There’s so much to be grateful for in modern medicine. We can all agree that we would not do as well in a world with no Advil or dentistry. And yet, our guest today, who is a renowned doctor, says modern medicine is overlooking something crucial: the pernicious impact that modern living has on our minds and bodies. In other words, we are surrounded by these hidden societal and structural sources of stress and we aren’t thinking about how to treat and prevent these factors that are degrading our happiness and our immune systems.
Dr. Gabor Maté is a bestselling author with an expertise on everything from stress to addiction to ADHD. His latest book is called, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
Content Warning: This episode has mentions of child abuse, sexual trauma, suicide and addiction
In this episode we talk about:
- What he means by “the myth of normal”
- How diseases, such as autoimmune conditions, are an “artifact of civilization"
- How to begin to tackle what Dr. Maté calls, “the social sources of illness”
- His definition of trauma and the difference between “big T traumatic events” and the trauma of “wounding”
- How trauma in society is so normalized that we don’t even recognize it
- Whether the term trauma is overused
- Why comparing suffering is a fruitless endeavor
- What he means by “the necessity to be disillusioned”
- The power and possibility of psychedelics
- Why he thinks we should incorporate shamanic medicine into our western medical framework
- And what he means by “undoing self-limiting beliefs” and how these beliefs show up in our everyday lives
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gabor-mate-586
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
The ten percent happier, podcast dan Harris the.
again, I am to say the least, extremely grateful for modern medicine, as a
frail man, I wouldn't,
have done well in a world with no abbeville or dentistry, and yet my guest today
Renowned doctor says modern medicine is actually overlooking something crucial. The pernicious impact
that modern living has on our minds, and our bodies, in other words, were surrounded per my guest by these hidden societal and structural sources of stress, and most of us, as well as most of our doctors, are thinking about how to treat or prevent these factors that are degrading our happiness and
our immune systems. Doktor Gabor Marty as a best selling author, with an expertise on everything from stress to addiction to adhd. His latest book is called the myth of normal trauma, illness and healing in a toxic culture, and this conversation we talked about what he means by the myth of normal, how diseases such as auto immune conditions are actually- and these are his words and artifact of civilization- how to begin to tackle what god Almighty calls the social sources of illness
his definition of trauma and the difference between big t, traumatic events and the trauma of wounding how trauma in our societies so normalized that we don't even recognize it often? I also probe him a little bit on whether the term trauma is over used. Why comparing suffering is
fruitless endeavor what he means by the necessity to be disillusioned the power and possibility of psychedelics and why he thinks we should incorporate shamanic medicine into our western medical
framework and what he means by undoing self, limiting beliefs and how these beliefs show up in your everyday life. Just heads up before we dive in here. This episode does include some mentions of child abuse, sexual trauma, suicide and addiction before we get started with today's episode of something else to say here, which is that meditation is too often sold to us as a solo death march, but I think that's the wrong way to view it, and I think I have history on my side here for several thousand years.
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calm, slash home, dash trial, doktor gabor motto. Welcome to the show most to be with you think you know. What do you mean
by the myth of normal. So, as a physician when I look at people's health, life is possible and health is thriving.
Within a range of normal parameters like a normal body temperature or not
a blood acidity you're normal, but pressure range so in that sense
What is normal is also a healthy and natural, but in society
I was considered normal. The things that we use to the things that we
You have to be the way they are
I am arguing is neither healthy or unnatural, said. I'm saying that the norm in those society is actually making a sick in many ways. That's the myth of normal also to say that
Then, when people have mental or physical health conditions, recall them, abnormal I'm saying goes on normal responses. Phenomenal association
and I know something of your personal history and I dont know what you suffer from it
add your attack, but as the dramas
covering the wars that you covered, a certain degree of ptsd would be actually and norma response to our normal circumstances,
so where's, the abnormality, an individual or in the culture? I'm saying it's in the culture: what are the aspects of our culture that you consider from the historical perspective? You know the wide perspective of our species, which runs back many millennia. What are you
considering abnormal and unhealthy. Well, it wasn't. An elephant is like
looked at an elephant in one context, you said elephant is a big animal to spend most of them sleeping, gets of everyone
I'll, do it walks around a little bit and lays down again that's if he studied elephant in a zoo, but if he studied
a fund and its natural habitat. We get a very different sense of what an elephant.
Is all about and what the true nature is. Now. Human beings have evolved from
The thousands of years we lived,
in small band hunter gatherer boobs as communal creatures,
where the children, women, the pants the whole day, whether
Kennedy act in response to the kids were the end
so not individualistic, uncompetitive but collapsed
of communal and connected the stony, will survive
We live like that until about fifteen thousand years ago, source.
she's, which has been on the earth for say two hundred thousand years. If that could be expressed in one hour until five minutes ago that so we lived in
conditions are, civilization is created with increasing inequality
sing, gender disparity, increasing isolation, but to go in modern society, loneliness the belief,
human nature is competitive, aggressive, greedy selfish, these have clear conditions
which for human beings is like study,
animals in a zoo under completely artificial kind,
it's that one meter essential needs and in the book the myths are normal? I began with prenatal life through birth to childhood through all of our cultural manifestations. I'm saying we live in a culture that makes us sick because it sets
it's against our very needs as human beings. Just a couple of questions. Is it possible that
He can I our history and what is often referred to as deep time, the other
Gatherer societies were they not problematic and patriarchal?
and violence, and they didn't have good, dentistry, etc, etc, while out through the. If you look at the people who have researched indigenous peoples
and pre colonial times or non caused areas. They tend to live much healthier life than we do.
Is that correct, idealising? You know like in this
this people here and british farmer. They had slaves now those
past hunter gatherer days, but is not a question of
delays in the past, but it is.
recognising that there lived much closer to human needs and nature than meat it and, as a result, we ve lost a lot,
as a matter of giving up on the achievements of civilization, signs technology. Those are astonishing accomplishments, but we also recognise
what we've lost in being disconnected from our own true nature, so we can't id laws of our snow. Can we aspire to go back to it? Nor should we want to, but let's get conscious about what women
sing in the way that we living our lives and interests of human relationships and interactions and family life,
when the community there were much more dead than we are, then the way the apparent at their kids. They were much
Yet? In the way we ve found argues for what it's worth and I'm not sure it's worth much. I very much agree with you on you call it our true nature. We could just also called the way we were designed by nature to believe in community to have these social connections, and it seems quite obvious that much about the structure of modern society is making a sick because its denying us these sources of happiness and flourishing and well being that we really need, and yet, as you into
There are so many good things about modern society from a semi jokingly referred to dentistry, but obviously modern medicine, many of the technologies that have improved people's lives and brought people out of poverty, etc, etc.
No, it's not a question arguing with modern achievements, but given the sun
and given the awareness given will be, no one will be capable of wires
people living in poverty website. People going to food banks ignore them.
the richest areas
the world in their history. Why is there such a document of awareness, doing a quality
whilst being of color for indigenous
in canada, a major health risk notches for covered
but also for malignancy and autoimmune diseases, and mental health conditions, is somewhat wiser. Waiters
the site amongst young people rising in north america, why did the united states last year suffer?
four hundred thousand over those des from drugs, almost twice
many american died in one year last year, from overdoses,
as died in vietnam of gun and iraqi warsaw together, and they will question is given all the
technology, information and capabilities that give garnered why we doing so?
clearly. We are more kids being medicated and diagnosed with all kinds of mental health conditions. You have answered ass a little bit, but you just ass a bunch of questions, starting with the word. Why?
Can you say a little bit more about why you think we're seeing more addiction, more suicide, more illness? What is going on? Well, when you look at elmo's
I look upon it as an individual, maybe genetic
determined misfortune. That's for me to look at it, but that doesn't explain anything and wise
misfortune increasing in the modern world, despite did
this is a modern medicine, wiser, more autonomy, more autoimmune disease. Now, why
in the night. You thirties, though
the gender issue of multiple sclerosis. There was one to one and those two enough: women
for every man,
clayton, the genetic was jeez, don't change, and a population who I am
work, has been diagnosed with ptsd all my fellow physicians basically think that it's a genetic mental health condition. I say it's not genetic at all: it has to do with social conditions. So the question is to look at
technology as a misfortune that political organ in an isolated individual or do
he knows that it's a response to the environment. Now, if we recognise that we have the answer, because emotional stress is a significant physical factor is not just any more shown event, it's a physiological event, so
modern science has shown the mind and body cannot be separated. What's one unit when things happen emotionally they happen. Physiologically emotional factors effect.
Emu system are hormonal apparatus or nervous system are god's, her heart and so on. So
a study of harvard three years ago showed that the higher the symptoms of
the authority in a woman double the risk.
Of ovarian cancer. Now those emotions can't be separated, and american studies show that the more depression
A woman, the poorer prognosis with breast cancer is
so the mind and body can be separated and has an impact.
Physician george angle, pointed out in nineteen, seventy seven we
bio, psychosocial creatures between
biology is inseparable from our social relationships. Psychological dynamics now begin look at the source
problems in how we live our lives in social, psychological context, and the more stressed we are not.
What wellness of mind and body we are going to have going on. All my kids are killing themselves when will cause a video hd cause. Conditions of parenting have become so stressed. That kids are.
Being left. The raft of the emotional needs are being met and that's why they are in despair and that's the way they're tuning out and that's why they're hyperactive and that's why they are oppositional,
that's why they have incited so these are Norma responses to have normal circumstances or in my own country, Canada, if you're indigenous woman, your risk of roma
that's right is six times greater than the average and women.
general have eighty four
and of auto immune disease. Why consider more stress segments of society for gaza reasons
and so then the question arises. Is it a case of individual pathology? Was it
represent a social malays? I'm saying that the two cannot be separated. I know objectively, privileged people have gotten very,
very sick at a young age, so it can be just a genetic thing or bad luck or whatever, but it also can be a societal thing, though I would push back against what you just said. If I may
I didn't say that only poor or people of color bit sick? I said the risks are higher proportionately
I mentioned earlier indigenous women in canada, tax systems.
Made of autoimmune disease of diseases writers than that
anybody else this in a population that, before calling
They had no rheumatoid arthritis whatsoever, but that doesn't mean that in this society, stress doesn't spare any sector any segment, any stratum, but I would say that those people that were privileged economic,
we socialists begin who got sick. They had a lot of stress in their lives, including probably childhood, trauma and stress and trauma, scientifically speaking, a document to believe significant source
of physical illness because other mind body unity- and so you don't have to
the poor, or of color or oppressed, develop illness
just at the more you are oppressed and the more you're stressed the greater the risk goes up in this society. If you look at the sources of stress, the scientific studies and stress what drives physiological stress are lost,
control, uncertainty, lack of information and conflict and those kind of stresses permeate all strata of society, so everybody's at risk. This is what I'm trying to get clear at under, because even
in the hunter gatherer societies, people got sick and the is me pushing back and you didn't me just trying to understand the illness does happen. You're just saying the odds go up. If you are stressed and the odds of stress
up if you are in a marginalized community as that close to accurate the zone,
true to that. But again, if you look at the indigent societies, they didn't
there were only in disease at all, or disease is a artifact civilization. I give an example:
south africa during apart thy days when black,
people moved into the cities from their tribal villages,
they began to develop rheumatoid arthritis at much higher rates, so
the more alienation and more disconnection anymore stress. You get certain kinds of stress
A more honest you gonna, have
but now you having autoimmune diseases in cultures, have never used to have them at all. Due to globalization,
China now under way
I do industrialization increase social isolation, the destruction of community.
all in the name of economic progress which has,
im pretty remarkable in china in the last forty years or so there was
the word: mental health conditions, adhd addictions and so on. So there were question for all of us is how can we
and then economic progress,
of course, his way unequally distributed as we both now and then
inequalities rising over the last several decades, but nevertheless
can we maintain our modern achievements and, at the same time,
or maintain our health and ass. The challenge your particular,
that well and I want to make a home run at that question, because I know you have a lot to say about it, but before we get there, let me see it.
Your open to hitting another issue which we spent a lot of time on in your new book, which is given that so many aspects of modern life appear to be making a sick. What can we do as individuals not on a structural level but as individuals to reclaim- and this is the word- you often use our wholeness yes, so the essence of trauma is actually disconnection from the self. Now.
say this? Clearly, that's not in itself a bad thing. They can extreme example, if I'm being abused as a child is unbearable. For me to be with the emotional pain and fear and terror of, what's happening to me so
Disconnect from myself is the sole level mechanism, but it
so means that I am separated from my emotions and for my got feelings which put me address for stress later on
so those early adaptations that are unnecessary like in my case, I talk about my
this is a jewish infant under the nazis tuning out from the table,
things everyone around me was. My way of surviving
later on and diagnosed with adhd, because I have a hard time thing present, because state present was so painful for me as an infant,
and that's happening when my brain is developing, so that absent mindedness that tuning that gets programmed into my brain, because it's another piece of news that unfortunately, science is established. What medical practice doesn't appreciate is that the human brain is shit,
bio emotional interruptions at the moment and saw the essence of traumas that disconnection from the south which at the time service
viable function but later on it becomes a problem, and so in all you live in new york. Where I live in, canada is
Could he called in the winter time we adapted,
by putting on warm clothing. But what would happen?
if in the heat of the summer, were still wearing that one clothing that we
dawned and when the time it would make us sick so the same adaptation that
The one context helped us now will undermine or half that's the nature of telematic adaptation uncharted is that the necessary for immediate survival, but then they create put
would you later on and saw the individual task is to reconnect with the self that trauma disconnected from us. That's it.
the shorthand way of saying something that I spent many chapters.
Book on outlining the pathways to harness. In fact, if you look at the word health itself
The source of the world health is an anglo saxon word for wholeness
the hungarian butchers, my mother tongue literally to say health is to say harness, and so yes, health does mean coming back to ourselves
I think it's worth getting specific about definitions when you say try
What do you mean and how universal is it because I've had plenty of illness in my life, not catastrophic, but I dont think by my layman understanding of trauma that I've ever experienced it, but I think there are probably a lot of people listening this who have experienced trauma for sure
you don't see themselves in that word hope annoy you. Do an enquiry about your own experience. Rayner always so. Let me first of all
do a trauma. And let me ask you a few questions. If that's ok with you, of course, ok so trauma
again? It is a word origin. Is the greek word for wounded wounding, so traumas alone promises
Ecological warned that then, is still
in the body and the nervous system in the brain and then
physiology or organs. Now, traumas, not the bad thing that happened to you Tom eyes. What happened?
side you as a result of what happened to you. So give me
example. I was given to it
all the stranger
Eleven months by my mother
See my mother for five or six weeks that saved my life
confronted on, and that is I wouldn't
survived in
for my mother had to live. However, that wasn't a trauma
the trauma wasn't there. She gave me to a stranger the trauma.
The wound that I suffered in relation to myself?
What does an urban mantle believe implicitly when their given away to a stranger by their mother that they're not loved that are not lovable, that's the trouble
so the problem is not what happened to me, which is that was given to a stranger dramas. What happened?
side me because that is our position.
not being worthy nice bed.
much of my life to prove my worthiness by becoming a workaholic doctor, for example. Now that two kinds tomorrow give events what I called big t dramas which is
They documented and much studied adders chartered experiences such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, parent dying edition of family violence in a family neglect the paintings,
These are all imposed, traumas in a child, and you can study them proportionately
more than the child experiences, the greater the risk for addiction from adult problem?
for me this is for malignancy all kinds of other issues. That's the big t, traumatic events, but there's another kind of trauma of wounded, keep in mind that problem is windy and not because table.
This happened to children, but the good things that should have happened. It didn't happen,
children are born in certain needs in the book
in line with their essential needs. Are I can hurt
by doing bad things to you, but it can also good
by denying your needs so that's trauma in society. Hardly anybody escapes that because of the way we wish children is
so estranged from the human child actually needs.
That little introduction. If I can ask you a few questions, okay, of course, I appreciate introduction just to say: okay, anybody have a hickey was a kid. I was spanked occasionally. Yes, I remember once in a great while my
on parent or the other? Would you know fold me or my brother over their knee and spank us on the tush? And
Our nanny would occasionally smack us on the term with a spatula, ok, the kids
yes, one boy alexander, is eight? Ok,
How old were you when you were, as you say, hit on the tush, and you say that rather dismissively? But how old were you then I'll cop to that? By the way? I don't recall
age, but give me the earliest rough estimate that you can muster. Maybe five or six
Would you hate you, children when they were five, no one,
Wouldn't it now and I can foresee ever hitting it
Why would you not in an I dont think teaching kids, that violence is the right answer, not avoid em at that?
pedagogical answer: why would you know red jacket he had etc. I love him so much edify. When I see him in vain of begin,
he pains are. Why would I call him pain, or maybe you could
you it would cause your child pain. If you hit him. Yes, what does it feel like, which ought to be here
if the person on whom they rely for protection and support and love. What would your son experience if he had a marriage fight? Perhaps small t trauma not but never mind smaller big t? What would they experience? Emotionally fear, okay, betrayal, physical pain
So when you spin sphere betrayal and physical pain origins speak the letter, he would talk your parents, ideally
not unless you who did you speak to me, my parents, you thought you were yes, you
im afraid right now, you said I'm in pain right now, oh while they were hitting me yeah. No. I can't remember that I don't have very clear memories of being hit honestly, but I highly doubt that I would have said something to that.
To them, and that moment had you said it. You remembered true. Ok now, if you son,
andrew felt, pain and fear, and didn't speak to you about it. How would you explain that they must not trust me enough
What's it like for failure not to trust appearance, confusing confusing
an intellectual answer. What's it like emotionally confusing scary? Ok, no good! Thank you! Then
Tell me again that you want traumatized imitate looking welfare enough yeah. I think I walk around telling myself a story that is needed,
early, untrue, I'll, shoot, first loved you and they did their best. I'm not accusing them of anything. You know I'm saying is
Children are wounded in ways. We don't even recognize.
think their normal, but when you look at the studies on site
by the way they show that gives it just as traumatized in many ways this gives her. He had more severely that's what the science shows and what I'm saying about tremendous
society is so normalized. We don't even recognize it then just that question who reduced
by the way ahead or not? Who you speak to me
bali, does it get by the way? Yes, how did that like by the way
I was bullied and I bullied a good at that already tells me you're traumatize
Why would you need to bully somebody? Could you need to feel better
and better? Yes, what did you do that?
but you didn't feel good right and then the full strong. These signs of trauma, I'm telling you, sir Thomas vacant,
in this culture and by the way who just speak too,
you avoid. Sometimes nobody. Sometimes I did tell my parents
If you son was bullied and they didn't talk to you about it. How do you explain that one shame fear
right and the first thing you were born. If you unhappy the you express it
Yes, so suddenly learnt that your parents want available for you and that's a disconnect, ok in those very painful
in the book? I give away well known example that nobody recognises dramatic.
I told you what a four year old girl?
the bullied by neighbourhood, kids and sugar
Isn't there a home to her mother for protection and the mother says: there's no room.
Your cards in this house know you get out there and deal with the bullies. How would you see that spending? How would you see it malpractice and was the impact on the child? I would imagine the child would not feel that they can trust their parent anymore
the source of comfort in adversity and there must be vulnerable. They have to suck it up this,
I was told on public television are fond of millions of people the night there.
Hillary Clinton was nominated for the democratic candidacy for the presidency. The story
stalled as a wonderful example of resilience, building panting and
but he commented that what was really
Celebrated here publicly was a traumatized nation
were foiled, and the message of god was not that there is no room for cards in this house because of foiled kid.
Looking for help from the mother's, not a coward, you tell her mother orangutan not to come to the defence over the child or mother, elephant or mother, bear
was being celebrated here. Was atomic delegation were filed the messages they
for you to be vulnerable, you better suck it up
sixty years later,
it was pneumonia during the election campaign member what she did with it. She had it. She hated shook elapsed with the isolation and fever.
Street and nobody in the united states commented
this one normal trauma in this culture? I'm not talking about politics here, I'm talking about,
or normalization of tom.
Although that has an impact on politics and not to be partners and about it. Her opponent didn't even more
from those individual. When you look at his childhood c of the american public, had the choice between the two terms, those individuals to run their country. I really appreciate this discussion about trauma because the word gets used. A lot in, I think, not very helpful non specific ways in the
you're clarifying. It is helpful because, as I started to say earlier, I have this story, which is not entirely untrue, that I've just been extraordinarily lucky. My parents were dive. No,
as for the spanking other than that it was the culturally done thing at the time, but they were incredibly loving and supportive, and I did feel really comfortable with them and I grew up in a leafy suburb of Boston.
cetera et cetera, and here I am talking to you- survive the holocaust, and so, by contrast, my story to myself is you know: do you have no business associating yourself with trauma?
Ok, look! Then. If you have five years old and she came to me- I got a hit
I bully boy, neighbourhood, kids and, I
afraid and in pain, and I can't talk to my parents about it because you say you're comfortable. No, he won't if you're comfortable, you had talked with them about it. So there was some gaps in that comfort. Now, by the way, not criticizing your parents, I passed
I don't to my kids, I'm not here to castigate anybody.
we're talking about how it works. But let's say you come to me at age, five or let's say your son comes to me at age, four
put alexander in that situation, he's being bullied and is not talking to you about it, but he's talking to me if I sit down, look out there
ok, you're, being boy, then you afraid- and you don't trust your father to tell about it, but hey starving
and you're not going to a holocaust, no big deal but that'd be fair to your son. If I said that to him, no but you're not being fair to yourself either the notice than I do, and I appreciate you pointing it out yeah, so that lack of self compassion, which is one of the big themes in my book, is a typical marker of trauma. Okay, where you would
it is. I was lucky compared to you, you don't know the rest of my children. Maybe others look here than you in some ways it doesn't do
compare suffering. We all have our individual versions of it. Coming up, DR gaba or matej talks about his list of the four a's and the five compassion of what he would add to his list as a fit
a and what he means by the necessity to be disillusioned.
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e y t e dot com and use code wondering at checkout to get your at home impression kit for just forty ninety five: that's code wondering at byte dot com for over eighty per cent off your impression kit. You have to have great foundational work in this conversation up until this point, if you're cool with that I'd like to go back to you know, if the world is making us sick, how do we thrive and you dedicate a lot of
time to this in your book. If it's ok with you, I'd like to start with one of the areas where you star, which is the for aids and the five km passions, can you unpack the forces and five compassion for sure? So
and my work as a physician, both inside practice and palliative care work and also an addiction medicine. I came to understand
The people's emotional patterns are inseparable from the physiology.
Retirement is in medical school, but then is all this incredible scientific research, showing as I do the same thing, which also means that if
gained some emotional intelligence imbalance that can positively affect your physiology. Israel saw some of them
and suppose of emotional. You that's what I call the for aids and by the way, if
would write a book over again output in the fifth one, the for asia
asian seen others we take charge of ourselves. We no longer, I just said,
to the experts or to our own unconscious emotional dynamics. We take charge so when people get sick, don't just assume that you ve had this misfortune and is genetic bad luck, but that yeah there were things about your life that you can change, that you can gain agency over. That's gonna, promote your health,
the agency then there's acceptance, which is simply recognising our things are not taller
I how things are, but accepting that this
it is now there was a study or of massachusetts there
that two thousand women over a ten year period,
those women their own, happily married and didn't.
Talk about their feelings were four times as much
die as those women who unhappy married, who did express their emotions. So those women who talked about the feelings they accepted reality. They didn't say like it, but the accepted at this is how it is and they want to talk about it. So that's acceptance now authentic
The city is an essential theme in my book because, as I pointed out earlier in our conversation that disconnected from ourselves, our authentic selves is the essence of trauma so reconnecting. How many times sure people are afraid to say no to other people, because they're afraid of offending somebody, they want to say,
to some task or some expectation, some demand of the world, but there too concerned with fitting in today
don't say now than are being authentic. That's gonna cost you mean you don't say no.
That's gonna cost your body in your mind, do you know
a heavy price for urban development.
But you didn't say:
I built on auto, say no, the bodies will do it for them
from the illness so altered, the city connection with ourselves and then held the anger. If I were to get rude with your right now or if I turn the conversation into token kind of an aggressive
salt on your psyche, one of you healthy response would be anger. No, you don't do that healthy anger is abundantly defence
we have a circuit in our brain for anger. Nature. Give that to us for good reason is to maintain our boundaries, but in some families my parents listened to the advice of certain stupid psychologists, who tell parents that angry kids should be punished and should be given a time out. The child gets the message that, if I'm angry, I'm not accepted to my parents, but if I'm not settled my parents, I can't live so in order to be acceptable. I have to suppress my anger, not given the scientifically proven and documented and over documented unit
of emotions and the immune system. When you suppress your anger, you are also suppressing your immune system, and that makes you more prone for autoimmune disease, where the immune system turns against you by the way. That's why
and get eighty percent of autoimmune diseases cause whose in society thought more than other people to suppress it
of the anger at the fit in to be nice, to be accommodating and to be peacemakers and to observe the stresses of other people, so healthy anger is therefore.
I am not criticising when, by the way I'm saying that's a cultural artifact and the way
american black writer, James Baldwin's, that had to be black in the states, is to live in a place of suppressed anger. Why do you?
Black men have a much higher rate of high blood pressure.
Other the genetics, their african relatives don't have high blood pressure, is gonna suppressed, angry, very often the suppressed tension, hyper tension sword
there's a huge role in health and talking about healthy anger and nothing but rage, I'm not talking about losing it. That's also unhealthy and don't want healthy boundaries. Setting anger
because anger is abundant. Defense was the immune system. Is a boundary defence
and the two are one system and other faith data.
I would put in there is probably something that you become tool with giving your own writings in your own experience is awareness which is necessary for all the others.
So as a lack of awareness on my part at the left out at that left out awareness from this book, but I'd put it
in, but by the way, let me just something that
I have the cd the jumps all over the place, so doesn't it
initiation that came up for me, I saw that one,
people that endorse your book online is mark. Epstein am I have seen as a buddhist teacher whose work I followed for decades and
in his book the trauma of everyday life, he says that the trial,
of everyday life can leave all of us feeling that motherless children and he was actually maistly talking about the ubiquity of tremendous culture, just as I talk about it but
Certainly somebody that advocates awareness and and mindfulness was one
the healing modalities, massive figure.
My own life, markups team and a great friend you so you ve, got forays now five days and also five compassion. What are the five compassion so
A great spiritual teacher age almost said once that only in the presence of compassion and people of himself to see the truth and check how about that.
Of the great away to play right, he also to end as a medical doctor, and he also said that compassion is dealing agent, no wise, that the case what I'm talking about is painful stuff, traumas, painful stuff, I mean I've said some stuff to you that if you think about it might bring us some painting you indeed now only in the presence of compassion will people love and sought to see the truth. Now what
compassion, so distinguished five levels of compassion and my own therapy to work with myself and others. First of all,
michael ordinary human compassion, which, by ordinary out on monday nor or useless figures, mean our capacity to recognise the suffering of other people.
And to feel bad on other people suffer. You know. If I see homeless person, I should feel bad and then most people do so as the level of
in and compassion compassion in suffering, commies with so compassion, is being able to be with the suffering of other people in an imperfect way. That's the first level
compassion. I worked in vancouver dont on his side with north america was concentrated area of drug use, the people
vancouver if you've you ve been don't on his side. You don't see anything that anywhere north america into the other drug market, the people using the desperation,
the poverty, the illness and so on, and it's not enough to feel bad for them. The second level of compassion is what I call the compassion of understanding. You also have to understand why they are that way
If you look at addiction in general and specifically of the people and that any side they all suffered, significant farmer
twelve year period. When I worked there with hundreds of female page
Not one had not been sexually abused as a child, so it's not for me to feel bad at them
suffering. I should ask why this suffering, or they were traumatized, that drug use is just a desperate attempt to suit the pain. That's what it is, and so does the conversion of understanding the third
The role of compassion is what I call the compassionate recognition, because I also live in a lie
The lovely area vancouver in a beautiful house and I've been privilege the middle class position with ruin
action rewards and social was fat, but you know what the hunger to kill the emotional pain inside myself. The need to feel myself on the outside of activities in shopping,
so on the dishonesty and ashamed that experienced? I was the same as my patience
and when I told them about my addictive patterns, which were not to do with drugs, but
Do it behaviors tat what they said.
Should they had, and I loved dog you just like the rest of his nature and that sort of
the compassion of recognition. When I see myself that I'm not
different? As a human being, I might be more privileged in
different ways and I'm not comparing myself to the suffering of those people but
in many ways. I wasn't different from them, I just as capable of manipulation and dishonesty ignoring my family to pursue my dear
drives, which we voted in my own from that's what I call the compassion of recognition.
the fourth level is compassion of truth, which means that see. If I didn't want to closure discomfort, if matters was purely this
Have you discovered? I will never vast you by your children, but I'm more interested in the truth and I'm going to steady. I can help you.
Recognize the truth in your life and more than that,
the madonna cause you pain. It wasn't
intention to cause you pain. My intention was that
should recognize the truth about your life. You gotta be committed to the tools to help people, but he had to do so compassionately because without compassion, people are not willing to fix it.
The fifth level of compassion and this little journey through the compassion spectrum is what I've got. The conversion of possibility,
I recognise in you I reckon
As in me, I recognize
my dont on I patients their essential humanity there, goodness and the capacity to heal.
I recognise that, even when they don't
so that a mirror that back to them, that's what I call the compassionate possibility look of ashraf transformation when you don't look at people too,
prism of their behaviour or they look to you within their scruffy, whether they look hostile, whether they looked troubled
infused, ugly or beautiful. Whatever those terms mean you look at them to their essential humanity, see the possibility of goodness and transformation, and that's what I call the compassionate possibility. There are so many big and compelling ideas contained within the four slash. Five aes and the five flavors of compassion is the question that comes up my mind.
after having you walk us through these ideas is how do we operational them in our lives?
well, it begins with the self inquiry it begins with. The self compassion
recognizing we're we're not being a passionate to ourselves
is by learning the truth about ourselves. It also begins
social level bite in the last chapter. What I call the necessity to beat this illusion and people
and say I got this illusion and I say to them
would you be illusion disillusioned, you know, would you
I believe, that force your reality and waited
called enlightenment now or do you look at
the hut things really are, so I think the necessity be
this illusion about our own eyes and about society and joan is the first say step. We have to look to in the face and said this is how it is.
and accept that this is how it is now. What are we going to do about it? What am I going to do about it in my own personal life? As long as my
always running my life, I'm like a puppet on a string, unlike pinocchio, and you know what pinocchio
says at the end, when it becomes a little boy. He says how foolish I was when I was a puppet. Well,
this liberating myself from the strings of my traumatic imprints has been,
and continues to be a life long journey for me, but its essential and on the social level is the same thing in the world
tell ourselves that we're living in the best possible society in history, the world or do we look at all the thing
there are not working
and why they're not working, and what can we do as a community?
is a commonality ass, a species as a society to labour ourselves from these dramas there
so on. The present there are every day is mark Epstein points out, so you book
and so on recognised. What are we gonna do asked a question:
I believe the reader with
The reader engages with that question with a sense of possibility. Then I'll have done my job. You say
I ve been wrestling with becoming a real boy for from
for many many years for your life
What are the modalities that youth employed to do that therapy and know you worked with psychedelic? What are the house of this work here?
Also, for me, say I do outline a lot of lead in the book itself. But to give you
cancer and by the way it is a lifeline process,
Does share with people my epitaph, you know it's gonna say my grave stolen is gonna, be incurred.
And it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. So excited for this task of becoming a real boy is, is really a lifelong one. If my experience is any measure of that and I'm far from finished with it, but I would say,
the how to involve emotional work, so that
you mean therapy or rigorous self examination, it involves relational work, the big,
lesson and school for me has been my major relationship and I made
is it three years now and at some point I did
want to make.
The one on the right or donald remarried, though
to be a victim or the wanna, be a partner and when I say victim perceived victim,
I see my problems and my triggers is being the other person's fault.
Do I wanna go up and take responsibility and, for
then, the merger, that seeking for truth in ourselves and in the other, has been an ethic that we shared, not
consistency and not always successfully, but its spinner, civic
theme in our lives and continues to be so individually internally, emotional work relational work, especial work in one of my book
I said that I have a profound relation with meditation. I think about it every day,
more you. I think it was more than they do it. They know they know. Maybe the brain. I can literally sit there,
chant a man in my head for twenty minutes and be thinkin about everything else for that altering the minutes. But you know what its future work ethic is really important.
and as much as I laugh at my own. Lack of discipline is an important thing in my life as well,
colleague, inventor and friend of mine, then siegel psychiatrists, just wrote a book called interconnected, not even interconnected interconnect,
and in our cells are themselves connected with everything in the world and then talks about this concept of a movie
me anyway,
together in one world so that
feeling really has to be a recognition over.
So she that we are by your psycho social creatures and I've been
enough to have some input from india.
this healers, both in south america,
so here in canada and the big theme is interconnected.
And then the indigenous sense health, less son for quadrants. Once they
mental, which means that intellectual, emotional, the social, the physical and the spiritual and we have to fight health then connect all those for quadrants. So that's in a small not show. My idea of health is both individual interpersonal, intro, personal and social and spiritual coming up. Doktor might I talked about the power and potential of psychedelic
the importance of incorporating shambolic medicine into our western medical framework, what he means by undoing self, limiting beliefs and how to begin to tackle what he calls the social sources of illness.
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on amazon music apple pie cast off
Ever you listen and by the way you can listen early and ad free. If you join wondering plus on the wondering app, I believe you ve said, and please correct me if I'm wrong- that your work with psychedelic has helped make you kind of lighter overtime,
that's true! What's the mechanism so sigmund freud once said that dreams are the royal wrote to the unconscious ghost doing the doomsday the conscious mind goes to sleep and the child to be more short circuits, wake up and they tell you
you kidding, I knew unconscious. I would say that the second are
the railroad the unconscious, because, again, what we have to practices. This has been the rights
with the right kind of leadership. Does not you take some substance off. You go
I don't recommended as a threat,
edition and the healer. I wrote two seconds like so, but over a dozen years now and I've seen what they can do for physical illness, for addictions, for mental health conditions, very powerful healing possibilities. Why? Because the second legs in there
contacts with the right guidance. They remove the membrane between the conscious and unconscious to get to see all the stuff tat you carrying
obviously that without your renders, when your life,
The fear that hatred, the panic, the anger that you ve, suppressed or separated from cyclists also make it possible freedom.
Are you to essential, connected loving nature but subverts
sense of an individual, aggressive, competitive individualist, so they can show you the difficult stuff tat you carrying their
also show the beauty that we all share the oneness. Now she medicine.
shamans are trained in ways that western physicians can't even dream about. This is not to say that their better
if I broke my leg,
For neither the valve replacement in my heart
I wouldn't go to a sham and I don't want to go to a western medical trip. You know, but
huge areas of health that western medicine doesn't know what to do with which comes to court.
mental health and chronic physical health issues. The best we can do is to mitigate the symptoms. The
the censure medicines have a lot to offer their. Not the panacea
and it's not one or the other, it's a question of,
amazing value where we see it so one shot
As in the jungle workers me, they saw things about
me in one night of chanting without asking me a single question and they saw right
so my soul, and what I needed in ways that ten million waste entry
Physicians couldn't have done over ten years so
I want idealized secular election, I'm not evangelist for them, but I've seen their possibilities,
and their immense. So I'm with those many others were
advocating for the rational use, their research and, as we come to understand him there,
we into a healing women, carry him what comes to healing
there's another process. They you recommend in the book and has to do with. I believe your term is undoing self limiting beliefs. What's that about well. So my mother gives me to a stranger
in the streets of budapest. I conclude from that that I'm not lovable and are not wanted. What else could I conclude saddam?
thirty. Five years later, I'm a medical doctor
I'm a regatta could, if I believe, are more important than that. Lovable one way to make itself
lovable, unimportant disorder, medical school,
They're gonna want you all the time when their sequence
being born with a dying? Then I want you all. The time you get to yourself
level boy, your important you're, but the very fact that
not lovable just cause, I'm a human being, and there are more important just as they exist,
the limiting belief, because the fact is
All of because we're human beings were all just
We were born where I shall have to prove to anybody that I'm important, if I should
a stroke tonight and I couldn't work anymore. I could speak anymore. Does my
what is of a human being diminished by one iota? No, it doesn't
that fact that are more important than the limiting belief imposed by trauma and you
implies ongoing. Those limiting believes that I have to
justify my existence that have to be pretty. They have to be attractive that have to be acceptable to us.
These are limiting beliefs and they limit our capacity to be true.
we ourselves and truly be fully alive in this world.
So that's what I mean by ongoing limiting beliefs. Is there a first step by which we can
find out what our limiting beliefs are in and work on, mother, many first
what I can recommend arrays you one
his little word know that I talked about before wearing your life. Do you have difficulty saying no by no, I mean where does a know that the wants to be said, but you don't say it, and that shows up
four major areas
relationships or work? So, let's see, I can't
new york wherever you happen to live, and I phone you up and say dan, do you wanna come for a cup of coffee? You don't feel like it because you're tired,
you have other things on your mind, like you afraid to disappoint me
So you don't say they know that wants to be said. So for coffee with me.
Now what's going to be the impact of that on you. What do you think maybe add to my burnout, because I'm not taking care of myself exactly okay. So that's what I'm asking where in your life, do you have difficulty saying no sit down for five minute?
take a piece of paper, and I doubt that this exercise is in the book, but we're in your life difficult. The signal is either work or personal relationships. The second question is what the impact well
out in the many cases, illness or depression or anxiety or sleeplessness does the impact? The third question is: what is the belief behind you difficulty sing
I hope so if I come to your town or where you happen to live, and we have a cup of coffee- and you say yes, when you feel like saying no was the belief that has you saying yes, when you want to say know what to believe
we believe, if I say no, then I'm going let them down,
they're not gonna, wanna, stay friends with me exactly
so the women believe, sir, it's my responsibility not to disappoint somebody else. Yes and how are they
It is my responsibility
number one? I'm only accept
for as long as I'm compliant. I can't be myself in this relationship because if I myself don't like me, it's that simple people start with that question. Now this other questions I follow and is a chapter, listen a book, but just that
of where do have difficulty say now? What is the impact? What is the belief? I'm told that ashamed to life with a lot of people
I believe that I mean even in dismay, cursory, beginning investigation in the interstices of your sentences here that I can see that that's a rich field for exploration for myself were in the home stretch here. So I do want to make sure I get back to a question and you dedicate a lot of time to this in the book said. This is a big question, but if you can give us a sense of what can we do
structurally to keep the beautiful and mind boggling, conveniences and technologies of modern life, while making sure we create a society where people aren't continuing to get sick, psychologically physiologically and both yeah. Well, we have to tackle the social sources of illness, which document of Lee is inequality.
Is racism is a belief in human nature. Competitive aggressive, selfish, greedy and in
did you listed? None of that is true. We have to incorporate trauma,
asian all the discussion that we had today on the mind body, unity and trauma and the impact.
From one human health, the average a medical student. Doesn't it
a single letter about any of this in all their education incredible. This is in the face of all the science. We have to incorporate trauma education into education,
all these kids, who have travelled behaviors with a and opposition at the end, the bullying and being bullied learning problems. Beaver problems
are all acting out markers of trauma, burbage teacher
seize them only as behaviour problems to be corrected and controlled and suppressed may have two into the strategy.
asian into the education of our era, bugs in canada. Fifty
the sounds of the women in jail or indigenous indigenous women, make up six percent of our female population. Thirty percent of the people in our jails were indigenous. They make of five percent of our population. Why could then almost traumatized
went over population by communism by ongoing racism by the residential schools and all their horse by the abduction
the children from their homes by the state and the church.
went on for over one hundred years in canada and there were similar dynamics in the states, of course, in the states yourself
history and the legacy of slavery and so on. Then you
the average lawyer? Never here is a single lectures from, can you believe it, but they dont, and if you do the research when it was in jail Tom S, people for the most part be punished people for being traumatized. So
it's good to conscious. That's. It achievable, doable all the same
is there all the evidence is there we have to turn our attention to. That has been a fascinating, fascinating discussion. I usually conclude with two questions. One is: is there something I should have asked
but didn't you know, the conversation has been so wide, ranging and so deep and thanks to your willingness and courage so personal that really, I can think of a single thing that we haven't talked about at this point, and I appreciate that if you'll bear with me many of my guests don't like doing this, but I'm going to try to push you a little bit to plug your book, any previous books, anything else you're putting out into the universe for listeners who want to learn more from you how
They do so well. Thank you to the book is called the myth of normal try, my illness and hearing in the toxic culture. The book is being
listen, almost thirty languages internationally, it's been a week, nor does best seller. I have for the books,
first, almost any adhd when I was diagnosed with a discourse, scattered mines and look at the oars and healing of attention deficit disorder.
We argue that it's not disinherited disease, but our response to the environment
and it can be healed away? My book on the body,
says now the real issue in stress, an illness, emotional stress than physical hours,
my book on addiction is called in. The realm of hungary goes close encounters with addiction in which are point that it
she is not an inherited disease or disease at all and certainly not a choice but its response to it.
and hold onto your kids. Why parents need to matter more than fears, which are really beg you to read them cause it's serving important printing book, and I say that without arrogance in this case,
I'm not the main waiter of it. The rainwater loser
and in calling and mentor called Gordon you felt in gardens were showing that kids get to connect. It took peers in this culture.
as a result, pants lose their influence, and that is toxic for
healthy development. If you go on youtube,
possible to avoid measures put my name in there that doesn't saw my lectures have been uploaded to you to my website.
together on that day, my instant
handle whatever instagram is never going to be. My daughter handles that for me, but it's gabbling,
Do I have a twitter handle? Apparently again I don't deal in twitter, but you can finally there's one and is it
I commend my work called the wisdom of trauma. Would you can't access online
there was some of trauma, dot com, I'm easy to find, and then I hope you look for me document. I am grateful to you for your time. Thank you and for you think you re like thank you again to doktor Gabor, my tenth. Thank you too. You for listening. If you feel so inclined, it would be awesome if you leave us a rating and a review five stars of europe for it. And finally, thank you too,
Many who worked so incredibly hard on this showed ten percent have yours produced by dj cashmere, Gabrielle, sappermint justine,
Davy, Lauren, smith and terror. Anderson are supervising
Cancer is marisa, schneider been and can be regular. Is our managing producer scoring and mixing by Peter bonaventure of ultraviolet audio. Now,
thorburn of the great in Iraq band islands wrote our feet.
You all on friday. For about a prime members. You can listen to
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Only hall they came in homes, always private book, on the verbal app on a cold night in twenty ten, a boy I stopped by the police while walking home from a party in the bronx he's only sixteen he's been stopped by the police before, but this time is different in a special for part series: the generation why podcast unravels the story of khalifa brow
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Transcript generated on 2023-04-20.