Lea Waters: Reclaiming Strength Out of Darkness
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2018
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From darkness comes light. That's what we're told. But, it's not always the case.
In today's moving conversation with Lea Waters, we explore how a childhood that held the darkness of abuse led to years of continued suffering, but eventually became a source of transformation and led to a life of profound light, beauty and strength.
Waters is an Australian psychologist, the Founding Director of and professor of Positive Psychology at the Centre for Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne. She holds affiliate positions at Cambridge University’s Well-Being Institute and the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations and has published over 95 scientific articles and book chapters.
Her first book, The Strength Switch: How The New Science of Strength-Based Parenting Can Help Your Child and Your Teen to Flourish, was recently included in UC Berkeley’s Greater Goods Magazine’s Top Books for 2017. Lea is the 2017-2019 President of the International Positive Psychology Association and serves on the Council of Happiness and Education for the World Happiness Council. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband, son and daughter.
In today's deep dive, we explore Waters' journey from a childhood defined by a lot of pain to her attempt to "self medicate" led to a year's long eating disorder, then to her awakening to a bigger truth about who she was, where her self-worth came from and a commitment to harness the darkness of her youth as fuel for a powerhouse career in the science of flourishing, with a focus on raising kids who experience life to it's fullest.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In order to say I grew up in an abusive childhood, you have to say my parents were abuses and |
| 0:09.8 | that's a very hard thing to do because there's never any black or white. |
| 0:14.0 | You know, and there was mental illness in the case of my mother and so it was confronting. |
| 0:20.2 | My sister did have therapy a number of years later and I remember this because she called |
| 0:25.5 | me up and she said, I said, how did you go? |
| 0:28.1 | And she said, did you know that ours is a case of child abuse? |
| 0:33.1 | And I said, yeah, I did and she was like, spin out. |
| 0:37.1 | You know, that was the way she spoke, spin out. |
| 0:40.6 | And there was like a pause between us and then just this sadness, she said, it's true though |
| 0:44.0 | isn't it? |
| 0:45.0 | And I said, yeah, well it's true and it's not about blame, but it is about understanding |
| 0:49.8 | where you've come from so that you can start the healing process. |
| 0:55.4 | Today's guest, Leo Waters, grew up in a tiny town in Australia, 800 people and spent |
| 1:03.5 | the better part of her childhood playing the role of protector of her siblings from physical |
| 1:10.4 | and emotional abuse from her parents. |
| 1:13.0 | That led to a lot of different ways of coping, some of them pretty physically destructive. |
| 1:18.1 | Yet she latched onto what she sent then knew was a fierce sense of intellect and ended |
| 1:24.4 | up going to school, pursuing her PhD in psychology. |
| 1:27.8 | But it wasn't until she got exposed to the world of positive psychology and strength based |
| 1:32.2 | psychology in particular that a lot of things began to really change in her mind. |
| 1:37.5 | And when she herself was about to become a parent, she realized that she wanted to take |
| 1:43.2 | a very different look at both the world, the way that she practiced her profession, the |
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