What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

by Bruce D. Perry

In the powerful words of the poem “Invictus,” I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Despite the myriad circumstances into which we’re born, we come into the world with an innate sense of wholeness. We don’t begin our lives by asking: Am I enough? Am I worthy? Am I deserving or lovable?

From as early as I can remember, I knew I was on my own.

every moment builds upon all the moments that came before.

Oprah: When I hear Mr. Roseman’s story, the first thing I notice is that he felt flawed; he even asks, “What is wrong with me?” But you focused on “What happened to me?” rather than “What’s wrong with me?”—which is exactly the shift we’re trying to help others make.

All experience is processed from the bottom up, meaning, to get to the top, “smart” part of our brain, we have to go through the lower, not-so-smart part. This sequential processing means that the most primitive, reactive part of our brain is the first part to interpret and act on the information coming in from our senses. Bottom line: Our brain is organized to act and feel before we think.

You know, throughout all our many conversations, I keep going back to a show I did with Iyanla Vanzant years ago. She said that until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. The wounds will bleed through and stain your life, through alcohol, through drugs, through sex, through overworking. You have to have the courage to pull out the wound and begin to heal yourself. This is the lesson I hope everyone carries with them from our conversation, too. We must understand and heal the wounds of the past before we can move forward.

Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different. But we cannot move forward if we’re still holding on to the pain of that past. All of us who have been broken and scarred by trauma have the chance to turn those experiences into what Dr. Perry and I have been talking about: post-traumatic wisdom.

Forgive yourself, forgive them. Step out of your history and into the path of your future. My friend, the poet Mark Nepo, says that the pain was necessary in order to know the truth. But we don’t have to keep the pain alive in order to keep the truth alive. I made peace with my mother when I stopped comparing her to the mother I wished I had. When I stopped clinging to what should or could have been and turned to what was and what could be. Because what I know for sure is that everything that has happened to you was also happening for you. And all that time, in all of those moments, you were building strength. Strength times strength times strength equals power.

What happened to you can be your p...