Generational trauma. Parenting with ACEs. Passing along resilience with trauma. Learning to believe in yourself, in spite of your adverse childhood experiences.

All of these struck me as I listened to Lulu Garcia-Navarro's interview with 31-year-old Vijay Gupta, a violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and recipient of the 2018 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, aka Genius Grant. 

I've copied and pasted excerpts from this interview below:

Generational Trauma; Parenting with ACEs

GUPTA: ...I grew up in a household that happened to be sort of surrounded with various kinds of trauma and abuse.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Explain.

GUPTA: My parents grappled with various forms of severe trauma. And I think this generational trauma going back to partition in West Bengal, India, but...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: When India and Pakistan were separated.

GUPTA: ...Were separated. And, you know, my parents never talked about this. But that was an incredibly traumatic time for my grandparents and great grandparents where they lost ancestral home. And somehow that pressure and that trauma falls upon the firstborn son, as I am, in the new country to fix and correct all of the wounds of my family. And that manifested as physical and verbal and psychological abuse upon me and my brother very often. Music and the violin was literally a refuge for me. 

Learning to believe in yourself, in spite of your adverse childhood experiences.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As I mentioned you were just awarded the MacArthur Fellowship. Congratulations.

GUPTA: Thank you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What was your reaction when you got the call? And what do you want to do with with this accolade?

GUPTA: Well, I think I spent the first minute cursing at the committee because...

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As you do.

GUPTA: I was like, what are you talking about? I'm still reeling. I'm still trying to figure out what's happening. But it is such an investment of trust. What I feel, especially with the nomination process being secret and having happened for quite a few years, that there must have been so many people who believed in me and supported me. And it brings tears to my eyes because they must have believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. And so the really hard work now begins of actually believing in myself (laughter) and being radically honest about ways in which I have always wanted to grow and evolve but didn't have the space to do so. I get to choose for the first time how I want to be in the world.

To read the full interview, click on "MacArthur Fellow Vijay Gupta On Making Music Accessible For All."