Moment 103 - Trauma Expert: How To Take Back Control Of Your Life: Gabor Mate

00:03In the diary of a CEO, we have hundreds of questions that have been left by our guests and we've put them on these cards. And on these cards, you have the question that's been left in the diary of a CEO, the name of the person who wrote the question. And if you turn it over, there's a QR code. If you scan that code, you can see which guest answered the question and watch the video of them answering it. Every time I've done this podcast and every time we We've asked the kind of questions we ask here.

00:31I feel a tremendous sense of affinity to the guest. And our aim with these cards is that you can create that sense of connection through vulnerability at home with the people you love the most. And I have some good news for you. As of today, you can add your name to the waiting list to be the first in line to get your own set of conversation cards at theconversationcards.com. That is theconversationcards.com. most people they're living unaware of the puppet master of trauma that is driving their life that's a really good analogy the trauma really is like a puppet master behind the scenes and the unconscious pulling your strings and you're not aware of it you know do you remember pinocchio yeah so you remember what pinocchio says at the end where he when he finally becomes a real boy Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20He says how foolish I was when I was a puppet. And to the extent that we're being activated by these unconscious strings that our trauma is pulling behind the scenes, and we're acting in our lives and we think we're autonomous, free beings, but we're actually being controlled by something in the past that we haven't worked out, we're puppets. We're actually puppets. And there's not much freedom in that. There's no freedom in it at all. so i mean i suppose the opposite of trauma if you want to revisit that question is is liberation interesting liberation and by reconnection by reconnection but liberation from the from the inexorable power of the unconscious which is like cutting the strings in a way kind of brings me to there's kind of two ways i want to go with that but the first question i have about trauma and the puppet master analogy is, do we ever really cut the strings?

02:20Or do we just kind of learn to pull against them when they try and tell us to do something with more force than they're exerting in the opposite direction? That doesn't work very well, pushing against it, because they're still reactive. You're still not in charge. You're just in automatic resistance mode to something. There's no freedom in that either. Still up. So, yeah. But awareness that you mentioned is huge because once you're aware that there's this, see the thing about these strings may not fray right away, but once you're aware that, ah, this reaction of mine, it's not about what's going on right now.

03:02There's something all being activated here. That awareness alone weakens the, it slackens the strings a bit. They no longer is taught. They no longer is automatically capable of pulling on you. So it does have to begin with awareness of them. Ultimately, if we realize that this puppet master is just a desperate little person trying to get you to survive, the only way he, she, they, knew how when they were small, if we make friends with it, but we relieve it of its duties, saying thanks very much but i can handle it now it eventually becomes our friend rather than sort of our master you know on that first step of just acknowledging just understanding that there is a puppet master they're controlling us and exactly which strings that puppet master is is pulling in our lives how does one go about awareness the process of awareness is that i mean is it introspection, keeping a diary, therapy, what is it?

04:06Well, all that. I mean, all or any. But even when you ask how you go about it, what is the it? Well, for you to say how to go about it, you already must have some degree of awareness. If you didn't, you wouldn't even be asking the question. So that's the very first step of realizing that there's something here to work on. There's something here to work through. It does not need to be the way it is. That already is the biggest step. The Buddha said that to recognize the source of your suffering is the first step towards relieving the suffering.

04:38And so as soon as you ask how you go about it, you've already taken a huge step. Because a lot of people don't even know that there's an it. They just think this is a reality, that this is life. So realizing that this it doesn't have to be the way it is, that's already a huge step now. Beyond that, yoga, meditation, nature, therapy of all kinds, body work of all kinds, like somatic experiencing or craniosacral treatments or even massage therapy.

05:18It's incredible what can be revealed just through body work like that. But then all kinds of forms of therapy, the ones I teach, the ones other people teach, journaling, certain exercises in this book that we recommend. Like just ask yourself, will you have trouble saying no in life to things you don't really want to do and working that through on a regular basis? So there's lots of ways once you open the door. Or, you know, I have a chapter on psychedelics here, which is, again, it's not like a panacea or for everyone, but certainly it's a helpful modality for a lot of people.

05:56So some people may actually benefit from taking pharmaceutical medications if their situation is dire enough, but not as the final answer, but as a way of getting respite that allows them to go to work on real issues that cause them to be depressed or anxious or tuning out, you know, so any and all of these things. A lot of people don't even want to open those doors though because there's so much pain associated with maybe going back or revisiting an early experience that they just think it's better to keep the doors shut and get to tomorrow.

06:32That's true, to which I have two answers. One is it's true, it's painful. because all the pain you didn't want to feel and you've been running away from through your compensatory behaviors like your addictions are nothing but an attempt to escape from pain. That's all they are. They're not a disease. They're not a genetic whatever it is. Addictions are very simply an attempt to escape pain, which create more pain. But that's what they are. And so we get addicted to work, to sex, to pornography, to gambling, to the internet, to shopping, to eating, to power.

07:09On that point, I find it so fascinating. When you mentioned in your previous book that, you know, you classified things like food, social media, shopping, porn and work as types of addiction, that in and of itself was a bit of a revelation for me because I never saw work as an addiction. The minute you said it was, and I kind of link it to, you know, heroin addiction which is providing a you know a certain psychological physiological um benefit to me yeah temporarily temporarily yeah of course it's a fucking addiction of course work is an addiction of course i have that addiction well work can be an addiction yeah work can also be sacred it can also be fulfilling and a manifestation of your creative urges but it's so it's not the but it's strange to say not that i recommend it but it's possible even to use heroin in a non-addictive way. I don't personally get it and I would never want to, but the addiction is never in the behavior itself. It's in your relationship to the behavior. So if the particular activity gives you temporary relief or pleasure and therefore you crave it, but it causes harm in the long term and you can't give it up, you've got an addiction and I don't care what the activity is.

08:26It could be drugs and all the other things that we mentioned. And it employs the same brain circus by the way the workaholic is after the same brain chemical that the cocaine addict is after dopamine you know and people can be even addicted to their own stress hormones like adrenaline the so-called adrenaline junkies there's such a thing you know so almost anything can be addictive if it serves the purpose of temporarily easing some distress but causing harm in the long term is escapism the right word to use then for it if we're because it it doesn't sound as much like we're escaping rather than we are seeking something we're seeking relief from a certain mental state like like i just gave you a definition of addiction so i think i don't know what addictions you've had or haven't or haven't besides you know but what did that do for you temporarily it gave you something it made me feel like i was valid and i was pursuing a sense of accomplishment and validation.

09:33A sense of worth. Worth, yeah, I was worthy. No, is that something that people need or not? Yes. Yeah, that's a good thing. But the real question is, why did you ever get the idea that you didn't have the worth? Why did I get the idea that I didn't have the worth? That's where trauma comes from. Because I was called the N-word when I was eight by a kid in school. Exactly. And then no one would speak to me that day. And because your mother screamed at your father.

09:55Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and so all that together. and so and that's emotionally painful like what's it feel like to be not to have a sense of word that's painful and so that's why my mantra is don't ask why the addiction ask why the pain and if you want to understand why the pain you have to look at that person's life and what the benefit of the addiction is that's something that you say in this book that i found it's a flipping of narrative where you say we should be asking what the benefit of the addiction Yeah, well, like in your case, it gives me a sense of worth.

10:29Well, okay, I'll say to you, if you come to me, because you say, like, I'm broke all like it's causing some harm in my life, it's keeping me from intimate relationships, it makes me stressed and tired, whatever it is, the first thing I would ask of you is, what is it doing for you? And you say a sense of worth. And I'd say, you know what? You deserve to have a sense of worth. I totally understand why you'd want to engage in an activity that gives it to you.

11:00But given that it's causing you harm, let's look at why you don't have a sense of worth and how else you might develop it that isn't harmful to you, you know. So, but you start with what's right about it. What are you looking for? And what you're looking for is always valid.