Dr. Ray Catania says he wouldn't have written his books or helped others without experiencing trauma. The interviewer describes a severe car accident at 28 that completely redirected his life, suggesting trauma can reshape your path and purpose.
It's not what happens to you in life. It's often the story you tell yourself, right?
Correct. Yes. If I didn't have the traumas, I wouldn't be here today.
Sure.
If I didn't have that, I wouldn't have learned what I learned.
Yeah.
And I would have no business writing books and helping anybody if I didn't have those things. So it was important.
Some would call that a positive attitude, but I think there's a little more to it, right?
We need traumas in order to evolve. We can't go without them.
No one's getting out of this unscathed. Is what I like to say. I was in an auto accident when I was 28. People would be like, did you sue the guy? Because I had hit head-on. It sounds very dramatic, and in many ways it was. I was in a school zone. He was passed out at the wheel. And I'm like, what would that change? That would change absolutely nothing about the outcome, which is my life was forever changed, and it also set other things in motion.