Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

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We’re scratching the surface in this What Happened to You summary. If you don’t already have the book, get the audiobook for free on Amazon to learn the juicy details.

Oprah Winfrey & Dr. Bruce Perry’s Perspective

Oprah Winfrey, America’s beloved TV host, philanthropist, businesswoman, and author, joined forces with Dr. Bruise Perry to present their collaborative effort. For more than 25 years, Winfrey’s mission has been to educate, entertain, and cheer up. She is a co-author of 6 books, including #1 New York Times bestsellers “Food, Health and Happiness: 115 On Point Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life” and “Wisdom of Sundays”. 

Dr. Bruise Perry is a professor of psychiatry at the Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. His body of work as a popular writer includes “The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog” and “Born for Love”. As a leading expert on childhood trauma, he found his calling in helping others heal their mental and emotional wounds. 

Synopsis

As a victim of her abusive grandmother, Oprah Winfrey, like no other, knows what it is like to have traumatizing experience at a young age. Winfrey intends to share her story with everyone she can reach to help abusees ease their inner pain. Her goal is to aid readers in understanding how their adverse past may impact their personality, as well as the ways they behave and react. While Oprah Winfrey offers impactful storytelling based on her experience, Dr. Perry’s contribution is scientific and clinical knowledge to assist overcome the consequences of trauma.

StoryShot #1: Painful Memories

The very first story that meets the reader happened when Oprah was only three years old. One morning before going to church, Oprah’s grandmother noticed her dipping her finger into the bucket of freshly-pumped drinking water. While most adults would smile at this mischieve, her grandmother was furious. She bent over little Oprah and whipped her with such brutality that blood seeped through her clothes. This enraged the woman even more as she blamed her granddaughter for ruining her best Sunday dress.

Corporal punishment wasn’t something new for Oprah. She got severely beaten up every time she broke a glass or spilled water. She even had to prepare her own switches. Only when she couldn’t stand at her feet because of pain and exhaustion, her grandmother would release her and order her to put a smile on her face. The desire to please her grandmother and everyone around got so deeply ingrained in her mind that it defined Oprah’s relationship and actions for the next 40 years of her life. 

StoryShot #2: Understanding Your Past

People who went through painful experiences, especially those caused by a family, tend to blame themselves for everything bad happening throughout their lives. They keep asking themselves, “Why did I do this?”, “What is wrong with me?”. But the truth is that emotional turmoil forces us to be harsh with ourselves. Instead of being the butt of self-criticism, authors suggest looking back and analyzing ‘what happened to you’. Understanding our past is the key to building a happier and healthier future.

StoryShot #2: Burdens of Yesterday

Things we experience as children, especially if they cause deep emotional scars, greatly impact our personality. Having undergone multiple challenges, both emotional and physical ones, Oprah Winfrey isn’t afraid to share her lesson with the readers. She opens up to show everybody that it is not a victim who should be blamed or shamed. Winfrey was able to leave her emotional baggage in the past and not let it ruin her future. The forced smile she had to put on her face to make her grandmother happy made her ‘a world-class people pleaser’. This desire to bring joy to others helped her build many strong relationships with others. That said, the lack of love, when she was just a little girl, pushed her to develop her solitary independence.

Oprah’s dramatic story shows that no matter how unfairly life treated her, she got to find her inner strength, rediscover her self-worth, and find her peace of mind. If she could, you can too.

StoryShot #4: Road to Happiness

Traumas come in a variety of shapes, magnitudes, and manifestations. They contribute to the establishment of our physical, mental, and emotional. Mainly, they develop our behavioral patterns. More often than not, we can’t understand why we think or act in a certain way. Dr. Perry and Oprah Winfrey offer a novelty approach to dealing with traumas and the effects they have on our existence. The methods of self-comprehension and self-forgiveness they discuss in the book are a sought-after way to recovery.

StoryShot #5: Adaptivity is the Key

Oprah uses her example to illustrate how adaptivity helps us survive despite abuse and traumatic experiences. Dr. Perry supports her story with a contribution about our brain’s reaction to stress. Although our traumas shape our personalities and behavioral patterns, there is a way to break the mold. The key is to understand why we do what we do and try to develop different reactions to circumstances. 

Final Summary of What Happened to You?

“What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” is a fascinating read that lets us look at our past and future in a different way. It offers a shift in the approach to mending relationships, discovering new perspectives, as well as establishing peace with oneself and the world around. The book will come in handy for everyone who is being tortured by the ghosts of past traumatic events. After all, as the authors claim, the stories and scientific insight it provides is able to change how we view our lives.

Rating

StoryShots Rating: 4.5/5

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