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Lewis HowesLewis Howes

BREAK ADDICTION: Why You Feel Lost In Life & How To FIND YOURSELF! | Gabor Mate

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Dr. Gabor MatéguestLewis Howeshost
Aug 15, 20222h 11mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 3:00

    Defining Addiction: No Such Thing as a Healthy Addiction

    1. GM

      To say that I have this disease makes the assumption that disease got a separate life and nature of its own. It doesn't. What if we saw disease not as the things in themselves that have their own nature, but as

    2. LH

      I think you gotta have a dream

    3. GM

      The School of Greatness.

    4. LH

      Really? [laughs] Yeah.

    5. GM

      Please welcome Lewis Howes.

    6. LH

      What I read about your stuff, what I see about your content, is a lot of people are lost based on trauma, and past traumas cause certain addictions or certain behaviors-

    7. GM

      Yeah

    8. LH

      ... and routines that maybe are some healthy addictions or unhealthy addictions, but it seems to be, like, a lot of unhealthy addictions.

    9. GM

      Lewis, can I interrupt right there?

    10. LH

      Yes, please.

    11. GM

      No such thing as a healthy addiction.

    12. LH

      No such thing.

    13. GM

      If it's healthy, it's not an addiction. If it's an addiction, it's not healthy. There are passions.

    14. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    15. GM

      There are habits that are healthy, but they're not addictions. I, I define-

    16. LH

      Like working out, like-

    17. GM

      Yeah, yeah. W- well, that can be an addiction-

    18. LH

      Ah

    19. GM

      ... or it can be healthy.

    20. LH

      Right.

    21. GM

      Like eating can be healthy, or it could be an addiction.

    22. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GM

      Um, the, uh ... I define addiction as any behavior in which a person finds temporary pleasure or relief, and therefore craves, but then suffers negative consequences-

    24. LH

      Mm

    25. GM

      ... and cannot give it up. So if you're suffering neg- negative consequences, so it's craving relief, pleasure in the short term, harm in the long term, inability to give it up, that's what addiction is. Now, if it's ... If you have a behavior that's ongoing, but it has no un- negative consequences, it's not an addiction. It's a passion. It's a pleasure. It's a habit. So-

    26. LH

      It's a healthy habit

    27. GM

      ... it's a healthy habit, yeah. So for me, it's not an, an addiction. And also, a healthy habit, a person, if it no longer works for them, they can give it up.

    28. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    29. GM

      So for me, there's no healthy addiction.

    30. LH

      There's no healthy addiction.

  2. 3:00 – 6:29

    Maté's Own Addictions to Work and Compact Discs

    1. GM

      Well, so the, in, in my life, the main addictions have been, um, to work.

    2. LH

      To work?

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. LH

      Work hard, achieve, succeed.

    5. GM

      W- achieve more and more patients, more and more success.

    6. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GM

      More and more. More and more is the essence of addiction. It's always more and more. Uh, and there, there's a reason why I developed that addiction, and that was the hard- that's the hardest one to give up. Um, then I was addicted for a long time to shopping for classical compact discs.

    8. LH

      Hmm.

    9. GM

      And when I say addicted, I mean I would spend thousands of dollars in a day.

    10. LH

      On CDs?

    11. GM

      Yeah.

    12. LH

      Really?

    13. GM

      Yeah, really, and I would lie to my wife about it, and I would neglect my patients, and as soon as I left the store, thinking now I'm complete, my collection is full, half an hour later, I'd have to run back. And, um, as I describe in my book, An Addiction in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, I once left a woman in labor in a hospital to go get a symphony. So that's an addiction.

    14. LH

      Really?

    15. GM

      Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's like, it's like the ... Now, the interesting thing about addiction is, is that the ... I wasn't using substances.

    16. LH

      You weren't smoking or drinking or-

    17. GM

      No, no

    18. LH

      ... things like, yeah, drugs or-

    19. GM

      No, but, but, but I was looking for a chemical hit.

    20. LH

      Dopamine.

    21. GM

      Dopamine, yeah. So I was on a dopamine fiend, you might say, and I'd get it through those particular behaviors.

    22. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GM

      And, uh, so s- that's what my addiction was. And how did I give it up? Well, the ... It took a long time.

    24. LH

      Really?

    25. GM

      Yeah, a lot of struggle, a lot of g- you know, and finally, I just realized that the cost was greater than the ... In fact, you know, in fact, if I started listening now to all the CDs that I have at home and did nothing but listen for the rest of my life-

    26. LH

      You wouldn't finish

    27. GM

      ... I probably, probably wouldn't finish.

    28. LH

      [laughs] Wow. So, so how long would you say ... When did you realize, okay, this is an addiction? This is an unhealthy-

    29. GM

      I realized it long before I gave it up.

    30. LH

      Like years, 10 years-

  3. 6:29 – 9:55

    Addiction as an Attempt to Solve a Problem Rooted in Trauma

    1. GM

      do you get from it? What did it give you temporarily? Whatever it was. I don't even care what it was.

    2. LH

      It's a just, you know, you get a, the, y- you escape.

    3. GM

      Okay, escape. Right.

    4. LH

      Yeah. You're not-

    5. GM

      It's-

    6. LH

      ... thinking about the pain or the-

    7. GM

      Yeah

    8. LH

      ... shame or the insecurity

    9. GM

      No. So who needs to escape?

    10. LH

      Me.

    11. GM

      No, but I mean what kind of person needs to escape?

    12. LH

      Oh, a scared person.

    13. GM

      Scared person is somebody who's imprisoned, isn't it?

    14. LH

      Mm.

    15. GM

      Somebody who's not free.

    16. LH

      Trapped.

    17. GM

      Yeah, somebody who's trapped. Exactly. And I know in your book on toxic masculinity, you talk about being trapped in it.

    18. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    19. GM

      Trapped is the very word you use.

    20. LH

      Yes.

    21. GM

      And, uh-

    22. LH

      I felt trapped most of my childhood

    23. GM

      ... that's the whole point. So what I'm saying is that addiction is never a choice, and it's not some kind of genetic disease, which the, that is total nonsense. What it actually is, is an attempt to solve a problem in your life.

    24. LH

      Mm.

    25. GM

      In your case, you were trying to solve the problem of being trapped.

    26. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    27. GM

      Uh, which is based on your childhood trauma, which you-

    28. LH

      Right

    29. GM

      ... very publicly talk about. In my case, the workaholism was about trying to prove to myself that I was, that I had the right to exist.

    30. LH

      Wow.

  4. 9:55 – 13:24

    A Toxic Culture and the Myth of Normal

    1. LH

      And in our culture and our society. You know, I talk about this in my book as well, about how as a, you know, a young boy growing up in the Midwest-

    2. GM

      Yeah

    3. LH

      ... uh, in Ohio, I didn't see examples of older men or athletes that I aspired to be like talking about their emotions or talking about healing or-

    4. GM

      Yeah

    5. LH

      ... talking about, you know, I had a trauma.

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. LH

      Talking about how to, you know, navigate the full range of emotions. It was more you just get made fun of if you cried.

    8. GM

      Yeah.

    9. LH

      You get picked on and called, you know, things you don't wanna be called.

    10. GM

      Yeah.

    11. LH

      You're, you're kicked out of the tribe.

    12. GM

      Yeah.

    13. LH

      You're not accepted in the tribe-

    14. GM

      Yeah

    15. LH

      ... in your, you know, boys group growing up.

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. LH

      And so I feel like culturally, there's a lot of pain with men and women, obviously, but that, uh, it, it seems to be is causing a lot of the stress in the world right now. It's just this cultural pain.

    18. GM

      Well, if I may be self-serving, my new book is called The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. So just as you say, the trauma that people are experiencing massively, um, isn't just personal to them. It's also a, a sign of a culture that's completely out of whack.

    19. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    20. GM

      And, uh, when I say out of whack, the things we consider ... The, the, the reason I called the book The Myth of Normal is what I'm saying is that the things that are considered normal in society are not at all normal from the point of view of human life and human needs.

    21. LH

      They're not, it's not healthy.

    22. GM

      Or it, it, it's totally unhealthy, so that the addictions and the diseases and the, and the, and the mental illnesses that people del- develop are actually normal responses to an abnormal situation.

    23. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    24. GM

      So that whatever addiction you had, um, or, or even this mask of rigid-

    25. LH

      Mm

    26. GM

      ... masculinity that you tried to adopt for a while-

    27. LH

      Mm

    28. GM

      ... until it cracked for you.

    29. LH

      Right. Needing to win, needing to be the-

    30. GM

      Yeah

  5. 13:24 – 20:05

    Mind-Body Unity and What Western Medicine Misses

    1. LH

      Why do you think in, you know, in our modern society with all the medical and scientific advances and all the, the knowledge out there that there's so much chronic pain, though? Ch- so much suffering, when we have more information and knowledge and tools than ever before.

    2. GM

      Actually, we don't. We have less.

    3. LH

      Mm.

    4. GM

      Uh, what we have is a lot more, uh, physiological, physical science, which is great. You know? I mean, if I needed a heart transplant, I'd be very grateful for modern medicine and, and, or, you know, if I have a broken bone or anything.

    5. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    6. GM

      But we've forgotten something that human beings have always known. And, um, for example, um, I, I write about this friend of mine. His name is, uh, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, and he's a, an American physician. He's Lakota background.

    7. LH

      Okay.

    8. GM

      And he told me that in his ... And he's a, and he's just like me. He's full of respect for Western medicine. I was trained in it. He was trained in it. We also see what's missing. And he said that in his heritage tradition, when somebody got sick, the whole community gathers and thanks the person and says, "You're carrying some dysfunction in our whole culture, so your healing is our healing."

    9. LH

      Wow.

    10. GM

      So, so they get that, that the individual represents the culture and the environment and the family and the community. Now, Western medicine totally forgets that. We, we separate the mind from the body. So we ... Often when I speak to groups, I ask people if, if, if in the last five years you've been to a neurologist or an oncologist or a cardiologist or a gastroenterologist or a rheumatologist, any kind of an "-ologist," put your hand up. So people put their hands up. I say, "Keep your hands up if they ask you about stress in your life, trauma in your childhood-

    11. LH

      Relationships

    12. GM

      ... relationships," exactly. "How you feel about your work, how do you feel about yourself as a human being?" Very few hands stay up. And those questions, which have to do with, number one, the unity of mind and body, which is only a scientific fact, and the inseparableness of, um, one human being from another, Western medicine completely ignores, which is contrary to science.

    13. LH

      Mm.

    14. GM

      It's not only contrary to ancient wisdom, it's also contrary to modern science, 'cause we have tens of thousands of studies to show that you can't separate the mind from the body, tens of thousands of studies showing how emotions significantly influence the onset of illness, how relationships do. You know? Um, there's a wonderful psychiatrist here in LA, you may know of him or him, Daniel Siegel, and Dan Siegel talks about what he calls interpersonal neurobiology, which means that our brains are not separate. I, I, i- something in you will sense the tension in me, and will pick up on that.

    15. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      And that'll affect your-

    17. LH

      The intuition, the, the-

    18. GM

      Yeah. And that'll change your brain. And I take it a step further. I talk about interpersonal biology, so that what happens to peoples physiologically is very affected. And I'll give you two examples.

    19. LH

      Yes.

    20. GM

      But affected by their culture and, and their family. So we've known for decades that children whose parents are stressed are much more likely to have asthma.

    21. LH

      Mm.

    22. GM

      The ch- the parents' stresses affect the physiology of the child's lungs.

    23. LH

      The breathing.

    24. GM

      The breathing, that they narrow the airways, they cause inflammation.

    25. LH

      Yeah.

    26. GM

      By the way, how do we treat asthma? With stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. You know, uh, we know, uh, uh, American Black women, the more experiences of racism they have to endure, the greater the risk for asthma.

    27. LH

      Really?

    28. GM

      We know that men who are sexually abused in childhood, their risk of heart disease triples. Um, I could go on. Uh, women who suffer symptoms of PTSD severely, their risk of ovarian cancer doubles. Uh, why? Because you can't separate the emotions from the body. It's one unit, scientifically speaking, not just from a point of view of indigenous wisdom, but on modern science. So when I talk, when you say despite all this knowledge, I'm saying what's m- missing from the knowledge-

    29. LH

      Is wisdom

    30. GM

      ... is the wisdom.

  6. 20:05 – 25:08

    Lewis's Rash and the Body Saying No

    1. LH

      yes. You're out of al- somewhere you need to have a conversation with yourself-

    2. GM

      Yeah

    3. LH

      ... or get back in alignment. It's interesting. I was telling you this before off-camera that in an, um, a previous relationship that I was in, I was feeling a lot of chest pain and kind of tightness in my throat.

    4. GM

      Yeah.

    5. LH

      And at one point, like, I was starting to get, like, this, I don't know if it was a rash or some type of flare-up, like, in my s- in, like, below-

    6. GM

      Yeah

    7. LH

      ... my belly button.

    8. GM

      Yeah.

    9. LH

      And I was like, "What is th-" Like, I've never had some type of, like, eczema or skin condition-

    10. GM

      Mm

    11. LH

      ... or something. And it was like this kind of bright red flare-up, and I was like, "Do I have a disease? Like, what is this?" You know? And, um, it's fascinating, because I was telling you, like, the moment after many, many months of therapy and, and, and starting to integrate the lessons of healing and really feel it internally, I started to feel this sense of peace inside of me for the-

    12. GM

      Yeah

    13. LH

      ... first time. I didn't feel trapped-

    14. GM

      Right

    15. LH

      ... for the first time-

    16. GM

      Right

    17. LH

      ... in myself.

    18. GM

      Yeah.

    19. LH

      In my heart and in my body. And almost overnight, like this flare-up was there for months, and I was like, "Oh, maybe I'm having ..." I had, like, allergy tests and I was like, "Maybe it's peanuts. I don't know."

    20. GM

      Right.

    21. LH

      All these different, like, foods that I'm eating.

    22. GM

      Yeah.

    23. LH

      And I was like, eliminating the foods-

    24. GM

      Yeah

    25. LH

      ... and it was still there. And it was almost overnight when I felt the peace inside of me, the flare-ups went away, and they haven't come back. And I was like ...

    26. GM

      So if you had come to me-

    27. LH

      [laughs]

    28. GM

      ... with that rash, I would have asked you ...

    29. LH

      Not, "What are you eating?" [laughs]

    30. GM

      No, I wouldn't. Well, I might have. I mean, those are good questions.

  7. 25:08 – 29:57

    Disease as a Process and Spontaneous Healing

    1. GM

      But to say that I have this disease makes the assumption that disease has got a separate life and nature of its own. It doesn't. What if we saw disease of all kinds, mental or physical or addiction, not as the things in themselves that have their own nature, but as processes that manifest our lives? And if I live my life differently, then I can have an impact on that process so that process will change.

    2. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    3. GM

      That's exactly actually how it is. So for shorthand language, I understand it's helpful to say, "I have depression."

    4. LH

      Right.

    5. GM

      Right? But-

    6. LH

      How important is the words we choose?

    7. GM

      But it's, it's... But it's, but it... But if we, if we, if we, mm, buy into that language, we're actually missing the point, 'cause you don't have it.

    8. LH

      Mm.

    9. GM

      There's no it that's separate from you, and that means that if you change yourself... And in fact, there have been... There's a friend of mine now, a recent friend, Dr. Jeff Rediger, who's a psychiatrist at Harvard, and last year he wrote a book called Cured: The Science of Spontaneous Healing. S- that was the subtitle. Now, he studied people who were terminally ill, documentably so. They had no prognosis whatsoever, and then they get better.

    10. LH

      So they were terminally ill. They were not supposed to survive.

    11. GM

      They're not supposed to survive.

    12. LH

      Supposed to die in a few years or something.

    13. GM

      Or months.

    14. LH

      Wow.

    15. GM

      Or weeks. I, I, I, I've, I've talked to such people myself.

    16. LH

      And they've cured their disease.

    17. GM

      And there's a woman called a, a psychologist called Kelly Turner who studied the same thing. She wrote a book called Radical Remission. So all three of us have looked at these people. They've done... They did it in a research kind of way.

    18. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    19. GM

      I just did it impressionistically, you know, but I do check out the histories with people's doctors. We all know people who've got... supposed to have two months to live or six months to live. Either medical treatments has failed-

    20. LH

      Mm

    21. GM

      ... or they refuse medical treatment. Then all of a sudden, the disease goes away.

    22. LH

      Mm.

    23. GM

      I think all three of us have found that what makes the biggest difference is that the person changes their relationship to themselves.

    24. LH

      Wow.

    25. GM

      And there's always trauma in the background. Now, Jeff and Kelly have documented people, they go on diets. They take supplements. They start meditating. They start yoga.

    26. LH

      They go into nature. They're... Yeah.

    27. GM

      They go into nature, the whole thing.

    28. LH

      All those things are great.

    29. GM

      Yeah. A- a- and I think the... But I think Jeff and I agree, and I think Kelly would probably agree as well, that the biggest shift is in one's relationship with oneself.

    30. LH

      Gotcha.

  8. 29:57 – 35:51

    Children's Emotional Needs and Why Parenting Goes Wrong

    1. GM

      Yeah. It's not even a matter of skills learning. It's deeper than that. Because you don't have to teach any one-day-old baby how to express their emotions, do you?

    2. LH

      No.

    3. GM

      If they're sad, lonely, do you hear about it? If they're hungry or uncomfortable, do you hear about it?

    4. LH

      Uh-huh.

    5. GM

      Of course you do. There's nothing to teach. You have to allow it, and you have to, um, give space for it, and you have to hear it and respond to it. The, the, the problem with most parents is not that they don't teach their kids these skills, it's that how they really live their lives because of their own traumas and because of the stresses in the society. They actually discourage kids from-

    6. LH

      Don't cry. Stop crying

    7. GM

      ... yeah, f- f- from what's natural.

    8. LH

      Suck it up.

    9. GM

      Well, look, um-

    10. LH

      Don't do this. Don't do that, right?

    11. GM

      Well, well, I, you know, there's a very famous Canadian psychologist. I dunno if he's been on your program, but he, um-

    12. LH

      Mm-hmm

    13. GM

      ... he says that an angry child should be made to sit by themselves-

    14. LH

      Mm

    15. GM

      ... until they come back to normal.

    16. LH

      Interesting.

    17. GM

      In other words, anger in a two-year-old is not normal.

    18. LH

      Mm.

    19. GM

      And we have to socialize it out of them. Now-

    20. LH

      Interesting

    21. GM

      ... the, now there's nothing more natural than an angry two-year-old.

    22. LH

      There's nothing more natural than an angry two-year-old.

    23. GM

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get frustrated, you know?

    24. LH

      Right.

    25. GM

      They want a cookie b- they get a cookie before, they want-

    26. LH

      They don't get what they want-

    27. GM

      Yeah, they want a cookie-

    28. LH

      ... and so they cry

    29. GM

      ... you know, they want a cookie before dinner, and if you're a good parent, you're not gonna give them a cookie before dinner.

    30. LH

      Right.

  9. 35:51 – 41:54

    Stress from the Womb and Breakdown of Community

    1. LH

      Yeah, I mean, you hear the number, the statistic that 50% of marriages turn in divorce these days.

    2. GM

      Yeah.

    3. LH

      And also probably, I think when I had Esther Perel on, I was like, how many of the 50% that are married are actually happy? It's a very small percentage, too.

    4. GM

      Well, I, I-

    5. LH

      And so-

    6. GM

      So I have a marriage that we've had a lot of unhappiness. We've been married 53 years now.

    7. LH

      53?

    8. GM

      Yeah. We're very happy together. You know?

    9. LH

      Now you are.

    10. GM

      But we took us, took us a lot of work, a lot of commitment. But here's what I wanna say. There's two ways you can tell if a marriage is unhappy. One is you can ask the parents.

    11. LH

      [laughs]

    12. GM

      The other is you can measure the cortisol level of the children.

    13. LH

      Oh, wow.

    14. GM

      Because the ch- parent stresses affect the physiology of the child.

    15. LH

      Oh, man, my, my cortisol must've been off the charts with us. [laughs]

    16. GM

      Yeah, it probably-

    17. LH

      All of us children. Yeah

    18. GM

      ... it probably would've been. And, uh, so in this society, and, and this is not the fault of individual parents. Like It begins in the uterus actually. Already stresses on the pregnant woman will affect the physiology of the child.

    19. LH

      Really?

    20. GM

      Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, in this society so many pregnant women are so stressed, in the States particularly.

    21. LH

      You're talking about more emotional stress because there's physical stress of like the body's-

    22. GM

      No

    23. LH

      ... expanding and growing-

    24. GM

      No, no, I-

    25. LH

      ... and aches and pains, but the emotional stress, right?

    26. GM

      I mean the emotional stress-

    27. LH

      Yeah

    28. GM

      ... of having to, um-

    29. LH

      The nervous system stress

    30. GM

      ... perform on the job or being in a difficult relationship. In, in one of the chapters in the book I talk about, it begins with, uh, the diary of my wife who was writing it when she was pregnant with, uh, one of our children about how unhappy she was. And she's talking to the infant saying, "Please don't take this stress personally."

  10. 41:54 – 47:23

    Maté's Infancy, ADHD, and Depression as Coping Mechanisms

    1. GM

      Now, are these diseases? Well, you can talk about them as diseases to some degree, and certainly, you know, I've had depression, and I've taken medication for it in my 40s, and it really made a difference for me. You might call it a disease, but actually that's a shallow way of looking at it. 'Cause actually what does it go back to? It goes back to being, uh, a one-year-old infant, um, or being a, a, a three-month-old infant. Uh, in the book The Myth of Normal, the first chapter has a painting in it. The painting is by my wife based on a photograph of me and my mother. This is Budapest, Hungary 1944, and I'm three months of age. And my mother in the photograph is wearing a yellow star that Jews had to wear. My father was away in forced labor, and within two months her parents would be killed in Auschwitz.

    2. LH

      Mm.

    3. GM

      That was my first year of life.

    4. LH

      Oh, my gosh.

    5. GM

      The look on my face are full of, is full of terror. I was absorbing my mother's fear and my mother's anxiety

    6. LH

      'Cause she had terror in her face-

    7. GM

      Uh-

    8. LH

      ... and you're mimicking and, and-

    9. GM

      She had it in her body

    10. LH

      ... her body.

    11. GM

      Yeah.

    12. LH

      You're, you're connected to her-

    13. GM

      I'm totally connected

    14. LH

      ... feeding 10 times a day.

    15. GM

      Exactly.

    16. LH

      And you're feeling the stress.

    17. GM

      Exactly. So-

    18. LH

      There's probably now no calm in her.

    19. GM

      There's no calm there. And, but she's already so stressed, and she's just trying to make sure that we survive. She's not there to really receive my feelings. And then when I'm a year old-

    20. LH

      Right

    21. GM

      ... or 11 months old, she hands me to a complete stranger in the street to save my life, 'cause she didn't think where we're staying I would survive for a day, and probably I wouldn't have.

    22. LH

      Wow.

    23. GM

      So I didn't see her for six weeks, five or six weeks.

    24. LH

      Oh, man.

    25. GM

      And-

    26. LH

      And you're one? Okay.

    27. GM

      I was one then, yeah.

    28. LH

      Oh my gosh.

    29. GM

      And now, what could I do as a one-year-old? I could do two things. Or as a, or, or as an infant going through all that. First of all, how do I deal with all that stress? I tune out. I tune out, I become absentminded as an adapt, as an adaptive mechanism.

    30. LH

      It's a coping mechanism.

  11. 47:23 – 53:33

    Why Facing Pain Is Hard: Conditioning, Fear, and Personality

    1. LH

      Why is it so challenging for people to face it and start addressing it? I, I was telling you, you know, I've, I've been doing pretty intensive therapy for about a year and a half now-

    2. GM

      Yeah

    3. LH

      ... every two weeks.

    4. GM

      Yeah.

    5. LH

      Not because I feel like something's wrong with me anymore-

    6. GM

      Yeah

    7. LH

      ... or that I'm stressed more-

    8. GM

      Yeah

    9. LH

      ... but because I wanna maintain a level of peace.

    10. GM

      Yeah.

    11. LH

      And I wanna continue to maintain peace.

    12. GM

      Good for you.

    13. LH

      So once I realized and started healing, I didn't say, "I'm good."

    14. GM

      Yeah.

    15. LH

      I was like, "I wanna go to the next level of-

    16. GM

      Exactly

    17. LH

      ... peace-

    18. GM

      Yeah

    19. LH

      ... love, you know, an environment of beauty inside of my emotions."

    20. GM

      Yeah.

    21. LH

      But why is it so hard for so many people to face it and actually speak the shame, guilt, insecurity, n- you know, imperfection about them?

    22. GM

      Well, I think in your own work you've touched upon very accurately on, on, on why it's so difficult. For one thing, if you, if you just, just the words that you just used, peace and love and connection, if you had played that to your 20-year-old self, how would he have responded?

    23. LH

      Uh, he'd been like, "Suck it up," or he'd been like, "What are you talking about? You're fine."

    24. GM

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    25. LH

      Like, yeah.

    26. GM

      Yeah.

    27. LH

      "Don't be a little wuss," or, you know.

    28. GM

      Exactly.

    29. LH

      "Just work harder," you know?

    30. GM

      Yeah. Yeah. But where would that have come from?

  12. 53:33 – 1:02:51

    Shame, Self-Compassion, and Telling Someone

    1. LH

      For 25 years, I had a memory of being sexually abused and thought about it almost every day.

    2. GM

      Yeah.

    3. LH

      Like for, for a moment. You know, it'd come-

    4. GM

      Yeah

    5. LH

      ... you know, at least weekly.

    6. GM

      Mm.

    7. LH

      Maybe not every day, but it was like-

    8. GM

      Mm

    9. LH

      ... a memory, yeah, that's there, you know? But I never told anyone for 25 years because it was so shameful and-

    10. GM

      Yeah

    11. LH

      ... I didn't wanna be, you know, made fun of or all these things. And, um, so if someone's able to, uh, self-assess and say, "Okay, I had this pain, this trauma, I felt not powerful," or whatever it might be, what's the next step for them once they start to journal about it and, and be aware of it?

    12. GM

      Yeah.

    13. LH

      And they're like, "I really wanna heal."

    14. GM

      Yeah.

    15. LH

      You know, what would be that next step in the process?

    16. GM

      Well, I mean, it's not that I can prescribe what should-

    17. LH

      Sure

    18. GM

      ... what should be for everybody, and there's many different ways of working. But one of the things I would address, first of all, is the shame. Like, one of the impacts of trauma is shame because children are narcissists by nature. When I say narcissist, I don't mean in a pathological negative sense. I mean, they think it's all about them.

    19. LH

      This is, the world just revolves around me.

    20. GM

      Exactly.

    21. LH

      Yeah.

    22. GM

      So if bad things are happening to me, it's, must be, I must be a bad person.

    23. LH

      Yeah.

    24. GM

      You know? Number one. Number two, uh, I didn't fight back, and-

    25. LH

      I couldn't defend myself

    26. GM

      ... and I c- and, and so that makes me weak and, you know, and, and, uh, so I'm ashamed of that.

    27. LH

      Mm.

    28. GM

      Now, actually, when you look at it, the not fighting back is nature's coping mechanism. Uh, part of your nervous system just freezes because if you fought back, what would happen?

    29. LH

      Just depends what age you are and-

    30. GM

      No, but, uh, but, uh, as a, as a young child

  13. 1:02:51 – 1:16:11

    Generational Trauma, Being Seen, and Gender Identity

    1. GM

      So not being seen is a major source of trauma. B-

    2. LH

      Just not being seen in general

    3. GM

      ... just not, not being seen for who you are.

    4. LH

      Not being accepted for your authentic self.

    5. GM

      Not being s- yeah, yeah. N- yeah, yeah. Expected to be different than who you actually are, you know. It's a major trauma for people in society, and it's very common. Um, so-

    6. LH

      Let me... Can I ask you a question-

    7. GM

      Yeah

    8. LH

      ... before you go onto the ne-

    9. GM

      Yeah

    10. LH

      ... next thing there about that? This might be a controversial question.

    11. GM

      Yeah.

    12. LH

      But I, I feel like I wanna talk about this because, you know, there... When I was growing up in the '80s and '90s, I was born in the '83.

    13. GM

      Yeah.

    14. LH

      So growing up in the '80s and '90s-

    15. GM

      Yeah

    16. LH

      ... in the Midwest, it... You weren't really... People were still afraid to come out as-

    17. GM

      Yeah

    18. LH

      ... you know, gay, right?

    19. GM

      Yeah, yeah.

    20. LH

      It wasn't fully accepted.

    21. GM

      Yeah.

    22. LH

      Parents didn't accept their kids when they said-

    23. GM

      Yeah

    24. LH

      ... you know, "I'm different."

    25. GM

      Yeah.

    26. LH

      "I'm, I'm gay," or, "I'm not this..." You know, "I'm not like you."

    27. GM

      Yeah.

    28. LH

      "And I'm," you know, "afraid to talk about it because I don't think you're gonna love me and accept me," right?

    29. GM

      Exactly.

    30. LH

      And now m- more and more people are coming out. That's mor- I would say it's more acceptable, right, in, in most of America

  14. 1:16:11 – 1:33:19

    Five Things Parents Should Do and the Irreducible Needs of Children

    1. LH

      What would you say for every parent or soon-to-be parent, uh, m- that they should really focus on and creating for their children? Uh, what would be the three things they, that, that are ... would set them up for more greater success emotionally, financially-

    2. GM

      Mm-hmm

    3. LH

      ... spiritually, relationship wise if they could do these three things for their children?

    4. GM

      Can I say five things?

    5. LH

      Give me five things.

    6. GM

      [laughs]

    7. LH

      Please.

    8. GM

      Okay. Um.

    9. LH

      Every parent should do.

    10. GM

      Yeah, so the first thing is I mentioned the work of Dan Siegel, uh, Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist here in LA. He's written a book called, um, Parenting From the Inside Out.

    11. LH

      Mm.

    12. GM

      And it's about how parenting brings out your own stuff.

    13. LH

      Oh, yeah.

    14. GM

      So that, so that, deal with your own stuff first. A- a- and, and, and be, and continue to deal with it as you have children, because you ... I guarantee you, your kids are gonna trigger you, you know?

    15. LH

      [laughs]

    16. GM

      And, uh, and I didn't realize that as a parent. So I, I, I re- visited my own traumas onto my kids-

    17. LH

      Wow

    18. GM

      ... um, because I wasn't working on myself at that time, you know? So do your own work.

    19. LH

      Yes.

    20. GM

      That's the first thing.

    21. LH

      Do your own work. That's, yeah.

    22. GM

      Uh, yeah. W- when you're pregnant or when your partner's pregnant, do your work already, 'cause already the stresses of the husband during the pregnancy will affect that infant in the womb.

    23. LH

      The husband's stresses will also affect the-

    24. GM

      Yeah, because the mom takes on the stresses of the partner.

    25. LH

      Right. So if you're stressing the, the mother, you're-

    26. GM

      Yeah, yeah

    27. LH

      ... stressing the child.

    28. GM

      Exactly.

    29. LH

      Wow, okay.

    30. GM

      So, so work on yourself. That's the first thing. Okay. Then there are what a great psychologist friend of mine, Gordon Neufeld, and I ... There's a chapter on this in the book. R- talk, describes as the irreducible needs of children.

  15. 1:33:19 – 1:39:02

    Healthy Anger, Rage, and Triggers

    1. LH

      So how do we, how do we teach our kids to have the full range of emotions-

    2. GM

      Beg your pardon?

    3. LH

      ... and, and come to us for safety and support, but also have the courage to manage challenging times in our life?

    4. GM

      Yeah.

    5. LH

      So that we're not always reliant on our parent when we're 30, but we're also, okay, we can take on challenges.

    6. GM

      See, here's the thing. Nature has an agenda.

    7. LH

      Uh-huh. [laughs]

    8. GM

      And we talked about the oak tree before.

    9. LH

      Uh-huh.

    10. GM

      Nature's agenda is that you develop, uh, will and self-respect given the right environment. And anybody with will and self-respect will stand up for themselves.

    11. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    12. GM

      You don't have to teach them. You have to just, uh, uh, respect them and support them. They will develop that way. If you respect them, they will learn to respect themselves. Nobody who respects themselves will put up with-

    13. LH

      Yeah

    14. GM

      ... bull-

    15. LH

      Bullies or being picked on or

    16. GM

      ... bull- bullies or, or, you know, or, or disrespect or anything, you know? They won't. They will say, "No, you don't, you don't do that to me. To me, you don't do that."

    17. LH

      How do you te- how do you show that to children?

    18. GM

      [clears throat]

    19. LH

      To ... How do you respect kids-

    20. GM

      Well

    21. LH

      ... so they feel that and see it?

    22. GM

      Well, by, by all the thing-

    23. LH

      All those things

    24. GM

      ... all the ways that we-

    25. LH

      Yeah, yeah

    26. GM

      ... we, we talked about. And, you know, and, and, and anger, we have a circuit between our brain for anger, as I said. There's such a thing as healthy anger. Now, um, which is very different from uncontrolled rage.

    27. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    28. GM

      Healthy anger simply says, "No." I mean, "You're in my space. Get out."

    29. LH

      Right.

    30. GM

      Now, all m- animals have that.

  16. 1:39:02 – 1:51:45

    Truth, Suffering, Identification, and Being Enough

    1. LH

      What's the, what's the biggest... What's the challenge you feel like you're still healing, or the, the, maybe the trauma or the stress that is most present for you that you're still healing?

    2. GM

      Um, it shows up in my relationship mostly. It shows up o- it shows up in two ways. One of them not so much anymore. Let's say somebody critiques my view of addiction, okay?

    3. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    4. GM

      Now, I'm totally open to being critiqued. I'm, I got no problem, if they understood what I was saying.

    5. LH

      Right.

    6. GM

      But if they're critiquing something they don't even understand, I just can't stand not being understood.

    7. LH

      [laughs]

    8. GM

      So, so-

    9. LH

      Right. That's a-

    10. GM

      So that can be a trigger

    11. LH

      ... that's a trigger for you.

    12. GM

      Yeah. No-

    13. LH

      Not being understood

    14. GM

      ... not so much anymore, 'cause I really see that it's about them.

    15. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      I'm, I'm... Here's what I'm saying, it's very kind of... I'm a reasonably good communicator.

    17. LH

      Yes.

    18. GM

      I- i- if, if, if you read what I say and if you don't get, the get it, and then you have critically, critique me for that, well, you got a problem here-

    19. LH

      Yeah

    20. GM

      ... you know? Of perception.

    21. LH

      Sure.

    22. GM

      So th- that, that's one. But the big one shows up in my relationship with my wife is, is, is if... But I'm, I- I'm really letting it go, and I've let go of it majorly, is any sense of not being wanted.

    23. LH

      From your wife?

    24. GM

      Yeah, yeah.

    25. LH

      Yeah.

    26. GM

      Yeah, yeah. Any sense of not being wanted, you know? Whether it's physically or emotion, you know? But you know what? Maybe you're finding this, I know you're in a new relationship-

    27. LH

      Mm

    28. GM

      ... and I've been in mine now for-

    29. LH

      53 years, you said

    30. GM

      ... we're married 53 years.

  17. 1:51:45 – 2:04:10

    What Healing Means and Lewis's Fight Story

    1. LH

      I have a few final questions for you. I feel like I could talk to you for hours. I love this stuff. Um-

    2. GM

      Mm

    3. LH

      ... but when does someone know that they're, they are on a healing journey? When-

    4. GM

      [clears throat]

    5. LH

      What is, what is healing, and when do they know they're on it?

    6. GM

      Well, um, again, you're talking about chapters of my new book. Um-

    7. LH

      [laughs] That's perfect.

    8. GM

      So healing comes from the word wholeness.

    9. LH

      Oh.

    10. GM

      Uh, the, the Anglo-Saxon origin of the word is whole. So healing is not a matter of curing anything. You can be cured without being healed, and you can heal without being cured. Um, [clears throat] healing is becoming whole. In other words, integrating all the parts and, and, and, and recognizing all these aspects of yourself that you've loathed and hated and rejected or you've tried to run away from. So it's becoming whole. It's, it's, it's coming back to your authentic self, w- which has never went away, but you lost contact with it. If trauma is a loss of connection to self, then healing is the reconnection to self. Um, when do you know when you're on a healing path? [clears throat] When you're asking yourself some of these questions. That's already a sign of healing.

    11. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    12. GM

      'Cause the people that are not healing, they don't ask themselves these questions. When you find that things that used to trigger you don't get you so upset anymore.

    13. LH

      Yeah.

    14. GM

      Or when you do get upset, you get over it much quicker because you realize, oh, here, you know. So really, it's when the past starts to loosen its hold over your present.

    15. LH

      Mm, that's so powerful.

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. LH

      You know, it's... I used to get, I guess, we'll use the word triggered. I used to get triggered a lot to-

    18. GM

      Yeah

    19. LH

      ... reacting to-

    20. GM

      Yeah

    21. LH

      ... my big thing was feeling taken advantage of, feeling used, abused, taken advantage of.

    22. GM

      Which is exactly what happened to you as a child.

    23. LH

      That's what happened.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. LH

      And so when little things would happen in the world, like someone cut me off in a car-

    26. GM

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    27. LH

      ... or flipped me off or something, I would like want to go and beat this person up.

    28. GM

      Exactly.

    29. LH

      It was like I... It would come over me of like, I need to chase this person down. [laughs] And I remember being like, man, why is this... You know, I was addicted to that reaction.

    30. GM

      Yeah.

  18. 2:04:10 – 2:11:50

    Closing: Three Truths and Definition of Greatness

    1. LH

      I've got a couple final questions for you. Before I ask them, I wanna make sure people get the book, because I think this is gonna help a lot of people. The Myth of Normal, uh, they can get it where books are sold, or Amazon, or on your website. Dr.-

    2. GM

      No, they can't get it from me directly, but I just-

    3. LH

      They can go there. There's a link to it somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

    4. GM

      They, I don't sell books. But, uh-

    5. LH

      Yeah.

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. LH

      Uh, but if they go to Dr., uh, Gabor Mate-

    8. GM

      .com, yeah

    9. LH

      ... .com, they can get all the information about where to get it. But-

    10. GM

      Yeah

    11. LH

      ... uh, this book's gonna be extremely powerful. 10 years of research, exploring all these things, bringing it together. Um-

    12. GM

      There's a research in 78 years of living.

    13. LH

      Exactly, yeah.

    14. GM

      [laughs]

    15. LH

      Personal research [laughs] and, uh, uh, the scientific research.

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. LH

      And I think, um, this is the type of stuff people need the most, is understanding how to understand their pain, their trauma, their suffering-

    18. GM

      Yeah

    19. LH

      ... and find solutions-

    20. GM

      Yeah

    21. LH

      ... if, and reclaim-

    22. GM

      Yeah

    23. LH

      ... their wholeness-

    24. GM

      Yeah

    25. LH

      ... so they can be in a, in a state of peace under stress in the world, potentially, and, and find that peace. And I think it's-

    26. GM

      Yeah

    27. LH

      ... you know, something I feel like, uh, I want everyone to experience this. I've been experiencing it more-

    28. GM

      Yeah

    29. LH

      ... in the last year and a, last 10 years, some of it, but more in the last year and a half, uh, internally, like consistent peace.

    30. GM

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:11:50

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