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 (speech to a gathering): 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 (to listeners)? 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 me 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 a 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, 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. [zLINK Oprah showed a picture of a neuron and a seedling – they are similar]. 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. [8.39] 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 anger, 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, [9.06] 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. [9.30] 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. [9.55] 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. [11.22] 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 Myss, 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. [13.45] 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: [15.44] 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 parts?
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, [16.26] 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: [16.30] 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, it is that 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 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 [18.32] 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.
ANITA PHILLIPS: [19.03] It's the deepest trauma. That's the devastating part as 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 - the validation.
ANITA PHILLIPS: The validation. [19.30] 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 are 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. [23.36] 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. [24.11] 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 Uvalde 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 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?
[33.12]
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, 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. [37.37] 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. I fed you. I clothed you. What else do you want?
OPRAH WINFREY: 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. [39.18] 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, [40.17] 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: [40.41] 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.
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