This Past Weekend with Theo Von - E538 Dr. Gabor Maté

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00:00:30.140 We have some upcoming tour dates there in Colorado Springs in Colorado.

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00:01:00.020 And thank you so much for the support.

00:01:02.360 Today's guest is a physician and an author.

00:01:06.940 His works explore such topics like stress, trauma, addiction, developmental psychology,

00:01:13.400 and more.

00:01:14.740 He has a new book called The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.

00:01:21.840 I'm grateful today to spend time with Dr. Gabor Mate.

00:01:27.560 Shine that light on me

00:01:30.840 I'll sit and tell you my stories

00:01:36.560 Shine on me

00:01:41.560 And I will find a song

00:01:45.760 I've been singing

00:01:46.960 I'm going to sing

00:01:47.880 I saw you interview with Donald Trump.

00:01:58.500 Oh, you did?

00:01:59.320 And I was actually quite struck.

00:02:03.320 I saw the segment on his brother's alcoholism.

00:02:07.580 Yeah.

00:02:07.840 And I found him unusually without bombast and almost tender and very vulnerable and just kind of humble, you know?

00:02:23.940 Yeah.

00:02:24.120 Which is not how usually he comes across.

00:02:25.820 Yeah.

00:02:26.940 Yeah, I was trying to just talk to him about something that felt pretty normal, you know?

00:02:31.300 Yeah.

00:02:31.800 But he's also expressed interest in you and your brother and...

00:02:36.660 Yeah, I thought it was sweet of him.

00:02:38.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:38.660 As sweet as he could be.

00:02:39.880 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:40.440 You know, I think I...

00:02:42.520 Well, look, when you read further in the book, I actually talk about him.

00:02:45.620 Really?

00:02:46.060 His childhood trauma, yeah.

00:02:47.440 Oh, you do?

00:02:48.380 Him and Hillary Clinton's both.

00:02:50.740 Oh, wow.

00:02:51.300 I didn't know that.

00:02:52.160 Yeah.

00:02:52.540 Oh, that's cool.

00:02:52.920 I'm looking forward to that.

00:02:54.140 Yeah.

00:02:54.520 Yeah, I just...

00:02:55.260 Yeah, it's like, especially like just as a regular person in the world, you kind of...

00:02:58.860 You want to try to get a feel for somebody.

00:03:00.920 I use a poster boy for trauma.

00:03:03.300 Yeah.

00:03:03.940 In my view.

00:03:04.440 Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of it there.

00:03:09.040 I mean, his brother had addiction and even him, I think, trying to learn about addiction,

00:03:13.880 I wish I would have stayed in that conversation a little bit more with Donald and tried to

00:03:21.540 share some thoughts and things that I had.

00:03:24.140 Not thoughts, but a little bit more explanation about addiction from my own perspective.

00:03:28.880 Yeah, well, that would have been an interesting conversation.

00:03:32.460 Yeah, just to let him know that it wasn't something his brother...

00:03:35.080 Like, it wasn't like his brother just couldn't stop drinking.

00:03:39.140 No.

00:03:39.480 You know?

00:03:40.020 No.

00:03:40.280 That he had other things inside of him that prevented him from doing that.

00:03:44.140 Exactly.

00:03:44.740 Yeah.

00:03:44.940 And I really wish that if I could go back.

00:03:48.240 But one of the things that's been tough for me is just you get into certain conversations

00:03:51.500 and I'm still learning how to be in conversations sometimes.

00:03:54.440 So sometimes it's, you know, you're learning on the stove.

00:03:59.740 We're always learning.

00:04:00.880 Yeah.

00:04:01.680 Yeah, we're always learning.

00:04:03.560 Gabor, that's how you say it?

00:04:04.760 Gabor.

00:04:05.260 Gabor.

00:04:05.800 Yeah.

00:04:06.340 Theo.

00:04:06.920 Nice to meet you today, Mr. Mate.

00:04:08.520 And thanks for coming.

00:04:09.860 Thank you.

00:04:10.420 My pleasure.

00:04:11.000 Yep.

00:04:11.220 And thanks for sharing this book, man.

00:04:13.580 This is your book, The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.

00:04:19.240 Yeah.

00:04:20.940 You believe that we are kind of a sick culture. 0.65

00:04:26.100 What makes you believe that? 0.97

00:04:30.140 Well...

00:04:30.780 Or like, what proof do you have of that?

00:04:32.240 Well, so 70% of American adults run at least on one medication.

00:04:37.080 70%, 40% are on two medications or more.

00:04:42.060 The number of children being diagnosed with all manner of dysfunctions, disorders, mental

00:04:47.740 health challenges like ADHD, self-cutting, addictions, anxiety, depression, childhood suicide

00:04:56.740 keeps going up.

00:04:58.300 So, in the United States, annually, twice as many people die of overdoses as died in the

00:05:06.040 Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghan wars put together.

00:05:10.020 This is every year.

00:05:11.320 Wow.

00:05:11.580 The life expectancy, particularly of white men, has gone down due to suicide and drug overdoses.

00:05:23.280 I mean, I could go...

00:05:24.380 The number of autoimmune...

00:05:25.460 I could go on and on forever, but just statistically, there's more and more evidence of illness and

00:05:31.680 dysfunction.

00:05:32.040 Yeah.

00:05:33.240 Yeah.

00:05:33.740 I mean, the overdosing alone is unbelievable.

00:05:36.240 You know, the fact that that's even just become a common thing in our society is...

00:05:41.260 Yeah.

00:05:41.780 It's heartbreaking for so many.

00:05:43.940 It's heartbreaking for so many and so many people's families.

00:05:46.460 Just the residual effect of suicide or overdose.

00:05:49.500 It's like, we don't even think about...

00:05:51.940 Those numbers don't even take into the ripple effect of people losing a loved one.

00:05:57.460 Oh, absolutely.

00:05:58.620 I mean, the families that are being devastated.

00:06:01.820 And I mean, I used to work with what is North America's most concentrated area of drug use

00:06:08.000 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

00:06:09.520 And I know you were there a month ago.

00:06:11.200 Yeah.

00:06:11.400 We went down on Catchings.

00:06:12.640 Is that right?

00:06:13.220 The street?

00:06:13.620 Hastings.

00:06:14.200 Hastings.

00:06:14.620 Yeah.

00:06:14.900 We went down on Hastings just to take a drive and see.

00:06:17.320 Well, so that's where I used to work.

00:06:19.000 Wow.

00:06:19.680 For 12 years as a physician.

00:06:22.160 And everybody down there was severely traumatized in childhood.

00:06:27.240 And their addictions were all a response to immense emotional pain that they didn't know

00:06:34.140 how else to handle.

00:06:36.320 Not to mention the racial aspect.

00:06:39.800 Like 30% of my clients were indigenous.

00:06:42.280 Whereas they only make up 5% of the Canadian population.

00:06:45.080 So the more you suffer either socially or individually, the more likely you are to escape in the soothing

00:06:54.300 and the relief that drugs or other addictions offer.

00:06:58.200 So if you look at American society, you're going to be asking, why are so many people having to escape from reality?

00:07:04.780 Yeah.

00:07:05.780 And we're going to get into good stuff.

00:07:07.220 I have a good plan today.

00:07:08.580 I'm prepared.

00:07:09.800 Some stuff, I have some questions that I even wrote down that are on cards just because I want to make sure that we get the best information that we can for our guests today.

00:07:17.260 I think it's really important.

00:07:19.460 One of the things that you talk about in the book that's causing a lot of sickness is trauma.

00:07:25.000 Yeah.

00:07:25.240 And then more specifically, unprocessed trauma.

00:07:27.880 Yeah.

00:07:29.360 Help me define those a little bit for our audience.

00:07:31.880 Sure.

00:07:32.280 So trauma is one of these words that everybody throws around.

00:07:36.140 Yeah.

00:07:36.260 It's a buzzword.

00:07:37.240 Yeah.

00:07:37.580 So let's just define it.

00:07:39.460 So trauma literally comes from the Greek word for wound or wounding.

00:07:42.980 So trauma is a wound, whether it's a physical wound or a psychological wound.

00:07:47.080 In this case, we're talking about emotional wounds that haven't healed.

00:07:50.800 So trauma is an unhealed wound that you sustain in childhood, but then it stays with you.

00:07:56.420 And it directly causes inflammation in the body.

00:08:01.340 It affects all your genes function or your chromosomes function.

00:08:05.060 It stresses your organs.

00:08:07.200 It creates all kinds of physiological problems.

00:08:10.380 On an emotional level, it instills a lot of pain in you that you try to escape from.

00:08:17.380 And one of the ways you try to escape, for example, is through drug use or to other kinds of addictions.

00:08:22.440 Or through self-cutting or bulimia or any, you know, pornography or whatever.

00:08:29.060 It also makes you suppress, disconnects you from your own emotions.

00:08:34.080 Because when a child is being traumatized, it's too painful to connect to themselves.

00:08:38.960 So they disconnect.

00:08:40.460 And that disconnect then causes all kinds of problems in terms of illness, mental and physical.

00:08:45.760 So the impacts of trauma are vast and quite under-recognized.

00:08:52.440 Indeed.

00:08:53.460 And you talk about trauma also as not being seen and known.

00:08:57.640 Yeah.

00:08:58.360 So here we have to understand what are the needs of the human child.

00:09:04.620 So everybody understands that the child needs to be physically cared for, cleaned up, fed, and sheltered, and so on.

00:09:12.640 Children, according to evolution, also have emotional needs that they're born with.

00:09:17.380 One of them is being just accepted and valued for exactly who they are and being seen rather than being forced to be something that the parents want them to be.

00:09:28.620 Yeah.

00:09:28.860 And a lot of parents in this society, not because they don't love their kids, but because they're so stressed, have just a hard time seeing their kids.

00:09:37.720 I had trouble seeing my kids.

00:09:39.620 Wow.

00:09:40.040 And that had an impact on them.

00:09:41.520 And not because I wasn't devoted, because I didn't love them, just because of my own trauma, I couldn't even see myself.

00:09:49.440 Oh.

00:09:49.580 Man, I can relate so much to it.

00:09:52.540 I can relate so much to that.

00:09:54.660 Yeah.

00:09:55.100 It's like, it's funny because I work as a comedian and for like, I grew up in a kind of a traumatic home.

00:10:02.180 Like my mom was very busy.

00:10:04.240 We had, she had four children and yeah, I feel like she never looked at me.

00:10:10.260 I feel like she never kind of put her hands on me.

00:10:12.920 I feel like she just, and she didn't know how, I guess, you know, it's okay.

00:10:17.360 Yeah.

00:10:17.700 I just always felt like I wasn't seen.

00:10:19.980 And how do you, and how do you suppose that affected you?

00:10:22.820 Well, I ended up being, becoming a comedian.

00:10:25.180 I felt like I started, I had to find some way to be seen.

00:10:29.140 I had to do something, you know, to get someone to see me because I needed to survive.

00:10:35.780 You know, I needed to feel alive, you know?

00:10:38.260 You know, it's funny about comedians.

00:10:39.480 May I say something about them?

00:10:40.540 Yeah.

00:10:40.800 I looked at the biographies of a number of comedians.

00:10:43.860 What you're talking about is like a common theme.

00:10:46.140 I looked at Robin Williams, who's this brilliant, brilliant comic.

00:10:51.500 And one of the reasons he developed his humor was to make his mother laugh as a way of having

00:10:57.640 his mother pay attention to him.

00:10:59.260 Gilda Radner, who died of a brain cancer, the same thing.

00:11:03.580 Wow.

00:11:03.840 So that they had the innate talent, but then they used that talent to be seen and valued

00:11:12.200 where they should have been valued with or without talent.

00:11:15.240 No matter what.

00:11:16.120 Yeah.

00:11:16.340 Yeah.

00:11:16.820 It's funny.

00:11:17.260 A few years ago, I thought it's like, I'm kind of a late bloomer.

00:11:21.400 Like I only realized that, like I go to recovery meetings and stuff like that.

00:11:26.780 I'm in AA.

00:11:27.480 Yeah.

00:11:27.700 And I only realized a few years ago, it started to hit me like, did I even want to be a comedian?

00:11:33.680 Or did I just, at some early point, develop having to get attention because I need, you

00:11:45.640 know, and then, so if that's the case, then who did I really want it?

00:11:49.140 What, you know, who would, what would I have been if I didn't do that?

00:11:53.500 And not saying that, not saying that I'm not grateful and I don't love being a comedian.

00:11:58.060 It's been, it's been a blessing, but, but it's like, if I created that, okay, I have

00:12:06.120 to be this thing to, for you to see me, then who created that?

00:12:10.380 You know, like who, like, was there a different me that was supposed to be there, but then

00:12:15.380 I created this new me?

00:12:17.600 That's the dilemma for so many of us is that as a result of childhood wounding, we have

00:12:23.520 to make ourselves into something that the world will accept and value.

00:12:28.060 Like, look, in my case, I love having been a physician and that's my calling, but the

00:12:35.760 big part of it wasn't just that I wanted to help humanity or heal people, it's also I

00:12:40.720 needed to be important.

00:12:42.560 Now, why do they need to be important?

00:12:44.100 Because as an infant, I got the message that I wasn't.

00:12:46.740 Yeah.

00:12:47.020 And, and so now then, and that creates a kind of an addiction because you have to keep

00:12:52.360 proving to yourself how important you are and how valuable you are, but nobody should

00:12:56.020 have to prove how valuable they are.

00:12:57.440 That's just our birthright, that we exist.

00:13:00.220 We have the right to be here.

00:13:01.600 Yeah.

00:13:01.820 That God chose us or that the energies of the world chose us and said, I'm going to put

00:13:06.480 you here like a, with a fine pen, I'm going to put you in the world.

00:13:09.920 Yeah.

00:13:10.200 And, and I did it on purpose and, and the world, it was built to take care of you and to nurture

00:13:16.480 you and to make you feel welcome as you are.

00:13:20.520 And if, and if you actually look at, and this has been studied quite extensively, how it

00:13:26.540 didn't indigenous people or tribal peoples close to the land rear their kids, that's 0.99

00:13:32.220 exactly how they rear their kids. 0.93

00:13:34.460 Like they gave their children a deep sense of acceptance.

00:13:38.140 They hold them, they carry them everywhere.

00:13:40.260 Oh yeah.

00:13:40.720 All the paintings you see of a native Americans, they all, somebody's got a kid on them. 0.99

00:13:44.900 Yeah.

00:13:45.040 They got them in a knapsack.

00:13:46.540 They got them, right?

00:13:47.460 They got them.

00:13:48.220 And they tend not to hit their kids.

00:13:50.060 Yeah.

00:13:50.460 You know?

00:13:50.860 Yeah.

00:13:51.000 You've never seen a movie about a native American beating his children, I don't think.

00:13:53.880 Yeah.

00:13:54.440 Yeah.

00:13:55.020 So, I mean, so what you're describing is actually how we evolved and part of the toxicity

00:14:00.340 in my view of our culture is we've gone so far away from our nature when it comes to

00:14:06.420 how we rear children.

00:14:07.720 And again, not because of lack of parental devotion, but because of so much parental stress.

00:14:12.940 Yeah.

00:14:13.800 Oh yeah.

00:14:14.520 I think that was it.

00:14:15.320 My mom couldn't see us because she had other things she had to see first.

00:14:18.400 Yeah.

00:14:18.620 And, you know, and yeah, and not just me, but so many people.

00:14:22.820 It's like, yeah, we've created a society or our society has created a way of life where

00:14:28.860 now it's like both parents work in so many cases.

00:14:33.640 So, and that alone just feels like it just shouldn't be that way.

00:14:39.360 It's like.

00:14:39.900 Well, if you look at throughout evolution, through millions of years and hundreds of thousands

00:14:45.720 of years of human evolution, children were always with their parents.

00:14:51.480 That's how nature designed it.

00:14:52.820 Yeah.

00:14:53.320 Now, if that's not possible in today's society, at least then we have to compensate for it.

00:14:59.080 But we've forgotten that shouldn't need that.

00:15:02.440 Yeah.

00:15:02.720 So now when they send them to daycares and schools, it's all about behavior and it's all

00:15:07.900 about fitting in, not about accepting the child and nurturing the child innate sense of

00:15:16.620 who they are.

00:15:17.660 So we all end up disconnected from ourselves.

00:15:20.860 Yeah.

00:15:21.000 And then we get to a certain stage in life.

00:15:22.680 We're wondering whose life am I leading anyway?

00:15:24.620 Yeah.

00:15:26.420 Wow.

00:15:27.360 Yeah.

00:15:27.560 And it's funny.

00:15:27.980 You say like fitting in, it's like, yeah, like you're like your child's not fitting in

00:15:31.680 because it's two puzzle pieces or the parents, you know, or the family.

00:15:37.200 That's not to say it shouldn't be able to spend time with other children and being and

00:15:42.060 that that our schools are bad or anything.

00:15:43.940 But it's the fact that they need to fit in there first.

00:15:49.460 And then I think it's probably easier for children to fit in in other places in the world.

00:15:53.900 Well, that's but the fitting in happens naturally when you're when you're accepted.

00:16:00.240 You know, listen, the schools, I'll tell you something.

00:16:03.700 One of the.

00:16:05.140 I'm talking science here.

00:16:07.080 One of the essential needs of all mammals is play.

00:16:12.100 In our brain, there's circuitry for play.

00:16:14.780 You can see it.

00:16:15.560 Dolphins play.

00:16:16.840 Little elephants play.

00:16:18.720 Bear cobs, lion cobs, puppies, kittens.

00:16:21.580 They all play.

00:16:22.160 Why?

00:16:22.960 Play is essential for brain development.

00:16:25.180 It's far more important than academic learning.

00:16:27.920 So then the schools, there ought to be a lot more play.

00:16:30.740 A lot more freedom for the kids to be themselves.

00:16:32.900 A lot more freedom to move around.

00:16:34.260 And then those kids will be naturally curious and interested in learning.

00:16:38.960 But here we try to put the cart before the horse.

00:16:42.280 We try and stuff them full of knowledge, skills and behavior or control rather than again promoting the conditions for healthy brain development.

00:16:53.860 So the schools actually, they intend well, but they really don't get it when it comes to what do children actually need.

00:17:01.800 Well, I think it's just an O.

00:17:02.940 And that's just part of it.

00:17:03.900 It's like our whole society.

00:17:05.080 It's, you know, I wonder sometimes where we did.

00:17:09.940 We go completely off the rails in a direction and or a series of directions, you know, that have kind of put us where we are.

00:17:18.700 I want to get this statement right, right here.

00:17:22.000 Sure.

00:17:22.300 Um, why is a trauma event different from other stressful events?

00:17:26.900 Like what makes it a trauma?

00:17:28.460 Like some events could be traumatic for some people.

00:17:31.380 Yeah.

00:17:31.920 And the same event, not traumatic for others.

00:17:34.060 What exactly is it about the mind, body, soul that makes the event traumatic or like what is the mechanism?

00:17:39.800 Right.

00:17:40.300 Great question.

00:17:42.400 So every traumatic event is stressful, but not every stressful event is traumatic.

00:17:49.060 So, you invite me on your show and for some reason I don't show up and you had this studio arranged.

00:18:00.940 That might stress you, but it doesn't traumatize you.

00:18:03.660 Right.

00:18:03.760 It doesn't leave you with a permanent wound.

00:18:05.980 So it's traumatic if it leaves you with a wound.

00:18:08.460 And if that wound leaves you more constricted and more afraid and more suspicious and less comfortable with yourself, more hostile to other people, less comfortable in the world, then it's traumatic.

00:18:24.820 Now, not every stressful event will have that effect, but if it does, then it's traumatic.

00:18:30.780 If it makes a wound.

00:18:32.020 If it makes a wound, that's what makes it traumatic.

00:18:33.680 Because a wound is sensitive, even if you think of a wound.

00:18:36.200 Yeah.

00:18:36.780 And if it's not healed properly.

00:18:38.440 Yeah.

00:18:39.240 Then it's always a problem.

00:18:40.660 Well, there's two.

00:18:41.500 Yeah.

00:18:42.080 And there's two ways a wound can show up.

00:18:45.720 One is just an open wound.

00:18:47.480 And if you touch it, oh.

00:18:49.040 So I have certain emotional wounds.

00:18:50.880 And well into my 70s or even I'm 80 now, you know.

00:18:57.980 Oh, you look great.

00:18:59.620 Well, thanks.

00:19:00.740 It's all the Botox.

00:19:02.020 Yeah.

00:19:02.120 And the adrenaline.

00:19:05.180 No, it's.

00:19:07.400 And in my 55-year-old marriage with my wife, she might say something or react in some way that touches an old wound.

00:19:16.320 And all of a sudden, I'm not this 80-year-old guy.

00:19:19.240 I'm this one-year-old kid responding, you know, because that wound is sort of, I'm not giving an excuse here.

00:19:25.040 No.

00:19:25.440 And I'm just saying that that's the challenge, you know.

00:19:28.240 So in one sense, a trauma is an open wound that you touch it, oh.

00:19:35.760 That's the one thing.

00:19:36.600 But then the other thing that happens to wounds is they scar over.

00:19:40.040 Now, scar tissue is thick, it's hard, it doesn't grow, it has no nerve vending, so it's insensitive.

00:19:47.560 So we get hardened.

00:19:50.560 Wow, so you can either get extremely sensitive or very hardened.

00:19:53.500 Or both.

00:19:54.200 Or both.

00:19:54.820 Depending on, you know.

00:19:55.760 And when you talk about hardened criminals, guess what hardened them?

00:20:01.900 Is that they were so wounded in childhood.

00:20:04.660 Again, I'm not making excuses.

00:20:07.860 I'm just telling you what the science shows.

00:20:09.780 Yeah.

00:20:10.160 And so then the question is, then how do we treat each other in a society where so many of us carry wounds?

00:20:19.380 Let's talk a little bit about unprocessed trauma.

00:20:21.660 So you talk about emotional isolation as being something that really negatively nurtures unprocessed trauma.

00:20:33.340 So once you're hurt as a child, you tend not to trust other people.

00:20:39.460 So you could be in the middle of a crowd and be laughing and interacting, but still feel quite alone emotionally.

00:20:48.100 Maybe you've had that feeling.

00:20:49.280 Oh, yeah.

00:20:49.780 You know, and that emotional isolation itself then has effects on your body and on your mind.

00:20:56.040 So the people who are lonely, and the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Admiral Vivek Murthy, just issued a paper on loneliness in the United States.

00:21:07.620 And loneliness, and there's an epidemic of loneliness.

00:21:10.900 People are describing us as lonely in much higher numbers as they did 20, 40 years ago.

00:21:16.180 No, loneliness is as much of a risk factor for physiological illness as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

00:21:24.220 Really?

00:21:24.900 Yeah.

00:21:25.500 So loneliness is both a manifestation of trauma and a cause of tremendous stress, which then undermines physiological and mental health.

00:21:35.220 Okay, say that to me one more time.

00:21:37.540 So loneliness is both an outcome of trauma.

00:21:40.240 So it's an outcome of trauma.

00:21:41.180 So something traumatic happened, it wasn't processed properly, and then now you will feel lonely.

00:21:49.640 You will feel lonely.

00:21:50.340 You will isolate.

00:21:51.280 Because look, if I am always being a nice guy so that you will like me, but inside I'm feeling all these emotions that I'm not sharing with you, that's pretty lonely.

00:22:06.220 Even though you might like me because I'm showing you this nice side of myself.

00:22:09.840 Right, that's not really me.

00:22:10.800 That's not me.

00:22:11.640 There was a study done in Australia.

00:22:13.500 Wow.

00:22:13.820 At least I used to work in palliative care as a doctor looking after dying people.

00:22:18.480 In Australia, there was a palliative care nurse who wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of Dying People.

00:22:24.740 These are people that were dying before that time, like I used to look after, of cancer or chronic neurological illness.

00:22:31.260 You know what the top regret of dying people was?

00:22:33.920 That they didn't have the courage to be themselves.

00:22:37.480 And the third top regret was that they didn't have the courage to express their emotions.

00:22:43.160 They pretended to be happy when they were not and so on.

00:22:46.780 So the question for the rest of us is do we want to wait until some terminal illness wakes us up?

00:22:54.860 Or should we just confront the fact that in so many ways we're afraid to be authentic because we're so afraid of being rejected?

00:23:02.100 And as children, we didn't have much choice.

00:23:06.140 As adults, can we develop that freedom to be ourselves?

00:23:09.640 Wow.

00:23:12.300 Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's amazing what your feelings or your heart or your mind will like want you to do sometimes.

00:23:23.520 But then this other smoke comes in, this, that feels stronger sometimes.

00:23:29.380 And it clouds, it almost clouds that feeling away.

00:23:33.820 Yeah.

00:23:34.160 You know?

00:23:34.700 But it does.

00:23:35.400 Yeah.

00:23:35.940 And am I interrupting?

00:23:38.020 Sorry.

00:23:38.180 No, I just wanted to, you said that in the book that if you have a trauma that you can't process, you essentially have the trauma of unprocessed trauma.

00:23:47.540 Yeah.

00:23:47.860 So now you've had a trauma that's happened.

00:23:50.280 Yeah.

00:23:50.580 And then if you can't process it, now you have almost a new trauma of unprocessed trauma.

00:23:58.580 Well, that's, they have the ongoing wound, which is what trauma means.

00:24:03.860 Now look, let's take an extreme example.

00:24:07.460 Okay. 0.86

00:24:08.180 Let's say a child is being sexually abused.

00:24:11.840 So what would their instincts tell them to do?

00:24:16.220 Well, their instincts would say fight back.

00:24:18.640 or run away or ask for help, for God's sakes.

00:24:25.180 But by definition, none of those options are available to the child.

00:24:30.300 So the only way they can survive is to disconnect from themselves.

00:24:34.780 Mm-hmm.

00:24:35.320 And that disconnection that gets wired into the nervous system, into the brain.

00:24:41.320 And every time they even think of being themselves, as you just described, they get scared.

00:24:47.380 Because being themselves, because had they fought back, had they tried to escape, it would have been worse for them.

00:24:55.360 So that disconnection from the self was the only way they survived.

00:24:59.540 No, every time as an adult, even think of being authentic, that fear comes up.

00:25:06.840 And it may not even come up for them, like in their awake mind.

00:25:12.880 It's almost like it comes up at a level where you don't even realize, like, that something's pulling the strings in the distance.

00:25:20.940 That's what's pretty remarkable.

00:25:22.240 Well, pulling the strings is exactly the right analogy.

00:25:25.640 There's a neurobiologist, neuroscientist, quite well known at Stanford University, Robert Sapolsky,

00:25:31.580 who wrote a book recently called Determined, by which he means predetermined.

00:25:35.560 He basically says, there's no such thing as free will, because we're so conditioned by our biology, our culture, and our early experiences.

00:25:44.260 And he's almost right, because what he's talking about is, as you say, we're pulled by these invisible strings of our unconscious that were programmed into us even before we were born, even in our mother's wombs.

00:25:57.940 And so, it's just a lifetime, I find it personally, a lifetime's challenge to cut the strings and to actually be in the present moment as an adult person connected to myself.

00:26:13.320 Let me tell you, it's a lifelong's work.

00:26:15.980 Yeah, no, I feel you.

00:26:19.480 It's funny.

00:26:20.060 Like, I didn't even know that I, I didn't know that, it might sound crazy, I didn't even, I existed and everything was fine in my life, but I was having trouble, like, building relationships.

00:26:33.180 There were just things that I didn't have any real tools to make my life evolve.

00:26:38.320 And so, I started to think, well, what is going on here?

00:26:41.440 And then, you know, with a lot of therapy and different modalities of therapy, I went more into, like, my past, and I started to see, like, oh, I see.

00:26:49.940 Yeah.

00:26:50.260 It's because of these, you know, these things that have happened, and then I never process them that some of them are still pulling me back.

00:26:58.620 You know, some of them are still holding me.

00:27:00.740 And until you did process them, what freedom did you actually have?

00:27:05.080 Right.

00:27:06.020 You were like puppets on a string.

00:27:07.880 Oh, and yeah, and I was almost a figment of, it's funny people say a figment of your imagination.

00:27:13.440 And that's almost what I was sometimes.

00:27:16.280 I felt like I was something that my mind or that my soul or whatever had created to best face.

00:27:23.180 Persona.

00:27:23.800 Yes.

00:27:24.860 Did you ever read Pinocchio as a kid?

00:27:26.860 Oh, yeah.

00:27:27.700 Geppetto, dude.

00:27:28.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.87

00:27:29.460 Now, do you remember when Pinocchio becomes a real boy and he looks at his puppet self and he says, I was so foolish when I was a puppet. 0.73

00:27:38.560 Wow. 0.98

00:27:38.840 But we're also foolish when we're puppets. 0.99

00:27:41.620 We're not stupid. 1.00

00:27:43.760 Right. 0.94

00:27:44.200 But we're unaware.

00:27:45.360 Yeah.

00:27:45.900 You know?

00:27:46.640 Yeah, unaware.

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00:30:16.160 Let's personalize this a little bit.

00:30:17.740 So what was the trauma in your life that started you on this journey?

00:30:23.220 Well, what started me on the journey was well into adulthood.

00:30:30.720 For a long time, I didn't realize I was traumatized, just like you didn't.

00:30:34.000 I just was a puppet on a string in some ways, you know?

00:30:37.280 And I was successful.

00:30:38.200 I was a well-respected family doctor, but I was unhappy.

00:30:44.300 I felt I had potential that I hadn't even nearly touched, and I had no idea how to get there.

00:30:50.160 My marriage had difficulties, a lot of tension.

00:30:54.460 And my children were facing their challenges, and in some ways, they were even afraid of me, you know?

00:31:07.860 Well, like afraid of your energy, afraid of like...

00:31:10.340 Afraid of my sudden outbursts of uncontrolled...

00:31:14.060 I don't mean physical violence.

00:31:15.340 I mean, just outbursts of rage, you know?

00:31:20.500 Anger, yeah.

00:31:21.360 I can relate to that.

00:31:22.540 And my son Daniel, who helped me write The Myth of Normal, he says in the book that the floor was never the floor.

00:31:33.300 He never knew when the floor might disappear.

00:31:35.820 In other words, when the loving and devoted and playful parents might all of a sudden erupt in one of their dramas,

00:31:45.040 and the kids are there watching this hurricane sweep through the house, emotionally speaking.

00:31:53.760 Well, that doesn't create a basis of trust or security.

00:31:57.340 And it's not because we didn't love our kids.

00:31:59.620 It's not because we didn't do our best, you know?

00:32:01.920 So, looking at all that, at some point, I had to start asking, like you had to start asking, well, what's going on here?

00:32:10.040 And that's when I started looking at what happened to me as a kid.

00:32:13.640 What were you like as a kid?

00:32:15.440 What was I like?

00:32:16.220 Yeah.

00:32:17.440 I was very smart.

00:32:19.800 Oh, yeah.

00:32:20.040 I've heard you say, I've heard you refer to yourself as a smart child.

00:32:22.460 Yeah.

00:32:22.640 You like to rebel.

00:32:23.900 I was a rebel, yeah.

00:32:26.200 In communist Hungary, you really have to follow the rules.

00:32:30.100 And the teacher, at some point, sent a warning to my parents saying that he better watch it because he agitates his classmates.

00:32:37.840 Yeah.

00:32:38.500 I loved getting those.

00:32:39.920 You know, I was very thoughtful.

00:32:46.540 I wet my bed until I was 13.

00:32:48.960 Dude, I wet my bed, I think, until I was 26.

00:32:51.640 Oh, wow.

00:32:52.480 Okay.

00:32:52.980 And that does go back to childhood trauma, early childhood trauma.

00:32:56.320 Yeah.

00:32:56.640 When I was eight years old, my mother took me to a psychologist.

00:33:01.420 And the psychologist took my history, you know, Jewish infant born under the Nazis, or living my first year under the Nazi occupation.

00:33:12.280 And all the horrors.

00:33:13.900 And then a separation from my mother for six weeks.

00:33:17.240 And she said, he said to my mom, Madam, if the only problem this kid has is that he wets his bed, you're very fortunate.

00:33:24.320 Well, I can tell you, that's not the only problem that I had.

00:33:27.040 So, on the one hand, I was highly functioning.

00:33:29.040 And, but on the other hand, I had all this unseen stuff that erupted later on.

00:33:41.040 Yeah, it's funny.

00:33:41.780 You don't even know it's there, especially when you're a kid.

00:33:43.540 You don't know.

00:33:44.320 No, you don't know.

00:33:45.080 Yeah.

00:33:45.640 You don't know.

00:33:46.280 You don't know that it's there.

00:33:47.260 And then later you have to, it's almost like a fire that starts when you're young.

00:33:53.940 But you don't, the smoke doesn't show up.

00:33:57.000 That's right.

00:33:57.280 For me, it wasn't until my 30s.

00:33:58.640 And I was like, where the, is all this smoke coming from?

00:34:01.720 That's exactly right.

00:34:02.560 That's what happened to me.

00:34:03.320 And then I had to go back and look at it.

00:34:04.920 Yeah, it's like, yeah, unprocessed trauma.

00:34:06.940 It's like, yeah, it's like a fire.

00:34:08.640 Like, imagine starting a fire, but no smoke comes out of it.

00:34:11.320 Yeah.

00:34:11.660 That's unprocessed trauma.

00:34:12.940 Well, the.

00:34:14.480 Does that make sense or it doesn't?

00:34:15.560 No, it makes total sense because what happens is, like when you said earlier you were fine, the heck you were fine.

00:34:21.680 You thought you were fine.

00:34:22.980 Right.

00:34:23.220 And that's because we pushed down all the rage that we never expressed as kids.

00:34:29.480 We pushed on the pain.

00:34:31.600 We pushed on the isolation.

00:34:34.960 We pretend.

00:34:36.260 And we can function in the world in ways that the world can give you an respect and reward.

00:34:41.960 I mean, look at, we're talking here in Hollywood.

00:34:45.460 Look at all the figures here that were great successes, idols to millions, and they had these miserable in our lives.

00:34:53.320 I mean, you can list a hundred of them.

00:34:56.900 Yeah.

00:34:57.120 I got 50 of them in my phone.

00:34:58.880 Yeah.

00:34:59.120 Yeah.

00:34:59.860 Yeah.

00:35:00.140 Yeah.

00:35:00.660 Yeah.

00:35:00.680 I mean, it's, and it's, yeah, it's funny that if things, if, if, if it's not, the foundation isn't there, then you'll go find it in the world.

00:35:08.420 Yeah.

00:35:08.760 Right.

00:35:08.940 And, and, and sometimes what you go find, even though you're just trying to replicate what you didn't get when you were young, it can be detrimental to you.

00:35:20.020 Which is why people get into unhealthy relationships because where did we most want love when we were kids, when we most wanted to be seen, by whom, by the people that couldn't do it.

00:35:35.200 Therefore, we will repeatedly look for people who can't see us and hoping that this time they will.

00:35:41.700 They will.

00:35:42.320 You know, and.

00:35:43.620 Yeah, it's so funny.

00:35:44.540 I mean, I have this, I have this thing that came into my head, like I could jump off of a cliff.

00:35:50.780 Right.

00:35:51.220 Yeah.

00:35:51.600 But if I heard.

00:35:54.960 A mom come home from work, I'm back on the top of that cliff.

00:35:58.800 I would find a way to get, or if I heard like high heels, if I heard a woman's footsteps, I'd find a way to get back up there and, and, and look towards her. 1.00

00:36:06.360 Cause you're looking for the mom.

00:36:07.540 Cause I'm just, yeah, it's like, it may sound crazy, but yeah, just like.

00:36:12.740 Like, yeah, it's like, if I can't help, but look, I can't help, but wonder does, is that woman accept me?

00:36:20.900 You know, even with dating and all my relationships, I see it now.

00:36:23.860 It's like, you know, I'm always kind of, I'm all, even, even in just any relationship, I'm just, or any moment, I'm just looking, do you accept me?

00:36:32.900 I can feel this.

00:36:34.040 Do you accept me?

00:36:34.920 You know, and unfortunately, it really gets in the way of male, female relationships. 1.00

00:36:45.680 Oh yeah.

00:36:46.020 Because a lot of us, I mean, myself included in my relationship with my spouse, in some ways, I just wanted to be mothered, you know, not just loved as an adult, but actually mothered on the one hand.

00:37:01.260 On the other hand, I would resent it, you know, because I don't want to be controlled.

00:37:07.140 Right.

00:37:07.400 You know, so it puts the woman into an impossible situation. 1.00

00:37:11.880 Yeah.

00:37:12.220 You know.

00:37:12.840 Oh yeah.

00:37:13.540 I would never date me.

00:37:15.160 Yeah.

00:37:15.680 Oh jeepers.

00:37:16.580 Yeah.

00:37:17.100 I wouldn't.

00:37:17.800 Even now?

00:37:18.880 It's getting better, but it's still, we still, we're, it's getting better.

00:37:23.160 Yeah.

00:37:23.540 You know, yeah, those relationships are tough.

00:37:25.520 You know, yeah, I, I have trouble committing in a relationship.

00:37:28.300 You know, I did, I did, I did some ayahuasca ceremonies.

00:37:31.600 People do plant medicine.

00:37:33.220 Well, hey, you haven't read the chapter yet on ayahuasca.

00:37:36.420 There's one in here?

00:37:37.020 Oh yeah. 1.00

00:37:38.280 Fuck yeah, dude. 1.00

00:37:39.180 Chapter, I think it's chapter 31. 0.99

00:37:41.660 So you had experience with it?

00:37:42.980 I used to lead retreats with it.

00:37:44.580 No way, bro.

00:37:45.960 Yeah.

00:37:46.780 And, um.

00:37:48.740 Dude, that's amazing, dude.

00:37:50.640 What were you going to say about it?

00:37:51.680 I was going to say that when I, when I did a plant medicine retreat, that I realized one

00:37:56.880 of the reasons why I've had trouble getting in relationships is because I'm still waiting

00:38:01.460 for this original relationship.

00:38:03.720 The perfect mom.

00:38:04.480 Yep.

00:38:04.660 And it's no blame.

00:38:05.380 It's not a blame on my mom.

00:38:06.420 I don't, I don't do, I don't do that anymore.

00:38:08.680 I, I, I, I lament some of the feelings from my youth, but I don't, you know, I love my

00:38:15.180 mother and I'm grateful that she did the best that she could.

00:38:18.240 And I believe that she did.

00:38:19.260 Um, but yeah, I realized like, I can't, there's just a part of me that, that's, it's just

00:38:27.480 still like, I feel like it's like a kid, like standing on a dock, like waiting for a boat

00:38:31.560 to come.

00:38:32.180 That's how I envision a lot of times.

00:38:34.060 But so there's a deep longing.

00:38:35.800 Yeah.

00:38:36.640 I totally understand that.

00:38:37.760 Um, and then you try to get someone else to fill it and they don't even know what to

00:38:41.260 do.

00:38:41.480 And you, and for years, I didn't even know I was trying to get somebody to fill it.

00:38:44.520 It's just nothing.

00:38:45.480 I couldn't figure it out.

00:38:47.040 There was that emptiness.

00:38:47.820 Oh, it was wild, man.

00:38:49.900 And my life was still okay, but just below, right below the surface level of my life,

00:38:54.780 there was, it was a precarious foundation.

00:38:58.280 I totally understand.

00:38:59.900 Um, I, I found out about ayahuasca after my book on addiction got published in 2009.

00:39:08.080 It's called In the Realm of Hunger Ghosts.

00:39:09.960 And it's about how addiction is not a genetic disease.

00:39:12.900 It's a response to trauma as it affects the brain and, and, and the psyche.

00:39:17.820 But after I published that book, I, I go on book tour and people got asking me, what do

00:39:24.000 you know about addiction and its healing with ayahuasca?

00:39:27.540 I know nothing about it.

00:39:29.020 Next visit, next, next stop.

00:39:31.820 What do you know about it?

00:39:33.180 I said, leave me alone already. 0.85

00:39:35.260 I mean, you just spent three years writing the book and you asking me about the one thing

00:39:38.900 I don't know anything about.

00:39:39.660 And then finally said, somebody said, you know, you could experience this up here in

00:39:44.160 Vancouver because the Peruvian shaman who came up there.

00:39:47.820 So I did the ayahuasca and I experienced pure love for the first time in my life.

00:39:55.280 There's a little baby in the tent whose father had done a plant and the mother was there with

00:40:00.140 the baby and the baby started cooing and wooing and aahing and these tears of love just flowed

00:40:06.400 on my face.

00:40:07.120 My heart just opened and I realized how close my heart had been because it was so bruised so

00:40:15.280 early that I closed it down.

00:40:17.580 And not that I deliberately closed it down, but as a way of protecting it.

00:40:22.580 And that, right away, he said, okay, I can work with this to help people who are addicted.

00:40:31.780 Now, I'm not here to advocate its use.

00:40:36.500 It's not for everybody.

00:40:37.420 It's certainly not a panacea.

00:40:40.840 You know, psychedelics is a whole other conversation.

00:40:43.760 Yeah, same.

00:40:44.840 I'm not saying anybody should.

00:40:45.960 They have their place.

00:40:49.040 They're not the answer.

00:40:50.940 And they're certainly not for everybody.

00:40:53.020 But in the right context, with the right guidance, the right preparation, they can really help

00:41:00.580 people open up to parts of themselves that they weren't even aware that they were there.

00:41:05.680 Yeah.

00:41:05.960 Oh, yeah.

00:41:07.540 I mean, it's fascinating.

00:41:08.440 And I hope that the knowledge of that evolves over time.

00:41:12.760 But that can also be scary because some people go and get addicted to that.

00:41:16.060 I've seen that happen with people.

00:41:17.460 I've seen it, too, because what people get addicted to is not so much the substances because

00:41:21.560 nobody's going to get addicted to what I was going to do.

00:41:23.820 Yeah, it's nasty.

00:41:24.540 You can't just have some at a club.

00:41:26.980 But what they get addicted to is the heightened experience.

00:41:31.800 And if they don't know how to integrate what they've learned into their lives,

00:41:35.000 then they keep looking for that elevated experience that takes them out of their ordinary self.

00:41:43.160 And so I really think that that's one of the risks of psychedelic use is that you start looking

00:41:50.820 for that elevated, heightened, or deepened experience that's missing from your life where

00:41:56.360 the whole thing is the experience can open the door.

00:42:02.560 Right.

00:42:02.920 But you've got to walk through it.

00:42:04.120 Yeah.

00:42:04.340 And you have to keep walking through it.

00:42:05.960 Not when you're under the influence of the medicine.

00:42:08.020 Right.

00:42:08.220 The integration.

00:42:09.140 The integration.

00:42:10.000 It's so key.

00:42:10.900 Yeah.

00:42:11.160 Yeah.

00:42:11.360 We've lost.

00:42:11.960 That's a huge part of our society.

00:42:13.320 That's kind of now we just kind of get a piece of information and then we're like,

00:42:17.140 oh, we have the information.

00:42:18.200 But we don't take as much time to integrate something in our life.

00:42:22.980 Like that's one thing I've noticed for myself anyway.

00:42:26.120 I don't want to pin on everybody, but I'll notice that sometimes I'll learn something.

00:42:29.320 I'll learn a fact or I'll learn like a way that I've, oh, I know this about me now or

00:42:34.880 this is something I've learned.

00:42:36.180 But unless I integrate the solution to that or the, um, the information from that, the

00:42:43.140 positive information, instead of just shouting it out that I know it actually integrating

00:42:48.420 it and taking time to integrate it, you know, even taking time.

00:42:51.340 Like if you go to a church sermon or, uh, um, or a, um, mosque sermon or, uh, synagogue

00:42:59.800 sermon, you had Jewish church synagogue sermon, but to, and you can hear a message, right?

00:43:04.560 But then you can just go on about your day, but taking time to integrate a message in

00:43:08.600 your life.

00:43:08.980 Well, what did I hear?

00:43:09.780 How does it make me feel?

00:43:10.900 That's right.

00:43:11.500 What do I think about it?

00:43:12.800 I think we used to have a lot more time to do that just because our society wasn't so,

00:43:17.120 um, our lives weren't so frenetic.

00:43:19.160 Well, I think we are addicted, uh, and particularly I think the United States is addicted to the

00:43:25.520 quick fix.

00:43:26.280 Yeah.

00:43:26.840 You know?

00:43:27.700 Yeah.

00:43:28.180 That Earl Scheib.

00:43:29.280 Yeah.

00:43:30.080 The paint, the spray paint it.

00:43:32.180 Yeah.

00:43:32.640 Yeah.

00:43:33.160 That's right.

00:43:33.800 Um, have you struggled with addiction before?

00:43:37.060 Have I struggled with addiction?

00:43:37.920 I know you struggled with work addiction, I think you talked about.

00:43:40.280 I, I, I've had two major addictions.

00:43:44.480 Uh, one is workaholism and, um,

00:43:47.940 um, again, I have to make a distinction here.

00:43:52.160 I mean, I did good work and I did work that had meaning and made a contribution.

00:43:59.260 That's good.

00:44:01.340 That's the calling.

00:44:03.180 But then there's another part of it, which is being driven.

00:44:06.380 I mean, you're being driven, you're not in charge.

00:44:08.300 You're like a leaf being driven by the wind.

00:44:09.980 And I was driven to work because I had to keep proving my importance and that, that people

00:44:15.280 should like me, people should respect me.

00:44:17.620 And why?

00:44:18.560 Because I didn't respect myself.

00:44:20.500 And because I, I got this message early in life that I just wasn't important, you know?

00:44:25.600 And I believed it.

00:44:26.940 The trauma is not, for example, the trauma is not, for example, that my mother gave me

00:44:32.560 to a stranger when I was 11 month old to save my life.

00:44:35.820 That wasn't the trauma.

00:44:37.080 That was the traumatic event.

00:44:38.900 Trauma is what happens inside you.

00:44:41.020 The trauma inside me was that I concluded from that, that I wasn't lovable.

00:44:45.760 I wasn't important.

00:44:46.980 Now, that drives the work addiction.

00:44:48.960 Right.

00:44:49.180 Because you have to keep proving to yourself.

00:44:51.040 The other addiction I had, and people often laugh and I can call that an addiction, but

00:44:56.020 really it was, was shopping for classical compact discs.

00:45:00.560 CDs?

00:45:01.300 CDs.

00:45:01.940 Hell yeah.

00:45:02.320 But, but I could drop three, $4,000 a day on them, you know?

00:45:07.260 And I would.

00:45:07.640 You can't even smoke them.

00:45:09.060 And you, no, you can't smoke them.

00:45:11.240 And no sooner would I leave the store, but I have to run back to get some more.

00:45:15.780 So it wasn't about the having and the enjoying.

00:45:17.580 I mean, I love the music, but it wasn't about that.

00:45:20.240 It was about getting more and more and more and everything enough.

00:45:23.380 And so I would lie to my wife about it.

00:45:25.820 I would sometimes neglect my work.

00:45:28.120 I mean, I don't think I mentioned this in this book, but in my book of addiction, I talk

00:45:33.300 about how I left a woman in labor once to go get a compact disc.

00:45:36.440 Wow.

00:45:37.000 What album was it?

00:45:39.400 That I don't remember anymore.

00:45:40.800 I know.

00:45:41.220 I think it was a Mozart symphony, but I don't remember anymore.

00:45:43.860 But, so I'm talking about, I'm not talking about my passion.

00:45:47.160 I'm not talking about my passion for music.

00:45:49.380 I'm talking about my drivenness.

00:45:51.340 And sometimes people say, well, how can you compare your addictions to your heroin addicted,

00:45:56.280 cocaine addicted, HIV ridden clients?

00:46:00.540 And I said, I don't.

00:46:02.100 I said, the differences are obvious.

00:46:04.300 It's the similarities that are interesting.

00:46:06.060 And when I told my patients in the downtown Eastside who were using the heroin and, you

00:46:12.520 know, and the cocaine and whatever, but, you know, I've got these.

00:46:16.620 These Boyz II Men albums.

00:46:18.160 Yeah.

00:46:18.460 Yeah.

00:46:18.740 And they said, they never said, how can you compare yourself?

00:46:22.440 You know what they said?

00:46:23.120 And they said, hey, doc, you're just like the rest of us, aren't you?

00:46:27.080 And my point is, we are all just like the rest of us.

00:46:31.340 Right.

00:46:31.980 We all find some chronic escape.

00:46:34.620 Not all of us.

00:46:35.620 Most people, whether it's drugs, pornography, sex, internet, cell phones.

00:46:40.120 Gambling.

00:46:40.680 There's so many.

00:46:41.520 Gambling, self-cutting, eating, shopping.

00:46:45.520 Running, working out.

00:46:46.860 That's a huge one.

00:46:47.720 Extreme working out and all that.

00:46:49.880 And we're running away from ourselves.

00:46:53.060 And so, and when I ask people, not what's wrong with your addiction, because that's obvious,

00:46:59.420 but what's right about it.

00:47:01.220 Like, for example, I mean, you've had alcohol and drug issues, I've heard you say.

00:47:05.420 What did they do for you in the short term?

00:47:08.240 I think it just, it gave me a break from how I wanted to feel.

00:47:15.560 It gave me a break from me.

00:47:17.720 It gave you a break from how you felt.

00:47:19.580 Yeah.

00:47:19.880 Yeah.

00:47:20.220 It gave me a break from my feelings.

00:47:22.100 Yeah.

00:47:22.280 Yeah.

00:47:22.580 And it just gave me a break from me.

00:47:24.260 I was just.

00:47:25.160 But that's because you were really uncomfortable with yourself.

00:47:27.080 Yeah.

00:47:27.560 And because you had feelings that were painful.

00:47:29.620 So my mantra on addiction, which I mentioned in this book, is don't ask why the addiction,

00:47:35.540 ask why the pain.

00:47:37.620 And if you understand why people have pain, don't look at their genes.

00:47:42.520 Look at their lives.

00:47:43.820 Yeah.

00:47:44.160 What happened to them?

00:47:45.780 Yeah.

00:47:46.000 Yeah.

00:47:46.660 Yeah.

00:47:47.060 You say, or I've heard you, in your book, you talk about addiction.

00:47:51.060 If you recognize the harm it's, or I think it might have been in an interview you did,

00:47:55.640 if you recognize the harm it's doing and you keep doing it.

00:47:59.060 So addiction is manifested in any behavior in which a person finds temporary relief or pleasure and therefore craves, but then suffers negative consequences and they don't give it up.

00:48:13.580 So pleasure, craving relief in the short term, harm in the long term, refusal and inability to let go of it.

00:48:20.760 That's what an addiction is.

00:48:22.380 So it's got nothing to do with drugs.

00:48:24.340 Well, it could have to do with drugs.

00:48:25.980 Could have to do with any of the things we already mentioned.

00:48:27.660 But any of the things we mentioned.

00:48:29.380 But why the pain?

00:48:30.240 That's the question.

00:48:31.000 The question is why the pain.

00:48:32.180 Yeah.

00:48:32.340 What are we running away from?

00:48:34.200 Right.

00:48:35.260 Yeah. 0.99

00:48:35.700 I had, like, once I saw, like, pornography and stuff like that, it was like, and I could do masturbation or jerking off or whatever people call it. 0.95

00:48:46.660 But once I, that was the first way that I realized, oh, I can make myself feel good. 0.98

00:48:53.260 Yeah.

00:48:53.680 And it was, like, the first time that I, like, yeah, I could make myself feel good.

00:48:58.520 And so then it just became, yeah, it became a way that I always, I mean, I would just, but, yeah, I would just, that, if the only way I knew how to make myself really feel good, even though it's just for a moment.

00:49:12.600 Well, listen, should I do something scientific about that?

00:49:16.200 Yeah.

00:49:17.180 So cocaine addicts and crystal meth addicts, or any stimulant addicts, in fact, all addicts, amongst the things they're looking for is a head of dopamine.

00:49:27.520 Dopamine is the incentive, motivation, chemical in our brain.

00:49:31.860 It's what makes us feel vital and alive and, you know, ready to go.

00:49:36.880 And without it, we can't survive.

00:49:38.980 Now, cocaine, crystal meth.

00:49:41.220 Without it, we can't survive.

00:49:42.440 No, we can't.

00:49:43.040 That's cool to hear.

00:49:44.320 It's interesting.

00:49:44.880 Oh, yeah.

00:49:45.160 Oh, no.

00:49:45.600 No, because dopamine flows in the brain when we're exploring a novel object or a novel environment, when we're seeking food, when we're seeking a sexual partner.

00:49:57.660 We can't survive without that stuff.

00:49:59.440 You can take a mouse in a laboratory and put food in front of him, and he's hungry, but he won't eat.

00:50:08.300 Why?

00:50:08.900 Because genetically, you knocked out his dopamine receptors, and he doesn't have the motivation.

00:50:13.240 Wow.

00:50:13.600 So it's the motivation chemical.

00:50:15.020 It's absolutely essential.

00:50:16.300 Now, cocaine, caffeine, nicotine, crystal meth, they literally give you a direct hit of dopamine.

00:50:24.260 So does pornography.

00:50:25.760 When you do a brain scan of some people, they get repeated spikes of dopamine.

00:50:30.180 It's not the pornography they're addicted to.

00:50:32.400 It's that hit of dopamine that they get in their brains.

00:50:36.000 Wow.

00:50:36.360 And all addictions, shopping, I mean, when I went to the record store, it was the dopamine.

00:50:43.260 Like, I've been diagnosed with ADHD.

00:50:45.480 The first book I wrote was on ADD.

00:50:49.160 And, you know, spacing out, absent-mindedness, you know, all this kind of stuff.

00:50:54.940 Oh, yeah, daydream, when they used to call it.

00:50:56.860 Daydream, yeah.

00:50:58.600 But when I was in the record store, I was present.

00:51:02.760 Wow.

00:51:03.280 I was focused.

00:51:05.020 Like, I almost remember which records I bought at which store at what time, you know, like.

00:51:10.800 Yeah.

00:51:11.140 Because the dopamine was flowing like crazy.

00:51:13.660 And that's why I needed to go back.

00:51:15.780 It wasn't because I needed more music.

00:51:17.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:18.320 The trunk's full.

00:51:19.360 I was after that.

00:51:20.780 I was hiding the discs on the porch and in the attic so my wife wouldn't call me.

00:51:24.820 You know, but I was after that.

00:51:27.480 The ceiling caves in.

00:51:28.440 It's just a bunch of Van Halen.

00:51:29.860 Yeah.

00:51:31.140 And I was after that dopamine.

00:51:32.820 Dopamine.

00:51:33.360 Wow.

00:51:34.020 You know, which is what you're after with the pornography.

00:51:36.860 Yeah.

00:51:37.820 Yeah, it just was.

00:51:38.740 And it was a way to make me feel good.

00:51:40.080 And it was the first way that I could interact with a woman where it felt like I could. 1.00

00:51:43.680 And I know it's not real interaction.

00:51:45.380 Yeah.

00:51:45.660 But it was like, this is the safest, closest I can get to interacting with a woman. 0.91

00:51:50.540 And it being like, okay.

00:51:52.480 Because I would get so nervous around women. 1.00

00:51:54.520 Or like, if women looked at me, I would like. 1.00

00:51:56.480 Yeah.

00:51:56.860 My whole body.

00:51:57.920 Like, I just, I couldn't handle it.

00:52:00.020 Yeah.

00:52:00.240 But yeah, that dopamine is, it's interesting to hear.

00:52:04.160 So, yeah, no matter what it is, it's the dopamine behind it.

00:52:07.700 It's the dopamine.

00:52:08.800 Now, and there's another chemical that's involved in many addictions, like the heroin addicts,

00:52:16.500 or the opiate addicts, the fentanyl addicts.

00:52:18.140 Those are opiates, which come from the opium plant.

00:52:22.740 But why do they work in the human brain?

00:52:25.260 Why would an opium plant work in the human brain?

00:52:27.540 Because we have receptors for them.

00:52:29.420 We have molecules that receive the opiate molecule.

00:52:32.780 Now, why do we have receptors from a plant that grows in Afghanistan?

00:52:36.720 We don't.

00:52:37.680 We have receptors for our own internal opiates.

00:52:41.520 So, we have an internal opiate system.

00:52:44.520 And they are called endorphins.

00:52:46.920 Endorphin means endogenous internal opiate.

00:52:50.180 So, those are, our endorphins are our own opiates.

00:52:52.540 Opiates.

00:52:52.840 So, we manufacture our own opiates.

00:52:54.900 Not only we do, plants do, animals do, everybody.

00:52:57.980 Now, the question is, what do the opiates do in the human brain?

00:53:01.900 Well, they do a whole lot of things.

00:53:03.620 But, three importantly, they relieve pain, physical and emotional pain.

00:53:08.740 Because pain is necessary for life.

00:53:11.420 Otherwise, I could smash my hand on this table.

00:53:13.760 Yeah, you jump out of a window and you wouldn't care.

00:53:16.260 But, I also have to some pain relief.

00:53:18.460 That's the endorphins, number one.

00:53:20.840 Number two, what they do is they give you a sense of pleasure and reward.

00:53:25.040 So, when people go bungee jumping, they get this high level of endorphins.

00:53:30.840 That's what they're after.

00:53:31.980 Ah.

00:53:33.020 And.

00:53:33.780 Ah, that's why they keep doing wild stuff like that.

00:53:36.600 That's right.

00:53:37.260 And, the third thing is the most important.

00:53:39.880 The endorphins help to make possible this little thing called love.

00:53:44.820 And, if you not caught the endorphin receptors of little mice in the laboratory,

00:53:50.440 they will not cry for their mothers on separation.

00:53:53.620 But, what would that mean in the wild?

00:53:55.500 It would mean their death.

00:53:56.880 Yeah.

00:53:57.040 So, endorphins connect people to each other, especially parents and children.

00:54:03.420 So, we're each other's opiates in a way.

00:54:05.160 We're each other's opiates, especially in a healthy parent-child relationship.

00:54:11.040 And, they both have endorphins flowing in their brain when they're looking into each other's eyes.

00:54:15.180 Yeah.

00:54:15.380 And, if, when I ask heroin addicts, or opiate addicts, a sex trade worker, I asked once,

00:54:25.120 what does the heroin do for you?

00:54:26.640 She said, when the first time I did heroin, it felt like a warm, soft hug.

00:54:30.980 What was she talking about?

00:54:32.560 Connection.

00:54:33.160 Connection, yeah.

00:54:34.100 And, in this book, I talk about it.

00:54:37.520 And, so many of the addicts, like, a very well-known recovery leader and, you know,

00:54:44.700 fearless advocate is Jamie Lee Curtis.

00:54:48.540 And, she told me.

00:54:49.960 Is she?

00:54:50.800 Sorry?

00:54:51.320 She is.

00:54:52.080 Oh, yeah.

00:54:52.440 She's a big 12-stepper. 1.00

00:54:53.600 I didn't know that.

00:54:54.580 Oh, no.

00:54:54.900 She's a huge 12-stepper. 1.00

00:54:56.100 Oh, that's awesome.

00:54:56.840 And, very forthright about her addictions and also her recovery.

00:55:02.680 Wow, that's fascinating.

00:55:03.400 I'd love to talk with her.

00:55:04.100 Yeah, I've seen her eating lunch in the Palisades before, Pacific Palisades before.

00:55:07.440 But, she told me that what the opiates did for her gave her a sense of warmth in the belly.

00:55:13.520 That warmth is what we're all after.

00:55:15.620 Yeah.

00:55:16.700 That comes from human connection.

00:55:19.060 And, when we didn't have the connections we needed early in life,

00:55:22.020 then we keep looking for that warmth from other sources.

00:55:24.840 So, these people that are addicted to opiates, that's what they're looking for.

00:55:29.520 Bunch of hug hunters.

00:55:30.720 Yeah.

00:55:30.960 I want to go back a little bit to trauma and isolation.

00:55:36.300 Yeah.

00:55:36.500 And, I wanted to ask, what is it about not being emotionally isolated that allows one to process a trauma?

00:55:44.240 Yeah.

00:55:44.740 Yeah.

00:55:45.080 So, I did a day-long event here in L.A. just a day before we were recording this.

00:55:56.200 And, I worked with a woman called Kimberly Shannon Murphy, who was one of Hollywood's top stunt women. 0.76

00:56:03.980 She just got a lifetime achievement award.

00:56:05.840 Nice.

00:56:06.060 Congratulations, Kim.

00:56:07.020 And, she worked with Cameron Diaz and Uma Thurman and Tom Cruise and all these people.

00:56:14.480 A lot of hotties. 1.00

00:56:15.240 No, she was sexually abused by her grandfather, all throughout her childhood and adolescence. 0.99

00:56:22.080 And, of course, the family was in denial.

00:56:28.460 Nobody noticed it.

00:56:29.740 If they noticed it, they kept silent about it.

00:56:31.940 She was totally alone with it.

00:56:34.260 So, that's what induced the wound.

00:56:37.340 And, had she been able to talk to somebody and say, this is happening to me, please help me, she would not have been traumatized.

00:56:45.740 So, the trauma happens when a child suffers and has nobody to share that suffering with.

00:56:52.400 Whether it's the extreme suffering or sexual abuse, or the milder, you might say, suffering of just not being seen for where you are.

00:56:59.920 If you're alone with it, you can't process it.

00:57:02.500 So, what happens later on, to ask you a question, when you meet somebody where you feel safe, and now you can express what's happening with you, that's what helps to process the trauma.

00:57:15.520 Got it.

00:57:15.980 So, it requires compassion and safety.

00:57:21.520 And, ideally, I mean, I criticize the 12-step groups, not for what they do, because I love what they do, but what they don't do.

00:57:30.260 I don't think they talk about trauma enough.

00:57:31.780 That's my view.

00:57:33.520 Yeah.

00:57:33.900 But, a 12-step group that's properly run will offer you support and safety.

00:57:41.600 So, now you can share yourself and be seen by others.

00:57:45.220 Amen.

00:57:45.520 Yeah, I mean, I've gotten even into, like, the intimacy disorder groups, and those are a lot more potent with people talking about their emotional disorders and, like, you know, traumas and things that happen.

00:58:01.640 And it's not a crybaby group either.

00:58:04.320 You know, like, sometimes we talk about trauma, but I don't talk about it from, like, a crybaby place.

00:58:07.980 No.

00:58:08.260 I like to talk about it from, like, this is important, and it's important to learn about, and I like to share what I learn about from it.

00:58:16.780 But, you know, it's not about people victimizing themselves or trying to present themselves as a victim.

00:58:22.920 Yeah.

00:58:23.060 It's saying, this is what happened to me, and it's my responsibility to learn from it.

00:58:27.900 That's the truth.

00:58:28.500 And it's my responsibility to grow from it, not to wallow in, oh, look what happened to me, and I can't help it.

00:58:33.940 That's nonsense.

00:58:34.900 Oh, I'll tell you this, Mr. Mate, that a thing I realized I was addicted to a few years ago, self-pity.

00:58:41.980 Yeah.

00:58:42.500 And I didn't even know it.

00:58:44.060 I kept always thinking, man, what's wrong with me?

00:58:46.640 Yeah.

00:58:46.860 I have to fix this.

00:58:48.340 Every day, nothing was enough.

00:58:50.420 And then I realized that even though it seemed like I was trying to make myself better, the truth was that I was always seeing myself as less than because those things have to both be present at the same time because I can only get better if, you know, I'm never enough.

00:59:11.220 And by never being enough, though, I'm trying to figure this out.

00:59:18.560 I got addicted to self-pity.

00:59:19.980 I got addicted to, like.

00:59:21.400 Can I jump in with a thought?

00:59:22.400 Yes, please.

00:59:23.080 Thank you.

00:59:23.480 Dear God, please.

00:59:24.520 It did something for you.

00:59:26.620 It took away responsibly from you.

00:59:29.980 Ah.

00:59:31.120 Now, human beings have a hard time taking responsibility.

00:59:34.140 I mean, you know, I have a hard time taking responsibility.

00:59:36.800 Yeah.

00:59:36.980 You know, we all have a hard time taking responsibility.

00:59:40.020 So when you're in that self-pity mode, you're suffering, but you don't have to take responsibility.

00:59:47.100 I'm suggesting that's what it did for you.

00:59:48.540 Yeah, I think, yeah, maybe there was a part of me that wanted to keep it around because it always let there be something wrong with me, too.

00:59:58.860 That's right.

00:59:59.880 You know?

01:00:00.460 That's right.

01:00:00.800 Like, if I never solve this, if I'm never enough, then there will always be something wrong with me.

01:00:06.120 Yeah.

01:00:06.400 Does that make any sense?

01:00:07.520 It makes sense because, again, it takes away the challenge of growth.

01:00:13.580 Right.

01:00:13.880 I mean, we talk about growing pains.

01:00:18.140 Growth is painful.

01:00:19.500 Oh, yeah. 0.97

01:00:19.940 People go from damn seven inches to seven feet, six and a half, six one or whatever. 0.97

01:00:24.460 Yeah. 0.97

01:00:24.680 And emotional growth is also painful.

01:00:29.860 And so when we don't grow, at least we avoid the growing pains.

01:00:35.540 Right.

01:00:35.880 You know?

01:00:36.480 Yeah, I used to, whenever I used to smoke, I used to be like, part of me didn't want to quit smoking.

01:00:43.080 Yeah.

01:00:43.460 Because I wanted to have an excuse for why I wasn't doing other things.

01:00:47.600 Right.

01:00:48.360 Does that make sense?

01:00:49.080 It makes total sense.

01:00:50.120 Little sense is enough.

01:00:51.300 I'll take it.

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01:03:43.980 Oh, yeah.

01:03:44.240 What else did I want to talk to you?

01:03:45.180 Oh, this is really fascinating stuff here.

01:03:47.740 So trauma fosters a shame-based view of the self.

01:03:51.700 Yeah.

01:03:51.880 I'd love to talk a little bit about shame, man, because that was a huge part of my life.

01:03:57.220 Oh, tell me about it.

01:03:58.100 I just felt ashamed of myself.

01:03:59.860 Yeah.

01:04:00.260 I felt ashamed of like, yeah, I felt ashamed of how I looked.

01:04:04.700 I felt ashamed of like my ears, my nose, my face, the way I stood.

01:04:10.500 I felt, yeah, I felt ashamed of my family, of my home.

01:04:18.400 I just, everything, I just felt a ton of it.

01:04:21.700 I'm not whining about it right now.

01:04:23.040 I'm just thinking back.

01:04:24.060 But yeah, I just felt a ton of shame, you know.

01:04:26.000 I felt like, I felt like, I think I felt ashamed of who I was at like the first molecule almost.

01:04:34.540 Like the first cell of my, you know, the dirt under the roots.

01:04:39.400 It felt like I just, there was a part of me that felt like I was, me or anything that had to do with me was gross.

01:04:46.100 I understand.

01:04:46.740 You know?

01:04:47.160 And I used the word gross because that's, it felt like gross.

01:04:50.740 No, the only thing I'll say is, it's not that you felt you were gross, it's you believed you were.

01:05:03.580 Right.

01:05:04.140 Yes.

01:05:04.640 Yeah, you're right.

01:05:05.520 I didn't feel it.

01:05:06.680 It wasn't like a feeling on the surface of me.

01:05:08.880 It was like a knot someone had tied a long time ago in the beginning of my time.

01:05:14.020 And in there, in that knot, it was in there somewhere.

01:05:16.840 And I couldn't really even access it.

01:05:18.300 It was a.

01:05:19.520 Yeah.

01:05:19.800 But shame.

01:05:20.640 Yeah.

01:05:20.780 I want to hear about shame.

01:05:22.360 All right.

01:05:22.540 Did you feel it?

01:05:23.760 Oh, yeah.

01:05:24.960 Oh, yeah.

01:05:26.820 How'd you feel?

01:05:29.580 Well, growing up in Hungary, in Eastern Europe, and I lived there until I was 13, there was a lot of anti-Semitism.

01:05:41.380 And my grandparents had died in Auschwitz.

01:05:44.300 I almost died as an infant.

01:05:46.560 My mother, my father.

01:05:48.140 That's when your mother gave you to someone else to save you?

01:05:51.480 That's right.

01:05:52.040 Yeah.

01:05:52.180 Wow.

01:05:52.540 When I was 11 months of age.

01:05:54.380 But even after the war, there was anti-Semitism.

01:05:57.980 And so I'd feel ashamed of being Jewish.

01:06:01.340 I don't anymore, but I did as a kid.

01:06:06.420 So I would kind of, then I was ashamed of my Jewish looks.

01:06:11.280 Oh, so you have to hide or you have to feel like, yeah.

01:06:13.760 Yeah, there's something different about me that isn't quite right.

01:06:17.460 And, you know, there was a lot of anti-Semitism and taunting in the school that I went to, you know, when I look back on it now.

01:06:25.060 So, yeah, and then I developed body shame, you know.

01:06:30.260 I mean, to this day, it's kind of, it's interesting.

01:06:37.260 But every day I judge aspects of my body.

01:06:41.000 Oh, yeah.

01:06:41.480 You know, like this is not big enough or this is too big or whatever, you know.

01:06:46.420 Yeah, this is too big.

01:06:47.640 Yeah.

01:06:48.460 So shame, but shame, nobody's born with shame.

01:06:52.900 Really?

01:06:53.460 No infant is born ashamed of themselves.

01:06:56.420 They're totally there.

01:06:57.840 Yeah, that's true.

01:06:58.920 If you saw a little infant that was ashamed of yourself, ashamed of himself, it would break your heart.

01:07:03.700 Yeah.

01:07:04.480 No.

01:07:04.920 They wouldn't even know how to do it.

01:07:05.980 How infants get shamed is when they're not seen.

01:07:12.140 Yeah, and what happens then?

01:07:13.620 Well, or if they're mistreated.

01:07:16.020 Well, let's see a child is not seen or worse, is being hurt.

01:07:21.440 Now, they can make two assumptions. 1.00

01:07:23.640 One is these adults are stupid. 1.00

01:07:26.540 They're incapable. 1.00

01:07:27.460 They're incompetent. 1.00

01:07:29.080 I'm all alone in the world. 0.97

01:07:31.600 Or the child can believe there's something wrong with me.

01:07:35.260 And maybe if I can work hard enough, I can fix it.

01:07:39.220 Now, which belief do you think is more acceptable for the child?

01:07:44.420 The second one.

01:07:45.420 The second one.

01:07:46.600 So then they develop this deep sense that there's something wrong with us.

01:07:50.380 We just have to work hard enough or look good enough or something.

01:07:53.380 And then maybe we can fix it.

01:07:54.300 So even that shame, which comes from being cut off from human contact the way we need it,

01:08:03.740 has a kind of protective value.

01:08:06.220 Really?

01:08:06.700 Because it makes us at least think that there's something we can do.

01:08:14.180 It gives us hope in a weird way.

01:08:17.560 It gives us hope in a weird way, yeah.

01:08:19.220 But here's the thing.

01:08:22.380 Children are narcissists, young children. 0.56

01:08:25.720 When I say narcissists, I don't mean in a pathological sense.

01:08:29.020 I mean in a sense they think it's all about them.

01:08:31.400 Right.

01:08:31.700 And they don't have any other choice.

01:08:32.620 They're all they know.

01:08:33.200 That's all they know.

01:08:34.320 So if the parents are happy and connected and there's an atmosphere of loving acceptance and so on,

01:08:43.660 then the child thinks, hey, I must be pretty good.

01:08:46.980 I must be okay.

01:08:47.640 Yeah, everything's good.

01:08:48.540 I'm okay.

01:08:49.580 Yeah.

01:08:49.940 But if the parents are stressed, depressed, traumatized, racially challenged,

01:08:56.800 economically challenged, or such terrible things as the children in Gaza are experiencing right now

01:09:05.820 with the daily bombings and all this kind of stuff, what can they think?

01:09:11.980 That there's something wrong with me.

01:09:13.960 Oh, imagine some kid over there in Gaza looking up and there's a bomb, 0.94

01:09:17.500 and they think, man, I'm so horrible I deserve to be bombed.

01:09:21.620 Well, you know what?

01:09:22.640 There was a study done of guys and children.

01:09:24.760 Man, that's crazy.

01:09:25.460 I hadn't thought about that.

01:09:26.340 Like, really, imagine that, though.

01:09:28.460 There was a study done of children in Palestine 21 years ago.

01:09:35.620 And 95% of those, 95%, this is long before the current horrors, long before October the 7th,

01:09:41.900 long before the aftermath of October the 7th.

01:09:43.880 95% of those, 5% of those kids showed traumatic symptoms.

01:09:49.440 High percentage with their beds, like you and I did.

01:09:52.780 They expressed aggression towards their parents.

01:09:57.120 They had panic attacks, anxiety, fears.

01:10:02.560 Can you imagine what's going to happen to that generation? 0.94

01:10:06.040 Years from now?

01:10:06.820 Years from now.

01:10:07.580 I mean, it just breaks my heart every day when I think about it.

01:10:10.960 And I know a lot of my fellow Jews don't agree with me,

01:10:17.260 but as a Jewish person, I'm not the only one who feels that way.

01:10:20.740 It especially breaks my heart.

01:10:22.480 Yeah.

01:10:23.360 Well, when you put it in that sense that a kid, imagine a kid like, you know,

01:10:29.360 yeah, because what are they going to think?

01:10:31.300 They don't know. 1.00

01:10:32.340 They just think, man, something's so wrong with me, I deserve to be killed. 1.00

01:10:37.220 You know, or something. 0.99

01:10:38.840 I don't know.

01:10:40.080 Yeah.

01:10:40.340 It depends if the adults are able to hold them and keep them feeling loved.

01:10:48.820 But 19,000 kids have been orphaned.

01:10:52.240 And when I say orphaned, I don't mean just that their parents have died.

01:10:56.180 Their extended families have been wiped out.

01:10:59.200 What's going to be the future of those kids?

01:11:02.140 You know?

01:11:02.820 And anyway, it's just a terrible.

01:11:05.600 No, it's heartbreaking.

01:11:06.680 I mean, it feels like a genocide is going on over there,

01:11:08.720 and you don't know what to do, you know, for me.

01:11:10.640 It's like, you know, I mean, you can pray.

01:11:15.040 You can speak up about it.

01:11:16.060 And I know that there's like more political aspects of it.

01:11:18.800 And we've had different people come on to talk about Israel and Palestine on here.

01:11:22.160 And it was very knowledgeable for a lot of our listeners

01:11:25.180 because you hear about it a lot, but you don't know the history and everything.

01:11:28.600 Well, I've been there.

01:11:29.560 I went there two and a half years ago to work with Palestinian women tortured in Israeli jails.

01:11:36.200 Wow.

01:11:36.520 And they had post-traumatic stress disorder.

01:11:38.740 I've seen it with my own eyes.

01:11:41.440 And who's the black American writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates?

01:11:46.640 Ta-Nehisi Coates.

01:11:47.940 Yeah.

01:11:48.240 He's just written a new book.

01:11:49.960 And he talks about visiting Palestine.

01:11:52.800 And he says, yeah, Ta-Nehisi Coates, yeah.

01:11:57.220 In his new book, he says, once you go there and see it, you can't unsee it.

01:12:01.760 You know, and I'm the same way.

01:12:04.680 Our media doesn't cover it super fairly.

01:12:06.840 Yeah.

01:12:07.640 I feel like our media doesn't cover it super fairly.

01:12:09.720 That'd be interesting to speak with him then.

01:12:11.260 Thank you for bringing his name up.

01:12:12.680 Oh, yeah.

01:12:13.680 Yeah.

01:12:14.180 I mean, it's heartbreaking anytime something's happening to a child, you know.

01:12:17.340 That should be the one thing that we can all figure out that shouldn't happen.

01:12:20.040 No.

01:12:21.040 It's also the truth that it's also happening to kids in Israel.

01:12:24.720 There's bombs and rockets and so on.

01:12:27.080 And I don't know if this is the time to go into the politics of it.

01:12:32.300 It's not a question of valuing or sort of esteeming one's suffering over another.

01:12:40.400 We don't compare traumas.

01:12:42.220 But the degree and the scale of suffering in Gaza is unprecedented, you know.

01:12:48.780 It seems like it.

01:12:51.840 When my wife walks into a room, I'm 80, I'm typing away, I'm reading a book.

01:12:57.440 She walks into the room and I don't hear her.

01:12:59.000 All of a sudden I hear her.

01:12:59.620 I go like this.

01:13:01.660 Not this.

01:13:03.100 It's the startle response of an infant.

01:13:06.220 If you take a three-month-old who's sitting there, he's lying there, and you go like this,

01:13:11.280 it's called the startle reflex.

01:13:13.900 That's built into me because when I was three months of age and throughout my first year,

01:13:19.800 Budapest was being bombed by the Allies.

01:13:21.720 Wow.

01:13:22.220 Quite apart from the anti-Semitism and the genocide, there was the war going on.

01:13:27.100 So I'd be thrown into a laundry basket and they'd rush me down to the basement.

01:13:31.480 So when I hear a noise, I still go like this.

01:13:33.680 Yeah.

01:13:34.580 Now this is 80 years later.

01:13:36.000 Or when you see a load of laundry go by, you know.

01:13:39.040 Man.

01:13:39.520 So we can stay with, so what you're saying is it can stay with you that long.

01:13:43.160 It can stay with you that long.

01:13:44.080 It gets locked in you, in your cells, really.

01:13:46.580 It's actually literally locked into your cells and into your chromosomes.

01:13:50.680 Yeah.

01:13:51.040 I mean, it's heartbreaking for those children on both sides of that.

01:13:53.420 And just anywhere, anytime you think like, and even a kid, when they think like, even in America,

01:13:59.960 it's like, in America, it's like, we're bombing each other.

01:14:02.600 Like, we can't figure out a way.

01:14:04.380 There's a huge planet here.

01:14:05.960 We can't figure out, how can we not figure out a way that we can do, live, all God is

01:14:14.860 asking us to do is be alive and do it without war?

01:14:18.660 That seems, it seems unreal that we can't figure that out, man.

01:14:24.000 Well, that, I mean, the great spiritual teachers have been addressing that insanity for thousands

01:14:32.000 of years, you know?

01:14:35.220 Yeah, but how does shame cause us to lose compassion for ourselves?

01:14:40.720 Yeah.

01:14:43.600 Let me tell you a story.

01:14:44.740 I mentioned this in The Myth of Normal.

01:14:49.820 After my book on addiction came out, In the Realm of Hunger Goes, I got an email, not an email,

01:14:55.380 a letter from a guy in Seattle.

01:14:56.760 And he said, I really appreciate your book and showing how trauma causes, is one of the, not,

01:15:07.660 addiction is not the only outcome of trauma, but it's one of the outcomes of trauma, one

01:15:12.500 of the potential outcomes of trauma.

01:15:14.400 And he's really appreciate all that, but he says, I can't play my mother, it's my own fault that 0.99

01:15:19.460 I'm a shit. 0.99

01:15:20.960 And I thought, oh my God, you poor guy. 1.00

01:15:24.300 You still see yourself that way?

01:15:26.740 But lack of compassion.

01:15:29.300 Because if he actually understood, fully understood, that he was just a baby at some point,

01:15:34.440 needing and wanting to be loved and held and seen and valued just for being a human being,

01:15:42.580 and that didn't happen to him, and that caused so much pain in him that he escaped into 0.99

01:15:47.800 some drug addiction, he's not a shit. 0.99

01:15:53.820 He's just a hurt human being. 1.00

01:15:55.460 Yeah.

01:15:55.600 But that lack of self-compassion, I see it all the time in my workshops when I do therapy

01:16:01.940 work with people.

01:16:03.620 One of my main tasks is to help them to notice, not to criticize them for it, but to help them

01:16:11.880 to be aware of how they lack compassion for themselves.

01:16:14.420 Yeah.

01:16:14.660 And it's hard to even notice that you're getting in the shame circle, it's so hard to even notice

01:16:19.440 that you're in it.

01:16:20.140 You could be living in the center of it.

01:16:22.160 Yeah.

01:16:22.660 You know, that's how I was with self-pity.

01:16:24.140 I was living, I just didn't realize it.

01:16:26.500 And the self-pity was manifesting itself like, oh, you can figure this out, you know?

01:16:30.940 But by trying to constantly help myself figure it out, all I was doing was focusing on my

01:16:35.520 own being not good enough, which in a way is really just self-pity.

01:16:41.140 But it's also lack of self-compassion.

01:16:43.720 Yeah.

01:16:44.220 Not giving myself some grace.

01:16:45.380 I remember the first time somebody said, hey, man, give yourself some grace.

01:16:48.340 I'd never even, I was like, wow.

01:16:51.060 Because people find themselves accusing themselves and talking to themselves in ways that they

01:16:58.560 would never talk to others.

01:16:59.680 Yeah.

01:17:00.500 That most people wouldn't.

01:17:02.000 Yeah.

01:17:02.320 Some would.

01:17:03.020 Yeah.

01:17:03.380 But most wouldn't.

01:17:05.520 Um, can you notice, um, characteristics or actualities in your life today that you can

01:17:12.780 directly correlate to side effects of childhood trauma?

01:17:15.800 My own?

01:17:16.580 Yeah.

01:17:18.280 Um, well, um, my capacity to get triggered.

01:17:25.480 But, but you see, and triggered is an interesting word because we keep using it.

01:17:30.380 But what does it mean?

01:17:31.060 Well, it means a reaction that's way out of proportion to the, to the actual stimulus.

01:17:38.320 Yeah.

01:17:38.820 Now, when you actually look at a, when you, where the, where the metaphor comes from,

01:17:43.860 comes from a, a gun.

01:17:45.920 Now, how big a part of the gun is the trigger?

01:17:48.700 Small.

01:17:49.340 Small little part.

01:17:50.740 What makes the trigger work is that there's ammunition and an explosive charge.

01:17:54.440 So, as long as I'm full of explosive charge, which is my unresolved trauma, some of you will

01:18:00.440 say, boo, and I'll go, ooh, you know?

01:18:03.100 So, my capacity to get triggered.

01:18:06.040 My difficulty believing that I was really loved and accepted in my marriage relationship,

01:18:12.960 even though I was.

01:18:13.960 Wow.

01:18:14.460 You know, um, my tendency to blame others for my own reactions rather than taking responsibility.

01:18:27.800 In there?

01:18:28.360 We mentioned the addictive behaviors.

01:18:31.280 Certainly, the first book I wrote in ADHD is called Scattered Minds.

01:18:36.200 My Scattered Mind is certainly an outcome of early stress, because, I mean, that dissociation,

01:18:42.880 that tuning out, it's just an escape mechanism, you know?

01:18:45.980 So, the way I was unable to see my kids for the beautiful, sensitive creatures that they

01:18:54.120 were, you know, um, in my workaholism, oh, it's shown up, it's shown up in so many ways.

01:19:02.140 You said that not believing that people love us.

01:19:05.820 Yeah.

01:19:06.440 That's, dude, that's huge, man.

01:19:08.840 Yeah.

01:19:09.300 What, what is that?

01:19:10.220 Why does that, why, why do we sometimes, you'll be in a marriage, in a relationship,

01:19:14.940 and we'll still believe that person, they don't love me, or they, we won't believe their

01:19:19.360 affections.

01:19:19.980 What did you say?

01:19:21.320 Yeah, we, yeah, we won't believe we're loved, you know, or accepted.

01:19:24.840 Well, Peter Levine, who's one of the great trauma teachers, he talked about trauma being

01:19:31.560 the tyranny of the past.

01:19:33.800 So.

01:19:34.080 The attorney of the past?

01:19:35.020 The tyranny.

01:19:35.620 The tyranny of the past.

01:19:37.080 So we're in the present moment, but we're actually reacting to the past.

01:19:43.360 Now, throughout the first year of my life, given our situation, my mother was really stressed,

01:19:52.140 unhappy, even terrorized.

01:19:53.440 She couldn't give me that calm, attuned, loving attention that I needed.

01:19:59.840 She did her best, for God's sakes.

01:20:01.520 You know, what could be, you know, what could be greater love than for a 24-year-old young woman to give her baby to a total stranger in the street, you know?

01:20:09.960 But how do I experience it?

01:20:11.120 But how do I experience it?

01:20:12.200 I experience it as a rejection.

01:20:14.820 Right.

01:20:15.420 So the person that ought to be loving me is giving me away.

01:20:20.120 I can only conclude from that that I'm not lovable.

01:20:23.520 Oh, I see.

01:20:24.880 Now, once I don't think I'm lovable, I'm not going to believe that anybody actually loves me, no matter what they manifest or what they show me.

01:20:33.300 Yeah.

01:20:33.600 You know, and then I'm blaming them for my own sense of unlovability.

01:20:41.820 This is unprocessed trauma we're talking about.

01:20:44.060 100%.

01:20:44.660 You know? 0.99

01:20:45.420 Yeah, I've almost even thought it, sometimes I thought like, oh, you're dumb for loving me. 0.99

01:20:52.220 Yeah. 0.98

01:20:53.040 Yeah, but that's the other side of it.

01:20:55.000 Yeah.

01:20:55.680 It's like Garcho Marx said, that I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me as a member.

01:21:00.520 Yeah.

01:21:00.920 Yeah.

01:21:01.020 Yeah, so anybody would love me, they can't be very bright, can they?

01:21:06.360 They want to be out of their minds.

01:21:09.860 You talk also about not parent blaming, which I think is really important.

01:21:13.460 Yeah.

01:21:14.320 Can you tell me a little bit about that?

01:21:16.580 Yeah.

01:21:17.800 Well, look.

01:21:20.140 I mean, your story right there about your mother gave you away because it was the, yeah, I mean, imagine the terror, the pain in her of like,

01:21:26.880 the only thing, the most loving thing I can do is put my child somewhere else away from me right now for its own safety.

01:21:33.160 That's exactly right.

01:21:34.140 Right.

01:21:34.320 Well, all parents, we're born with a caring instinct, you know, like we're born with certain emotional systems in our brain.

01:21:45.820 Play is one of them.

01:21:47.400 Curiosity, seeking, the dopamine circuit is another one.

01:21:50.920 Caring, loving is another one.

01:21:52.940 We're just born with that.

01:21:53.900 It's instinctual.

01:21:55.700 All mammals are born with it.

01:21:57.080 Oh, yeah.

01:21:57.540 No mammal infant would survive without it.

01:22:00.260 Right.

01:22:00.860 You know?

01:22:02.440 So I don't, I never doubt that parents love their kids, that there's at least an impulse in them to do so.

01:22:08.200 But the love that the parent feels is not that the love that the parent child receives.

01:22:16.360 What the child receives is the quality of the parent's presence.

01:22:21.900 Are they calm?

01:22:23.500 Are they attuned?

01:22:25.300 Are they emotionally present?

01:22:27.640 Are they preoccupied, stressed, depressed, traumatized, overworked, whatever?

01:22:31.960 Or any of those conditions, the child does not experience the love in its whole sense.

01:22:41.880 Right.

01:22:42.100 So even though you might know that your mother loved you, and I'm sure she did in her own way, and she did her very best, but she was not able to give you those qualities that you would really in your heart experience as love.

01:22:54.900 Yeah.

01:22:55.140 You know, and so in this society where, as you said earlier, parents have to go to work just to put bread on the table, and where so many people are economically insecure, with so much stress, so much division, so much angst, so much aggression, so much suspicion, what's it like to be a parent?

01:23:19.100 It's really, really difficult.

01:23:20.440 And don't forget, we didn't evolve in nuclear families.

01:23:25.720 We evolved in groups where kids are around nurturing adults the whole day, including their parents, but not only their parents.

01:23:35.260 Yeah.

01:23:35.940 So in today's society, parenting has become an almost an impossible task.

01:23:40.380 Why would I blame any parent?

01:23:43.120 And I'll even say this, and I'm not trying to excuse anything, because there's no excuse.

01:23:48.660 That's not the point.

01:23:51.720 But if you look at parents who abuse their kids, what happened to them as kids?

01:23:55.520 They were abused, for sure.

01:23:56.320 They were abused.

01:23:56.880 It's multigenerational.

01:23:58.920 It's not that they grow up, it's not that they decide, I'm going to abuse my kids.

01:24:03.540 They just act out what happened to them.

01:24:05.720 Yeah.

01:24:05.940 So, I think blame, now, responsibility is one thing, blame is another.

01:24:15.560 I think blame is totally unscientific, it's cruel, and it's totally inappropriate.

01:24:20.260 So, as much as I point out the impact of early experience, there's absolutely no room for blaming parents.

01:24:27.840 And, Theo, what's really interesting to me, is after I wrote my book on addiction, occasionally some strange person will come up to me and say,

01:24:39.420 My child died of an overdose, and I thank you for writing the book.

01:24:43.200 And I always find that a bit startling, because in the book I'm saying that it's childhood experience and trauma that ultimately result in addiction.

01:24:53.260 And they say, You know what?

01:24:54.400 Because I finally get it.

01:24:56.180 I finally understand what happened.

01:24:57.900 And I get it that it's multigenerational.

01:24:59.980 That it's nobody's fault.

01:25:01.620 There's nobody to be blamed here.

01:25:02.840 You know, the question is, in each generation, can we take responsibility so we don't pass it on to the next one?

01:25:11.580 But blame, there's no room for it.

01:25:15.060 And Robert Sapolsky, the scientist who I quoted, he said, There's just no room for blame.

01:25:24.700 Yeah, it's not, it's not, yeah, you can have, you can have discussions about responsibility and things like that.

01:25:30.140 But, and share, hey, I think you could have been more responsible about this, or seeing something that was somebody's responsibility, but yeah.

01:25:38.180 And you can even be angry.

01:25:39.920 Right, you can be angry.

01:25:41.400 Without blaming.

01:25:42.420 Right.

01:25:43.460 Because, why wouldn't you be angry?

01:25:45.300 Yeah.

01:25:45.800 When those things happen to you.

01:25:47.440 So it's not a question of telling people, don't be angry.

01:25:49.520 But having anger and owning it is not the same as saying, you did something deliberately that you shouldn't have done, and you should have known better, and you know, you said terrible, you know.

01:26:00.980 So there's anger, healthy anger, necessary anger.

01:26:04.580 And then there's the expectation that people take responsibility.

01:26:13.400 Yeah.

01:26:14.880 Each for ourselves.

01:26:16.780 And then there's blame, which is a whole other bag of monkeys.

01:26:22.160 Yeah, we don't, it's a zoo we don't, we don't need to be involved in.

01:26:25.580 No, we don't need that.

01:26:26.420 Um, what, what makes you laugh?

01:26:31.660 Like, is there like shows you like to watch, or a thing you like?

01:26:34.700 Well, sometimes what makes me laugh is my own ridiculousness.

01:26:37.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.92

01:26:39.540 Yeah, sometimes me too.

01:26:41.280 I know it's going to be a good day if I find that I'm laughing at myself. 0.95

01:26:44.480 Yeah, yeah, well, there's so many, you know, like the little human ego is, I mean, on the one hand, we can be compassionate towards it, but on the other hand, it's so ridiculous. 0.84

01:26:52.940 Yeah. 0.74

01:26:53.340 So we can laugh at ourselves.

01:26:56.420 Um, my wife and I laugh a lot.

01:26:58.640 Oh, you do?

01:26:59.480 Yeah, yeah, that's one of our, that's one of our saving, it's been 55 years in, in a month, and I tell you, we've laughed so much together at ourselves, at each other.

01:27:12.020 That's adorable.

01:27:13.060 You know, um, what makes me laugh?

01:27:17.000 Usually absurdity.

01:27:18.400 Yeah?

01:27:19.140 When things are absurd, they make me laugh, you know, they're so out of touch with reality.

01:27:23.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:27:24.060 Yeah.

01:27:24.680 Um, yeah.

01:27:26.420 Those are the things that make me laugh.

01:27:28.640 Is there a, like a film that you like?

01:27:30.360 Like, what's a movie that you like?

01:27:31.480 I'm just trying to just know a little bit more about you.

01:27:33.640 Yeah.

01:27:35.180 A movie that made me laugh.

01:27:37.300 Or just a couple movies.

01:27:38.300 A Fish Called Wanda.

01:27:39.480 Oh, yeah.

01:27:39.920 Talking about Jamie Lee Curtis.

01:27:41.760 Uh, that, I, I, I, I, I wrote my head off about that one.

01:27:45.980 Yeah, yeah.

01:27:46.460 Um, I don't have such a good memory for that kind of stuff.

01:27:51.080 Um, a, a funny book will make me laugh.

01:27:54.680 Mm-hmm.

01:27:55.380 You know?

01:27:55.780 Um, yeah, do you have a favorite, or, uh, one, or just a fiction book that you like?

01:28:00.160 I tend to go for the classics.

01:28:04.120 Mm-hmm.

01:28:05.060 So, I keep rereading the Iliad by Homer.

01:28:08.100 Wow.

01:28:08.720 With the Trojan War.

01:28:10.260 I keep rereading, um, Dostoevsky.

01:28:14.080 Um, I just reread, uh, The Brothers Karamazov last year.

01:28:18.720 Um, because it's such a deep, such a deep understanding of the human soul.

01:28:24.440 Um, the darkness and the lightness, both.

01:28:28.020 Yeah.

01:28:28.800 Of the human soul.

01:28:30.380 Um, it's fascinating.

01:28:32.380 Yeah.

01:28:33.180 Um, so I tend to go for the classics myself.

01:28:36.220 Yeah.

01:28:36.600 I read some modern novels, but not that often.

01:28:39.500 The Iliad, yeah.

01:28:39.920 No, by the way, you know what made me laugh?

01:28:41.540 Catch 22.

01:28:42.640 Yeah?

01:28:43.120 I reread that a couple years ago.

01:28:45.400 I split a gut.

01:28:46.560 Who was it?

01:28:47.100 Not John Steinbeck who wrote that?

01:28:48.660 Uh, Joseph Heller.

01:28:49.940 Joseph Heller, Catch 22.

01:28:51.520 I think it was Joseph Heller is his first name.

01:28:53.440 Um, um,

01:28:54.440 We had to read that, I think, in school.

01:28:56.220 Well, it, um, by modern standards, there's some parts of it that are really sexist and misogynist.

01:29:05.160 Mm-hmm.

01:29:05.600 And in some places even racist.

01:29:08.340 Mm-hmm.

01:29:08.960 Um, so I'm not making any excuse for that.

01:29:12.900 Yeah.

01:29:13.100 It was the zeitgeist at the time.

01:29:14.880 Yeah, sure.

01:29:15.480 But it's just reproingly funny about the absurdity of war and, and, and the

01:29:22.820 self-puffery of important people.

01:29:27.440 Yeah.

01:29:27.960 You know.

01:29:29.480 I'll have to check it out, man.

01:29:30.940 I, I, I think I had to read it sometime, but maybe in college we had to read it.

01:29:34.420 Mm-hmm.

01:29:34.540 Did you ever read, um, John Irving, any of his books?

01:29:37.980 Like, The World According to Garp.

01:29:39.340 Remember that book?

01:29:40.340 I, you know, I started reading that decades ago.

01:29:42.820 I never finished it.

01:29:43.540 Yeah.

01:29:44.020 It happened.

01:29:44.500 Some of his books.

01:29:45.280 His latest book is, it's, I don't even know what it is.

01:29:48.040 It's very long.

01:29:49.040 Yeah.

01:29:49.580 I mean, you need to bring a tent with you.

01:29:51.340 You know, recently there was a book that's got a lot of attention, uh, Demon Copperhead

01:29:58.500 by Barbara Kingsolver, and, and she wrote The Poisonwood Bible.

01:30:03.360 That's her most favorite, famous book.

01:30:05.000 But Demon Copperfield, Copperhead is a, is a kind of a modern take on, um, on David Copperfield

01:30:14.060 by Charles Dickens, and it takes place in Appalachia.

01:30:17.220 Wow.

01:30:17.800 And I just saw an interviewer with her yesterday, how she goes after, uh, J.D. Vance.

01:30:22.440 Wow.

01:30:23.080 Because she's in Appalachian. 0.65

01:30:24.460 Right.

01:30:24.800 So they're both from that area.

01:30:26.220 They're both from that area.

01:30:26.860 With different mindsets.

01:30:27.660 And she's saying, buddy, you don't represent us, you know.

01:30:30.960 Interesting.

01:30:31.360 And, and, and, and Demon Copperhead takes on the hillbilly image of, of Appalachians

01:30:39.520 and plays with it beautifully.

01:30:41.700 Wow.

01:30:42.200 I'd love to check that out.

01:30:43.360 She seems like an interesting woman.

01:30:44.880 She's a very interesting woman.

01:30:45.860 She's very, very thoughtful, very forthright.

01:30:48.600 That'd be cool.

01:30:49.580 Yeah.

01:30:49.740 Maybe I can, maybe after I read the book, I could see if she would want to come and visit.

01:30:53.640 Um, sometimes like I always like feel like I have to explain my intentions.

01:30:59.840 I, there's a part of me that always feels like I'm manipulating somebody.

01:31:02.900 Do you know what I'm talking about?

01:31:04.160 That's not a feeling.

01:31:05.960 So what is it?

01:31:06.760 It's a thought?

01:31:07.440 It's a belief.

01:31:08.260 It's a belief.

01:31:09.340 Yeah.

01:31:10.220 No.

01:31:11.040 And there's a reason why you have it.

01:31:12.500 Um, like even if I'm just doing something nice, there's a part of me that's like, oh,

01:31:19.320 you're, yeah.

01:31:20.060 You think you're a fake. 0.95

01:31:21.100 Yeah.

01:31:21.640 Yeah.

01:31:21.880 It's called the imposter syndrome.

01:31:23.400 Okay.

01:31:23.700 And, and, uh, it has to do with the fact that you couldn't be real as a kid.

01:31:30.600 In some ways you had to pretend.

01:31:34.120 And it's really hard to let go of that, of that sense that I'm still doing it.

01:31:42.320 Yeah.

01:31:42.940 It's what you grew up with.

01:31:43.940 So you could be kind to that part of yourself.

01:31:46.560 Okay.

01:31:47.120 Who, the part that you could actually, because it's not a feeling, you know, Theo, it's,

01:31:52.880 it's a belief.

01:31:53.920 And a belief can be, you don't argue with feelings, but beliefs you can challenge.

01:31:58.800 Is it really true that you're manipulating?

01:32:01.120 Like when you're talking to me now, are we having a genuine conversation?

01:32:05.120 I believe that we are.

01:32:06.040 Or is it true that you're actually manipulating me in any way at all?

01:32:09.200 No, I don't think I am.

01:32:10.320 And furthermore, give me some credit.

01:32:14.200 Maybe you can't manipulate me even if you wanted to.

01:32:18.660 So, so that, so that fear of yours is both a lack of compassion towards yourself and a lack of, in a sense,

01:32:34.340 trust in the other person's capacity to look after themselves.

01:32:37.140 That's a good point.

01:32:39.360 Yeah.

01:32:40.320 Yeah.

01:32:40.660 It's just funny.

01:32:41.160 I was just talking with my brother yesterday because we had similar childhoods and we're

01:32:44.020 thinking of, well, what are some things that I could think about to talk with him about?

01:32:46.860 And, and we were talking about that, that sometimes we always feel, uh, like there's

01:32:51.820 something where like we're manipulating ourselves or that our ability to manipulate would be so

01:32:56.580 powerful that we wouldn't even know what we're doing, which is pretty crazy too.

01:33:00.860 It's a lack of self-trust.

01:33:01.900 Lack of self-trust.

01:33:02.720 Now, you know what?

01:33:03.600 Have I manipulated?

01:33:04.840 Yes, I have.

01:33:05.700 Yeah, sure.

01:33:06.240 You know, but, um, so it's not a question that one never does it, but I know when I'm

01:33:11.860 manipulating.

01:33:12.540 Right.

01:33:13.000 And usually it's because I want something that I don't know how to state directly where

01:33:17.740 I'm afraid that I might not get otherwise, you know, and then I'm afraid to show up with

01:33:22.340 my vulnerable request.

01:33:24.620 Which would make sense as a child, there was something you wanted that you didn't think

01:33:28.000 you were going to get otherwise.

01:33:29.300 That's right.

01:33:29.680 So you didn't show up.

01:33:30.520 Yeah, yeah.

01:33:31.140 Makes sense.

01:33:32.000 Children, children manipulate out of a sense of weakness and, uh, that's pretty much all

01:33:42.060 they can do if otherwise they don't get their needs met.

01:33:44.280 Um, a lot of the, your book that I've read so far, it's about, it's getting to the part

01:33:50.400 where it's like, uh, that Western medicine doesn't always take into context as much that

01:33:56.760 the body and the mind, like us as an entire thing, as our society, as you know, it's almost

01:34:03.380 like, and like if safe, like the whole world and time and culture and everything, we're a

01:34:11.820 car, instead of the doctor looking at the car, they just look at the human, which would

01:34:16.900 just be one part of the car.

01:34:18.320 Yeah.

01:34:18.600 And so they're always just working on this one part instead of looking at the whole car,

01:34:23.380 which could also be a cause of why the part isn't doing well.

01:34:27.580 That's the whole point.

01:34:28.880 And, um, see what, see, we have to make a distinction here.

01:34:33.580 There's Western science.

01:34:35.000 Okay.

01:34:35.680 Then there's medical practice.

01:34:37.240 Understood.

01:34:37.860 The two are not the same necessarily.

01:34:39.600 Okay.

01:34:40.000 So I was trained as a medical doctor.

01:34:41.460 Nobody ever taught me about the mind-body unity, but physiologically, you can't separate

01:34:48.120 the mind from the body so that our emotional circuits and the immune system and the hormonal

01:34:56.200 apparatus and the nervous system are actually one system.

01:35:00.280 They're not separate systems.

01:35:02.100 So when things happen emotionally, naturally they have a physiological effect.

01:35:06.140 Yeah.

01:35:06.420 You know, so I could give you 10,000 examples.

01:35:11.520 Children whose parents are stressed are much more likely to have asthma.

01:35:15.940 Children of what?

01:35:17.040 Children whose parents are stressed are much more likely to have asthma.

01:35:21.760 Okay.

01:35:22.180 So they're, the airway is narrow and they get inflamed. 0.90

01:35:26.500 Black, there's a study that showed that black American women, the more episodes of racism 1.00

01:35:31.740 they experience, the higher the risk of asthma. 0.92

01:35:34.700 Wow.

01:35:35.180 It's been shown that women with severe PTSD have doubled the risk of ovarian cancer.

01:35:43.240 Wow.

01:35:43.520 This is a study out of Harvard University.

01:35:47.080 Adults who experience the loss of an adult child have a higher risk of malignancy of the bone marrow

01:35:54.780 and the blood, grief, grief, a Danish study.

01:36:00.620 Parents who lost a child have doubled the risk of multiple sclerosis.

01:36:04.840 There are hundreds of studies showing the physiological impact of stress and trauma and loss on the physiology.

01:36:16.640 So manifesting itself in our bodies as a disease or contributing to.

01:36:21.100 Contributing the onset of the disease.

01:36:22.820 Got it.

01:36:23.620 Yeah, because cancer, it's like, you know, you say in the book, like, people get cancer.

01:36:28.340 A lot of times you hear, like, the guy got cancer, he died three weeks later, right?

01:36:31.300 You hear that all the time.

01:36:32.220 But the cancer had been there forever.

01:36:34.280 Yeah.

01:36:34.740 And it just, enough had happened, I guess, that it turned over into being.

01:36:40.480 Well, we know that stress, for example, can turn off genes that protect you against cancer

01:36:48.660 and turn on genes that can cause cancer.

01:36:51.640 Really?

01:36:52.460 Yeah.

01:36:53.200 Yeah, yeah.

01:36:53.560 It's not even controversial.

01:36:55.200 And we know that people that repress their healthy anger, they're actually suppressing their immune system.

01:37:04.180 And this stuff has been studied over and over again.

01:37:07.040 And great clinicians have been recognizing this forever.

01:37:11.640 And in 2,400 years ago, Socrates, the Greek philosopher, said that the problem with the doctors of today is that they separate the mind from the body.

01:37:22.920 Wow.

01:37:23.300 2,400 years ago.

01:37:24.300 Now, I can name you any number of great medical pioneers.

01:37:28.220 I mentioned someone in the book who 150 years ago, 100 years ago, 80 years ago, 40 years ago, pointed out that mind and body can't be separated.

01:37:39.340 That, in fact, we are biopsychosocial creatures, which means that our biology is inseparable from our psyche or emotional apparatus and from our social relationships.

01:37:50.880 Wow.

01:37:51.320 So all of it.

01:37:52.060 It's all one.

01:37:53.060 It's scientifically, it's all one.

01:37:55.060 The problem is medical practice doesn't recognize that oneness.

01:37:58.680 So most of the time, you go to a physician with rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, for both of which, there's plenty of evidence about the role of trauma and stress, but the doctor's never going to ask you about any of that stuff.

01:38:13.160 They're just going to deal with the physical aspects of it, which they should deal with.

01:38:18.180 Right.

01:38:18.620 But they also need to look at the whole, you know, what happened in this person's life and what's stressing them now, and how can we help with that part of it?

01:38:28.680 You know, so medical practice, as a doctor, I don't know if to be told how miraculously effective the achievements of modern medicine can be.

01:38:40.080 Oh, for sure.

01:38:40.940 But at the same time, there's a huge piece that we're missing, and that piece is not just intuitive or spiritual woo-hoo.

01:38:49.600 It's science.

01:38:51.120 But they don't teach that mind-body-unity science in the medical schools.

01:38:55.820 Yeah, in fact, the piece is a whole.

01:38:57.620 That's what they're missing.

01:38:58.320 They're missing the wholeness.

01:39:00.420 Now, if you look at indigenous medicine, there's the medicine wheel, which consists of four quadrants.

01:39:07.720 There's the physical, our physiology.

01:39:11.760 There's the mental, which is our emotions and our thoughts.

01:39:15.620 There's the social, which is our relationships with other people and other creatures.

01:39:21.000 And then there's the spiritual, which is our connection with something greater than just a little ego, however you define that.

01:39:27.920 And health, they say, depends on the balance between those four quadrants.

01:39:33.640 Scientifically, that's totally true.

01:39:36.580 But unfortunately, that science is largely ignored in medical training.

01:39:44.040 I'm sure, yeah.

01:39:45.140 Well, especially now, a lot of our medicine has kind of been compromised, or I think our industry has, you know.

01:39:49.500 Oh, yeah.

01:39:49.860 Maybe, I don't know.

01:39:51.160 And I don't know your industry, and I'm not trying to offend it.

01:39:53.720 But it certainly seems like just, you know, it's been, most industries have been a lot of, have been compromised.

01:40:01.100 You know, the fact to have better, you know, balance sheets, then.

01:40:08.140 But look, if you come to me with depression, by the way, that's another diagnosis that I've had.

01:40:15.020 So I've, I've actually taken medication for depression.

01:40:17.600 So I'm not here to.

01:40:19.700 You're not just guessing.

01:40:20.900 You know, to dismiss them.

01:40:23.100 Yeah.

01:40:23.320 But if you look at the word depression, what does it actually mean to depress something?

01:40:30.160 Hold it back.

01:40:30.940 It's to push it down, yeah.

01:40:32.800 Now, what gets pushed on in depression?

01:40:34.660 Your feelings.

01:40:35.600 Our feelings.

01:40:36.840 Now, why would a person push down their feelings?

01:40:39.740 One of the needs of the child, one of the essential needs of the child, as I pointed out in this book,

01:40:45.680 I don't make this stuff up, I just report it, is to be able to experience all their emotions,

01:40:50.880 anger, grief, fear, panic, love, playfulness, curiosity, lust for life, and just hunger for life.

01:41:05.740 The child doesn't need to express all those emotions when they arise and have that understood,

01:41:11.220 accepted, and validated by the adults.

01:41:13.980 Now, if I'm in an environment where the parents can't do that, you've had guests on this program.

01:41:20.600 I won't mention them by name, who teach that an angry child should be made to sit by themselves

01:41:26.260 until they come back to normal.

01:41:28.760 No.

01:41:29.340 Right.

01:41:29.800 A two-year-old kid gets frustrated, they get angry.

01:41:34.780 If you give that kid the message that if you're angry, you can't be with me,

01:41:39.140 the child is in an impossible dilemma.

01:41:41.260 Now, am I going to separate myself from the person on whom my life depends, or will I push down my anger?

01:41:51.160 Well, give that message to the kid often enough, what are they going to do?

01:41:55.420 Depress their feelings.

01:41:58.140 Thirty years later, they're diagnosed with this disease called depression.

01:42:01.680 Now, if you come to me with depression, I might decide that temporarily it might be a good idea for you to be in antidepressants.

01:42:13.340 And I've taken them.

01:42:15.500 They helped me for a while.

01:42:18.340 But it's not enough.

01:42:20.560 Let's also look at what made you push down your feelings, what happened to you.

01:42:25.260 Now, prescribing the antidepressant takes me three minutes.

01:42:31.600 Talking with you about what actually happened to you that made you push down your feelings, that takes a long time.

01:42:39.980 And doctors are not even trained to raise that question.

01:42:42.800 So even if, as a physician, I don't have the expertise to deal with that question, at least I could refer you to somebody who does.

01:42:51.040 Yeah.

01:42:51.300 But no, most of the time, it's just the industrial model.

01:42:55.500 You come in, I've got five minutes with you, here's a prescription, goodbye.

01:43:00.440 Well, that doesn't deal with the underlying problem.

01:43:03.640 It deals with the symptom, which may sometimes be helpful, sometimes it isn't.

01:43:09.080 But whether it's helpful or not, it does not deal with the underlying dynamic.

01:43:15.740 Yeah.

01:43:17.480 Oh, yeah.

01:43:18.220 It's just, and it's just where our society is too.

01:43:21.820 We've gone so far down this road and it's just like, how do we, yeah, back in the day, it's like, it seemed like if you were like, maybe this is crazy.

01:43:31.500 But if you were like just a small group around a campfire, you could, you could see if somebody was hurting you.

01:43:38.040 There was, everything was right there.

01:43:39.920 You couldn't hide anything.

01:43:41.160 Not only that, you know what you would do?

01:43:43.120 You'd do ceremonies, healing rituals.

01:43:46.060 Yeah.

01:43:46.560 You would drum.

01:43:47.900 You would dance.

01:43:49.160 You would chant.

01:43:50.680 You would shake a stick.

01:43:53.040 It'd be communal.

01:43:54.060 Yeah.

01:43:54.260 A friend of mine who I quote in the book, he's a part Lakota physician and psychiatrist.

01:44:01.400 His name is Luis Malmadrona.

01:44:03.600 And he said in the Lakota tradition, when somebody gets sick, the community says, thank you.

01:44:10.480 Your illness represents some imbalance in our community.

01:44:13.860 Wow. 0.98

01:44:14.500 You're like the canary in the mind.

01:44:16.640 So your healing is our healing.

01:44:18.500 So let's do this together.

01:44:20.380 Now that makes so much sense.

01:44:21.820 Yeah.

01:44:22.320 Both scientifically and emotionally.

01:44:26.160 We don't do that.

01:44:27.220 We sort of isolate the individual.

01:44:29.280 Then we separate the mind from the body.

01:44:31.420 So we say it's just a brain problem.

01:44:33.260 No, it isn't.

01:44:34.080 It's a life problem.

01:44:35.080 And that life is lived in an environment, in a multigenerational family, in a certain culture.

01:44:42.000 Let's look at the whole thing.

01:44:44.120 That's all.

01:44:44.760 Do you think we can start to head more in that direction?

01:44:46.820 Or how do you think this changes?

01:44:48.140 Because we are pretty far down the well here.

01:44:52.580 I think.

01:44:53.780 Because sometimes you even said roar. 0.99

01:44:55.200 Like sometimes I feel like our whole planet just wants to fucking roar. 0.97

01:44:59.020 You know, it's like it just like I feel like everybody just wants to go in the yard and just scream at the. 0.91

01:45:05.580 At the sky.

01:45:07.640 It's like.

01:45:08.480 I don't know.

01:45:08.960 It feels like there's just something trapped in us that is.

01:45:12.940 Does that make any sense, man?

01:45:15.480 Oh, yeah.

01:45:16.300 And it's had some cultural expression as well.

01:45:18.860 What was that movie where somebody yells.

01:45:23.700 I'm fed up and I can't take it anymore.

01:45:25.900 And he starts yelling.

01:45:27.000 Oh, falling down.

01:45:27.960 Michael Douglas.

01:45:28.900 Is that it was.

01:45:29.880 I don't know which movie it was, but it was.

01:45:31.860 Somebody just starts yelling.

01:45:33.540 I'm fed up and I can't take it anymore.

01:45:35.320 And everybody starts yelling.

01:45:36.340 I'm fed up.

01:45:36.900 I can't take it anymore.

01:45:38.140 You know.

01:45:39.520 I think there's a deep sense of frustration in this culture.

01:45:43.400 I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to be able to take this anymore.

01:45:45.600 Yeah.

01:45:45.900 It's network.

01:45:47.120 How are we?

01:45:47.560 Oh, yeah.

01:45:48.020 Network.

01:45:48.680 Yeah.

01:45:48.880 That's a great movie.

01:45:49.580 If you've never seen it, it's a great movie.

01:45:51.080 I'm mad as hell.

01:45:51.900 I'm with it.

01:45:52.200 No.

01:45:53.400 That was decades ago.

01:45:55.100 I think the level of frustration in our society has increased.

01:45:59.900 Why are people frustrated?

01:46:01.480 Because their needs aren't being met.

01:46:02.840 Yeah.

01:46:03.480 And that scream. 1.00

01:46:06.120 Look, I travel all over the world.

01:46:07.660 I just came back from a three-week, six-country tour of Europe.

01:46:12.420 Wow.

01:46:12.800 I talked to 12,000 people.

01:46:15.620 That sense of frustration, that sense of longing that we talked about, it's so universal these days.

01:46:22.300 It is.

01:46:22.960 Yeah.

01:46:23.420 Yeah.

01:46:23.920 Is it?

01:46:24.500 Because that's what, yeah, that's what, it feels like this.

01:46:26.580 Are other people feeling this?

01:46:27.900 That's what I wonder a lot.

01:46:28.920 Are other people feeling this same way?

01:46:30.620 Well, some people are not because they escape.

01:46:36.120 And this society is absolutely brilliant at creating escapes through mass media, mass sports, consumption, and so on.

01:46:49.800 But I'll say something here.

01:46:53.120 And this is particularly true of comedians I have found.

01:46:57.880 Some people are just born more sensitive.

01:47:00.580 That's a great point, too, and I have to take that into account.

01:47:02.940 We all do.

01:47:03.680 And more sensitive means, sensitive is from the Latin word, sincere, to feel.

01:47:09.140 But some people are genetically born more sensitive.

01:47:12.540 They feel more.

01:47:13.360 That means when things go wrong, they feel it more than the others.

01:47:17.720 So the same thing can happen externally to different people.

01:47:22.320 But if one of them is more sensitive, they're going to feel it all the more.

01:47:26.840 So it's especially the highly sensitive people who are feeling that scream that you talk about.

01:47:34.120 Yeah, that's a great point, that it, yeah, yeah, that's what, it's just like, I just feel like we've just gone so far off the path of.

01:47:46.700 But if I can say something, your sense that we've gone off the path, what in you knows that?

01:47:55.220 Like what part of me you mean?

01:48:04.960 What in you, who in you knows that we've gone off the path?

01:48:08.980 It's the part that hasn't gone off the path.

01:48:11.840 It's the part that actually sees.

01:48:14.360 So that, I don't want to create too much doom and gloom here.

01:48:18.120 No.

01:48:18.540 There is this self here.

01:48:19.920 There is this trueness here that's never been damaged, never been destroyed.

01:48:23.880 There's nobody's damage that goes that way.

01:48:26.080 It's always in here.

01:48:27.860 It's a question of can we connect with it.

01:48:30.120 Right.

01:48:30.700 You know.

01:48:31.200 And that, yeah, how do we get back to connecting with that sort of thing?

01:48:34.300 Because our society, our culture is not going to do it for us.

01:48:37.600 It doesn't feel like we might have to start with it as individuals.

01:48:40.720 Does that make sense?

01:48:43.200 We do begin as individuals, but you probably realize, I mean, just for example, in your AA group, there's a community there.

01:48:50.440 Right.

01:48:50.740 Who have a lot of shared experiences and who are very vulnerably open in sharing their experiences.

01:48:58.760 And that, that's a source of support.

01:49:00.860 When you share about yourself, that's a source of support to others.

01:49:04.600 When they share about themselves, that's support for you.

01:49:07.540 So that ultimately, no, we don't have to do it by ourselves.

01:49:10.480 It begins as an individual process, but pretty soon you find that we're not alone.

01:49:15.880 Yeah.

01:49:17.080 Do you think we can get out of, of this toxic culture?

01:49:21.300 Or do you feel like there's a way out of where we are?

01:49:24.540 Or do you feel like that humanity is just.

01:49:27.080 I believe in human beings.

01:49:31.660 That's a great statement.

01:49:32.800 I do too.

01:49:33.580 You know, I believe that there's an essential goodness there.

01:49:37.180 A desire to connect.

01:49:39.000 A desire to belong.

01:49:40.720 A desire to celebrate life.

01:49:43.740 You know, I think that's, we're endowed with those capacities.

01:49:46.320 And as difficult as things may look, and especially these days with these terrible wars going on and the suffering that we've talked about, I still believe that there's so many examples everywhere I go.

01:50:00.680 I meet such good people, people are trying to make a difference, people are trying to do their little bit or their big bit to reduce the suffering in the world, to speak the truth, to offer some love, compassion to the world.

01:50:16.780 But I really do believe in humans.

01:50:21.480 Now, we have the potential to be monsters.

01:50:24.660 We have the potential to be angels.

01:50:27.440 But that good side never totally disappears.

01:50:31.940 Some people, it's covered over so much that they might never get in touch with it.

01:50:36.420 Most people, I think, are quite capable of getting there once they decide that they want to.

01:50:43.180 Yeah, I think, what scares me, I think, is that in order to be a human being, we have to have the present moment, right?

01:50:57.160 We have to be able to still have, like, the ability to reflect and recognize and think.

01:51:05.620 And our society or our culture has created a lot where we're so many distractions so that if we never even take the time, if we can be distracted enough from being able to really think or feel, feel really probably, starting with feeling, then we'll be trapped forever in a way.

01:51:30.520 Does that make sense at all?

01:51:31.880 Well, it's interesting how you say all these really insightful things, then you keep asking me if it makes sense or not.

01:51:39.420 Sorry.

01:51:40.420 Don't apologize.

01:51:41.500 I can't think and talk sometimes at the same time.

01:51:43.600 I can't feel and speak at the same time.

01:51:45.900 It's just.

01:51:46.500 No, but I'm just telling you.

01:51:48.240 Yeah.

01:51:48.660 I'm not criticizing.

01:51:49.720 I'm just noticing something.

01:51:51.440 Yeah.

01:51:51.580 I don't feel like you are appreciated.

01:51:53.080 Thanks.

01:51:53.300 So, here's the thing.

01:51:56.400 We're born as feeling creatures.

01:51:58.280 Right.

01:51:58.860 We feel before we think.

01:52:00.640 Yes.

01:52:01.220 The feeling apparatus is present in us before we're even born.

01:52:07.480 The thinking apparatus doesn't start developing until much later on.

01:52:11.320 That's true.

01:52:11.820 So, that if there's a scaffolding of healthy feelings, then our thinking will be aligned with reality.

01:52:22.820 But it's the feelings that we're feelings.

01:52:26.920 We're feeling creatures before we're thinking creatures.

01:52:29.960 Got it.

01:52:30.400 So, what you said makes absolute sense from the, even from the evolutionary and physiological point of view.

01:52:36.740 Like, animals feel, but they don't necessarily think.

01:52:40.080 In fact, they don't think.

01:52:42.020 Some of them don't.

01:52:42.900 But without thinking, without feeling, they wouldn't survive.

01:52:47.920 Right.

01:52:48.600 You know?

01:52:49.280 And we think we can get by our own thinking.

01:52:52.680 We got it backwards.

01:52:54.100 Yes.

01:52:54.860 That's what it feels like these days.

01:52:56.500 Yeah.

01:52:56.720 It feels like everybody's just thinking.

01:52:58.540 It's like, even with like autonomous inventions and technology, I'm like, at a certain point,

01:53:05.400 I don't want any more technology if it's not helping us.

01:53:09.740 I know.

01:53:10.560 Like, stop.

01:53:12.080 Like, you're killing what it means to be me, or not me as a human, but just us.

01:53:17.340 It feels like we don't need to get faster.

01:53:20.580 It's just like, you're going to take jobs away.

01:53:22.640 If a guy doesn't have a job, he doesn't have a purpose.

01:53:24.380 Having a job isn't only your purpose, but it's what gives people some sense of purpose.

01:53:30.140 And a sense of meaning.

01:53:31.280 And a sense of meaning, right?

01:53:32.480 And once you don't feel like you have any of that, then what are you?

01:53:34.960 It's like, we're almost just, I don't understand why our society wants that.

01:53:40.160 Well, first of all, I totally get where you're coming from.

01:53:44.860 Because when we talk about AI, my mind glazes over.

01:53:49.060 I don't care.

01:53:50.280 Yeah.

01:53:50.780 I don't want one more piece of technology.

01:53:53.600 I'm much more interested in what happens with human beings.

01:53:56.220 A hundred.

01:53:57.100 Man, thank you, dude.

01:53:58.220 That's how I feel.

01:53:59.340 Yeah.

01:53:59.600 I just care how people feel, you know?

01:54:02.080 And I just like, I don't know.

01:54:05.000 And when you talk about meaning, if you look at the diminishing lifespan of especially white American men, it's that loss of meaning. 0.63

01:54:18.980 When they hollowed out the industrial heartland of America and they outsourced all the cheap labor to other countries.

01:54:29.000 Well, you can see that from the profit motive, it makes sense.

01:54:32.640 But from the point of view of human lives, you just deprive people of the sense of meaning, you know?

01:54:40.520 And that sense of meaning, it's a psychologist in front of mind called dislocation, is a major source of distress and a major source of self-harm and addiction.

01:54:54.720 Well, I even think like it used to be, and I say this many times, but like somebody worked in your area and they worked at a factory and they made like a table and they brought it.

01:55:05.620 And you even had one of the tables at your house and you were proud of your dad because he worked there and he made it.

01:55:11.020 And then, but now you have somebody in another country mailing something over here.

01:55:15.580 They don't care about it, that they're making it.

01:55:17.740 Their kids don't know even what they do probably, you know?

01:55:20.960 And it's just, it's just like, where is the victim?

01:55:24.820 I don't understand what level of this we're going to get to that is healthy.

01:55:30.580 Well, I think now what we're talking about here is the good old profit motive because profits don't care about human values, you know?

01:55:40.180 And most companies, that's what they're interested in is what will maximize profits.

01:55:47.180 And if they have to throw a thousand people out of a job in some town, they'll do it.

01:55:53.040 Yeah.

01:55:53.500 You know?

01:55:54.340 I don't understand that, though.

01:55:56.780 Well, work, I think, is very important to people.

01:55:59.100 I mean, we're creatures who work.

01:56:01.040 Yeah.

01:56:01.420 I just read a really interesting book, by the way.

01:56:03.460 It's called The Continuum Concept, published 40 years ago or so.

01:56:08.600 This woman goes to the Venezuelan jungle, six weeks away from civilization, and she watches how these Stone Age people bring up their kids. 1.00

01:56:20.520 That's the book right there, The Continuum Concept.

01:56:22.760 How they bring up their kids, what they hold them everywhere, like we said.

01:56:26.160 They don't punish them.

01:56:27.000 They don't yell at them.

01:56:27.960 These kids will grow up really happy and comfortable with themselves.

01:56:30.600 But the point I'm making is this tribe, they don't have a word for work. 0.98

01:56:37.540 They have a word for cutting wood.

01:56:39.840 They have a word for planting.

01:56:41.660 They have a word for fishing.

01:56:43.300 They have a word for washing. 1.00

01:56:46.360 But there's no word for work.

01:56:47.740 In other words, they just do what they do.

01:56:49.740 Yeah.

01:56:50.120 But there's no alienation from it.

01:56:52.740 Right.

01:56:53.300 Whatever they're into, they're just into it.

01:56:56.140 That's what they're doing.

01:56:56.880 But here we talk about work-life balance.

01:57:01.480 Now look at that phrase.

01:57:02.780 What does that imply?

01:57:04.340 That here's life and here's work.

01:57:07.780 And the two are not the same.

01:57:10.040 Yeah.

01:57:10.960 It's almost like we enslaved ourselves.

01:57:13.440 Well, we have.

01:57:15.320 And then also our society, as you're saying, creates so much stress and uncomfort.

01:57:19.320 Because, like, say if you took something that's supposed to be somewhere and you put it somewhere else, it's going to always feel stressed because it's not, like, in its home, right?

01:57:31.700 It's not in its natural spot.

01:57:33.880 Funny you should say that.

01:57:34.860 Because I often say you can study a zebra and you could conclude that the zebra is an animal that mostly lies around all day, gets up a few times to eat or to defecate or something, and then lies down again, walks around a little bit.

01:57:50.840 And it would be true if you observed a zebra in a zoo in a cage.

01:57:54.560 But if you observed a zebra out there on a savannah or wherever she lives, you'd see a totally different creature.

01:58:02.500 Oh, they're turnt out there. 1.00

01:58:03.780 And the human beings, in a sense, we put ourselves into a zoo.

01:58:09.560 We're so far away from our natural evolutionary environment.

01:58:13.060 It's not a question, again, of going back to Stone Age, but it's a question of recognizing what we've lost.

01:58:18.820 Yeah.

01:58:19.080 In a certain sense, we've put ourselves into a zoo, and we're studying ourselves totally out of our elements, and then we're wondering how come things are going so badly.

01:58:29.940 Yeah, that's crazy.

01:58:34.820 It's almost, and I hate to even laugh at it, but you're saying it's absurd.

01:58:38.540 It's absurd, yeah.

01:58:39.240 We're literally living in a theater of the absurd.

01:58:41.840 Yeah.

01:58:42.060 In your book, you also talk about, like, the history of humanity, that what we call civilization is less than 5% of our existence as a species, right?

01:58:52.960 Yeah.

01:58:52.980 That for the entire span of the human genus, that it represents less than 1% of that time.

01:59:00.020 Yeah.

01:59:00.340 Like our civilization, right?

01:59:01.840 Yeah.

01:59:01.960 We're such a small piece of how long humans have been alive.

01:59:05.880 Yeah.

01:59:06.040 And we have learned that such groups, a long time ago, held values emphasizing hospitality, sharing, generosity, and reciprocal exchange for the purpose not of personal enrichment, but of connection.

01:59:18.720 These values were intelligent, time-tested guidelines for mutual survival.

01:59:24.220 Yes, there was violence and bad behavior and all the rest.

01:59:26.880 We have never been perfect.

01:59:28.200 But we knew something about setting the collective context for our humanness to flourish fruitfully.

01:59:35.120 Yeah.

01:59:35.820 That it was a group effort.

01:59:37.200 It was a group thing, and people never saw themselves as separate from the environment or from animals.

01:59:42.420 Right.

01:59:42.800 Or from other human beings.

01:59:43.940 Yeah.

01:59:44.440 And in British Columbia, excuse me, where I live, the indigenous people used to have a ceremony called a potlatch.

01:59:55.020 And the potlatches, they would invite all these people, neighbors and other tribes and so on, and they'd give things to each other.

02:00:04.700 So it wasn't about getting, it was about giving.

02:00:08.740 When the British colonists arrived, you know what they did?

02:00:11.960 They outlawed the potlatch. 0.99

02:00:13.540 Damn. 0.99

02:00:13.880 Because they wanted to kill that spirit of communality that the indigenous people thrived on. 1.00

02:00:21.560 So they knew how to do it.

02:00:22.860 So they forbade a lot of the practices that gave the indigenous people meaning, including the giving.

02:00:30.760 And until very recently, decades ago, it was outlawed.

02:00:34.780 So people had to do stuff in secret.

02:00:38.920 You know, they outlawed the chanting.

02:00:42.240 They had to chant in secret.

02:00:45.980 Man.

02:00:46.800 You know, and because they knew the healing power of the chants.

02:00:52.840 And the chants really connected indigenous people to their traditions.

02:00:56.940 Now the colonists did this everywhere.

02:00:59.200 They did this in the States.

02:01:01.040 They did it in Australia and New Zealand.

02:01:02.920 They did it in Canada, of course, parts of Africa.

02:01:09.200 And so that a real effort was made to divorce people from their essential communal drives.

02:01:20.380 Yeah, that's what it feels like.

02:01:23.340 That's what it feels like inside.

02:01:25.920 Like, we're not supposed to be doing this.

02:01:28.940 Yeah.

02:01:29.540 You know?

02:01:30.440 Yeah.

02:01:30.640 One woman that you mentioned, Darcia Narvaez.

02:01:34.360 Yeah.

02:01:35.260 Darcia Narvaez.

02:01:36.360 Darcia Narvaez.

02:01:37.320 Yeah.

02:01:38.620 Said that we have become species atypical.

02:01:41.740 A sobering idea when you think about it.

02:01:43.540 No other species has ever had the ability to be untrue to itself.

02:01:47.700 Yeah.

02:01:47.840 To forsake its own needs, never mind to convince itself that such is the way things ought to be.

02:01:53.620 Or to destroy its own environment.

02:01:55.200 Yeah.

02:01:56.160 You know?

02:01:56.640 Yeah.

02:01:56.780 I still wonder if Mother Nature is mad about, like, if some of the diseases we have now are because of, like, what happened to the indigenous cultures.

02:02:03.560 You know?

02:02:03.780 If some of that just, like, is, like, you know, because Mother Nature remembers, you know?

02:02:08.920 And so it's, like, are we still just suffering the sins of, like, what's happened a long time ago?

02:02:15.700 We are.

02:02:16.620 Yeah.

02:02:17.100 And the problem is we haven't learned from it yet.

02:02:21.400 Like, actually, I work a lot with indigenous people in Canada.

02:02:25.640 They often invite me to talk about addiction and stress and trauma and so on.

02:02:29.740 Well, some of them, we did a show in Vancouver.

02:02:31.680 Some of them came out to the show.

02:02:33.340 Did they?

02:02:33.820 And they gave me some gifts.

02:02:35.180 Oh, fantastic.

02:02:35.820 Yeah.

02:02:36.040 It was really, really beautiful.

02:02:37.400 Beautiful, isn't it?

02:02:37.960 Yeah.

02:02:38.220 It was awesome, man.

02:02:39.740 Yeah.

02:02:39.960 It was great.

02:02:40.700 It was really nice of them.

02:02:41.820 But, so I do a lot of that work, but I get so much from it because there's such deep wisdom.

02:02:53.840 Like, even with all their trauma and all the dysfunction, all the addiction and mental illness amongst them,

02:03:01.420 which is strictly a result of colonial trauma, but there's still such gentle wisdom.

02:03:07.620 There's still such connection.

02:03:08.920 I remember doing a ceremony with some indigenous friends two years ago, art and nature.

02:03:18.480 They talk to every plant.

02:03:20.900 Wow.

02:03:21.180 They're so connected.

02:03:22.040 Yeah.

02:03:22.480 You know, such deep wisdom.

02:03:24.480 And I actually believe that when this society starts getting its head screwed on right,

02:03:32.600 we'll be very humbly willing to learn from the indigenous people.

02:03:35.340 You know, like, yes, civilization has brought many amazing things, not to forget that,

02:03:43.220 but what if we could meld our technological know-how and scientific brilliance with indigenous wisdom?

02:03:53.340 Yeah.

02:03:53.720 What a world we could actually create.

02:03:55.320 And maybe that is where we're headed, right?

02:03:57.060 I think that has to be the hope.

02:03:58.340 Well, I, that's, you know, that's, I believe that's certainly a possibility.

02:04:03.660 Yeah.

02:04:04.080 I think that has to be the hope that we take away.

02:04:06.500 Yeah.

02:04:06.820 Cause if I were ever a leader, I think we would get back to some of the things that were important.

02:04:11.260 You know, you know, one of my favorite times when I was a kid, the power would go out sometimes.

02:04:15.300 Yeah.

02:04:15.760 And so we'd all have to like, mom would put a couple of candles out. 0.58

02:04:18.480 And so we'd all have to be right there together.

02:04:20.420 Yeah.

02:04:20.980 And it was just like, I don't know, all that mattered was just like, like you could joke and, but it was like, I don't know.

02:04:29.920 Like we just all needed each other.

02:04:32.900 You need to know where everybody was, everybody here.

02:04:35.280 I don't know.

02:04:36.020 There was something special about that.

02:04:37.540 But you can see it even now.

02:04:39.820 When there's disasters, people really come together.

02:04:43.960 Right.

02:04:44.500 They tend to come together to support each other.

02:04:46.400 Yeah.

02:04:46.600 They'll go out of their way to, to give and to support.

02:04:51.820 Oh, for sure.

02:04:52.280 You're seeing it with the flooding and stuff in the Southeast right now.

02:04:54.480 Yeah.

02:04:54.860 Many places all over the world.

02:04:56.300 Yeah.

02:04:56.680 Um, yeah.

02:04:57.780 I think there's so much to learn from our natives, from, uh, from the indigenous people of the land, you know, just as we learn from animals and all parts of nature.

02:05:06.140 Well, Darshanov, the, the, the scientist, the psychologist that you mentioned, she's written a book called The Evolved Nest.

02:05:13.780 And she's talking about our commonality with other animals and how they rear their, their young and what we could learn from them.

02:05:23.160 Oh, wow.

02:05:23.800 Yeah.

02:05:24.880 That's, that's an amazing little book.

02:05:26.840 I, I, I wrote the foreword for it.

02:05:29.520 Um, Darshanov's done some amazing work on, on the actual needs of human beings.

02:05:34.660 Really?

02:05:34.940 She's a pretty fascinating woman.

02:05:36.160 Well, she's very interesting.

02:05:37.460 Very interesting.

02:05:39.160 If you ever want to talk to her, I'm happy to connect you.

02:05:40.960 That would be really cool.

02:05:42.020 You Canadians are dang interesting, man. 1.00

02:05:43.860 Well, Darshanov's American. 0.95

02:05:45.180 Oh, she is? 0.68

02:05:45.840 Yeah, yeah.

02:05:46.160 She is.

02:05:46.420 All right.

02:05:46.600 We'll take it.

02:05:47.120 Oh, no, she's a retired professor at the University of Notre Dame.

02:05:52.700 Wow.

02:05:53.360 And she's still very active.

02:05:55.280 And this book is called The Evolved Nest.

02:05:57.680 It's just a slim little volume.

02:05:58.900 Yeah.

02:05:59.080 But you should learn about how penguins bring up their kids or wolves.

02:06:07.340 When a mother dies, then wolves who haven't even been pregnant start lactating to feed the young ones.

02:06:16.340 Wow.

02:06:17.340 You know, and how, when the baby elephant is born, you know what happens?

02:06:21.640 All the other mothers.

02:06:22.520 All the elephants put their trunks on it.

02:06:24.240 Yeah.

02:06:24.380 All the other mothers, you know, they, they stand around, they touch the baby.

02:06:27.620 They know the need for touch.

02:06:30.140 I mean, there's incredible wisdom in animals as well.

02:06:33.600 And Darshanov and her writing partner, Gay Bradshaw, they really show us the lessons we could actually derive just from watching our animals bring up their young.

02:06:46.140 We still have a lot to learn.

02:06:47.620 Is that the best message to take away from your book, do you think?

02:06:50.940 We still have a lot to learn and we need to be humble.

02:06:53.720 We need to realize that for all our achievements and our intellectual brilliance, we've come disconnected from our hearts, from our gut feelings, and that we need to really be curious about what our hearts and our guts are telling us, not just our intellects.

02:07:11.220 Amen.

02:07:11.940 Yeah.

02:07:12.200 We need an emotional revolution.

02:07:16.900 That's a good way to put it.

02:07:19.780 Before you go, and thank you so much for your time.

02:07:22.840 My pleasure.

02:07:23.460 Yeah.

02:07:24.620 There's a part, Rafi, there's a guy in the book, Rafi.

02:07:28.800 Oh, Rafi. 0.58

02:07:29.540 Rafi.

02:07:29.980 No, Rafi's a children's singer.

02:07:32.040 A children's singer.

02:07:32.620 Oh, yeah, that guy?

02:07:33.920 That's him.

02:07:34.380 I'd like to be him.

02:07:36.340 I'd like to see.

02:07:37.720 Yeah.

02:07:38.220 Is that him?

02:07:38.700 No, no, that's Ringo Starr. 1.00

02:07:40.480 Oh, damn. 1.00

02:07:41.140 You're singing Octopus's Garden. 1.00

02:07:42.800 Yeah.

02:07:43.280 Oh, Jesus.

02:07:44.020 But Rafi used to sing Baby Beluga.

02:07:46.420 Oh, yeah.

02:07:46.940 You know?

02:07:47.880 Apples and Banone Nose, that song?

02:07:50.340 Yeah, yeah, and Banana Phone.

02:07:52.340 But he says we discover who we are from the inside.

02:07:55.080 You wrote that on the book.

02:07:56.040 And Rafi actually played in the White House at the Clinton inauguration.

02:08:03.560 Oh, sweet.

02:08:04.500 And he's like the children's troubadour of the world.

02:08:06.660 Yes, when I was a child, we listened to all.

02:08:08.740 Yes, they had all of it.

02:08:10.900 So Rafi's a friend of mine.

02:08:12.420 Oh, excellent.

02:08:13.200 And at some point, some years ago, he wakes up in the middle of the night,

02:08:20.600 and the word child-honoring comes into his head.

02:08:24.120 And he says, what would the world look like if we honored children

02:08:27.700 and the needs of children?

02:08:30.140 So he started this child-honoring institute.

02:08:33.600 Now, the thing about his singing for children is it's not condescending.

02:08:39.840 He really plays with kids and really gets them.

02:08:44.400 And his heart is really so childlike.

02:08:49.180 So he says, whatever the quote was, that we discover who we are from the inside.

02:08:57.600 We discover who we are from the inside.

02:08:59.340 And he's actually talking about how human beings develop,

02:09:02.120 which is through our feelings first.

02:09:04.420 And those feelings begin in the uterus.

02:09:07.680 So already when a mother is stressed, the child really feels that in the uterus. 0.79

02:09:12.400 And that stresses the child.

02:09:14.540 And that interferes with the child's brain development.

02:09:16.600 So that actually we develop our sense from our feelings first.

02:09:23.360 And as I said earlier, then the intellect comes in.

02:09:27.000 Right.

02:09:27.900 But if the emotional circuits are out of balance because of early stress,

02:09:34.520 then it's hard for us to even think straight.

02:09:37.020 Right.

02:09:37.260 And our society we have is women, so many mothers have to work. 1.00

02:09:42.100 It's like we've just, yeah, we've, we're a little misconstrued.

02:09:46.500 Well, the United States, 25% of women have to go back to work within two weeks of giving birth. 0.93

02:09:53.960 And what nature would prefer scientifically and physiologically

02:09:58.960 is for the baby with the mother for at least nine months.

02:10:03.060 Yeah.

02:10:03.380 But actually for years.

02:10:05.180 Now, I'm not sure.

02:10:07.260 Or, if not the mother, but at least with the mother for at least nine months,

02:10:13.560 but ideally well beyond them, but with other nurturing adults.

02:10:18.880 Right.

02:10:19.520 So it's not just caregivers who give you food and.

02:10:23.320 Right.

02:10:23.560 It's the mother, the grandmother, the aunt, the neighbor, the sense of community,

02:10:27.120 your whole genes being right there.

02:10:29.240 Exactly.

02:10:29.960 Yeah.

02:10:30.740 How did we get off on such a different tangent then?

02:10:34.180 And if we, if we were, if we were supposed to be in these, these tribes, these groups,

02:10:39.580 these, it's just evolution and there's nothing we can do about it.

02:10:42.860 Well, that's, you know, that's civilization.

02:10:47.600 Right.

02:10:48.140 Civilization.

02:10:48.740 Which is God, obviously brought all kinds of benefits, but also look at.

02:10:53.320 Yeah.

02:10:53.540 All that we've lost.

02:10:55.200 So again, it's for me, can we value our achievements and our knowledge and try to remember what we've lost?

02:11:07.860 Yeah.

02:11:08.160 And trying to reconnect with those parts of ourselves that we've kind of got divorced from.

02:11:13.820 Yeah.

02:11:14.040 Yeah.

02:11:15.880 Yeah.

02:11:16.320 And when you, yeah.

02:11:17.080 And your children just look into them, pour into them what you want out of them, you know?

02:11:21.060 Yeah.

02:11:21.420 Pour into them as much as you can.

02:11:23.440 And yes, some, some, you, kids don't know how to feel sometimes.

02:11:27.440 You have to also talk to them about their feelings.

02:11:29.880 No, you don't.

02:11:31.760 They know exactly how to feel.

02:11:33.380 They don't have the words for.

02:11:35.260 So you.

02:11:36.480 Right.

02:11:37.000 They know how to feel.

02:11:38.460 It's our job to give them words for their feelings.

02:11:40.780 Right.

02:11:41.100 It's right.

02:11:41.520 It's our job to give them words for their feelings.

02:11:43.520 Right.

02:11:43.780 Yeah.

02:11:44.160 So yeah, if you're a child, if you're not doing that, it's, it's not a judgment and I don't

02:11:48.040 have any children.

02:11:49.000 Yeah.

02:11:49.260 But that's what I could have used when I was young.

02:11:50.900 It was like, how do you feel?

02:11:53.200 Let me help you with this.

02:11:54.580 Oh, not even how you feel.

02:11:56.560 You're really angry with daddy right now because you wanted a cookie before dinner and daddy

02:12:00.340 said no cookie.

02:12:01.200 So now you're really angry, aren't you?

02:12:02.860 Yeah.

02:12:03.580 You know?

02:12:03.920 So it's, it's not even, we don't have to tell them how to feel.

02:12:07.200 They, they're feeling creatures.

02:12:08.420 We have to accept their feelings.

02:12:10.380 Okay.

02:12:10.880 That doesn't mean we give them the cookie.

02:12:12.540 Yeah.

02:12:12.780 But it, it means that we do understand why.

02:12:16.460 Hey, hey, I understand you want that cookie.

02:12:18.460 Yeah.

02:12:18.880 You, right now you're really mad at daddy.

02:12:21.460 Okay.

02:12:22.160 I get it.

02:12:23.000 I get it.

02:12:23.540 Yeah.

02:12:23.780 You know, that's all.

02:12:25.000 Yeah.

02:12:25.200 Yeah.

02:12:25.240 Yeah.

02:12:25.900 That doesn't mean you're allowed to hate your brother.

02:12:29.560 But I get that you're angry.

02:12:32.240 So, so we, we're not talking about permissive parenting.

02:12:36.180 Um, we're talking about authoritative parenting.

02:12:39.680 Not authoritarian, authoritative, where the child is understood and held and guided and we give

02:12:46.840 them words for them words for their feelings, but we don't ask them to suppress themselves.

02:12:50.520 We may not accept certain behaviors or put limits, but we know how to do that.

02:12:56.520 If the child trusts you and is looking to you, like natives, the indigenous people, like we said 0.99

02:13:02.880 earlier, never had to, never hit their kids because the kids trusted the adults for guidance.

02:13:07.940 Right.

02:13:09.240 Yeah.

02:13:09.580 You know, so, which all comes from connection.

02:13:12.780 A hundred percent.

02:13:13.800 And now we're learning so many things.

02:13:15.580 We learn them like, you know, through a YouTube video or through, we, we learn so, we, I mean,

02:13:20.980 now most people learn about sex through pornography.

02:13:23.180 It's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:13:27.180 We need each other to, yeah, we need each other and our, we're create, we're creating

02:13:35.540 more and more that we don't.

02:13:37.400 That's right.

02:13:37.940 And, and, and we're creating more and more that if you have needs, there's something wrong

02:13:42.940 with you.

02:13:43.540 Yeah. 0.97

02:13:44.220 If you have emotional needs, you're a weakling, you know.

02:13:48.340 Oh, one day our feelings will be in a museum.

02:13:50.320 You'll go visit them.

02:13:51.120 They're like, Hey, remember this?

02:13:52.900 They used to have that.

02:13:53.740 Um, Dr. Monte, thank you just for putting all this together.

02:13:58.980 It's really fascinating.

02:14:00.000 You, I mean, you have so many, um, uh, other like, uh, therapists and scientists and philosophers

02:14:09.540 and, uh, doctors and everything you, that you've quoted in here to really put together

02:14:14.200 a beautiful piece of work here.

02:14:15.700 Thank you.

02:14:16.240 It's really fascinating.

02:14:17.060 And it's not all like Debbie Downer stuff either.

02:14:19.960 And, and I don't mean to be, and I don't think we were that much in this conversation.

02:14:22.940 It's just looking at things and saying, Hey, well, let me, let's take us a look at where

02:14:27.120 we are possibly.

02:14:28.620 How did we get here?

02:14:29.640 Well, that's my intention.

02:14:30.600 And my intention is to promote healing.

02:14:32.240 Actually, it's not just to spread doom and gloom.

02:14:34.920 And, uh, actually the healing part of the book is the longest part of the book.

02:14:38.680 I'm not there yet.

02:14:39.580 Yeah.

02:14:39.840 Yeah.

02:14:40.040 But yeah, yeah.

02:14:40.940 I hope you get there someday.

02:14:42.620 Um, I think I will.

02:14:44.800 Yeah.

02:14:45.280 I've been reading at a good clip.

02:14:46.240 I'm enjoying it.

02:14:47.060 Well, I'm glad to hear that.

02:14:47.980 Thank you.

02:14:48.500 It was, uh, if I can boast, can I boast?

02:14:51.020 Sure.

02:14:51.340 I would love for you too.

02:14:52.320 It was 19 weeks on the New York times bestsellers list for a year and a half.

02:14:56.360 It was a Canadian bestseller.

02:14:57.660 It's been published in 41 languages now internationally, and it's been a bestseller in a whole lot of

02:15:02.820 countries.

02:15:03.340 So I think there's value in this book.

02:15:05.260 Well, I think also that it's good to know that, uh, enough people are starting to, um,

02:15:11.160 are recognizing some of the same thought, you know, because that in itself, those numbers

02:15:15.500 itself and that prolificness gives is a source of hope.

02:15:19.920 I think, I think what's happening actually is that as society in some ways goes more into

02:15:25.560 crisis, also more and more people are waking up and they're starting to ask questions.

02:15:31.140 And I see that as a good thing.

02:15:32.720 Yeah, I do too.

02:15:34.220 Thank you for letting me ask you questions today.

02:15:36.040 Um, thank you for, uh, yeah, just for your time.

02:15:39.920 There's so many of my friends love you and look up to you.

02:15:42.220 I, I had my own therapist was like, he's asking, I'm like, well, you're my therapist,

02:15:48.100 but he was excited that I was getting this and out with you.

02:15:50.520 So, um, yeah, thank you so much for, uh, your commitment to curiosity and thanks for your

02:15:55.940 time.

02:15:57.040 Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

02:16:02.720 I must be cornerstone.

02:16:08.100 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.

02:16:12.680 I found I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take.

02:16:20.520 Thank you.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - October 15, 2024

E538 Dr. Gabor Maté

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