WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Learn to -resilience /rɪˈzɪl.jəns/ (n) C2: khả

develop resilience in the face of năng phục hồi.
trauma. -trauma  /ˈtrɑː.mə/ (n) C2: chấn
thương tâm lí.
Have you ever reacted to something in a way that -powerless (adj): bất lực.
felt like it came out of nowhere? Or been -inexplicable  /ˌɪn.ɪkˈsplɪk.ə.bəl/
powerless to stop addictive habits like overeating (adj) C2: không thể giải thích hay
or drinking when you’re upset?  hiểu được
-interpretation /ɪnˌtɝː.prəˈteɪ.ʃən/
Well, that inexplicable reaction, or those
unhealthy habits, might be driven by trauma. (n) C2: một lời giải thích hay ý
kiến về một điều gì đó có nghĩa là,
Trauma is difficult to understand and treat hiểu.
because it’s often invisible, even to ourselves. If -confront /kənˈfrʌnt/ (v) C2: đối
you experience abuse or neglect as a child, those đầu, đương đầu.
experiences shape your interpretations of the
-conscious /ˈkɑːn.ʃəs/ (adj): quyết
world, and how you respond to stress. But if
you’re not conscious of the trauma then you tâm, có chủ đích
won’t be able to confront it head-on.  - neglect (v): C1: không dành đủ sự
quan tâm, chú ý đến ai đó. C2: ko
That’s something Oprah Winfrey knows from thường xuyên làm gì đó vì bạn
personal experience. She experienced neglect, quên.
abuse, and physical assault in her childhood.
- physical assault /əˈsɑːlt/ (nphr)
Understanding this trauma was key to freeing
herself from her destructive coping mechanisms, C2: hành hung
like people-pleasing and overeating. Today, she’s - people-pleasing (n): làm hài lòng
a passionate advocate for trauma survivors, mọi người.
working with Dr. Bruce Perry to increase the - advocate /ˈæd.və.keɪt/ (v) C2:
visibility and understanding of trauma, and how it ủng hộ
affects young people’s lives. 

These blinks synthesize the key insights from

their conversation, providing innovative ways to
understand trauma and the brain, and practical
strategies to apply in your own life.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

 why a little bit of stress is actually

healthy;
 how dancing can help us deal with
 trauma; and
 why there’s a strong connection between
trauma and addiction.

Key idea 1

Our brains are shaped by our

unique childhood experiences.
Oprah Winfrey’s clearest childhood memory is of
a feeling – a feeling of intense loneliness. Even as
a young child, she knew she was unwanted. Her -intense (adj) C1: extreme; cực kỳ
mother was very young, a teenager. She didn’t
have the money or the emotional resources to
care for her daughter. So Oprah spent her
childhood in the care of different family
members, bouncing among households. These
relatives only made matters worse. They not only
neglected Oprah; they often beat her severely. 

All these experiences formed Oprah’s view of the

world. They shaped her expectations of the
people around her. They shaped how she saw
herself. And they literally affected the formation
of her brain. 

The key message here is: Our brains are

shaped by our unique childhood experiences.

The rational part of a child’s brain – the cortex –

takes years to develop. About three years, to be -rational (adj) C2: lý trí, hợp lí
exact. People sometimes think this means that -cortex (n): võ não
young children don’t absorb much – that abuse or
trauma experienced by, say, a two-year-old
doesn’t count. The opposite is true. In fact, the
younger a child is, the more damaging trauma is
for their brain. A baby’s brain develops at an
astounding rate: 20,000 new neurons per second.
And every experience is logged in a personal -astounding rate  /əˈstaʊn.dɪŋ/
“codebook” in the brain. Later, traumatic (nphr): tốc độ khủng khiếp, đáng
experiences may manifest as complex memories
kinh ngạc.
that can’t be understood rationally. 
-manifest (v): biểu hiện, chứng tỏ.
Take the example of Samuel. As a child, he was
physically abused by his father. The abuse only
stopped after he was removed from his father’s
care by Child Protective Services. After a
turbulent few years cycling through foster homes,
Sam moved into a group home. There, he got the
support he needed and was progressing well. But -turbulent /ˈtɝː.bjə.lənt/ (adj) C2:
then he got a new teacher and, suddenly, he sóng gió
started acting out at school, becoming aggressive
-aggressive (adj): hung hăn
and withdrawn. Dr. Perry was mystified by this
behavior until he witnessed a visit from Sam’s -withdrawn /wɪðˈdrɑːn/ (adj) C2:
father. The man was wearing a strong cologne – thu mình lại
Old Spice. In a flash, Perry realized that Sam’s -mystified (adj): bối rối
teacher also wore Old Spice. Sam’s behavior -in a flash: trong nháy mắt
suddenly made sense. The aroma awakened
terrifying sensory memories, causing him to act The aroma awakened terrifying
out as if he were under attack. In the end, the
sensory memories, causing him to
solution to Sam’s problem was simple. His
teacher changed his cologne, and Sam’s behavior act out as if he were under attack
changed, too. Mùi thơm đánh thức những ký ức
giác quan đáng sợ, khiến anh ta
When we’re trying to understand trauma, there is hành động như thể đang bị tấn công.
one essential question to ask: What happened to
you? And, especially, what happened to you
when you were very young? That’s a question
that’s been central to Oprah’s life as she’s worked
to heal her childhood trauma. Deciphering your -central (adj) C2: main; important;
own personal codebook will help you to
trọng tâm
understand seemingly inexplicable reactions and
survival mechanisms that evolved to help keep
you safe.  -decipher /dɪˈsaɪ.fər/ (v): khám
phá
Key idea 2

You can’t treat trauma

without understanding how the
brain works.
War veteran Mike Roseman was out on a date
when, suddenly, he found himself cowering on
the ground in a state of complete terror. His
girlfriend tried to help him, but he lashed out
blindly, hitting her in the process. It took ten -war veteran (n-n): cựu chiến binh
minutes for him to come out of it and start -cower (v): co rúm lại, sợ.
thinking clearly again.  -complete terror (adj-n): extreme
fear; sợ muốn xỉu.
What had happened? A car had backfired, its -lashed out blindly: tấn công một
exhaust pipe emitting a loud popping sound. The cách mù quáng, đánh loạn xạ.
noise was similar to gunfire, and it activated a
-overdrive (n): quá tải
traumatic memory of when Roseman had been in
the Korean War 30 years before. His survival -dived to: lao xuống
responses instantly went into overdrive, and he -snipper (n): tay bắn tỉa
dived to the ground as if he were hiding from a
sniper. 

Here’s the key message: You can’t treat

trauma without understanding how the brain
works. 

Traumatic memories lodge in the brain stem, as

well as in the cortex. The brain stem processes
stimuli first. Then it feeds that information into -lodge in: ẩn náo
the “higher” and more developed parts of the -brain stem: thân não
brain – the parts associated with relationships, -stimuli (n): các kích thích
beliefs, and meaning. But when people are
traumatized, they have a sensitive stress response
that activates their survival systems very quickly.
This is what happened to Roseman. Rationally,
he knew that a backfiring car didn’t pose a threat,
and that he didn’t live in a war zone anymore.
But because the gun-like sound instantly
activated his survival system, he didn't have a
chance to access the rational part of his brain.

Dr. Perry has decades of experience working with

trauma survivors like Roseman. This work has
shown him that it’s essential to tailor therapeutic
approaches to how different parts of the brain
process trauma. To make this tailoring easier, he
created a guideline for therapists and educators. -tailor therapeutic approaches
It’s called the Neurosequential Model. The model
argues that before anything else, you have to help (vphr): điều chỉnh phương pháp
the person deal with his sensitized survival điều trị.
systems and get regulated. For example, Dr. - Neurosequential Model: mô hình
Perry had to help Roseman develop strategies to tuần hoàn thần kinh
calm himself down and become less reactive to
triggers. He helped him create better sleeping
patterns and encouraged him to exercise regularly
and get massages. These approaches improved
Roseman’s overall well-being, calmed his brain,
and reduced his sensitivity to stress. 
It was only then that Roseman was truly able to
access the cortex: the part of the brain responsible
for rational thought and logic.

Key idea 3

Learning positive regulation

strategies is essential for
dealing with trauma.
When she was starting out as a journalist, Oprah
routinely worked 100-hour weeks, doing
everything she could to excel at her job. She was
exhausted and stressed, but she ignored all the
signals her body was sending her that something
was wrong. The abuse she’d experienced had -a skilled people-pleaser: người có
trained her to be a skilled people-pleaser. She kỹ năng làm hài lòng người khác
completely ignored her own boundaries, trying to
fulfill everyone else’s needs instead. And she
numbed her feelings with her favorite drug: food. 

Whenever we become uncomfortable or stressed,

it means that we’re out of balance. But, like
Oprah, many trauma survivors have been trained
to ignore the signals. And they haven’t learned
positive strategies for regulating themselves and
reestablishing balance when they’re stressed out. 

The key message is this: Learning positive

regulation strategies is essential for dealing
with trauma.

Everyone’s brain has an inbuilt self-regulation

system. This system is made up of core
regulatory networks, or CRNs for short. These
networks are designed to keep us in balance. One
network controls the stress responses known as
“fight and flight.” Another involves relationships
and connections. And yet another controls the -curcuits /ˈsɜː.kɪt/ (n) C2: mạch,
brain’s reward circuits. Together, these networks vòng quanh, sự tiếp nối
form what Dr. Perry calls a Tree of Regulation. 
-baby caregiver (n-n): những người
When a baby’s caregivers consistently meet her chăm sóc em bé.
basic needs with tenderness and care, her CRNs -consistently (adv) C2: liên tục,
grow resilient, and the child acquires vital tools luôn luôn
for regulating herself as she grows up. But if her -impaired (adj): hư hại,suy yếu
caregivers are inconsistent, or abusive, then a -dysregulation /ˌdɪs.reɡ.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
child’s Tree of Regulation becomes impaired.
(n): mất kiểm soát
The technical term for this is dysregulation. If a
child’s Tree of Regulation is dysregulated, her -hypervigilant /ˌhaɪ.pəˈvɪdʒ.əl.ənt/
stress responses become sensitized. She becomes (adj): hứng thú, thu hút, lo sợ
hypervigilant for threats in her environment and -panic (n): cảm giác lo lắng, hoảng
panics easily. Because her caregivers were so sợ
negligent, she’ll associate people with threat and -negligent  /ˈneɡ.lɪ.dʒənt/
disappointment, and struggle to establish human
(adj) C2: cẩu thả, thiếu quan tâm
connections. 
-vulnerable /ˈvʌl.nər.ə.bəl/ (adj) C2:
This will make it harder to find positive ways to dễ bị tổn thương
regulate herself as she grows up. Like Oprah, -soothe  /suːð/ (v): vuốt ve, xoa diu,
she’ll be more vulnerable to addiction. Drugs, dỗ dành
alcohol, self-harming behaviors like cutting, and
eating disorders can all provide temporary relief
from distress. The relief feels good and lights up
the reward circuits in the brain, increasing the
likelihood that the relief-giving behavior will be
repeated.

As she worked on healing from trauma, Oprah

learned to identify the stress signals from her
body. She started creating healthy boundaries,
and learned how to say no if something didn’t
work for her. Most important, she found healthy
ways to soothe herself when she was distressed.
Even if you didn’t grow up with good strategies
for regulation, you too can learn positive ways to
get back into balance.

Key idea 4

Working with our natural

rhythms is key to healing from
trauma.
Put your hand over your heart for a moment, and
get very quiet. You’ll feel it beating steadily
against your chest. 

A heartbeat is the first, most primal rhythm we

hear. We hear it in the womb. Our mothers’
resting heart rate of 60 to 80 beats per minute
becomes our baseline, indicating safety and -primal (adj): nguyên thuỷ
continuity. That’s why babies are instantly
comforted by a rhythmic rocking motion. And as
we grow up, rhythm remains important to our
mental health.

The key message here is: Working with our

natural rhythms is key to healing from
trauma.

For millennia, humans organized their lives

around the rhythms of the natural world. But this
has changed. We no longer structure our days
according to the rising and setting of the sun.
Instead of eating food when it’s in season, we can
eat anything at any time. And our soundscapes
now include a cacophony of noises we can’t
switch off. These loud and arrhythmic conditions
can be especially jarring for people with
sensitized survival systems. 

Oprah has certainly struggled. Due to her violent,

abusive past, she constantly felt on edge. Being
alone at night was especially hard. Despite living
in a building with a doorman and security, Oprah
was convinced that someone would break in and
attack her. She had trouble sleeping, and would
startle with every sound. Eventually, Oprah
realized that her survival systems had become so
sensitized that they wouldn’t turn off, even in her
sleep. So, over time, she’s learned how to calm
her brain by getting back in touch with her own
natural rhythms. 

She regularly makes time to walk outdoors,

concentrating on the rhythm of her breath and
marveling at the natural world. She’s also cleared
one day a week – Sunday – for resting. No matter
how frenetic the world is, these strategies allow
her to stay in touch with herself.

Walking, dancing, and singing are all rhythmic

activities that can help us regulate ourselves and
deal with stress. The rhythmic strokes of a
massage can be particularly healing for trauma
survivors. And, of course, we can take a leaf out
of Oprah’s book and head outside. The natural
world has reassuring rhythms that can anchor our
days. As we walk, we tune in to our own natural
rhythms and are able to have a break from the
noise and stimulation of our busy lives. 

Key idea 5

Learning how to form positive

relationships is key to healing
trauma.
How do you know how to love someone? If you
grew up with doting caregivers, that will sound
like a strange question. The capacity to love
seems as natural as the capacity to breathe. But,
actually, it’s something we have to learn from our
earliest days. If you’ve never been loved, you
simply won’t know how to do it. 

That was the experience of Gloria, a young

mother who had grown up in a series of foster
homes. She wanted to love and nurture her
daughter, Tilly, but she had no idea how. In the
end, Tilly was taken into care because she wasn’t
being looked after properly. Usually, women like
Gloria are demonized as bad mothers. No one
takes the time to look at what happened to make
them that way. 

Here’s the key message: Learning how to form

positive relationships is key to healing trauma. 

But, luckily, Gloria’s story took a turn that most

don’t. She was able to get support from social
workers and therapists who understood what was
motivating her neglectful behavior. Instead of
punishing or ostracizing her, they treated her with
love and respect. Experiencing love showed
Gloria how to give it to her own daughter.
Eventually, she reached a stage where she was
able to care for her again. 

Learning how to form positive relationships is the

most important skill you can develop in dealing
with trauma. The author’s team compiled data
from 70,000 case histories of trauma in 25
countries. They examined both the trauma and the
adversity that people had experienced, and the
strength of their social relationships with family
and community. They found that relational
health was a bigger indicator of mental well-
being than a history of trauma. To put it another
way, human connection mitigates the effects of
trauma. 

But, cruelly, the people who most need social

connections often lack the skills to build them.
Think of a child in a classroom seeking attention
by acting out, or someone whose experiences
have been so negative that they disconnect in
social settings. The good news is that, like Gloria,
anyone can learn how to form relationships. Just
as we can learn to play the piano, we can learn to
connect. Our brains have neuroplasticity: they
can learn new things through practice.

But we can only learn through our own

experiences. In other words, you can't learn how
to ride a bicycle by reading a book. You've got to
go ride a real bicycle. And you can't learn to love
by reading a manual. You have to receive love in
order to give it.

Key idea 6

Stress can help build resilience

– in the right doses.
Stress gets a bad rap. We read scare stories every
day about how much stress affects our physical
and mental health. But did you know that
experiencing stress in small doses is a vital part
of human development?

Every time we have a new experience, or do a

work project that stretches our abilities, we
experience stress. Managing that stress
successfully is like lifting weights; afterward,
we’re stronger and more resilient. 
Children who grow up in stable, loving homes
have a healthy capacity for stress. They’re
constantly exploring, experiencing new things,
and then returning to their familiar home base.
Stress only becomes a problem when it’s chronic
or extreme. And it’s especially hard to deal with
when it’s erratic or unpredictable.

Here’s the key message: Stress can help build

resilience – in the right doses. 

Dr. Perry had the opportunity to work with a

group of children who’d been rescued from a
violent cult. Their everyday lives had been filled
with chaos and terror. What’s more, they’d been
taught from an early age that everyone outside the
cult was out to get them. He quickly realized that
imposing intensive therapy would only increase
their sense of powerlessness and amplify their
stress levels. 

So his team created an environment that was as

predictable and safe as possible. The children
were free to make choices about what to eat and
what to do in their free time, and could interact
with staff when they felt like it. With that safe
baseline, the children slowly began to open up to
staff, reliving their traumatic experiences in short
encounters that they controlled themselves. Over
time, they built resilience, and were able to deal
with stress on their own terms.

When traumatized children are forced to perform

in classrooms and therapy rooms like
neurotypical children, the experience can just
compound their trauma. Children who have
experienced trauma often have a developmental
age that is far younger than their actual age. They
don’t always have the ability to express their
feelings in words, or conform to a long day of
classes. They don’t have the emotional resources
to make connections. So they end up acting out
from frustration and distress. Or they dissociate
and end up checking out of the situation. Such
behaviors can lead to misdiagnosis. For instance,
a child might be thought to have ADHD, when, in
fact, the real cause of his trouble is trauma.

To build resilience, the challenge needs to match

the child. It should be a healthy stretch, not an
impossible feat. 

Key idea 7

The trauma of systemic racism

is transmitted across
generations.
Imagine you’re walking across the road with your
mother when you pass a big dog. You feel your
mother stiffen next to you, and suddenly you start
feeling afraid. 

Emotions are contagious, especially for children.

They soak up their parents’ thoughts and feelings
like a sponge. In that way, trauma can be passed
down through generations. So we don’t only have
to ask, What happened to you? We also have to
understand what happened to them – what
happened to your parents and their parents, and
what did you inherit from them?

The key message here is: The trauma of

systemic racism is transmitted across
generations. 

Let’s go back to the example of the dog. Your

mother may have responded fearfully because of
a bad personal experience. But her fear is also
reinforced by decades of inherited trauma. Dogs
were trained to hunt and attack enslaved people.
Many generations later, dogs were used as
weapons against civil rights protestors in the
American South. And today, dogs are used by
police who use disproportionate force against
Black people. So if you’re Black, your fear of
dogs is partially inherited. It has a long history.

Trauma is passed on in stories and gestures and

through emotional contagion. But it also has the
power to affect our very genes. Someone born
into slavery had to deal with brutal systemic
violence. His survival system would have been on
high alert, shaping his core regulatory networks.
Early research has shown that these modifications
can actually be passed onto future generations
genetically, even if their environments don’t
contain the same threats. 

Understanding these histories of trauma can give

us empathy for the experiences of our parents and
grandparents, and for our own seemingly
irrational fears. It’s also an essential component
of trauma-informed care. The trauma of nonwhite
people doesn’t occur in a sociopolitical vacuum.
It occurs in the context of centuries of violent
colonization, enslavement, and racism. Today,
race affects the levels of violence that Black,
brown, and indigenous people experience every
day. It also affects their treatment by state
institutions. The children of people of color are
much more likely to be removed from their
families, overmedicated, institutionalized, or
labeled as “problem children.” 

Any institution, whether school, hospital, or

foster organization, can adequately support
trauma survivors only if they also embrace
antiracist work. That means interrogating their
bias, and examining how their institutions
perpetuate racist practices. Trauma-informed care
can only be effective if trauma is seen as a
societal problem, rather than an individual
problem – a problem that we have to address
together. 

Key idea 8

We can overcome traumatic

experiences with the right
support.
Almost half of the children living in the United
States have had a serious traumatic experience.
And 60 percent of adults report having at least
one traumatic incident in their past.
Given what we know now about how trauma
affects the brain, imagine the effect of these
experiences on our broader communities and
country as a whole. If so many people have
sensitized stress responses, is it any wonder that
so many lash out with violence or with
intolerance of difference? Is it surprising that
adults aren’t able to give their children the
support they need to regulate themselves? 

Here’s the key message: We can overcome

traumatic experiences with the right support. 

Trauma always leaves a scar. People love talking

about how resilient kids are. They like to imagine
that children don’t absorb violence the way adults
do, that they have some innate capacity to bounce
back from terror and abuse. We now know that
this is completely untrue. Children’s brains are
malleable. They will be affected by trauma, even
if you can’t see it on the outside. 

Perhaps they’ll still do well at school, but doing

so will take much more energy than before. Or
their physical health will deteriorate. For
example, stress can affect
children’s neuroendocrine systems, increasing
their risk for conditions such as diabetes. 

Trauma survivors need support – not only in the

days and weeks following an incident, but well
into adulthood. They’ll need appropriate care
from providers who understand the unique
challenges of working with a traumatized brain. 

But, just as importantly, they’ll need ongoing

support from their communities.

It’s no coincidence that Oprah’s journey to

healing her own trauma has also involved
creating community. Over the last few decades,
the young girl who was so lonely and isolated has
made a career out of connection. She’s
interviewed tens of thousands of people, and
taught millions more that they’re not alone in
their experiences of trauma and abuse. In a sense,
she’s created the community she never had. 

We all need support from our communities to

heal. Not only support from therapists or our
families, but from our schools and workplaces
and justice systems and places of worship. We
need trauma-informed communities. With the
right support, we can all learn how to live with
trauma, and draw post-traumatic wisdom  from
our experiences. 

Final summary
The key message in these blinks:

Traumatic experiences literally transform our

brains, especially when we’re very young.
They affect how we respond to stress and how
quickly we bounce back from adversity. While
we can’t erase traumatic experiences, we can
cultivate resilience in the face of them. By
developing our connections to other people
and learning positive strategies for regulation,
we can train our brains to respond differently
to triggers. Trauma isn’t an individual
pathology. It’s the result of destructive
experiences, such as racism and poverty. As a
society, we need to address trauma together. 

If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Perry’s work

on childhood trauma and the brain, check out the
Neurosequential Network at
www.neurosequential.com or The Child Trauma
Academy at www.childtrauma.org. 

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