Review of “This is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods ” by Ernest Ellender, PhD

Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)

This is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods by Ernest Ellender, PhD might be one of the most thorough, exhaustive, and practical self-help books we've ever read!

What we really appreciated about this book was how grounded and usable the advice was, which is fitting considering Ellender's background as a black belt in BJJ (Brazilian jiu-jitsu), a martial art that emphasizes being grounded and having no wasted movement. Similar to chess, it's about efficiency and effectiveness, and those are things that describe this book too!

This book is long and technical, similar to BJJ. However, also like BJJ, it's worth learning.

It also incorporates a lot of the same routines as the martial art/sport. For example, there are a lot of “Skills and Drills” as well as “20 Rules” to make things as digestible, understandable, and applicable to real life as possible. We greatly appreciated that!

This book makes use of various ideas and concept from psychology, psychiatry, and self-help that you may already be familiar with. There are parts of this that read like cognitive behavioral therapy. There are parts of this that read like family or couples therapy.

There are other parts that read a bit like yoga, emphasizing mindfulness, control, posture, and deep breathing. These are things that are also useful in martial arts and sports since they keep you from losing proprioception, core control, and ultimately flying all over the place and getting hurt or injured. In other words, this is practical advice, and it WORKS.

Probably the single major focus on the entire book is mastering the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. In this life filled with stresses, our sympathetic nervous systems are almost always on overdrive and full-blast (what the author describes as “Chronic Sympathetic Arousal”). We're constantly drinking coffee, energy drinks, sugar, and other things in an attempt to keep ourselves awake and going. Hey, we hear you there, author! We have a refrigerator full of stimulant drinks.

However, the more energy you are constantly dishing out, the less sustainable you will be. Large stars burn out faster. An overactive sympathetic nervous system affects our longevity and well-being. That becomes apparent when it starts to affect aspects of the parasympathetic nervous system like sleep and digestion, sometimes leading to illness, burnout, and death.

According to this book, you're also not yourself when your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive. You are like Mr. Hyde. You are your “MONSTER SELF.”

This is, again, applicable to BJJ. In a ground-and-pound fight, endurance and stamina are king. Once your opponent is exhausted and tired, they're done. They can't defend themselves. They can't fight back. The same can be said for you.

Being tired, exhausted, and/or overly stimulated can also make you more prone to mistakes and errors. Again, you're not yourself when you're in overdrive. You're your “MONSTER SELF.” This is the side of you that is more likely to say and do hurtful, self-destructive, or even illegal things. This is the side of you that's more likely to ruin relationships or get caught up in addiction or addictive behavior.

If you're always going, going, going and running yourself into the ground, you're going to burn out and experience heightened stress and anxiety. It also inhibits your ability to heal and recovery.

There's one great line in this book about how resting/sleeping more affects healing:

“Imagine healing 40% faster.”

This book talks about natural rules and man's rules. For example, natural rules (guided by our reptilian brain or “primal brain”) were meant to protect us from things like tigers and lions. Man's rules were meant to protect us from getting in trouble with the law, your boss, the IRS, or our parents.

Speaking of parents, this book does a good job at showing how parents provide structure and guidance for children, and how children will either follow, reject, or be denied these things (for example, in the case of a neglectful or non-present parent). A child can also be driven against a parent's example like when their alcoholism affects their relationship.

This leads into discussions of generational/intergenerational trauma. One of our favorite passages from the book describes how people from dysfunctional families tend to choose partners and marry into dysfunctional families in the mistaken belief that this is normal. Hmm... you don't say...

A thing called “Trauma Lies” exists. These are false and destructive things we tell and ingrain in ourselves in an attempt to cope with trauma—things like:

“I am unlovable”

“I will never be any good”

“I don't deserve happiness”

“People I love will eventually always abandon me”

This book helps readers to reframe these lies in a positive, constructive way. For example:

I am broken=I feel broken=I am resilient

There's so much great information and there are such interesting concepts in this book! For example,

“When in doubt, write it out”

The pendulum effect

Boundary setting

Center of the universe/systems of controlled

And so much more!

Check it out on Amazon!