In Utero (2015)

- Most Of Us Don't Know Why We're Doing What We're Doing Most Of The Time.
Especially When It Comes To The Really Important Decisions In Our Lives. This Is
Largely A Society In Denial.

- Human Beings Are Affected By The Environment, As Soon As They Have An

Environment. And That Means As Soon As We're Implanted In The Womb.

- Low Birth Weight Is Linked To An Increased Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality. The

Main Driver Is The Nutritional Environment In Utero.

- If The Mother Is Living Well, The Baby Feels He Is Living In A Good World. If The
Mother Is Stressed, The Baby Feels He Is Living In A Stressful World. Stress Decreases
The Immune Response. The Child Is Born With A Damaged Immune System For The
Rest Of His Life.

- The Fetus Is A Sentient Being. Think Of It As Moving, Quivering, Without A Skin. It

Marinates In The Feelings Of The Mother. It Feels Every Shudder. It Feels The Mother's
Gladness And Happiness And It Feels Every Anxiety. Something That Happens In The
Womb Would Be At The Deepest Level.

- If There's A Lot Of Stress In The Early Environment, Then The Infant's Capacity To
Respond To Stress Will Be Altered. The Tuning Out Itself, Which Is The Hallmark Of
ADD, Is Nothing But A Defense Mechanism.

- Emotions Aren't Just Abstract Psychological Experiences. They Have Their

Physiological Correlates In The Body.

- Emotional Deprivation In Early Childhood Fosters The Development Of Violence And

Aggression.

- A Child's Brain Chemistry Is Affected By The Unavailability Of The Mother, Even If The
Mother Is Physically There, But Emotionally Absent.

- Infants Don't Understand Words, So They Respond To Body Language.

- Depressed Mothers Are Not In Synchrony With Their Child. The Baby Is Getting The
Message That There's Something Wrong With It. It's Prefrontal Cortex Is Not Going To
Be Tuned Properly. So, That Baby Is Going To Develop A Depressive Personality.

- In Every Second Of Prenatal Life, 50,000 New Neurons Are Being Produced. And
When You Have All Those Neurons Beings Produced, They Are Very Vulnerable. The
Smallest, Smallest Influence Will Make A Huge Imprint On Those Neurons And The
 Neural Circuits. If There Is Chronic Stress, The Woman Is Constanly Obsessing About
Something Or Worrying About Something, More And More Stress Hormones, Like
Cortisone, Is Being Pushed Into The Bloodstream. When You Have Too Much Cortisone
In The Brain Itself, Then The Nerve Cells Will Be Interfered With In Their Passage And
They May Even Be Destroyed.

- Infants Exposed To Stress In Utero Have Reduced Brain Volume And Reduced Gray
Matter Density. There Are Also Reductions In Hippocampal Volume And Increase In
Amygdala Volume. The Hippocampus Is Critically Important For Learning And Memory.
The Amygdala Is Very Important For Emotional Processing And Responding To
Emotional Information. Disruption In These Areas Is Also Associated With A Higher Risk
For Emotional Psychopathology Or Neuropsychiatric Illness.

- If The Mother Is Upset, If She Has A Very High Level Of Neurohormones, If She Has
Very High Levels Of Stress Hormones, All Of Those Things Will Be Passed To The
Baby. The Fetus Feels All Of That, Without Any Way Of Communicating. It Just Absorbs
And Holds It, And That's What It's Getting For Nine Months.

- The Child Automatically Adjusts To The Environment In Any Way That'll Further The
Chances Of Its Own Survival.

- The Baby Has To Become The Mother, Doesn't Get To Be A Baby. And If The Baby
Can't Be The Baby, It Can't Develop Its Full Potential. Now You Have A Baby That Has
Limitations But Is Going To Protect Those Limitations Because Those Were Set Up So
Early, And They Were Set Up To Save The Baby's Life. Anything That Challenged These
Basic Limitations That Were Set Down, A Grown Person Will Fight Against.

- The Child Feels Responsible For Their World. They Think, "Well, If This Thing
Happened To Me, It's Because I'm A Terrible Person. And Therefore, How Do I Make
Sure It Never Happens Again? I'll Become The Perfect Person. I'll Be Good All The
Time. I'll Be Good To Everybody. I'm Going To Be The Best In The Class. And I'll Always
Excel. I'm Going To Be Great At My Job. And When Stuff Goes Wrong With My
Marriage, I'm Not Going To Say A Word, Because I'm Good And I Can Handle It All."

- An Adult Trauma Is Really A Fetal Trauma. The Fetas Feels All The Pain, And All The
Consequences,All The Distortions Of Personality Create An Entity Called 'The Internal
Saboteur'. It's The Job Of That Internal Saboteur To See To It That You Never Ever
Experience That Pain Again.

- People Talk About This All The Time. They Say, "I Self-Sabotage." What People Don't
Realize Is The Depth Of It. What People Are Really Doing Is Sayng, "Mom, You Gave
Me This Constellation Of Trouble, I Took It Into My Personality. It Had Set Down The
Limits For What I Was Going To Be Able To Do, But It Kept Me Alive. I Will Hold Onto
 This With Every Bit Of Strength I Have."

- So Long As We're Not Conscious, We're Going To Pass Our Stress And Our Trauma
To Our Kids.

- Each Person Doesn't Realize That They're Plugged Into Their Own Imprint. You Think
Your Are Living Your Life, But Really You're Not. You've Split Off Your Personality.
You've Taken On An Enormous Portion Of Your Mother's. So, It's Not Really You.

- A Lot Of People Consciously Want Freedom. They Talk About It All The Time. But If We
Start To See The Reasons That People May Talk About It, But Might Not Even Fight For
It, Demand It, Or Even Notice When It's Chipped Away At. Because There Is An Idea
Already Embedded That Says, "Take Care Of Me...Take Care Of Me. See, If You're
Free, You Won't Take Care Of Me. I Need You To Take Care Of Me Because I Can't
Handle Doing All of This."

- Civilization Is A Very Thin Veneer That Everybody Wears. You Wipe That Off,
Everybody's Functioning Like A Baby.

- Life In The Pod Was Nothing, You Thought This Would All Kill You At The Start. But
Getting Rid Of It, Unplugging From It, Will Actually Give You A Life. This May Be Your
First Chance To Know Your Whole Self. But You're Talking To A Baby Who's Saying,
"No, I'll Die." An Adult Might Say, "Yeah, I Get It Doctor. I'm Rooting For You." But A
Baby Says, "Don't You Dare. I'll Fight You." Every Time A Person Wants To Change
Something, The baby That's Afraid Steps In, And It Says, "I Can't Change This. This
Saved Me. This Preserved My Life. You Want Me To Change This? You Mut Be Crazy."
And It's Not So Polite. The Experience Is So Dreadful That Any Clue, Any Hint Of An
Analyst Approaching That Domain Will Send A Number Of Patients Scurrying. Fear Of
Re-Experiencing That Terrible Trauma.

- The Necessity To Wake Up Is Universal. But What Induces Sleep Is Our Vulnerability
As Fetuses To Handle The Suffering. So That We Don't Fault Ourselves For Having
Been Asleep, But We Do. We Accept That.