Traumatic Christmas Eve
Andy recounts a tragic Christmas Eve incident from his teens, revealing the impact it had on his life and the different ways people cope with trauma. The emotional aftermath and the struggle to outrun the mental weight of such an event are deeply explored.In this clip
From this podcast

How I Built This
Headspace: Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson
Related Questions
Is it fair to say that the brain can build on traumatic memories, preventing a person from taking actions that could allow them to heal themselves, as discussed in the episodes "Something Scary Happened The Other Day and I Wanted To Talk To You About It" and "478: Are you metabolizing your trauma?" with Will Cole, D.C.? For example, I produced a huge activation, which was the largest success of my career, that occurred on my mother's birthday. Two weeks later, she died in her sleep. Now, when I attempt to work on large, challenging projects like this one, I can start the process creatively but have great trouble following through on distributing it to people who could help me execute it. Is that a fair analysis of how my mind is perceiving my actions as leading to a similar tragic outcome?
Is it fair to say that the brain can build on traumatic memories, preventing a person from taking actions that could allow them to heal themselves, as discussed in the episodes "Something Scary Happened The Other Day and I Wanted To Talk To You About It" and "478: Are you metabolizing your trauma?" with Will Cole, D.C.? For example, I produced a huge activation, which was the largest success of my career, that opened on my mother's birthday. Two weeks later, she died in her sleep. Now, when I attempt to work on large, challenging projects like this one, I can start the process creatively but have great trouble following through on distributing it to people who could help me execute it. Is that a fair analysis of how my mind is perceiving my actions as leading to a similar tragic outcome?