Gabor Mate on How We Become Who We Are | Conversations with Tom
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Published 2021-03-18
As adults we all have some degree of trauma from our childhood to cope with. Maybe it’s falling downhill and being left with a scar, or maybe it’s more severe and involves emotional neglect. For many adults, it’s easy to believe there was never any trauma, life was great and their childhood was filled with happy memories. In this episode, Gabor Mate explains how easily unconscious traumas from childhood can be identified. He shares years of experience and wisdom with Tom in this conversation that explores the depths of truth and meaning in life, and how that fits in with our physical and behavioral manifestations of broken adult expectations and stressors. Gabor Mate, is a deep thinker, childhood development expert, and expert of addiction. He shares his unique insights on how to deal with severe trauma and how to get the most out of life by moving beyond mere survival.
SHOW NOTES:
Reality | Gabor on how people view reality and the Johnny Cash song, In Your Mind [1:14]
Childhood Development | Gabor reveals the shaping window of development for children [3:01]
Stress Defined | Gabor explain the terminology of stress and its triggers [5:40]
Emotional Work | Ongoing emotional work that takes consciousness and awareness [9:13]
Trauma | Gabor discusses severe trauma, how it shows up physically and in behavior [10:12]
Being Sensitive | Advantage and disadvantage of being highly sensitive [12:18]
Empathetic Support | Gabor talks about empathetic support for persons with trauma [12:43]
Beyond Mental | Gabor reveals makes life more profound beyond the mental experience [20:04]
Feeling vs. Being | Gabor presents difference between feeling and a state of being [22:11]
Self-Isolation | Gabor explores self-isolation and the state of pain versus enlightenment. [22:32]
Expectations | Gabor describes the expectations of the nervous system [24:30]
Broken Society | how modern society is dysregulating us and how broken our society is [30:31]
Child Development | Gabor reveals what healthy child development [41:04]
Meaning & Purpose | Gabor pushes on Tom’s value for meaning equated with hard work [51:20]
Truth Not Facts | Gabor explains difference between truth and facts [59:54]
Life after 70 | Gabor shares what keeps him going in his seventies is just who he is [1:07:58]
Palliative Care | Gabor share his experience and perspective with palliative care [1:14:18]
Commitment | Gabor and Tom talk about commitment [1:30:42]
Marriage | Lessons from 51 years of marriage [1:35:23]
Unconscious Trauma | Processing trauma that you’re not consciously aware of [1:41:13]
Suffering From Past |Gabor shares a quote to explain how suffering isn’t always labeled [1:43:19]
Dissociated from suffering | Gabor explains pain suppressed and misinterpreted [1:45:54]
QUOTES:
“When people are just trying to survive it's hard for them to consider transformation, so people that are under economic pressure, or racially oppressed, or under economic threat, political conflict these make it difficult for people because people are just in survival mode.” [11:43]
“There’s essence, there’s truth that goes beyond what the mind can comprehend” [20:34]
“There’s a way of isolating yourself as a way of committing yourself to enlightenment which means that you’ll stay away from people for the rest of your life it just means you’re going to go deep into yourself and not be distracted by all that the world throws at you [23:32]
“Then there’s another way to isolate yourself which is a defensive one, which is ‘the world is so awful, the heck with them all, I don’t need anybody,’ that will protect you from some kinds of hurt, cause if you withdraw from relationships you’ll never be betrayed, so that’s true, on the other hand, that itself is a state of pain” 23:49
“Survival and fully being alive and fully living are not the same thing” [25:39]
“There’s lots of facts out there, but truth is much larger than facts, it’s integrating the facts in a picture of reality.” [1:00:05]
“A life without truth is not a meaningful life” [1:04:46]
“the beauty does not go away. Should your marriage come to 51 years, as mine has, you’ll be looking into your wife’s eyes and you’ll be seeing the same beauty that you saw the first day you met her” [1:34:02]
“You have to have the compassion to look at yourself not through the voice that tells you you’re worthless, but to say if I reacted that way it must be a good reason for it. Something in me, there’s something that happened to me that made me react that way at some point” [1:39:35]
“There’s all kinds of memory and the body carries memory even if it doesn’t carry recall” [1:41:45]
FOLLOW (NAME):
Website: drgabormate.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/drgabormate
Facebook: www.facebook.com/drgabormate/?ref=hl
Youtube: / @drgabormate9132
All Comments (21)
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What did you learn about your personality and how you developed?
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Gabor, You are truly a life-changing human being! "We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world." - Gabor Mate
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Gosh! Gabor is unbelievably wise and authentic. A walking buddha - his voice is like zen music. His words like a brick of gold.
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I actually just finished his book 'in the realm of hungry ghosts'....as i was detoxing. I literally can't put into words how life changing that book was for me. He's much more wise, intelligent, and caring than most intellectuals and so called doctors. He deserves more recognition and respect than Peterson in my opinion
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I had tears in my eyes when Gabor Maté said, "beauty does not go away. Should your marriage come to 51 years, you will be looking at your wife's eyes and you will be seeing the same beauty that you saw the first day you met her. It's going to be amazing. It's not the wrinkles and stuff. They don't take away the beauty. That's not where the beauty comes from. That's our society's travesty when it comes to defining beauty. "
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As someone who has been married to someone psychologically scarred from their extremely abusive childhood, it has taken 27 years of unconditional love and 3 universal smack downs to heal my husband. But in the end, he did heal. He knows love, to love, to be loved. Tough journey, but the result is worth it.♥️
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One of my big changing points in life when I was talking to an older friend of mine. I had to moved to a big city with very little money, in a recession. I told my friend that I didn't think I was handling things very well, that things were not going as I thought. He looked at me and said, "That's because what you are doing is hard." We often blame ourselves for our unhappiness or depression, without considering that sometimes we are in difficult or depressing circumstances, and we're not supposed to feel good. His simple acknowledgement of my difficulty was a huge thing for me.
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From my experience : I adopted 4 siblings ( 6,6,5 and 4) that were tortured , abused etc and after 20 years of love I can tell you that they are the most wonderful, empathic and caring Human Beings. Patience and understanding, transforms and as I always sign my book about this magical and hard growth, Love and Light 🙏🏻💖🌷
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"What we call the personality is often a jumble of genuine traits and adopted coping styles that do not reflect our true self at all, but the loss of it." - Gabor Mate
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“Truth is its own value.” So glad I took the time to listen to this. Gabor is a gift to humanity.
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WoW Tom, I do hope you have had a chance to benefit from the wisdom so openly shared with you by this incredible soul. If you watch this when you're older, I wonder if you will cringe at how disconnected you were from the subject matter as demonstrated by your questions. May you find a way to connect to your heart. Gabor was so gracious and compassionate with your grasping.
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11:19 Just hearing that ONE PERSON can make such a difference in someone’s life gives me hope and makes me want to be a kinder, better person.
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Gabor’s humility and wisdom are such breaths of fresh air. I love his ability to make tangible deep responses to impractical heady questions.
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15:05 ‘Somebody comes along and treats you compassionately... Oh maybe I’m not that bad person’ CHILLS. Anyone who has experienced a teacher or an adult (who isn’t your dysfunctional/abuse parents that you grew up with) actually believing in you has experienced this moment. It’s so important to support and encourage children or teenagers who obviously have low self esteem which most likely stemmed from their awful parents.
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It was an interesting interview. Though, Tom's lack of knowledge to his own causes of suffering disturbed his interview style at times. Tom was more occupied confirming his preconceived idea how things work instead of exploring how the world looks like through the eyes of Gabor Mate. Also the technique of compassionate inquiry was only brought up very briefly, which is interesting as Tom is usually focused on finding universals truth and solution. I just wished that Tom (being a role model) should have been more brave and show his vulnerability by letting himself be guided by Gabor Mate using compassionate inquiry. If overwhelmed he could just stop like Tim Ferriss did in his interview with Gabor Mate. At least Tim Ferriss was brave and honest about the process, it's difficult of course and it's not for everyone. I'm still rooting for Tom and Tim and everyone who makes an attempt to see the world beyond the matrix.
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In this pandemic I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I began sheltering myself from relationships and interactions: in some ways as an outcome of the endless lockdowns but also as a way of protecting myself from pain. I learned from Gabor that this itself is pain! I’m going to put myself out there and live again! Thank you!
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Thank you 🙏 I don't know how anyone else feels after listening to Gabor, but there is this deep sense of peacefulness. Gabor is extraordinary person full of profound wisdom, humility, honesty. He stripped down the ego and labels. What a beautiful world that he lives in, free from defending, pretending, etc. A truth seeker that to him it's equivalent to Love. I remember the very first time I listened to Gabor, being it around noon on a sunny day a walk, trying to catch those warm sun rays was in order naturally, earbuds in, I'm ready! Not even 10min into his speech my knees became a jello and I nearly fell down. Revelation! Such a discovery! It's a honor to listen to him and gain his knowledge that he's been willing to share with us. He has incredible compassion for all human beings even if society 'has written them off' and he reminds us of the beauty of the native culture and their family values. Tom what make you standout from other interviewers is not only that you have the right etiquette, asking great questions, etc..but because you genuinely want to learn. Most interviews are so focused on their next question that they are not paying attention to the answer someone is providing. You actually listen. I've gone thru my fair share of trauma with that I've been faced with fair share of struggles, but I've always seen them as blessings because it gives you opportunity to see things also from a different perspective. It's like they say you can't know (appreciate) the light if you don't know darkness. You can't know beauty if you never seen ugliness, compassion if you've never experienced pain etc etc What I've learned is what you surround yourself with, you become! That no matter what happens in life only matters are the lessons that you gained from them to become a better, stronger human being. That everything is a choice, choice of feelings, and choice of thoughts. Much Love.
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“I can’t explain what the Buddha experienced as I have not had that experience myself” bless his deeply philosophical heart 😝🙌💜
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Thank you Tom, Gabor is a gift to the world. A beautiful man of immense wisdom and humility. A Bodhisattva.
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"Pain of regret is so much worse than pain of discipline."
