Dr. Gabor Maté: Who Gets Sick, and How to Prevent it

You're very sensitive and you're one of these really talented sensitive people who generate so much in this world. Mhm. You also have trouble saying no. Mhm. You see need everywhere. Mhm. And you want to meet all those needs. want to fix it. Yeah. And I believe I have the power to do so is the fallacy, but yes. you You have the power to make a difference. Mhm. You don't have the power to fix it. It's Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. And

now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so that you don't have to. And we have Um an exceptional exceptional guest today uh who in my opinion has literally helped me break down uh pretty much everything that I've ever experienced or ever will experience. Dr. Gabor Maté is a highly sought-after doctor and specialist. Um he's sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress, and childhood development. First,

I'd like to introduce you to the person who's Highly sought after for his expertise on just about everything else in my life, Jonathan Cohen. Hello, Mayim. You've been talking to me about Dr. Gabor Maté for years and I pooh-poohed it and I'm publicly apologizing to you for not listening harder um sooner and better. Um this is a book that has significantly changed the way I'm viewing my current health challenges and emotional challenges and it's been an unbelievable Journey to read this book with you and the fact that we get to have this man here is

uh it's really unbelievable. Um and thank you. I'll keep that on repeat. He also breaks down like the causes in our overall society that make us really not understand ourselves. consider this the theory of everything. Meaning the the physics theory of everything. I think The Myth of Normal, uh which is his book that we're going to be talking To him about, um I really feel like it's the theory of everything. He is possibly most well known for in the realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction, um which some people say is the most definitive

description of what addiction feels like and what it does. Um also When the Body Says No, Exploring the Stress Disease Connection, and Scattered, How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It. Um he's also co-authored Hold On to Your Kids, Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. Um his works have been published internationally in nearly 30 languages. I mean, for many people in those fields I just mentioned, he is the really definitive expert and he has also, you know, entered into the the most modern and progressive worlds of therapy, healing, trauma

work while also maintaining a incredibly strong connection to our Primate, intuitive, and and primal existence. He he's kind of done it. He he wrote this book with his son. He has he has three children. He's been with his wife I think 53 years and she's here for part of our interview listening in. Um it is an extreme honor to welcome Dr. Gabor Maté. Break it down. It's uh very exciting to have you here and um as Jonathan was just talking about, you've been Um doing the rounds as it were um talking about your most recent

book which is called The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. I'm going to hold it up to the camera like I do. Um and we debated how to pronounce your name for about a week or so. I thought Gabor like Zsa Zsa Gabor who was Hungarian. You are also Hungarian, but it is Gabor. Gabor. In fact, their name was Gabor, Too. It's just that when they when they came to America They Americanized it. They Americanized it, yeah. And what is the Maté? Maté. Is it Maté? Maté Maté. Um Maté actually

is the um Hungarian version of Matthias or Matthew. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. You know, without kind of putting too fine a point on it, I would say I've recommended this book to more people since I got it than probably any other book That I've ever read with the caveat to these humans that I've mentioned it to. Um the this is the one book that I believe explains the most things about our experience. Um and you have written very significant other books about aspects of this book and what this is is um this is uh an

opus of sorts. It is really start to finish and I I didn't Really know, you know, I knew of your work and Jonathan's been talking about you for really for years. But um what astounded me about this book is it really kind of does go from womb to cradle to grave as it were. From womb to tomb as they say. That's right. From womb to tomb. I mean, I dog-eared most pages really and um you know, when you when you have that experience with a book, it means that, you know, there's something obviously That's touching,

you know, very deeply. And I God's honest truth, I've already started speaking to my children about this book. Um I've been in a process of, you know, reanalyzing a lot of things about my life, my health, my psychology. Um many of these things just happened to come at a time when I was able to make changes, not because of the book, but with the support of the book. Um some are dietary, um you know, some are in Conjunction with an autoimmune disease that I've had for gosh, 25 years, uh which recently has reared its head.

And um the scope of your experience is um incredibly significant. And you know, almost everything that I would read to Jonathan cuz basically I would read sections and then I would take it to him and we would kind of go through it and he would either say Or we know this or that's true or you've experienced that. Of course that's right. Um in fact, I I wrote a book on attachment parenting which contains a lot of the intuitive kind of things that you discuss. And you know, I I had my head served to me on

a platter, you know, for supporting natural birth and and breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding and By who? By who? The same people that, you know, kind of create the culture that I think, you know, you so well encapsulate. So, I'm going to turn this just briefly to Jonathan. I don't know where to start and I don't know where to end with this man because I both feel that this is the kind of thing we've been, you know, trying to to get to. You know, the reason we created this podcast was to try and bring aspects of

the human experience that trouble us That that we don't always have labels for or that we have too many labels for. Um and I I feel disingenuous just to say like everybody needs to read this book and implement it immediately, but that's what it that's what it feels like. That's my visceral, you know, kind of reaction. Well, you let me just say first of all that before we turn to questions is that um just the um emotion And the comprehensive sense with which you describe your reaction to the book it's just the most profound and

best kind of feedback I could ever get. You know, I wanted this book to help people find a map to themselves. Mhm. And not just to themselves, but to themselves in the context of the world that we're living in. And I wanted people to be moved and Touched by the book, you know, cuz I really it's really about us as human beings. Mhm. So, you're giving that back to me in spades and thank you very much for seeing the book for what I intended it to be. So, some people, cuz I'm head of English to

English translation over here, Yeah. may say, "What are they talking about?" Right. a map to yourself? Yeah. And my most succinct summary of this book to anyone who's out there dealing with, you know, open quote something in their life, Yeah. the thing that you think you're dealing with is likely not the thing that you're actually dealing with. Yeah. It's a symptom, not the cause. Yeah. Tell them what I mean. Well, so here here's what I think you mean, uh but maybe No, we do reflective listening Around here. This is great. Good start. So, Also, you're

both Canadian. You speak the same language, so it's It's sort of, yeah. Canadian, eh? So, mo- speaking of my own life, if at any time you'd asked me why I was doing what I was doing, I was giving you I was giving you one answer. But later on with more experience, reflection, and I would say suffering, I Realized that what I thought I was doing wasn't what I was doing at all. So, that the the levers were pulled for by something that I wasn't aware of. Mhm. And so, when I talk about a map to

ourselves, I'm talking about a map to the unconscious uh drives that really motivate so much of our experience, whether we're talking in the realm of politics or realm of personal relationships, And the experiences that create those childhood those unconscious dynamics so largely. Um and I'm not the first one to say this. Uh it's like we're living in a dream. Mhm. And at some point we wake up and we realize that we've been dreaming. And this has happened a lot in my relationship. A lot of times in my political life. You wake up and you say,

"I've been Dreaming. What I thought was reality wasn't reality." So, if anything, this book is an attempt to give people a map to their reality. You know, I I felt this many, many times. Um you know, especially when you talked about when you talked about pregnancy. Mhm. And when you talked about um labor. And when you talked about, you Know, the that first year in particular of a child's life. Yeah. So, that was kind of the first place it hit me. And what you say is something that a lot of people do not want to

hear. I think that's why people are still not like we still need to keep doing this. Mhm. Is that um it matters. It matters what your pregnancy is like. It It matters what what you haven't dealt with that will come up for you Emotionally. And this is the point of the unconscious, right? You often quote don't know. And it matters how you raise your child. It matters what you feel about their autonomy versus yours. Yeah. It matters if you hurt them, even if you think it's for their own good. Yeah. And that was sort of

the first wow. That was the the first wow for me. Because, you know, Jonathan and I both come from, you know, my my son was born in that room. Meaning I we come from Mhm. you know, a parenting style of trying to do what we intuitively believed our species was supposed to do. And it's extremely unpopular, right? So, that was sort of the first aha. And then I thought, oh, we're going to get into medical stuff. No, then you Tackle childhood. And the teenage years, which extends then into adulthood. And what it was was that

guess what? It matters. And this is what I've been This is what I started talking about with my children since I'm reading this book. It matters what you eat. Like it really matters. It matters not just for your body for your It matters emotionally. And then it goes to the toxic culture we live in. And a lot of people I think already sort of tune Out, right? But I mean, I can pull up the exact quote, but the notion that the consumerist society that we all live in, are immersed in, and have come to think

is normal Yeah. actually matters for the rest of our physiological, hormonal, immunological, and psychological development. In the introduction, we quote David Foster Wallace, who gives us this little anecdote of At a commencement address that he gave before he committed suicide. Mhm. Um it is two fish that are swimming along and they're accosted by an older fish who says to them, "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And then And the two fish swim on for a while, and one of them turns to the other one and says, "What the hell is water?" Correct. And David Foster Wallace

says That these things that are so close to us and so big, we don't even see that they're there. And I think that's what you're describing here. That there's so many things in this culture that like we're swimming in it like fish in the water, but we don't know that we're swimming in water. We think it's just um uh an inevitable reality. Uh but so many things in this culture that are considered to be normal are criminally abnormal from the point of View of human needs. Now, there's one more thing I want to come back

to. Just as an example, you mentioned autoimmune condition that you have, okay? Mhm. Now, you you can tell me what it is, you cannot. I have Graves' disease. Graves' disease, okay. Hyperactive thyroid. Thyroid, okay. Here's what I bet. I bet that And I'd be delighted if I was wrong, by the way. Mhm. That all the years that you saw specialists about this condition, did anybody ask you about childhood trauma? Stresses in your life? How you feel How you feel about yourself as a human being? Nope. What I'm saying is that because of the mind-body's inseparable,

unshakable, Scientifically overproven unity all these autoimmune conditions actually have to do with our emotional lives and how we grew up in this abnormal culture. upsets people because no one wants to I mean, sorry, I shouldn't say no one. Many people do not want to go there. And one of the most powerful things you talk about, especially As a woman Yeah. fibromyalgia, um endometriosis, multiple sclerosis. Yeah. Things that we see pre- predominantly, statistically speaking, in in women. 70, 80%. There we go. Yeah. Almost 100% as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And what you talk about is

something that many people don't want to look at. So, I know it's difficult to Go there, but here's a letter I would say to people. And I tell with my experiences, would you rather hear that you got this mysterious, so-called idiopathic, we haven't got a freaking clue what causes this condition, there's nothing you can do about it except to try and control the symptoms? Mhm. Or would you rather hear that this disease that you got is not a thing with a life of its own, but actually it's a process that's happening in your body in

Response to your life, in response to what happened to you as a child, in response to how you treat yourself as an adult. And if you understand all that and gain some agency over it, you can actually gain some regulation over that process. Mhm. Which message would you rather hear as a human being? I I'll I'll be honest with you. I would like to hear the latter. But But I also know that Most people do not have the resources that I would like them to have. And Jonathan hates when I say that, but That is

That is not my experience. Because people's biggest resource is internal. Right. Mayim Bialik's Breakdown is supported by BetterHelp. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a user manual. But BetterHelp online therapy is pretty much the next best thing. BetterHelp has connected over 3 Million people with licensed therapists. It's convenient and accessible anywhere, 100% online. As I've talked about and Jonathan has talked about, therapy has been a game-changer for me. It continues to be a game-changer for me. For me, it's not a destination, it's a journey. It's something I keep doing, and there's always new things to add

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is what's so crazy about it. The The first guy who described multiple sclerosis, um a French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot, in the 19th century, said that this was a stress-caused condition. Mhm. William Osler, great Canadian physician, also founding father at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, he said rheumatoid arthritis was a stress-driven stress-driven condition. Mhm. An American surgeon, James Paget, in 1870, talks about breast cancer as related to women's emotional states and And particularly depression and so on. This is No, these giants of medicine who are all still revered in medical history. They They They had no science

behind their intuition. They just had their intuition and observation. Since then, in every three of those cases, whether it's breast cancer or whether it's multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, there's been oodles of scientific research showing The relationship between stress and those conditions. And yet, most people they go to the physician, stress, trauma never comes up. Now, what I have found is that when people understand the connection between what happened to them in childhood, the traumas they endured, the stresses they generate for themselves, how this their body saying no when they don't know how To say

no, either in work or in personal life, and they actually they learn to set some boundaries for themselves, there's actually a change in the physiological process. Why wouldn't there be, given that mind body are are one and inseparable? So, I don't find that people are that resistant to this message once they understand it. The real problem is that they you can go to physicians trained like me in the Western medical Tradition, and despite all the science, you never hear this information. I want to talk about cancer because I remember the first time I heard someone

say that, you know, cancer could be from you know, anger or repressed this, and I remember I said this was I mean, this was many, many years ago, and I said, "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. How dare you say to someone who is dying and going to leave children And a partner? How dare someone say that?" And one of the one of the closest people in my life who passed from cancer was an incredible woman, and she was so loving, and she was a nurse, and she was this like Sabra, and she

and I thought, "How could anyone say that, right?" And I'm reading your book, and I realize there is a different message about cancer. Can you explain that? Well, first of all, I'd be just as outraged as you are if if somebody went to somebody with cancer as you go out to speak, you know, whether they were dying or whether they were just dealing with the You never say that to anybody. You don't push that information to anybody. Um However, But but however, scientifically, it's only true like when I worked in palliative care looking after dying

people or in family Practice, I mean, I had an advantage over the specialist because as a family physician cuz I saw people before they got sick. So, I knew who got sick and who didn't, and I knew their family histories, and I knew their multi-generational family histories. Tell us who gets sick. So, who gets sick? Uh people who who are prone to get chronically ill, and by the way, we have to Nail that we're not talking about causation here, okay? Sure. There's multiple causes. But so, we're talking about a contributing factor, but a reversible one.

Right. And if you reverse it, that can have a positive impact on the condition. That's the whole point, okay? who gets sick. So, who gets sick? There's sort of four characteristics, and you tell me if your Israeli friend all of them. Go ahead. Uh But this is not a bingo But but but but but but tell me if your Everything's a bingo game. But tell me if your Israeli friend maybe Mhm. No, I I I I I I I I I I I Yeah, okay. First of all, uh people who are prone to get chronically

ill are um ones who tend to put other people's emotional needs compulsively ahead of their own. Ding ding ding. Okay, number one. Number Two, they tend to be over-identified with duty, role, and responsibility rather than the needs of the self. Ding ding ding. Okay. They tend to repress healthy anger. They don't know how to set a clear boundary. I don't even know what anger is. Yeah, healthy anger we're talking about, okay? Ding ding ding. You know what healthy anger I throw Things. These are the people You heard the expression "the good die young"? Yeah. That's

what That's what it means. These very These very These very nice people. I I worry about people that are very nice. I worry about people that are very nice. I worry about people that are very nice. You know, He knows I can be very mean, but Yeah. Yes. Ding ding ding. The fourth is this belief that you're responsible for how other people feel, and you must never disappoint anybody. It's not a belief, it's a truth. Ding ding ding. No, it's not a truth. I know I was being You're being You're being your comedian self, okay?

Yeah. No, those are the No, why do those traits Lead to illness? Well, I Go ahead. We'll let you tell people. It's because again, as as a neuroscientist, you know, and having studied neuro neuro neuroendocrinology or neuro psychoendocrinology, you know that the mind and the body can't be separated. And that healthy no, it's a boundary defense. The role of healthy anger is as a boundary defense. In fact, our emotions in general, they have one fundamental function, Allowing what is healthy and nourishing and supportive, the love, you know, and keep out what is toxic and dangerous.

That's the role of our emotional system. Now, I'll ask you a quick trick question. What is the role of our immune system? It's the same. It's exactly the same. It's to keep out what's toxic and let in what's nourishing. Keep letting in the Nutrients, the vitamins, the healthy bacteria in the gut. Keep out, destroy what is No. In other words, the emotional system and the nervous system Sorry, the the immune system has exactly the same function. And not only do they have the same function, they're part and parcel of the same apparatus. They're not even

separated. Right. So, naturally, when people repress themselves emotionally, that's Going to have an impact on the immune system. How could it be otherwise? I want you to take us back one more step. Pretend like we're not talking about me right now because that's going to get awkward for everyone. Okay. What things in early life lead to those four characteristics? Okay. Well, I mean, I I read the book, so I know, but I would like you to tell us. Well, that's fair enough, but you're both parents, okay? Mhm. I'm looking at The list. It's on page

166 and 167. Go ahead. You're hired. Okay. You guys have have both had kids. Mhm. Have you ever met a one-day-old baby that represses their feelings? No. Okay. In other words, we're born with that capacity. So, that between the our entry into the world, fully embodied, fully in touch with our gut feelings, fully capable of actually communicating exactly what we're Experiencing, not in words, but in gesture and and so on. And the time we become adults who repress ourselves, something happens. So, what happens is is that in the child is got these two needs, the

need to attach and to belong to the parents. In fact, without that need being met, the child can't even survive. This is true for all mam- mammalian infants, but especially So for them. But especially for humans because we're the most dependent and the least mature, uh the most helpless for the longest period of time. So, that attachment relationship is not negotiable. We have to have it. Do people know what you mean by attachment that sense? So, attachment is the drive that pulls two bodies together for closeness and proximity so that one can be taken care

of or take care of The other. And that's a hormonal connection, also. It's hormonal, it's emotional, it's neurological, we're it's an instinctual. Birds have it. You know, the the infant bird would not survive without it. When we say attachment, and you're talking about neurological and biological and emotional, Yeah. the immune system function of that Dependent human being is reliant on that attachment. Exactly. Yeah, the the the healthy development of of that organism depends on that attachment. it's development and maintenance. And both. And I'm a lactation educator counselor, so I speak to women I just visited

a five-day-old yesterday, Okay. and you know, the the notion that The smell of a mother is different than the smell of a stranger. The voice of a mother, the that a that a mother regulates her body's body temperature according to the newborn's needs. In the smell of the sense of smell is one of the first to develop, and an infant can tell the smell of the breast pad of a mother from distinguish it from other women's within a day within a day or two. Right. So, That's what we talk about when when people ask me

like, "Why why why do I have to keep holding the baby? Why does the baby want to nurse so much?" It's trying to attach to you cuz it's a primate. It's a Well, so here's the thing. So, you ask what happens. What do we tell parents in this culture when we tell them to sleep train their babies? We tell them not to pick up their kids. That's right. Now, you tell a mother baboon not to pick up their kid. When when they get Exactly. You're going to find out what mother rage is all about, you

know? So, human beings are trained to go against their own instincts. Yes. That's Human beings are trained to go against their own instincts. That's what And this is we're just scratching the surface of what leads to those four characteristics. In the New York Times two weeks ago that there's no such thing as mother instinct. Well, you tell a mother bear that there's no such thing as mother instinct or a mother cat or even a mother bird I I I will say my my first son was placed in the NICU right after he was born. And

I felt And as did, you know, my husband at the time, I felt a surge of emotion I had never Felt when they wheeled that child away. Yeah. I mean I and you know, I'm grateful I had a vaginal birth and an unmedicated one because I needed to be on my feet as soon as humanly possible to start figuring out when I could get that baby out of that prison. Yeah. Um but that I also when my my younger son had a seizure from a fever when he was uh not even a year. I think

that he was not Even a year. The feelings that came it was like I was I was transported to another level of the existence of trying to keep your human alive. I've heard mothers who try to sleep in their babies saying their babies on the advice of Yes. doctors like me cuz I used to advise I used to advise this myself. Um they told me they had to stand in a shower That's right. and put their fingers in Their ears. Oh, friend I know people who go to hotels and leave a husband who has never

does not have hormones of you know, the the woman that they go to hotels and leave the husband at home and see what happens. So here's the thing with but here's the thing with instincts. They have to be evoked by the environment. Mhm. They don't automatically work. They have to be evoked by the environment. Now this environment doesn't not only not evoke parenting instincts, it actually suppresses them. Correct. Because we're told to separate from our kids giving them time outs when we don't approve of their behavior. Now that gives a message to the kid you

can be yourself, you can have all the one of the essential needs of children is their freedom to feel all their emotions. That's an essential developmental need of the child. Emotions. All their emotions. Fear the good ones. When people say is it a good baby? Yes, it's a good baby cuz it sometimes it's mad and sometimes it's happy and sometimes it's sad. And the and the and the infant and the young child needs to have the freedom to have all their emotions. That's an essential developmental need. You know, you you talk about capital T trauma

and lower lower case T trauma Which we do here as well and you you know, you use one of my favorite things my one of my favorite examples of people saying I have PTSD because he didn't show up for dinner or you know, I have PTSD because she dumped me and and it really bothers me also just because you know, for someone who studied obsessive-compulsive disorder everyone says they're OCD if they like their shoes straight and that doesn't you know, identify that either. Because somebody reviewed this book on Amazon and written and said it was

Marxist psychobabble and I was traumatized to read it. I said okay. Well Well, you weren't traumatized. Maybe you're upset. Maybe you didn't agree with it, but you were not traumatized. So we use this word trauma a bit too loosely. Correct. I went to this movie and I Traumatized me. No, it didn't. You just had felt some sorrow. feelings, right? you had emotions. So tell us though about So besides sort of this systematic What was it? Systematic Systematic denial of emotions. Systematic denial when we are fully embodied as a small baby. Correct. Yeah. The other things

that lead to these Personality types are things that many of us also don't talk about. They are abuse. They are abuse that leads to trauma. I mean those things may be difficult to separate. But people really don't want to hear that something that happened to you when you were a child might lead to these personality kind of traits and eventually might lead you to illness. Tell about Tell us about some of those other features. Well I will, but I just push back a little Bit again. You say people don't want to hear it. Actually people

do want to hear it. So in in the book I give the example of the comedian Darrell Hammond Uh-huh. um who's been on Yeah. Saturday Night Live a lot and you know His documentary I mean it's And you started Absolutely. Oh, I saw it years ago. Yeah. So Darrell had his first mental health crisis when he was a Student at university. And he was given this diagnosis and that diagnosis and this pill and that pill or this combination of pills for decades. Yep. And he saw probably 30 or 40 different psychiatrists. Nobody had ever asked

him what had happened to him as a child. And the first time a psychiatrist actually said to him I don't want to call what you have a Disease. You were hurt badly in childhood. Mhm. He says for Darrell he said that was like a hallelujah chorus moment. Wow. And so people actually What would you rather hear again? That you've got this sort of mysterious biological maybe genetic brain disorder and all we can do is give you these pills for the rest of your life. Or As a result of what happened to you you develop certain

emotional and psychological ways of being that we call now disease if you learn about how you were traumatized and how to deal with that trauma you can actually ease those conditions. Like which message would people rather hear? I'm saying that people would rather hear that second message that because people would rather have some Agency rather than rather than just be passive recipients of health care. Now again I'm not even rejecting the use of medications cuz I've I've taken them myself Mhm. and they've helped, but I think this whole idea that mental health conditions are simple

diseases that are biologically based is not scientific number one according to the research scientific nonsense. Secondly, even Worse, they disempower people. Yep. I think people would rather be empowered. Mayim Bialik's Breakdown is supported by Everlywell. How about you take action today for a healthier tomorrow with Everlywell? Their at-home lab tests and vitamins and supplements help you get the knowledge and support you need to become a healthier you and really I think that's what we all want. Everlywell is digital Health care designed just for you at an affordable and transparent price. With over 30 at-home lab

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your first box. We're speaking about two different fundamental views of our Yeah. experience as human beings. One is the world is chaos, anything can happen at any time and there's no control or answers to anything. The other is we are a natural part of a biological system and we develop patterns based on the Past. Exactly. And as May as Mayim says it's painful to look at that. So um it's true it is painful. But I think but it's a kind of noble kind of pain. A pain that's that's what we call growing pains by the

way. Mhm. If you want to grow That's what I say. Yeah. you know, you have to have some pain and and not that we impose people in pain, but Most of mental health conditions and addictions and so on the pain is already inside. And it's in fact it's the attempt not to feel the pain that makes people sick. So we have systematic denial of um our emotions our emotions. We have things like Well, so so you know, then then there's the whole adverse childhood experiences list of Physical, sexual, emotional abuse, a parent dying, a parent

being mentally ill, a parent being addicted, violence in the family, a parent being jailed, a rancorous divorce, neglect. The link between these adverse conditions Mhm. and mental health problems later on in life as in the words of one leading British psychologist is as well established in the scientific literature as the link between smoking and and lung Cancer. Mhm. And yet you go to most psychiatrists Right. nobody's going to ask you about that stuff. most Western doctors for just I mean and with all due respect to the Western profession and all the lives that are saved

because I can already hear the people saying like why are you I need to see a psychiatrist Love Western medicine. Jonathan had to have a hip replacement. I did think it was emotional and then we looked at the scan and there was no cartilage left. So let's establish our shared respect for the achievements and Yes. and contributions of Western medicine. We're not talking about that. We're talking about what it misses. Correct. about the narrowness of its perspective Sure. and that narrowness limits its capacity to to heal. And so that's all we're talking about. Dr. Sarno

Dr. Sarno revolutionized the way we think about back pain back pain. I'm I'm also a Sarno person and I have chronic pain. I'm sure you're not surprised. And so the the notion that most people will already feel a a lessening of chronic pain when you learn That it's not that it's all in your head, but there may be no physiological basis. It is a a vol- I describe it as I turn the volume up on everything that happens. It's even more complex than that. There is a physiological basis. Right. Which is what Sarno calls the

tension Tension myositis syndrome. So there's inflammation and there's clenching tension and that's physiological, but that Physiology is related to emotions. Exactly. So it's it's again it's the non-separability of emotions and physiology. I mean that book did it change my life and I grew up with a father whose back was always going out. He was always laying flat and he and I have a very similar personality, very similar and sure enough right after my dad died my back went out, was flat on my back. And This has happened more than once and then I was introduced

to that book and started therapy in that kind of arena. Great. It's just a party over here. So we talked about those kind of four personality traits and so Then then so of course trauma, I mean here's the thing about trauma. Um in the book I talk about V, the former events that are Yes. and and Her father That was fascinating. Her father raped her, you know, and she talks about this in her own book. Can she be can she afford to be angry with her father when this is happening? What would happen if she

got angry? Sure. She'd be hurt badly. Her father also physically abused her. So the child then who's being abused if they even so much as events any anger at all, they're putting us in greater Danger. So it's the wisdom of the organism That's protective. That's protective that represses the anger, but that same protection that same adaptation later on will be There's a price. There'll be a price to be paid later on. So whether it's parents who are following the totally misdirected advice of so-called Parenting experts and all these parenting books out there that are touted

by the media, they're toxic, so many of them. I tell people don't even read what to expect when you're expecting. Yeah. Yeah. I just I Yeah. Yeah. Well You and me. You remind me of what Michel Odent told me who's a Michel Odent is a I know who Michel Odent is. Okay. Okay. He's a substitution and advocate or you know, healthy birthing and when I interviewed him he said um he said that ideally a woman wouldn't read any pregnancy books at all. She would just sit outside and commune with the commune with the moon, she

said. I like communing with the moon and other women who had had the experiences that I want, but I'd like you to talk about something In the book that's also extremely confusing. Yeah. Well-meaning loving parents Yeah. who missed the mark Yeah. can create the environment essentially for a lower case trauma trauma of its own sort and I don't want to compare what many people experience as capital T trauma. However, this is Something that is so fascinating and disturbing that you can have parents who are loving, connected, present, don't abuse you know, don't abuse you overtly,

don't hit you you know and if they are not emotionally available and I know that's a term that a lot of people like what is that? I think we know exactly what it means. If you have parents who are addicted to work or have other addictions, drink to Numb out, you know, any of those things what does that do? So look, I was one of these parents. I don't question most parents love for their kids. Very few parents don't love their kids. And very few parents don't do try and do the best for their kids,

but the best is limited number one by any traumas that they're still carrying that they haven't worked out. So my wife and I you know, when we had kids we hadn't even known that we were Traumatized let alone work out our traumas, which means that our relationship was very conflicted. My trauma would bump against hers and of course there'd be rancor. Our son Daniel with whom I my brilliant elder son Daniel with whom I wrote this book, he talks in the book about Yes. having these nightmares as a child of the floor disappearing from under

his feet. What he was talking about is he never Knew when the emotional atmosphere in the home would turn very tense, which for a very sensitive child is very threatening. So we loved our kids, we would have done anything for them, but just their own traumas and stresses they couldn't help but absorbing them. And trauma means doesn't necessarily mean something terrible happening. Trauma just means a wound. That's the actual meaning of the word. Kids kids Can be wounded not by terrible things happening, but just by the insecurities and and emotional unavailability of the parents. Furthermore,

I was a workaholic doctor. Now I I've talked about this before. Why was I workaholic doctor? Because the message is a Jewish infant under the Nazis in 1944. The message that I got from the world through the anxieties and terrors of my mother is that I wasn't wanted. Now if you're not wanted, wonderful way to deal with it is to try and make yourself important in other people's lives so now they want you all the time, whatever tools you got. Sure. In my case that was being a doctor. Right. So I became a workaholic doctor.

Workaholism means that I'd rather be on the job than at home. That I'm fully alive and active and kind of activated when I'm working, but I'm Rather listless and depressed at home. And the beeper's always going. You know what message are my kids getting? That they're not wanted. And that's the last message I ever wanted to give them. So it doesn't take abuse. It just takes stressed parents especially in a society where people have become so isolated. Like parenting was never meant to be an isolated couple in a nuclear family Home, you know? I say

this all the time. I mean how we evolved as human beings was as communal creatures. And also sticking a man and a woman together and having a man be the recipient of all of the things that happened in your day and all of your emotional thing that's actually not what the species evolved to do. We were supposed to share that with other women and other people who tend to hold more emotional and social contact. Exactly. And I mean with all this is why when people say, "Oh, why don't you should have a man in the

birthing room and he needs to be an active part." He really doesn't. Yeah. The the experience also of becoming a parent was something that was for women the work of women. Yeah. It was the work of that social situation. let me tell you something exciting. Now now everything you say is exciting. Okay. Believe me that's not true, but but a scientist I quote quite a bit in this book is a woman called Darcia Narvaez and she's a professor emerita at Notre Dame University who studied aboriginal indigenous groups. She uses in the new book you'll want

to talk about to her when she comes out. It's called the evolved nest. I wrote the forward for it at her request. It's Going to be published next year. And it's comparing our parenting practices with those of other mammals. So I read this book and it's totally fascinating. Um you know what happens when an elephant gives birth? When when you when the elephant mother goes into labor all the other elephant mothers stand around in a circle. So she's not too Vulnerable. And when the baby plops to the ground they all stroke her with their trunks.

So that birth was a communal experience. Now same thing used to be for human beings. And so that we live so unnaturally so that the parenting the the parenting I should say this, the stress on parenting in this society is almost unbearable. First of all because of all the economic And political uncertainty and then the isolation then the erosion of community and extended family. Um so that parents have an almost impossible job in this culture. So it's never a question of blaming parents for anything. It's a question of just recognizing the challenges that we're facing

cuz we've become so denatured. In Canada, you know, there are not that many places That people live. Yeah. Meaning like if you're in Toronto, you either stay in Toronto or you go to Vancouver. Yeah. Sometimes you go to Montreal, but otherwise you're you stay there. And all my friends who grew up in Toronto, they all have their extended families around them. Yeah. And when I come to the US when we raised our child in Los Angeles, we had no one. Yeah. And there's so many more examples Of that where US citizens they they're traveling to

different cities much more frequently and they don't have that extended family. Yeah. I'd say the same pattern is is is increasingly present in Canada as well. There's a there's an American political scientist or sociologist Morris Berman who said that if the 20th century was the American century, then the 21st century is going to be the Americanized century and Americanization, the globalization of the corporate capitalist ethic and its consequences has become universal now. When you talk about loving parents who do their best and you know, who who are you know, attentive and give the children everything

they want, there's there's three things that are pointed out and you're actually quoting you're quoting a different study, but the things that can be very disturbing to a child, uncertainty Yeah. conflict, Lack of control and lack of information. Well no, wait now. This I quote as these are Part of the HPA axis and the These are the triggers for stress in people in general, not just in children. So But I'm thinking those things also happen in good families, right? Where there's a lot of So that's what I was thinking. Well well of course they do

because if The parents are facing those stresses, Right. it's impossible. There's a psychologist that once said to me, "The children swim in their parents' unconscious like fish in the sea." Yeah. So, when the parents are upset and stressed because of all Yeah. because of inequality or economic stress or their own unresolved trauma, the water. It's It's in the water. That's the water that the kids swim in. You have a quote, I mean, this is This is on page 189. Everything the corporate juggernaut foists upon children, prefabricated play options, video games, mass-manufactured toys, gadgets, peer-centric online

platforms, and saccharine and superficial television programs targeted at toddlers and preschoolers, along with the mainstreaming of glossy, soulless, Porn-inflicted depictions of sexuality available to teens and increasingly even younger kids has detrimental effects. That's like That's like a mic drop. Because, again, these are things that I'm literally talking to my kids about. That [ __ ] matters. Well, I quote a psychiatrist. Um and and also psychologists who studied The impact of digital media on the young kids. Mhm. Negative all across the board. Of course. To brain development, to personal development, and so on. One of the

Either the psychologists or the psychiatrists that I forget which one said that she sees women now changing the baby's diapers while the baby's looking at a screen. Absolutely. I've seen it. No. That diaper changing isn't just a physical act. It's an act of emotional transaction. It's parent, whether it's father or mother or grandparent, doesn't matter. It's the parenting figure and the infant interacting over making a child comfortable. Correct. Especially in a vulnerable situation. Yeah. And Then then you introduce this. All of a sudden there's no relationship. No. That lack of relationship has an impact on

the child's brain development. Mhm. Period. Can you say that again? That lack of uh connection with the nurturing parent has a negative effect on the child's brain development. People don't want to hear that. Meaning like moms who are doing that and dads who are doing that. well, why? Let's explain why. Let's hit This harder. Because here's the thing. The human brain develops in interaction with the environment. And in the book, I forget on what page, I quote I quote a study from Harvard published in 2012. Not a study, but a paper from Harvard. Harvard Center

on the Developing Child, where they point out that the brain human brain develops um from by an ongoing process that begins Before birth and continues into adulthood and sets all the conditions for healthy learning and behavior that follow. All the conditions. And in the second sentence, they say that the most important quality that affects the circuitry of the child's brain, I'm talking about the neurotransmitters, the biochemistry, is the quality of parent-child relationships in the especially in the Early years. So, the emotional relationship with the parent actually programs the physiology of the child's brain. So, when

you look at what's happening now in our society with these millions of kids being diagnosed left, right, and center with all manner of diagnoses, which you could talk about, whether it's ADHD or autism. Yeah. Yeah. And then when And and and and the first the doctors are still holding on to this idea that, you know, these are genetic conditions. The hell they're genetic conditions. You don't see genetics change that quickly. Genes don't change in 30 years, you know, or 20 years, or, you know, um what's actually going on is that the loss of that attuned,

non-stressed relationship with the adults is affecting the healthy development of the child's brain. And no wonder you're Seeing more kids with depression, anxiety, ADHD, and so on. And then you introduce this thing into the mix. Let's see. Which actually has been in studies shown to interfere with the development of healthy brain circuits, then you got what you got. And then there's all this ringing going on. What's going on with our kids? And The New York Times and The New Yorker both have had articles in the past 6 months About the alarming rise in childhood suicides.

And it's unexplainable. It's not unexplainable, people. It's because of the despair of children at having lost those healthy, essential relationships because of the toxicity of this culture. I want to repeat this because a lot of people listen to audio Yeah. and they're doing other things Yeah. and they're not multitasking. They're multitasking. I'm guilty of this. I listen all the time. And if You're listening right now, this is probably one of the most important messages that we have had in over 100 episodes. What you said, as I heard it, was the neurocircuitry and biochemistry of a

growing child's brain is reliant on a safe, present, attuned attachment. And non-stressed. And non-stressed. Yeah. And I want us to talk about what attuned means, cuz I think that is a whole concept that people don't really Understand. And I'm I'm pulling this apart on purpose because I think it's it's absolutely essential that people begin to at least understand the concepts. Yeah. Well, attuned means that the um one person gets the emotional space of the other and communicates that I get it. No You mean understands? understands and gets it. No, we do this automatically. Like Um

until we don't. But if you ever sit on an airplane with the with a baby when the when the baby starts crying, almost everybody goes, "Aw." You know, that aw, that that sort of pulling of the face and that sort of empathetic noise that we make, that's attunement. We're saying, "Oh, kid, you're not You're having a hard time." say, "Can someone put a breast in that baby's mouth?" Well, that would be a good advice. But but our emotional response to the child is to share the child's emotional space. That's what attunement means. Is it empathy?

Empathy is a part of it. But but it's also the capacity to get uh what's happening for for the other person. Now, Why am I having a trouble with this? Is it being able to reflect it or share it and understand it? It's getting it and reflecting it. And not shutting down. Not shutting down. Right. Not putting a binky in it, which is what we do. Yeah. So So, um that that's essential. And when people are stressed, they can't be so attuned to each other. Like like as a couple, like you would know this. When

you one of you is stressed, it's hard for that stressed person to be plugged into the other person. We're too caught up with our own Anxiety. no idea what you're talking about. you wouldn't. I do. For example, depressed mothers can't attune with their kids. Right. Not that they don't want love the child. Not that they're not desperately devoted to the child. Their brains just can't do it. Right. And what happens in the child's brain when it's trying to attune to this unavailable source? You look at Electroencephalograms at 6 months of age. This has been done.

That's his favorite hobby is looking at electroencephalograms of 6-month-old babies. The kids are 6 months of age. And this has been done comparing the ECG EEG, sorry, of infants 6 months of age of mothers who are depressed and those who are not. And you can tell from the EEG of the child whose mother is depressed and who isn't. In other words, The child's brain circuitry is programmed by the mother's emotional states. Also, we've seen I mean, animal studies have shown this, you know, even before we could look at this in humans. We're not that different

I always say this We're not that different from other animals, especially mammals. We're You You can see this in You can see it in rats. I mean, you can see it You see it in all systems, right? And we think we're the exception cuz we build Buildings and we, you know, create God and we, you know, do all these other things. Well, when you were studying neuroscience, did you ever run across the work of Jaak Panksepp? I don't think so. P A N K S E P P. Because he said exactly what you said. He

pointed out and I quote him in the Yes, I remember. He pointed out that we share emotional brain systems with all mammals. Yep. So, we have circuitry for anger and circuitry for love and for for grief and panic and for fear and for lust and for play Mhm. and for seeking. And we seek and we share this Now, this this circuitry is there, but it depends on the environment to evoke their activity. When when the environment is unnatural, in fact, contra-natural, as it is in this culture, then those Circuits don't get expressed. Humans are everywhere

with tremendous potential. Yeah. It's when you place people in an environment where they cannot thrive and there are no resources for them to thrive that you see And also, I mean, in your documentary, incredibly powerful to see the work being done in prisons. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that uh you know, it it was very moving. There's a a circle of of men in a Prison. And what is the woman's name who does this unbelievable work? Fritzi Horstman. Yes. And she She stands in the middle and she's got a microphone. And I was thinking, "Why is

she shouting so loud?" It's so that everyone in this ginormous circle could hear. And she said, "If you grew up in a situation where Yeah. you were hit, where you were beaten, where you were spanked, take a step into the circle." And everybody steps forward. And she keeps asking all these questions. If there was, you know, if there was not a parent if you did not believe you were loved, just the the numerous systems that have bought into the toxic culture and that are part of it is like a continuing problem that is honestly very

overwhelming. And I see why people drink to forget what's going on in the world. Well, when you look at when you when you look at the um the prison system, Most people there are are are highly traumatized people. Yep. And so, what we fundamentally doing in fundamentally doing in this society is really creating conditions that traumatize people Yes. through the pressure on families, through the stress on parents, through the fact that in the United States 25% of women have to go back to work within 2 weeks of giving birth, Which amounts to a massive abandonment

of the child, is what it is. It's the only way the child can experience it. Through then, not to mention racism and inequality and so on. And then, so we traumatize people people then act out their traumas and all we do then is we lock them up and throw away the key and we punish them for their trauma rather than using if we have to isolate people from society because they might be dangerous Rehabilitate them. You do the work that's necessary and those whether whether programs in prisons, whether it's these program, there's another program called

the EPP, Enneagram Prison Project. They go into Enneagram person. I'm trying to get him into it. Well, so the wonderful people doing this EPP those killers They transform. They try I talk about one of them in the book, but it's trauma that drove them there. When you heal the trauma, they become different people. So, this is a I think a really good place to lean into what many people know you predominantly for, which is addiction. Yeah. And the study of addiction. Um A very close friend of mine um expressed that she has never heard her

own addiction understood more than the way you describe the notion that you can get to a place where you literally do not care if you throw away everyone and everything for pursuit of a chemical experience Yeah. and in the same way when we talk about for me at least, when we talk About crime and crime that is as you just said often perpetuated by hurt people, right? Who often are are in a place either of addiction in many cases there's drugs or alcohol involved but the notion that you can be in an emotional environment where

you have lost the ability, you've lost that tenderness, that vulnerability, you've lost the ability to care Yeah. About not only the life of another person, but about your own life. Yes. So, can you speak to that? Cuz a huge component of this conversation Sure. So, for the last 12 years of my medical path I worked with North America's most concentrated area of drug use and uh Jonathan, you've been Have you been to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver? I have, yeah. Yeah. So, it's shocking to go there. It's shocking for many doesn't Matter where people come

from when they see that area, it's shocking. So, there's thousands of people within a few square block radius injecting and inhaling and uh um ingesting drugs of all kinds and these are people living with HIV often, hepatitis C, poverty multiple jailings and so on. You worked in this population for 12 years. working with them for 12 years. In fact, I was the physician at What was at that time North America's first supervised injection site. Right. Where people could bring their drugs and inject under safer conditions using sterile water and clean needles and all that. Which

the Americans by the way tried to force the Canadian government to shut down, but thank god that didn't happen. we have a Puritan nation to keep you all in order. Yeah. So, anyway, I was there For 12 years and so in those 12 years um I had not a single female patient who had not been sexually abused as a child. Say that again. I didn't have a single female patient, hundreds of them, in 12 years who had not been sexually abused and all the men had been severely abused, some of them sexually, some of them

in other ways. Now fair enough, that was my observation. Then you have the large scale studies That we've already referred to, the adverse childhood experience studies that show the same thing. And also this is highly underreported, especially for men to report sexual abuse. Yeah. Highly underreported. So, we have to also take all of these statistics with a grain of salt. Yeah. There's so many people also in denial repression Yes. Nevertheless, the studies still show that more of those experiences that You have, the greater your risk of addiction later on in life. By so, by the

way, also the greater the risk of autoimmune disease and and and mental health conditions and so on. But specifically addictions so that by the time a male child has had six of these sexual, physical, emotional abuse, etc., etc., his risk of becoming a injecting using drug addict is 4600% greater than that of somebody else. 46-fold increase. Now, why? Two reasons. First of all, as we said, the brain develops under the impact of the environment and the condition and the circuits in the brain that are prone for addiction Right. get affected by that early trauma, number

one. Number two when I ask people not what's wrong with your addiction, but what's right about it. So if you guys have an addiction, I'm not Going to ask you what or when We've talked about it. But no, but you know, I've talked about I've had behavior addictions, I've never had a substance one, but I'm not going to ask you what your addictions was. I'm just going to ask you one simple question if you guys are both going to answer it. Not what was wrong with it, what was right about it. What did it give

you temporarily? Makes you feel alive. Makes you feel Alive, good. What did it feel like? Uh it numbs. Like you don't have to care, yeah. Now, who needs to be numbed? Me. No, no, but who what kind of person? Oh, a person who's in pain. In pain. And who Now, here's the thing. Something happened to you. So, the addiction wasn't your problem. Mhm. The addiction was your attempt to solve the problem. Mean it's the symptom, right? Yeah, but it's not just a symptom. It is a symptom, yes, but it's also an attempt to solve a

problem. The problem of pain. Well and or or the problem of not being alive. So, the question then is my mantra here is not why the addiction, but why the pain. Why didn't you feel alive? Cuz something happened to you that cut you off from yourself. Mhm. And that's trauma we're talking about. Something happened to you that gave you a lot of pain that you needed to numb. That's trauma. So, that's the essence of addiction is trauma. The addiction is not the primary problem. It's not genetic. The whole idea of addiction being genetic, which is

still the mantra Well and right. scientific nonsense. This is also one of the things people ask me a lot because I'm a science person. Is this genetic? Is that genetic? Is anxiety genetic? And here's what I say. We will never find a gene for name a personality thing you don't like about yourself. Name a a diagnosis that you've been given. But what we do inherit is coping mechanisms. We inherit an environment. We inherit a whole world that we live in with whatever skills our possibly loving, but likely traumatized themselves parents have given us. There's a

group of genes That the more of them you have, the more prone you might be to be addicted or to be have a mental health condition. At the same time you can have those same genes and have no condition whatsoever. Depending on what the environment does. So, what are these genes then? In fact, you can have a gene that under This has been done. Genes that under certain circumstances make you more violent Yes. under other circumstances circumstances make you less violent. So, what do you Think the gene is for? The gene is for sensitivity. Yeah.

Which is it just what you which is just what you're talking about. Yes. Our capacity to be affected by the environment and the more sensitive you are. Sensitive is from the Latin from the Latin word sensitive to feel. The more sensitive you are, the more you feel. The more pain you feel, the more you have to run away from the pain, the more Likely to be addicted. So, the only thing that's So, can you say that again? Well, the more pain you have, the more likely you want to escape from the pain by numbing yourself.

And the more sensitive you are, the more pain the more pain you're going to feel. Yeah, also the more creative you're going to be, the more insightful you're going to be, the more intuitive you're going to be, depending on the right environment. It Also means that the more pain you have, the more you have to harden yourself. By the way, this is where hardened criminal comes from. Mhm. They harden themselves because of the trauma. It's also biblical. Pharaoh hardens his heart. Pharaoh hardens his heart, yeah. And then you don't feel, then you have no empathy

and and and and you become ruthless. So, that sensitivity can lead you to all kinds of different outcomes depending on what happens in The environment. Well, and this is something also that, you know, and this is in Dr. Sarno's work. You know, he there's some large scale study where you know, they took a a large variety of patients who all had a diagnosis of herniated disc Yeah. but they didn't all feel pain. And they had almost identical scans, whereas if you were to show it to someone a classical Western surgeon, oh, got to operate, got

to My my dad had three Vertebrae fused, you know. And what that says is that there are certain people for whom they're going to experience their body differently, their environment. We talk about we are both very sensitive people. You know, there's this sort of joke and it's on sitcoms and in movies that like men are such babies when they're sick, but there is there's a different there's a different perception of Go ahead. So, here's where my wife who was here at the beginning of This interview and had to fly home now if she was here

she would talk to you a lot about this. Men become babies. Now, that's a that's a natural dynamic. And that speaks to why more women develop autoimmune disease. Because they're more worried about how their husbands going to react when they get cancer than when they get it. And when I read that, I said, that's me. Yeah. And so they That's my mom, it's my grandmother. So, the more stress you absorb and in this is patriarchal culture, women are acculturated to to absorb the stresses of their men. Now, there was an article in New York Times

during COVID times, just couple years ago, called society's society's shock absorbers. And it was about how women take on the Stress of their families and their men around COVID and when they can't alleviate the stress they feel guilty. So let's look at an interesting medical statistic. In the in the 1930s the gender ratio of multiple sclerosis is about about one to one. In Canada it was you know what it is now? It's three and a half women to every man. Now why should that be the case? Genes is not genetic. It's not genetic. No, it's

not it's not the climate or the diet. Sure. Cuz that hasn't changed more than doesn't help but yes. No but that doesn't In terms of inflammation and things like that I'm I'm talking about the gender ratio. It hasn't the diet is hasn't changed more than 100 in the other. What has changed is that women in this culture used to have the the job Of being the stress absorbers, the shock absorbers. They still have that role. Then they've taken on an economic role sometimes because of the choice to express themselves in the in in the workplace.

Yes. Beautiful and sometimes because of economic necessity but nobody has taken away from them the responsibility of emotional caregiving. the notion then that you hire someone Who has to leave their children That's right. your children. I'm sorry I have a really hard time with it. I have a really and it's it's it's very it's very confusing to me. So that what's happened is is that women have now taken extra stress on in a more isolated society where there's less support. No wonder there's more multiple sclerosis amongst them. No wonder there's more divorce honestly because you

come home and you just have A pile of work and forgive me a husband that often needs to be taken care of and No my no my wife could tell you that because in our marriage there's been a real dynamic that she absorbs my stresses. She's the one that takes the antidepressant. Yeah. Or deals with the anxiety. She's the one that um um has to take care of everything including This hobby. Yeah. And and and and and in our marriage And also have her own life and identity because that's also important. So our marriage has

been let me tell you like a 53 year process of women's liberation because she said to really liberate herself Yes. from the gender or the the culturally determined role that she was programmed to take on as a child. Yeah. And and and this choice of you know authenticity and attachment quite honestly um we quite agree retrospectively that had she been able to be more herself had trusted herself she would have left me at a certain point. You know? Many women say that if I was healthier I would have left. And that would have been good

for our kids. Yeah. Oh. And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and for her and for me. What does that feel like for you to say that? It's just the truth. But what does it feel like? I've dealt with the remorse already. I've had a lot of remorse over that but again you know I was the way I was unconsciously you know? Yeah. Right. But Did the best that you could as you were. But the point is it's it's women in this culture who have to

suppress their authenticity even more than men do and that's why they have more autoimmune disease. That's why they are more prone to non-smoking related with cancers. That's why they have much more depression and anxiety. You know? And it's not gender determined it's a culturally determined gender role That determines it. We're talking about these systemic problems but as soon as we start to recognize that we are in the water to go back to the beginning of this then we do have the opportunity to start noticing Yeah. and to start on a path of healing which means

that we move away from a reactive cycle Yeah. and we get to have some agency. Well what is it what is it practically? This is something we were fighting about not fighting about but This is something we were talking about because you know this this is very digestible. I think everyone can and should read this. I mean I literally said to my my almost 17 year old we have a book club now and I am assigning him this after Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke. Oh oh really? So I I said this is this

is completely digestible but the question is that I'm interested in what is next Yeah. For people. So you read this book you get maybe a little bit you will you'll get relief. There's a tremendous sense of relief and even reduction in some of the pain that you're experiencing but what's what do you practically do? You're you're you're me at well not me you're someone else. Okay well look and you wake up and you're like oh my gosh everything mattered. Everything they did I love my parents but does it mean you go into therapy? You start

digging? You Start meditating? You take ayahuasca which your work on ayahuasca is also fascinating and we don't have time to get all all up into it but Next time. What do you next time? What what do you do? Okay look. So let me be specific okay? You mentioned your workaholism okay? Yes. So there's a chapter there on that if you haven't noticed. This this She skipped that one. I did. This exercise where in your life do you have trouble saying no? Yes. So sounds like Name an area. Well well sounds like work is an area

that you have trouble saying no in. Well yeah. Okay. Also everywhere. Okay yeah but let's stay with that one. If if that's okay with you. Sure. Okay. So work you have trouble saying no and So you are very busy. You're tremendously creative. Um you're very sensitive and you're one of these really talented sensitive people who generate so much in this world. You also have trouble saying no. You see need everywhere. And you want to meet all those needs. I want to fix it and I believe I have the power to do so is the fallacy

but yes. You have the power to make a difference. You don't have the power to fix it. Okay? Just as all of us do. Now the second question is what is the impact on you of your difficulty saying no? My health suffers. Okay. And the people closest to me Jonathan and my children suffer the most. Okay. Okay so that's I'm being honest. Of course you're being honest and I would Have said the same thing with myself. You know what as a matter of fact my wife who you met only four years ago or five years

ago said to me buddy you've written a book called When the Body Says No. Now write one called When the Wife Says No. Right. Okay? Cuz of my workaholism. So I get it I really get it. So this is not like an inquisition. I'm just trying to follow you asked me what we do. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay. Then the third question is what is the belief behind my difficulty saying no? Ah. Um that people will not think well of me or what you lose the attachment? Uh yeah. So that the tension between attachment and authenticity

something in you wants to say no. Right. But you don't say it for the sake for the fear of losing the attachment. Now as here here's the thing Mayim as an infant as a young child you had no choice in the matter. You had to choose attachment. Right. You don't anymore. Right. You can choose authenticity. Mhm. You know? And So that's the but anyway so that's the impact and the belief is if I say no people won't like me. Okay. The next question then is who would you be if you knew how to say no?

This is Byron Katie's work. We talked a little bit about this. is a similar question yeah. Who would you be if you know if you knew how to say no? I'd be myself. If I knew who that was. Yeah and I mean I'd I'd have free time my health would be better. You would be free. Right. Yeah. Okay. And there's a final question which is what are you not saying yes to because when we're Yep. so busy not saying no there's often a yes inside that wants to be expressed but we don't make space for

it. Now not saying that yes Now by the way this little word no you've had children. Mhm. What's the first word they start saying when they're one and a half? We didn't use the word no. We said not for. No not what you said but what what what what what the kids say Is you know no. Right. Why do the kids say we call it in our in our ignorance we call that the terrible twos. Mhm. Cuz we want our kids to be compliant. Mhm. But actually that's nature's way of helping to develop the child's

will because if you don't know how to say no our yeses don't mean anything at all. So what am I not saying yes to? I'm not Saying yes to quiet. Okay. saying yes to really being in my body. I'm not saying yes to actually feeling my feelings and processing them. I'm not saying yes to play. Okay. time I mean I could go on but you have to get on a plane. it. Those those are huge okay? So all I'm saying to you you asked me what to do sit down once a week and do this

exercise. But really be with it. Right. I mean you have a very um you have a mind that flies all over the place. Sit down with a piece of paper not with a computer. Piece of paper do this exercise with those six questions. Not in abstract but where this week where this week did I not say no? What was the impact this week of me not saying no? What was the belief this week of my not Behind on not saying no? Who would I be if I who would I be if I had said yeah

no and and so on. I'm telling you if you just do that exercise that itself will help to change you. But it so when you ask me what do people need to do they need to commit to their healing. There you go. Not just to talk about it. I'm very good at talking about healing. I'm much more reticent than actually engaging in it You know we all are. So this is where we have to just actually make a commitment. I have to we ask yourself what is important to me. So that's that I think that's

the first question. I think it's extremely helpful for people to hear that you don't need a retreat. You don't need a shaman. You don't need to have some massive intervention. You need to start by asking yourself how you feel and going through that process that You just outlined. There's all kinds of resources out there and you don't need necessarily any fancy retreat any big cathartic experience. Well, I I would say you need this book though. I'm serious. I use this as a guidebook. This um this literally has been um I've an incredible I mean I

don't even there's not We're starting a book club. We have all the notes already marked up. It's Unbelievable. We thank you for your time and if you miss your flight, please come back and we can talk more. See you in 2 hours. Well, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to meet you both really is and uh Thank you. You score very high on the authenticity scale in in in my books anyway. Thank you. I I I think it's important especially as Someone who you know struggled before I got pregnant, you know, what

was not a different person when I was pregnant and was not a different person, you know, after I gave birth. Um I want to be clear that when when he talks about you know, depressed you know, in our depressed mothers and their interaction um with babies uh you know, the idea is not A for you to feel guilty. Uh if you were are depressed and if you had impaired, you know, interactions with your child. I also want to say and I I do wish I had asked when he was here. A lot of those studies

are um severe depression beyond the scope of kind of what a a lot of women experience, you know, what we call sort of like baby blues which can be postpartum depression, but it is normal to have a drop in hormones and a drop in Expectation. You've been like looking forward to giving birth and then like oh, the thing just cries and needs to be changed and nursed all the time. So, he's not talking about that, but a lot of these studies are from, you know, situations where the mother was unable to care for herself. Um

and was still trying to care for and some of these are animal studies um and and I hope that that still has, you know, validity. I think Gabor really explained, you know, I think a lot about that. Um but a a lot of extreme stressful situations that lead to again mothers not being able to care for themselves is some of that interaction that we're talking about. Many of us are not at our best uh when we give birth and especially if we had a difficult or a traumatic birth or had having trouble breastfeeding or whatever

it is. Um You are not damaging your child irrevocably and I think especially, you Know, what he's saying is that you can intercept a lot of this stuff even I mean he's even encouraging me to do so and I'm 47, you know, almost. Um anyway, what I was told about him is that he you know, speaks very definitively and and clearly about kind of large categories, you know, the things that we deal with and I I feel like we got we absolutely got that, but also I was really happy to be able to kind of

like joke with him and ask things, you know, In a more kind of back and forth form because he's very academic and there's so many places, you know, do that, but I wanted to have it really feel like he was visiting our podcast, you know, he was visiting like our space. I mean I literally asked him what it felt like and he said something like oh, I I said but what did it like I It was great. Like I thought it was really You know, he's very human. I mean it was A laugh. You also

wanted to make it very specific and there was like two key takeaways if nothing else in this entire podcast. One you mean or Well, I think for for me, yes, but also I think for humanity in general because why not? The emotional system and the immune system are the same That was functioning systems. So cool. So, I really do believe in patterns and I know that you like very specific things. I like to sort of think a little bit at like a system level, but I think these this merges both of them. It's both a

system and a very specific. If our if the role of the immune system is to protect protect, take in what it needs and keep out what it doesn't. Right. That is the exact same system as The emotional system. Right. It's the same function. So, if one of those systems is off Right. is it wildly surprising that the other system will also be off? It's amazing, but but so much of what he talks about, you know, for him it's just like he knows it. Like he's read the studies, he's done the work, but for a lot

of people when he says like well, you know, mind and body are one, a lot of people are still like well, like That's something you say in a yoga class, you know, it's something that like you hear on one of your meditation apps, right? It's it's something you put on a t-shirt or a tote bag. This is exactly why that information about the immune system and the emotional system being the same to me, that's like oh, the mind and body are the same. Right. Here is the scientific explanation of What that is and we had

a little bit with Joe. He tried to do that also with us when we had that interview. Yeah, and he tried to explain that and other people have explained it, but that is so concrete and specific. No, he's he is other level. Not just because also we didn't even get to talk about this. He I think he was a high school teacher for years and then went back to school to become a doctor. He's he's witnessed I think thousands of Births meaning like he's he's and I love that he was that doctor being like take

this pill like, you know, do that like cry it out with your baby, you know, he was that guy and now like if you watch his documentary which I highly recommend. I think it's been viewed over like 7 million times or something. Um he he talks about the ecstatic transcendental experience of accessing other parts of your brain that are waiting to be accessed. You had a Second point that was a takeaway. I want to know about transcendental experiences that are accessing part of my brain. But what's the second part what's the second takeaway? Uh the

second takeaway was that the neuro circuitry and bio and biochemistry of the brain grows and builds in relationship to an attuned connection. Most people who hear that either are going to dismiss it and say like that's bull I don't know or They're going to say oh my god. Everything that I experienced was what my mother's experience was, my father's experience. Whatever was happening in your home that's this point. Whatever was going on not even for you, for the people who are supposed to care for you and be attuned to you, that's what made your brain

grow. And chances are and don't blame me for this, blame this guy Gabor Maté for saying All of that that you experienced when your brain was developing is not done. It is going to keep being compounded by then our culture. Any trauma you may experience which if you're a woman or a vulnerable population, you're going to experience likely you're going to experience some trauma in your childhood, teen years, college years or beyond, right? So, he expands on that and says the childhood experiences create our Unconscious drivers that motivate us. And so if you are a

person who what was the things? Puts other people's needs before your own, feels a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility, feels what were the other things? Um is a nice person, a person who's always there for someone. I'll bring you a meal. Oh, you're sick, let me do it. Oh, you need an ear, I'll listen to you, right? Those people tend to Have their bodies start showing that they're struggling. So, he goes from So, like brain development trauma coping. And he talks about attachment versus authenticity. We're taught at a very young age because our on

that. Authenticity. We didn't even get to talk about that. There's a systematic denial of our emotional state that we learn from a Very young age and we choose attachment over authenticity because we have to sacrifice authenticity in order to survive because attachment is the primary need for us. Well, so and when I you know, when I whenever I talk to people about for example the cry it out method which he talks a lot about. When I say to people a child whose needs are not responded to Will stop asking for their needs to be met.

People don't like to hear that. No, he learned to sleep through the night. No, he didn't. Or she didn't. they they learned that if you have needs at hours that are not convenient for a parent they're they're not going to get answered, but but also what people say is oh, but what am I supposed to do? And like that's rushing to the That's Rushing to the conclusion. You know, the conclusion and the solution. Like I can't afford a nanny. It's not about that. It's the structure of our culture that says this is how you raise

a child. Yes, absolutely. And even beyond sleep. Yeah. If the child is scanning the environment and seeing how stressed the parents are Right. and recognizing oh, there's no space Yeah. Just scanning. We're all scanning all the time. We're watching, we're observing, we're sensing the emotional state of the people around us and if their emotional state is so busy, so full, so distracted, so stressed Confusing even. that the child can be well, there's no room for me to have needs right now and I will choose attachment over actual authentic expression of the needs. It looks like

I will be obedient. I will do whatever it takes to not to not be hurt. Or you have the opposite where it's I will act out act out act out in order to create space for myself and then you'll get the swing response. this sounds like? It sounds like a lot of grown-up relationships, right? If you're being hurt in a relationship your choice is get as small as you can or act out to get attention. Correct or leave and then you're alone. That's that's you getting that's getting withdrawn fully. No, but we're just going to

act out all of that and we were talking, our little gang here, we were talking about attachment attachment styles. And these are all different ways kind of at you know, this same thing, right? How were you responded to? What interaction did you have before you even remember? Guess what? It's probably part of how you interact now. When he Talked about um you know, children need to be able to express a full range of emotions. What do you understand that that means? Someone who's an extremely attentive loving father. Go ahead. When a child cries, what don't

you do? You don't shush them. So Meaning shh. Shh, it's okay. Don't worry. Stop crying. Why can't you say it's okay? I I don't know that it's okay. I don't know what they're actually going through. go. My favorite thing that parents do. You know what I When a child falls down, it's okay, you're okay. And you want to reassure them that the universe is fine, but like you just said. The difference between a parent who is attuned and aware and holding space for their child to have their own emotional experience, The kid falls down, you

observe and wait. Versus oh my god, that's such a big fall. Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Etc. etc. The difference is you will try and allow them to have their own emotional experience and you witness. So the notion of holding space is that you are I mean, I don't know how to else to say it be beyond using the same word to define the term, which you know, you're Not supposed to do. Holding space is as a witness, you are literally allowing that other person to exist. Great. No shushing. Let them have their

own experience. What else don't you do? When my son would fall, Mhm. and we would rush and pick him up, Mhm. he would like start to cry. Yeah. He was reacting as much to our concern for him. reacting. He can feel what you're feeling. Exactly. this to breastfeeding moms. Everything you're feeling is in your milk. So when we learned to wait a second, deal with our own oh my god, is he okay ourselves, Mhm. he would look at what had happened to him. He would pop up. He would go, "I fell down." Yeah. And he'd

point to his knee and then he'd be back playing in 2 seconds. they're hurt. What happens when they get hurt? Hold them. Let them cry. Uh-huh. Or see what they want and let them cry. Often it would be picking them up and often I would pick them up and hold them cuz he would come in for a hug and then he would like wiggle away after less than a minute and he would want to Go play again. Tell me about other emotions. What happens when a child is sad or disappointed? I mean, again, the best

thing that we've tried to do was to allow them to have that. Okay, so what does that mean? What don't you do? Distract. Food. Don't feed it. Yeah. It's very hard. You want to feed it when it's Hurt. Feed it, distract it, move it away. What happens when I think I've told this before, when my children were when when I was when we call it we, when we were divorced, when we were newly divorced and they they wanted their dad. What did I want to do? Let's write a letter. Let's do it and Siggy said,

"No. You say, 'Yeah, I miss I miss our family, too. I'm it and you We had an interesting experience where when we were newly divorced, my we also tried to do that. We tried to hold space. Yeah. And my son threw us a curveball. Mhm. Which was he would keep himself Mhm. in a tantrum-like state for like really extended periods of time. And like I'm talking like multiple hours. Right. And so when we got help and we were like, "Oh, he's just like he's stuck in a loop that he can't get himself out of." And

so these parents who were like trying to let allow him to have all of his emotions, Right. the advice we got was like, "Okay, allow that to happen, but if it continues for like 20 minutes Okay, separate but separate point. it's important because people will be Like, "Oh, you have to let them have everything." And then we were thrown this curveball. And so we had to say, "We hear you. We acknowledge. We empathize. We say, 'Yes, I know that's hard for you. There you go. You miss your dad. Yep. And you we have the next

5 minutes to be sad. Yep. After that, we're moving on. Right. And so And sometimes they'll still be upset, but what you show is the Ability to to move on. So when a child is sad or disappointed, you know, what what a lot of parents and again, a lot of well-meaning parents do is they try and explain why you shouldn't be sad, right? My ice cream cone fell on the floor. You can get another one. It's not such a big deal. And maybe in your family you got another one. We are not buying another one

because in many families that was your ice cream cone and You can share mine or Whatever it is. I the maybe, but also well, that's what happens when you are not looking where you're going and That's not helpful. Right. Well, and and again, a lot of parents do that well-meaning like, "I'm teaching consequences, right?" But what a child wants to hear is, "Oh, your ice cream cone fell on the floor and that really is a major bummer. That's right. And sometimes you can get a new ice cream cone and sometimes you Can't, but the notion

is that's what that's And I'm not trying to say that like Jonathan and I did it right and our kids are perfect, but what this man who is far wiser than we are what what Gabor is trying to say is that the things that we've been told are the normal ways to go about not just parenting, everything. It's actually not normal. And as an adult, if you've ever been in a relationship where someone effectively shushed you, you know what that feels like. It doesn't feel good. I I just raised my eyebrow. If you've been in

a relationship where someone has said, "I told you so." It feels the same as when you're a child and someone says that. And I was talking to somebody the other day and I was like, "We're just children Who are bigger. We're just kids who are bigger." So when I was talking about the neurocircuitry in the brain, I was you know, I was trying to talk about the growing neurocircuitry and then I started to talk about adults and you were like, "Don't you know, keep those two things apart." But where I was going is that our

brains are always in response or in Relation to the people around us. And so again, if there's an openness, if there's an attunement with someone else and they have availability emotionally, if they have availability with attention, then our literally our brains are going to fire differently in relationship with them. Absolutely. And also you know, what he would say is that was all it was Programmed long before. You know, I I say to you, I I didn't make you this way. I found you like this. Like that's true. We we find people exactly where they are.

We may trigger things in them, you know, that they hadn't had triggered in a minute, but that that's there. I mean, that it's it's there and then the environment and the other things we do around it, you know, can make it sprout up or not. The other thing that we didn't get to Talk about which is extremely important that I should have talked about with him. You know, he he supports the field of psychiatry um abstractly and also has a tremendous amount of criticism of the use of labels, which is something that we use a

lot here and it has already started me thinking differently about the way we talk about Things, the way I talk about the diagnoses I've been given and you know, so much of that is probably for an entire other episode because his notion is not that terms are not helpful. Descriptions are not helpful. They can often, you know, guide us to the next pathway or therapeutic or whatever, but this idea that once you slap a label on it, you know, you get put into a box that does not take into account all of the things happening,

you know, outside Of that box and what happened before we boxes even were invented. Um and it's a really really important and and nuanced discussion of what psychiatry gets wrong and how we can start to build a larger understanding of what those terms are for, what they do and how we can, you know, direct our health around them. I don't want to bring everything back to the Michael Singer episode, but we also touched base on Attachment to story, attachment to labels in that and started to say like, "What if that isn't the case? What if

there's another perspective to be had?" Look, we're going to start the map to yourself study group. Yeah, I would like him to move in with us and just tell us things all the time. He said it takes a village even to raise adults. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my neurobiologic breakdown. She's Going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction and now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.