Trauma therapist, minister, and author Dr. Anita Phillips joins Oprah to discuss her New York Times bestselling book on emotional well-being. They explore the connection between emotions and thoughts, the healing power of the vagus nerve, and the importance of acknowledging and tending to emotional pain. Dr. Anita emphasizes the significance of safety and love, cultivating for life, and merging spirituality and psychology.
Embracing our emotions is essential for living a powerful life and cultivating emotional well-being.
Healing internal trauma and offering validation are crucial for addressing generational trauma and promoting healing.
Deep dives
The Power of HBCU Experience
The podcast episode explores the impact of Howard University on the host's life, highlighting the beauty and power of the HBCU experience. The host shares personal memories of seeing black beauty and excellence on campus, which inspired her own natural hair journey. The episode also mentions the significance of homecoming season for HBCU alumni.
The Importance of Emotional Health and Beliefs
Dr. Anita Phillips, a trauma therapist and host of the podcast In the Light, discusses the connection between emotional health, beliefs, and spirituality. She emphasizes that our emotional well-being impacts our spiritual power, and highlights the significance of emotional pain as a signal for unmet needs. Dr. Phillips challenges the notion that our thoughts dictate our feelings, asserting that our feelings originate from the soil of our hearts.
Healing Generational Trauma and the Power of Touch
Dr. Anita Phillips shares her personal experience growing up with a sibling who had mental illness and addiction, highlighting the impact of generational trauma. She stresses the importance of healing internal trauma and offering validation to those who have been unseen or neglected. Dr. Phillips also discusses the significance of non-sexual touch in providing comfort, connection, and healing.
Cultivating the Garden Within and Living on Purpose
The episode explores the concept of cultivating our hearts as gardens and living on purpose. Dr. Anita Phillips defines purpose as the gift we offer to meet a need in our community and emphasizes the importance of relationships, legacy, and finding our role within our communities. She encourages vulnerability and embracing emotions in order to live a meaningful and connected life.
Oprah talks to trauma therapist, minister, and author Dr. Anita Phillips about her New York Times bestselling new book, The Garden Within: Where The War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins. Dr. Anita explains how embracing our emotions rather than suppressing them is the key to living our most powerful life. Blending faith, the latest discoveries in neurobiology, and her own research, Dr. Anita shows us how to reach a state of emotional well-being. She describes this as our internal garden, our heart, that needs cultivating and that starts by letting ourselves be present in how we feel first.