Dr. Christopher Willard Discusses How We Grow Through What We Go Through

Dr. Christopher Willard, author of How We Grow Through What We Go Through: Self-Compassion Practices for Post-Traumatic Growth joins Health Gig to discuss our ability to grow from adverse experiences by tapping into our Body, Mind, and Heart. Listen in as we talk about finding resilience and strength through mindfulness and self-compassion. 

More on Dr. Christopher Willard:
Website: drchristopherwillard
Facebook: facebook.com/drchriswillard
Twitter: twitter.com/drchriswillard

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Quotes:
When we're around happy, stable people, we start to stabilize. When we're around dysregulated, over-emotional, or toxic people it is bad for us. It pollutes us internally. Dr. Christopher Willard

Mindfulness is getting into the moment, seeing things clearly, seeing things as they are. Dr. Christopher Willard

When we talk about our traumas big and small, we actually change how we feel. Dr. Christopher Willard

Show Notes:

Dr. Christopher Willard: I'm a clinical psychologist by training, but I do a lot of consulting and workshops, training therapists, working with parents, doing kind of self-help self-improvement workshops.

Dr. Christopher Willard: I teach at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Christopher Willard: I'm also a parent. I've got two little kids that you might hear stomping around at various points.

Dr. Christopher Willard: I dropped out of school for a couple of years and had a really very challenging time. And at some point along the way, my parents actually dragged me onto a mindfulness retreat with Tim Hutton back in the late nineties.

Dr. Christopher Willard: A substantial number of people develop post-traumatic stress and also then go on to develop post-traumatic growth.

Dr. Christopher Willard: We're seeking to avoid situations that might trigger us and that can keep us safe, but it can also land us in danger in other ways.

Dr. Christopher Willard: It can also then start to turn into aggression.

Dr. Christopher Willard: It can turn into kind of a depression and giving up and then symptoms like dissociation where we might feel something like an out-of-body experience.

Dr. Christopher Willard: When we're around happy, stable people, we start to stabilize when we're around dysregulated regulated people, emotional people over emotional people or toxic people. Right. That that we know is bad for us. Kind of pollutes us internally.

Dr. Christopher Willard: Choices in our relationships, is where we can really do a lot of healing so that we're not falling into those same traps again.

Dr. Christopher Willard: One of the things I found most empowering in my life is the idea that I'm not my thoughts. And that is something that mindfulness practice and meditation has helped me to understand and realize is, oh, just because I'm thinking this doesn't mean that it's true.

Dr. Christopher Willard: Mindfulness as sort of getting into the moment, seeing things clearly, seeing things as they are.

Dr. Christopher Willard: What I do with people is we write their story together and put it into words. And actually one of the reasons I love writing in words is that when we talk about our traumas big and small, we actually change how we feel.

Dr. Christopher Willard: We need those people that we feel safe with who co-regulate with us, who change our nervous system through the quality of their presence.

Dr. Christopher Willard: When we're in nature, the shapes of nature actually, and they're replicated in great architecture, but the fractals that we see in trees and on coastlines, these actually soothe our nervous system.

Dr. Christopher Willard: Art, nature, and architecture imitate nature. It brings us at ease.

Dr. Christopher Willard: People in a hospital, if they've got a window that looks out over green, it actually they heal faster than people who look out over a brick wall.

Dr. Christopher Willard: I've learned so much from my kids and kind of trying out material on that, especially when I was doing more parenting-oriented books.

Dr. Christopher Willard: It's become its own creative process, public speaking, and it's become its own editing process.

Dr. Christopher Willard: I've got a book proposal that I'll write someday, but it's like an atheists argument for religion.

Dr. Christopher Willard: We know that setting aside quiet time in meditation and contemplation, which exists in every religion, we know that that's good for us.

Dr. Christopher Willard: We know that being in community is so important. We know that singing together, that chanting together, that these things regulate us.

Dr. Christopher Willard: Outside of the ideology and belief systems of religion, we know that the practices of religion are very, very good for our mental and physical health.

Dr. Christopher Willard: How do we take this awful situation of death that we all face and the fear that we all have and maybe try to transform it into maybe something beautiful, maybe something that can be helpful?

Dr. Christopher Willard: Our emotions. They always do have something to teach us, but we don't know when they will.

Dr. Christopher Willard: Those of us that are maybe a bit more on the secular side of it find therapy and find mindfulness and find some of these other spiritualities or these other practices that can be really empowering and bring a lot of relief.

Dr. Christopher Willard: The best way to create more mindful kids, surround them with more mindful adults and figuring out how can I make a difference in adult lives and parent lives and the lives of leaders and influential people.



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