Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #55 Post Traumatic Growth
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is a Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coolson.
- 0:07Speaker 1: We are Luke and Susie and this is the podcast
- 0:10Speaker 1: for time poor parents who just want answers now.
- 0:13Speaker 2: And we recently got that brand new book of his
- 0:16Speaker 2: Nine Ways to a Resilient Child, and it's excellent. I'm
- 0:20Speaker 2: really I'm going through just very slowly. I know I
- 0:23Speaker 2: haven't let you get your hands on it quite let
- 0:26Speaker 2: me hear it yet, but it's one of those ones
- 0:28Speaker 2: that I really want to make sure I give good
- 0:31Speaker 2: time too. But I want to address something from the
- 0:33Speaker 2: very first chapter of this book with Justin today if
- 0:36Speaker 2: we can, Justin, welcome to the show. Thanks for having
- 0:38Speaker 2: a chat to us again today.
- 0:40Speaker 3: Can you tell all your guests to be your favorite,
- 0:42Speaker 3: don't you?
- 0:43Speaker 1: Well, I can promise you she doesn't have all our
- 0:46Speaker 1: guest book book on her bedside. Can you can you
- 0:49Speaker 1: quickly jot together Nine Ways to a Resilient Husband when
- 0:53Speaker 1: your when your wife won't let you have the book.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Please to get you a copy to put a blog
- 1:00Speaker 3: together for you.
- 1:01Speaker 2: Luke, the man's version and the dad's version of mum's version.
- 1:06Speaker 2: But in the very first chapter of this book, there's
- 1:10Speaker 2: a phrase that you use that has absolutely captivated me.
- 1:13Speaker 2: It's post traumatic growth. Now, we're very familiar with the
- 1:17Speaker 2: term post traumatic stress disorder, which we hear quite frequently
- 1:21Speaker 2: in a number of circumstances that people face in their life.
- 1:23Speaker 2: But can you talk to us a bit about post
- 1:25Speaker 2: traumatic growth?
- 1:28Speaker 3: Yeah, if I was to give you a five second overview.
- 1:31Speaker 3: But instead of getting anxious and stressed when trauma occurs
- 1:34Speaker 3: in our lives, we grow through it. Actually we grow
- 1:37Speaker 3: because of it. It strengthens us. It makes us into better, stronger,
- 1:43Speaker 3: more resilient people. The trauma, rather than driving us into
- 1:48Speaker 3: the ground, turns us into better people.
- 1:50Speaker 2: We are talking post traumatic growth today with doctor Justin Coulson.
- 1:54Speaker 4: More shortly, most children are born curious and confident. They
- 1:58Speaker 4: love to explore the world, new friends, and try new things.
- 2:02Speaker 4: But between the ages of two and twelve, confidence often
- 2:04Speaker 4: drops off. Why and how can we rebuild it? Creating
- 2:08Speaker 4: Confident Kids is an easy to read ebook for busy
- 2:10Speaker 4: parents where you'll discover the five biggest mistakes most parents
- 2:14Speaker 4: make that crush their kids' confidence, and the five best
- 2:17Speaker 4: confidence boosters for building resilience and well being in your children.
- 2:20Speaker 4: Creating Confident Kids by Doctor Justinculson at Happy Families dot
- 2:25Speaker 4: com dot a.
- 2:25Speaker 2: Yet the Happy Families Podcast with doctor Justin Coulson, as
- 2:28Speaker 2: we discuss this phrase that you've talked about in your
- 2:31Speaker 2: book Nine Ways to a Resilient Child post Traumatic Growth.
- 2:35Speaker 2: I loved seeing this phrase because I think for me
- 2:39Speaker 2: it reframed the concept of the traumatic circumstances that we face.
- 2:44Speaker 2: And I know, we know that there are some traumas
- 2:47Speaker 2: that we face in our life that seem to break us.
- 2:50Speaker 2: But to have that option to not go towards the stress,
- 2:53Speaker 2: but to move towards the growth. Just even creating that
- 2:57Speaker 2: language seems to create another option of how we do
- 3:00Speaker 2: with the traumas that we face. And you know that
- 3:02Speaker 2: there are some people who face incredible trauma and they
- 3:06Speaker 2: have this incredible bounce back. And you actually spoke about
- 3:10Speaker 2: one of those people in your book, and Rosy Baddy,
- 3:15Speaker 2: who had this incredible response to a trauma that no
- 3:19Speaker 2: parent would ever want to would ever want to face.
- 3:22Speaker 2: But how do we become a Rosy Baddy when we
- 3:25Speaker 2: face our traumas.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Justin's there's two quotes that immediately spring to mind. One
- 3:31Speaker 3: of them, one of them I've written in the front
- 3:33Speaker 3: of the book, where I dedicated the book to my
- 3:35Speaker 3: daughter's I said, when life puts you in a tight spot,
- 3:38Speaker 3: don't ask why me, Instead stand tall and say try me.
- 3:44Speaker 3: There's something about looking at trauma face to face, and
- 3:48Speaker 3: I noted that sometimes it's easy to say this when
- 3:51Speaker 3: you're not in the middle of the trauma. But there's
- 3:53Speaker 3: there's something incredibly powerful when we look at something and say,
- 3:56Speaker 3: I know that there is something in this for me
- 3:59Speaker 3: to learn. I know that this will be a blessing
- 4:02Speaker 3: to me. I know that this will somehow help me.
- 4:04Speaker 3: Sometimes we can't see that, and other times we can.
- 4:10Speaker 3: There's a wonderful old Christian him and the name of
- 4:16Speaker 3: It's just my mind. But one of the lines in
- 4:20Speaker 3: it says, I do not ask to see the distance
- 4:23Speaker 3: scene one step enough for me. It's called Lead Kindly Light,
- 4:28Speaker 3: and it was written by a guy who'd been out
- 4:31Speaker 3: as a missionary back in the eighteen hundreds. He was
- 4:34Speaker 3: stuck on the seed. There was no wind for days,
- 4:36Speaker 3: there was no food, there was no water. Everyone was sick.
- 4:39Speaker 3: He really thought he was going to die. And he
- 4:40Speaker 3: wrote this thing as he faced this tremendous adversity, thinking
- 4:44Speaker 3: that he was going to die, and what he was
- 4:46Speaker 3: essentially saying was he's not really worried about what's going
- 4:50Speaker 3: to happen down the track. He just wants to be
- 4:52Speaker 3: able to take one step at a time, knowing that
- 4:55Speaker 3: everything that's happening to him will will strengthen him and
- 4:58Speaker 3: help him to div That's an incredibly resilient mindset, whether
- 5:03Speaker 3: or not you have a Christian background or not, it's
- 5:05Speaker 3: a powerful mindset because when we look at the adversities
- 5:08Speaker 3: we face, or when we talk to our kids about
- 5:11Speaker 3: the challenges they're facing, it's really amazing to say, well,
- 5:15Speaker 3: I wonder what we can learn from this. I love
- 5:17Speaker 3: the quote by a guy called Epictitis. When I say
- 5:20Speaker 3: a guy, I mean he lived a couple of thousand
- 5:22Speaker 3: years ago. He was a stoic philosopher and epic Titus
- 5:25Speaker 3: said people are not disturbed by things, but by the
- 5:29Speaker 3: view they take of them.
- 5:32Speaker 1: I just this is such a big perspective thing to think.
- 5:35Speaker 1: If we're facing a trial right now thinking about post
- 5:37Speaker 1: traumatic stress disorder versus thinking about the opportunity for post
- 5:41Speaker 1: traumatic growth, like I imagine, it would significantly change our
- 5:46Speaker 1: tenacity and our willingness to have the fight justin.
- 5:50Speaker 3: That's the idea, and that's why I've written about these
- 5:52Speaker 3: things in the book. You know, if you want to,
- 5:54Speaker 3: let's say you want to become a better bike rider,
- 5:57Speaker 3: you don't ride along the floor or downhill. You get
- 6:01Speaker 3: on that bike and you're right uphill because that's what
- 6:03Speaker 3: strengthens you. And when we look at the adversities that
- 6:06Speaker 3: we face in life as a character building, strengthening activity
- 6:11Speaker 3: and exercise, I think that we can actually say quite clearly,
- 6:15Speaker 3: if we look at our own lives, I am who
- 6:17Speaker 3: I am today because of the challenges that I've worked through,
- 6:21Speaker 3: because of the challenges that I've overcome. And that's a
- 6:24Speaker 3: that's a wonderful, resilience bursting way of looking at life
- 6:28Speaker 3: once again, because it says I can grow through adversity,
- 6:31Speaker 3: I can grow through trauma, and I can do more
- 6:34Speaker 3: with my life because what I'm going through right now
- 6:36Speaker 3: is awful. This is going to help me later on.
- 6:41Speaker 2: It's so very very good. I think you need to
- 6:43Speaker 2: relabel that book by the way, nine Ways to Becoming
- 6:46Speaker 2: more Resilient, because I think anybody who reads it will
- 6:49Speaker 2: will develop those skills as well.
- 6:51Speaker 1: Just for yeah, just change the title and resell it justinat.
- 6:59Speaker 2: Nine Ways Zillient Child. Author Justin Coulson is our guests
- 7:02Speaker 2: today from Happy Families dot com do AU. We really
- 7:04Speaker 2: appreciate I love the phrase post traumatic growth.
- 7:07Speaker 3: Thank you so much, my pleasure.
- 7:10Speaker 2: Thanks for chatting of course, for that book Nine Ways
- 7:12Speaker 2: to a Resilient Child and more books, podcasts, and programs,
- 7:16Speaker 2: visit happy families dot com dot au. Or if you're
- 7:18Speaker 2: interested in having doctor Justin come and speak to your
- 7:20Speaker 2: school or organization, go to Justincilson dot com