For the Love of Therapy: Jada Pinkett-Smith on Trauma, Grief, and the Power of Embracing Your Journey

We’re in the thick of our “For the Love of Therapy” series, and this week we’re getting a full helping of candor and insight from the multifaceted actress and author, Jada Pinkett Smith. Jada candidly reveals another side to her journey that many might not know from her highly public persona, a story where she takes charge of her narrative in the face of what people have decided for themselves who they think she is. Jada recounts the formative and often traumatic events of her past, and talks in stark terms about her present day pain points. Without sparing the hard parts, Jada leans into what it’s like for her, as it is for so many of us to be a woman today, what it’s like to reckon with our trauma, and marriage is really like behind the curtain, in hopes that what she’s learned will resonate with other women, no matter what their story is. 

 

Jen and Jada compare notes from their own lives about:

• Jada’s encounters with complex trauma, PTSD, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation

• How mental health issues can visit anyone at any time, regardless of privilege or upbringing

• The slow acceptance to admitting they’ve faced trauma, thinking “others have had it worse” - and the continued work toward reckoning with that truth

• The reality that all of us, especially those in the public sector, will be judged by others, and a new understanding that judgment is most often about people’s own pain and how they’ve been hurt by others’ judgment, rather than it is about the person being judged

Through sharing her life journey, which she covers in much greater detail in her newly released book “Worthy,” it’s Jada’s hope to encourage others navigating similar struggles towards wellness and understanding.

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Thought-Provoking Quotes:

“I just wanted to offer other women breadcrumbs that are on this journey called life. Our journeys aren't going to look exactly the same, but there are just some universal challenges that we have just being human and specifically being women. I just wanted to go, ‘Listen, I don't care what's going on. Instagram and Facebook, life is messy. Life is difficult. It's challenging. We're all trying to figure this out, and I'm just going to show you little things along the way that I figured out.’” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“When you really start to understand the human condition, and when you really start to see people's fears, you really start to see people's pain. That's why people want to strike at you. That's why people want to spew whatever they can your way because of how they've been hurt, how they've hurt themselves, how they've been hurt from others' judgment.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“I am so lucky--yes, my mother was deep in her addiction, but I'm going to tell you--she showed up [for me] at some of the most pivotal times.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“It would take me years to really detach myself from chaos because chaos became normal for me.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“It's not other people's judgment that's the problem. It's how you judge yourself.  When you know who you are and you are in the process of healing your self-judgment, you realize that any judgment that anybody's got on you is really a reflection of where they are sitting within themselves.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“I know what kind of oxygen that would've given me if I had been able to hear someone talk about [mental health] in an honest way. I wouldn't think that I was crazy or I wouldn't have to feel so ashamed. I felt so much shame for feeling the way that I did, having the things that I had, because it's like, "well, what are you upset about?" And mental health doesn't have anything to do with that.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“I wanted to share that here is a person who seemingly had it all, who was looking for cliffs to drive off of, and it was a serious dire situation that nothing material could help me with.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

“Even today is difficult for me to look at my life and say that I've suffered trauma.  I didn't realize how much trauma I had. I know it theoretically, but I'm still in the process of believing it.” - Jada Pinkett Smith

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2021.

Red Table Talk

Girls Hold Up This World by Jada Pinkett Smith and Donyelle Kennedy

Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith

Glory

A Different World

Ayahuasca 

 

Guest’s Links:

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Twitter

 

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