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

environment, family and community. Now Western medicine completely forgets that we separate the mind. of the body, so often when I speak in groups, I ask people if in the last five years they have seen a neurologist, an oncologist, a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist or a rheumatologist, any type of doctor, raise your head. hand for people to Raise your hands if you keep your hands up if they ask you about the stress in your

life

. The trauma in his childhood. Relations. Relations. Exactly how you

feel

about your job. How do you

feel

about

yourself

as a person? As a human being, very few hands remain raised and those questions that have to do with number one, the unity of mind and body which is only a scientific fact and the inseparability of one human being from another, Western medicine completely ignores which is contrary to science, not only is it contrary to ancient wisdom, it is also contrary to modern science because we have tens of thousands of studies that show that the mind cannot be separated from the body.

Tens of thousands of studies show that our emotions significantly influence the onset of diseases. How do you know relationships exist? a wonderful psychiatrist here in Los Angeles, you may know him, daniel segal and dan siegel talk about what he calls interpersonal neurobiology, which means our brains are not separate, something in you will feel the tension in me and we will realize that . and that will be the intuition, yes, that will change your brain and I go one step further. I'm talking about interpersonal biology, so what happens physiologically to people is very effective. I'll give you two examples, yes, but it is affected by their culture. and your family, which is why we've known for decades that children whose parents are stressed are much more likely to have asthma.

Parental stress affects the physiology of the child who breathes breathing that narrows the air causing inflammation by the way. Be treated with stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. You know, we know American black women. The more experiences of racism you have to endure, the greater the risk of asthma. We actually know that men who are sexually abused in childhood have a tripled risk of heart disease. I could go on, uh, women who suffer severe symptoms of PTSD, their risk of ovarian cancer doubles, uh, why, because you can't separate emotions from the body, it's a unit scientifically speaking, not only from the point of view of indigenous wisdom but also of modern science? when I speak when you say despite all this knowledge, I am saying that what is missing in knowledge is wisdom and not only wisdom, even science, right, that is very ironic, so I am a doctor and as doctors we always talk about evidence. evidence-based practice and I say gosh, I wish we had evidence-based practice, let's look at the evidence, you know what the evidence is for separating the mind from the body, but multiple sclerosis, this mysterious disease?

The guy who first described multiple sclerosis was a French neurologist Rajon Martin Charbon in the 19th century said it was a disease caused by long-term grief and worry. Since then, there have been multiple studies showing the relationship between stress trauma and multiple sclerosis. You were the average neurologist with MS symptoms. Nobody will. I ask you about your trauma and no one has asked you about your stress and why it is so important, because if you deal with trauma and stress, your MS can improve significantly, which is why there is a huge gap between scientific evidence and how we practice medicine and What we call evidence-based scientific practice is miraculous, it is surprising, but it is too limited.

What about something like arthritis? What is it, would you say, that is related to good? That has also been studied. So, um, there was a great Canadian doctor who actually was. of the founding doctors of the johns hopkins school of medicine his name is william osler said in 1880 that rheumatoid arthritis is caused by long-term worry and stress long-term worry and stress yes no since then in 1890 1880 or 90. wow, yes, he said this then, since then, multiple dozen studies showing a relationship between traumatic stress and rheumatoid arthritis, do you think the average rheumatologist knows anything about that, so people go to I know people in my book, the myth of normality, I talk about people with more or arthritis who once they begin to recognize that the disease flares actually manifest stress in their lives if they learn to deal with that stress a woman told me that I have beautiful conversations with my rheumatoid arthritis he said she says it was the best I could Master because every time it shows up I know I'm out of alignment with myself, you're out of somewhere, you need to have a conversation with

yourself

or realign yourself, it's interesting, I was saying this before off camera, that and then in a previous relationship that I was in, I felt a lot of pain in my chest and a kind of tightness in my throat, yeah, and at one point like I was starting to look like this, there's a rash or some kind of

break

out like on like under my belly button, yeah, and I thought I've never had some kind of eczema or skin condition or something, it was like some kind of bright red

break

out and I felt like If I had a disease like what it is.

You already know this and it's fascinating because I was telling you about the moment after many months of therapy and as I began to integrate the healing lessons and really feel it internally, I began to feel this sense of peace within me for the first time. I didn't feel trapped for the first time in myself, yeah, in my heart and in my body, and almost overnight like this butter was there for months and I thought, oh, maybe they're doing allergy tests on me. and It was like maybe they were peanuts. I don't know all these different foods that I'm eating and I was like eliminating foods and they're still there.

It was almost overnight when I felt peace within me. The attacks disappeared. They left and they haven't come back and I was like if you came to see me with that rash, I wouldn't have asked you what you're eating, no I wouldn't, well I could have done that, I mean those are good questions but I I would have also asked you what is your body saying no to projecting that you're not saying no to oh my gosh, you know, um, no, a flare if you take that word flare, which is what you used, yeah, it's inflammation, is it?

TRUE? inflamed is fine, right, but where else do you use what else ignites? You know what lights up is rage, anger, but you had anger that you were not expressing well, therefore, your body lights up, yes, we know that repressed emotions cause inflammation, so if you had come to me, not if you had come to me when I was out of medical school because I wouldn't know anything about this, no one teaches you these things, but if you had come to me more recently I would have asked you all what your body is saying no to. which you're not saying no to and that happens in two main areas, relationships and, um, and work, you know, it's interesting, so the body says those signals, we can learn from it and now the problem is you go to the average doctor.

They're not going to ask those things, they're just going to try to collude with you, they're going to try to get rid of the symptom that you don't know at the root, which is fine. I mean, you don't want to sit there with a rash. that's fine, but let's also look at the source, yes and and, and the source is always assumed to be something physical maybe they think about food maybe they think about some toxin they won't think about your emotions even though the mind and body are inseparable How much stronger do you think the emotional weight or trauma is than the physical one? uh toxins you know in terms of affecting the body.

I can't make that assessment because I don't know what study would even compare the truth, so No, I don't want to speak offhand, but what I can tell you is that emotions are really primary in most chronic illnesses and if you address them now in this society where there are all these toxins in the environment and garbage in the food and everyone who knows everything, but what I know is that emotions play a very important role and that, once people start to realize that and they face it, that can have an impact on their illness and the other thing that I have.

I don't know about you when you write books, but I write books as much for myself as for anyone, yes, the program is for me, yes, exactly, so I learn a lot when I write, so one of the things I learned when I was reading right in the middle of normal, even how we think about diseases, like you say I have eczema or I have depression or I have rheumatoid arthritis or I have added now there is an assumption that does not exist, the assumption is first of all is that there is something called adding, there is something called eczema, there is something called rheumatoid arthritis or there is something called depression, then there is an eye and the eye has that thing, but that thing has its own independent nature, so I have this mug.

I can leave it, I can give it away, I can break it, I can keep it, but it is separate from me, it has its own nature, but to say that I have this disease assumes that this disease has a separate

life

in its own nature. No matter what would happen if we saw an illness of all kinds, mental or physical or

addiction

, not as things in themselves that have their own nature, but as processes that manifest our lives and if I live my life differently, then I can have a impact on that process then that process will change that's exactly how it is like that for shorthand I understand that it's useful to say that I have depression true true but how important are the words that we choose correctly it's a little but it's but if you if we if we buy In that language we're actually missing the point because you don't have it, there's nothing that's separate from you and that means that if you change, and in fact, there was a friend of mine, now a recent friend, Dr.

Jeff Rediger. who is a psychiatrist at Harvard and last year he wrote a book called Cured, the science of spontaneous healing, that was the subtitle. He now he studied documentaries about people with terminal illnesses, so there is no prognosis and then they get better, so they were terminal illnesses. They're supposed to survive, they're not supposed to survive, they're supposed to die in a few years or something, in months or a week. I have spoken to these people and they have cured their illness. There is a woman called a psychologist. Kelly Turner, who studied the same thing, wrote a book called Radical Remission, so the three of us have looked at these people and thought they did it in some kind of research.

I did it in an impressionistic way, you know, but I look at people's medical stories, we all know people who are supposed to have two months to live or six months to live, or the medical treatment fails or they refuse the medical treatment and then the disease disappears. I think the three of us have discovered that what makes the biggest difference is that the person changes their relationship with themselves wow and there is always trauma in the background now jeff and kelly have documented people go on diets take supplements start meditating go to nature yes, they are Go to nature, all that, all those things are great, yes, and I think Jeff and I agree, and I think Kelly would probably also agree that the biggest change is in the relationship of one with oneself, in other words, the life changing process. changes now I don't promise anyone listening that you can heal yourself I mean you know no this is not snake oil.

I'm just talking about the importance of recognizing the impact of emotions and self-relationship on physiology, that's all. I'm talking about there's an external environment and then there's an internal environment, you know, our emotional environment, yeah, that's connected to our. I guess our nervous system, our heart, our brain, the whole body and everything, and if our emotional environment is sick, then we. You will probably also be physically ill, that is what you are, that is what your story really illustrates, isn't it that as soon as you create an internal environment, your physical problem is obeyed? Do you know by the way?

I just realized that I'm getting too excited here um uh, this is, this is my passion, I mean, I just grew up with this forever, but I'm also noticing that I'm probably getting a little heated here and, uh , you. I'm getting hot I just know I'm not doing it as much physically. I just noticed that I need to calm down a little. I don't want to, I don't want to talk too fast, no, I like it, this is exciting for me, yeah. I feel like this is what you were saying, yes emotional repression is a major cause of physical illness, it may not be the only cause, there are other factors, but what we suppress usually comes to the surface in some way, that's right , that's the whole point and most of us will speak for myself.

I was not taught and I believe most of us were not taught how to express emotional traumas, emotional pains, fears, insecurities, shames, guilt, where we are not taught.They are totally helpless, but there are a lot of external pressures on them, so it's not like all they have to do is take it. On the other hand, we also have to look at the broader political, economic, social and racial-cultural issues that keep many people repressed. Yeah, there's a lot of political trauma and how can someone who maybe is living in a stressed environment, whether it's their home or their city or their political culture, you know, whatever it is, they're more repressed than others, how they can support themselves to get out of a stressed environment so that they can be a foundation to have the ability to thrive and flourish emotionally you know something as a privileged Caucasian identified as male 1 with economic freedom and I'm not in a position to tell someone these are bigger political issues these people society has to change and people have to work to change society and it's a question at some point it becomes a question of advocacy and activism and and joining others, you know, I don't want to preach to anyone else. , I'm sure of that, you know, my job, to our extent, is to support and help, but not to provide some kind of but if society let's say society will not change over a period of time for these individuals for certain individuals who feel too stressed what can they do as individuals?

Whether they receive external support or not, what could they start doing? anything else besides, I mean we've covered a lot of things that you can start doing and you get your book, that's for sure, well, again, you know, I'm not sure I can fully answer that, but I can give examples. A couple of years ago, in the last two or three years, the New Yorker published an article about a black American man who was imprisoned for decades and kept in solitary confinement for decades. It was this Shaka Singur. I do not remember the name. It could happen. this guy who was in solitary confinement for decades but yeah, well, maybe the same guy did write a best-selling book and was on Oprah and it could have been the same guy, but go ahead, well, my point is, to be fair, my point is that it wasn't like that, that he wasn't destroyed by it, right, he started to heal in prison and found inner strength somehow, so it's not for me to say, I don't know if I could handle it for a day.

It doesn't matter for four decades or three decades, but that just shows that strength, the ability to heal and hold on to a servant to

find

oneself, is actually inherent in all of us, so even in that unimaginably horrible, inhuman , cruel and absolutely social in a sociable and despicable way of treating a human being, that person could still hold on to themselves if they suffered, but they could hold on to themselves and come out of it with dignity, yes, you know that. that's it available to all of us, I think that's true, you know, but again, I'm not saying it can't, I don't even want to begin to imagine that I would handle that situation, but I'm just saying it's possible, sure, yeah, yeah.

I have a couple of final questions for you before I ask them. I want to make sure people get the book because I think this will help a lot of people with the myth of normal. You can get it wherever books are sold or on Amazon. or on their website you can't get it directly from me, but you can go. There is a link somewhere. I don't sell books, but yes, yes, but if you go to dr

gabor

mate

.com.com, you can get all the information. where to get it, but this book is going to be extremely powerful 10 years of research exploring all these things putting them together there is research in seven eight years of life yes personal research I had the scientific research yes and I think this is the type of thing you need most people is to understand how to understand their pain, their trauma, their suffering, yes, and

find

solutions, yes, and regain their wholeness, yes, so that they can be in a state of peace under stress in the world, potentially, and find that peace and me I think you know it's something that I feel like I want everyone to experience as I've been experimenting more in the last year and in the last 10 years, some of that, but more in the last year and a half internally as a consistent piece, yeah , and it sounds. as you have been experiencing it for a long time and I feel like I am very inspired by your mission and I have been watching your content for a while and I think we need more of these uh I guess it is information available to us that we have simply forgotten or are not recovering so yeah but I'm so grateful to do this so the myth of normal I want everyone to get a few copies and give them to their friends and then caption traumatic illness and healing in a toxic culture exactly what we've been talking about.

You know, we haven't even talked about social media consumption, iPads and iPhones and all that, just being on electronic devices all day, how that's probably affecting it. traumatizing ourselves in certain ways is actually distorting children's brain development by being on the iPhone or that all day changing their brain surface really oh yeah, oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about too, it's a big problem, what I want to say about the um. The thing about acknowledging trauma is that there's been a sea change in that like the best-selling book on the New York Times bestseller list is consistently Bessel van der Kolks um, the body keeps score keeps score. amazing, yes, yes, it's not an easy read, no, it is.

You know, he's eloquent, but he's also technical and scientific, etc., he's been like this for like 10 years, right or something, yeah, it's been a little while, but in 2015 I think it's okay, 14, maybe 15. something like that, um and or and and this. Last year, another psychiatrist, Bruce Perry, wrote a book with Oprah called "What Happened to You." The fact that these books are now in the top 10 best-selling books, yeah, people are waking up, yeah, so I'm glad I can contribute. Of course, yes, it is very powerful. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths.

Yeah, so it's a hypothetical question. Imagine that you can live as long as you want and you can live your life creating whatever you want. experience the life and relationships you want to be in and make the impact you want to have, but eventually it's the last day, live as long as you want, for whatever reason, all your content has to go with you, no one has access to your information. books hypothetically after I'm gone it's a lot everything goes with you to the next player go somewhere else no, we don't have access to that okay, I got it, hypothetical scenario yes, but you have to leave three lessons for the world three things that you know are right, okay, you would share them with us and this is all we have to remember, yes, your information, yes, what would you say?

They are those three truths, because you seek the reality of everything, no, don't understand it. being seduced by appearances or anything else would be um, don't be afraid of your pain and don't run away from it because running away is what leads to

addiction

s and illnesses, and so number three, it's all worth it, it's worth going through. all. that suffering uh because that's life it's just worth being alive a friend of mine in England recently

lost

a very close friend to suicide she was just overwhelmed with grief and didn't know she could handle it and then she has a favorite forest in which she walks told me this about two months ago or a month ago she went for a walk through this first and she felt this deep pain our pain is one of the brain circuses that we have we have circuits for pain we She had to feel this deeply briefly and she felt the greater joy at the same time and asked him: how are the two compatible?

She said that I felt the pain and if there is so much joy for the privilege of being alive to feel the pain. Wow, yes. It's all worth it, it's so worth it, oh man, I want to acknowledge you, uh Gabbard, because I mean your journey, I mean the journey of your relationship and what you've experienced coming together and staying together and all these different things, the journey from teaching. from a place of suffering because it seems that for many decades you were not at peace but you were trying to help others from yourself. I want to recognize you for creating peace within yourself and facing pain and trauma completely yourself and being on the healing journey and for your constant dedication to creating your work so that people can consume it in a way that resonates with them. , from your books to your content, from your videos to your posts, this is very necessary right now and I believe it will be. necessary for a long time until society and culture begins to heal, so I really recognize you for the way you show your commitment, your consistency and dedication to this research.

I can't thank you enough for first of all creating this platform which along the way means having done all the work yourself and then having a vision to create this platform and then allowing me to speak from this platform of course is a great privilege and a great joy, so thank you very much, yes, you're welcome, you're welcome. again your book I want people to understand the myth of normal uh make sure you get some copies of that right now follow them on their website we'll have everything linked too. Final question for you, what is your definition of greatness?

You don't make it easy, you don't make it easier, boy am I going to challenge you? It is the willingness to find your best qualities and express them in the world. That's what I see as greatness and that doesn't have to be that way. Having to do with achievement may necessarily lead to achievement, but it is actually the willingness and ability to find your best qualities and manifest them in the world. That is greatness. Love Dr. Martin. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. You have to think about your thoughts. and the feelings and the functioning of your flesh inside your skull like a garden like an ecosystem just because you have a weed or an ear does not mean that the harmony is disturbed, so, for example, we can surgically remove a frontal lobe.