speaker 1: lead to post traumatic growth, a new way of living
Speaker 1: that can make us and the people around us even happier.
Speaker 1: Karen's own trauma helped her find deep compassion and purpose
Speaker 1: in life. But is Karen's story unique? Can any of
Speaker 1: us turn our trauma and pain into resilience and growth.
Speaker 1: When we get back from the break, we'll unpack the
Speaker 1: research on post traumatic growth. We'll meet an expert who's
Speaker 1: dedicated her career to understanding the complicated science of human
Speaker 1: trauma and how it affects and even its definition can
Speaker 1: be so variable across people.
Speaker 4: Trauma is subjective.
Speaker 5: I cannot tell you what is traumatic for you, and
Speaker 5: you cannot tell me what trauma is for me.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.
Speaker 5: I know Karen going home very well because the first
Speaker 5: time with it, the World Happiness Summit, was here in Miami.
Speaker 1: This is clinical psychologist doctor Edith Shiro. She's the perfect
Speaker 1: person to help explain how Karen Guggenheim went from feeling
Speaker 1: shattered by the trauma of her husband's death to becoming
Speaker 1: a major promoter of global happiness.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, I know her work very well.
Speaker 1: But Edith isn't just Karen's friend. She's also an expert
Speaker 1: on the consequences of adversity and the author of The
Speaker 1: Unexpected Gift of Trauma, The Path to post Traumatic growth.
Speaker 1: Edith has worked with the survivors of awful disasters, tragedies
Speaker 1: like nine to eleven and the twenty twenty one surf
Speaker 1: Side condominium collapse in Miami, but it it also counsels
Speaker 1: people suffering from the kind of life traumas that don't
Speaker 1: make headlines.
Speaker 5: Trauma is not just what we used to know where
Speaker 5: we associate trauma with PTSD with post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 5: and really that comes from all these experiences of soldiers
Speaker 5: of war veterans. Really, the way I understand trauma, and
Speaker 5: I think the way that trauma works well is by
Speaker 5: understanding the trauma. First of all, it's relational is what
Speaker 5: happens to us in relationships with ourselves others in the
Speaker 5: world for which our belief system is shaken or shattered
Speaker 5: and we don't have the resources or the tools to
Speaker 5: deal with what's happening to us in the moment. It
Speaker 5: can be a small thing, or it can be a
Speaker 5: big thing. It can be a big T trauma or
Speaker 5: a small T trauma, but it's really not being able
Speaker 5: to overcome it, to face it, to deal with it.
Speaker 5: The other thing about trauma is that trauma is subjective.
Speaker 5: Trauma is about what I decide and what I believe
Speaker 5: to be trauma. I cannot tell you is traumatic for you,
Speaker 5: and you cannot tell me what trauma.
Speaker 1: Is for me, because I sometimes hear even in my students, right,
Speaker 1: these cases where your people go through something that's that's terrible,
Speaker 1: but they feel like, well, it's not as terrible as
Speaker 1: the Holocaust, right, you know, I you know my loved
Speaker 1: one didn't die. Right, So talk about why, you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of experiences can be traumatic, and whether we
Speaker 1: should feel guilty or for kind of going through these
Speaker 1: tough kind of trauma related response for cases of stressors
Speaker 1: that maybe somebody might not think of as that bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, And you know I can hear your students say, oh, well,
Speaker 5: have a bad breakup, but there's a war in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Yes this is happening.
Speaker 5: But even if it's something that compared to other things small,
Speaker 5: but for you, that experience of a breakup or ghosting,
Speaker 5: or not being invited to a party, or being discriminated
Speaker 5: or bullied in your school, this can be very very
Speaker 5: traumatic experiences for you.
Speaker 4: You know. That's why I'm saying it's subjective in some way.
Speaker 5: Feeling guilty for that is not allowing yourself to really
Speaker 5: heal that trauma. I don't have the right and I
Speaker 5: don't deserve to feel better. I don't have the right
Speaker 5: to take care of myself, and we have to be
Speaker 5: careful with that. I'm not saying that there has to
Speaker 5: be the center of the world. Yes, there are other
Speaker 5: people suffering too, but tending to your own traumas I'll
Speaker 5: tell you why it's important, because if you walk around
Speaker 5: life with that wound bleeding, the only thing you're gonna
Speaker 5: do is you're gonna spread trauma to other people as well.
Speaker 5: Trauma is very contagious, meaning whatever happens to me affects
Speaker 5: everybody around me. So if I have a bad breakup
Speaker 5: and you talk to me about your boyfriend or your
Speaker 5: girlfriend whatever, I'm gonna hate you, and i gonna be
Speaker 5: a very supportive friend, and I'm gonna be responding with
Speaker 5: like a nasty comment, or I'm gonna be indifferent, or
Speaker 5: I'm gonna disconnect from you and say I can't even
Speaker 5: empathize with what you're talking about because my wound is
Speaker 5: so big that I can be there for you. So
Speaker 5: it's almost like a responsibility, Lauren, to tend to your
Speaker 5: own wounds and to your own traumas, even if you
Speaker 5: think that they're small, because even those small ones are
Speaker 5: doing something to the reactions and the choices that you
Speaker 5: make in life every.
Speaker 4: Day, and it really affects the way you show up.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 5: If I grew up with a mother that wasn't loving
Speaker 5: a typical thing, that it's not seen as a trauma
Speaker 5: because it's not an event, but it's an ongoing situation.
Speaker 5: It's very hard for me to build a life with
Speaker 5: a partner that is healthy and that is respectful or
Speaker 5: that is there for me if I carry the trauma
Speaker 5: of my childhood of not having you know, parents that
Speaker 5: show me what love was in a healthy way. So
Speaker 5: it's almost like a responsibility that I have as a
Speaker 5: human being to become more conscious of my own traumas.
Speaker 1: And so to give me some examples of the kind
Speaker 1: of events that could happen to individuals or communities that
Speaker 1: could lead to trauma.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to give you, like a very very
Speaker 5: simple example that we've all gone through, and the pandemic,
Speaker 5: for example. The pandemic is an example of collective trauma
Speaker 5: for which a lot of people were faced with situations
Speaker 5: that were really shattering their understanding of themselves or the
Speaker 5: world around them, for which there was no way of
Speaker 5: really processing. Or I thought my life was safer than
Speaker 5: what it is. And when those things happen and we
Speaker 5: don't have the resources or the ability of the tools
Speaker 5: to really deal with it, that it can become very
Speaker 5: traumatic and then you can see all these trauma responses
Speaker 5: around us. Other examples are I was just working with
Speaker 5: the community here in Miami the serf Sye collapse and
Speaker 5: where the building collapsed and almost one hundred people died,
Speaker 5: and how a whole community was affected by it. These
Speaker 5: are examples of collective trauma. Individual trauma can be or
Speaker 5: something from illness. It can be an accident, or it
Speaker 5: can be something like experiences of bullying of a child
Speaker 5: or an adult, or the loss of a pet, or
Speaker 5: a divorce, or my boyfriend broke up with me, or
Speaker 5: I didn't get the job or I was fired from
Speaker 5: a job. These are also experiences of trauma, and it
Speaker 5: depends how we deal with it to really see if
Speaker 5: this can become a chronic trauma or it can be
Speaker 5: something that can be an opportunity for learning.
Speaker 1: You So, what's post traumatics you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: how does it affect the mind and the body? What
Speaker 1: are some symptoms?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean so when we talk about post traumatic
Speaker 5: stress disorder, it's just one of the outcomes of being traumatized.
Speaker 5: That's actually a diagnosis that happens after six months or
Speaker 5: one year of having these kind of symptoms. But what
Speaker 5: do we see when a person is traumatized. The person
Speaker 5: is developing trauma responses in order to defend from what
Speaker 5: they perceive to be dangerous. People ask me all the
Speaker 5: time why people focus on the negative instead of a positive.
Speaker 5: Let's say we have ten positive things happening in our
Speaker 5: day and one negative, and what.
Speaker 4: Do we do We focus on the negative?
Speaker 5: Why why we know we can have all the great things,
Speaker 5: but we know we are right, they're obsessing about the bag.
Speaker 5: And I said, you know, we have to keep ourselves alive,
Speaker 5: and we have a very very strong system of survival.
Speaker 5: We are very sophisticated in the way that we defend
Speaker 5: ourselves from pain, from suffering, and from danger. So focusing
Speaker 5: on the negative and focusing on the difficult things.
Speaker 4: Is what keeps us alive.
Speaker 5: So in a way, we have to train in ourselves
Speaker 5: to say it's okay.
Speaker 4: I can calm.
Speaker 5: Down my body in order to be able to enjoy
Speaker 5: and to shift to the positive or to the more
Speaker 5: enjoyable parts of our lives.
Speaker 4: What are the responses? Typically?
Speaker 5: Fight, flight, freeze, or phone right? So what do we do?
Speaker 5: Something dangers comes in some pain. We don't want to
Speaker 5: feel it. We want to do anything not to feel
Speaker 5: that pain, and we either fight back right, and this
Speaker 5: can be emotionally. We get irritated, we hyperventilate, we get
Speaker 5: hyper aroused. We're constantly looking around to see where's the danger.
Speaker 5: We get into attack mode. We can do flight, what
Speaker 5: does that mean? We are disconnected? We dissociate with avoid
Speaker 5: situations at all costs and that comes.
Speaker 4: With a price. Or we freeze? What does that mean?
Speaker 5: We cannot make decisions and inability to do anything about
Speaker 5: the current situation in order not to cause more suffering,
Speaker 5: more pain. All of this is translated into symptoms of anxiety, depression,
Speaker 5: panic attack, hyper vigilance, hyper arousal, flashbacks, nightmares, changing appetite,
Speaker 5: changing sleep. These are typical examples of traumatic responses and
Speaker 5: especially triggering responses. So, for example, I was working with
Speaker 5: a girl that was very traumatized and she said, every
Speaker 5: time I passed by a coffee place, I started getting
Speaker 5: all these symptoms of anxiety and panic attack. And we
Speaker 5: found out later on that her father that was being
Speaker 5: abusive to her loved coffee, and so she would associate
Speaker 5: the smell of coffee with traumatic experiences. So that was
Speaker 5: a trigger response. So when you see people overreacting over something,
Speaker 5: they say, wow, this response was so much bigger than
Speaker 5: what it's supposed to be. You know, there's a history,
Speaker 5: there's a story behind that. Then they keep repeating and
Speaker 5: repeating and repeating. These are defense mechanisms that we use
Speaker 5: to protect ourselves. The problem is that when we keep
Speaker 5: using them after the danger is gone, what happens it
Speaker 5: hurts us even more. The very thing that is there
Speaker 5: to defend us and to protect us is the thing
Speaker 5: that now it's causing the problem. Right Because if I
Speaker 5: disconnect from a moment not to feel the pain, that's
Speaker 5: all good and find in the moment. But if I
Speaker 5: live my life disconnected, then what happens I have higher
Speaker 5: and bigger consequences because of that.
Speaker 1: And so your book, and in fact, just the name
Speaker 1: of the book, argues that trauma is a gift. Why
Speaker 1: is trauma a gift?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: And people ask me all the time, how can you
Speaker 5: put in the same sentence trauma and gift?
Speaker 4: Come on, how can you do that?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, exactly, like I think my book is
Speaker 5: full of paradoxes like that. Yes, we can acknowledge that
Speaker 5: something traumatic can happen and at the same time hold
Speaker 5: that hope that also it can bring amazing things into
Speaker 5: our lives. Now, we have to be very careful when
Speaker 5: do we say that. If a person just went through
Speaker 5: the death of their partner, and I say to that person, oh,
Speaker 5: don't worry, because you're going to have an amazing life
Speaker 5: after this, to bring so many gifts in your life,
Speaker 5: So please, how can you be sad?
Speaker 4: How can you No? No, no, no. They would never
Speaker 4: talk to me again. I would have no.
Speaker 5: Patience, right, I would be fired from being a psychologist.
Speaker 5: So we have to be very mindful how we bring
Speaker 5: this up. The validation and the acknowledgment and the recognition
Speaker 5: of the suffering and the pain and what the person
Speaker 5: is going through is extremely important. Right the person, the group,
Speaker 5: the family, the culture is like acknowledging and recognizing that
Speaker 5: pain before we go into beginning to acknowledge that there's
Speaker 5: a gift, and that can be very powerful to say
Speaker 5: at some point, okay, maybe maybe I can see glimpses
Speaker 5: of light. Right, Roomy says, the cracks is where the
Speaker 5: light enters.
Speaker 4: Right, you know this. You probably know this right.
Speaker 5: And I love the Wabi Savage Japanese philosophy, and it's
Speaker 5: a technique called kinsugi, and kinsugi is what's used for
Speaker 5: basis that are that are shattered and that are broken.
Speaker 5: The of throwing them away and losing their value, what
Speaker 5: they do is that they take a gold powder and
Speaker 5: they mix it with some lue, and they start very
Speaker 5: carefully and beautifully and mindfully putting the pieces back together
Speaker 5: in a way that creates a whole new vase. So
Speaker 5: what you see is a vase that has gone through
Speaker 5: experiences that something happened to this base. So instead of
Speaker 5: having less value, actually and it acquires even more value
Speaker 5: than before. And why is it such a beautiful metaphor
Speaker 5: for postumatic growth, Because it's really not putting the pieceess
Speaker 5: back and bringing you back to where you were before.
Speaker 4: It's the opposite.
Speaker 5: It's really taking you to another level to become something new.
Speaker 5: But in order for that to happen, it has to break.
Speaker 5: So it's like the trauma, which is like that breaking,
Speaker 5: that shattering, that like touching rock bottom, and then that
Speaker 5: gift that is somehow with this process, it's like being reborn,
Speaker 5: being reinvented, like seeing life from a very different place.
Speaker 5: And that's why I put trauma and gift the same sentence.
Speaker 5: And you know, the funny thing is that it's not
Speaker 5: even that I came up with. That is that after
Speaker 5: seeing patients and working with families and with different groups,
Speaker 5: this is what they tell me, Laurie. They say, I
Speaker 5: would not wish this on anybody. This is the hardest
Speaker 5: thing that ever happened in my life. But I would
Speaker 5: not change this for anything in the world because what
Speaker 5: happened to me is what made me who I am
Speaker 5: today and I would not change it. And every time
Speaker 5: I hear this and it's like, wow, people have this
Speaker 5: value not in spite of their trauma, but because of
Speaker 5: their trauma.
Speaker 1: And so let's walk through some of the positives that
Speaker 1: can come out once people have kind of gone through
Speaker 1: this process of post traumatic growth. One is a sense
Speaker 1: of appreciation in life. You know, what is appreciation for life?
Speaker 1: And what are some examples of how you've seen that
Speaker 1: in your patients.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, some of my research working with Cambodian refugees
Speaker 5: and holocoust survivors and Latino immigrants, I've seen how people
Speaker 5: begin to shift their priorities in life. And they say,
Speaker 5: you know what, I'm not sweating the small stuff because
Speaker 5: people become so focused on what's important, even the little
Speaker 5: things like waking up in the morning, having the sun
Speaker 5: come out, eating a good meal. It's like, I'm so
Speaker 5: grateful for that. These people that are gone to post
Speaker 5: traumatic growth are very, very grateful for what they have,
Speaker 5: for who they are. They appreciate life, they appreciate relationships,
Speaker 5: they appreciate.
Speaker 4: Who they become.
Speaker 5: And they say it maybe because they've lost so much
Speaker 5: that everything hasn't acquired new meaning and they really have
Speaker 5: been able to shed the things that are not so
Speaker 5: important to them.
Speaker 1: And so what happens to a person's sense of personal
Speaker 1: strength after post traumatic growth?
Speaker 5: Right, it really becomes a protective factor in some way.
Speaker 5: And they tell me this, I think, you know what,
Speaker 5: I survived my divorce and I know that because of
Speaker 5: what I learned from the experience of divorce and how
Speaker 5: painful it was I can face anything now, and I
Speaker 5: think you develop tools that are very, very powerful and
Speaker 5: very protective for the next events that are happening in
Speaker 5: your life.
Speaker 1: And what happens to people's relationships after post traumatic growth.
Speaker 5: So the relationships become very meaningful because I think people
Speaker 5: that go through these experiences of traum and growth realize
Speaker 5: that they cannot do this alone. I don't mean to
Speaker 5: say that you need a psychologist for everything that you do,
Speaker 5: but having a support group. It can be your yoga teacher,
Speaker 5: it can be a retreat, it can be your religious group,
Speaker 5: It can be a community that you belong it can
Speaker 5: be your book club, being in a place that you
Speaker 5: feel heard and understood and validated. And when you are
Speaker 5: experiencing that and you see the power of transformation that
Speaker 5: relationships have, then you say, I only want to have
Speaker 5: meaningful relationships, and we begin to really appreciate the connection
Speaker 5: and really nurture the connection of meaningful relationships. One of
Speaker 5: the studies that I always talk about is the Harvard
Speaker 5: study on what makes people live longer and healthier, is
Speaker 5: that having meaningful, long lasting, close relationships with friends and
Speaker 5: family truly makes a difference. And I think when you
Speaker 5: get to postumatic growth. You see that in your experience.
Speaker 5: You said, Wow, I look back, and I say, I
Speaker 5: can see who are the people that are with me
Speaker 5: that are not with me? What happens when I maintain
Speaker 5: meaningful relationships and what the difference does that make in
Speaker 5: my life?
Speaker 4: And it might be less.
Speaker 5: People than before, it may be different people than before,
Speaker 5: because there's a lot of changes going on, but these
Speaker 5: are meaningful relationships no matter what, and appreciation for those
Speaker 5: relationships as well.
Speaker 1: Bad things can happen at any time in our lives,
Speaker 1: but Edith's professional experience suggests that we could emerge from
Speaker 1: adversity more mindful, more empathic, and stronger for having survived
Speaker 1: the turmoil. But is everyone capable of experiencing the benefits
Speaker 1: of post traumatic growth. We'll find out when the Happiness
Speaker 1: lab returns in a moment. Doctor either Shiro had seen
Speaker 1: the consequences of trauma long before she began her clinical training.
Speaker 1: Her maternal grandparents endured one of the greatest traumas of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. They were Holocaust survivors. They escaped the
Speaker 1: camps that claimed the lives of virtually all of their
Speaker 1: loved ones, friends, and neighbors, but their individual reactions to
Speaker 1: these painful experiences couldn't have been more divergent.
Speaker 5: I kept seeing that difference between my grandmother and my grandfather.
Speaker 5: They're both really amazing people. I learned so much from
Speaker 5: both of them, very close to both of them, very grateful.
Speaker 5: My grandmother was more quiet about her experience. She was
Speaker 5: suffering the war. She had the memories in her body
Speaker 5: much more evident. She actually was sick for a while
Speaker 5: before she died, and she died young. She wasn't able
Speaker 5: to overcome it in a way that was easy for her.
Speaker 5: My grandfather, on the other hand, who had very very
Speaker 5: similar experiences like my grandmother, somehow was able to transcend
Speaker 5: that experience in a way that allowed him to appreciate
Speaker 5: life from a different way. So you could see him,
Speaker 5: you know, wanting to travel and being curious about life
Speaker 5: and appreciate life and connecting with people from all over
Speaker 5: the world, keeping his friends. But you could see there
Speaker 5: was something in him that was like that flame of
Speaker 5: life that was very very powerful, and I think he
Speaker 5: made a conscious effort and went through some of this
Speaker 5: process to transcend it. And I think that was a
Speaker 5: beautiful example of postraumatic growth. And I kept saying, well,
Speaker 5: how somebody can do that?
Speaker 4: And what does it take?
Speaker 1: Is post traumatic growth possible for anybody?
Speaker 4: So this is my answer.
Speaker 5: The possibility of postumatic growth is there for everybody. Now,
Speaker 5: some people have it easier than others. Other people, like
Speaker 5: my grandmother, for example, she might not have known that
Speaker 5: that was a possibility. Some people might not have the
Speaker 5: support system needed because for postraumatic growth, at least in
Speaker 5: my understanding, you cannot do this by yourself. In most cases,
Speaker 5: I think it's like you really truly need that other
Speaker 5: person that can listen to you, that can walk with you,
Speaker 5: that can validate you, that can hold that hope for
Speaker 5: you while you're going through the dark night and soul.
Speaker 5: Some people might not have access to that, and some
Speaker 5: people might not want to do it, and some people
Speaker 5: might not be ready to do it. So sometimes it
Speaker 5: takes years before somebody goes to post traumatic growth. Maybe
Speaker 5: the trauma happened in childhood, and it takes until you know,
Speaker 5: late in life for people to say, oh, I'm finally
Speaker 5: working on it, on transcending it and transforming it.
Speaker 4: So it's very very unique for everybody.
Speaker 5: That's why this is not a recipe that you have
Speaker 5: to follow step by step.
Speaker 4: Is more like a spiral.
Speaker 5: It's how you go around it once, and then you
Speaker 5: go around it again, and then you go around and
Speaker 5: this is how you keep evolving, you know.
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at some of the kind
Speaker 1: of steps or practices that can help us on this
Speaker 1: path to post traumatic growth. I first wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about radical acceptance. So what's radical acceptance?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the first step, and that first step is
Speaker 5: one of the hardest. When you're in this mode repetition
Speaker 5: that you're going over and over and over and you
Speaker 5: keep doing the same things and wantingly different results. You know,
Speaker 5: you keep falling into the same kind of relationships, so
Speaker 5: you keep having the same kind of reactions to things
Speaker 5: that then you say, oh, why did I react this way?
Speaker 5: When we're able to for a moment pause and see
Speaker 5: ourselves and acknowledge, Okay, this.
Speaker 4: Is what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: When we've been in this level of depression or in
Speaker 5: this state of anxiety constant, it requires a moment of
Speaker 5: pause and saying, Okay, let me look at myself, what's happening,
Speaker 5: what's going on? Yes, let me completely and totally recognize
Speaker 5: that I'm anxious, yes I'm an alcoholic, or yes I
Speaker 5: am depressed. I am depressed. This is what's happening. I'm
Speaker 5: super depressed. Let me recognize that, let me acknowledge that.
Speaker 5: But this is almost like a conversation you have to
Speaker 5: have with yourself because even though you have everybody around
Speaker 5: you telling you this all day long, for years and years,
Speaker 5: it only comes to a moment of view to say,
Speaker 5: I need to be radically honest with myself, and that's
Speaker 5: where you really enter the process of healing. This is
Speaker 5: the first step because people always ask me, Okay, this
Speaker 5: sounds very great and wonderful, and yes, I want to
Speaker 5: have postumatic.
Speaker 4: Growth, but what do I do?
Speaker 5: Okay, you have to be very courageous, and I understand
Speaker 5: it's very painful.
Speaker 4: It really is very painful.
Speaker 5: So to sit there with yourself for a moment and say, yes,
Speaker 5: I recognize it, it requires a lot of courage and
Speaker 5: requires a lot of strength.
Speaker 4: So that's the first step.
Speaker 1: It also seems to go against our kind of our
Speaker 1: typical mode when we're dealing with trauma, which is usually
Speaker 1: kind of denial. So explain why kind of radical acceptance
Speaker 1: is almost the opposite of denial.
Speaker 4: It is right.
Speaker 5: The opposite is saying like, oh, how do we deal
Speaker 5: with trauma? We kind of disconnect from it, we avoid it.
Speaker 5: This is like the very thing that keeps us surviving.
Speaker 5: So we might have to be in denial for a
Speaker 5: while until we are in a safe space to say
Speaker 5: I'm ready to look into this. If I'm in the
Speaker 5: middle of war, if I'm right now in Ukraine or
Speaker 5: in the Middle East, and I want to go into
Speaker 5: radical acceptance, no, sorry, that's the place the people there
Speaker 5: have to be in survival mode. You have to still
Speaker 5: be in denial in order to stay alivee. So it's
Speaker 5: only when you feel that you're in a safe space,
Speaker 5: and only when your body actually recognizes a safe place
Speaker 5: that's when you can begin to go into this radical acceptance.
Speaker 5: So it's really it takes time.
Speaker 1: And that was nicely kind of going through this idea
Speaker 1: of a safe space. I mean, another step that you
Speaker 1: have found is really important is the idea of finding
Speaker 1: a different narrative. And so what is narrative and why
Speaker 1: is it so important?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so really not just a safe space for you,
Speaker 5: but bringing a safe space to reaching out for help.
Speaker 5: Once you're able to do that. Then there's the opportunity
Speaker 5: to say, Okay, since I'm being validated with my experiences,
Speaker 5: I can begin to construct and build a new narrative
Speaker 5: about who I am. Maybe I understood life in a
Speaker 5: certain way. Maybe you know that innocence of life of like, Okay,
Speaker 5: it's predictable, it's controllable. I need to begin to understand
Speaker 5: life a different way. Or I could never imagine that
Speaker 5: I would lose all of my sisters and brothers at
Speaker 5: the same time in the building collapse. How is that possible?
Speaker 5: You can't even understand something like that. So it's almost
Speaker 5: like your mind begins to expand and say, let me
Speaker 5: look at new belief systems, let me try out new
Speaker 5: ways of looking at the world, looking at myself. This
Speaker 5: is the stage where people begin to read new books,
Speaker 5: they get into listening to podcasts, into getting into workshops,
Speaker 5: or travel the world, or get new friends. Or a
Speaker 5: patient that was very, very sexually abused, and she began
Speaker 5: to paint and paint and paint, and it's through that
Speaker 5: story of painting, and she almost had an alter ego
Speaker 5: that was a new story for herself. That that's how
Speaker 5: she told a new narrative of life of her life.
Speaker 1: And so the next step is integration. How does that
Speaker 1: involve our identity? What is integration?
Speaker 5: So integration is taking all the new lessons and identities
Speaker 5: that you have for yourself and the old ones, all traumas,
Speaker 5: and really embracing it all. In some ways, it's saying
Speaker 5: I can talk about the death and the loss that
Speaker 5: I have without relieving the traumatic experience, and I also
Speaker 5: can recognize that I am this person now. I am
Speaker 5: I don't know, a divorced woman that went through a difficult,
Speaker 5: traumatic experience of divorce. And I'm also a professional and I,
Speaker 5: you know, have a new relationship. But I can say
Speaker 5: that I can say both and I can integrate it
Speaker 5: both into myself.
Speaker 1: And then the final step that you talk about is
Speaker 1: your favorite step, which is wisdom. And you talk about
Speaker 1: this concept of the hero. You know, what is this
Speaker 1: concept of the hero and how is it involved? Right?
Speaker 5: It is like going through the hero's journey and finding
Speaker 5: a way of understanding life with a mission, with a purpose,
Speaker 5: the appreciation for life, the strength, the meaningful relationships. And
Speaker 5: what I see in the people that I work with
Speaker 5: is that the woman that went through childhood sexual abuse
Speaker 5: has become the woman that opens nonprofit organization to help
Speaker 5: other women in the world, and the alcoholic becomes the
Speaker 5: mentor for all the other people with alcoholic addictions. And
Speaker 5: these are all true examples. I mean, I wish we
Speaker 5: had more time. I give you fascinating examples of what
Speaker 5: people do with their lives. This is what makes me
Speaker 5: cry in my office. It's like, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 4: How you can do this.
Speaker 5: How you go from the most painful, adverse situation to
Speaker 5: then you being the person that is in service and
Speaker 5: is giving the back to the world in a very
Speaker 5: meaningful way because it comes from the inside. It comes
Speaker 5: from a true experience of going through it yourself, of
Speaker 5: knowing what it's like and say I.
Speaker 4: Did it, I can do it. I want to give
Speaker 4: it back to somebody else.
Speaker 1: Itith description of post traumatic growth as a hero's journey
Speaker 1: really helped me better understand the story that started this episode.
Speaker 1: When Karen Guggenheim lost her husband Ricardo, eleven years ago,
Speaker 1: she was devastated, but thanks to strong family bonds and
Speaker 1: a powerful sense of purpose, she was able to heal
Speaker 1: her shattered sense of self. Her hero journey began when
Speaker 1: she became curious about the very process she'd undergone, and
Speaker 1: began to study the science behind happiness. Karen reasoned that
Speaker 1: if she could find joy after trauma, it was probably
Speaker 1: her duty to share that knowledge with people in need,
Speaker 1: and that's how the World Happiness Summit was born. At
Speaker 1: the most recent summit in London, I asked Karen if
Speaker 1: she'd felt that she'd passed an important milestone in her
Speaker 1: recovery from trauma today.
Speaker 2: I felt proud of myself today. It's taken this long.
Speaker 3: I actually felt genuine pride of my work and what
Speaker 3: I would have done, and so definitely that resilience.
Speaker 2: I really felt it today.
Speaker 1: And that's I think a nice example too with post
Speaker 1: traumatic growth is it often that growth comes, but it
Speaker 1: might not come the Tuesday after some terrible traumatic event.
Speaker 1: It's like it kind of has to take time to
Speaker 1: sort of grow and incubate. But the final results at
Speaker 1: the end are so important. I'm wondering if you think
Speaker 1: your husband could be looking back and seeing all that's
Speaker 1: happened since he passed, like what he would say about
Speaker 1: your past today.
Speaker 3: I think about that all the time, and not only
Speaker 3: do I think about it, I actually feel it because
Speaker 3: for those of you out there who are experiencing any
Speaker 3: kind of loss and are new to the loss, especially
Speaker 3: and even ones that are longer, because it never goes away.
Speaker 3: But you know what, some of us think that holding
Speaker 3: onto the loss is holding.
Speaker 2: Onto the memory, right.
Speaker 3: But what I learned in letting go of the intense pain,
Speaker 3: and it's not that it's not painful sometimes and sometimes
Speaker 3: more than others, is that then you're able to experience
Speaker 3: something else.
Speaker 2: And what I experience now is love.
Speaker 3: It's not romantic love because my husband's dead, but it's
Speaker 3: a different kind of love.
Speaker 2: I can see him and my children.
Speaker 3: If I am in pain and deep pain, I can't
Speaker 3: see him, right, And so it has opened up another
Speaker 3: opportunity to have a different kind of relationship with the
Speaker 3: memory of my husband.
Speaker 2: And also I also like to quote Moga Dat, which.
Speaker 3: Is our friend, and you know he lost his son
Speaker 3: Ali tragically, and he says, you know, Ali lived and
Speaker 3: Ali died, and he focuses on the part that Ali lived.
Speaker 2: So I took that on.
Speaker 3: Yes, he died and he lived, and like it was
Speaker 3: amazing and he was an amazing person. And so for me,
Speaker 3: with the summit, I get to carry his legacy of
Speaker 3: who he was as a person, and so much of
Speaker 3: what we do at the summit is the kindness and
Speaker 3: compassion that he had because he was a doctor and
Speaker 3: so he was a healer.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for coming on the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab and for sharing your story, and thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so much gratitude for what you do, and I look
Speaker 1: forward to seeing you again at Wahasu in Miami twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. Maybe stay tuned, and you can stay tuned
Speaker 1: for more episodes of the Happiness Lab too. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next time with the show to mark Digital Wellness Day.
Speaker 1: We'll have tips on how to achieve a healthier relationship
Speaker 1: with your devices and how we can reap the benefits
Speaker 1: of new technologies without all the drawbacks.
Speaker 6: Fifty percent of the time we pick up our phone,
Speaker 6: nobody's actually called or messaged us. We're picking it up
Speaker 6: because the need to be needed is actually highly addictive.
Speaker 6: And the second time you reach for your phone, fifty
Speaker 6: percent of the time, it's within two minutes of picking
Speaker 6: it up the first time. And the downside of that
Speaker 6: is that we're a little bit less connected with other
Speaker 6: people in our lives. We're less productive, we're feeling less
Speaker 6: happy about the way that we interact with the world
Speaker 6: around us, and how tuned in we are to ourselves
Speaker 6: and other people as well.
Speaker 1: All that next time on the Happiness Lab with me
Speaker 1: Doctor Laurie Santos