What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
By Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce D. Perry
Before reading this book, I was reluctant to use the word trauma. A new definition of what I understood it meant was evolving, and I somehow missed the memo on the new definition. Teachers applying to teach movement and meditation at my studio kept telling me they were trauma-informed, but I needed clarification on what they meant. I took a few workshops and listened to some podcasts, and though my understanding improved, I still wasn’t clear. This book changed all that.
How does trauma, both big and small, affects our nervous systems, and how can we learn to heal from them?
Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself...What is wrong with you? What is wrong with the way you act, think, and live? I have silently (or maybe not always so silently) asked this question thousands of times about my family, friends, colleagues, students, or strangers. This phenomenal book helped me reframe this toxic judgment and instead taught me to ask this: What happened to you? I now have a better framework to understand and accept when people, or myself, don't behave the way I think they 'should.'
The book dives into trauma and gives a brief, clear and concise explanation of what it is, how it can show up in different people, and how this connects to how we are in the world. I hope you can read it, or even better if you can listen to it as the authors read it beautifully on Audible.
Here's an interview about the book with Oprah.
You can hear a great interview between the authors and Brene Brown HERE.