DR. GABOR MATE: THE 7 IMPACTS OF TRAUMA

foreign comes on a Greek word for wound so trauma is a constriction it's a narrowing it's a diminishment of your emotional functioning your psychic psychological functioning so what I'm saying about trauma is that trauma is not what happens to you promise what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you how many of you had the experience that you're a strong gut feeling about something and you ignored it and you're sorry afterwards sorry that you ignored just raise your hand you've had that experience okay most people here now that's what I mean that's

the first sign of trauma or the first impact of trauma is a separation from yourself because you've got feelings are the strongest guide or what you need in the world they're essential how long would you survive out there in nature if you ignore your gut feelings you wouldn't you'd be dead that's how important God's Things Are what makes us disconnect from our gut feeling so that they're actually even there telling you and you ignore it well you've been disconnected from yourself that's the first impact of trauma it's a disconnection from the self the second impact

of trauma is you disconnect from other people no you just don't trust others you just don't trust others and you feel very much isolated and on your own so addiction is a very lonely kind of thing even if you use addiction to connect with other people you're using it because you feel isolated so there's a disconnection from other people a mistrust and isolation that's the second impact of trauma the third impact of trauma is your view of the world so how do you see the world what kind of world do you live in so whatever

I how I see the world that's the world I live in so if I see the world as hostile and dangerous and untrustworthy I'm in a very different life and if I see the world as basically a good place with a suffering and there's Joy it's complex but fundamentally I belong here I live in a very different world if I believe that and if I'm convinced that it's a hostile dangerous world so trauma distorts your view of the world in a negative way number four trauma gives you pain it gives you a wound that you

might there might be some Scar Tissue over it but the wound is never healed actually so there's pain there and then that's pain that you need to escape from so it imposes a lifelong pain and I say life long I mean until you deal with it that's the fourth impact of trauma the fifth impact of trauma is actually on brain development a trauma actually affects our brains develop children have no self-regulation so if you're stressed as an adult if you're mature enough you can regulate yourself you can take a few breaths you can calm yourself

down you can say okay slow down let me think about this let me deal with this infant can't do that infants got no self-regulation whatsoever so the infants band requires the mature function of the adult's brain to regulate itself but what if the adult's brain is not functioning maturely because that adult themselves never got the right conditions for the healthy development now you have an immature adult's brain regulating or trying to regulate in a mature infant's brain the self-regulation Never devops number six is that trauma gives you a shame-based view of yourself so you become

actually ashamed of Who You Are not just of what you do but of who and what you are as a person so trauma gives you shame derived sense of yourself that's number six and the seventh impact of trauma is it makes it difficult for you to be in the present moment it keeps you stuck in the past so you react to the present or you're thinking you reacting to the present but actually you're reacting to the Past and that's an important one because it affects everybody you may think you're here because somebody in the family's

got a problem and you're here to help them but I'll be telling you throughout the day is that actually each one of us is here for ourselves [Music] there's tremendous healing possible [Music] does anybody ever really old yes they can be [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]