OPRAH WINFREY: She's
known as a thought leader at the intersection of mental
health, faith, and culture. Dr. Anita Phillips is
a trauma therapist, life coach, minister, and host
of the popular "In The Light" podcast. Dr. Anita believes the more
emotionally healthy we are, the more spiritually
powerful we become. ANITA PHILLIPS: How
you're doing emotionally is going to determine
which beliefs awaken. A simple truth, but
we've been missing it. OPRAH WINFREY: In
her first book, "The New York Times"
bestseller, "The Garden Within," Dr. Anita shares how
the abundant life you may be seeking
can only be grown in the soil of your own heart. ANITA PHILLIPS: We believe
the lie that our thoughts create our feelings. But they do not. Our thoughts come from
the soil of our hearts. OPRAH WINFREY: Today
on "Super Soul" Dr. Anita helps us discover
our very own garden within. [INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC] Hi, everybody. I am so happy to be with
you on the "Super Soul" podcast and YouTube channel. You know, I think
a lot of people are feeling some
sense of uneasiness. Are you? A discord certainly
within our country, of course, but also within
our own families, some people, and for some, even
in their own souls. And some of you may
be in search of peace. You may be in search
of solid ground. You may be in search of home. Or maybe you're just weary,
still recovering mentally and spiritually
from the pandemic, from the murders of George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor and all that has gone on
in the past several years, being overwhelmed by everything
happening in the world. It is a lot. It's just a lot going
on all the time. So one morning, I was
just sitting in my office opening up my mail. And inside was a package. I pulled out a beautiful
green book with this title, "The Garden Within-- Where the War with your
Emotions Ends and your Most Powerful Life Begins." Now, y'all know I love a garden. And who knew that we all
have a garden within us? I happen to, as you
all know, having watched you over the years-- I love a book that can fortify
you, that can lift you up, that's an offering
to your spirit. And that's why I'm sitting here
with the author of "The Garden Within," Dr. Anita Phillips. Welcome. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Thank you so much. OPRAH WINFREY: Welcome. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Thank you so much. It's amazing to be here. OPRAH WINFREY: Since this is
our first time on "Super Soul," tell our audience--
tell us about yourself. And how did you
come to this work? ANITA PHILLIPS: Well,
I'm a trauma therapist, but I'm also a
third-generation pastor's kid. So I grew up in a
very religious family. And I had an older
sister who developed the symptoms of a
serious mental illness when we were very young. She was about 11
or 12 years old. I was about six years old. She woke up in the middle
of the night one night just screaming with
her eyes wide open staring at our bedroom door. And she said there was
a demon standing there. Well, like I said, I'm a
pastor's kid, old school Black church, so I
figured we'd rebuke that and we'll deal with it,
my parents will come soon, and everything's going to be OK. But a few nights later, again. And a few weeks later, again. And so it came clear that there
was something else going on. But it's the early
'80s, so we had no idea about mental illness. OPRAH WINFREY: There
was no language for it. ANITA PHILLIPS: No language. It wasn't my parents
saying, oh, we believe in God and not mental illness. On the list of options,
it wasn't there. We had no idea. OPRAH WINFREY: So what did
you all think was happening? What did you all think? Did you think she was possessed? Did you think-- ANITA PHILLIPS: That it
was a spiritual attack. So somehow, the devil
is tormenting her. And then as she
got older and began to act out and run away from
home, it was just rebellion. And so then she'd
be harshly punished for acting out, but
not realizing that she was schizophrenic and bipolar. And so she would
have manic episodes, but we didn't know what it was. And then she got addicted
to drugs, which really was a form of self-medication. And we lost her to the streets
for three decades, heroin addiction on the streets. And finally, thank
goodness, she did get clean at the end of her life. The last seven
years of her life, she was able to get off
drugs, get treatment for her mental
illness, get married, reunite with us as a family. And unfortunately, at
47, she closed her eyes. Her body was so broken from
those years on the streets. She had an heart attack
and died when she was 47. And so even though she
didn't die by suicide, I consider untreated mental
illness my sister's cause of death because it
stole decades of her life and our family's life. OPRAH WINFREY: I
was going to say, and what did it steal from you? Because when the child or
the person in the family, whether it is a child or
whether it is another member of the family, takes all the
energy, all the attention, all the focus, it shapes
the way the good kid, or the person who's just
trying to be all right, you know, views their own life
and also shapes the way they see and are seen by others. ANITA PHILLIPS: Completely
all of those things. First of all, the terror
of her waking up like that was traumatizing for me. I didn't sleep with the door
open until I was in my 20s because if I woke up and saw
an open door in the dark, immediately, my body
would go into a panic. So there was that
level of trauma. Then yes, I was the good kid. I was the kid who got
the grades, who did the things, who got the awards. And so it was like I'm proof
that the family's not a mess. There's a good kid here, but
then also feeling unseen, that there wasn't enough
emotional energy to go around. OPRAH WINFREY: Because your
parents would be drained just dealing with that all the time.
ANITA PHILLIPS: Yeah, exactly. So as long as I wasn't in
trouble, you know, it was like, everything's fine.
But I felt-- I felt a little lost. I felt alone. And so that was its
own form of trauma. OPRAH WINFREY: How did
it lead you to working as a trauma therapist? ANITA PHILLIPS: Because I wanted
to understand what had gone wrong, what had happened, first,
my own trauma because when I realized it was still in my
body, even in my early 20s, I hadn't known the word
trauma before that. But something's happening here. And I was just starting my
career as a mental health professional at that time. But also, there was
a nagging question. I remember my mom once
saying, I know something's wrong with Valerie that
we don't understand, but I still want to know
what my Bible says about it. We had such a deep
need to explain things spiritually as well. So I wanted to do both. So I became a trauma therapist,
but I also went into ministry and worked really hard. And God was good to have
those things intersect for me. OPRAH WINFREY: Can
you explain, Dr. Phillips, what do you mean by
the garden within our hearts? ANITA PHILLIPS: Absolutely. So early as a grad
student when I took my first
neuroscience class, I saw a picture of a
neuron for the first time. And I was blown away by how
much it looked like a seedling. Like, I'm googling seedling,
neuron and aligning them, and they look so much alike. And then I started
hearing scriptures that I'd known forever. You'll be like a tree,
planted by streams of water. And God will plant
you in good land. And you'll be like
a watered garden. Isaiah 58:11. And I thought, oh, my goodness. There's billions of
these tiny plants that we call neurons planted
all over the inside of us. God must have done
this on purpose. OPRAH WINFREY: We are
somehow mirroring nature. ANITA PHILLIPS: Exactly. OPRAH WINFREY: Nature's garden
as the garden within us. ANITA PHILLIPS: Yeah. He planted a garden within us. OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. And here's what you
write in the introduction that I wanted to read. You don't need to overthrow
your emotions to experience a revolution in your life. You just need to overthrow
the lies you have believed about your emotions. The creator designed your heart
to be a garden, not a war zone. A truly powerful life isn't one. It's cultivated. I just love that so much. A truly powerful life isn't one. It's cultivated. It's continually
seeding, watering. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Caring for the soil. OPRAH WINFREY:
Caring for the soil. ANITA PHILLIPS: Caring for the
soil, because when I looked at that neuron that's a
little plant, my heart says, god, where is it
planted, you know? Because that's what matters for
a plant, where it's planted. So neurons are the
building block of the mind. But God showed me in
scripture that that plant is in the soil of the heart. And so I had to begin to look
at the relationship between our emotions and our thoughts. And it's not the relationship
that many of us have believed. We believed the lie that our
thoughts create our feelings, but they do not. It is our feelings that
water our thoughts. Our thoughts come from
the soil of our hearts. And so that's a very different
way of understanding ourselves. But neurobiology
is bearing it out. The scripture has been
saying it all along. OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
That's right. Emotional pain signals to you. It signals to you. And what happens is most
people just give away themselves over to
the feeling, and they think they are the anchor. They think they are
the jealousy, you know? ANITA PHILLIPS: Right. And they think that that's bad. But really, emotions,
especially the painful ones, they're like hunger pangs. When we feel hungry,
we know we need food. When we feel sadness,
it's actually indicating a need for connection. When we're angry, it's usually
because something that we value has been treated as less than. And we need that value restored. And when we're afraid,
we need safety. And so emotional pain is like
a hunger pang for connection, for value, for safety. And humans need those
things to survive. But we have been taught that
our emotions are in the way. They're slowing me
down from my goals. We're putting it aside. And so it's like we're running
the marathon of our life without feeding our needs. And that's why so many
people achieve their goals, but are emotionally
empty, because they still haven't eaten. And so they get there, and they
don't feel the way they thought they would feel
because they didn't think they needed connection,
or safety, or value. They just need to achieve. But it's so much more than that
to live this meaningful life. OPRAH WINFREY: Tell us the more. ANITA PHILLIPS: The
more is relationships. The more is purpose. The more is leaving legacy. Those are the components. That's what we want to
grow in this garden. And a lot of times,
people are skipping that. That's why I say we
don't gather goals. We'll go out and say, oh, I
want a lemon tree in my yard. And you go out and
buy bucket of lemons and then hang the
lemons on the tree. That doesn't make
it a lemon tree. I want to grow this internally
from an emotionally well place. It might take longer for
me to get where I'm going, but I'll get there well. OPRAH WINFREY: The creator
designed your heart to be a garden, not a war zone. A truly powerful life isn't won. It is cultivated. And so that cultivation
is a continual process. ANITA PHILLIPS: Continual. OPRAH WINFREY: What lies have
we been told about our emotions? ANITA PHILLIPS: We've
been told that they are signs of weakness. We've been told that they
must be set aside and kept separated from the
mind as if that's a sterile field from our spirit,
as if that's a sterile field. It's always don't go
with your emotions. Don't go with your emotions. But nothing happens when
without soil in the garden. Our emotions are a part of
every single decision we make. Our emotions are a part of
our perception of the world. We are not always aware of
them, but they are there. There was a huge shift in the
neuroscience field starting around 2010 when
they began to realize that our body, our
core affect is actually preceding our thinking. And it's not a bad thing. That's why we don't want
people to be heartless. I'd rather you be
mindless than heartless. When we think about how
important it is for you to have heart in everything
you do, it's what makes us different from every
other creature, the depth of our emotional capacity. OPRAH WINFREY: You talk about
the parable of the sower and what those scattered seeds
tell us about our own hearts. Can you speak to that? ANITA PHILLIPS: Sure. In Matthew chapter 13,
Jesus tells us this story. It's called the
parable of the sower. And he explains that
there are three kinds of soil that are challenged. One is called wayside. It's hard and dry. The seed can't even get in. Another is called stony ground. It's rocky. It's got a little good soil. The seed gets in,
but then it gets hot. It dies. And then there's this thorny
ground, where the seed is doing good, fruits growing. Thorns choke it. When Jesus distinguishes
among these soil types, he uses emotion terms. He says that in
the stony ground, there was joy when
the seed went in. But then the sun comes out,
and the person got angry. They were offended,
and the plant dies. So anger shows that it's
destructive in that case. And then he says there are weeds
of anxiety in the thorny soil. That's fear. So Jesus is using emotion
terms to distinguish among these soil types. And it's as if we've been
reading the Bible all this time and never noticed,
but it's right there. And so he's showing
that the seeds of the words that
fall in our heart are impacted by our
emotional state. And so we have to pay
attention to that. OPRAH WINFREY: I
love that so much. I also love this. I was just thinking about this
morning about a conversation that I had with a
spiritual teacher, Carolyn Mason, who said that
"spirit is the part of you that feels drawn to hope." I never forgot that. "Spirit is a part of you feel
drawn to hope," she said. And even though
the world feels-- as I was saying at the
beginning of our conversation, the world feels weary right now. We are all still, I believe,
in some ways drawn to hope. And I love this
line from your book. You say, "faith
says it's possible. Hope says it's possible for me." What do you want to tell
us about hope today? ANITA PHILLIPS: Hope
is water in the garden. No soil is fertile
without water. Everything we do
is powered by hope. Now, sometimes if we
understand hope as expectation, sometimes it's a
bad expectation. Sometimes we don't
expect things to go well. But that's a hope
of its own form. And then when we have positive
or pleasurable expectations, that's the way we
think about hope. But it's water in the garden. Nothing can grow without it. And it begins as a feeling. We often talk about
hope as a mindset. But if people really sat down
and got in touch with hope, they would feel
that in their body. When you reflect on a time
when God surprised you or something worked out
unexpectedly, that feeling that you get, I call that hope. That's something else
good that can happen. You feel it first, and then
the water from the soil is drawn into the plant. That's the mind. OPRAH WINFREY: Can you tell us
a time where God surprised you? ANITA PHILLIPS: Oh, my goodness. Yes. OPRAH WINFREY: I
like the way you light up with that question.
ANITA PHILLIPS: Oh, man. When I had my first
child, I wanted to have him without unnecessary
medical intervention. But there were some
things that went wrong, and I needed to be
in the hospital. But the second time that I had
a child when I had my daughter, I prayed and said,
God, I really, really want to have my daughter
without medical intervention. What I meant was when
I go to the hospital, I don't want anything
to go wrong there. I ended up giving birth on the
hallway floor of my apartment. So when I said no
medical intervention, I didn't mean that. But God totally surprised me. And it was the most
beautiful experience. And it wouldn't have occurred
to me to ask for that. But he knew what beauty would
be infused in my request. And that surprised me so
much, that after that, whenever I pray, I say,
God, this is my request, but your ideas
are always better. And I'm full of hope for
what you're going to give me. OPRAH WINFREY:
Yeah, I always say-- because I've lived a life
where all of my dreams and beyond my dreams came true. I always say God can dream
a bigger dream than you can dream for yourself, you know? So tell me, what was
your greatest fear that you were able to overcome? And what allowed
you to overcome it? ANITA PHILLIPS: My
greatest fear was that I would be a terrible mother. And I ended up being
a really good one. OPRAH WINFREY: Why did you
fear being a terrible mother? ANITA PHILLIPS: You know,
at the time growing up, that was a script that I absorbed
because my mom couldn't figure out what had
happened to my sister. And so there was this sense of
I just didn't know how to mother her. And so I heard that lament,
and it got into my heart. And so when I had
children, I thought, what if I don't know
how to mother them well? What if I just don't have the--
OPRAH WINFREY: Say that again. That was a script that-- ANITA PHILLIPS: --got into
my own heart, that idea that I could just not have this. I may just be insufficient. And she was struggling
to explain something. Like I said, we didn't have the
understanding of mental illness yet. And so even with that
understanding in my mind, the insufficiency script
still lived in my heart. OPRAH WINFREY: How often do you
think that that happens, where in life, in families, a script
that wasn't meant to be yours gets into your heart
and you take that script on as your own narrative? ANITA PHILLIPS: It happens
over and over again. That is what
generational trauma is. Generational trauma is the
story that we're telling, the toxic, dysfunctional,
incorrect story that we tell and that we absorb and pass on. That's one of the greatest
effects of generational trauma is the story has been
distorted about what it means to have these life experiences. And so that was trauma for me. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, you took
the script that wasn't yours. ANITA PHILLIPS: I
took the script. It wasn't even hers. She just didn't have
the actual answer. This child has a mental illness. But I took it in. And so when I found out I
was pregnant, I was like, oh, this is awesome.
And then I was like, oh, my god. This poor kid. OPRAH WINFREY: How am I
going to be able to do this? ANITA PHILLIPS: How am I
going to be able to do this? OPRAH WINFREY: My
mother wasn't able to. ANITA PHILLIPS: It's
Russian roulette. What's going to happen? Can you really do anything? And I had to work through
that and find my power that I actually do
have the capacity to shape how my children are
raised and how they turn out. And man, they're
amazing individuals. But I had to work
through that fear, or it would have choked them.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. They're amazing individuals.
So God surprised you again. ANITA PHILLIPS: He
shocked me again. I'm actually really
good at that job. OPRAH WINFREY: You write about-- in "The Garden Within," you
write about developmental trauma caused by what didn't-- what did not happen for a child. So how do you frame that trauma? ANITA PHILLIPS: You know,
there's a story in the Bible about a prodigal son. And in that story,
one of the sons goes out, takes the inheritance,
is blowing the money. And then there's the
kid who stays home. He was the good kid, like
you mentioned earlier. And he comes to the father
after he sees the father throw a party for
the scapegoat kid, the bad kid, the black sheep. And he says, you never
threw a party for me. And he says, oh,
you could of have a party anytime you wanted. And they cast that
child as ungrateful. But who wants to ask for a
party in their own honor? I feel like we've misunderstood
that kid that stayed. That was a developmental trauma. It wasn't what happened to him. It's what didn't happen for him,
that that parent was so focused on the child who had gone
astray, that the one who stayed was seen as ungrateful when
really, they were just unseen. And that is trauma, to be
unseen, not to be nurtured, not to be attuned to. You can have all your
physical needs met, but your heart
needs are not met. OPRAH WINFREY: It's so
interesting that we're having this conversation because I
think so many people think that it's, you know, you were
beaten, or sexually assaulted, or somebody
physically harmed you. But I actually so applaud
you for offering this message because to be unseen,
I think, is the worst. It's the deepest trauma. ANITA PHILLIPS: That's
the devastating part is no one sees my pain. And no one tells me I'm
allowed to be in pain. OPRAH WINFREY: That's right. And then when you grow up and
internalize it or it shows up, people try to tell
you you're crazy or that it-- or
more interestingly, that it didn't matter. ANITA PHILLIPS: That
it didn't matter. OPRAH WINFREY: And one of the
things that I have learned in all the years of interviewing
so many thousands of people is that that is the one thing
everybody is looking for is for the validation. ANITA PHILLIPS: The validation. And you have that child inside. And you begin to believe
it didn't matter. And so you silence him or her. And that is so scary. And that perpetuates
generational trauma because what I've seen in
clients that I've worked with for 20 years is
that how you treat the child inside of you
is how you will treat the child in front of you. And if you minimize the pain
you have inside, buck up, you got this, you won't
see that they're hurting. You won't see the abuse
that's happening because you ignore the child inside of you. So we have to heal internally to
take care of our own children. OPRAH WINFREY: And that's
why the generational trauma continues.
Say it. Say it. ANITA PHILLIPS: It
just keeps going. OPRAH WINFREY:
Because you have not healed the trauma
inside yourself, the hurt inside yourself. And so you think
because you-- gosh, have we not seen this in the
African-American-- the Black community, it's just like-- ANITA PHILLIPS:
Over and over again. OPRAH WINFREY: You know, you
hear it over and over again. What I did, and I walked
50 miles to school, and I didn't have,
and you didn't have. And so you need to just-- ANITA PHILLIPS: They hit
me with extension cords. I only slapped you
a couple times. All this is not enough. OPRAH WINFREY: And it's
because you haven't healed the child inside
yourself, you're now not able to see the child. ANITA PHILLIPS: You can't see
the child in front of you. OPRAH WINFREY: Whoa. That's so big. So how do we get people to heal
the child inside themselves, especially-- you know this,
Doctor, because particularly, Black women, we have
just been known-- we just carried the burden
through the generations. We're the ones-- we are the
ones that stayed strong. We're the ones to carry on,
carry on, carry on, carry on, and our wounded, many, many,
many, many, many of us wounded, wounded. ANITA PHILLIPS:
So many of us have looked to Jesus at different
times to give us strength. I want to point
out how incredibly emotionally
expressive Jesus was, that Jesus let his pain out. We feel like we're
supposed to hold it in. Jesus is standing in front
of the tomb of Lazarus weeping in public. We don't even want to cry in
public when it's appropriate. OPRAH WINFREY: We don't
anybody to know you are crying. ANITA PHILLIPS: Right, ever. But Jesus weeps in public. Even though he knew he was about
to raise Lazarus from the dead, he still expressed the
pain of the moment. We don't feel like we have
time or space to express the pain in the moment. We see Jesus in
the temple angry. He's, like, flipping tables. He's whipping folks
who are misbehaving. And then he invites people into
the temple, and he heals them. And then we see him in
Gethsemane terrified crying, again, expressing it publicly. And then he goes down out
of the garden and says, I am he that you're looking for. And he knocks all these soldiers
off their feet with his voice. What I want so many Black
women who have turned to Jesus for strength to avoid
their emotion to see is that Jesus expressed
his emotional pain. And every single time
he had a breakdown, something spiritually
powerful happened immediately. There's something in
that authenticity, in that brokenness,
in that release that seems to allow a wave
of spiritual power right behind it. When we step out of our
power and allow God's power, that's the shift that we need. That's the shift. OPRAH WINFREY: You write
about spiritual bypassing, a term coined by
psychologist John Welwood. Explain to us what this is and
why you believe that it's so dangerous, spiritual bypassing. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Yeah, John Welwood observed this in his
own Buddhist community, so this isn't limited
to a religion. And what he saw was that
people were so desperate not to experience emotional pain,
that they would try to use their spiritual practices
to numb it or ignore it, rather than to grow from. And so in my Christian
faith circles, this is, hey, don't worry about that
child abuse that happened. You know the Bible says
forget those things, which are in the past. It's all new now. And it's like, yes,
not that new, though. I'm still in pain. The joy of the Lord
is your strength. Why are you crying? The joy of the Lord
is your strength. I'm crying because I'm in pain. And so when we rush to grab
our spiritual disciplines or our spiritual tools to
numb or escape the pain, I call that spiritual
bypassing because we want to get around this thing. But you cannot get around
the soil of your heart. You can't do it. In order to allow
yourself to truly grow, you have to allow the
pain to flow through. And so we need to stop letting
our fear of emotional pain in our own selves and
in other people's lives cause us to try to put spiritual
band-aids on the wound that's happening there. Proverbs 15:13 says this. By sorrow of the heart,
the spirit is broken. It's telling us right there
that your emotional pain can break you spiritually. So in order for you to not allow
that to continually happen, we must engage the
pain instead of trying to use the spirit to
cover it up because it will break you spiritually. It will break your
perception of God. It will break your safety
in the creator's presence because you have
these questions that come from that kind of pain. You can't spiritually
get around that. You have to go through it. OPRAH WINFREY: You can't
spiritually bypass. ANITA PHILLIPS: You can't
spiritually bypass that. You can act like it. You can try. But it won't work. OPRAH WINFREY: I
know people really respond to your
combination of spirituality and modern psychology. And you spoke about the
vagus nerve, the vagus nerve during the Woman
Evolve conference with the awesome
Sarah Jakes Roberts. ANITA PHILLIPS: Awesome.
My friend. OPRAH WINFREY:
Sarah Jakes Roberts. And you also write about it
here in "The Garden Within." So what's the vagus nerve? And how does that
help us to heal? ANITA PHILLIPS:
So the vagus nerve is the main nerve in a
part of our body called the parasympathetic
nervous system. And that nervous system's
job is to help us emotionally regulate, so that when we have
been distressed, upset, angry, afraid, it activates to bring
us back into a state of peace, and calm, and rest. What's incredible
about it is it actually forms a tree in our bodies. And so in Genesis chapter
two, there is a description of the creation of humanity. And it says that a garden
is planted eastward in Eden. I always like to tell people,
just stick your left arm out. That's the East
side of your body. Place your hand on your heart. There's the garden
planted eastward in Eden. And it says a river
flowed into that garden. And when it left, it
split into four rivers. Our aorta comes out of
the heart and splits off into four rivers. This is literally the Garden
of Eden planted in us. So if a seed was planted there,
the roots would grow down into our belly, the trunk
would grow all the way up, and there would be
a fruit on the top. There's literally a tree
in the center of the garden within, a tree of life. And that is what we
call the vagus nerve. And when it's
activated, it heals us. It brings us calm. It brings us connection. It takes us to our
spiritual spaces. It also slows our heart down,
regulates our blood pressure, balances our blood sugar. So our emotional
and physical health are linked to this tree of
life in the middle of our body. And that's that vagus nerve. OPRAH WINFREY: I love
that description. And I love the
picture in the book too, where you
actually get to see it. And you say it's
important to know that unattended emotional
pain impacts our bodies. I think we all
can agree on that. And I'm just curious as to how
you explain to us how sadness ends up showing up physically. ANITA PHILLIPS: Yeah. Well, we know how we
feel because emotions begin in our bodies. So if anyone takes a moment now
to just to think of something that made them a little sad-- I don't want people
to go too far. And just close your eyes,
and notice where in your body you feel it. Very often, people say they
feel it around their heart. There's a heaviness here, kind
of a weightiness, a tightness. Yeah, a tightness. But then also, as that
sadness intensity increases, arms tend to feel heavy. Legs tend to feel heavy. Our limbs kind of deactivate. And so we're slower. We get that fatigue. Sometimes our
shoulders are dropping. So sadness shows up in our
body literally that way. OPRAH WINFREY: In
terms of lethargy. ANITA PHILLIPS: Lethargy. OPRAH WINFREY: Lethargic. ANITA PHILLIPS: Very much so. And in intense situations,
the cortisol rush from that kind of
sadness can even change the shape of our heart. It's called takotsubo syndrome,
or broken heart syndrome. And it has killed people. After the Ulvade shooting, the
husband of one of the teachers that was killed, he went to
put flowers near her memorial and had a heart attack and died. Broken heart syndrome. It actually changes
the shape of the heart, so the way that it
pumps is insufficient. A broken heart can
literally kill us. And so sadness does
show up in the body. It's very dangerous
for our health if we don't attend to it. OPRAH WINFREY: And you
also say that grief and loneliness are the two
most dangerous emotions. I had a conversation
earlier this year with Dr. Vivek Murthy. You know him, the
US Surgeon General. And he told me that loneliness
was as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And you talk about the
power in "The Garden Within" of something called non-sexual
touch, the time you went over and you actually just
gave this woman a hug. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Yeah, absolutely. Loneliness is a reflection
of our need for connection. That connection is
spiritual and emotional, but it's also physical. When babies are left
unattended and not touched, they don't thrive. They don't grow. So we need touch in order
to diminish that effect. And there is not
enough non-sexual touch in our culture. We don't hug our
friends, hold hands. And so I want people to
hug each other a lot more. We need it so much. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, and
you were saying, like, the impact of a 20-minute hug. ANITA PHILLIPS: A 20-minute
relay is nice, but yes. Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: 20 seconds. ANITA PHILLIPS: When we
hold on to each other for a solid 20 seconds,
our body releases oxytocin. And it bonds us to the person
that we're hugging and also calms our nervous
system so much so, that when stress revisits us,
we are more resilient later. So the hug helps
us in the moment, but it also strengthens us to
stand up against future stress, I mean, a good 20-second
hug, a good one. And if you're not near a
safe person to get that hug, you can just place
your hand right here. And you can hug yourself. And it has a very
powerful effect as well. I've had clients burst into
tears in that 20 seconds because they hadn't been
held that tightly in so long. Just sometimes hold
on to yourself. OPRAH WINFREY: And
isn't it also just throughout the day,
just touching someone's back or touching their hand? One of the things you describe
in "The Garden Within" is, like, when you
sit with your friends, you really sit
with your friends. ANITA PHILLIPS: I sit with
them, right next to them. OPRAH WINFREY:
Right next to them. Like, hold their hand or be
up against their their person. ANITA PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And I look them in the eye too. That's such a huge form
of non-sexual connection. Looking them in the eye, it
opens up that tree of life, wakes it up when we look into
the eyes of someone who's safe. And so really looking at
people can change that. OPRAH WINFREY: In
chapter 13, you talk about freeing the angry heart. And I think this is vital
because doesn't it seem like the world is so angry now? ANITA PHILLIPS:
There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of
anger for two reasons. One, we're living in a time
where we're holding as tightly as we can on our values. And people are
holding value systems that are hard to reconcile. And a lot of them are out front,
and so there's anger there. But anger is also
a secondary emotion that rises up to protect us
from fear and from sadness. And so there are a lot
of really angry people who are actually just
really scared or really sad. OPRAH WINFREY: I was going
to say and also very sad. ANITA PHILLIPS: Very sad. And so when we feel
that anger come up-- OPRAH WINFREY: If you tell
a person who is acting out angrily that really, this
is about your sadness or really, this is
about your pain, they can't see it or hear it. How do we get people to see it? ANITA PHILLIPS: Try and
get them to safe places. Try to be a safe place. OPRAH WINFREY: Then
peel back the layers of why you're so angry. ANITA PHILLIPS: Why
are you so angry? Because we want to be protected. And sadness feels
vulnerable and scary. And anger feels like power. Fear feels vulnerable and scary. Anger feels like power. But sometimes it helps if we
be honest about our emotions. Man, you seem really
mad about that. I'm just really scared. I'm just really sad. And invite them into a
vulnerable, honest place by being honest
about how you feel. We don't need to try and
give them facts about why they need to change it. Invite them into
your heart space. Talk about how you're feeling. That makes it safer for them
to talk about how they feel. OPRAH WINFREY: What do you
feel about these times? I mean, I started out talking
about the sense of uneasiness. And as a trauma
therapist, you obviously realize that--
recognize that we're in a time where 10 years ago,
you were saying these things. People couldn't hear it in the
same way they can hear it now. Now everybody feels that they
can speak about it more openly, I think. But where do you
think we're headed? ANITA PHILLIPS: If we don't
change the way that we view our emotions and how we treat
ourselves and our bodies, we're headed
somewhere really scary because after the pandemic,
that was a trauma for everyone. Our bodies are not in
the same condition. We get tired more quickly. Our patience is shorter. Our immune systems are
shot from the stress. And we get sick more easily. If we don't slow down and
begin to engage our emotions in a healthy way and
strengthen our nervous system, heal our bodies, we're headed
somewhere really scary. We're going to see death rates
increase from chronic disease. We're going to see family
relationships falling apart. We are going to see
children increasingly showing the signs of intense
depression and anxiety. If we don't get a hold of
ourselves and each other, we're going somewhere
really scary. OPRAH WINFREY: So how do you
daily cultivate your garden? ANITA PHILLIPS: As soon as I
open my eyes in the morning, I always say,
right after I thank God that I'm still alive-- OPRAH WINFREY: I do that too. First thing is thank you. ANITA PHILLIPS: And then I scan
my body, just close my eyes. And I imagine, like, a
little scan going down to see how my body
is feeling to let me know where I am emotionally. We can press our
emotions down quick. But in the morning, they're
right there on the surface. So is my stomach tight? Do I have tension in my neck? What might be going? Do I have butterflies? And if there is some
emotional pain present, then I ask myself,
what do I need? What do I need? Do I need to be connected? Do I need some safety? And how can I get
that need met well? And make that my priority
first thing in the morning. How do I get the need met
that my emotional life is hungry for? Does the soil need water? Does it need fertilizer? What's happening? And once that's cared for, I can
move into my day clearheaded. But when we skip over
that, we think we're fine. But underneath the surface,
that pain is undermining us. OPRAH WINFREY: And this is
a conscious ritual, right? ANITA PHILLIPS: Conscious
ritual every single day, sometimes more than once a day. If I feel some tension rising,
I'll stop and do it again. But waking up first thing in the
morning, every day, I check in. OPRAH WINFREY: I'm going to
go soul to soul with you. ANITA PHILLIPS: OK.
How's that? Let's go. OPRAH WINFREY: What was your
greatest suffering, and what wisdom did you gain from it? ANITA PHILLIPS: Seeing
my children in pain and not being able to fix it. The wisdom I gained from it was
that there's much more power in love and presence sometimes
than there is in doing, and that my children belong to
God as much as I belong to God, and that co-parenting
with him is the way to go. OPRAH WINFREY: God
is your co-parent. ANITA PHILLIPS:
That's the way to go. OPRAH WINFREY:
That's the way to go. I love that. OK. How do you define faith? And when was your
faith most tested? First, how do you define it? And when was it most tested? ANITA PHILLIPS: Faith is a
belief in what is possible. It's just about
what is possible. Most recent, one
of the big tests, I had a tumor on my parathyroid,
and I had to have surgery. I had never been sick,
never had surgery. And I was really scared. And it pushed me
deeper into holding on to what I believe about
what happens after we die. Suddenly, it didn't
feel as far away. And I wanted to be able to go
into that surgery with peace. And I had to really test
my faith to do that to say, do I really believe that if I
close my eyes on this Earth, I'm going to wake up somewhere
else, that my children will be well, that there is an
eternity that matters and that I'll leave legacy here? I wanted to go in there
with peace, not saying, I know God's not going to
let anything happen to me. I wanted to go
with peace however. And that was a real test. OPRAH WINFREY: Let's
talk about the three most important things that
you talk about in the book. Its relationships,
its legacy, and-- ANITA PHILLIPS: Purpose.
OPRAH WINFREY: Purpose. ANITA PHILLIPS: Purpose. Purpose has been so
misunderstood and abused. It's become this idea
of trying to find out what is my purpose in life? What's special about me? And people become
obsessed with that. It's like, I don't know my
purpose, I can't move forward. And I think we need to take
on a different definition. In many Indigenous communities,
the definition of purpose is about the role you
play in your community. That's what purpose is. I define it as
the gift you offer to meet a need in a
community you're a part of. And when I do that,
I'm living on purpose. And I can live on purpose
all day, every day. If I see a need, what gift
do I have to offer to meet it in communities that I'm with? That's it.
OPRAH WINFREY: That's it. ANITA PHILLIPS: That's it. I can do it 100 times a day. I can do it 100 times a day.
OPRAH WINFREY: That's right. ANITA PHILLIPS: That's it. And suddenly, I'm free. I don't need to find anything. OPRAH WINFREY: And my
greatest definition of legacy is, as Maya said,
it isn't one thing. It's every life you touch. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Every life you touch. OPRAH WINFREY: It's
everything you've ever done. It's every life you've touched. ANITA PHILLIPS: It's the most
loving thing you can construct because legacy will
bear fruit that you won't be here to witness. It takes unconditional
love to pour into something you won't ever benefit from. And so when we have legacy-- OPRAH WINFREY: I feel
that about the planting of the trees around here. I'm planting trees under which
I will not be able to enjoy their shade in years to come. But they will be
here for others. ANITA PHILLIPS:
They will be here. And that's what we need
to do in our lives. And when we're in
fear and in lack and we're trying
to control what's happening right in
front of us, we're not thinking about legacy. But love calms us
enough to look forward. OPRAH WINFREY: Describe
a moment or a time when you experienced true grace. ANITA PHILLIPS: Ooh, true grace. I know I've talked a
lot about my children, but they have been
so formative for me. The first time that I apologized
to my daughter for a failure. OPRAH WINFREY: How old was she? ANITA PHILLIPS: Maybe 14.
OPRAH WINFREY: Wow. OK. ANITA PHILLIPS: I
had really dropped the ball with my temper. And I didn't respond lovingly. And I needed to
apologize for that. And that was really
scary because it feels like a power shift. You know, I'm going to do this. But I thought, I was wrong. I have to do it. And she said, I forgive you. That was grace from her. And it changed our relationship. It was a pivot. It allowed me to see so
much more beauty in her. It allowed her to see so
much more humanity in me. And I think it really
was the starting point for the relationship we have
now in her adult life, the grace that my daughter
gave me and still allowing me to be her mother,
still coming to me for advice. OPRAH WINFREY: I think a
lot of, certainly, parents-- they were like your
parents and my parents in the Black community. They're not going to apologize.
ANITA PHILLIPS: Never. OPRAH WINFREY: I fed you.
I clothed you. What else do you want? I brought you in this world. I'll take you out.
ANITA PHILLIPS: Right. OPRAH WINFREY: All of that. So the idea of admitting
that you did something wrong or that you were in error, or-- ANITA PHILLIPS: Yeah. It was inconceivable
because so much of parenting has revolved around power. And we think that that lays down
power for us, but it doesn't. Our children need to
hear that from us. It changes things. It teaches them about
authority and love and gives them the
chance to show grace. OPRAH WINFREY: What do
you think, Dr. Phillips, life is asking of us,
God is asking of us? What are we being asked? ANITA PHILLIPS: Vulnerability,
for us to truly allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We are always protecting,
protecting, protecting. When Jesus was crucified, he
had-- when he was resurrected, he had scars. He had some in his
hands, some in his feet. I would say the hands one
is when I can't do anything. The feet is when I can't escape. But he had this one in his side. When the spear was
pushed in his side, it broke the sac that
protected his heart. And water flows out
of his side, it says. And I always think that
was so huge, that that was the last scar that
he allowed himself to be pierced near his heart. The protection around
his heart went away. I want us to not
be so protective. Like, that's the
ultimate sacrifice is to not protect
ourselves all the time, but to recognize that
vulnerability and connection is worth the risk of
the pain that we might experience in our pursuit
of connection and relationship. OPRAH WINFREY: Besides
your children-- ANITA PHILLIPS: I know. I mention them a lot.
OPRAH WINFREY: I love that. OK. What do you believe is your
true offering to the world? ANITA PHILLIPS: My true
offering to the world? OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. ANITA PHILLIPS: Safety and love. I want every person I encounter
to feel safe in my space and to know what it
feels like to truly experience unconditional love. I don't even have to know you. I see you as a human being. I want people to feel that. OPRAH WINFREY: When is the
last time you experienced awe? ANITA PHILLIPS: A tropical storm
in Orange County that I got to watch from the beach itself. The wind, the crashing of the
waves, the strength of that, it made me feel small, but
it made God seem so big. It was awe. OPRAH WINFREY: It was awe? ANITA PHILLIPS: Yeah, a little
scary, but mostly spectacular. OPRAH WINFREY: Well, thank
you for "The Garden Within." I'm so glad you sent it to me. I'm so glad that you
have opened a door for us to be able to begin to cultivate
because it's not about the war. It's about cultivating for life. And I think that this is
just going to bring so much insight to people in
how they see themselves, how they see their lives. And the spirituality combined
with the psychological aspect is just so spot on. Thank you so much. ANITA PHILLIPS:
Thanks for having me. OPRAH WINFREY: Thanks
for "The Garden Within." "The Garden Within" is available
wherever you buy your books. Thank you. ANITA PHILLIPS: Thank you.
