"We Learn It Too Late" - 5 Regrets Trapping People From A Life Of Purpose & Meaning | Gabor Maté

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 Gabor, you turned 80-

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:02 ... a few months ago.

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:04 Two months ago, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:05 How is that for you?

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:07 Um, well [laughs] , you know, we had a really nice party. Um, and my children came, and they wrote us some songs, and they performed them, and, uh, close friends were there. It was a very warm... We had wonderful Palestinian food, uh, catered, and, uh, it was a really good time, and it felt, it felt like I've arrived somewhere, you know? And, uh, uh, y- nobody ever imagines being 80. I mean, do you imagine ever being 80?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:38 Yeah. It's funny, as you, you ask that question, no, you think about lots of things in life.

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:43 I do imagine sometimes what it might be like when my wife and I are old-

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:47 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:47 ... and what we might do together.

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:49 But no, I can't, I can't say I've ever imagined actually being 80 years old.

Dr. Gabor Maté 0:54 Yeah. And at some point, it would've struck me as such an impossibly, uh, geriatric number, you know? At this point, it's just a number, you know? And it's, it's almost meaningless. Except it's not completely meaningless because I know that the time is... W- One always knows that the time is limited. Intellectually, we understand is that nobody lives forever, and we never know when the reaper's gonna come knocking on your door. But at the same time, once you get to be 80, you realize that whenever it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen within a fairly short period of time. And when I think of when I retired from active medical practice, it was, um, 13 years ago now. Well, will I still be alive 13 years from now? And it seems like that's a short period of time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:44 So when you think about it, it's quite, um, dramatic. But on the other hand, from moment to moment and day to day, it just doesn't make any difference.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54 Yeah. There's something about the number 80-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59 ... I think. And of course, we know it's just another day-

Dr. Gabor Maté 2:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:02 ... and it's just a, a number, but does something change when you wake up, and your family and your friends celebrate, "Hey, Gabor, you're now 80 years old"?

Dr. Gabor Maté 2:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:14 Does it in some way change the way you see yourself, or, or I guess reflect differently on who you are and where you are in your life?

Dr. Gabor Maté 2:24 On most days I can say this, and not on every day, for sure, but as a kind of ease has entered my life. Even with all that's going on in the world, I'm just sort of more... I don't struggle with the way things are so much. I may like them or not like them. I may react or not respond or... But there's not a struggle against just the beingness of things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 2:48 Um, I, I'm certainly noticing that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:51 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 2:51 And, and, uh, people... I, I had a visitor a, a week ago who I hadn't seen for a few years, and she says, "You've changed." And I said, "Oh, yeah?" She says, "You've become softer." You know? And, um, if that's true, it's, it's good. It's a sign of kind of loosening inside.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:14 You used to work in palliative care.

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:17 And I think you're familiar with the book by Bronnie Ware, the palliative care nurse-

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:22 ... The Five Regrets of the Dying.

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:25 What I thought would be interesting today for our fourth conversation on my podcast together-

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:32 ... is to maybe go through each of those five regrets because I'd, I just... I'd love to know from your perspective what each of these regrets says-

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:43 ... about where we are, who we are-

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:46 ... what things are important to us.

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:49 And so the first of those five regrets is, "I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Dr. Gabor Maté 3:59 Yeah. And so l- let's keep in mind that, l- like when I used to work in palliative care, which I did for seven years, and this nurse who wrote the book, uh, she's Australian, and she wrote the book about 12 years ago now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:13 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 4:14 They weren't talking about people dying at old age. They were mostly, it's about people dying before their time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:20 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 4:21 And so the regrets that they had, um, as their terminal illness, usually malignancy or perhaps chronic autoimmune disease, um, brought them to the end of their physical existence, what did they regret? And the top one was, "I wish I had the courage to live my own life rather than the one that people expected of me." I would reframe that because th- there's a deep truth in it. And as you know, and perhaps we've talked about, from my point of view, very often the people that do develop chronic illness are people that have suppressed their own true selves for the sake of being accepted to others. And that self-suppression has deep physiological consequences on the immune system-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:07 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 5:07 ... on the nervous system, on the heart, and so on. So that, that self-suppression is also physiological self-annihilation in some ways. But when she talks about courage, this is self-judgment. They're saying to themselves, "I wish I'd had the courage," as if it was a question of cowardice. It isn't. It's a question of programming. Like w- you and I are both parents. We know this. No infant is born suppressing themselves. No infant enters the first day on this earth trying to please anybody.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 5:43 They're just being purely themselves-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:46 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 5:46 ... expressing their joy when it's there, expressing their upset, their distress when that's dominant, but they're purely themselves. So that what she calls courage, or what these people call courage of being myself, is actually a trauma imprint that- For some reason, they learned early in life that to be themselves is to court rejection by their environment. So it's not a lack of courage. You can't talk about a one-year-old lacking courage or a two-year-old. It's simply an adaptation. Now, lo- later on they say courage, but really that's, uh, that courage is, i- uh, the lack of it is a shorthand for something happened to me that I gave up my true self for the sake of being accepted.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:33 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 6:33 And that cost me, uh... First of all, it cost them in terms of physical illness, but also cost them in terms of self-respect and, and dignity. It's a major one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:45 Yeah. Are you living a life at the moment that's true to yourself?

Dr. Gabor Maté 6:51 I am now. Um, uh, I, I sense that I am. I believe that I am. Um, that doesn't mean every second I do, you know, but on the whole I do and it feels really good. And I know, you know, I had dinner last night and, and, and you were telling me that you're finding yourself far more self-expressed and, and, and comfortable with who you are-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:20 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:20 ... than you used to. So that's the good news, people, is that this is a process that can continue for a lifetime.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:27 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:28 But yeah, um, I, I really see that people who suppress themselves really suffer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:36 Yeah. So that first regret, "I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself," um, I'm really glad you picked out the word courage-

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:46 ... because that word also stands out to me.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:48 It's very interesting to use that word.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:51 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:51 Um-

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:52 Well, it's, it's a self-judgment, isn't it?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:53 It is.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:54 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:54 You know? I, I could have done better.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:57 I should have had the courage-

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:58 That's right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:58 ... is what that kind of says.

Dr. Gabor Maté 7:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:01 It's interesting, Gabor, you said when you, when you turned 80, or as a consequence of you turning 80, you realized that, well, 13 years ago you gave it your medical practice.

Dr. Gabor Maté 8:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:13 Will you be alive in 13 years? That's, that's very-

Dr. Gabor Maté 8:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:15 ... striking.

Dr. Gabor Maté 8:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:17 Are you afraid of death?

Dr. Gabor Maté 8:19 Um, in principle I'm not, you know? Um, but I don't really know until I have to face it. I won't know how afraid I am until it confronts me, you know? At this point I feel healthy and I get to do what I wanna do, and I have vigor and I have interests and excitement and, and love and, and, um, likes and dislikes and I'm, I'm quite alive, you know? What happens when I have to confront the actuality of it? I have no idea how I'm gonna respond. So at sometimes I get fear around it. I mean, there's, I don't want to give this up. I don't wanna give up this life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:04 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:04 But other times I say, "Well, if I do, I've lived and, and it's been good and there's not much to regret," you know? So yes and no.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:14 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:14 But I won't really know until I'm up against it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:17 You've spoken publicly before about your, um, your journeys with plant medicine.

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:28 Does that change anything in s- for you, I guess? Or has that changed anything in terms of how you may view what happens at the end of-

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:37 Ah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:37 ... human life? Because people, many people will say for them it does change how they perceive themselves, how they perceive death, how they perceive what this experience of life actually really is.

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:48 Well, specifically, as you're probably aware, they have done studies on end of life anxiety-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:54 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 9:54 ... with psilocybin, so-called magic mushrooms. And, um, people report spiritual experiences.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:03 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 10:04 And people report a significant abatement of anxiety they had around dying. These are people who are terminally ill.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:10 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 10:11 And, um, nothing that the medical profession could offer to reverse the course of their fatal illness. But they had much less anxiety about dying as a result of those spiritual experiences-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:27 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 10:27 ... that were induced by taking the mushroom.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:30 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 10:30 Uh, for me, I've never faced death in that sense. When I think of some of my psychedelic experiences, and if in retrospect I allow myself to sink into them, I can say in that state I would not be afraid of death. I'd say that there's a larger reality than the persistence or cessation of this particular lung-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:59 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 10:59 ... uh, represents, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:01 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:01 I would say that if I project myself back into those experiences. Again, how I will face it when it happens or when it becomes inevitable, um, I don't know.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:13 Yeah. Society's view, or this society's view of people getting older-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:22 ... 80 seems to be the age where we often expect people to be doing less.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:29 Oh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:29 You know? Being less mobile-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:32 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:32 ... less vital. Not everyone-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:34 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:34 ... of course, but-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:35 ... but many.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:36 You seem to be someone who has this love of life-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:42 ... this vigor, this message you want to share.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:44 You seem to be traveling all over the globe at, you know, pretty regular intervals. You've-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:51 ... you've come into London for four days.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:53 You're gonna help me do some teaching with doctors tomorrow, which is-

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:55 ... incredible. But a lot of 80-year-olds are not doing that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 11:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:00 Right? And the longevity space within medicine has really exploded over the last few years. People love talking about longevity.

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:10 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:11 Right? And I think we're missing something in our discussions about longevity. Well, I think there's a couple things, but-

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:19 What, what do, what do you think we're missing?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:20 I think it depends what you mean by longevity, first of all, right?

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:25 So yes, some people want to know how can I, not necessarily live longer, but be independent, mobile, vital as long as I live. So health span-

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:36 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:36 ... versus lifespan.

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:37 And I get that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:39 But there's a lot of talk these days about extending lifespan-

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:43 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:43 ... living to 150 and beyond, and all-

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:45 ... kinds of-

Dr. Gabor Maté 12:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:46 ... crazy stuff, right? And I don't wanna be the, uh, I don't wanna stand in the way of human progress at all. My, one of my fears is that in pursuit of living longer, are we missing something about the beauty and the essence of what life really is? Life is finite. The fact that it's finite is what makes it so beautiful.

Dr. Gabor Maté 13:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:11 If we could live to 200-

Dr. Gabor Maté 13:14 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:14 ... would we have even more of these regrets because we'd keep taking life for granted?

Dr. Gabor Maté 13:19 You know what? I, you're talking my language because to tell you the truth [laughs] , to coin a phrase, all this stuff about longevity bores me to death, you know? Um, I just don't care, you know? What really matters is w- what does this moment bring us or what can we bring to this moment, you know? Let the future take care of itself. You know, like Jesus says-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:43 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 13:43 ... take no thought for tomorrow, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:45 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 13:46 And, um, I really think that this longevity movement is a sign of deep social anxiety when especially you get these rich people in California with their cryo technology of freezing the, the body hoping that 100 years from now they'll be able to be unfrozen and there'll be treatments for the d- you know, it bores me, you know? What really matters is for me is what makes life meaningful and active and engaged in the present moment. And, um, it's interesting in English we talk about growing older. Now, that's a very telling phrase because in significant ways when we get older we shrink.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:33 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 14:33 You know? Like our bodies, our skin starts to sag, our muscles are no longer as, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:40 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 14:42 ... supple and strong as they used to be. So what does it mean to grow older? We, we could just say, like you said earlier, get older, which is just a chronological progression. But growing older implies that the growth is actually possible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:56 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 14:57 So in what sense can we actually grow? And I think actually we can actually grow into the present moment and, and, and, and growing in our, growing our appreciation for life and what matters and, and knowing what doesn't matter and growing in wisdom. Indigenous cultures, they don't talk about elderly, they talk about elders.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:18 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 15:18 There's a huge difference.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:20 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 15:21 So, um, I think there's a natural reverence for age that senior cultures would respect and modern society kinda, um, dismisses, you know? Now do I wish that my hair was blacker and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:38 [laughs]

Dr. Gabor Maté 15:39 ... more curly the way it used to be? Yeah, I do, you know? And it wasn't gray and my hair wasn't thinning at the top and I, sure I wish that, but [sighs] at the same time I would not wanna be as unconscious as I was-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:55 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 15:56 ... when my hair was blacker and curlier, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:59 Yeah, this is such an interesting point. I've spoken to several menopause experts on this show-

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:07 Oh, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:07 ... over the past few years. And I remember when doing some research on one of the conversations, I came across research showing that in cultures where women are revered as they get older-

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:20 ... their wisdom is respected, they're seen as really important parts of the community.

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:25 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:26 Those cultures report less menopausal symptoms.

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:30 Isn't that interesting?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:31 I j- just so I'm not misinterpreted, I wanna be really clear, I'm not saying that that means that all menopausal symptoms would go away if that was the case.

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:40 I just find it interesting that when the cultural view of growing old is different-

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:48 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:48 ... we perceive ourselves as having, I dunno, a different symptom profile i- if I, if I can put it like that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 16:56 Yeah. And, and, and, and the degree of suffering is different so that maybe they have symptoms or maybe they have certain features, but the suffering-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:05 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 17:06 ... is not experienced the same way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:08 Please expand on that 'cause I think some people will go, "What, what do you mean? If you're either getting symptoms or you're not getting symptoms."

Dr. Gabor Maté 17:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:13 Explain what you mean by perception of, you know, the, the suffering essentially.

Dr. Gabor Maté 17:18 Well, I was talking to somebody else about this today. So, uh, in w- uh, as you, as you and I know, in Western medicine we kind of medicalize everything. And so we talk about premenstrual syndrome. Now d- which PMS is a syndrome, it's a medical entity.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 17:37 What is it really is that under the impact of hormonal changes, women get more sensitized. So they might have more physical pain and more upset, but we could see that as pathological or we could actually say that it's a time of truth-telling.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 17:57 That the hormones do sensitize them to things that are not functioning in, in their lives, which the rest of the time they're acculturated to acquiesce with and to put up with.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:07 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 18:07 But the menstrual ferment in their bodies makes it less tolerable. So instead of seeing that as a pathology, we could see it as a time of insight. And what if they actually listen to their bodies and listen to what their body's saying no to, that the rest of them are, they kind of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:26 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 18:26 ... suppress? Then that could be seen as a time of wisdom rather than a time of suffering. So the s- the physical things are there, but it, but it doesn't have to be experienced as suffering.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:39 Right.

Dr. Gabor Maté 18:39 Could be experienced as a time of truth-telling. And actually, a lot of women have told me that. Once they become aware of that, their relationship to menstruation is-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:47 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 18:47 ... totally different, and I think that's what you're saying about menopause as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:50 Yeah. This kind of speaks to the second regret, which is, I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

Dr. Gabor Maté 18:55 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:56 And what I mean by that is I agree that for many women-

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:06 ... uh, and I can think of so many patients like this, their, their hormonal symptoms were actually showing them that the way you're currently living-

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:19 ... is not in harmony with your body.

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:21 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:22 Now, of course, sometimes people struggle to make change. It's hard to make change. Maybe their life is mega stressful and at that moment, they can't change it for whatever reason.

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:30 And I totally, I empathize with that. I, I understand.

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:35 But for some people who are able to, it's in- sometimes it's one of the best things that has happened to them.

Dr. Gabor Maté 19:41 Yeah. Now, this thing of I wish I hadn't worked so hard, that's an interesting one because I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And what do I mean by that? Like, like, uh, speaking for myself, and I don't know if this is true for you, but I became a physician for some really good reasons. One of them was I genuinely wanted to help suffering humanity, and I thought medicine is a perfect, mm, pathway through which I could help people. That's genuine, and I meant it. I also chose a profession where I was fairly confident of making a decent living so I could support a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:23 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 20:24 ... a life for myself and my family. That's legitimate. But those reasons don't make you work too hard. They make you work hard, but they don't make you work too hard. What makes you work too hard, and that's what these people are saying, is you're driven by something that you're not even aware of. And what I wasn't aware of when I went to medical school and when I was a physician for decades is how driven I was to justify my existence in the world and to prove w- that I was important and worthwhile-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:59 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 20:59 ... and, and so on, and that had to do with the loss of those, that confidence owing to early childhood trauma. And so there w- it's not a question of... Nobody says, "I wish I w- hadn't worked hard." To achieve something in life, you have to work hard. They're saying, "I wish I haven't worked too hard." And that too part, the T-O-O part, comes from being driven by unconscious needs to validate your existence, where why should any human being have to validate their existence, you know? And so that's what they're saying. And when you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters. And what matters is, um, what you were telling me last night about how much it matters for you to spend time with your family. So every summer, you take a num- a bunch of weeks away from your podcast, and you just spend time enjoying your kids and your, and your wife and your family. And I didn't do that. I- for me, it was very hard to even take holidays. I always felt I had to keep working. If somebody was in, pregnant, oh my God, what if I would miss their delivery? Like the baby couldn't enter the world without me, you know? So that drivenness is what makes people work too hard. And so not a matter of working hard, it's a matter of working too hard, and where does that come from? Again, that comes from childhood trauma.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:21 A lot of doctors, and I have several friends like this, they don't take their full allowance of annual leave.

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:29 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:30 Sounds like you may have been similar.

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:33 I had that tendency, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:34 Yeah. And often people will say, and I have a friend who says this, "Yeah, but my patients need me."

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:41 No, they don't need them. They need medical help.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:44 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:44 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:45 But I think we have to ask ourselves, and this is very, very common in medicine, actually. I'm sure it's common in other, um, professions as well.

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:54 It's interesting, when you don't take your full allowance of annual leave-

Dr. Gabor Maté 22:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:57 ... that your contract entitles you to, it's-

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:00 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:00 ... often paid time off, right?

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:02 It's part of your job.

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:04 When you're not taking it, of course, there can be reasons for that. There can be reasonable reasons. There can be work reasons. But if you're not, I think you, I think it may be worth reflecting on some of those underlying, you know, th- those real drivers of that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:20 Well, it occurs to me that what your friend is actually saying is not that my patients need me, but I need my patients-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:28 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:28 ... to feel okay. And when I'm not working to help them, I don't know who I am, and I don't feel comfortable-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:35 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:35 ... myself, so I need them. Now, that means get thee to a therapist and deal with it. And not, and not only that, even your capacity to help your patients over time will be eroded-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:47 Totally

Dr. Gabor Maté 23:47 ... by the way you're stressing yourself and you're not taking care of yourself. And physicians are notoriously programmed to ignore themselves. And there was a very interesting study that I mention in the book, The Myth of Normal. They looked at the fraying of the chromosomes, um, of people. And, you know, uh, when we're born- We are born with certain structures called telomeres-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:12 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 24:12 ... and telomeres are DNA structures at the end of our chromosomes, and their fraying and their shortening is a mark of aging and of stress. And they looked at the, the telomeres of medical residents compared to other people their age. They age faster.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:28 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 24:28 They fray faster.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:31 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 24:31 And so physicians are driven to actually, um, not spare themselves and to literally consume themselves in the work. Now, in the long term, that may make you a very popular and very successful doctor, but in the long term, it's gonna be at the expense of your marriage and of your children and of your own mental and physical health.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:55 Yeah. F- for me, if I look at that situation and I reflect on society a- and culture, what I see these days is a very, this very me-focused culture where-

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:10 ... community has been gradually eroded out.

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:16 And therefore, if we think about a human being, a human being needs to feel that they're of value to other people.

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:22 We, we, we need that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:25 In our tribes, you know, 50,000 years ago, we would have felt of value-

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:33 ... because we would have a role, and other people would see that role. They would benefit from it, and we would benefit from the things they were doing.

Dr. Gabor Maté 25:40 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:40 You know, whether it's someone's hunting, someone's gathering, someone's putting the fire on, whatever it might be. In this me-focused culture where it's all me, me, me and what are my needs or what do I need to do and how can I better myself, I feel that we often don't feel of value to others. We don't feel important. And so it makes sense that in that culture you might overwork.

Dr. Gabor Maté 26:05 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:05 You might keep pushing yourself because if you're not working and feeling important there, then actually you may not have that sensation in any other aspects of your life.

Dr. Gabor Maté 26:17 Well, if, well, if you weren't given the, um... It's very simple. If in early childhood you're given the sense that you're valued just 'cause you existed, your parents welcome you and validate you and value you and, and celebrate you just 'cause you are, then you don't have to keep proving it afterwards.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 26:37 But if you don't get that sense, then you have to be important.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:41 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 26:41 So that sense of needing to be important has to come from missing out on being valued for who you are or being only valued for your achievements. You know, you're valued-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:50 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 26:51 ... like, look, my parents, bless their souls, but they valued my intelligence, you know? And so a lot of my persona was caught up in being smart and, and proving my value that way. Well, it's good to be intelligent, but your value should doesn't depend on-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:11 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 27:12 ... or shouldn't depend on any one quality. Whether you're cute or cuddly or handsome or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:18 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 27:18 ... successful or good at sports or smart in school, any of that, is your, your value is intrinsic-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:25 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 27:25 ... or g- innate, inherent 'cause you're a human being. In this society, as you say, it tends to value people for what they do, and so that can become very, very addictive. But again, going back to your friend who says, "My parent, my f- my patients need me," and you think about it, and I'm not accusing them of anything, but they're not realizing just how egotistical that statement is. It's as if it dependent on them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 27:52 Their patients need good medical care, but they don't need him or her-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:58 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 27:59 ... or them specifically, which means that they should be able to take care of themselves as long as they make sure that when they're not there-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:08 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:08 ... their patients are receiving-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:11 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:11 ... the care that they need. So it's not about us, and I used to think it was always about me.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:15 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:16 If I'm not there for the delivery of this pregnant woman's baby, oh my God.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:20 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:20 You know? Like as if it all dependent on me. It, it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:24 There's probably a control issue there as well, isn't there? That I, I know how I would do it-

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:27 Ex- exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:28 ... so I need to be there 'cause I know how I would manage this birth-

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:31 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:31 ... and that sort of stuff-

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:32 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:32 ... which is an inability to let go.

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:35 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:35 Like someone else can probably do this as well.

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:37 Yeah. Or if they can't do it as well, so be it, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:40 So be it. [laughs]

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:41 You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:42 Yeah. As I was walking to the studio this morning thinking about our conversation, the word impressive kept coming up for me.

Dr. Gabor Maté 28:52 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:54 And I've been reflecting on the word impressive because, again, I think culturally we, we think it's a good thing to impress others.

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:02 Like, "That bit of work you did is impressive."

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:07 But actually, if you, if you really unpick impressive, or certainly if I do it, it implies to me, and maybe this is my own bias because this is what I have done for much of my life-

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:21 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:22 ... I've changed who I am in order to impress others.

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:29 I didn't feel I impressed others by being myself.

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:32 I impressed them by changing.

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:35 So what comes up for you when you hear the word impressive? Have we got it wrong? Has it been, you know, has it been taken to mean something it's not? Like how, how do you see the word impressive?

Dr. Gabor Maté 29:48 Hmm. Well, um, impressive first of all has to do with what? It has to do with our impact on other people, how others see us. So if I can just be myself and express my own truth and not drive myself into activities that Are not good for me and people are impressed, well, that's great. But if my intention is to impress other people, if I need for me to make a certain impression in somebody else's mind, then where am I living? Then I'm living in their minds rather than in myself. So the question is, where do I wanna live? Here or in your mind? You know? And, uh, our society is so, um, addicted to people being impressive in the minds of others. That means that we live in the minds of others more than we live-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:52 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 30:53 ... in ourselves. So if I c- if you can be yourself, and find that impre- if I find that impressive, that's great, but you're not doing it to impress me.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:02 No.

Dr. Gabor Maté 31:02 You're just doing it 'cause that's, you're expressing who you are. If I'm impressed, great. If I'm not impressed, that doesn't take anything away from you. But to the degree that we're dependent on impressing others, we're robbing ourselves. So that's how I see that word.

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Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:50 The third regret that Bronnie wrote about was, I wish I had the courage to express my feelings-

Dr. Gabor Maté 32:58 My emotions, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:59 ... which is, I guess, not dissimilar to the first one about living a life that's true to yourself.

Dr. Gabor Maté 33:05 No, and it, again, it, again, there's the word courage that shows up.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 33:09 And these people are judging themselves. A more interesting way to put it is, why is it that I didn't express my feelings? You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 33:19 Now, here's the thing. Um, again, in my writing, uh, in The Myth of Normal, I quote this great neuroscientist who died in his mid-70s of cancer a few years ago. Those of us who knew him still mourn him. His name was Dr. Jaak Panksepp, P-A-N-K-S-E-P-P. He was, uh, from the Baltic States, whether he was Estonian, I think he was, but maybe L- L- Latvian, you know. And he was an effective neuroscientist, so he studied the neurobiology of emotions and wrote a book called The Archeology of the Mind. It's one of the seminal books-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:59 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 34:00 ... of modern science. And he pointed out that we share certain emotional circuits with other animals. So we have circuit- And he capitalized these circuits, these systems. So y- he, he... The C-A-R-E, the care system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 34:16 And there's a system for anger, system for fear, for lust, for playfulness, for joy, in other words, for seeking, which is curiosity, um, grief, and we share these brain circuits with other mammals. In other words, these emotions are not luxuries. They are emotionally, I should say, they are evolutionarily determined aspects of who we are. So if you take the care system, it's essential because without care, the mammalian infant doesn't survive.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:58 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 34:58 There's gotta be something in the parent's brain that drives that parent to take care of the infant-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:04 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 35:04 ... and something that's in the infant's brain that impels them to connect with the parent in order to be taken care of. That's just evolutionary biology. So we have all these emotional systems. Anger is one of them, um, as I mentioned. Fear, grief are others. And children, one of the emotional needs of children, when I studied and invest- you know, and interviewed experts on child development, uh, one of the things I learned and write about is that one of the needs of children for healthy brain development is the freedom to experience and express all the emotions that come up for them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:44 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 35:44 That's just necessary for health. Um, now, what happens in this society where a lot of parents get the message that certain emotions on the part of their kids are not acceptable? So, you know, a kid might experience a loss, like a dog might die or grandpa might die, and the child is upset, and the parent can't handle the child's grief. "So snap out of it, it's just a dog," or, or, "Yeah, get over it, people die." You know, um, or a child experiences anger-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:19 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 36:19 ... uh, 'cause you didn't give them a cookie before dinner, you know, and a two-year-old throws a tantrum, and you can't handle it. Um, I, I think you and I have talked about this before.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:28 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 36:28 Then the child gets the message that in order to be acceptable to the parent, they have to suppress their emotions. So when these people talk about that, and that suppression of emotion, as I've often made the case with you and in my books, actually undermine health and, and, and our physiology and our immune system. So when these people, in their dying weeks, regret not having had the courage to-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:55 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 36:55 ... express their emotions, what they're really talking about is that a long time before, when they were children, they were forced to suppress their emotions for the sake of being accepted.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:06 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 37:07 And now they regret it 'cause they, they sense that they were forced to abandon themselves.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:14 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 37:14 And so again, I would remove the word courage and ask, instead of judging them for lacking courage, I would say, "What happened to them?" Because again, no infant ha- lacks the capacity to express their emotions.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:29 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 37:31 So if they lose it, it's 'cause they learned that they had to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:36 In terms of something practical around this point, Gabor, if, if there's any parents listening, and their kids, let's say, sometimes get angry or have a tantrum-

Dr. Gabor Maté 37:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:51 ... whatever it might be.

Dr. Gabor Maté 37:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:54 Of course, there is a, a certain conditioning in our modern, certainly in Western society, about what one should do about that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:02 Given your view in terms of what is important for a child-

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:06 ... and what you've just said, what would you encourage a parent to do when their child is, I was gonna use the word playing up, but that, that's a ridiculous term because playing up is a societal construct.

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:20 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:20 So a child is just expressing emotions and we're calling it playing up because we don't like, you know, what it's doing or-

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:26 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:27 ... what the people next door are thinking or whatever it might be, right? So-

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:29 The North American term is acting out.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:31 Acting out.

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:32 Yeah. Do they use that phrase here? Uh, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:34 Yeah, they do. They, they use this phrase here.

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:36 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:36 So, so going back to that, um, the parent who may be struggling but wants to be a better parent, wants to go, "Actually, you know what, Gabor, I really want to make sure that I allow my child to express their emotions."

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:50 Do you have any advice for me?

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:52 Well, I, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:52 What would you say to them?

Dr. Gabor Maté 38:53 No, I do. Well, so, th- you know, there's, um... We can talk about three modes of parenting. One is the permissive parenting where you allow any behavior and you don't intervene or, you know. That's not... That's the worst thing you can do. Kids need to-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:10 But that is allowing them to express themselves-

Dr. Gabor Maté 39:13 Yeah, but-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:13 ... I think

Dr. Gabor Maté 39:14 ... uh, uh, there's a difference. Uh-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:16 Okay

Dr. Gabor Maté 39:16 ... they might express themselves by hitting their sibling, for example, and you don't allow that. Parents need to f- kids need to feel that somebody's in charge.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:24 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 39:24 Parenting is not a democracy. It's a hierarchy. Um, in a hierarchy, there's a dominant force. The parent dominates the child not to exploit or to suppress, but to nurture and to support.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:39 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 39:39 You know? So that, you know, you live in Manchester, and I don't know how cold it gets in Manchester, but if you have a one-year-old child, they don't get to vote on whether they get to crawl outside in the wintertime in Manchester, you know, naked, you know? The parent says, "No, you don't go outside naked, you know. You have got to put clothes on." That's just how it is. It's a hierarchy. It's not a democracy. The one-year-old doesn't get a vote-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:02 Okay

Dr. Gabor Maté 40:02 ... on g- being going into the, into the slush and the snow in the middle of December or whenever. Um, so that's permissive parenting. That's not very good. Uh, then there's repressive parenting, which some experts that we've talked about advocate. That's authoritarian parenting. In between them is the golden mean. So there's permissive parenting here, authoritarian parenting here, then there's authoritative parenting in the middle. Authoritative parenting is, "I'm in charge. I know what's good for you. Um, I'm the authority, um, so I know what to do with you." So if a child is upset, you say, "Oh, you're upset. You know, you're angry with Mommy. Mommy won't let you have a cookie before dinner. Yeah. You're really upset about that. Yeah. Well, come here. I know how you feel." In other words, you validate the emotion, you don't punish the child for it, and you hold the child, 'cause the child needs to learn that they can go through these difficult emotions and get through them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:02 And still be loved.

Dr. Gabor Maté 41:03 And still be loved, yeah. Now, that doesn't mean you let them pull the cat's tail or to break the, uh, break the glass, you know, or, uh, smash the furniture or hit their sibling, but it does mean you validate the emotions and you hold them, and then they learn, "Ah." And, and actually, and when they... And it's also age specific.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:24 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 41:25 Like, y- there's no point saying to an angry one-and-a-half-year-old, "Let's find... Let's express it through words." They don't have the words.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 41:33 But to a five-year-old you can say, "Can we find some words for your anger?" In other words, you can teach them to express their emotions in ways that are, um, socially appropriate.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:45 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 41:45 So at any age you have to be age appropriate, but fundamentally, you validate the emotions, and you hold the child, and you make them feel that, "You can have these emotions. I don't want you behaving that way, but you can have the emotion, and I'm not gonna reject you for it." It's not that hard, and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:01 No

Dr. Gabor Maté 42:02 ... people do it on- intuitively sometimes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:04 Yeah. And the impact of parenting like that will be felt for the rest of that child's life.

Dr. Gabor Maté 42:13 Well, absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:15 And that's the key, isn't it? You look at, look around society. It's very, very hard to not make the case that we have to set up society- So that those early years are where the kids get good nutrition, they have calm environments, they have present parents. You know, I'm always shocked at the amount of leave that, um, people in America-

Dr. Gabor Maté 42:39 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:39 ... get or mothers get in jobs in America. I think one of my friend's partners in America got two weeks off.

Dr. Gabor Maté 42:47 Oh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:47 Which, which I, I, I thought, what? Two weeks off after giving birth.

Dr. Gabor Maté 42:50 Well, when I researched The Myth of Normal, I found that 25% of women in the States go back to work within two weeks of giving birth, which 25% of women, now needless to say, this is both economically and racially determined, but it means that it's a massive abandonment of the child.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:09 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 43:09 'Cause en- from the point of, of the development of enzymes in the child, the child's physiological unfoldment, psychological security, they need the mother for many, many, many, many months, and you try and take an infant away from a, an orangutan at two weeks and see what happens.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:28 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 43:28 You know? And, uh, in fact, they've done some very cruel studies with monkeys that shows the impact of maternal deprivation at those early ages. You know, studies that are terrible to read about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:45 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 43:46 Uh, and they prove what? They prove that love and contact and connection is important, something we should've known all along.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:52 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 43:52 But the point is that the statistic that 25% of women have to go back to work within two weeks of work, within two weeks of giving birth, it's a massive abandonment of children, the s- the impact of which will show up in their mental and physical health decades on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:07 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:08 And then they wonder why there's so many problems.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:14 Tomorrow is the yearly Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine course that I've been running, uh, with a colleague, Dr. Ayan Panja, since 2018. And-

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:22 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:22 ... of course, you're gonna be the guest speaker tomorrow.

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:24 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:24 And I'm, I'm really excited that we're gonna be able to communicate with doctors and share your work and how they can bring your work into their practice. It's really, really exciting.

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:35 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:37 One of the things I'm hoping you're gonna be able to share with the audience tomorrow is what I think is the biggest hole in medical school training.

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:51 If you'd asked me five years ago, I may have said, oh, nutrition and sleep, and we need to teach doctors about the importance of this stuff, and we do.

Dr. Gabor Maté 44:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:00 But if I had to choose one thing that I think is the biggest hole in medical training today, for me it's that doctors, a lot of doctors leave medical school without an understanding that our emotions-

Dr. Gabor Maté 45:17 Mm, oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:18 ... that the way we think, holding on to anger, resentment, not being able to forgive and move on, I really don't feel within medicine there's an understanding that this can contribute to ill health.

Dr. Gabor Maté 45:34 Yeah. It's such a gap, and, um, I think both you and I have had to discover it, not as a consequence, but despite our medical education.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:44 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 45:45 And, uh, when you're in practice and you... I mean, as a family physician, um, we do have an advantage over specialist colleagues-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:54 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 45:54 ... in that we know people before they get sick.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:56 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 45:56 So we get to see who gets sick. And, uh, I couldn't help but notice that people's emotional lives are so intertwined with the physiological health. And n- as you suggest, nobody in medical school told me that. It's, it's a huge gap. Now it, it, it also has to do with how we relate to ourselves, by the way, 'cause the way doctors are trained is very often very stressful and very, um, almost traumatic in significant ways. So that in... That's why I mentioned the word self-care, because in being trained to stoically ignore ourselves, we also are dismissing the importance-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:35 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 46:35 ... of emotions in our clients.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:37 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 46:37 So that I wish there was more emphasis in medical school on dealing with our own stuff.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:43 Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Gabor Maté 46:44 And in conjunction with that, therefore the awareness of the importance of people's emotional lives.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:51 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 46:52 And, and what's really interesting here is that some of the great pioneers of medicine have known this-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:58 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 46:58 ... all along, and they've said it hundreds of years ago. Well, uh, Jean-Martin Charcot, who first described multiple sclerosis, said that this is related to stress and grief, and, uh, it is statistically and according to studies since then, but he just saw it. He didn't, you know... And, uh, there's a great British surgeon, James Paget.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:19 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 47:20 You know, Paget's disease, and he operated on, on women with breast cancer. And he said that breast cancer is indubitably related to emotional factors, that it's so evident that it's hard to ignore. And s- so these great pioneers said this, and their teachings have been completely ignored.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:36 Yeah. Let's be really clear. This is such a delicate area for people because many people perceive that as fault and as blame.

Dr. Gabor Maté 47:45 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:45 I know you don't mean it like that. I don't mean it like that when I talk about it either.

Dr. Gabor Maté 47:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:49 But often it's like, uh, what are you saying, that I did this to myself? Right? You must have had that before. People must have said that.

Dr. Gabor Maté 47:56 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:57 Just s- just clarify that for them, please.

Dr. Gabor Maté 47:59 Well, really we've been talking about it, that the, um, suppression of emotion, nobody's born with it, and it's not a lack of courage or wisdom.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:12 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 48:12 It's a programmed response to childhood experience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:16 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 48:17 So people have got the message bef- before they, uh, had any choice in the matter that if they are truly themselves, if they express who they are, their emotions, just like we've been talking about, they won't be accepted. So that's a programming that people, um, are ingrained in in their early childhood. How is that their fault?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:38 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 48:38 It's just the way they ad- adapted to the environment necessarily. As a matter of fact, it was an inevitable and unavoidable adaptation 'cause the alternative of being rejected by their families or their milieu was not acceptable-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:52 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 48:52 ... to a small child. So therefore, nobody does this to themselves in any conscious or deliberate sense. What I can tell you is that when people are diagnosed and they become aware of these dynamics, they find that liberating.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:09 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 49:09 So, uh, in The Myth of Normal, I quote the, um, the American singer Sheryl Crow, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she said that, "Before the diagnosis, I was always pleasing others and not expressing myself, and there was always a voice in my head that I'm wrong and I have to adjust myself to other people's expectat-" I'm paraphrasing her, but she s- but she said, "I've learned differently now."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:33 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 49:33 "And now I'm really paying attention to myself." So again, this, this idea of disease as teacher. Now, Sheryl Crow wasn't born like that, and she-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:41 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 49:41 ... didn't choose to be that way. That was her response to her upbringing. So nobody's being faulted here. But we are saying, people, if you allow that disease to wake you up and to teach you something, you might have a whole lot better life than you could have imagined.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:57 Yeah. Well, I think this is really, really interesting. We can first of all make the case to people that emotions matter. The express- the, the ability to express your emotions is important. If you repress them-

Dr. Gabor Maté 50:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:11 ... it may well have some quite severe physical consequences.

Dr. Gabor Maté 50:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:16 So let's say that a doctor accepts that and goes, "Okay, so what do I do with that?"

Dr. Gabor Maté 50:23 Well, what do doctors do with it? Well, here's the thing. Depends how you're oriented. Like, I'm kind of psychologically oriented. I've always been int-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:34 Okay

Dr. Gabor Maté 50:34 ... I've always been interested in it. Um, so for me, it was a natural movement from strictly f- focusing on the physical symptoms to dealing with the whole person. Another physician may recognize the value of this but not have the orientation to deal with it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:52 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 50:52 But at least they can say to their clients, "Listen, there's a lot of information now. So when you come in with your rheumatoid arthritis or your multiple sclerosis or your chronic eczema or chronic migraines or irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease or whatever you happen to present with, there's a lot of information now, a lot of scientific information, information that, uh, shows the connection between, actually, in fact, the unity of mind and body and the inextricable, mm, relationship between the immune system and emotions and so on. I'm not myself trained in that. I'm gonna deal with the physical aspects of the illness. I'm gonna prescribe for you the intent- anti-inflammatories or the immune suppressants or the steroids or whatever you happen to need to mitigate the symptoms. But can I send you to somebody so you can talk about this stuff? Would that interest you?" You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:49 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 51:49 So you can do that. So we're not necessarily talking about every doctor having to become an expert on this, but at least they should be aware of it so they can steer people to a broader approach-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:00 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:00 ... to their illness, number one. Number two, there's certain simple things any doctor can ask. Like one of my books, When the Body Says No, that's the title. Um, and in The Myth of Normal, there's a chapter called When- Before the Body Says No. You can ask your client, it's a very simple question, "Where in your life are you not saying no?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:21 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:21 "Where there's a no that wants to be said, but you're not saying it for the sake of pleasing others?" Can you just consider that one?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:28 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:28 Because that simple issue of not saying no can play havoc with your health.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:34 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:34 'Cause if you're not saying no when, when you, when you're wanting to say no, you're actually suppressing yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:42 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:43 And then you're taking on more stress and more burden. So those simple questions any doctor can ask.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:49 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:49 So it's not as complicated as all that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:51 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:52 But the point is the first step is just to be aware of the connection that you mentioned between emotions-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:58 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 52:58 ... and physiology. Then if the physician wants to take on a deeper study of it, they can. If they don't, at least they can guide people-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:07 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 53:07 ... to, to, to, to, to explore that connection somewhere else.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:10 Yeah, completely agree. Thank you.

Dr. Gabor Maté 53:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:13 Fourth regret, I wish I stayed in touch with my friends.

Dr. Gabor Maté 53:17 Yeah. Well, what we're talking there is, a- and it goes back to the others about working too hard, you know. For example, um, what, what are, what are they discussing there is the need for attachment, for connection, for belonging. And what these people are saying is, "I was too driven by whatever factors impelled me to ignore my personal relationships and to port my attention on things that ultimately don't matter, my acquisition, my attainment, my achievement, uh, rather than the heart-to-heart human contact-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:57 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 53:57 ... with people that matter to me." And again, people are driven to be that way, and when they look back on their life, they regret it because nobody, as, as often is said, nobody ever on their deathbed regrets not going to the office often enough. [laughs] But they do regret the heart connection-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:21 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 54:22 ... that, that, that they sacrificed.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:25 Have you stayed in touch with your friends?

Dr. Gabor Maté 54:28 Well, you know, uh, that's where you could say that I haven't. Um, I mean, I have more, much more recently. It, it matters to me much more now. But over the years, um, I put work and my busyness and my writing ahead of all that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:47 Is it at all balanced out by the fact that your work and your writings-

Dr. Gabor Maté 54:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:54 ... have influenced the lives of millions of people? I guess what I'm trying to get at is on a personal level, you may have sacrificed your friendships-

Dr. Gabor Maté 55:07 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:07 ... but perhaps the world has benefited from Dr. Maté doing that. Is, is that fair to say?

Dr. Gabor Maté 55:17 It's fair to say, and to some extent I accept that, that I've made certain decisions, and those decisions have benefited many, and it means that there are certain things I've missed out on. Um, but not completely, and, uh, I'm much more prone now to seek out those friendships and to strengthen them and to celebrate them and to value them. And I've, I've a... I, I have some really good friends, you know, and, and the people that really care about me, and I care about them, and we're there for each other no matter what. You know? So that matters to me much more than it used to. And, uh, to put it to the real test, if I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:02 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 56:03 I would say, yeah, I, I have some insights. I have some capacity to articulate some truths, uh, that are really important, and I'm not gonna let that dominate how I live my life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:18 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 56:19 Um, and I think it would've been possible for me to express that voice and, and, and, and to, mm, put those teachings out in the world that I get the feeling... feedback that it does help a lot of people. But I could have done that without the drivenness-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 56:38 ... without the sacrificing of the heart, without the... and, and connection-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:43 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 56:43 ... that sometimes that entails. So, you know, again, if I could live it, do it over again, I would do it differently, and I don't think in the end that would've detracted-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:53 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 56:53 ... from my message, and if it did, I would accept that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:56 Yeah. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free breathing guide that's gonna help you reduce stress, calm your mind, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below. Fifth one is, "I wish

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:27 I'd let myself be happier."

Dr. Gabor Maté 57:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:29 What does that say?

Dr. Gabor Maté 57:31 Well, that always reminds me of... because I mentioned Dr. Panksepp and his concept of the brain circuits.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:38 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 57:38 One of them is for play and joyfulness. And, um, do you know Winnie-the-Pooh?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:47 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 57:48 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:49 Not personally.

Dr. Gabor Maté 57:50 No, no. [laughs] The book. Uh, and, uh... It's, it's always been one of my favorite books, and, uh, I've talked about this before. The end of that book would bring tears to my eyes for years, 'cause how it ends is Christopher Robin... By the way, that's a whole other thing. The relationship between A. A. Milne and his son Christopher-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:12 Mm

Dr. Gabor Maté 58:12 ... was a very fraught and difficult one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:14 Right.

Dr. Gabor Maté 58:15 And, and Christopher actually resented the books 'cause he felt that his father was buying these toys to write about rather than for his own benefit.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:24 Wow.

Dr. Gabor Maté 58:25 Well, they had a very diff- There's a photograph of the two of them, and the kid is looking so alienated. He had a tough life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:30 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 58:30 And... But that's a whole other story. But the book... In, in the book, Christopher Robin, the little boy, now has to go to school.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:37 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 58:38 And he has to learn about history and factors and mathematics and so on, and he's telling his friends, the toy animals, that he won't be able to play with them so much anymore. And in the end, Christopher and Winnie the Bear, a little brain, uh, who's the smartest of the whole lot, and they walk off together, and the, the book ends with the statement, something like, "And whatever they do or wherever they go in the Enchanted Forest, the little boy and his bear will always be playing together." And that phrase would bring tears to my eyes for years, because play is so important, and joy is so important, and that's what these people are talking about, and they didn't allow themselves to experience it. They sacrificed the play and the joy for all these other things. You know? And so, um, the good thing is, you know, um, I mean, my marriage, the best thing... And you know what the best thing in my marriage is? The way we play together.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 59:43 The first time I dated my wife, Ray, I knocked on the parents' door, and I said, "Can Ray come out and play?" [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:51 [laughs]

Dr. Gabor Maté 59:51 And we've been doing it ever since. And so, um, I believe what's being described in that last regret is people sacrifice their playfulness-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:03 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:00:03 ... their joyfulness for the sake of being accepted and being successful and all that. It's a huge one. But play is built into our brains. Kids play spontaneously. Infants play.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:00:17 And, um, in that sense, we can all be Winnie-the-Pooh and, and Christopher. We, we can always keep playing in the Enchanted Forest, and that's just essential, I think.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:32 In that final regret is the word happier.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:00:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:36 What does happiness mean to you?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:00:40 Uh, really it means the capacity to play and to be in the present moment. And, and, and, and, you know, the kids when they- when kids play, they don't worry about the, the, the, the... appropriately, they don't worry about the war or wherever where they... or, or climate change. They're just playing in the moment. They're fully present-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:58 Mm-hmm

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:00:58 ... to themselves in imaginative, almost hypnotically imaginative states. So happiness just means being in the present and being allowed to be, uh, uh, no matter what, to have the capacity to play.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:12 A lot of people today, Gabor, and I, I think you have struggled with this as well-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:01:16 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:16 ... from what I know, feel with so much heartache and suffering in the world-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:01:21 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:22 ... they feel that they have no right to be happy. What's your take on that?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:01:28 Well, um, first of all, Bob Dylan said somewhere that it's difficult to be completely happy when other people are suffering, and it's true. So whether this, this is a time of terrible suffering, you know how I feel about Gaza and the terrible things that are happening there. How can I be completely happy? I can't be completely happy. I can't, 'cause I can't not think about that, the horror of it. Um, but at the same time, and this is why people might start get weirded out, but I'm talking about a psychedelic experience. This is three or four years ago. I did, uh... I worked with psychedelics both as a healer but also as a subject, and I was having a mushroom experience, and the same thing would happen with ayahuasca once. And I've always been one that felt that, how could I be happy when Auschwitz is possible? When Auschwitz happened? When my grandparents perished there, how can I be happy? What right do I have to be happy if that can happen in the world? And that did happen in the world. And both the plants showed me at some point that happened, and yes, you can be happy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:52 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:02:52 That the one doesn't detract from the other.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:56 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:02:56 That, that the capacity to be empathetic and to recognize the grief, and to hold the grief does not obviate the capacity to be happy, and one doesn't... one does not... one is not disloyal to the suffering in the world by allowing myself to be happy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:14 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:03:14 So there's no necessary contradiction.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:16 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:03:17 And I've, I've seen people on death row who, if they win their appeal, the best thing they can hope for is life in jail without... life in prison without parole. But they're happy. And how do they become happy? Meditation, working through their traumas, having remorse for what they did, connecting with other people, and just connecting with the present moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:03:49 And I'm thinking, "My God, if people in that situation can be genuinely happy," which I've seen, I've, I've had contact-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:57 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:03:57 ... with the people, then who am I to say that I can't be happy?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:01 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:02 So the... So there's ultimately there's no contradiction.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:05 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:05 Now, in this society, there's way too much emphasis on, you know, "Don't worry, be happy. Let's ignore all the bad stuff that's going on. Let's just concentrate on how we can make ourselves pleased or, or, or pleasured or whatever." I'm not talking about that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:19 No.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:19 I'm talking about being able to hold both at the same time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:21 Yeah, you have to. And th- this is something I feel I've really grown into over the last years, that I actually can be very happy and content-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:29 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:29 ... whilst there is heartache in the world.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:33 It doesn't mean I don't care. I actually deeply care.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:37 But I've realized that it's a real skill, it's an evolution of the self to be able to hold those two.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:44 I, I really do think that. I think-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:46 ... it's growth.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:47 That's right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:48 I very much love the phrase, uh, that's attributed to Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:04:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:58 I, I li- I try my best to live my life by that. And why that's relevant to this part of the conversation is, I said this once at a live event. I said, "Listen, if you watch the news and you allow," this was a few years ago, "allow the heartache that's going on in," name the country, right-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:13 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:14 ... "to affect you, so much so that you develop apathy. You can't interact with your husband, with your children."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:23 You, you, you just drink more and more alcohol in the evening to numb your pain.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:28 What does that do?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:30 Right?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:30 You're no good to the people-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:32 ... uh, who are suffering.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:33 You're no good to those people around you, and that then ripples to everyone around you. Whereas if you can learn to be content where you're at-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:42 ... if you then do wanna go and help-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:44 ... in whatever way, you're much more able to, you know, volunteer, send money, whatever it might be.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:50 So I, I think this is... I think this is a really important point for people, especially the way things are in the world at the moment.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:57 A lot of people feel, "I've got no right to be happy."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:05:59 Yeah. Well, I, I no longer believe... I used to believe that, and somebody once said to be- said to me, "Don't be so loyal to your suffering." And, um, that's a lesson I've had to learn fairly late in life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:12 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:06:12 Um, and as I quote in The Myth of Normal, my friend Bessel van der Kolk, the trauma, uh, psychiatrist, looked at me once, this is what, 10, 12 years ago, we were having lunch, and he said, "Gabor, you don't have to drag Auschwitz around everywhere you go." And what he meant by that is that you don't have to let that affect your present moment. That you can be aware of it, hold a memory of it, but not let it determine- ... your internal states, you know? And, and it's true, and I, I understood intellectually at that time what he meant, but it was only later that I was actually able to emotionally let go.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:52 Let's just talk about forgiveness then-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:06:54 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:54 ... because a lot of the time people say, "You know, I just can't forgive."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:00 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:01 "What, what happened to me was wrong."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:04 Now, I accept what happened to someone could, can be wrong-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:07 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:07 ... but it doesn't necessarily follow that you can't forgive.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:13 What's your take on forgiveness?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:15 Well, you and I last night were talking about a, a w- woman that we both met and, uh, admired tremendously, Edith Eger.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:22 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:22 And Edith, as I told you, was, uh, 16 years old when I was one year old. She lived in a town in what is now southern Slovakia, then was northern Hungary, called Kassa or Kosice, and her family were taken to Auschwitz.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:39 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:39 And, um, my grandparents would've been either on the same shipment to Auschwitz or within the next day or so, and her parents perished, and she survived with her sister. And she's become this psychotherapist. She's written a couple of wonderful books-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:57 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:07:57 ... that I know you've met her and interviewed her. And in one of her books, she describes going to the Berghof in Bavarian Alps, where Hitler used to have his lair, and he went there, she went there to forgive Hitler. And, um, it doesn't mean that it was okay what he did. She did that to liberate herself. She didn't... She said, "I don't wanna keep him in this prison in my heart for the rest of my life. I've worked too hard to attain happiness and joy to let this tension and this constriction control me." So the forgiveness wasn't making okay or, or pardoning Hitler for his, for all the evil that he perpetrated in the world, but it's of her letting go of the emotions around it and of the tension and the tightness around it. So forgiveness is not for the other person. It's for yourself. Now, when I work with forgiveness, I don't advise people to forgive. I- I- in fa- as a matter of fact, I do the opposite. I say to people, "Before you forgive, allow yourself to feel the full anger that's in you. Let y- let yourself fully experience the anger that's there, 'cause once you do, it'll dissipate."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:25 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:09:25 "You'll let go of it. So don't do it in order to forgive. Do it in order to liberate yourself." Now, let's say I was abused as a child. But let's say I find myself a fully liberated, present-oriented, in contact with myself human being. Then what does that mean? It means nothing was taken away from me. It means that whatever happened caused me a lot of pain over the years, but it didn't limit my capacity. I wasn't robbed of anything. So what's there to forgive?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:03 Hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:10:03 So, uh-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:05 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:10:06 ... and, and, and you can also ask yourself or anybody, when you haven't forgiven, what's in your heart? What's in your body? Do you like that state that you're in? Uh, the tension, do you like that? Is that how you wanna be? Do you think that's really helping you? So I don't go out of my way to teach... Now, I know that in a lot of spiritual practices, there are f- forgiveness practices, and I know in Buddhist practice and a lot of spiritual practices, there are forgiveness meditations and prayers.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:36 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:10:37 My mind doesn't go there, but my mind does say, "Oh, yes, oh, they also have to experience all the rage, all the hatred, all the anger that's in you and be with it and see what happens to it."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:49 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:10:49 And what happens to it once you pay attention to it, it actually dissipates. And so when E- Edith goes to the Berghof to hi- forgive Hitler, she's just saying, "I don't wanna hold on to this stuff anymore."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:05 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:05 "It's not okay what you did, but I don't wanna hold on to this stuff anymore."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:08 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:09 It's, it's fascinating. I think curiosity is, is often a very helpful pathway to forgiveness.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:19 Hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:19 'Cause if you get curious about that other person as to why did they act that way-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:24 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:25 ... you know. I'm not talking about Hitler here. I'm talking about-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:27 ... anyone.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:28 But even with Hitler.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:29 Yeah. What, what were the conditions-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:32 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:32 ... in that person's life that led to that?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:35 If I was that person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:39 ... because I would've had their parents and their childhood experiences-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:42 Very

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:42 ... and their bullying, et cetera, et cetera.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:44 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:44 Once you look at the world through that lens, your initial approach becomes compassion. Forgiveness comes as a side effect of getting curious.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:11:58 That's totally right, and there's an expression that you may be familiar with. It goes, "To understand is to forgive."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:04 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:05 And, uh, it begins with curiosity.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:07 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:08 So I... And I think that, uh, curiosity is the essential quality-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:12 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:13 ... that actually leads to compassion in the end. Now, compassion doesn't mean tolerance of bad behavior.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:18 No.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:19 It doesn't mean validating or justifying crimes against, um, nature or crimes against other human beings, but it takes away that quality of tension where you make yourself superior to reality, and you ma- and you put yourself in a position to judge reality.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:36 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:36 You know? And I'm above it, and I'm in a position to judge.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:39 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:39 That's not a comfortable... I mean, actually, it is comfortable for a lot of people to be there, but it's a way of not dealing with their own stuff.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:46 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:46 So I do think that curiosity is the key.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:49 Just to wrap this conversation up, Gabor, we've been talking a lot about these regrets-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:54 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:54 ... the regrets of the dying.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:12:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:57 And the final question I wanna put to you is about the word regret.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:04 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:06 I have been playing with the idea over the last 12 months or so that regret is actually a form of perfectionism.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:15 So I actually now very much subscribe to the philosophy of no regrets, but not in the, not in the kind of derogatory way-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:22 ... I'm gonna live my life my way.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:23 It doesn't matter who comes in my way.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:24 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:25 No, with this really compassionate understanding that I've always done the best that I can-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:30 ... based upon where I was in life-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:33 ... at that time.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:35 So even the things that I look back on and go, "Actually, you know what? If I was in that situation again today, I would act differently," I don't see them as regrets. I see them as situations that happened that have taught me something, which is allowing me to be a better version of myself today.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:53 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:54 So in my life today, there's, there is no room for regret anymore.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:13:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:59 And I guess I would love to know, you know, right at the end here, what's your perspective on the word regret?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:14:06 Um, I think, um, chronic regret is debilitating.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:11 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:14:11 Um, it's a lack of self-forgiveness. It's, um, also kind of egotism of that, that, that, that, that somehow I'm that important. Um, it's quite something to recogni- I do recognize that some of the way I parented my kids, the way I showed up, I've often talked about this on your program, too, wasn't the best for them. But it was the best I could do at the time. So it's not to qui- ju- question of justifying anything, but it's also not dwelling on the past.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:14:42 Regret is to dwell on the past, and what's the point? It's quite something to recognize that I did things that had I known differently, I would not have done the same way. That's just learning. Um, em- regret is an emotional state of, that values the past more than the present, and it, um, accuses yourself of doing things for which you had no consciousness to do otherwise.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:18 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:18 So that's where I stand with regret.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:19 Yeah. Gabor, you know what a big fan I am of your work.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:23 Ah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:24 Um, it's just incredible to see the impacts you're having on so many people around the world.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:29 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:30 I'm very lucky to consider you a friend these days.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:32 Likewise.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:32 It's been great to get to know you over the last few years. Um, for someone who has heard us speak today, and something connected with them-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:43 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:44 ... something you said spoke to them, and they thought, "Wow, yeah. You know what? I'm carrying around old stuff with me today. I don't express my emotions."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:53 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:53 "I'm not living a life that is true to me."

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:15:57 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:58 What are some of your final words for them?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:16:00 Well, it's the word that you used, curiosity. So not why am I living this way, but, hmm, why am I living this way? You know, what happened to me? What am I carrying here? So, uh, the key phrase is precisely the one that you introduced, uh, the necessity to be curious-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:21 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:16:21 ... um, in a compassionate way. So you don't do an interrogation of yourself like you're a, um, prosecuting detective.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:30 Mm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:16:31 Why did you, or why did you not?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:32 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:16:32 But compassionately, why did you not?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:36 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:16:36 Why did you? And if you ask these questions compassionately, um, and with curiosity, the answers will emerge, as will the capacity for you make yourself f- for you to make different choices as you move forward. So where there wasn't choice before 'cause you were compelled or, or, or driven, now you can have some freedom if you're willing to be curious. So curiosity is the word.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:04 Yeah. Gabor, all your books are fantastic. If someone is at the start of their Gabor Maté journey-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:17:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:11 ... which book would you direct them towards?

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:17:13 Well, you know, um, that depends on what they're dealing with. You know, I mean, if they're interested in addiction specifically, they should read my book on addiction. Or parenting, they should read Hold on to Your Kids. But if they wanna get the overall picture, the package, you know, it's, it's the certainly the most recent, The Myth of Normal, in which I combine pretty much everything I knew at the time-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:34 Yeah

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:17:34 ... that I wrote it, and I already... It was only published a year and a half ago. It's been published now in 40 countries and 38 languages. It's been a bestseller in a number of countries. That's the one I would start with.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:48 Yeah.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:17:48 Um, but if you're interested in s- in specific topics, then seek out the, like ADHD, you should read Scattered... Not should. I would invite you to read Scattered Minds. You know, uh, so it just depends what you're dealing with. But if you want an overall immersion in what I have to say, it's The Myth of Normal. That's what w- which I would say.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:08 The Myth of Normal. Over one million copies sold, it says on this one.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:18:11 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:11 It's been a smash hit-

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:18:13 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:13 ... around the world. It's a great book. Gabor, thanks for coming back on the show.

Dr. Gabor Maté 1:18:17 Uh, thank you. I hope to do it again. [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:19 If you enjoyed that conversation, I think you are really going to enjoy this one about the top five regrets of the dying and what we can learn from them.

Speaker 1:18:28 I spent eight years looking after dying people, and the most common regret during those eight years was, "I wish I'd lived a life true to myself, not the life that other people expected of me."