0:15

Pushkin, Wait

0:22

you want version? Was

0:25

it a New Year's party? I'm

0:27

asking my friend Mit classical

0:29

literature professor Stephanie Frampton to

0:32

recall some ancient history. I've

0:34

requested that she tell her version of

0:36

the story of how we first met many

0:38

many years ago. My memory

0:40

is it was at our

0:43

friend's house off the shelf,

0:45

you, Paul bend and

0:47

you're like, when I was in high

0:49

school, I was really good at Latin. So

0:53

embarrassing, Okay, So it

0:55

turns out I was a huge nerd in

0:57

high school, and I was kind

0:59

of obsessed with all things Latin. I

1:01

studied that ancient language for three whole years,

1:04

and as a senior, I spent an entire semester

1:06

translating an important Latin text, the

1:09

Inid, by the famous Roman poet Virgil.

1:12

But I didn't just translate the Indid. I

1:14

got kind of obsessed with it, and

1:17

being the type a seventeen year old Latin scholar

1:19

that I was, I, for some strange reason,

1:21

decided that there was one and only one

1:23

proper way to translate the first sentence

1:26

of the Inid, which in Latin is

1:28

arma virum quai kano. Back

1:31

then, when some scholar or author translated

1:33

Arma virum quai kano in a way I

1:35

didn't like. I kind of thought a little

1:38

less of them. I know your

1:40

huss varies

1:43

ends. So when I first met Stephanie

1:45

at that party many years ago and heard

1:47

that she was an expert on the literature of ancient

1:50

Rome, I couldn't help. But quiz her. Okay,

1:52

new friend, So how would

1:55

you translate Arma virum quai kano

1:58

I sing of arms and of a man.

2:00

I'm into that.

2:04

Technically the correct answer is I sing

2:06

of arms and a man, not I sing

2:08

of arms and of a man. But it's

2:10

fine whatever. Stephanie still passed.

2:13

But what a great opening, right, I sing

2:15

of arms and a man. The Ania

2:17

is about an armed struggle, but it's more importantly

2:20

about a man. A Eneas an

2:22

ancient hero who weathers great dangers

2:24

and sorrows, a guy who endures

2:26

the worst possible tragedies a person can

2:28

possibly go through and somehow

2:30

finds a way to grow from them. And

2:33

that's why I wanted to share virgil story with

2:35

you today, because Aeneas can offer

2:37

us some important evidence based tips for

2:39

meeting the challenges that life throws our way

2:42

and resiliently rising above them,

2:44

and that makes Eneas a fitting fictional

2:47

subject or yet another episode of happiness

2:49

Lessons of the Ancients with me, Doctor

2:51

Laurie Santos. Virgil

2:57

is everyone's favorite Roman poet,

3:00

and he becomes sort of

3:02

the first superstar poet in

3:04

the Roman world. We

3:06

last heard from my friend classics experts Stephanie

3:09

Rampton when we talked about the happiness lessons

3:11

we can derive from the great Greek poet Homer.

3:13

I like to think of the Inid as the best

3:16

fan fiction there is of Homer. Homer

3:18

was a towering figure in ancient literature, and

3:21

Virgil, who lived hundreds of years after Homer,

3:24

found lots of inspiration at his work. In

3:26

fact, Virgil liked Homer's epics so much

3:29

that he gave them a reboot with a Roman twist.

3:31

Virgil rewrites those for his hero a

3:34

Eneas. Aeneas was a kind of minor

3:36

character in Homer's original epics, but

3:38

Virgil put him at the center of the action. And

3:41

that's because, at least according to some legends,

3:43

Annius wasn't just some nobody. He

3:45

was the guy who would eventually found

3:48

Rome. Well, that's what the Romans say, the

3:50

Greeks didn't care that much about that side

3:53

of things. And so here's

3:55

the simplified version of Virgil's Enid.

3:57

It starts at the tail end of a royal love

3:59

triangle, one that's so bad it

4:02

results in an epic war that destroys

4:04

an entire ancient city, famous

4:06

Troy. It's the site of a great

4:09

battle between two great ancient peoples,

4:11

the Trojans and the Greeks, who have come

4:14

on mass to get

4:16

back Helen because she's the wife of

4:18

Menelaias. This is the very

4:20

famous Helen of Troy, indeed, or

4:22

alternately Helen of Sparta because she's

4:25

the wife of Menelaus. The Trojan

4:27

prince Paris comes along and

4:29

she decides to leave her Greek

4:32

husband Menelaias and go

4:34

back to Troy with Paris, which probably

4:36

didn't make the Spartans all too happy,

4:39

not at all. And the Spartans

4:41

kind of rally together all of the ancient

4:43

Greek peoples and they sail

4:46

across the sea to Troy and

4:48

set siege to the city to try to get Helen

4:50

back. No spoilers, but how does it go

4:52

for the Trojans? Doesn't go well for the Trojans.

4:55

You might remember how the Greeks sneak their way

4:57

into Troy. They pretend to call off the siege

5:00

and leave the Trojans with what seems like an

5:02

odd, yeah, ever so kind parting gift,

5:04

a huge wooden horse. The Trojans

5:07

wheel their strange present inside the city

5:09

these high walls, never guessing that there were

5:11

legions of Greek warriors hiding inside,

5:13

just waiting to spring out for a surprise

5:15

attack. Who

5:18

could unfold in speech that night's

5:20

havoc? Who it's carnage?

5:23

Who could match our toils with tears?

5:26

The ancient city falls for

5:28

many years, a queen in heaps.

5:31

Lifeless corpses lie scattered

5:33

amidst the streets, amid the homes,

5:36

and hollowed portals of the gods. Everywhere

5:40

is cruel, grief everywhere,

5:42

panic and full many

5:44

a shape of death. The

5:47

attack was so vicious that Virgil's

5:49

hero Eneus is one of the only Trojans

5:51

to escape the city was completely

5:54

raised by the Greeks. All of his fellow

5:56

Trojan princes were dead

5:59

or captured. He leaves

6:01

his hometown in complete

6:04

ruin and sort of burning around him.

6:07

He loses his wife in

6:09

the escape, he

6:11

manages to get away with only a few

6:13

of his men, his father, his

6:16

son. They hop on a boat and

6:19

are blown around the

6:21

Mediterranean. They're nearly

6:23

shipwrecked many times. They

6:25

are attacked by monsters

6:28

and have an encounter with the Cyclops,

6:30

who tries to eat them, amongst other things.

6:33

So it was pretty bad. Yeah, it sucked. Encountering

6:36

the Cyclops is majorly bad news.

6:39

Here's the gory picture that Virgil paints of

6:41

one of those giant one eyed cannibals. He

6:44

feeds on the flesh

6:47

of wretched men, and they're

6:50

dark blood. I myself

6:52

saw when he seized in his huge

6:55

and two of our company and

6:58

smashed them on the rock, and

7:01

the spattered courts swam

7:04

with gore. I watched while he

7:06

devoured their limbs, all dripping

7:08

with black blood cloths,

7:11

and the warm joints quivered

7:16

beneath his teeth. Remember

7:20

when Stephanie described The Indian as the best

7:22

Homer fan fiction ever, that's

7:24

in part because Virgil continually succeeded

7:27

in outdoing his predecessor in terms of

7:29

the hardships he sprang on his poor hero. Consider,

7:32

for example, how Virgil's Aeneid goes

7:34

next level on what happens to Homer's

7:36

epic hero Odysseus. The

7:39

cyclops we know from the Odyssey

7:42

is a very dangerous creature who likes

7:44

to eat men. In the Odyssey,

7:47

Odysseus and his men are attacked

7:49

by one and they barely survive.

7:52

And Virgil does homer one

7:54

up and has Aneas's men

7:56

attacked by a whole mob of cyclopses,

7:59

and they barely get back onto their ships

8:01

and sail away. So why

8:03

did Virgil choose to give poor Aeneas so

8:06

many extreme trials and tribulations. The

8:08

reason had to do with who Virgil was writing

8:10

for, his fellow Romans. The

8:13

men of Virgil's time hadn't exactly been chased

8:15

by man eating giants, but they had been

8:17

through decades and decades of bloodshed. It

8:20

is the end of a century of

8:23

constant warfare and in fighting.

8:26

It's the period of Caesar

8:29

and the civil wars following

8:32

Caesar's rise to power. Like

8:34

Eneas, many Romans had lost their homes and

8:36

their loved ones. They'd felt a sense of collective

8:39

loss for generations, a feeling that

8:41

Eneas's creator, Virgil, had also

8:43

known firsthand. Part of the background

8:45

of his story is in this period of strife

8:48

and civil war, his

8:50

homeland, his property gets

8:52

confiscated as part of payments

8:56

to soldiers for civil war,

8:58

etc. Etc. So he kind of has

9:01

this chip on his shoulder a little bit about

9:03

what's come before and feeling

9:05

like it was all a little bit unfair. Virgil

9:08

and his fellow aramatized Roman citizens closely

9:10

identified with the tragedies that befell Enius,

9:13

but they also really admired how Eneas

9:15

made it through all those tragedies because

9:17

in the end, Annius didn't lose his home and endure

9:20

countless monster attacks for nothing. Aeneas's

9:23

tale is a redemption story, one that came

9:25

with a huge sense of purpose and meaning. In

9:27

spite of all his losses, Eneas was

9:30

faded to become the man who had found Rome.

9:32

Yeah, his journey did suck, but Eneas

9:35

was set to achieve so much after all

9:37

his trials and tribulations. With

9:39

that tale of redemption, Virgil was able

9:41

to hold up a mirror to his fellow Romans.

9:44

He was reminding them, Yeah, you've had

9:46

some tough times, but you survived,

9:48

and now it's time to flourish once again. It

9:50

was a message that especially resonated around

9:53

the time The Indian was written, as Rome's

9:55

new emperor, Augustus, was taking the throne.

9:58

Augustus is Caesar's

10:00

great nephew and heir and

10:04

finally sort of gets to be

10:06

the main guy in charge of Rome

10:09

and starts a period

10:12

of kind of relative stability,

10:14

and Virgil's poem as in

10:17

some way a celebration of that. But

10:19

the ancient Romans aren't the only ones who can

10:21

learn from Virgil's epic celebration of growth

10:24

through suffering. When we get back from the

10:26

break, we'll hear about what modern readers

10:28

can learn from Aeneas's ancient redemption story.

10:31

We'll learn that Aeneas uses a special psychological

10:33

technique that helps him and his men overcome

10:35

their pain, a strategy that science

10:38

shows we should probably all be using when

10:40

we find ourselves going through a tough time and want

10:42

to feel better. We'll hear more about

10:44

this effective ancient resilience technique

10:46

when the Happiness lad returns in a moment.

10:55

It's the most successful

10:58

poem in the history

11:00

of European languages. Arguably

11:02

sounds free impressive.

11:06

Yeah like me. A Professor

11:09

Stephanie Frampton is a big advocate of

11:11

Virgil's epic the Eneid and the role

11:13

that can play in helping us to understand the

11:16

psychology of resilience. It's

11:19

known as the best poem in

11:21

the best language. Obviously,

11:23

Homer, the Iliad, the Odyssey

11:26

have a huge impact and

11:28

are read, but Greek isn't as

11:31

prominent a language in the sort of

11:33

subsequent history of Europe for all sorts

11:35

of reasons, mostly because of the Catholic

11:37

Church. Latin is a language that's spoken

11:40

in Europe actively from

11:42

the first millennium BC through

11:46

the eighteenth century through nineteen

11:49

nineties New Bedford High School. Yeah,

11:54

when I first read the Indiad as a teenager, I

11:56

was struck by how well the poem's hero Eneas

11:59

was able to rise above the terrible tragedies

12:01

he endured, which was no small fee,

12:03

since the poet Virgil didn't shy away from

12:05

sending terrible stuff. Enius's way.

12:08

To quote my own high school translation of Virgil,

12:11

Aeneas was much buffeted by

12:13

the winds of fate. I mean, the dude lost

12:15

his wife and his homeland, He was trapped

12:17

in numerous deadly squalls at sea.

12:20

He even had to face a rabid cyclops

12:22

mob. But what I was most impressed

12:24

by is the fact that Eneas didn't shy away

12:26

from all the bad stuff or try to suppress

12:29

what he went through. No, he kind of relished

12:31

focusing on it. Take for example,

12:33

what happened soon after Eneas and his men crash

12:36

onto the coast of Carthage after enduring

12:38

a terrible storm. They've

12:40

been shipwrecked, They've found themselves on the shores

12:43

of this strange land. Eneas

12:45

and his men were soon welcomed by this strange

12:48

land's residence as well as their queen,

12:50

Dido. Dido wanted to be hospitable,

12:53

so she invited the Trojans to a big feast,

12:55

the first great meal Aeneas's men had had

12:58

in months. That's the first time that

13:00

they have found a place where

13:03

they feel like maybe they can

13:05

be a little safe for a moment

13:07

and reflect. At the celebration,

13:09

the queen asks Nias to tell the story

13:12

of how he and his men wound up shipwrecked

13:14

on the beach outside their city. And

13:16

at this point Eneas could have tried to

13:18

do the polite thing, you know, share

13:20

a few vague particulars about what happened,

13:23

but not get into too many of the unpleasant details,

13:26

as that probably would have ruined the celebratory

13:28

mood. But that's not

13:31

what Eneas did. Too deep for

13:33

words, Oh Queen, is

13:35

the grief you bid me renew? How

13:38

the Greeks overthrew Troy's wealth

13:41

and woe for relm the sights most

13:43

piteous that I saw myself, and

13:46

wherein I played no small role. Annias

13:49

really went there. He spent an entire

13:52

chapter of the poem walking through the terrible,

13:54

sordid, gory details of literally

13:56

every single bad thing he and his men went

13:58

through, and he has recalls

14:01

the moments when he's leaving Troy,

14:03

with the city burning around

14:05

him, he puts his father on his

14:08

back to carry him out of the city. He

14:10

grabs his son's hand

14:12

and has him follow it along at his side.

14:15

Enias describes turning back and

14:17

sort of seeing his wife has

14:20

gone missing. He's lost

14:22

her in the melee, and he goes

14:24

to the ships and tries to

14:26

sort of rally some of his men together

14:29

and flee on the water. Such

14:31

words he spoke while sick

14:34

with deep distress. He feigns

14:36

hope on his face and

14:39

deep in his heart stifles

14:42

his anguish. Enias

14:44

didn't downplay any of the trauma he experienced.

14:47

He described it in as much detail and with

14:49

as much candor as he could, which didn't

14:52

make for a very pleasant dinner party conversation.

14:55

Many of us would choose not to be as open

14:57

as a Enias was in discussing the negative

14:59

experience as we've endured, we'd

15:01

probably assume that none of our friends wanted to

15:03

hear about all our drama. We might

15:05

figure that talking about our tragedies would likely

15:07

make us feel worse. But the science

15:10

shows that this is a spot where our minds are lying

15:12

to us, because tons of evidence suggests

15:14

that disclosing our personal tragedies openly

15:17

might be an important first step towards

15:19

actually healing them.

15:22

Years ago, I came across

15:24

an interesting finding that people who had had a major

15:26

traumatic experience when they were young were much

15:28

more likely to have long term health

15:30

problems. This is Jamie Pennybaker,

15:33

a professor of psychology at UT Austin.

15:36

Jamie has been a guest on the Happiness Lab before to

15:38

share his work on the importance of talking candidly

15:40

about our bad times. I later

15:43

discovered it was because people kept it

15:45

secret. That they still were thinking about

15:47

it, but they were keeping it secret because it was

15:49

humiliating to acknowledge

15:51

it. And we found that when people were asked

15:54

to write about a deeply troubling traumatic

15:56

experience or upsetting experience that they

15:58

hadn't talked to other people about, that

16:00

it was associated with better physical

16:02

health. That people went to the doctor last,

16:04

their immune system got better. So

16:07

that was how I've become so intrigued

16:09

with this notion that if you have

16:12

something that's bad and you don't want

16:14

to talk about it, you probably should

16:16

think about talking about it, or at least writing

16:18

about it. He's spoken to Holocaust

16:20

survivors about sharing their harrowing life

16:22

stories, and he's also had college students

16:25

write down their upsetting memories. His

16:27

research shows that talking in detail with someone

16:29

you trust about unpleasant events, or

16:31

even just jotting them down on paper, can

16:34

have a surprisingly positive impact. There

16:36

are easily one or two thousand studies

16:38

that have been done since then. Across these

16:40

studies, it's been associated with

16:43

reductions and symptoms of depression and post

16:45

traumatic stress disorder. It's been associated

16:47

with people performing better on creative

16:49

tasks, doing better on standardized

16:51

tests like SATs or MCATs

16:54

people they report being happier, they're

16:57

mentally healthier, and the biological

16:59

markers have been quite impressive

17:02

in terms of changes in terms of improvements

17:04

and symptoms of arthritis and immune

17:06

disorders and cardiovascular changes

17:09

and so forth. There's a decent chance

17:11

it'll be associated with your sleeping better, that

17:13

you'll be able to get along with other people

17:15

better. You're able to get through upsetting

17:18

experiences the way that we often

17:20

don't if we are sitting quietly

17:22

and mulling over these issues in our

17:24

minds. Jamie has found that trying

17:26

to suppress our bad memories puts a huge

17:28

cognitive strain on our brains. Our

17:31

minds simply don't react well when we tell them,

17:33

hey, this thought is kind of sad. Well,

17:35

let's not think about it anymore. And that

17:37

means that opening up about our trauma, whether

17:40

to a caring friend or just in a private journal,

17:42

can be a huge psychological relief, one

17:45

that comes with all the health and happiness benefits

17:47

that Jamie just mentioned. But Jamie

17:50

has found that there's also a second reason that

17:52

openly sharing upsetting stories is

17:54

beneficial for us. By putting

17:56

an upsetting experience into words, It

17:58

forces structure, it forces

18:01

an organization. There's a beginning,

18:03

middle, and end. It's not blowing

18:05

off steam. It's not some kind of venting

18:07

or catharsis. Instead, you are

18:10

coming to understand the event and also

18:12

yourself better. When Aeneas

18:14

flooded his fellow dinner guests with the sad

18:16

details about losing his beloved city and

18:19

fleeing from a horde of hungry cyclopses,

18:21

he wasn't just complaining. He was

18:23

giving his mind an effective way to make sense

18:25

of the dangers his men faced. Talking

18:28

about those tragic events allowed Eneas

18:30

to more carefully examined the bravery and skill

18:32

that he and his men showed during those tough times.

18:34

It gave him a chance to reflect on what

18:37

he learned from all that adversity. And

18:39

this is something that I find interesting about

18:41

adversity. Having the thing that's

18:43

negative certainly sucks, but

18:46

by the same token, it has the potential

18:48

to be healing in to make us rethink

18:51

ourselves and rethink our lives. Classic

18:53

scholar Stephanie Frampton thinks that this is

18:55

an insight that Virgil nicely put into effect

18:57

in one of my favorite passages of the Indian the

19:00

spot where Aeneas speaks to his men directly

19:03

about what overcoming so much adversity can

19:05

mean for their success in the future. Oh,

19:09

comrades, for this,

19:11

we have not been ignorant of misfortune.

19:15

You who have suffered worse.

19:18

This also, God will end.

19:21

You drew near to Skyla's

19:24

fury and her deep echoing crags.

19:27

You have known too the rocks

19:30

of the cyclops. Recall

19:33

your courage and banish

19:35

sad fear. Perhaps

19:38

even this distress it

19:41

will someday be a joy to recall,

19:44

he says, Recall your courage and

19:46

banish fear. That expression,

19:49

recall your courage, I think in this context

19:51

is really interesting. The words

19:53

in Latin are ray wocte animos,

19:57

so call back

19:59

literally call it again to

20:01

yourself, your animos, your spirit.

20:04

It means both recall

20:06

as in call it back to mind, but

20:08

it means also have that spirit

20:11

again, like use it again.

20:14

So it points in both directions. Right,

20:16

it's memory that's working to

20:18

contextualize their present situation.

20:21

It's memory that's working to give them courage

20:23

now, and it's courage now

20:25

that will give them strength for the

20:27

future. It's like you're using

20:29

the past in a particular story about the

20:31

past to remind yourself, Hey, I got through this

20:33

before, I was resilient before, I can

20:36

do it again. So you're like literally using stories

20:38

about the past to recall something

20:40

really important that you need right now or

20:42

in the future. And we can also think

20:44

that Virgil is doing this too

20:47

for himself. Right He's saying, Romans,

20:50

remember what you've been through. It

20:52

is the strength that you need now to go forward.

20:55

It's part of why the book was so embraced when

20:57

it originally appeared. It had

21:00

this ripple effect of saying, if

21:02

a Eneas's sacrifices

21:05

were worth it for

21:07

him to get here for us, than our

21:09

sacrifices are also may be worth

21:11

it for us to get to a better place. But

21:14

Aeneas didn't just tell his comrades to recall

21:16

their courage in that famous passage. He

21:18

also gave them an optimistic framework for

21:21

how to think about and reflect on those sad times

21:23

in the future. He says, perhaps

21:25

it will someday even be a pleasure

21:28

to remember these things when

21:30

we get back from the break. We'll look at this aspect

21:33

of virgil psychological insight that

21:35

with an optimistic perspective, we can begin

21:37

to see our past sorrows not as tragedies

21:40

but as blessings, ones that allow

21:42

us to grow as people. We'll

21:44

see that Eneas is an ancient example of

21:46

what modern psychologists refer to as post

21:49

traumatic growth. We'll learn what post

21:51

traumatic growth is and why this concept

21:53

can be so essential for feeling resilient

21:56

during bad times. The Happiness

21:58

Lab will be right back. Through

22:05

varied fortunes, through

22:08

countless meds, we

22:11

journey towards Ladium,

22:14

where Fate promises a home of

22:16

peace. As Aeneas

22:18

helps his men process they're still fresh memories

22:21

of the sacking of Troy and their horrific

22:23

escape across the sea, he stays

22:25

focused not just on all the trauma they endured,

22:28

but also on their brighter, better future.

22:30

Aeneas reminds his men that in spite of all

22:33

they've been through, they're still headed for

22:35

Latium, where Rome stands today, in

22:37

the hopes of fulfilling their destiny of founding

22:39

a great new city. In

22:41

this way, Eneas focuses not just on

22:43

the past, which, as we learned before, can

22:46

help him process the grief he's been through, but

22:48

also on the future and all the prosperity

22:51

it might bring. Aeneas's tendency

22:53

to keep an optimistic eye on what's to come

22:55

was best illustrated in a pivotal passage

22:57

in the Inid in which he takes a journey

22:59

to the land of the Dead and gets to

23:01

see visions of just how amazing the empire

23:04

he's about to found will turn out. For

23:07

this, the kind of foundational moment is

23:09

in book six, when he goes and visits

23:11

the underworld, and not only

23:13

does he see his father, who's died

23:15

at that point, but he also

23:18

sees all of Romans

23:20

to come, including Augustus

23:23

and his family. Turn

23:28

hither, now, your two eyed gaze,

23:31

and behold this nation,

23:35

the Romans that are yours. Here

23:38

is Caesar, and all the seed

23:41

of Lullus, destined to pass under

23:43

Heaven's spacious sphere. And

23:46

this, in truth is he whom you so often

23:49

here promised you, Augustus

23:52

Caesar, son

23:54

of a God, who will

23:56

again establish a golden

23:58

age in Ladium amid fields.

24:01

Once ruled by Saturn. He

24:05

will advance his empire

24:07

beyond the Garriments and India to

24:09

a land which lies beyond

24:12

our stars. If he kind

24:14

of gets this preview of like all the awesome

24:16

stuff to come exactly. And it's like,

24:18

because of this, because of what you're

24:20

going through, we get

24:23

to have the realm of

24:26

today. So the Aeniad is kind of this incredible

24:28

story, right. It's aneas this dude who's

24:30

like fleeing from his homeland with his old dad

24:33

on his back and like trying to grab his kid before

24:35

everything burns to rubble. But

24:37

ultimately it's the story of the founding

24:40

of the most important empire ever.

24:42

And so it's kind of this like trauma

24:45

turn to growth sort of story. And I think

24:47

that's one of the reasons I really enjoy it still

24:49

to this day is it's kind of like the Roman

24:52

poetry version of what psychologists

24:54

talk about when they talk about post traumatic growth.

24:57

Post Traumatic growth is a phenomenon that psychologists

25:00

have become more and more interested in. Now

25:02

you've probably already heard about a related concept,

25:05

what's known as post traumatic stress or PTSD.

25:08

PTSD is a mental disorder that arises

25:11

after people have gone through trauma or other

25:13

terrible life events. But scientists

25:15

have begun to realize that trauma doesn't

25:17

always only result in long term emotional

25:19

distress. Survivors sometimes

25:21

show the opposite pattern. After

25:23

growing through painful life events, people

25:25

wind up experiencing a host of positive

25:28

psychological changes. We

25:30

know that trauma can lead to long term stress and negative

25:32

symptoms, but there's also evidence

25:34

that it can be a fertile ground for discovering new

25:36

relationships, for harness and courage,

25:39

and for finding a sense of meaning. This

25:41

sweet of positive outcomes after trauma

25:44

is what researchers have begun calling post

25:46

traumatic growth. The academic

25:48

concept of post traumatic growth is relatively

25:50

new, but it's pretty clear that ancient poets

25:52

like Virgil understood it. You

25:55

find more resilience, you find

25:57

a bigger sense of meaning. You think that because

25:59

you've made it through this trauma of the world has something important

26:02

for you to do. I mean, is that kind of the way

26:04

the poem was thought about back in the day.

26:06

Absolutely, And it's really as

26:09

to the trauma that Rome has

26:11

gone through for the last hundred years

26:14

in their civil wars. It's

26:16

an idea that if Eneas can get

26:18

through this, that we all can get

26:20

through this together. We usually

26:22

assume that upsetting life events have to take

26:24

a real toll on us, that traumatic

26:26

circumstances inevitably lead to negative

26:28

effects that can last a lifetime. But

26:31

research has shown that there are ways of processing

26:33

our bad life events that at least

26:36

over time, can help us move towards a

26:38

sense of growth instead. But what

26:40

are some of these more effective ways of dealing

26:42

with bad life events. I can tell

26:44

you right now that what happened to me is

26:46

a blessing. This is JR.

26:48

Martinez. But it

26:50

took a lot of work for me to get to this

26:53

point, almost sixteen years later, for me to say this

26:55

to you. Like the ancient fictional hero

26:57

Eneas, Jr. Was no stranger to the

26:59

horrors of warfare and violence. He

27:02

served as a soldier in Iraq, and his

27:04

life changed in an instant when the vehicle

27:06

he was driving exploded when it was struck

27:08

by roadside bomb. Jr.

27:11

Was eventually rescued, but he suffered horrific

27:13

burns. These painful injuries

27:16

ended the then nineteen year old's military career

27:19

and left him scarred and disfigured for life.

27:21

The identity that I had known for nineteen years of

27:23

my life, my physical appearance, what I

27:25

recognize for nineteen years of my life, every

27:28

morning, every evening, every day in between, when I looked

27:30

in the mirror, that identity is taken away from me, and now

27:32

I'm looking in the mirror and that person that

27:34

I see I do not recognize. I have no relationship

27:37

with that individual, and having to come to

27:39

terms with accepting the fact that the

27:41

person that I used to be has died. That

27:43

person's gone will never come back.

27:46

Jr. Suffered terribly after his accident

27:48

and initially showed many of the negative effects

27:51

that come after experiencing trauma. I

27:53

was drinking, I was angry, I was reckless.

27:56

I mean, I was not pleasant to be around.

27:58

I really wasn't. But the tragedy

28:00

of that bomb blast was also a pivotal moment

28:02

of change in Jr's life. It caused

28:05

him to realize that life was short and

28:07

that he needed to prioritize making the most of

28:09

it. So, in spite of his scars,

28:11

he decided to follow his dream of becoming an

28:13

actor. He auditioned for a part

28:16

in a soap opera and got it. He

28:18

eventually became a TV celebrity,

28:20

a magazine cover star, a motivational

28:22

speaker, and an advocate for disabled

28:25

veterans. That's why he now describes

28:27

getting blown up in Iraq at nineteen years old

28:30

as a blessing. I'm blessed to have a second

28:32

chance at life. I'm so passionate

28:34

and I have so much passion inside of

28:36

me because I don't want to take this

28:38

second chance for granted. I am trying

28:40

to live at one hundred percent

28:43

every single day. You can hear more

28:45

of JR. Story in a previous episode of The Happiness

28:47

Lab called The Unhappy Millionaire. But

28:49

I've included JR. Again in this episode because

28:52

both he and our ancient hero Aeneas are

28:54

great examples of strategies you can use

28:56

to move towards post traumatic growth, and

28:58

one of those strategies involves trying to manage

29:01

your emotional distress as best you can.

29:03

This was something that Anneus did well, explicitly

29:06

telling his men to make sure they were regulating theirs.

29:10

Oh comrades, for

29:12

this, we have not been ignorant of misfortune.

29:16

You who have suffered worse,

29:19

Recall your courage and

29:22

banish sad fear. Banish

29:25

your fear, and call back those good emotions, says

29:27

in Us. But former soldier JR. Martinez

29:30

gives us a great method to do just that. He

29:32

found ways to experience gratitude for

29:34

his terrible ordeal. He spent

29:36

his time intentionally noticing that things

29:39

could have been worse, considering the fact that

29:41

I was trapped inside of a burning truck for five minutes.

29:43

I'm fortunate to only have what I have.

29:45

I have a lot of friends, and I know a lot of people

29:48

that unfortunately have missing

29:50

limbs, are more scarred, you

29:52

know, or disfigured. You know, you

29:54

know, I to some degree, I'm very lucky

29:56

that my skin graphs and the burns kind of blend

29:59

in with my skin tone, so you

30:01

know, it's just in some ways it's

30:03

not has noticeable oddly enough,

30:05

right like you know, so in that sense,

30:08

incredibly fortunate. But another psychologically

30:10

effective strategy for getting through tough times

30:13

is finding ways to use your adversity to

30:15

give back by becoming more other

30:17

oriented in the face of tragedy.

30:20

Annias did this by focusing on taking

30:22

care of his men and making sure they

30:24

made good on the legacy of their fallen Trojans

30:27

and Jr. Did something similar. He

30:29

realized that he might be able to use his story

30:31

to help others, and I started to kind of

30:33

piece all this together and realize, wait a minute,

30:36

there's all of these lessons and things

30:38

that I've dealt with that everybody else is dealing with,

30:40

So why maybe I can do something with this? So

30:43

JR. Became a motivational speaker, sharing

30:45

his painful story and the lessons he learned

30:47

with military veterans all over the world.

30:50

He couldn't serve as a soldier any longer, but

30:52

he could still contribute something meaningful to

30:54

those around him. I can go out there and serve

30:56

in a different capacity because the new uniform

30:59

that I wear are the scars of my body,

31:01

and the new weapon that I have are the words that come

31:03

out of my mouth. And Gr's

31:05

experience shows a common benefit of post

31:07

traumatic growth connect with

31:09

others. After initially feeling

31:11

lonely and isolated following his burnt injuries,

31:14

Jr. Soon found that his ordeal increased

31:16

his empathy for other people. He

31:19

also saw how much of a happiness boost he could

31:21

get from giving back to the people around him

31:24

and by sharing his story. JR. Used a

31:26

final strategy that can help us grow from

31:28

suffering. He was able to find meaning

31:30

in what he went through. If you've been

31:32

through a tough hardship, you can ask yourself

31:34

what you learn and what new meeting those events

31:37

have brought to your life. It took JR.

31:39

A while to do this, but he eventually

31:41

saw that his brush with death was a way

31:43

to achieve a fuller life that he couldn't

31:45

have ever imagined before he was burned. Over

31:48

the course of my life, there have been a

31:50

lot of things that I've experienced that didn't

31:52

make sense in the moment. But if

31:54

you stick with it, if you're patient enough over the course

31:57

of time, the answer then presents

31:59

itself everything I thought I wanted in

32:01

life. You know, I wanted to be a fresh professional

32:03

football player and have fame and have all this money

32:06

and be able to do all these things. Like if

32:08

I would have accomplish those things,

32:10

would I be as happy as I am

32:12

now? I've helped a lot of people, at least

32:15

I believe I would be able to make a

32:17

difference, And I think that to me is more important

32:19

than anything else. And

32:21

this brings us back to Virgil's hero Eneus,

32:24

who spoiler alert, faces even

32:26

more challenges and bereavements as he continues

32:28

his quest to found Rome, but he does

32:31

so with the knowledge that he's fulfilling a

32:33

meaningful mission that glorious

32:35

Rome extend her empire

32:37

to Earth's ends

32:40

her ambitions to

32:42

the skies. What's

32:44

more meaningful than, you know, picking up

32:46

your fallen empire to create this new

32:49

world, to create a new home for yourself

32:51

and the people you care about. Yeah, and

32:53

what Virgil is trying to do with

32:55

the poem. Virgil gives us

32:58

a hero that has been

33:00

through a lot of sadness but

33:03

is endeavoring to kind of move

33:05

forward. It's

33:07

certainly a story that

33:09

I think resonates with readers

33:11

today. It certainly resonates with my students,

33:14

the sense that they have a

33:17

goal that they're trying to get to. Eneas

33:19

is trying to get to Rome. My

33:22

students are trying to graduate from

33:24

MiG Neither of these

33:26

things is easy, and they have to

33:28

make sacrifices along the way

33:30

and make choices that sometimes

33:33

looking back on, you know

33:35

they have that sort of reflective self.

33:37

There are maybe which things have

33:39

gone differently, But the

33:42

sense of kind of moving forward

33:44

and having a backward

33:47

glance as part of that is

33:49

I think really important to the way

33:51

that Eneas, the Romans,

33:54

we all can create meaning. Returning

33:57

to the story of Enius always reminds me

34:00

that even after experiencing the worst

34:02

of times, there are strategies we can

34:04

use to control our situation. We

34:06

can call back our courage and use strategies

34:08

to regulate the painful emotions that come

34:10

with negative events. We can

34:12

find ways to use what we've been through to

34:14

help other people. And we can harness

34:17

the power of sharing stories and disclosing

34:19

our bad memories to process and

34:21

learn from what we've gone through. And remember,

34:24

telling your story doesn't mean you have to share your

34:26

woes with some unsuspecting dinner party

34:28

like Eneas did. You can follow the

34:30

lead of psychologists Jamie Penny Baker's college

34:32

students and get all the benefits that come

34:35

from journaling about your tough times privately.

34:37

But the key is that you use that process

34:39

to identify what Eneas and JR. Martinez

34:42

both found after their awful ordeals,

34:45

that if you look carefully, you can find meaning

34:47

in your painful stories, and that sense

34:49

of purpose can lead to growth and

34:51

making good on This idea of meaning making

34:54

is how I wanted to end this episode today, because

34:56

chatting with Stephanie about Virgil did

34:58

take me back to our awkward first meeting when

35:01

I somewhat aggressively quizzed her about her

35:03

Enia translation that obviously

35:05

wasn't a hugely traumatic event, no

35:08

cyclops mobbing as it were, but it

35:10

still presents the opportunity to use the power

35:12

of stories and meaning making to put things

35:14

right. So just

35:16

realizing the power of going back to stories

35:19

that at the time were a little bit painful. You

35:23

know where I'm going with this. I'm sorry I was so mean

35:25

about you. Weren't

35:30

I was a little bit mean, But it can be a sort of

35:32

redemptive story that even though absolutely

35:35

it's drawn us together all of these years.

35:37

It's something we've talked about and

35:39

laughed about many, many times. And I

35:41

wish I could go back to fifteen years

35:44

ago Laurie and Stephanie and

35:46

tell her, you guys are fighting about

35:48

the beginning of the INDID. It's a silly

35:50

dinner party. But fifteen years later, you're

35:52

going to be on a podcast. I would have to explained what a podcast

35:54

is at that point. But you're gonna be on a podcast, and you're gonna

35:57

be able to share the INDID with the whole world. It's

35:59

amazing. Huge

36:03

thanks to my friend Stephanie Frampton for sharing

36:05

all her wisdom about some of my favorite

36:07

ancient mythological heroes. It's

36:09

now a time for the season of Happiness Lessons

36:11

of the Ancients to leave the shores of Greece

36:13

and Rome and to head east to South

36:16

Asia, where we'll be examining the

36:18

happiness insights we can find in the yoga

36:20

sutras. The

36:24

sutras are just the truth, so they're the truth

36:26

of the human experience and

36:28

they can be applied in different

36:31

ways depending on what's going on

36:33

in your life, and the only things that will

36:35

resonate from the sutras are the

36:37

things that you already know to be true with

36:39

it yourself. I

36:41

hope to see you next week for the latest edition

36:44

of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients on the

36:46

Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie

36:48

Santos. The

36:54

Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley

36:56

and is produced by Ryan Dilley, Courtney

36:58

Guerino and Britney Brown. The

37:01

show was mastered by Evan Viola and our

37:03

original music was composed by Zachary Silver.

37:06

You also heard the voice talents of David Glover

37:09

special thanks to Greta Kone, Eric Sandler,

37:11

Carly mcgliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan

37:14

Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, My agent

37:16

Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team.

37:18

The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

37:21

and by me, doctor Laurie Santos.