Dr. Bruce Perry

In this episode of The Oprah Podcast, world-renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Dr. Bruce Perry, offers his advice on how to heal from childhood wounds. Oprah and Dr. Perry co-authored the #1 New York Times bestselling book, What Happened to You? Which has sold over 1 million copies. Dr. Perry discusses why asking this simple question is so important to understanding one’s story and behavior. He also gives scientific and practical guidance on why certain traumas can have lasting impacts on our lives and how little moments of hope make all the difference. Oprah shares stories from her own life offering ways to overcome our challenges. People from around the country join via Zoom to share their experiences and receive advice from Dr. Perry and Oprah on how to heal and move forward from their personal traumas. BUY THE BOOK! ⁠"What Happened To You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healin⁠ https://amzn.to/4xlafSqg" by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, published by FLATIRON BOOKS | MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS, is available wherever books are sold. Buy the book on⁠⁠ Apple Books⁠⁠ https://books.apple.com/us/book/what-happened-to-you/id1543114119%20 Buy the book on ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/57vmMk9T5dkvhXVjEHTlqn?si=b127dc1e14e14a7e%20 ⁠Go here⁠ https://www.bdperry.com/ for more information about Dr. Bruce Perry’s work Head to ⁠myalloy.com⁠ http://myalloy.com/ and use code: OPRAH for $20 off your first order. Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi there, and thanks to you for joining me here on the podcast and for watching on YouTube. Today, I'm welcoming Dr. Bruce Perry. I've known Dr. Bruce Perry, a world-renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist. I've known him now for 30 years and more. I invited him on The Oprah Show more times than I can count.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  And over that time, we've had many, many, many opportunities to talk about the impact of sexual abuse, or domestic violence, or poverty, or racism on development, and how that impacts people.

• 0:36Oprah Winfrey?

  I also asked Dr. Perry to implement his work called "The Neuro-Sequential Model of Therapeutics" to help my girl's school in South Africa become a trauma-informed school.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  When you're regulated, for me, my mind is open to learn.

• 0:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Dr. Perry has written half a dozen books, including one he co-authored with me called "What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing." I'm proud to say it's a number-one New York Times bestseller.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Hi, Oprah. Hi, Dr. Perry.

• 1:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Dr. Perry and I are talking with viewers and listeners about our book.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  How do I forgive my parents for not showing up the way I needed them to show up for me?

• 1:19Oprah Winfrey?

  I would say reading it opened up a new way of healing from their trauma. Your work, this book, has had such a profound impact on my life personally and professionally. So, thank you. It's a simple question that resonates profoundly for so many of us. What happened to you? I have to say, that question changed everything. I think it was 2018, I was interviewing Bruce Perry for an episode of 60 Minutes on CBS. Yeah, you were there even, Keith, right? Keith, my favorite DP I've had for years. We were talking about children, and you made a comment. You said, you know, all these schools where they have the kids, and those kids get dismissed,

• 2:02Oprah Winfrey?

  and they get suspended from school, and the teachers label them as bad, and they say, "This is a bad kid, this is a bad kid." What they really should be saying not is, "What's wrong with this kid?", but "What happened to this child?"

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:16Oprah Winfrey?

  That was a... That was one of the biggest moments for me. It changed the way I run my school. It has changed the result of what's happened at my school. It changed the way I see people, the way I see myself, the way I operate in the world and business. And you said that when a person or child is actually behaving in a certain way, that that's the question, not what's wrong with you, but more important, what's happened to. How did you know this? How did you come to this?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Well, I'd been studying the development of people forever, you know, for 40 years.

• 2:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Development of the brain in particular.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  And of behavior and of the way people kind of grow and change and think and move and all that kind of stuff. And so I had this bias that was focused on the history of a person, which is really kind of the story of the person. And to understand where somebody was right now and why they were acting a certain way, you really needed to know their story.

• 3:25Oprah Winfrey?

  That's the bottom line.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  That's the bottom line. And I think it's the bottom line with almost everything. You want to understand history? Understand the story of these people. Understand the story of the economics. Understand the story of an individual's personal life.

• 3:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Understand why your boss is an asshole?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Understand their story.

• 3:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Understand their story.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yep. And one of the things that's really interesting about that-

• 3:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And the fact that your boss is an asshole means that they have a story.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 3:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Of some kind of trauma or being rejected.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Being minimized, being degraded.

• 3:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Minimized, not feeling whole themselves. Because the only people that make people feel like they are minimal are people who feel minimal themselves.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 4:04Oprah Winfrey?

  You absolutely can't do it if you're a whole person.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Right. There's a great quote by Abraham Lincoln, who had, there's a legislator he didn't like. And he said, "I don't like that man. I must get to know him."

• 4:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Isn't that amazing, right?

• 4:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's why he was Abraham Lincoln.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Abraham Lincoln understood that if I knew his story, I would have a better understanding about why I don't like him and why he's unlikable. And I think the thing, we see this with kids. One of the things that's true is that so many of these kids that drive educators kind of batty.

• 4:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  When they learn about them, it's actually frequently heartbreaking.

• 4:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, they are the most interesting kid in the class.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 4:47Oprah Winfrey?

  And if you are a teacher or an educator who's listening or watching us right now, or you are involved in the criminal justice system, or you are in any way having to deal with people who come from dysfunctional backgrounds, this is, this book is absolutely essential. I know one of the things that has been the most rewarding for me, I was working with women at the California Women's Institute, and they read the book as a book club assignment. And then wrote me letters that they all put in a book. And one of the most rewarding things was to understand

• 5:29Oprah Winfrey?

  that for so many women who've been incarcerated for years, they had never understood. They actually said to me, all this time I thought I was just a bad person.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Bad person, yeah.

• 5:40Oprah Winfrey?

  I thought I had a demon.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:42Oprah Winfrey?

  I never asked the question, what happened to me? I was always asking what was wrong with me. So I think the fact that we did this book together has really, you know, not just sold a million copies, but has affected a million lives.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  I agree. Literally every day I get emails and feedback from people about the impact the book has had on the way they understand themselves and then the way they do their work.

• 6:07Oprah Winfrey?

  One of the most important takeaways that I got from the book, depending on what age you are when you experience the trauma, you handle it differently and it manifests in your brain differently.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. And this is something that the field generally is doing more research on and learning a lot more. But the universal principle.

• 6:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Or the long-term effect on a five-year-old is going to be very different than the long-term effect on a nine-year-old.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. And what we're learning is that the earlier in life that you have these traumatic events. The more enduring that the fundamental changes can be in these core stress response systems that are involved in everything that we do. And, you know, it's kind of counterintuitive for a lot of people because people generally think, oh, the baby doesn't understand what's going on, or the two-year-old doesn't understand what's going on, they'll be fine.

• 7:00Oprah Winfrey?

  It's actually the opposite.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:03Oprah Winfrey?

  One of the biggest, biggest, biggest takeaways from you all when I was working with Dr. Bruce Perry on this book is learning, and I'd heard it for years, you'd been on my show, I'd heard the information, I just hadn't received it, then I heard it differently after building a school and having a lot of kids who had come there traumatized. But to hear from you that from age zero to two years old, zero to two years old, is the time when the most damage can take place to the developing of the brain. So what I learned from you and this book, what happened to you, if you are raised in

• 7:43Oprah Winfrey?

  an environment where your needs do not get met at a very early, early age, zero to two, the synapses in your brain do not form the way other people's do, and you end up with long-term other issues.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Exactly. And again, these are not irreversible issues, but they're significantly challenging issues. And the growth of the brain is so rapid early in life, and the stress and trauma of an experience are mediated through these really important foundational networks that go everywhere in your brain and out into your body. And when their functioning is abnormal, when their functioning is impacted through these stressful and traumatic experiences, they then send this cascade of sort of abnormal signals. Out to everywhere in the developing brain and everywhere in your body.

• 8:34Oprah Winfrey?

  That's why it's so important for every human being to understand what happened to you. Because what happened to you when you were little, even before you were able to process it, is what dictates your behavior, your decisions, your choices, the way your brain operates in later life. And that is true for every person. That's why that's the most important question you can ask, particularly when things are not going the way that you want.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:06Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not, what's wrong with him?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:08Oprah Winfrey?

  It's, I wonder what happened to him.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:12Oprah Winfrey?

  And this is what everybody needs to know, particularly about younger, younger children. And that's why the zero to two years old is so important, is that even though those children don't understand language, they understand energy and vibration.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 9:29Oprah Winfrey?

  They are responding to

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 9:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Tone, intonation, the noise around them. That's why sometimes you go to touch a baby and they're like, ah.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Oh, exactly.

• 9:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Because they're responding to your

• 9:42Speaker 01

  To you, to you.

• 9:43Oprah Winfrey?

  To your energy.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  They can look at sleeping infants. And if parents are arguing in a different room, there's a physiological change in the baby's internal responses.

• 9:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  They literally are perceiving the fight even though they're asleep and the parents are in a different room. Your brain is continually absorbing, as you say, the environment, the atmosphere around you.

• 10:07Oprah Winfrey?

  And the reason why it is so crucial, zero to two, zero to six, those early years, is because that's when we have the greatest growth in our learning ability, right?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's a little bit like the construction of a skyscraper, that eighty percent of the effort goes into the superstructure and the wiring and the plumbing and everything else.

• 10:27Oprah Winfrey?

  The foundation.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  And all of that's done. The foundational stuff is done. And now you're three years old. You haven't put in carpeting and you haven't selected what's going to go on the walls. But the foundational capabilities of that building are

• 10:41Speaker 01

  In place.

• 10:42Oprah Winfrey?

  And so I can't emphasize enough, if you didn't get what you needed, and it doesn't mean that you were not in a loving environment, because I have, over the years, interviewed multiple people from the same family. Somebody felt that, you know, that's why you end up arguing with your sisters and brothers about what went on, because they're saying, well, mom and dad were this, and you go, but that wasn't my experience. And if you didn't get what you needed, that's all that matters.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 11:12Oprah Winfrey?

  It's all that matters.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 11:13Oprah Winfrey?

  So I think a lot of people may think, well, it's too late for me. I'll live with this pain for the rest of my life. What do you want people to hear and understand about healing from their own trauma? And what resilience actually means?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  So the first thing I want to do to help people appreciate is that they should be hopeful. The beauty of the human brain is that it's malleable, it's changeable. The challenge, however, is that in order to get sufficient change, you have to have multiple doses of the right kind of experience. And the right kinds of experiences are almost always relationally mediated. So if you have attentive, attuned, loving people in your life, and that can be family and school.

• 12:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Or not be family.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  And community, or not be family, just people around you who are present and attentive and attuned, you have this healing matrix, this healing environment, where you can essentially have the reparative experiences that will lead to health.

• 12:19Oprah Winfrey?

  This is what I want people to know, because so many people feel, as I did, that you didn't get what you needed from a particular parent or from your, you know, loved ones who were supposed to love you. You didn't get loved the way you needed to be loved.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:35Oprah Winfrey?

  But I had asked you earlier in one of these conversations, I don't know why I'm not stone crazy, and you said,

• 12:44Speaker 01

  It's because there were people in your life who were present and helpful and and loved you.

• 12:50Oprah Winfrey?

  So that could be a teacher, that could be a counselor, that could be somebody in Sunday School, that can be, yes.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  All these things create an environment where you have opportunities for all kinds of healing, social healing, cognitive healing, motor healing. But you need this environment.

• 13:07Oprah Winfrey?

  I thank you for listening to the Oprah Podcast. When we come back, Dr. Perry has advice on forgiveness and how to move forward from the traumas of our past. You don't want to miss that, so stay with us. I'm talking with world renowned trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry. We're taking questions from viewers and listeners who read our book, What Happened To You. So I'm really, really so moved today because we heard from a lot of you who have read the book and some of you are joining this conversation. Annie, hi there, you're zooming in from Minnesota. Oh, lovely home. Very nice.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Hey Oprah, hi, Dr. Perry. Thanks for having me.

• 13:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Can you share how you were impacted by what happened to you in your childhood?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, my childhood was, it felt very rough to me. There was a lot of neglect and emotional abuse. And I just never felt loved, safe, protected, specifically by my parents. And it's, it's made for some real struggles in my life.

• 14:24Oprah Winfrey?

  And I heard that after reading the book, you see yourself differently. I love to hear that and I know Bruce does too. So how so? What happened?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I, I always felt so flawed, like something was wrong with me. Like I wasn't lovable.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  And after reading the book, I realized the way my parents showed up for me really had nothing to do with me. It had to do with their own difficult upbringings, um, childhood, you know, challenges in their own lives, and that's how they showed up for me. So it was just a relief for me in reading this book to understand that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm, I'm not unlovable. I've done a lot of work to heal from my childhood trauma. My question is, how do I forgive my parents

• 15:26Speaker 02

  for not showing up the way I needed them to show up for me? I feel like that's the one place where I'm just still kind of stuck in my healing.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, it's, um, the issue of forgiveness is one of the hardest challenges that we as human beings have. In fact, it's interesting, I, I don't want to get religious here, but the Lord's Prayer is not many words, but there's a whole line about forgiveness. And of all of the things you could bring into that foundational prayer, you know,

• 16:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Forgive us our trespasses, that we forgive those trespass against us.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  It's elevated because that's such a challenging thing to do. So I, here's what I would just say is that forgiveness is a process. It's not a switch. You know, you don't just go, I'm going to forgive you and then it's done. It's a process and I think as you grow and you heal and you learn more about the stories of your parents, you'll begin to develop some more understanding of the reality that they probably were not intentionally trying to be as bad as it felt. And, and little by little, uh, in tiny little bits of forgiveness, it, it'll come. But it, you know, it can take a whole lifetime.

• 16:50Oprah Winfrey?

  I love, I love what you said about it's, it's not, it's not a switch you're going to turn on. If I may share this, the best definition I ever heard of forgiveness, I can't remember who did it so many years ago on the show, was giving up the hope.

• 17:07Oprah Winfrey?

  That the past could be any different. So giving up the hope that the past could be any different is a decision you have to make. You have to decide that I now accept that what happened, happened as it happened. And I'm going to give up hoping that my parents were, could have been, should have been anything other than what they were. And I am now willing to move forward. It doesn't mean that you excuse it, you condone it, but you accept that you are not going to continually

• 17:50Oprah Winfrey?

  hope that it could have been different. Because hoping that it could have been different leaves you in the space where you're going to always be stuck and you never get to move forward. You are as resilient, you are as strong, you are as caring for others. You have the compassion that you have because of all the things that you did not get from them, that you had to find a way to make okay for yourself. So give up the hope for them. And also, what Bruce said, also understanding what happened to them. You know,

• 18:30Oprah Winfrey?

  watching you makes me want to cry, but I remember, I remember

• 18:36Oprah Winfrey?

  having to, I was being asked to come to speak about my mother at a church. And she was, you know, a very not religious. It was important for her to be seen as religious in the community. And I had become Oprah Winfrey. And everybody knew she was my mother. And I'd been asked to come to church to...

• 19:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Give all these accolades about my mother.

• 19:04Oprah Winfrey?

  And I couldn't think of one thing. I was listening to other people tell stories of their mother. This girl told a story of how her mother would make lunch, especially in the rain. She would pack it in a special lunchbox and she would put their galoshes with those little yellow boots at the front door. And then she'd be home to take them off. And I was like, oh, my God, I don't have one memory. I don't have one single thing. And so when it came time for me to speak, I thought, well, what do I actually have to be grateful for?

• 19:38Oprah Winfrey?

  She didn't abort me.

• 19:41Oprah Winfrey?

  She did the best that she knew. The best that she knew was not enough to feed what I needed, was not enough to make me feel whole, was not enough to make me feel valued or seen or important to her. It was not, but it was the best that she could do. And I gave up the hope that it could have been anything other than what she had.

• 20:08Oprah Winfrey?

  And that's where you have to get to.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Thank you. That's really helpful.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Very powerful.

• 20:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Thank you for reading the book, and I'm so glad to know that it was that it was meaningful for you. Thank you.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  And be patient with your process, right? Just be patient with yourself.

• 20:29Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not a switch.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  It's gonna take time.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Thank you both.

• 20:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. Thank you. Alexis is joining us from Vermont. Hi Alexis, I heard you read the book and that it was a validation for you.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yes. Hi Oprah. Hi Dr. Perry. Thank you so much for having me.

• 20:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, a little bit about my story is both of my parents struggled with addiction. And unfortunately, that landed myself and my brother in the foster system. And It was a cruel home. It wasn't a place where they were nurturing or caring for either one of us. Often, we would get punished with food. And when we did get fed, we'd get fed squash, and that would be it. And that really created a lot of instability, not feeling safe, you know, abandonment from my parents' side, abandonment from people that were supposed to protect and care for me. Yeah, and that just really kind of took off. When we did get to go back home with our mom, being in Vermont, it is predominantly white. So I

• 21:32Speaker 03

  was, you know, the only black girl in my town, one of four. And I remember just being bullied in school, which further validated that I wasn't worthy and I wasn't lovable. And I quickly learned how to just blend into the background and become a people pleaser.

• 21:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  And just care for other people, you know, without asking for anything.

• 21:57Oprah Winfrey?

  So I heard while reading the book, you were better to able to understand a lot of your triggers, right? How did that show up for you?

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, first, I realized that it wasn't my fault. You know, I think from being so young, I didn't really realize that my environments and circumstances had nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with external parties. And so for me, it was really understanding, when I was in different environments, how my body was physically reacting to things. You know, I had really heightened anxiety all of the time. I had panic attacks. You know, I've had over 10 surgeries, and most of the time, they were always undiagnosed, unknown reasons as to why these things were physically manifesting in my body. And I

• 22:45Speaker 03

  later found out, one, partly because of this book, which was the beautiful part of being in therapy and using this book, was that I got to understand the why behind most of it versus just kind of working through what I experienced. So I thought that was a really beautiful way to kind of tie things together and really understand what was going on within me.

• 23:05Oprah Winfrey?

  One of the things I talked about in this book, I think, yeah, I think I talked about it in this book, is that I came to the realization too, because I too was a major people pleaser. And I think people who suffer from trauma, particularly if there's been physical abuse in your life, What I realize is that every confrontation, even as an adult, running a company, I suddenly realized that, oh, I think every confrontation, I'm gonna get a whipping. I think there's a whipping at the end of it. I think somebody's, you know, it's my grandmother's gonna come in and she's gonna take that switch and I'm gonna get a whipping. I'm gonna get chastised.

• 23:47Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm gonna get punished for speaking up or saying whatever's important to me. If I don't do the thing that pleases the other person, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get punished. That was a big realization for me. I think one of the things that you shared here that's so important, that I just want to reemphasize for people who are, for those of you who are watching or listening to us, is that you said, "I realized it wasn't my fault." And I think that is the thing that what happened to you has done for so many people. It's freed them to, first of all, understand it's actually the science of my brain

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:30Oprah Winfrey?

  and the circumstances that I was in, and it wasn't my fault.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  The other part of what you are sharing that's so important, and this is becoming a huge part of a revolution in medicine, is the recognition that these experiences influence the rest of your body, not just the mental health aspects, but your whole body. You know, your, how your heart functions, how your GI system functions, how you metabolize food. You know, it's, the whole range of functions that your body helps us kind of carry out so we can live, they're all impacted by developmental trauma. And so I think that that's a really important part of what you're sharing for other people out there to hear that. You know, if you have developmental trauma, if you have traumatic experiences,

• 25:20Speaker 01

  it's not at all abnormal to have headaches and to have GI problems.

• 25:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's why that other book that's also very popular, Your Body Keeps the Score. You're saying that your body doesn't lose anything.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is part of the malleable, the changeable part of the human body is it is always trying to be responsive to the environmental circumstances. And when you're under stress and distress, it's telling parts of your body to change in ways that are theoretically adaptive in the moment. But over the long term, they're maladaptive because it wears out your system and it makes you much more vulnerable to whatever your genetic vulnerability is.

• 26:04Oprah Winfrey?

  So if you're under constant stress and anxiety that is being internalized in your body, in your health, in a way that you don't see now but will be manifested later.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 26:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Show up. Your question for Dr. Perry?

• 26:18Speaker 03

  How do we rebuild trust within ourselves and others after we've really lived a lifetime of feeling dismissed, ignored, and being harmed?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  You know, the beautiful thing about healing from trauma and therapeutic positive change is that it's not about going back and undoing. It's about building new things. And so you have an opportunity in your life right now to have positive trusting relational interactions with the people around you. And the more you build on those relationships, the more you will ultimately get to the point where you will grow a capacity to trust.

• 27:01Oprah Winfrey?

  And this is the thing that I have learned for myself, Alexis, to just share with you. You don't have to worry about trusting other people. If you have done the work to trust yourself.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Oprah Winfrey?

  So you can trust that if somebody isn't providing you with what you need, or that the moment, a level of toxicity, or them shaming, or judging, or in any way being disrespectful to you, in any way shows up, you trust yourself enough to get yourself out of that.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And we all kind of have to do this every day in every aspect of our lives. Who do we really share a lot with? And if they're not going to be trustworthy, it's like, eh, well, that's whatever. That's them.

• 27:49Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  I'll get it done.

• 27:50Oprah Winfrey?

  So you don't go spilling your whole life to somebody and telling.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:54Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't open your heart to people that you don't know that they are worthy.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Of holding the heart space for you.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:00Oprah Winfrey?

  That's, that's, and that's the work you're doing on yourself. That's not about them, that's about you.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Oh, beautifully said.

• 28:09Oprah Winfrey?

  You got that.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  And you, absolutely, you can get there.

• 28:12Oprah Winfrey?

  You got, you, you, you got that. Thank you, Alexis, thank you.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 28:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you so much. So Dr. Perry told us about the United States District Judge Esther Salas, who is now joining us from her chambers. Hello? These are your chambers?

• 28:30Speaker 04

  It is.

• 28:32Oprah Winfrey?

  In New Jersey. Nearly five years ago, I remember reading that story. That was a horrible story that you endured the most unimaginable. Will you share what happened, Judge?

• 28:46Speaker 04

  Well, thank you, Ms. Winfrey and Dr. Perry, for letting me join this discussion. Your work, this book, has had such a profound impact on my life, personally and professionally, so thank you.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  It was, you know, the summer of 2020, a global pandemic. Our family, like the families all over this nation and beyond, were, you know, observing a quarantine that had been called by Governor Murphy in March of 2020. And our son Daniel, at 19 at the time, you know, he did such a great job, you know, really concerned about us. But he was lonely and he finally, you know, worked on us long enough to say, you know, for his birthday, which was July 13th, can I have a few friends over? And so we thought about it, my husband Mark and I thought about it. And we decided to let him have a few friends over. And so on Friday, July 17,

• 29:43Speaker 04

  as Daniel's friends from Catholic University of America started coming over and ringing the bell, I had no clue that there was a disgruntled lawyer, a self-proclaimed anti-feminist, who had hate in his heart, had a plan to assassinate me. And he was on our block that night, watching these kids come to our house. And so that night, they slept over. The next day, I made them breakfast. And I decided to walk our two dogs, to give Daniel a little privacy, walk our two dogs down the block. And as I was walking, I sensed a car. It was like at a place.

• 30:27Speaker 04

  And I remember looking at the driver, and he looked at me. And for a moment, we locked eyes. And then he looked away. And I had no clue what this man had in store for us. And so that day, he watched us. For every move, my son went to the beach with the remaining of the friends that had stayed. He saw me packing a cooler and umbrellas. And that night, Daniel came back from the beach with his three friends. We had dinner. And then on Sunday, when Daniel's friends, the last of the friends had left, Mark knew, and I knew. He was so tired, he didn't get any rest. So we said, you know what? You don't have to do your usher duties. We're gonna go to church.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  And when we come back, and we'll clean up. So we came back, and we all were cleaning up. And Daniel and I ended up in the basement. And we were talking about all his concerns, because one of his friends didn't show. And, you know, when Daniel was in his human form, Ms. Winfrey, his dad was his buddy. But I was his confidant. And so we were talking, this beautiful, deep conversation. And Mark ran down to the basement steps where we were at. And he said, Dad, Mom and I are talking. And so that was Mark's cue to get a water and go. And Daniel was swinging a wiffle ball bat. And he turned around, and he said to me,

• 31:57Speaker 04

  "Mom, keep talking to me. I love talking to you." And like on cue, the doorbell rang and Daniel's face changed from serene and calm to concerned and alarmed. And he went, who's that? And before I could tell him, you know, don't go upstairs, daddy's got it. He just bolted up those steps and I'm cleaning up. And the next thing I hear is like mini bombs going off like, and I screamed, what is happening? And I run up this basement stairs and I turned to the left where the foyer is.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  And there is my only child lying perpendicular to the door, holding his chest. And Mark is crawling on his hands and knees, trying to just get the look, like a look at the license plate or something of, of the man that just rocked our world, you know? And I remember dropping to my knees and, and pulling the shirt up and seeing the bullet hole in Daniel's chest. And then Mark crawled back and we were flanking him in our foyer. And, um, and we watched our beautiful baby boy fade away.

• 33:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Your only son?

• 33:21Speaker 04

  That's what happened to us.

• 33:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 33:28Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 33:33Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm so sorry. That is a devastating loss. And we all thank you for sharing Daniel's story with us. So tell us how you then discovered the book and how this book impacted you.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Well, I, you know, I'm a lawyer and I, I just started researching grief and, and I, you know, and I have to say I'm a self-proclaimed super soul junkie.

• 34:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  I was just eating it all up, you know, eating it all up. And one of my friends mentioned that you had come out with a book. And I, you know, I just wanted, I had to read it. I had to figure out what was going on in my head and what was going on in Mark's head. Because he saw Daniel shot and then he saw that gun pointed at him. And Mark was shot three times. It hit five different parts of his body. So we were experiencing trauma from different places.

• 34:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  And I had to understand. And thankfully, the way that you wrote this book, the way that, you know, you and Dr. Perry are able to storytell and share vulnerability. And it was just so easy for me to understand and relate to, that I began to understand the concepts of regulation and dysregulation. And to understand that a dysregulated person can't talk to a dysregulated person. And so it really

• 35:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Nobody can.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  It saved my marriage. And we still, by the way, I mean, that's common lingo. You know, I'll say, Mark, I'm dysregulated right now.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  I need to go for a walk. I need that rhythm.

• 35:28Oprah Winfrey?

  I heard that the book also, Judge Salas shifted the way you see the men and women who come into your courtroom. Tell us about that.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, it started with, obviously, me understanding. And you even say in the author's note, this book is for anyone who wants to better understand themselves.

• 35:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Themselves, yes.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  But I began to realize that the men and women that were coming before me, you know, were dealing with a power differential, which you explain, and Dr. Perry explains beautifully in the book. And that they are probably dysregulated from the moment they walk into the courtroom, you know?

• 36:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 36:04Speaker 04

  And so I began, you know, trying to understand how do I even out that power, you know, that power differential? And I began to try to change maybe this voice, which is pretty loud, but the tone of my voice. And, and then of course, the story of Joseph in the book about, you know, just short bursts of interactions that are positive.

• 36:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  And so I now have status conferences with some of the individuals that come before me. And it's not as a judge, what have you done? It's more like, what can we do? What can we do to help you? And by the way, you know, I have to thank you both because I, you know, I often ask individuals who are under supervision to read this book, to read this book and come back and talk to me about, you know, what they felt and what they, what they understood.

• 36:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Explain dysregulation and regulation that the judge is talking about.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  So, regulation and dysregulation have to do with that, those stress response systems in our body that when you're regulated, or what, let's say, dysregulation is when you get out of balance. So you're hungry, thirsty, cold, scared.

• 37:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Angry.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Angry, you get dysregulated and that, and those, those systems that kind of go everywhere in your body, uh, that are part of the backbone of the stress response, they get activated. So it changes the way you think, it changes the way you perceive, you know, the, the present moment, it changes the way your heart works and your gut works, and so you're dysregulated. But you can get back in balance by eating something, by, by moving and pattern repetitive rhythm.

• 37:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  You know, all kinds of things can make you regulated. So, the, the key to optimal brain functioning is to have a regulated brain, and that comes from feeling safe and respected and that you belong.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  With the people around you.

• 38:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, one of the things that Judge Salas said, she says to Mark, her husband, is, "Don't talk to me, I'm dysregulated right now." One of the things that you make in the book is, and I know many of you who are listening or watching us right now, you've been in an experience where you're in an argument and you're like, "You're not hearing me." And people who are dysregulated actually aren't hearing you because they're in a different part of their brain and they can no longer hear.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Or if they do hear you, they distort it so that it's more negative.

• 38:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Or so if you say something neutral, they go, "That's, don't be so negative."

• 38:41Oprah Winfrey?

  That's why you should not speak to a person who's dysregulated.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, thank you, Judge Salas, for sharing that.

• 38:50Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for the work that you both continue to do. And I am just so grateful for the opportunity to be able to say to you both personally. And just from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for all the work that you continue to do. You make a difference. You make a difference in everybody's life and I greatly appreciate.

• 39:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, thank you for that.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Thank you, Esther.

• 39:15Oprah Winfrey?

  It's an honor to know that this book helped you to heal in any way and that you also have used it to expose other people to better understand themselves. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. After the break, Dr. Bruce Perry and I are talking to people who share how the book "What Happened to You" helped them heal from their personal stories of trauma. We're taking their questions next. Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. Dr. Bruce Perry and I are asking the question, "What Happened to You?", the title of our bestselling book that sold over a million copies. It gives me such hope to know that it has helped so many of you. So this year, I taped an episode of my book club with Eckhart Tolle around his book,

• 39:59Oprah Winfrey?

  "A New Earth," and a man named David was in our audience. And he shared with me that before he was born, before he was born, his parents had lost a child. And so while he was in his mother's womb... His mother was still grieving for that child. Can you believe that? For that death?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And that for his whole life, he felt that there was a shadow over him, like he was somehow a replacement. And I find that so interesting. Because I'm wondering, you know, we're talking about zero to two years old.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:39Oprah Winfrey?

  So when you're in the womb forming and you're, you come into the world with your mother grieving and in sorrow, does that get transferred to you?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And in fact, most people don't think about this, but the majority of growth in the brain takes place in utero. Almost the vast majority of neurons that you have in your brain right now, of nerve cells, were present when you were born. So lots of really important things happen in utero that can be influenced by the mother's experiences.

• 41:18Oprah Winfrey?

  State of mind.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  State of mind. Sadness, stress, nutrition, all kinds of things make huge impact on the developing brain.

• 41:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, David's joining us. David, do you hear that?

• 41:31Speaker 05

  I do hear.

• 41:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Isn't that fascinating?

• 41:37Speaker 05

  You know, it's, it's, it's nice to hear that everything I thought is true.

• 41:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Quite honest.

• 41:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, actually, it's very validating, isn't it? To, to say, all these years, I have felt that, I have sensed that, and I'm not crazy. That was real. That was real. Right? Thanks for being here with us again. Thank you. How did you feel after reading? Because what happened is after I met David in New York, I sent him our book. And how did you feel after reading this book? Did it help you at all?

• 42:11Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh. I, you know, the very first thought I had is it made me have a greater appreciation for the adult I've become. And it made me think back to, you know, the very little David and how he made it through this time that was complicated and layered and, you know, so complex for everyone in my family. And

• 42:42Speaker 05

  I don't remember the exact moment I knew about my brother. He was always there in my home and in my life. But I do remember from the earliest age, becoming a caregiver and becoming worried. You know, like you said, you were a people pleaser because of things that happened to you. I immediately began to worry about, are they okay? You know, is mom okay? Dad, okay, what can I do? And it, for a long time, it made me less of my own person.

• 43:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because your own person was always about making sure they were okay. Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 05

  I didn't want any more pain for anyone in my life.

• 43:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  And, you know.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  That's a heavy burden for a little child.

• 43:33Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a heavy burden for a little child. You're right.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and it's, it's, what you felt is actually very predictable for a young child who senses that something's wrong in the household, right? Even with, without sort of explicit articulation, you would sense it and you did, right? You sensed something's not right. And as you maybe learned about your, your brother's death or your, that helped crystallize, maybe it makes some sense out of what you were experiencing.

• 44:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 44:07Speaker 05

  I don't remember the age of when I knew who he was, but he was always there. They didn't hide. This did, and you know, as far as I'm concerned, like I have a brother who happened to die before I was born.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  How old was he, if I may ask, when, when he passed away?

• 44:25Speaker 05

  My brother was around four years old.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's brutal. That's brutal for the family. And then you were, and then your mom got pregnant with you and.

• 44:34Speaker 05

  So he died.

• 44:35Oprah Winfrey?

  She's carrying that grief.

• 44:36Speaker 05

  He died in March of nineteen eighty-six and I was born in February of eighty-seven.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  And I will say, I just, you know, no matter how much love they gave and how protective they were and how much they wanted to make sure we all had, you know, the best life, nothing changed the thing in my mind.

• 45:03Speaker 05

  That none of it mattered. It was always in the back of my head like, what am I doing here? Who am I?

• 45:12Oprah Winfrey?

  That you were the replacement?

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:15Oprah Winfrey?

  That you were the replacement. I hear the story that I told in What Happened to You about my grandmother and me not being able to sleep resonated with you. I told this story in the book about me not being able to sleep after my grandmother was confronted, attacked in the bed by my grandfather who slept in another bedroom. And that after that night, I remember forevermore, she would put cans up against the door, the chair underneath the doorknob. And I slept in fear. And it wasn't until many, many, many years later that I realized, oh, that's why I'm so uncomfortable in my own home at night or going to a hotel,

• 45:59Oprah Winfrey?

  always, you know, carrying the energy of that with me all those years. And I had to be like, under five years old when that happened. I remember when that happened. How did that resonate with you?

• 46:11Speaker 05

  You know, the part that resonated was, is that it was the fact that it didn't directly happen to you, that experience. You witnessed it, you felt it.

• 46:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  But, you know, your grandfather, the actions taken weren't directly to you.

• 46:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  And I wasn't physically here when the death happened, but I felt it and it changed. You know, again, it made me worry so much.

• 46:42Oprah Winfrey?

  About?

• 46:42Speaker 05

  Are they okay? I don't want to cause trouble. I want to make sure everyone in my family is happy. And I don't want to take up too much space.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  So, you know, one of the interesting things about this is that we're talking about early formation of memory. And when you are very, very, very, very young, these lower parts of the brain are organizing and creating memories. But that part of the brain can't tell time. So what happens is as you get older, and you're now that you're your age, you know that there is a timeline where you think back and I might, this is when this happened, this is when that happened, this is when that happened. But all kinds of things in the world that you experience right now are going to activate a memory in a part of the brain that can't tell whether or not it's present or past.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  So healing for you is going to be not necessarily about recognizing that this is the, this is what happened, and I can go through this kind of intellectual exercise to go, oh, that makes sense. Healing for you has to be influencing these lower parts of the brain that are in, that really carry that original memory, which means dance, music, movement, all kinds of things. And I would suspect that you find comfort in some of those things that are sort of rhythmic, patterned, repetitive things, whether it's riding a bike, or swimming, or running, or walking,

• 48:24Speaker 01

  or doing music, or some other arts-based form of regulation and expression.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, music is on, you know, every day. It's hard for me to have silence, especially, you know, and it keeps me centered and motivated and...

• 48:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you have a question for Dr. Perry, though?

• 48:46Speaker 05

  I do. I mean, so towards the very end of the book, and I just wanted to read this because it stood out. You know, Oprah, you say, and the lesson is, no matter what has happened, you get a chance to rewrite the script. And Dr. Perry, you respond, exactly, it is really never too late. Healing is possible. The key is knowing where to start the process. I read that and immediately it was like, what? Because I have a hard time and I wonder what you say to someone who questions all of this work, who questions, you know? It's still hard for me to believe that I can rewrite the script or heal.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  And all the work I've done, I know I'm a lot better than I was back then. But there's still a little part of me that says, but.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Well, that little part of you is really, really deep, deep, deep, deep in or lower parts of your brain that originate and were organizing in utero. So the key to changing the biology of the brain is a principle we call specificity, which is basically the networks that you want to change, you have to activate. So you can't learn to play piano by just watching a video about playing the piano or by listening to music. You have to actually move your fingers on a piano key. And so what happened to you started in utero, which means that you need to do things that are going to be

• 50:27Speaker 01

  intrauterine style experiences, pattern repetitive rhythmic activity. In utero, your brain is developing and the stress response systems in your brain are developing

• 50:46Speaker 01

  continuous rhythmic exposure from maternal heart rate. And so if you want to have doses of healing and positive growth in these lowest, deepest parts of the brain, keep doing intentionally and with a pattern.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Pattern repetitive rhythmic things. And there are ways to make change. So in these lowest parts of the brain, middle parts of the brain, and top parts of the brain. And you've been doing top parts of the brain, right? You know, you probably have talked in with people.

• 51:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  You're learning about it, but ultimately.

• 51:26Oprah Winfrey?

  I think that's so interesting. The top part of the brain isn't what's going to really heal you. You got to get down to the very root of what that thing is.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 51:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, what that thing is. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to see you. Thank you so much.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Be hopeful.

• 51:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 05

  I guess, thank you. I thank you. I'm so humbled to be here.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 51:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, thank you. My hope is that this conversation can help you see a new path to healing. Up next, Dr. Bruce Perry on how to break self-destructive patterns. That's next. Thank you for your company today. My hope is this episode of the Oprah Podcast can help you learn how to start to heal from the trauma of your past. I'm back with Dr. Bruce Perry. Dr. Perry, once we become aware of our trauma and how that trauma is showing up in our lives, how do we break the self-destructive patterns? I think this book, may I say, helps a lot

• 52:30Oprah Winfrey?

  because you understand, oh, that's why. He does that, she does that, I do that. That's, that's why. Helps you recognize it. But now that you recognize it.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  What do you do?

• 52:41Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you do?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yep. So kind of going back to what I brought up a couple of different times, really, one of the things that you have to always remember is that the brain is capable of change.

• 52:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  And the kind of change you want is going to require specific kinds of repetitive experiences.

• 53:05Oprah Winfrey?

  You can turn that trauma into wisdom.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  You can, you can actually, you can go through all kinds of relational experiences. You can go through sensory experiences. You can go through sort of cognitive, intellectual experiences, and they'll all lead to growth. But the key to change, honestly, is that you have a healing environment that's filled with people who see you.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Who make you feel that you belong. Because what they allow you then to do is that when you are in need of a regulatory interaction where somebody just is present, you can do that. When you're in need of somebody who is going to do something where you are needing some guidance, intellectual guidance, you have somebody who can do that. It's like having this big, beautiful, incredible extended family with people that are good at horseplay, people that are good at telling stories, people that are good at jokes, people are good at teaching how to do a fire.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  And you use them in your life at the time you need them, in the dose that you need them. In other words, you don't just want to have one person responsible for every single thing that you're learning. You know, you don't just, you know, the village is filled with an elder who's really good at telling stories, but he's not any good at teaching you how to knit. And over here, the person who can teach you how to knit is different than the person who's going to teach you how to hunt. And the person who's going to teach you, who's going to be just a good listener, is going to sit next to you. If you have all of these people present in your life, you have this rich library of

• 54:58Speaker 01

  relationships that you can use as you grow. And I think that because different people have different timing to their trauma, and they have different kinds of trauma, they're all going to need different books from the library. Yes. And the problem with the current mental health system is that we give everybody the same book. Same book. It's like we need, instead of like having a little, you know, one shelf bookmobile.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Which is kind of what mental health treatment is right now. We need a library of congress of opportunities that are culturally specific, that it can, that can focus on, on movement and music and art and all the things that are part of the world that help us heal. If you are seen and you are relationally connected in a community, you have a rich library of resources that you can tap into to help you heal and to help you grow.

• 56:02Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  And to help you buffer whatever current stressors you're having right now.

• 56:06Oprah Winfrey?

  And it doesn't have to come from the person that you think it was supposed to come from.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 56:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. It could be anybody who actually fully sees you.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And values you as a human being.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And it can, and.

• 56:19Oprah Winfrey?

  For me, that was teachers. That's why teachers, I'm telling you, every teacher in the country.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  And moments.

• 56:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  And it like, so it doesn't have to be a 45 minute session once a week.

• 56:27Oprah Winfrey?

  It's a one little thing.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  It's a little dose of somebody, oh, I see you. I'm gonna have a real conversation. Like the guy who dropped, drove me here today, we had a great conversation. He grew up in Beaumont, Texas, talked about his life. We talked about stuff. That was, that was a little dose of goodness.

• 56:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Tish Hooker, when I was a little girl, uh, came to my church and her husband was running for governor. She just turned to me and I never thought of myself as an attractive kid, you know? And she just said to me, you are as pretty as a speckle pub. That moment stuck with me forever and ever and ever. And so, I mean, just, I think what you're mentioning is being able to be fully present, to be there and see a person for who they are. And, you know, Dr. Bruce Perry, thank you for sharing your wisdom. Again, thank you for writing this book. 2020, we did this book. I mean, thank you.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 57:20Oprah Winfrey?

  And to all of our guests, to Alexis and to Annie and to Dave and to Judge Salas for sharing that story about your beautiful Daniel. To our guests who read the book and shared their experiences and questions, what happened to you is available wherever books are sold. And my hope is that it does exactly what Alexis says, that you read the book. And whatever has happened to you, you realize it's not your fault. Number one, it's not your fault, and you're not alone. And it serves as a light in your life and a guide, a reminder that healing is possible. And subscribe to the Oprah Podcast if you don't want to miss an episode

• 58:03Oprah Winfrey?

  because we're talking about good things every week here. Go well. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.