Gabor Mate: Your Partner Choice Reveals Everything! The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Trauma

today's guest is Dr Gabor mate a best-selling author and world-renowned expert in addiction stress and childhood trauma with Decades of experience in the space Gabor has revolutionized the field of mental health and well-being providing millions of people with life-changing knowledge and advice in this episode we dive deep into the hidden forces that shape Our Lives people are relational creatures when I was being dishonest my wife would get a neck pain literally we get a NE after a while she learned I got this neck ache are you lying to me right now we also dive into

gabor's definition of trauma trauma is a wound that hasn't healed which also means that trauma is not what happens to you I sustain a blow on the head that's not the trauma the trauma is the concussion that I develop we discuss addiction and how it can manifest itself in the different areas of Our Lives could be heroin Crystal cocaine nicotine alcohol sex work shopping eating gambling internet Gam mean according to that definition have you ever had an addictive pattern in your life before we get into it I want to ask you for a small favor

we want to make sure these impactful conversations get to as many people as possible by subscribing to this channel you help these conversations reach the people they need to in return if you're part of the first 20,000 subscribers we're going to pick 10 of you to come down here to the we need to talk Studio to meet me the guests and let us know who you'd like to see on the show thank you don't forget to stick around until the end where I'll share my top takeaways let's get into [Music] it you were 55 when

you in essence launched a new career well that's when I wrote my first book yeah so you wrote your first book at 55 and then that kind of launched this media side to your career over time yeah what I find interesting about that is at at I think the world mostly knows you as a result of your publishing in the media work that I believe that's true yeah I just did what I did and uh I remember being quite frustrated in the beginning because I was always quite confident about the value of my ideas so

that by the time I put something out there I knew that whatever somebody thought of it I was right you know uh and and it frustrated me that the world didn't come knocking a beating a bath to my door and my wife said to me don't worry about it and don't try and make it happen just keep doing your work and that's all that happened so the books happened um but they didn't all immediately become overnight Sensations they did well but over years people discovered them all over the world so that's what happened and and

in terms of the media I I didn't do any of it I mean all the things you see on YouTube I don't post any of them so I didn't do to tell you the truth I didn't do anything so I can't give you advice because I I didn't create that um that flood of Interest it just burgeoned and came and built on its own that's what I can tell you there's no strategy behind it there's no intention behind it I just kept saying what I'm saying and writing my book and then it just gradually the

public responded but there was no conscious strategy behind it so that's not much help but that's what happened well well I tell you from looking from the outside in what what I see is I see someone who is world class yeah at at what you were doing yeah extraordinarily passionate about what you were doing yeah and then became an extraordinary teacher of those things through your books through these interviews well yeah I used to be a teacher before I was a physician oh interesting and it's just interesting on the end it all all comes around

yes all I can tell you is whatever your passion is and whatever your work is do it and rely on the World to respond I would love to hear from you your opinion on the connection between your mind your body yeah and how that shapes your relation relationships sure human beings are relational creatures important circuits of our brain are dedicated to relationships and the Brain develops an interaction with the environment particularly in Neil years beginning already in uterus so if we receive the right relationships the right connections the right understanding the right acceptance the right

love in the beginning then our template is for healthy connected mutually respect respectful loving relationships but if that template is a disturbed one if a needs for being understood um being seen being received um being cared for being validated are not met then those same brain circuits that modulate relationships now become troubled and generally this is when I talk to couples they say I got bad news for you you always marry somebody that's going to trigger for you every unhappiness that you ever had in your childhood so when we find somebody to be in relationship

with it happens on two levels one level is I find them attractive they're humorous they're fun to be with um there's a commonality you know so that there's the attractiveness that's in a that's important but underneath it there's something else underneath it there's a looking for the love that we never got in the first place so for example why do so many women P specifically who were abused in childhood end up with abusive men which they do repeatedly and you think what's wrong with them well there's nothing wrong with them what's wrong is whose love

did they most want when they were kids precisely that abusive person so unconsciously they'll be drawn towards men who've got that abusive potential but that's where they're looking for love now this is generally true so my wife and I have been married 55 years now and yes we found each other attractive and fun and we had a lot to talk about but on a deep level I was compensating for the love I didn't get as a child the way I needed it and so was she in other words we married our parents dysfunctions and then

their relationship becomes either destroyed by that or you grow mutually so relationship is very much a matter of growing up together if that can happen but I guarantee you when you marry somebody you're going to find both your dreams and your worst nightmare that that's profound that we're all seeking subconsciously we're seeking our parents' dysfunction yeah because that's where we wanted the love so we're still looking for the love now that's wired into our brains and it's wired into our bodies and very often when I speak to people and and they're upset about their relationship

and they say what's in your body and they'll say well there's tension there's you know my heart's beating fast my throat is tight I see how familiar is that feeling goes way back to Childhood wow wow so in terms of our unhealthy should I say when we have those unhealthy relationships H how does that then manifest itself physically so whether that be an unhealthy childhood relationship or even as an adult if we're in a marriage or we're dating someone and and it's it's it's unhealthy and we know it is how does that manifest itself physically

well it'll it'll manifest itself in physical states such as I described tension in the body um upsets of the intestines see people are relational creatures and we always think of ourselves as sort of discret individuals but like in my marriage if I can be self-disclosing here when I was being dishonest my wife would get a neck pain literally would get a neck pain so so after a while she learned I got this neck ache are you lying to me right now you know or or and I was you know or uh intestinal upset we tend

to think of it as all this problem with the individual's um intestinal tract but the intestinal tract is very responsive to relationship because there's a big nerve called the Vagas nerve called the wandering nerve it's the largest autonomic nerve in the body and it uh connects the organs to the brain and when the brain picks up a a hint of disturbance the vegus will act up and now you're going to have stomach aches and diarrhea and and and or constipation even and so on because of something Disturbed in the relationship the whole point is we're

we're wired together as human beings and so that that'll manifest through our nervous system so it shows up in the B children are very much creatures of relation and they're very dependent on the Parents emotional states so if you want to know if a couple is having uh tensions there's two things you can do you can ask the mother and the father or you can measure the child's stress hormone levels and the child Str hormone levels will be a perfect readout of the parents state of relationship wow so it sounds like what you're saying is

that we we need to be in touch with how our body is reacting yeah in in all of these moments with our partner we need to be aware we need to be aware and and and the more body awareness we have and realizing that our bodies are responsive to the environment uh the more um more of a clear map we have to our relationship okay the Western medicine that I'm trained in tends to separate the Mind from the body people women might go to or men for that matter might go to a physician with certain

physical symptoms and the doctors will look for the source only within the body itself whereas very often the source is um interactional and relational now correct me on this yeah because I've always said who we choose as our partner is one of the most important decisions of our life it's one of the most important decisions and it's in many ways it's also one of the least conscious decisions because the conscious reasons that you have may be valid but there's so much more to it that is unconscious yeah yes and then in any successful relationship the

task of the relationship really is to make that unconscious conscious because what we all want is freedom but there's no freedom without awareness so if I'm unaware of all these things that are motivating me how can I talk about being free you do believe that's true then who who we choose as a partner is one of the most important decisions of our life well it's the most important decision you know and and and again it's the one that we're very often the least conscious of all the factors that go into it yes does that speak

to uh because I've seen you talk about these two needs yeah that we have yeah one being attachment and one being authenticity yeah could you could could you explain that and and also uh I recently interviewed will store oh yeah uh who wrote phenomenal books one uh being status game and he talks about he also sees a need for status yeah as well so what's your thought in terms of those two needs and do you see status also as an important need for us let me let me talk about attachment authenticity and come back to

status okay so in the book than the myth normal children are born with certain needs now one of the essential needs is attachment attachment being the drive to be close to somebody for the sake of being taken care care of or to take care of the other so the essence of the attachment drive not just in human beings but in all mammals and even in Birds is so that the young vulnerable one can be taken care of by the more mature adult one so the adult has a attachment Instinct towards the vulnerable infant and the

infant has an attachment need towards the adult so that the caretaking can occur the way nature intended it so now the attachment Drive stays with us all our lives um is never as dire and as um dominant and as definitive as it is in childhood because you never as vulnerable and helpless um and immature but it stays with us so that the adults and old people will still have an attachment need we're just human beings we're wired for attachment that's clear um but we also have a need to be ourselves to to be authentic which

means to be in touch with our bodies to with our touch with our emotions and to be able to um act according to the truth of ourselves now very simple example gut feelings I often ask people this question which I can put it to you have you ever had the experience of having a strong gut feeling not listening to it and being s afterwards absolutely okay now so that tells me about your childhood because um and by the way we all give the same answer us did gut feelings are not luxuries we don't survive without

them they tell us about reality and and nature wired us for it in nature where we evolved how long does any creature survive if they're not in touch with their gut feelings yeah not long at all so it's an essential need to be connected to self Auto meaning the self authenticity all right so we have these two needs to be in touch with ourselves to be able to express that selfhood and to be able to act on it and we have the need to attach what happens to a child where they need to attach but

if they're being themselves fully expressed they're not accepted by the parents not because the parents don't love them right but simply because they're too traumatized are too stressed or unavailable or just they can't see the child exactly now the child's got this dilemma an unconscious dilemma I can be myself but then I won't be accepted or I can go for the attachment by suppressing myself my my authenticity yeah now what do you suppose the child has to do in every case right suppress yourself suppress yourself at some point that's where we lose in touch with

our gut feelings so I don't know what happened to you but something happened at some point where you learned that for the sake of survival that is to say for the sake of maintaining your attachment relationship you had to give up some aspect of yourself and so when then later on God feeling comes along we don't listen and then we suffer yeah so maturity is in many ways and this can happen in relationship of course because then we take her lack of authenticity and a need for attachment into our relationship right and it's so hard

then to be ourselves in relationship so it's basically very often two only partially authentic selves or two inauthentic selves get into relationship with each other and now the task is can we go up to be authentic together so we can be ourselves and still be in relationship wow well that's a beautiful challenge but it's also very difficult many of us grow up believing that to be accepted we need to hide parts of who we truly are choosing attachment over authenticity but this pattern can follow us into our adult relationships leaving us feeling disconnected or inauthentic

the key to Breaking this cycle is to consciously reconnect with your true self start by asking what parts of me have I been holding back to please others then take small steps to express that part of yourself the more you practice this the easier it Bec becomes to be authentic in relationships which leads to deeper and more fulfilling connections what you just described I actually saw so many incidents yeah of my life yeah where I feel like I I have suppressed myself not only as a child but also through adolescence well you do because once

you associate survival with self-suppression then you continue to suppress yourself so that these patterns are laid down early in life but they become the temple PL for for later on that's the whole problem right you know the the suppressing of yourself wasn't the temporary strategy on your part it wasn't even a strategy it was something your organism did automatically you didn't do it your organism did it unconsciously but because it's unconscious it's hard to give it up so yeah then you become an adolescent then you try and fit in with the peer group for the

sake of being accepted and then as an adult you always do whatever you can to be accepted and only gradually does it Dawn on you that oh my God this is costing me and there's something missing here and what's missing is me so being aware of that now yeah at this moment yeah uh how do we then become more authentic how do we increase that our authentic selves yeah well the awareness is the big thing now the the second thing is to be really compassionate with yourself so that rather than ber rating ourselves I'm not

being authentic I'm a phony forget all that nobody is a phony you became that way as a way of survival it had a survival value to it but now it's no longer functioning to support you so the first thing is to be aware of it the secondly second thing is to look at its impacts so for example one way that people have trouble being authentic is they have trouble saying no when people have demands on them where they or the person perceives that there's demands on them to be a certain way and the world is

asking you do this that and the other and you never say no no do you know that one at all personally okay all right so let me ask you this question then um and you know I'm not probing here just sure as much as you're willing to share but if I ask you this basically two areas where people have trouble saying no one is personal relationships and the other is uh work work okay now choose one where where in those areas do you have trouble saying no uh work for sure okay yes fair enough so

let me ask you them this question and this is actually an exercise you can do with yourself okay and uh I do lay it out in the myth of normal there um what is the impact on you of not saying no drained drained fatigued fatigued yeah okay so that little word twetter word is huge implications if we don't employ it okay so fatigue being drained okay now fatigue being drained of course is not only an impact on you it's also an impact on your spouse and then on your child yes yes you know so it's

it's got huge implications now that's the second point is just what is the impact the third question then is what is the story behind your difficulty saying I'm like what do you believe if I say no then what there's a story there I I feel like it's a missed opportunity someone else is going to take the opportunity that I could have had so there a fear of loss fear of loss yeah okay the next question is who would you be without that fear bold uh Fearless you know I would be true to myself you'd be

free yes first of all this fear of loss how important is it like yeah what if you did lose some opportunities for the sake of gaining personal freedom I mean if you look at this issue of I won't have enough how familiar is that fear to you of not having enough yeah acute how far does it go back from the beginning so it's got nothing to do with the present moment so it's not that it's selfish it's that it's old and it had some basis to it at a certain point in your life but it

probably doesn't anymore so basically it's the past running our present so when you say how you give it up you recognize the impact and you recognize its source and then you do is it really necess is it really true right now right I could actually be free now some people in this unequal unjust world it's certainly true they have limited room for Action because they might really be poor they might really be having to do jobs that they don't like with bosses that are not fair but given the economic situation ation in this world of

inequality that may not have a whole lot of choice in the matter so I don't want to generalize but for many of us this in inability to say no is not demanded by our present circumstances it's old programming and so how do you become more authentic learn how to say no yes and and by the way let me ask you another question it comes to authenticity um as have you ever been in a situation I mean I have where you're in some social scene and afterwards you feel a bit ashamed cuz I wasn't really myself

yes okay now what is the feeling in your body when you admit to yourself that you weren't yourself that you know I I kind of pretended or I gave myself up disappointment yeah there's a kind of something here that's not pleasant you know so listen to your body again so when you say how do you become authentic listen to your body yes yes you know so learn how to say no listen to your body and there's one final question are there areas in your life where you Ambitions or intentions or passions or calling but you're

not saying yes to there must be well yes there are that I'm not saying yes to yeah well that's costing you as well because that's creates frustration so on the one hand we're too busy not saying no and then we don't have time to say yes to what really matters to us right so it's a huge this yes and no is the best way to find out about your authenticity where am I not saying no where there's a no that wants to be said and what's the story behind it and then where am I not

saying yes and what is that costing me okay and you know I I really had to learn that both my wife and I had to learn is to say no and and trust that the relationship will still endure the other person being authentic yes you know now this applies not just to it applies to both all genders but women particularly because women are particularly programmed not to say no in this culture it cost them hugely in terms of mental and physical health learning when to say no and yes is essential for living authentically start by

identifying where you feel a no but haven't voiced it ask yourself why am I not saying no what is it costing me then think about the things you aren't saying yes to and what opportunities for Joy or fulfillment you might be missing as Gabor points out we all want to be seen in the best possible light but Society often punishes us for being authentic pushing us to conform and hide our true selves there was a study that you had talked about where uh these were women who were in relationships yeah all having challenges in the

relationship one half talked about that too yeah yeah well that study is in the book The Mython normal and it was done in Massachusetts they looked at 2,000 women over a 10year period this is it and those women that were unhappily married and didn't Express their feelings were four times as likely to die as those women who are also unhappy but they did Express their feelings so the issue wasn't happiness the issue was authenticity yes self-expression yes that is profound it's frightening it's but why are we not talking about I mean this is that is

so four times more likely to die by simply not expressing yeah yeah well well we live in a society uh which very much is dependent on roles and roles depend on how other people see you so we all want to be seen in the best possible light and Society punishes us for being authentic you know they don't you know you're a troublemaker or you're you're different or you know so basically there's a huge social pressure to conform and uh in relationship of course there's a be there fear of being ourselves for say for fear of

being rejected so it's very common it is fair no to go back with status I don't want to know what is meant by status because Well here here's what I think he if he did if I can jump in is I think he was referring to our place in our community yeah so the the the role that we play and and almost the respect that that role Garners with within our our community fair enough and as human beings uh we all communal creatures we um we uh evolved as communal creatures we could not have evolved

or survived as a species otherwise and so standing in the community and are related to community was always very important what's what's interesting though is if you look at um ancient cultures or abigal cultures status wasn't defined for example the way it's defined in our society in our societ is defined in terms of possession and power whereas in more original societies is defined by how giving you were and how present you were for the others so it wasn't about individual status in competition with others it was based on your status as a contributor to the

community it's a very different ideal status right but if that's what he means I totally agree okay then then that's important as well yeah yeah you you know go going back to to to stress and almost the study and authenticity so with with stress there are various forms of of stress what are the the different forms well the so we can look at stress on on three different levels one is the physiological stress response which is when you're under stress under some kind of threat some kind of challenge stuff will happen in your body your

hypothalamus which is the master gland in the brain will release certain trigger chemicals that will alert the pitutary gland at the base of your skull that will then send messages to your adrenal gland and the adrenal gland will then release the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline so that's called the HPA axis hypothalamic pitutary adrenal axis okay the straightforward physiology releasing and ending culminating in the release of stress hormones adrine and corol which are good for you because adaline gives you more energy speed strength and cortisol gives you more um sugar so that you have more

energy to escape or to fight back okay good stuff okay in the short term in the long term those same hormones if continually released will make you ill and even kill you so that adrenaline will elevate your blood pressure constrict your blood vessels cause you know heart disease strokes and so on cortisol will thin your bones undine your immune system ulcerate your intestines put fat on your belly so you're more likely to get heart disease makes you depressed and I think mentioned I mentioned suppressed immunity and other factors so the the stress hormones in the

short term necessary for survival chronic stress however creates illness inflammation and death no that's the physiological stress response then there's the external stressor whatever triggers the stress so if a sabertooth tiger were about to L into the studio right now uh you and I would both be stressed right I would jump in front of you I would I would block it for you I block well thank you very grateful for that uh but you know good thing we should be stressed cuz we want to be able to fight her to a cck you know right

so but that's the external stressor whatever that is but there's no Universal stressor it depends on who's being stressed and and that's because this is a third aspect of stress called the processing apparatus and that's you and I with our particular histories and interpretations and templates so for example you might say the loss of a job is stressful could be for one person who believes that their worth and their livelihood depends on that job for another person I mean I lost the job once and it became the greatest opportunity so it wasn't didn't didn't end

up being so stress so there's the physiological stress response there's the external stressor but then there is the interpreting apparatus um which is our our programmed view of ourselves and and our unconscious beliefs of ourselves in the world that's the processing apparatus okay so that's what happens in stress now there's certain triggers that set up the stress response and they're so prevalent in our society uncertainty lack of information conflict and loss of control and these factors are predictable to release the stress response in people chronically so for example you can take rats there's an interesting

rat experiment they they they yoke together two pairs of rats am I talking too much no not at all okay I'm in this I'm in this yeah yeah you y together pairs of rats you wi their tails with electrical wire and you shock them with electricity but one of them has a puff free they can turn a lever that'll turn off the electrical shock okay but the other one does not but they both receive the same shock for the same length of time now the one has got the freedom to turn a lever off has

got less of a stress response than the one who didn't have that freedom even though the shock they received was exactly the same power and duration just the lack of Freedom it's a loss of control yes now in this Society that's just endemic and I would imagine in in a relationship especially with regard to the external yeah is it that your partner acts as either a magnifier or a shield to the stress well that's the whole point they can be one or the other and and even variably because like in my relationship sh sometimes we

acted as a magnifier for use out of stress and sometimes we acted as a shield depending on what state we're in and the state of our relationship so yeah it can work both ways both ways yeah and and uh ideally as the relationship proceeds you learn how to be each other's Shields and and it's kind of like the lightning rods rather than a magnifier yes but but certainly with my wife and I there have been times where we just stressed each other to the max it goes back to what we were saying in terms of

your partner being such a critical decision the mo and I'm glad you said the most important because truly my gut tells me it's the most important decision of of of our life and you have literally Partners when you choose poor Partners or allow yourself to be chosen you if if your partner is acting as a magnifier your partner is killing you yeah well your partner is not killing you you're killing yourself by being with that partner you're not a victim or you don't need to perceive yourself as a victim and uh again the question is

how much latitude is there for growth in a relationship yeah and so relationships can be the most powerful spiritual work you ever do in terms of becoming truly yourself and truly connected to the world un fortunately again in all culture there's just not enough support for healthy relationships yeah so so that that brings up kindness yeah what are the benefits of kindness especially with regard to your partner and in a relationship because physically there must be benefits well just imagine yourself in a state of Rage have you been in a state of Rage yes what's

happening in your body when you're in that state uh I'm could hardly breathe okay uh I feel uh flooded yeah uh sweating yeah um can't focus lot of attention lot of tension yeah Bob your heart is beating fast yes okay now have you ever felt real kindness towards somebody yes what's in your body then it's the O the opposite of of all of those it's calm it's calmness relaxation relaxed there's peace peace yeah so that's your answer to your question like that kindness actually is not a gift you're giving to the other although it is

it's a gift you give to yourself because you're suffused with positive hormones um oxytocin which is a love hormone and endorphins which is the pleasure hormones um your body relaxes your blood pressure is lower your belly is in the state of warmth you know so now you can't pretend kindness but see see a theme in our conversation as you laid it out right from the beginning is the body and the point is it all happens in the body so whether you're in a state of hostility or in a state of kindness they all have their

bodily manifestations and the kindness is a lot healthier for you it's the eternal struggle most of us face building a fulfilling successful career but also being an available partner parent and friend it never lets up and sometimes compounds to an overwhelming feeling of being stretched too thin but there are ways to ease the load and today I want to introduce you to one of them who is also a sponsor of this podcast Fiverr is the marketplace where you'll find thousands of Highly skilled Freelancers ready to take on your business needs from graphic design to digital

marketing Fiverr is your One-Stop shop here you can browse Talent portfolios until you find one whose work and skills and budget aligns with yours what's even better is fiverr's new AI tool Neo which streamlines the process of matching talent and briefing them in free up some of your time in life head to fiverr.com that's f i vr.com or click the link in the description and use code Paul that's P at checkout for 10% off your first order you mentioned that's one need attachment but if we go back to attachment Styles what I noticed is this

is probably one of the most popular topics right now and I think it's for good yeah uh but many of us still misinterpret exactly what attachment Styles mean but more so how they impact us as adults yeah so H how does our attachment as a child show up when we're an adult in adult relationships yeah these are based on studies that have been done uh with young ba young children and their and their mothers in a laboratory situation what happens is you begin a one-year-old into a room with the mom and then the mum will

may maybe um be there for a while and then leave and then there might be a stranger in the room the examiner the mother comes back this is just one example then is the secure in a secure attachment the infant will have been upset by the mother's leaving but when the mother comes back in the infant comes to the mother is soothed by the mother is easily soothed and becomes calm again and starts playing again you might that's a secure attachment then there's very forms of insecure attachments so for example the mother comes back in

and the child won't go to the mother to be soed or will go to the mother but but can't be soed by them what's really frightening here and interesting here is the something called the adult attachment into you where you ask an adult about their attachment relationship with their parents you could do this adult attachment into you with this adult before they have children and the result of that will predict how the yet unconceived child will behave on this attachment Experiment three years later goodness cuz it's passed was passed on generationally now the example that

I gave for myself and I open the first chapter of the myth of normal with this anecdote and I've often told it of um me arriving home from a speaking trip and my wife's supposed to be at the airport to pick me up and I get a text saying I haven't left home yet and I go into a total rage and when I go home I wanton I take a taxi home and I'm not even looking at her but this is at the tender young age of 72 okay and after 40 years of marriage you

know and uh so what that's about so I'm feeling the Deep sense of Abandonment now nobody abandoned me my wife's an artist she's in the studio she's painting and when she's in her painting the world disappears including me you know like it's just how I've only known this for four decades but what's triggered in me is a deep sense of Abandonment because when I was 11 months old my mother did abandon me not that she abandoned me she gave me to stranger to save my life during a war in Hungary and didn't see her for

five or six weeks and when I saw her again I won't even look at her which is a I call an avoidant attachment it's a defensive response of the organism the message being I was so hurt when you abandon me that I will not make myself so vulnerable ever again so I won't reconnect with you 71 years later the same reaction gets triggered in me and I come in the house won't even look at my wife and barely even talking to her until she finally said after 24 hours of this cold shoulder she said knock

it off already so I knocked it off you know just step forward CU years ago might have taken me days to knock it off so that's an example of an early template this is called implicit or unconscious memory I have no recollection of my mother giving me to a stranger because at 11 month of age the circuits of explicit recall memory aren't even online yet but the circuits of emotional memory of the emotional impact of experiences is in me already in the third trimester of pregnancy so deep in my nervous system is wired a sense

of Abandonment when something vaguely resembling that occurs in the present I'm triggered and I'm not a 72y old internationally known author and speaker speaker physician all that I'm I'm a one-year-old INF one-year-old yes yes so this is how early attachment templates then show up and Vex adult relationships and uh it's almost Universal here Gabor shares a transparent story about his own relationship his Instinct was to withdraw when tension arose the key lesson here is the importance of communication instead of retreating Gabor acknowledges that sharing his feelings like the sense of Abandonment he felt when Ry

didn't pick him up could have led to a simple conversation and resolution awareness of your own patterns and being willing to communicate vulnerably can dissolve tension and Foster deeper Connection in a relationship according to to to the research I saw here is that 30 to 40% of adults have either you know have a non-secure attachment avoid or or anxious so what can we do as adults if we fall within that group to become secure to earn a secure attachment well again um it's a matter of awareness and by the way I I I've seen those

snc on of figures and I think they're underestimates I I think that much higher percentage of relationships if you actually look at it carry some degree of insecurity you know which is why there's so many problems in marriages but what do you do for decades you know my response is being if this tension in the relationship is to withdraw hers is an anxious attachment so she comes in and tries to right bring me on board you know so what if I communicated what if I said to her look my wife's name is Ry R you

didn't pick up pick me up at the airport I had this deep sense of Abandonment then she might say oh I'm so sorry but you know what I was in the studio and you know what happens when I'm in the studio that would have been the end of it so for one thing communicate okay don't just um stew in your own um troubled attachment Brew communicate it number one number two when you look at it retrospective the obviously I knew it even at the time my reaction as I could recognize was way out of proportion

to the stimulus okay so look at your reaction and see how proportionate it is to what actually happened and when it's out of proportion it's always about the past what what about if you are not yet in a relationship but you've noticed that you are anxious or avoidant and you want to try to become secure before entering a relationship what are things that you could do well then you need help I mean again recognition is the uh is the key A lot of people don't recognize it they just bring this anxiety into the relationship and

then they wonder why their relationship doesn't work so those those that are fortunate enough to be some to have generated some self-awareness they can get help yeah but the other thing they can do is when they do meet somebody they can say look I got to tell you about something myself I'm not proud of it but I'm also not ashamed of it but this is just you know I tend to have certain abandonment fears I'm not going to make that your responsibility cuz it isn't but I just want you to know that about me yes

now most Partners some Partners say okay well thanks very much for telling me and goodbye but most of the time that's know what happens most of the time the other person appreciates the vulnerability and the openness and the desire for intimacy and they'll share something about themselves yes I think that's what happens most of the time yes yeah I always say that intimacy drives intimacy which drives intimacy which is what you want exactly yeah U I think that's beautiful with regard to uh attachment Styles because I I've noticed that uh I I awareness is key

and I believe that I have an anxious attachment Style yeah and I think it's because uh my parents adored me and continued to to Adore Me they worked their butts off right my my mother was uh was was an IM immigrant yeah uh you know my father was the first in his family to go to college and they worked Inc incredibly hard yeah but as a result weren't always in the house was there a grandparent around or anybody there uh my grand so uh they would bring in uh sitters oh yeah and and I felt

and and when I look back I realized that potentially anxious I have an anxious attachment style as a result of this right but my question is what are the health consequences of having an anxious or avoidant attachment style so first of all we're wired for fear we're wired for it it's essential again if the Sabertooth tiger walked into the room we should have fear you know because that'll help us survive we also wired it seems for what's called panic and um that's an attachment need so if an infant is left alone what should they feel

they should feel panic panic which will make them do what which will make them cry out for help C yes which should do what they should bring the parents running yes so this is all survival stuff um now in Aboriginal cultures kids are never left alone um there's a book you may wish to read it's called the Continuum concept the Continuum concept yeah and it's by a an American model gin leof who traveled to the venezuelian Amazon six weeks away from civilization lived with some Stone Age people and they just parent totally differently kids are

don't never left alone when the parents go to work the kids of course are attached to them attached to them when the parents engage in Social you know activity the kids are there they all sleep together you know there's no separation there's no anxiety either because that Panic never gets triggered but in your case if at a small age you find yourself with semi- strangers some of the time right and your parents are not around that Panic is wired in and that's what creates the anxious attachment style so that's a perfectly normal response that you

had and that's not the only issue either the other issue is do you remember feeling that anxiety as a child yes who did you communicate it to you know I think I kept it to myself that's the whole point no you have a child you said yes two hold 10 and 13 okay now if they felt anxiety who would you want them to communicate it to me or their mother right if you found out through some third party that your child felt anxious and they didn't talk to you or their mother how would you interpret

that oh go I'd be incredibly sad what would happen between them and you for them not to come to you oh yeah oh oh I would have to have created distance you you would have created the message to them that you're not available yes okay that's the message you got so it's not just that you were anxious it's that you were left alone with your anxiety and that has an impact now harder it plays out in adulthood you might become a people pleaser and never say no uh because you don't want to be rejected you

want to be liked and you want to be accepted all the time and that not saying no as we said earlier can lead to all kinds of stress in your life right and that stress can create all kinds of physical health problems it can also manifest as Frank anxiety it can manifest as depression or if it was very painful for you to be that alone the pain might be too much and it might arise in the form of addictions because addictions are all about trying to soo pain so if you have unresolved emotional pain you

might behave in a whole number of ways that are there and unhealthy for you MH can we explore addiction here if you like please uh because I've I've heard you talk about it I've seen you write about it where addiction stems from these emotional voids yeah yeah in in our lives yeah which I don't think as a society we have embraced that as as a concept no this Society is uh completely misguided when it comes to understanding addictions so I worked with hardcore drug addicts for 12 years and Vancouver's downtown east side people really dependent

on cocaine Crystal math heroin fentol well actually fentol came along after I left medical practice but opat Heron yes you know um Codine um deloted and so on if you look at the physiology of the opiates they work in the brain because we have receptors for them but then you say well why do we have receptors for something that comes from a plant in Afghanistan the opian plant well we don't we have receptors for own internal opiates so human beings have an internal opiate system and those opiates are called endorphins an endorphine means endogenous morphine

like substance now why do we we have endorphins because they're essential for Life number one they're pain relievers so the so-call placebo effect right is not perceivable at all when people perceive they're getting help their brains will leave end will release endorphins which will then kill the pain okay right so see it so it's not an empty imagined effect it's an actually a physiological response so pain relievers physical and emotional pain both so we have to have pain in life you and I both agree without pain we're not warned about what's dangerous but we also

have to pain in relief so that's the Endorphin that's the first thing they do I'm talking pure physiology here okay the second thing they do is they modulate experiences of pleasure and reward Elation now imagine how dark and dull life would be without pleasure and reward and the endorphins give us that that's the second thing they do and the third thing that they do is the most important thing they do and we've been talking about the whole day which is attachment attachment yes so they make attachment possible now when you speak to Heron addicts and

I've done this repeatedly and say what does it do for you one of them said first time I did heroin it felt like a warm soft hug what was she talking about love another guy said to me oh heroin Doc it's like uh you're sick and you're shivering with a fever and you're 3 years old and your mother wraps you in a warm blanket and gives you warm chicken soup that's what the her feels like they're talking about love yes who gets prone to Hero addiction the people who didn't get the love they needed as

children and they're lacking the endorphins nor they need to get it from the external opiates so it's a normal response to some deprivation in childhood more generally speaking I could give you a finish of an addiction and just again see how it fits for you okay so addiction is manifested in any Behavior where a person finds temporary pleasure or relief and therefore craves it but then suffers negative consequences and can't give it up no ice said any Behavior so pleasure relief craving harm inability to give it up give it up any Behavior could be heroin

crystal meth cocaine nicotine alcohol pornography all pornography for sure sex work um shopping eating gambling internet cell phones gaming extreme sports and self-cutting bulimia any number of activities my question to my audience is in this case my audience of one is according to that definition have you ever had an addictive pattern in your life according to that many okay well yeah me too so then the question I N is no what was wrong with the addiction cuz we know what was wrong with it what was right about it what did it give you in the

short ter that you wanted right that that warm hug give you warmth warmth yes okay yeah so in other words the addiction wasn't a disease that you had nor was it a choice that you made it was an attempt to supplement in your life that you desperately needed in other words that lack of warmth is a form of emotional pain so my mant on addiction is not why the addiction don't ask why the addiction ask why the pain now if I wanted to ask why the pain I wouldn't have to look at your genes and

your inheritance and all what would I look at your childhood your childhood it always goes goes back to Childhood it go yeah but on this note so this is this is profound this is not how we look at Addiction in the world and when I look at you know we have a presidential election in the United States uh but when you look at politics and how even fentol yeah it feels as if the answer is heavier policing yeah well the Americans have um not only um insisted upon but I've also internationalized the So-Cal War on

Drugs and they've been doing this for good 50 years now and uh what's the result the result is that the Americans have more people in jail than any other country in the world they have 5% of the world's population 25% of the world's jail population and last year I think about 120,000 people or more died of overdoses in the US so in one year the Americans lost over twice as many deaths to overdoses as they lost in the Vietnam Afghan and and Iraqi Wars put together this is how successful they are and they insist that

the horror World follows their example and and this is because they have a punitive rejecting you know if they attitude now if they actually look at what's going on these have been called by two American economists deaths of Despair where they happen most is where the industrial Heartland has been flattened meaningful jobs have disappeared communities have eroded people feel more alone more isolated there's less meaning in their lives there's less purpose in their lives there's less status if you like sense of belonging and if on the personal level is childhood trauma that is the template

for addiction then on the social level it's the loss of meaning connection uh purpose and community and as Society generates more and more those uh ills you're going to have more and more addictions and then what they do is they punish these people as if there were somewh personally sinful they're just normal human beings caught up for bigger than they are right looking for love they were looking for love Yeah incredibly sad but what's worse is that how this information is here you're talking about it it's out but it's it's it's it's not being executed

you know it's it's it's not built into the system um but I I I know that I only have you for a few more moments I want to look at trauma yeah uh because everything that you've mentioned here the answer is go back to Childhood yeah so so let's look at if I may interrupt sure go back to childhood but look at the large social context in which that childhood takes place okay because you can't separate the individual from the environment fair this is fair first how do you define how do you define trauma alone

yeah because I I've I've heard different definitions sure so that's an important I mean it's one of these words that so much depends on what we mean when we use it like if I use the word god um so many people would understand so many different concepts so we are you know I mean for some so some people God is the universal ground of all being and meaning and purpose and existence for others it's a old guy in the sky with a beard you know so so it all depends now trauma uh in my definition

it's very simple if you look at the word origin it's a Greek word for wound or wounding so trauma is a wound that hasn't healed okay which also means that trauma is not what happens to you trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you so I sustain a blow on the head that's not the trauma the trauma is the concussion that I develop because that's the that's the unhealed wound so there are traumatic events that can wound people but the trauma is the wound itself that hasn't healed to people

break their legs um in one case the leg doesn't heal that's the trauma if it heals it's not a trauma it's just a painful experience all right so not everything that's painful is traumatic everything that's traumatic is painful not every stress not every pain is traumatic if it doesn't heal it is and I'm talking not psychologically okay so must be unhealed it's the unhealed so it's the unhealed wound and then our attempted defenses against the unhealed wound so for example on your wound in one case might be that they perceive themselves as abandoned in childhood

that's not the wound the wound is not that my mother gave me to a stranger the wound is that I therefore came to believe that I wasn't lovable and that's what I'm carrying and then I have my defenses against not being lovable one of my defenses against not being lovable is to try and make myself perhaps powerful and unsalable you know um grandiose yes and then I go into politics then I run for president or or it might be that I try to be a people pleaser yes and I try and take on everything and

try and help the whole world while ignoring my own needs you know so trauma is wound and our our defenses against the wound that later on create more problems so that's my understanding of trauma H how many adults what percentage of adults are living in trauma well in our society I would say a large percentage because we can be wounded in two ways we've already touched upon some of them some of the ways we can be wounded is overt suffering such as being physically abused or emotionally abused or sexually abused or parent dying or a

divorce where a parent kind of disappears um or parent being jailed um certainly racism poverty are traumatic experiences for a lot of people you know with impacts on the body impacts on the brain um uh apparent being addicted apparent being mentally ill all of those things can be traumatic but there's another uh subset of trauma that isn't due to bad things that were done to you but the good things that were not done that should have been done for example your parents if they had to go to work they should have been alert to your

sense of isolation and dealt with it now they didn't mean to hurt you they loved you they in fact as you said they adored you but they didn't see you and not being seen is a source of a wound because that's the need that we have we need we have this need to be seen for who we are as we are yeah that's so lot in our society because of the stress on parenting and the erosion of extended families the loss of community the increasing isolation the tremendous pressure on parents um a lot of kids

are wounded in loving homes yes yes what is the answer around how we go about healing ourselves and everyone's quick to say therapy that's the way but we know therapy is not always accessible not everyone's going to go to it so how do we heal our trauma well again the first point is and the most important point is recognition so then rather than believing oh there's something wrong with me you say well something happened to me and that what happened had certain impacts not information is not hard to get these days just to mention myself

there's so many of my Talks on YouTube that millions of people have seen and they tell me that just watching them helps them didn't cost a penny yes I don't have a YouTube channel you have to subscribe you can just put my name in there but not just myself other trauma healers uh Bessel Vander yes um the books that I've written the book that Bessel has written which is a perennial bestseller it's called the body keeps to score my various books The Myth the normal when the body says no scattered Minds um you know my

book on Addiction in the realm of Hungry Ghost but other books by people that I've learned from like Bessel or Peter LaVine and his uh books on trauma or his lectures on YouTube on trauma and many many many many others those are easily accessible to everybody number one number two each of these books will have certain exercises in them that you can actually regularly do and follow uh number three you can develop self-awareness practices such as meditation again lots of instruction on that on YouTube or simple to get books on meditation where you learn to

observe your emotions and your body without reacting to what You observe so you develop the sense of aware awareness and presence with which to hold yourself yes none of that cost money no not at all then are there friends you can talk with intimately can you say to somebody look there's some stuff here that's been bothering me I don't need you to give me advice or tell me what to do in fact I don't want you to can you just listen to me mhm so just being received by another human being if you're in relationship

as we've been saying this entire conversation the relation can be a beautiful ground yes for healing now having said that ideally if you can also afford some therapy some good therapy because lots of bad therapy out there um well that's Al always very very helpful but you you know nature if you look at indigenous practices there's so connected to Nature yes it's it's unbelievable actually like like I have some indigenous friends when they look at a plant they don't see what I see right I agree I agree yeah you know a good friend of mine

is rosarian oh yeah uh which is so this is the uh the the Blue Mountains of Jamaica on the Portland side uh and I have I have a strong Affinity to to rosarians and he tells me that every day I should walk outside without shoes yeah to to to to to be planted in the earth exactly to connect with the Earth yeah yeah yeah so there's nature out there and and even in London you can find where we're speaking right now yes you can find nature where s where find some you can find some trees

and some grass for God's sakes right and hold on to it and look at it yeah you know there's parks and you know some people have a religious practice yes prayer you know I don't I do some of that not much I'm not a religious person in that sense so there's all these things but the biggest of all is just the awareness yes you know yes I felt that through our conversation how critical how lifechanging awareness can be oh um I have just two more questions for you please one is um like I said I've

seen countless of of of your interviews yeah what is one topic with regard to relationships and our body our mind emotions trauma that you feel you've not yet talked about that you believe is incredibly important to talk about H it's hard to imagine what what at age 80 I haven't talk about but you know what healing um in relationship um because just even recent I'm just so happy to say that in my 55 year of marriage we've had such healing just within the last two months you know um so I can talk about it now

in ways that I might not have been able to talk about it even six years ago or or 6 months ago I should say and so um the capacity of healing in relationship I can't overemphasize it wow are are you open or comfortable talking about what you have healed in the last two months yeah we've more or less dropped our automatic reactions our past based reactions to the other we can be present with each other and that makes all the difference in the world so when R and my wife says something that even might be

difficult for me to hear I'm not reacting like a a triggered child anymore or vice versa which just creates such freshness you know um I remember on one of our first dates um I was stoned at the time we're looking back uh how many years now we're looking back 57 years now okay and we're on the beach and I had this portable little record player and I put on some music I think it was the beetles or something and I looked at this woman and I said I want to grow old with her and I

had the sense that we're going to have a lot of problems but I also had the sense that once we work through all this ego stuff I can just be with her then this is the person I want to be old with and you know what knock on wood that's where we are so we're young again we young again together you know and uh I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said that we don't stop playing because we get old we get old because we stop playing yes so just the capacity to play in

the present moment you know and knock on wood it'll last you know but but I I never talk much about that healing cuz I hadn't really got there you know I've always been much more articulate about talking about problems than about healing itself yes yes and and and furthermore there always used to be a this gap between how I could talk about these things in public and what I could manifest in my personal life and at this stage in my life I don't want the Gap anymore you know I appreciate that I I really do

uh I have one final question for you yeah and that is this is all the guests get this you've had some incredible conversations in your life know this yeah when you think back to the most memorable conversation who was it with and what did you talk about now do you mean public or private or both both well if I say most meaningfully with my wife and uh it'd be about everything I just said and it's a repeated conversation those are the most important conversations in my life yes yeah and much of what I'm able to

say publicly flows from what I've learned in that process of personal growth in in in my relationship I've learned a lot through all kinds of mentors and books and research and experience but the biggest learnings have been in my personal relationship yeah I want to end with thanking you from the bottom of my heart truly you have been a mentor to me from afar and what I most appreciate is actually what you just shared right there at the end and that is is that you speak authentically yeah and You're vulnerable and what you do is

you give me hope you truly do and uh my wife and I we've been married for uh 23 years oh wow um and what's interesting is everyone says oh you must have the most incredible relationship and we say it's work we we we work at it and what I appreciate is that you're open about the work that you do and the fact that you're able to continue to enjoy your relationship and enjoy life and give to life and be kind um I think you are a phenomenal human being and I just thank you uh from

from the bottom of my heart not not just for this but for the work that you do truly thank you well I mean thank you for that kind of acknowledgement thank you yeah thank you so it's a real pleasure to speak with you yeah it's it's it's it's been an honor really it's been an honor thank you good what a thought-provoking and fascinating conversation Gabor is truly one of my heroes and I feel so grateful to him for having this conversation with me sharing his almost half a Century's worth of wisdom and as usual I'd

like to share with you my key takeaways firstly Gabor mate's insight about marrying our parents trauma really made me think deeply it reveals how our relationships often mirror unresolved Dynamics from our childhood essentially when we choose a partner we don't just marry them we also bring the emotional wounds and patterns from our upbringing into the relationship the key lesson here is to recognize that the issues and conflicts we face with our partners might not be entirely about the present situation they can be reflections of deeper unresolve childhood wounds instead of blaming each other use these

moments as opportunities for growth when both Partners commit to understanding and healing their own and each other's traumas the relationship can become a space where true healing and growth occur secondly gabor's quote we are wired for fear and panic which are essential speaks to the Natural evolutionary role these emotions play in our survival fear and panic are not enemies they're deeply ingrained in us to protect us from danger however in Modern Life we often experience these emotions and situations that aren't life-threatening which can lead to unnecessary Stress and Anxiety the key takeaway is to understand

that fear and panic are normal and we must learn to recognize when they're truly helpful and when they're misplaced Embrace fear when it serves you but learn to manage it when it doesn't and lastly what truly makes someone a great relationship expert is the ability to draw wisdom from a wide range of experiences including personal Gabor mate highlights this perfectly when he shares that while he's learned from mentors books and research his biggest lessons have come from his personal relationships to me this is what sets apart a truly exceptional expert in most Fields it's not

just about Theory it's about living through challenges and growth that come with real in experiences in this case of relationship experts it's in those personal conversations and experiences that teach the most about love authenticity and what it means to truly connect with others Gabor embodies this perfectly when it comes to love we're all on our own journey and that means any advice we're given should be tailored to our love goals not someone else's this is where my show in Tinder who sponsor this podcast have teamed up to help you each week on we need to

talk I'll explore love and relationships through a different lens so you can get the advice that relates to your romantic situation Tinder is for all types of relationships and I truly believe it has the best tools to help you form the connections you're looking for that might be long-term commitment or short-term experiences maybe it's friendship but regardless of which part of the journey you're on Tinder and I are here to support you their app is full of possibilities and it's designed to help you explore every kind of connection it starts with a swipe so download

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