The only thing I knew about Oprah Winfrey until recently was that she was a successful media personality and for a long time struggled with her weight.
I know these two things because for 25 years she was ubiquitous with her daytime talk show, magazine, movies, and interviews.
What I didn’t know about Oprah was the extent to which she suffered childhood trauma and how that trauma manifested itself throughout her life.
I recently finished the book she and Dr. Bruce Perry co-authored, What Happened to You? Simply put, it’s a great read. In fact, it’s extremely helpful in understanding adverse childhood experiences, childhood trauma, and the need for positive relationships with people.
It also helped me see that I’ve been wrong in my assessment of Oprah for many years. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are many topics on which we would disagree, but as I read her stories recounting her childhood, I realized an important truth: my implicit biases and preconceived notions said more about me than it did her.
Frankly, it highlighted how hard it is for me to build trust when I’m not willing to be honest about my own experiences and trauma and practice being open-minded.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at three ideas: implicit bias, trust, and neuroception. The idea to examine these three ideas for a possible thread or connection came to me as I read an article by Rose Eveleth titled, “You’re Probably Not As Open-Minded As You Think. Here’s How To Practice.”[1]
Ms. Eveleth said in her article that most people are not as open to new ideas as they think they are or would like to be. A primary reason is that it “can be hard to reconsider long-held beliefs, and even harder to question things you didn’t even know you believed in the first place.”[2] Amen to that idea.
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For more information on “(Re)Building Trust: A Trauma-informed Approach to Leadership,” please visit my website mrchrisfreeze.com.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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