The ROOT CAUSE Of Trauma & Why You FEEL LOST In Life | Dr. Gabor Maté & Jay Shetty

1. 0:00 – 3:12

   Intro

   1. GMDr. Gabor Maté0:00

      A, a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable. So vulnerability is absolutely essential for growth, and for vulnerability, you gotta let go of those defenses such as-

   2. JSJay Shetty0:13

      The bestselling author and host-

   3. GMDr. Gabor Maté0:14

      The number one health and wellness podcast [laughs]

   4. JSJay Shetty0:16

      On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, I know that if you're listening right now, you're here because you want to improve your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. I know that you're trying to heal from trauma, from stress, from pressure. You're trying to heal challenges you experienced early in childhood, or ones that you're going through today. And it's my job, and it's my duty, and it's my honor and joy to introduce you to incredible people that I believe have answers, have insights, have helpful approaches to navigating the challenges we all experience. And today's guest is someone I have been so excited to speak to for a long time on On Purpose. I hope this is not just his only time on the show. I hope this starts to become a regular guest on the show. I'm talking about none other than Dr. Gabor Maté, who's a celebrated speaker and bestselling author. He's highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics such as addiction, stress, and childhood development. Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, and Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Def- Deficit Disorder. Now, today, we're talking about his new book called The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, and we have the link to this in the notes. I want you to go and order this book right now. It is gonna blow your mind. The insights of this individual about what we're going through as a culture and a society are going to be really powerful. So the book is called The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Please welcome to the show Dr. Gabor Maté. Thank you so much for being here.

   5. GMDr. Gabor Maté2:19

      Well, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

   6. JSJay Shetty2:21

      I love sitting down with people who are deeply immersed and obsessed with ideas and observing human behavior. I admire obsession deeply and admiration deeply, and I admire the ability to sit with something for a long enough time. But I wanna start off broad, and I wanna move in deeper, and I think this is a question that me and my friends often talk about. I think we hear the word trauma more often these days.

   7. GMDr. Gabor Maté2:53

      Yes.

   8. JSJay Shetty2:54

      It's thrown around sometimes. Sometimes it's r- used effectively. Sometimes it's used in conversation around things that some people would perceive as small and insignificant. Sometimes it's used to describe life-defining things.

2. 3:12 – 6:32

   How do you define trauma?

   1. JSJay Shetty3:12

      In your words, how would you describe trauma, and why is it so misunderstood even though it's so widespread?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté3:20

      It's a deep question because, on the one hand, uh, trauma is sometimes used somewhat loosely and promiscuously, uh, uh, to refer to things that are not traumatic. So people will have a difficult experience and say, "I was traumatized." No, they weren't. They just had a difficult experience. And as one of my colleagues points out, all trauma is stressful, but not every stress is traumatic. So sometimes people use the word to refer to difficult experiences, which is not the same as being traumatized. And on the other hand, where it really matters, which is in the area of health that you and I are both concerned in, whether it's physical or mental health, trauma is not understood nearly enough or used nearly enough, so that, to my mind, a lot of conditions of mind and body are actually very much trauma related without the healing profession, particularly the medical profession, actually recognizing it. So trauma, then, is ... It comes from the Greek word for wounding. Trauma is a wound. It's a psychic wound that leaves a scar. It leaves a, an imprint i- in your nervous system, in your body, in your psyche, and then shows up in multiple ways that are not helpful to you later on. So in its v- in its basic sense, trauma is a psychic wound, and if you look at the nature of a wound, um, on the one hand, if it's raw and open, it really hurts. So when somebody touches that wound that you sustained a long time ago but that hasn't healed yet, you will react like you're just being tormented all over again. This happens in relationships all the time. On the other hand, uh, wounds scar over, and the scar tissue has certain features. It's very hard. It's rigid. So it's not flexible, so people tend to be rigid when they're traumatized. It also doesn't grow, so trauma very often stops emotional growth and development. So on the one hand, it's very raw and painful. On the other hand, it's ... even lacks sensation because scar tissue doesn't have nerve endings in it. So trauma, then, just to finish, is not what happened to you. So trauma is not the difficult incidents. Like trauma is not the war. It's not the, in my case, the Second World War when I was born or what happened to me. Trauma is not the abuse that people experienced. Trauma is not the pain that they felt. Trauma is the wound that they sustained as a result. So the trauma wasn't, for example, the sexual abuse. Trauma was the wound that the person sustained as a result of having been abused. That's the good news, Jay, because if trauma is the wound that we sustained, it can be healed at any time. If trauma is what happened to me 75 years ago or 78 years ago, it happened. It never not will have happened. You know, the, the partition of India wounded a lot of people, but it never would ... It, it'll never not have happened. But if the wound is what happened to people inside as a result, that can be healed.

   3. JSJay Shetty6:14

      Hmm. That's probably the best differentiator that I've heard.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté6:19

      Hmm.

   5. JSJay Shetty6:20

      And you're right, it is good news because it means we can heal it.

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté6:24

      Exactly.

   7. JSJay Shetty6:25

      What do you think are the biggest ... Going the opposite way, we're talking about a wound, and I wanna come back to that, but going the opposite way,

3. 6:32 – 8:45

   How is healing defined?

   1. JSJay Shetty6:32

      how would you then define healing? Because that's another word, like trauma, that is also just everywhere now, right? Self-healing, healing from this, healing from that. I think healing is such a interesting concept in and of itself, which again is rarely defined or made clear to us. And from your studies, I would love to hear your thoughts in the same way as you did for trauma. What is, what is healing?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté6:58

      Sure. So you mentioned to me that, uh, you spent some time in my homeland of Hungary, where I was born. And the Hungarian word for health actually begins with the word for wholeness. So health literally means wholeness. And the English word for healing and health also come from an Anglo-Saxon origin meaning wholeness. So for some reason, languages internationally have intuited the essence of healing, which is a sense of completion and, and wholeness. Now, what trauma does is it disconnects us. It, it splits us off from our true self and, and disconnects us from our emotions, even from our bodies. So that, that if that disconnection is the essence of trauma, then the healing is that coming together of the self to become whole again. And, uh, healing is often used synonymously with cure, fair enough. But strange enough, in my view, and not just in my view, people can be cured from an illness without becoming whole, without healing. People sometimes also be, become healed without being cured. So in that sense, healing is not the absence of a physical illness, but it's the integrity of a person who's no longer split off from themselves.

   3. JSJay Shetty8:16

      I think what we find is that trauma is so, as you said, a wound that is long-lasting. It can often be that way.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté8:23

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty8:24

      But healing is a process that we want to happen now-

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté8:28

      Yeah

   7. JSJay Shetty8:28

      ... or today-

   8. GMDr. Gabor Maté8:29

      Yeah

   9. JSJay Shetty8:29

      ... or tomorrow.

   10. GMDr. Gabor Maté8:31

       Yeah.

   11. JSJay Shetty8:32

       I'm, I'm intrigued by how does time ... We've always heard time will heal, right? Like, that's an old cliché.

   12. GMDr. Gabor Maté8:39

       It, it, it won't. [laughs]

   13. JSJay Shetty8:40

       Yeah. Right. Right. So, so let's go back to the wound and talk about is

4. 8:45 – 11:38

   Time itself does not heal emotional wounds

   1. JSJay Shetty8:45

      there any relationship between time and wounds or unhealed wounds, and what, what is that relationship? How is that wound being formed internally? As you said, trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you. That which is happening inside of you, what is happening with that wound over time when it's left?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté9:06

      What happens is that it may lie dormant for a long time, and then something occurs that, uh, touches it. It's when we talk about people being triggered, for example. Something touches an unhealed wound inside you, and you react. You've just been wounded for the first time. And certainly, I can tell you that's been the case for me. Uh, for example, in my marriage relationship is that the, the, the unhealed wounds, you may think you've gone past them, but then something will happen that touches that wound, and you react like you're being tormented all over again for the first time. And time does not automatically heal.

   3. JSJay Shetty9:41

      Mm-hmm.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté9:42

      Time maybe scars it over. Time maybe makes it less available to immediate memory. But should something happen to evoke it, it's gonna show up in its full painful impact-

   5. JSJay Shetty9:55

      Mm-hmm

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté9:55

      ... until you do some work to heal. Time by itself does not heal. Not, not spontaneously, not, um, automatically.

   7. JSJay Shetty10:02

      How do we uncover those? Because I feel that, and, and maybe this is something to address, it's that at least what I find is that a lot of our beliefs that we have about ourselves and about others-

   8. GMDr. Gabor Maté10:15

      Mm-hmm

   9. JSJay Shetty10:15

      ... are wired to try and make us feel safe to some degree. So I believe, and I'm hypothetically saying this, I believe that I am right in my opinion because that makes me feel safe and, and secure. But often to unearth a wound, we have to be okay with the vulnerability of saying, "Well, maybe I'm not right. Maybe this response is coming from some wound that I gained in the past." So for example, when you were speaking about your marriage, you sparked something for me. I found that a lot of the love I received when I was younger was then followed by guilt. So when I received love when I was younger, the idea was if I couldn't reciprocate with that level of love, I'd be made to feel guilty that I didn't love someone enough.

   10. GMDr. Gabor Maté11:07

       Mm.

   11. JSJay Shetty11:08

       And I found that I would repeat that in my own relationship with my wife, where I would over-love, and if she didn't match that level of love, I would then make her feel guilty. And it took me years to really discover that pattern, and that's just one tiny pattern. And whether that's trauma or a difficult experience is a different conversation. But the idea that spotting that pattern only came from me saying, "Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe me wanting to make someone feel guilty is not the right thing."

5. 11:38 – 13:55

   We are all born vulnerable

   1. JSJay Shetty11:38

      How, how do we assess that? How do we gain the vulnerability in safety to, to create that future stability? Does that make sense?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté11:46

      Well, it makes absolute sense because vulnerability itself is absolutely essential for growth. So vulnerability, the word itself, comes from the Latin word vulnerari, to wound. So vulnerability is our capacity to be wounded. Now, the reality is that as human beings, we're all vulnerable from conception until death. But- When we're hurt in childhood and the vulnerability is too painful to bear, we will try and shut down our vulnerability and, for example, by being right. Because if I'm right, then I'm powerful and I can't be assailed anymore, you know? But when we do that, we stop growing. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a crustacean animal like a crab, inside a hard shell, it can't grow. It has to molt and make itself very vulnerable to be able to grow. A, a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable. So vulnerability is absolutely essential for growth, and for vulnerability, you gotta let go of those defenses, such as being right, that you developed as a child in order to protect yourself from the pain. So that's why we talk about growing pains, because vulnerability is necessary for growth. Without vulnerability, there's no growth.

   3. JSJay Shetty12:58

      Wow. That ... What you just said, that is so beautiful. You just said vulnerability is our capacity to be wounded.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté13:06

      That's what it means, literally.

   5. JSJay Shetty13:07

      Yeah. That's an in- I mean, that's an incredible definition of the word. I think we hear so many definitions of vulnerability.

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté13:12

      Yeah.

   7. JSJay Shetty13:12

      But that, that ... Vulnerability, I'm just gonna say that again. Everyone write that down. Vulnerability is our capacity to be wounded. How do we develop our capa- So actually, let's go back to childhood. We'll come back to that. So if we go to childhood-

   8. GMDr. Gabor Maté13:26

      Yeah

   9. JSJay Shetty13:26

      ... what are the things happening currently that you perceive, and I know you talk about this in your new book, The Myth of Normal. By the way, everything we're talking about is in this incredible book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. If you don't have it, please go and order it now. What is happening in our childhood in society? I guess when you say things are not happening to us, there are still environmental impacts that are imprinting the potential for this wound to grow.

6. 13:55 – 20:00

   The inherent expectations we all have

   1. JSJay Shetty13:55

      What are some of those things that are distorting our development in heal- unhealthy ways in childhood?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté14:01

      There are two things. One is obvious, like when children are mistreated, maltreated, abused sexually, physically, emotionally, when there's violence in the family or a parent is caught up in addiction or where there's a rancorous divorce and a lot of conflict in the home, children are just wounded, period. But it's more insidious and more, mm, ubiquitous than that because children have certain basic needs. Now, if we understand human ... If you want to understand a zebra or a whale, where would you study those creatures? In a zoo or an aquarium or out there in nature? Same with human beings. So you have to actually look at what are the evolutionary determined needs of human beings as inculcated or instilled in us through our evolutionary history. And so we evolve with certain needs. They, uh, they used to be this belief that children are what are called a tabula rasa, you know, uh, an empty slate. You can just write whatever you want on it, program the child in any way you want. That used to be the prevailing belief. It's not true. Children are born with not only just certain needs, but certain inherent expectations. So to give an example, your lungs are an in- inherent expectation for oxygen because they've developed in response to oxygen. If there'd be no oxygen in the environment, we'd have no lungs. In the same way with the human child, it has certain inherent expectations, and you can wound kids not just by maltreating them, but by not meeting those expectations. When I say expectation, I don't mean a conscious expectation. I mean eco- an expectation inherent in the organism. So children need unconditional loving acceptance by multiple adult caregivers, which is how we evolved in hunter-gatherer groups and lived that way for millions and hundreds of thousands of years. Children have a need not to have to work to make the relationship with the parents work. So a child ... Children need rest from having to struggle to make the relationship functional. So they don't have to be pretty or cute or compliant or clever or successful or any of that stuff. They just need to be, and they don't have to work at getting the parents to accept them. That's an essential need of the child. When I say essential, I mean if it's not met, that'll distort child development. The third need is really crucial, and in our society, it's hardly ever met, which is the child needs the freedom to experience all the emotions that nature has endowed her or him or they with. So we have certain brain circuits for anger, for love, for play, for lust, for seeking curiosity. All these circuits are there for a reason. We share them with other animals. We share them with bear cubs and puppies and little whales, you know, elephant. They need to develop because they're there for a reason. Evolution gave it to us. In our society, parents are often advised and taught to suppress certain emotional experiences on the part of the child. That's a wound to the child which distorts their development and, and has significant implications for health later on. The fourth need, fourth essential need, is free play out in nature. Free play, spontaneous, creative, imaginative play. Now, that's essential for healthy brain development. We share that with other animals. Baby elephants play. Bear cubs play. Puppies play. Lion cubs play. Crucial for play, uh, for brain development. We know that now. In our society, we put cognitive development way ahead of play, and our ... We deprive our children of play by giving them gadgets, which deprives them of imagination. So we're actually undermining their brain development and their healthy unfolding as human beings. So children can be wounded not just by bad things happening to them, but by their needs not being met. And in our society, when you ask about the environmental ... conditions that undermine health and, and child development. These environmental conditions in our society are inimical to healthy human unfoldment. No wonder we have so many children in trouble with anxiety and ADHD and, and depression, and the rate of childhood suicide is going up, and, uh, the number of kids being medicated with heavy-duty medications, multiplicity of medications, is going up. Why? Because the conditions for healthy development are less and less available to them, not because parents don't love their kids, not 'cause they're not trying to do their best, but because of the conditions under which parenting takes place in this society.

   3. JSJay Shetty18:44

      Yeah, just to share some of those stats that are in the book that Dr. Maté is referring to. We have, in 2019, more than 50 million Americans, over 20% of the US adults, suffered an episode of mental illness. Rates of obesity, along with the multiple health risks it possesses, are going up in many countries, including Canada, Australia, and notably the United States, where over 30% of the adult population reached the criteria. And then this part, millions of North American children and youths are being medicated with stimulants, antidepressants, and even antipsychotic drugs, whose long-term effects on the developing brain are yet to be established. So, you know, you share all these insights and research and work. What, what I'm interested by is, let's say a child today is raised in that way. I find it fascinating that if you then migrate that child into the real world, and for everyone who's listening, I'm doing my quotation marks, like, "real world," they walk into this conditioned world that we currently have. If we almost raised a village of children in a, in a, I don't know what the right word is, but I guess in a more natural way, but then they evolved and had to get a job and work in the world,

7. 20:00 – 25:15

   The societal standards we try to live up to

   1. JSJay Shetty20:01

      how would they function? What would be your take on how they would do? Do, uh, I mean, are, is there any research on that? Or what would be your thoughts about how they would deal with the then capitalist society that is drilled around results and performance and being beautiful or smart or cute? How would, how would they react to that?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté20:18

      That question has actually has been studied to some degree, and, uh, they would not automatically buy into the values. So they may, um, need to get a job, but they wouldn't identify their, themselves with the job, and they wouldn't judge themselves based on the external values of success. They would also enter the world with a sense of purpose. Um, and I know you... Purpose is very important to you. So a sense of purpose can only arise from us if we're in touch with our real selves. So they would be in the world, but they, they wouldn't be of the world, in a sense. They wouldn't identify themselves with the values that society would push on them. So I think they would struggle, but they would do reasonably well, and they'd hold on to themselves in the process. They wouldn't live a life that's based on, "What do other people think about me? Am I pretty enough? Do they find me attractive? Uh, have I collected enough goods and objects to make me feel okay about myself?" They wouldn't buy into all that. And to the extent that this has been studied, and it has been, those people that can be in this society without buying into its values tend to be healthier and more grounded emotionally.

   3. JSJay Shetty21:30

      The reason why I love hearing that is because it's the first time I've connected these ideas together that when I was born and raised in London, I was, I was born and raised with all the usual pursuits, i.e., you have a good education, a, a good home, a good financial situation, et cetera. Those were the ways I was raised, and success was a big part of my culture.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté21:51

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty21:52

      And I chased the validation of my family and the external surroundings and my community and what my aunts and uncles thought of me. And when that validation was dissatisfying or didn't feel like it was actually coming my way, and when I was finally introduced to the monks at 18, I then seeked the validation of the monks-

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté22:14

      Hmm

   7. JSJay Shetty22:15

      ... only for them to teach me that the issue wasn't who you seek validation from, the issue was seeking validation-

   8. GMDr. Gabor Maté22:21

      In the first place

   9. JSJay Shetty22:22

      ... in the, in the first place. And so what, what you've just said to me is in three years, I got a crash course in what you're saying, where we spent more time in nature.

   10. GMDr. Gabor Maté22:31

       Yeah.

   11. JSJay Shetty22:31

       We were trained in unlearning the behaviors and habits that I'd developed for 18, well, 21 years at the time.

   12. GMDr. Gabor Maté22:37

       Yeah.

   13. JSJay Shetty22:37

       And then when I came back into the world, the way you just described that is exactly how I felt. Like, I almost felt like a new person coming back into the same world that I left with a completely different approach and a different map of how to navigate it. And you're spot on. It's still hard. It's not that it's perfect and it's easy, and it's not that I've got it right. It's just that when I am challenged, I have a toolkit or I have some ideas, as you said, with purpose, that help me think about the problem differently. You're not governed by the same thing. So when I went into the world of work, and I just wanna give people how a practical example of what Dr. Maté is saying is spot on. When I went into the world of work, we were all told that we had to be good at a list of, like, 10 things in order to succeed.

   14. GMDr. Gabor Maté23:26

       Yeah.

   15. JSJay Shetty23:27

       And I looked at that list of 10, and I was like, "I can do one of those things really well, and I'm only gonna focus on that one," because these other nine are not, not my nature. They're not my purpose. And it's so strange because that one thing made me extremely successful at the company I worked with, worked at, and then has become how I've built my career. And, and it's so true that had I'd gone in and done what 90% of people did, I would've become what 90% of people are doing. That really deeply resonates. What is the difference, though, with... And I, I can't wait to read some of that research on, on that. I think that's fascinating. When you have a culture where I think most people who read this book today- The Myth of Normal, will say that they can relate to having trauma, illness, and trying to be on the path of healing, especially our community here. They, they are absolutely gonna love this book. This is exactly why we have this show. But I find that we would all agree, I think if I asked everyone to put up their hands and say, "How many people feel they experienced a traumatic environment at home?" I think most people would raise their hands.

   16. GMDr. Gabor Maté24:32

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JSJay Shetty24:33

       If I asked how many people felt when they were children that they had unhealthy relationships with their parents to some degree, I think most people would put their hand up.

   18. GMDr. Gabor Maté24:44

       Yeah.

   19. JSJay Shetty24:45

       The challenge I find is that I, I really feel with what you're saying with the book, there's a difference between what you're saying and then the other extreme, which is mollycoddling. So there's neglect, and then there's mollycoddling, and I find that as humans, our brains are wired for extremes. So if we've seen that being mistreated or neglected is really bad for us, we go the opposite way and we go, "Okay, now I'm gonna make sure that this kid has, like, 24 cushions around it."

   20. GMDr. Gabor Maté25:14

       I'd be curious to

8. 25:15 – 29:35

   It’s not possible to love kids too much

   1. GMDr. Gabor Maté25:15

      know. B- I'd like to answer that question 'cause it's a very important one.

   2. JSJay Shetty25:17

      Yeah.

   3. GMDr. Gabor Maté25:18

      But I c- I just wanna know exactly what you mean by mollycoddling.

   4. JSJay Shetty25:21

      What I see, and I'm talking about people that I know and people that will speak to me, is that anyone who had a tough childhood are then trying to create a scenario for their child where that child experiences no pain.

   5. GMDr. Gabor Maté25:33

      They no longer respond to their child needs. They're coming from their own anxieties.

   6. JSJay Shetty25:37

      Yes.

   7. GMDr. Gabor Maté25:38

      So mollycoddling has got nothing to do with the child. It has to do with the anxieties of the parents. That kid is gonna download the anxieties of their parents, so mollycoddled kids become very anxious and very scared and very m- ungrounded in themselves. On the other hand, it's not possible to love kids too much. In fact, there's a very interesting study where they looked at a large number of mothers and their infants very, in the early few months, and most mothers in this study were seen as really good mothers, and some were a bit distant and for their own, because of their own traumas, not as available. And a small group were seen as, like, super loving in how they doted over their infants. Okay? 30 years later, they looked at these infants, now as adults. The ones that were most emotionally grounded and healthy were the ones who had received the super loving. So there's a difference between... You can't love a child too much. What you can... So the mollycoddling that you describe is not a child being loved too much. It's a child who has to endure the anxieties of the parents. And you know, there's a very famous example in world history of someone whose parents wanted to protect him from suffering, was the Buddha. He never saw death, he never saw illness, he never saw old age, until he goes out and, uh, sees a dying person, sees a, a very poor person, a very ill person, a very old person. He realizes there's suffering in the world. So all the mollycoddling he received could not ultimately protect him from the awareness of pain and vulnerability. Although, if I talk about the Buddha, I also have to say that his own trauma is often not talked about because his mother died when he was a week old, or right after birth, didn't he? Didn't she? So even sh- they tried to protect her, him, they couldn't, you know. But so anyway, mollycoddling has got nothing to do with the needs of the child.

   8. JSJay Shetty27:34

      Yeah, that's a great differentiator.

   9. GMDr. Gabor Maté27:35

      It, it has to do with the unmet needs of the parents, and as soon as parents project their needs onto their child, no longer see the child as, as they exist. They see their own anxieties, their own, their fears, and their own fantasies. Naturally, that's gonna hurt the child.

   10. JSJay Shetty27:50

       Yeah. That's such a great differentiator. That's... Again, it's a trauma response.

   11. GMDr. Gabor Maté27:55

       It's a trauma response, yeah.

   12. JSJay Shetty27:56

       Yeah, it's a trauma response. How and when should children, young adults, be exposed to pain in order to develop their vulnerability? Like, as you said, the capacity to experience a wound. Like, how and when do we allow ourselves, how should we, what environment is required to allow ourselves to experience pain in a healthy way, or, or is it just gonna come [laughs] anyway?

   13. GMDr. Gabor Maté28:19

       It's the nature of life. There's no reason to deliberately expose children to pain 'cause they're gonna experience it. The question is, how do we support them when they do? You know why? 'Cause their puppy's gonna die. 'Cause grandfather's gonna die. 'Cause some neighborhood friend won't wanna play with them. Because they're not gonna get the toy they wanted. Because, um, some disappointment will happen, you know. Um, so pain is inevitable, but it doesn't have to become traumatic if the child is supported in experiencing the pain and moving past it. So we don't have to impose or bring pain into kids' life to train them. Life's gonna do that. The question is, how are we to interact with them while they're enduring the pain?

   14. JSJay Shetty29:08

       Yeah. And what, what would you say those are? Uh, obviously, there's the love part which you spoke about, but when, when a child is going through something like that, so let's talk about loss, 'cause I think that's a, a big one, right? Like whether-

   15. GMDr. Gabor Maté29:20

       Yeah

   16. JSJay Shetty29:20

       ... it's losing a parent or losing a puppy, as you said, or, uh, or even if it's not losing a parent to death, it's losing a parent to a divorce. It's, you know-

   17. GMDr. Gabor Maté29:28

       For example, yeah.

   18. JSJay Shetty29:28

       Correct, yeah. So grief and loss doesn't have to mean-

   19. GMDr. Gabor Maté29:31

       Yeah

   20. JSJay Shetty29:31

       ... end of life. It can be everything.

   21. GMDr. Gabor Maté29:33

       Exactly.

   22. JSJay Shetty29:33

       What... Or a loss of a country. What,

9. 29:35 – 32:19

   Grief is essential for life

   1. JSJay Shetty29:36

      what are the steps that someone should take in order to help s- guide through anyone through a loss, not just a child?

   2. GMDr. Gabor Maté29:41

      Well, interestingly enough, when I spoke about these brain circuits that we share with other ani- mammals, for play and for loving and seeking, we also have a brain circuit for panic and grief. Why do we have that? Because life brings loss. And so grief is essential for life, 'cause grief is coming to terms with the fact that something is gone and it's not gonna come back, you know. So, um, I mean, a child experiences grief, and, and you know I said that the, the need of the child is to be able to experience all the emotions. They need to be able to experience their grief as well.

   3. JSJay Shetty30:15

      Mm.

   4. GMDr. Gabor Maté30:16

      And it doesn't matter whether from adult eyes we see that loss as major or minor. It's a question of how is the child experiencing it. And for a small child, even what looks like small losses can be very painful.

   5. JSJay Shetty30:29

      Mm-hmm.

   6. GMDr. Gabor Maté30:31

      Well then, we don't make the wr- the child wrong for it. We don't say, "Get over it. There's nothing wrong. Think of all the other children who are suffering," all that kind of relativistic, uh, shaming stuff. We say, "Oh, it really hurts, doesn't it? You really wish Grandpa would, would be here with you. You really wish Mom and Dad weren't leaving each other. It hurts." In other words, you just validate their emotions. By doing so, you help them accept the loss, and you help them move through, and you help them learn that they can endure difficult emotions without having to become... falling to pieces. So we have a circuitry for grief in our brain, uh, uh, uh, for grief in our brains. It needs to be allowed to do its work.

   7. JSJay Shetty31:16

      I find that a lot of us today are reflecting on that inner child, right? Like, that language is, again, more widespread today or is growing, the idea of like, oh, we have this inner child who has this wound or this trauma. What, what do you find is the difference between analyzing and overanalyzing or thinking and overthinking these experiences, and how would you define the difference? Because I, I... And I'm being very honest and vulnerable because it's the only way to have this conversation really. Like, I often think about events in my life that happened-

   8. GMDr. Gabor Maté31:48

      Mm-hmm

   9. JSJay Shetty31:49

      ... that would be considered generally as either difficult experiences or as traumatic, right? They could be seen as either/or. There are some of them that I've worked through myself or with, with people that I trust or with guides and, and, and obviously through my monk life. There were things that I looked at and worked on. There are certain things that I don't feel a need, like I don't feel a desire to dive into.

   10. GMDr. Gabor Maté32:17

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JSJay Shetty32:18

       The question I'm asking is,

10. 32:19 – 35:16

    When the past dominates the present reactions

    1. JSJay Shetty32:19

       should I dive into them, or is that considered overanalyzing and overthinking? And I ask that for everyone else who's listening to this going, "Gosh, if I thought about everything that happened to me, I could be there for a while." Uh, yeah, what, what's your take on that?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté32:33

       Well, first of all, in my world, there's no shoulds, okay?

    3. JSJay Shetty32:36

       There's no?

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté32:36

       There are no shoulds.

    5. JSJay Shetty32:37

       There's no shoulds, yeah.

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté32:38

       So, um, I would never say to anybody, "You should," you know, because, um, that itself is intrusive. So the question is whether it's helpful or not to delve into the past depends on what's happening with that individual. And if some of the infects, effects of trauma, as we said earlier, is that the, the wounds of the past keep showing up in the present. So from my point of view, it's not so much about delving into the past and dwelling on the past, but on dealing with how the past is showing up in the present, what a psychologist friend of mine, Peter Levine, calls the tyranny of the past-

    7. JSJay Shetty33:16

       Mm

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté33:16

       ... where the past dominates my present reactions. It doesn't matter how many times I go back and think about my childhood story. That's not gonna help me. What I have to deal with is what's happening to me now, right now, at this very second, which is a shadow of the past. So thinking about it is not gonna be of much help. Um, what's gonna help is to deal with the emotions that are arising now as a result of what happened and how those emotions affect my life in the present moment. So it's not about the past. It's about the present.

    9. JSJay Shetty33:48

       Yeah. So it's, it's really about the choices we have now.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté33:50

        Exactly. What's available to us now.

    11. JSJay Shetty33:52

        Yeah, what's available to us now. Because I feel like we didn't have a choice in the past because we were either too young or-

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté33:58

        Exactly

    13. JSJay Shetty33:59

        ... too incapable of, of making a choice.

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté34:01

        Exactly.

    15. JSJay Shetty34:02

        But the choices that happen right now, uh, can, can transform everything.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté34:06

        It, it is possible. Some people do make themselves into victims. They kind of identify with the victim role. "All this stuff happened to me, and therefore I cannot do such and such," or, "I'm keep..." or, "I'm hurt, and I'll never get over it." It's possible to identify with the victim role. It's even possible to identify with the survivor role. "I'm a survivor." Well, no, that's not who you are. You survived, but who you are is much greater than that particular experience, and who you are is als much, always much greater than, than your suffering, you know?

    17. JSJay Shetty34:39

        Yeah.

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté34:40

        And so it is possible for some people to identify with the suffering and the past to such a degree that they stop moving forward.

    19. JSJay Shetty34:49

        Yes. I think you've just raised a really important component of all of this. On a deeper level is that what we identify with, right? Even earlier, you were talking about people who would be raised in this hypothetical village we were talking about, but even through research, they won't identify with the values of a capitalist society.

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté35:09

        Yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty35:10

        Identification, you just said people could identify as a victim. They could identify as a survivor.

11. 35:16 – 42:11

    There is no healthy identification

    1. JSJay Shetty35:16

       What is a healthy identification?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté35:21

       There isn't, there isn't one.

    3. JSJay Shetty35:22

       Right.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté35:23

       Because I, if you look at, again, the meaning of words, and I, I just find words fascinating.

    5. JSJay Shetty35:28

       Same. I, yeah, absolutely.

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté35:30

       I- identification comes from a Latin word, uh, idem, which means the same, and facere, to make. As soon as I make myself the same as something, like if I identify with my role as a doctor, I immediately limit myself. If you identify with your experience as a monk, and I don't mean not to learn from it or to grow from it, but if I identify with it, that's what I am. You've now narrowed yourself. So there's no healthy identification. If I identify myself with a state or a nation, I could be loyal to that state or nation. I could love that state or nation or any group. But if you identify with it such as you, you have no independent existence, you've limited yourself already.

    7. JSJay Shetty36:15

       Mm-hmm.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté36:15

       So when you say, "Is there a healthy identification?" Not really.

    9. JSJay Shetty36:19

       Is it, isn't the challenge, though, that we're, I think all of us are pursuing some sort of identification? Like, that seems to be a massive human need. Like, I support this football club, or I'm a fan of this band, or I'm a member of the, this car club, or I go to this shopping, grocery store. Like, I feel like we're all wanting to be members. Like, that seems to be, like, a human need of wanting to be a member of a community, wanting to identify with something.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté36:45

        It is a human need to belong and, uh, b- but can we belong without identifying to the point that we're, have no independent perspective, you know? In other words, can we be authentic? And, and, and I talk a lot about this tension between authenticity, being ourselves, and attachment, which is belonging. Ideally, we can both be authentic and belong.

    11. JSJay Shetty37:07

        Yeah, I like that answer.

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté37:07

        But, but that kind of identification often leads to suffering. I mean, it's what the Buddhists call attachment, isn't it? And let me give you an example. So you mentioned sports team. So in, in the nin- you wouldn't know this, but in the 1950s, the Hungarian soccer team was the best in the world. We never lost.

    13. JSJay Shetty37:23

        [laughs] That's ... I did not ... I love soccer, and I did not know-

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté37:25

        Oh, no, no. We went to Britain, and we beat Britain six to three in Wembley Stadium.

    15. JSJay Shetty37:30

        Wow.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté37:30

        The first, the first time that there was a-

    17. JSJay Shetty37:32

        Sorry, Brit fans.

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté37:33

        Yeah, sorry about ... But there's, you know, um... And it was a huge national holiday in Hungary, and small country goes to mighty Britain and beats them at their own game, you know. And the next year, and every, the whole country was joyful, and it's still one of the great memories of my childhood. The next year, we're in the world championships, and we're the heavy favorites 'cause we haven't lost for years, and we meet the Germans in the final, and we lose three to two.

    19. JSJay Shetty37:57

        Yeah.

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté37:58

        National tragedy. Uh, I'm telling you, it still hurts. You know, it's just a football game-

    21. JSJay Shetty38:05

        Yeah

    22. GMDr. Gabor Maté38:05

        ... played on a pitch by 22 guys, uh, in 1954. So what? You know? But when you, when there's this over-identification-

    23. JSJay Shetty38:16

        Yeah

    24. GMDr. Gabor Maté38:16

        ... then that itself brings suffering. Now, you know, yes, you can support your team. In Vancouver, British Columbia, where I live, it's a very peaceful place, but the Vancouver Canucks, which is the local hockey team, made it to the Stanley Cup finals, and they lost. There were riots in the streets. Why? 'Cause people had over-identified. You can enjoy the team and be a, a sports fan, but the identification, that your joy or sa- satisfaction depends on whether your team loses or wins, well, why? It doesn't matter.

    25. JSJay Shetty38:52

        Yeah. I, I love that answer for many reasons, because I've had to go through the grief of letting go of past selves-

    26. GMDr. Gabor Maté39:03

        Mm

    27. JSJay Shetty39:03

        ... adopting new selves, and then having to realize that none of those were me as my identification. So as you rightly said, when I took off the garbs of a monk, when I took off my robes, it was really tough because there was a part of my identity, especially at a young age-

    28. GMDr. Gabor Maté39:21

        Mm

    29. JSJay Shetty39:21

        ... that was attached even to the outer covering. And I had to realize that I had to extract the inner beliefs and leave the outer covering behind, and the outer name and, uh, what that meant. And even in my career today, like, I've, I've had to let go, and, and even now I don't even know how to identify in one sense. Whenever ... I'm sure y- I'm sure you feel this to some degree in your work as well. It's like whenever they say, like, oh, when you're on TV and they wanna put, like, your, your title, and they'll be like, "Jay, what's your title?" I'm like, "I, I, I'm more defined by my purpose than my profession." Like, you know, what I, what I do for people and the service I wanna offer in the world-

    30. GMDr. Gabor Maté39:59

        Yeah
12. 42:11 – 44:38

    Why are we set on things staying the same

    1. JSJay Shetty42:11

       Why is it that we're so addicted to things staying the same or things not changing? Like, that seems to be a core human addiction.

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté42:21

       Well, a therapist once said to me that it has to do with the nature of the mind. That you're referring to. Um, a therapist once said to me that if your parents didn't know how to hold you, you develop the mind you hold yourself with. So you find safety in this mind that you created. And so the human mind, the ordinary egoic human mind, is basically a defensive structure. It's, in significant ways, it's a response to pain. That's not all it is, but in significant ways, it's a response to pain. It's afraid of pain, and it's designed to keep you from experiencing pain. So it's worried, and it's anxious, and it's defensive. So when it comes to change and vulnerability, the mind wants to defend against it. And so it's, it, it comes out of fear, which comes out of childhood experience, where the pain that you had wasn't held, and therefore you develop these mind structures to keep you from experiencing it. And I mean, one of them clearly is addiction. And, you know, Keith Richards, the world's most famous former heroin addict, the Rolling Stone guitarist, said about addiction, for example, his heroin use, that the contortions you go through just not to be yourself for a few hours. Now, why would somebody not wanna be themselves? Because it hurts so much at some point to be yourself. And then a mind comes in and tries to protect you from that pain of being yourself with its ideas, and its beliefs, and its certainties, and its endless desires, and its, uh, artificial needs, and it's afraid to let go. 'Cause if I let go, I'll be a helpless child again. So the mind largely is a defensive structure, and it often will react that way.

    3. JSJay Shetty44:12

       That defensive structure obviously sets us up for so much. What is happening inside that makes two people react completely differently to the same thing?

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté44:24

       Hmm.

    5. JSJay Shetty44:25

       Right? You could have a parent that's a drug addict, and one of the children goes, "I'm never gonna have drugs ever again because I saw what it did to my parents." And the other person actually imitates the behavior and goes down the same path. What have you found

13. 44:38 – 50:19

    No two children have the same childhood

    1. JSJay Shetty44:38

       or seen that at a young age creates that different journey?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté44:43

       Well, the first thing to say is that no two children have the same two parents, and no two children have the same childhoods, uh, even, even though they grew up in the same biological, uh, family. Because first of all, one of them came along at a different time, so they had a different set of experiences. There's the birth order. That affects how children experience the parents. Um, then there's degrees of sensitivities. So some people are born more sensitive than others. Sensitive again comes from the Latin word sincere, to feel. The more sensitive we are, the more we feel. Given the right environment, a nourishing, supportive, grounded environment, that sensitive child just becomes an intuitive, a creator, an artist, an actor, a, a leader. But in an environment where there's pain, that sensitive child suffers more pain than the less sensitive one, so they have more of a reason to escape from the pain. It's not so much that he imitates the behavior of the adult. It's that he takes the same escape route, and addictions are always a, in my view at least, a, an escape route from pain. So it has to do with birth order, with family circumstances, degrees of sensitivity. Having said that, the other child who doesn't become an addict hasn't necessarily escaped. They just may have developed different coping mechanisms. They might have become one of these people that are gonna make a big success in the world out of themselves, and they're gonna... never gonna fail, and they have to be the best, and they're gonna suffer, too. They just might suffer in a different way.

    3. JSJay Shetty46:17

       That sensitivity you're talking about is probably one of the biggest questions I get asked right now, and I, I want to ask it to you because I feel your experience could offer some real light on it. I feel people are experiencing so much sensitivity and empathy that they just can't stand the world we live in today.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté46:37

       There are people like that.

    5. JSJay Shetty46:38

       And, and I hear this again and again, where it's like whether it's the political climate or the economic climate or their family have addictions or friends, like everything that you talk about in the book, and people feel, "This can't be my home. Like I... This, this is not the place I want to live in." And so just as you were saying earlier that someone may have the thought, "I don't want to be myself or feel like myself for a few hours," people say, "Well, this doesn't feel like the world I want to live in." I'm sure you've met many people who've felt that way, seen that way, or maybe even talked that way.

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté47:15

       Have I met people? Let me tell you something.

    7. JSJay Shetty47:17

       Or worked with people.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté47:18

       I, I had an experience with ketamine a few years ago. This was a ketamine training for healers, and I was injected with ketamine. It was taking me where it was taking me, and all of a sudden I found myself screaming, "I hate the world." That was good that it came out of me. So I totally know what you're talking... I'm just, I'm just saying that I personally-

    9. JSJay Shetty47:35

       Yeah, yeah, yeah

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté47:36

        ... I personally know what you're talking about. Okay, so here's the thing. I think a lot of that has to do with that first of all, the world is getting more stressed. It's getting more split. Everybody sees that. It's getting more hostile in a lot of ways. It's getting more... less welcoming and more dangerous, more alienating on the one hand. On the other hand, we're more and more alone with it. I- isolation and loneliness are rising. So if people experience pain and change and, um, stress or even danger communally, it's bearable. But when we're alone with it, it becomes less and less bearable. And so one of the major factors driving, I think, the sensitivity that you're describing is just how alone people feel, which is how... not, not how we're meant to be, so that the capitalist values of, you know, aggressive, individualistic, uh, uh, ruthless greed and competition Against everybody else. That doesn't reflect human needs or even human nature, not as we evolved. But the world, the more the world gets that way, and the more isolated we become, the more vulnerable we are to be hurt by the world that we live in, and I think that's what people are talking about.

    11. JSJay Shetty48:51

        Mm. Yeah, I think one of the biggest things for me, I was really fortunate that the clients I coach and the people that I work with, I got to experience a lot of individuals who were vulnerable with me, but they experienced being lonely and successful. And lonely success didn't bring happiness. And I know that one thing that me and my wife are always talking about, especially because we're in a country where we don't have any family, we had to start from scratch in our friendship, work, and everything, was-

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté49:27

        I heard you say in a podcast of how important the family is to your wife, for example

    13. JSJay Shetty49:30

        ... for my wife, it's huge. Like, her personal family is, like, everything to her. Like, that's her greatest value. But here we had to build our family.

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté49:39

        Yeah.

    15. JSJay Shetty49:39

        And I think one of the things we constantly do is we try and make a concerted effort in order to cultivate and curate our community in LA.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté49:47

        Mm-hmm.

    17. JSJay Shetty49:48

        And it's fascinating to me because, again, perception comes in, where most people say to me, "Well, LA is a very shallow place," like, "LA is a very fake place." And I'll say, "Well, I found some of my best friends here and incredible human beings." How much does that perception of a place or a space or a person actually also make us more lonely? Because I find sometimes that loneliness is created by perception. Like, if we're scared of being vulnerable with someone, it's hard that someone will be vulnerable with us, right? So what do we need to do in order

14. 50:19 – 53:54

    The difference between loneliness and being alone

    1. JSJay Shetty50:19

       to build deeper relationships for healing and in this path that you're suggesting?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté50:24

       Well, first of all, it occurs to me that loneliness is always perception. There's a difference between being alone and being lonely. Alone is just a fact, and, that we can embrace and, um, make decisions about. Loneliness has got an emotional charge to it, and that's very much a matter of perception. You can be alone and not be lonely, and you can be surrounded by all kinds of people and be completely lonely. So that comes, how open am I? How vulnerable am I really, really willing to be? What defenses have I erected around myself to protect myself that keeps me from really contacting other people? So I think we unwittingly, uh, generate loneliness. Uh, there's also something else that happens, and you referred to this earlier. You talked about elders. So in our society, we don't talk about elders. We talk about the elderly.

    3. JSJay Shetty51:23

       Mm.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté51:23

       It's not the same. In our society that defines people so much in terms of their economic value, we tend to discard people that are not perceived as having economic value, either as producers or consumers. So this society generates a lot of loneliness just 'cause it, its materialistic values. And in other functioning cultures, elders are not only res- they're respected, but they're also ... They have a purpose. They have the wisdom. They have the experience. They have the vision. They have let go of a lot of the attachments that youth invariably engages with. So they have a lot to offer. So loneliness is also created in a society that has a very rigid and limited sen- set of values.

    5. JSJay Shetty52:10

       Yeah, I love the change in the language again of the elders and the elderly, and it's ... I, I always go back to that time in my life because it, it gave me so much, but growing up around people that were the same age-

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté52:23

       Mm-hmm

    7. JSJay Shetty52:23

       ... younger, older-

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté52:26

       Yeah

    9. JSJay Shetty52:26

       ... and elder gave you so many different visions of life. And when I look back at my childhood or my young adulthood, I was constantly surrounded by people that were older than me, younger than me, much older than me, and wiser than me.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté52:41

        Yeah.

    11. JSJay Shetty52:41

        And being able to have everyone's vantage point-

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté52:44

        Yes

    13. JSJay Shetty52:44

        ... created a beautiful 360-degree picture of life.

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté52:48

        Yes.

    15. JSJay Shetty52:49

        But most of today we're only seeing one degree. If you spend time with only people your age, you're getting a very limited viewpoint of life versus if you're spending time with a much wider age range.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté53:00

        And you tend to get a much less mature and rounded view of life. Um, one of the books I, I helped to write, co-wrote, is called Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. And the point made in that book is precisely what you just articulated, which is that for so many people, their world begins and ends with their own age group, which is a developmental disaster. Because again, we evolved as creatures in touch with multiple ... people of multiple ages, and we've spent our time around people of multiple ages. When you isolate people by age, as this culture largely does, I mean, there's sub-groups within sub-groups within subcultures within subcultures in our society, all based on very shallow identification with age. It just limits our development and limits our possibilities.

    17. JSJay Shetty53:52

        And, and with that development, how do you see

15. 53:54 – 1:02:24

    How do you see human nature?

    1. JSJay Shetty53:54

       human nature? Do you see human nature as muddied, trying to become pure, or beginning at pure and then getting muddied and then trying to go [laughs] back to purely?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté54:02

       [laughs]

    3. JSJay Shetty54:02

       How, how do you see that?

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté54:04

       Well, we do happen to have a chapter on human nature-

    5. JSJay Shetty54:06

       Yeah

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté54:06

       ... in this book, and, and pondering that same question that you just raised, I more or less come to the conclusion it's not that there's a definable human nature, not that you can say ... Because I mean, look, Buddha was a human being. Hitler was a human being. One is full of compassion and love and giving. The other is full of greed and aggression and hatred. They're both human beings, so how can you talk about a defined human nature? However, what I think we can say confidently, that there's a certain human potential based on human needs. If those needs are met, development will be healthy and this potential will be realized. If those needs are frustrated, which they severely were in the case of, say, a Hitler, a terribly abused child, then what you get is the hatred and the rage and the murderous venom that characterized that personality. Now, when you couple that with political power, you see what happens. But that's not human nature. It's just human nature thwarted because the needs of that child were not met in a society that was completely incapable of meeting people's needs, in fact, totally abused them. So human nature to me is not a given. What we have is a human potential based on human needs. If these needs are satisfied, we can be reasonably confident that people will be connected and generous. Most people want to be kind. I mean, it's interesting in our society, when somebody does something selfish or greedy, we say, "That's just human nature."

    7. JSJay Shetty55:42

       Mm-hmm.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté55:43

       Do we say that when somebody's kind or generous?

    9. JSJay Shetty55:45

       [laughs] Yeah, never. Rarely.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté55:47

        The, the educator Alfie Kohn points that out, and if you ask most people, when does your body feel more at ease? When do you experience more peace? When you're being kind and generous and giving authentically, not for, not out of a sense of duty, but because that was just the impulse, or when you're grasping and greedy, when is there more tension and more discomfort inside? So that should tell us something about our nature, that, that our nature wants to be aligned with connection and generosity and giving, 'cause our bodies will tell us that.

    11. JSJay Shetty56:19

        That is so true. That is so true. I mean, there is no time in life when you're bitter at someone or angry at someone that makes you feel good inside. Like, it does ... Yeah, gut-wise, too. I'm not just meaning in the heart space, but in, in all areas of your body, the tension, the stress, the, the holding, the tightening. But, but like we were talking about earlier, society's set up in a way for false identification and divisive identification, whether it be two sets of soccer fans who now hate each other or rioting-

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté56:48

        Yeah

    13. JSJay Shetty56:48

        ... or whether it be, you know, political parties, or whether it be businesses at war with each other, right? Like, everything's set up in a way to get you to identify with something in order for you to be against something.

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté57:00

        Yes.

    15. JSJay Shetty57:00

        Like, that's what naturally ends up happening. Even schools, like I went to this school, you went to that school, we competed. Competition seems to be something that has been carefully crafted by capitalist society, and then when you see the rise of co- And I, and I, by the way, I love competition, so I, uh, healthy competition's great. Uh, so I'm not talking bad about competition, but it's interesting to see how, again, it's so hard to compete without identifying as that being your worth.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté57:29

        Yeah.

    17. JSJay Shetty57:29

        And that requires so much mental, spiritual strength, in my opinion, to be able to differentiate between identification and attachment.

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté57:38

        Well, it's really interesting because [laughs] let's take the example of sports that you just mentioned. What do we call the people who participate in the sports? Do we call them players? What do we call the process that they engage in? We call it a game. But we don't treat it like players. We don't treat it like a game. 'Cause real games and real play has no agenda. There's competition in the process, and you wanna do your best, but in the end, it doesn't matter. It was just for, it's for the process and for the joy of it. That's genuine play. Well, when you think about these multi-billion dollar sports industries and, and the strategy and the, the hype that goes into ... These are not players anymore. These are warriors, almost as if they're engaged in some kind of a battle, and winning and losing becomes everything. Like the famous Vince Lombardi, "Winning is not the only thing. It's the only thing." Well, that's not true, people. That's true for the purposes of playing, as long as you recognize that you're only playing, as long as you don't confuse the game with life itself. But once it becomes a business and becomes cutthroat, that confusion is really prevalent, and people take it so seriously. So when you think, think about it, like you have these terrible conflicts in the world, like the war in the Ukraine right now. The average person, how much time are they induced to spend thinking about those large issues? Or say about climate change, that only the blindest of the blind or the wickedest of the wickedest can at this point deny is a reality. But how much of our life do we spend actually pondering and engaging with these larger issues compared with analyzing which quarterback should have played in which quarter of which particular NFL game, you know? So that these so-called games and these so-called players have assumed a far larger importance in their life, in our lives. Whereas the real things, we, we tend to ignore.

    19. JSJay Shetty59:41

        You've just sparked something for me that I was blown away by this experience. I recently went to Rwanda, and I went there with Ellen DeGeneres in collaboration with The Diane Fossey Fund-

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté59:55

        Yeah

    21. JSJay Shetty59:55

        ... has opened up a gorilla sanctuary and a conservation center.

    22. GMDr. Gabor Maté59:59

        Yes.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:00:00

        And we went there to trek with the gorillas, learn about gorillas, learn about Rwanda, and I had never been to Rwanda before. I, I didn't know if I would have visited if it wasn't for her. And the biggest thing I took away, obviously trekking with gorillas and being in nature with a form of life that has no interest in us, but we're totally fascinated by them, was an incredible experience, and I'll talk about that separately. But the reason I brought it up here is I also took time to go to the Genocide Memorial Museum.

    24. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:00:29

        Yes.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:00:31

        And it was fascinating for me to learn that it's been around 20 years, from what I remember, a tenth of the population of the country, so like a million people out of like 10 million people-

    26. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:00:42

        Yeah

    27. JSJay Shetty1:00:42

        ... died in the genocide, were killed in the genocide.

    28. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:00:44

        Yeah.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:00:45

        And most of the people who live there today, it was their parents, it was their ancestors that, that did this just twenty years ago, which is not a long time at all. And I met some of the survivors. I sat with them in the museum. I talked to them. We talked to the, to the locals. We talked to people that were helping us with our travel and arrangements and the hotels we stayed at. And it fascinated me that the people were so healed.

    30. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:01:12

        Mm-hmm.
16. 1:02:24 – 1:06:27

    Suffering has to be acknowledged

    1. JSJay Shetty1:02:24

       it take to get to that level of healing? Because that's ... You know, people would say, "Okay, well, it's a ten million population." To me, that's still a humongous win for the world.

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:02:33

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:02:34

       Um, I was wondering if you've seen cultures or if you've seen even smaller groups or even living through the war where you've seen that kind of healing before.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:02:41

       I don't know how the healing happened in Rwanda. Um, very-

    5. JSJay Shetty1:02:44

       Yeah, of course

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:02:45

       ... really encouraged to hear what you describe here. I think at the very least of it, the suffering had to be acknowledged and, and had to be heard, um, and fully acknowledged, and then the healing can take place.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:02:57

       Yeah.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:02:58

       Um, without that, it can't.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:03:00

       Of course. Absolutely.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:03:01

        Which is why it's so important to understand trauma. The suffering has to be acknowledged. Now, in my country, Canada, like when you talked about Rwanda, of course, that tribal hatred didn't just arise up from nowhere, nor is it necessarily in the nature of those people to be like that. A lot of it was the legacy of colonialism, that quite deliberately, and you would know something about British colonialism, um, it quite, it quite deliberately set one group against another. The legacy of which was often tremendous struggle and, and hatred and violence. In Canada, as in the United States, the legacy of colonialism falls, fell more particularly on our indigenous peoples, so that to this day they suffer so much. Um, the addiction rate is much higher amongst them. Fifty percent of the women in jail in my country are indigenous people.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:03:54

        Wow.

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:03:55

        They make up five percent of the population.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:03:57

        Wow.

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:03:57

        An indigenous woman has six times the rate of rheumatoid arthritis. They never used to have rheumatoid arthritis prior to colonization. There's been some apologies in Canadian history, but there's been not sufficient acknowledgement of what actually happened and what continues to happen. And I'm saying that an essential condition for that healing would have to be acknowledgement. So the Pope came to Canada just maybe six weeks ago because the church cooperated with the state to abduct children from their homes, indigenous children from their homes, for over a hundred years into the 1990s, into these residential schools where our native children were not allowed to see their parents, where their culture was extirpated. They had pins stuck in their tongue if they spoke their tribal language. They were sexually abused. Often they died. They were physically abused. They were starved. And the Pope came and apologized. And you know what the apology was? "I'm so sorry for what some Christians did to your people." Well, that's ... He means well as a person, but that was an in- that was an apology uttered by an institution, because it wasn't ... Or it should have been uttered by the institution. But they said, "It was some Christians." It wasn't some Christians. It was the state, and it was the church. And what I'm saying is that was a good first step. But until there's full acknowledgement and, and we are fully willing to hear the suffering of the people that we hurt ... And that's why in the 12 steps, what do they do? They do this moral inventory. How did we hurt somebody, and how can we, without imposing on them, how can we acknowledge if that's appropriate? So I think for healing, whether for myself or people that I've hurt, there has to be acknowledgement-

    15. JSJay Shetty1:05:55

        Yeah

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:05:55

        ... of the, of the suffering itself. I think that's the first essential step.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:05:58

        The challenge we have, though, right, in society is that I fully agree with you, but for, for most people, we will never get the apology we deserve. Because, again, we live in an unhealed environment where people are not coming out of the woodwork and saying, "I'm so sorry for what happened." It ... And even if they do, it's a bad apology or a-

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:06:22

        Yeah

    19. JSJay Shetty1:06:22

        ... incomplete apology or a-

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:06:24

        Yeah, yeah

    21. JSJay Shetty1:06:24

        ... a ten percent apology. So how do we

17. 1:06:27 – 1:10:04

    Getting closure and start moving on

    1. JSJay Shetty1:06:27

       function in a world where often the closure doesn't come from the person who hurt us or the person who created the wound or that we received the wound through, and it really comes down to us? Like, I, you know-

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:06:40

       Well, that's true.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:06:41

       Yeah.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:06:41

       So I work a lot with indigenous groups in Canada. Um- When they ask me to. And first of all, I often say, "Well, who the hell am I to offer you advice?" Because in your traditions, there's so much healing and wisdom-

    5. JSJay Shetty1:06:54

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:06:55

       ... so that the best advice I can give you is to follow your own traditions. But I often say to them as well, "Don't wait for the acknowledgement from the government or from society, 'cause it's gonna take a long time coming."

    7. JSJay Shetty1:07:08

       Mm-hmm.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:07:09

       But you need to acknowledge your own suffering. You need to acknowledge your own pain. And then there's so many rituals, there's so many traditions, the dance and the chanting and the drumming and the sweat lodges and the, the sun dancing and the going back to the land and the wisdom circles and the, and the restorative justice. There's so much wisdom. So what I'm saying to people is, acknowledge your own suffering, but to look to the wisdom within to move on to healing, and it's there. That wisdom to heal is inside cultures and inside peoples and inside individuals as well. So we both have to acknowledge the suffering and not get stuck on it.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:07:53

       Yeah.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:07:54

        But then to look for the healing capacity within.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:07:58

        Yeah.

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:07:58

        And you certainly can't wait for the world to... It's nice, but-

    13. JSJay Shetty1:08:02

        Yeah

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:02

        ... you can't wait for it. Otherwise, you're dependent on somebody else for your healing.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:08:07

        Yeah. And, and I feel like when you're healing, most apologies are dissatisfying.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:13

        Mm.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:08:13

        Like, when you're healed or... And we'll talk about that, what that means, but I feel like when you're more along the process of healing, you can receive an apology, you can receive a, a, a vulnerable piece of information from someone who may have hurt you or... But when you're, when you're in the thick of the healing process, I find that validation and apologies rarely really feel [laughs] that good. Like, you know, and I'm saying that for myself. I know that when I've worked, when I've been in the thick of, like, working really hard in my life or trying to make something happen and someone says, "Yeah, you're doing great," it doesn't feel like anything because you almost feel mis- you don't feel fully understood.

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:49

        I got that.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:08:50

        It doesn't make sense? Yeah, and even when you're healing-

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:51

        Yeah, yeah, they're, they're not quite seeing you.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:08:53

        Yeah. And you don't feel seen.

    22. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:54

        Yeah, you don't feel seen. They're seeing some aspect of you.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:08:57

        Yeah.

    24. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:57

        But we need to be seen.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:08:58

        Yeah.

    26. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:08:58

        That's, that's a human need. There's a psychotherapist here in California called Edith Eger, E-G-E-R.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:09:05

        Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I know Edith.

    28. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:09:06

        Yeah.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:09:06

        Yeah.

    30. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:09:07

        So I-
18. 1:10:04 – 1:15:56

    Spirituality becomes commoditized

    1. JSJay Shetty1:10:04

       between, you talked about the, you know, the practices and the healing of the indigenous people, et cetera. How much do you see a connection between spirituality and healing, and where has it gone right, and where does it sometimes go wrong?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:15

       So first of all, spirituality is one of these words that-

    3. JSJay Shetty1:10:18

       Again, gets thrown around. Yeah

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:19

       ... gets thrown around, and who knows what somebody means when they t- talk about it.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:10:23

       Yeah.

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:24

       So we can only talk about it in terms of what you mean by it-

    7. JSJay Shetty1:10:27

       Yes, yes

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:27

       ... and, and, and what I mean by it.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:10:28

       So yeah, I, I liked what you said, that there are ancient traditions-

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:32

        Yeah

    11. JSJay Shetty1:10:32

        ... that focus heavily on inner healing.

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:35

        Yeah.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:10:36

        And the ch- I, I'll explain my cha- the challenge I see is that often even these ancient timeless traditions have now become externalized and institutionalized, so they've lost their-

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:46

        Yeah

    15. JSJay Shetty1:10:47

        ... purity of the inner healing that's required.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:49

        And, and, and they become commodified.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:10:50

        Correct. Right.

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:51

        Yeah, which is what will happen in a materialist society.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:10:53

        Yeah.

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:10:54

        I spent time with some indigenous people earlier this year in a, in a ceremony. What I was struck by is, uh, the deep, deep, deep connection with nature. In fact, even the connection is inadequate a word. I'm talking about unity. Like, they just felt so alive to every blade of grass and every tree and, uh, the mountain that overlooked our ceremony and the bison that were in the field. So for me, spirituality, if it means anything at all, it means sense of connection to something larger, which is difficult to define and may be different for every person or for every group, but it's something beyond the limited confines of both body and the egoic mind. Now, I think that's our nature as human beings. I can't prove it, but that's my sense.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:11:45

        Mm.

    22. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:11:45

        And I think... And, and, and certainly when you talk about indigenous traditions, they talk about the medicine wheel, which is, um, the quadrants involve the, uh, our emotions and our physical bodies and our social relationships and our spiritual selves, and we have to be sort of grounded in all four of those quadrants to be fully whole. So I think there's something in that spirituality that is really es- essential to us. What that is, I think each person has to discover for themselves if they don't have a tradition that already grounds them in it.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:12:17

        Yeah. Yeah, you're reminding me of my time that I spent with some groups in Hawaii, and they had a song for the sun and the sea, and they had a beautiful ritual where when a child is born, the umbilical cord is placed on the earth-

    24. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:12:31

        Mm

    25. JSJay Shetty1:12:31

        ... and then they carve a, almost like a, a pattern there to remind the child that this is your connection to the earth, and I, I always thought that was such a beautiful ritual. I, I was wondering whether you've seen or whether you've looked at at all any aspects of reincarnation or past lives or, or trauma across lives or, or, or seen any connections or study in that space.

    26. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:12:52

        I've had people talk to me about their experiences, and there's a rabbi I met once who d- ... told me that in ancient times he was a priest in Egypt.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:13:02

        Wow.

    28. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:13:02

        He was in no way luna- a lunatic, you know, or psychotic. He was a very grounded, lovely man, you know? And he was convinced. My mind doesn't go there. Uh, I've s- I've, I've read something about these traditions, you know, the Tibetan tradition of the Bardo and, uh, you probably know a lot more about it than I do, but I've not personally experienced it, and my mind, as I've experienced my mind so far, hasn't found the space for knowing what that really means. I understand it intellectually.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:13:32

        Yes, yes, yes.

    30. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:13:32

        But I, I... There's nothing in me resonates with it as far as I can recognize.
19. 1:15:56 – 1:19:00

    Dr. Maté on Final Five

    1. JSJay Shetty1:15:56

       five questions that have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum, so you have, like, a very tight ... Like, almost think of, like, Twitter. These are your Final Five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever received on healing or trauma?

    2. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:16:10

       Authenticity.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:16:12

       Expand. I'm gonna ask you to expand, 'cause I wanna hear now.

    4. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:16:14

       Be yourself, you know? Um, when I was a very confused young man and I was acting out all over the place, I had an aunt who herself was a very traumatized person. She was an Auschwitz survivor, and, uh, she came back weighing 80 pounds. She was an ophthalmologist. And she saw me being inauthentic, and she quoted, she sent me this passage from Hamlet, that famous phrase, "Unto yourself be true, and it follows as night to day that then thou canst be false to any man." So be true to yourself.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:16:45

       Mm.

    6. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:16:46

       Without going into the details, that poor aunt of mine couldn't be true to herself because of the nature of this culture.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:16:52

       Mm.

    8. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:16:53

       But that, that advice has always stayed with me.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:16:55

       Yeah.

    10. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:16:56

        So authenticity has been a major si- theme in my life.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:16:59

        It's amazing. I love that. That's a great answer. Okay. Question number two: What's the worst advice you've ever heard or received around trauma and healing?

    12. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:17:07

        Is it okay if nothing comes up for me?

    13. JSJay Shetty1:17:09

        Yeah, if you've never heard any bad advice, that's good. Uh, what is something that you once valued that you no longer value?

    14. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:17:15

        This is almost true. What other people think of me.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:17:19

        Yeah.

    16. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:17:20

        I'd be lying if I said, but at the same time, I can do without it. So it's still there, but I'm not attached to it. Yeah.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:17:30

        Question number four: How would you define your current purpose in life?

    18. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:17:34

        My purpose is that people are free, free from limitations of culture, and also from the limitations of their own past and of their own minds, and also free politically. So my purpose is that people are free.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:17:48

        That's beautiful. And, uh, fifth and final question: If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

    20. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:17:55

        One rule?

    21. JSJay Shetty1:17:56

        One rule, one law, one principle that everyone in the world had to follow.

    22. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:18:00

        If I was coercing and creating the impression that one had to do anything, that already would defeats its own purpose, because as soon as somebody has to, it's almost like ... Just, just lean forward for a minute, would you?

    23. JSJay Shetty1:18:12

        Yeah.

    24. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:18:13

        And put out your hand.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:18:14

        Yeah.

    26. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:18:15

        What do you do as soon as I push on your hand?

    27. JSJay Shetty1:18:16

        You resist it.

    28. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:18:17

        You resist. So as soon as people sense that there's a had to, there's gonna be resistance. So I'm gonna decline answering that question.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:18:23

        That's a great answer. We've never had that on the show. I love that answer. That's a brilliant answer. That's fantastic. I love, I love the way you think. The Myth of Normal is out right now: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Dr. Gabor Maté, uh, it's been an honor. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun, and we'll do it again.

    30. GMDr. Gabor Maté1:18:41

        Absolutely.

Episode duration: 1:19:00