Dr. Gabor Mate

Gabor Mate is a Hungarian born Canadian physician and author known for popular books linking trauma and stress to addiction and chronic illness. We chat about intergenerational trauma, capitalism and breathing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:11Speaker 01

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• 1:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wish upon a pinprick, you whispering Vincent's. Welcome to the Blind Eye Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. I am almost recovered from the chickenpox.

• 1:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  I no longer have the chickenpox virus, so I'm not itchy anymore. I don't have a fever. I'm free of the chickenpox virus. However, obviously, while I was convalescing, I was trying to find out everything and anything I could about chickenpox. I couldn't find...

• 2:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  No one really understands the etymology, why it's called chickenpox. I'd assumed, oh, this jumped from chickens to humans, nothing to do with that. There's not definitive answer as to why it's called chickenpox. One theory is because it's a pox, there were much more serious poxes, like cowpox or, or smallpox, like really serious diseases. So when, if you got chickenpox, it was like the less serious one, just a little chickenpox. Or another theory is that the bumps looked like chickpeas. What I understand the chickenpox to be now, having dealt with it.

• 2:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I don't have the virus anymore, I'm not sick, so why am I still unwell? Because it's, it's, it's like a very, very annoying chicken, jumped into my bed and pecked the living fuck out of me for three days solid. A very aggressive chicken who's seriously interested in my genital region, had a good old fucking peck at me for multiple days. And even when the virus was gone, I'm recovering from about a thousand wounds. There's a thousand wounds all over my body that I'm recovering from. So the tiredness and lethargy of that has been quite extreme. So I'm still not myself this week, but I do have a podcast.

• 3:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Even if I didn't have the energy for a full hot take. I chatted with a, a dream guest a couple of weeks back. A fellow by the name of Dr. Gabor Maté, who is someone I've wanted to speak to on this podcast for many years. One of my podcast listeners, the filmmaker Shannon Walsh, very kindly introduced me via email to Gabor Maté and helped to set up a chat. I've been trying to speak to Gabor Maté since, I think, 2018, 2017, and just haven't had a hope because his schedule, he's fully booked out. He's an internationally renowned speaker, so.

• 4:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Absolute privilege to be able to get to speak to him this week. If you don't know who Gabor Mate is, he's a former medical doctor who takes a trauma-informed approach to addiction, illnesses, the relationship between stress, trauma, the mind and the body. And he's a brilliant speaker. He's very outspoken about the system of capitalism, how the system of capitalism impacts our emotional wellbeing, our mental health. He's written books about addiction, trauma, parenting. He's also considered quite controversial when it comes to ADHD in particular.

• 4:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  He takes a trauma-informed view of ADHD rather than a diagnostic view. Now, I know some, because I'm neurodivergent, I'm diagnosed autistic, so I know some of my listeners now might be unhappy with me for platforming someone who has views that challenge the diagnostic model, especially when people fight so hard to get diagnosis and what diagnosis can mean for people. So, content warning, if you don't want to hear that, just skip, skip past the section where I speak to him about neurodivergence. So, me personally, you know, I'm diagnosed autistic, I'm comfortable with that diagnosis.

• 5:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  But I also, I think it's healthy to consistently challenge and question the DSM in particular, the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual. I'm diagnosed autistic because I met the diagnostic criteria in the DSM V, I think it was. Is it the five or the six? I think it's the five, DSM V. But the DSM is consistently changing. So, put it this way.

• 6:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  In 2012, I would not have been diagnosed as autistic. In 2012, there was another diagnosis in the DSM called Asperger's. So I probably would have been considered Asperger's, but I wouldn't have been diagnosed as autistic. When I was a kid in school, when I could have really benefited with a diagnosis, I wouldn't have gotten one because I was not considered autistic, not when I was back in school. Only in 2013, did Autism Level One become a diagnosis and that replaced Asperger's. In 1952, in the DSM I, being gay was classified as a mental illness.

• 6:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was classified as a sociopathic personality disturbance. Being gay was only removed from the DSM in 1973. So prior to 1973, if somebody was gay, they were considered mentally ill. They were diagnosed as a sociopath. Up until the 1980s, there was a diagnosis called hysteria that doesn't exist anymore. When I was diagnosed with autism, the person diagnosing me said to me, "Now, you know, this might change, you know, in, in five or six years' time or 10 years' time, they might decide to remove your autism diagnosis from the DSM." And if you're asking the question of, you hear it now in the press quite a lot,

• 7:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  "Why are there so many autistic people these days?" "There was no autistic people in my day." "What, what's with this sudden explosion of autism?" And it's not a sudden explosion of autism. The diagnostic criteria changed in 2013. So now more people are being identified as autistic under the current DSM criteria. I mean, what matters to me personally as an autistic person is what does the diagnosis mean for me? I, I find it quite helpful, helps me to understand myself better. It would have been way more helpful when I was in school. Would have been really helpful then, but I think it is, it's healthy to challenge.

• 8:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Psychiatry, it is healthy to challenge the DSM, which consistently changes and to ask questions around it. So when, when I'm chatting to Gabor Maté, that's the context that I'm speaking to me. I'm speaking to me in the context of not accepting the DSM as a Bible, but instead asking questions around it. And you're free to disagree with it and you're free to not fucking listen at all. If that's what you, if you don't want to hear that. Before I get into the chat with Gabor, I don't want to interrupt it. So I'm going to do a little Ocarina pause.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of the higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings and sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 9:38Speaker 00

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• 10:51Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab, tech in steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high-fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly cake. Ready-to-cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 12:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was the Ocarina pause, you'd have heard an advert there for some bullshit. That was an actual Ocarina. Um, I'm saving the Protestant flute. I have a lovely low Protestant flute that was given to me in Belfast. I'll have that next week, I think. I'll play it for you. Lovely sound. Sounds almost Japanese. If you're a regular listener to this podcast and it brings you mirth or merriment or distraction, entertainment, whatever the fuck, as you're listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

• 13:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  This podcast is how I earn a living. It's my full-time job. It's how I pay all my bills. It's how I purchase the equipment to make the podcast, how I rent out my studio. This is how I earn a living and listener support is how I have the time and space to show up with a podcast every Wednesday. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. And as always, if you can't afford that, if you don't have that money, if you, don't worry about it. Listen to the podcast for free. You listen for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast. I get to earn a living and I'm not beholden to the whims of advertisers.

• 14:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Advertisers can't come in here, change the content in any way. I'm not worried about popularity, about how many listens I get. I don't want to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. I just want to show up each week and be passionate. That's it. Just a few upcoming gigs. So last week, as you know, I had to cancel my gig in Galway because I fell sick with the chicken pox. And that's the first, the first gig that I had to cancel because of illness since 2011. So that Galway gig has now been rescheduled, okay, to the 25th of April. So that's just.

• 14:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  About six weeks away, the 25th of April. If you bought a ticket, those tickets are valid. You can come along to that gig. I put it on on a Saturday night. Hopefully it wouldn't inconvenience anyone. If you can't make it to that gig and you did buy a ticket, you're entitled to a refund. But that also means that there should be a few tickets available if you want to buy one and come along to that gig in Galway on the 25th of April. And thank you so much to everybody for your patience and understanding because it's not nice for a gig to get cancelled and for your plans to be changed. So thank you so much to everybody for being patient around that. I'm a bit slurry with my words this week. I'm convalescing. I'm convalescing. That's, that's the, the actual word for what I'm up to right now. Convalescing.

• 15:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  My body is recovering. So anyway, this Saturday, the 28th of, it's February, isn't it? 28th of February, this Saturday, I'm going to be gigging in the Aineck in Killarney. There's no fear of that gig getting cancelled. I'm better. My chickenpox is fucking gone. I'm just a bit wrecked. But by Saturday, which is six days away, I'll be fucking flying it. And I can't wait to get down to Kerry to gig in the Aineck and to use the, the broom closet as my dressing room to humble myself. And I have a cracker of a guest as well. I'm going to be speaking to Sean Ronaine. Again, the bard expert. Sean Ronaine is an expert on bard sounds. He's also autistic. I had him on the podcast about three years ago.

• 16:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  He's fascinating. He, he's a, he's a listener to this podcast and he has some new information about starlings that he wants to tell me about. So if you fancy that, if you want to, if, if you want to listen to two, two people, two autistic people get very, very enthusiastic about starlings, then come along to that gig there on Saturday in the Aineck in Killarney. Sean Ronaine is fucking unreal. He's, he's an expert in bard sounds. He is fascinating and he is Mr. Starling. So then March 14th, I'm in Carlow. I think that's sold out. Cork on the 23rd of March, couple of tickets left for that. That's selling out very quickly. There's only about a hundred tickets left for that.

• 17:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Then April, I'm in Castle Blaney up in Monaghan, let's do that. Limerick City on the 9th of April. Again, very few tickets left for that. Dublin, Vicar Street, 20th of April. Four gigs in April now, I'd be busy in fucking April with that Galway one thrown in. But yeah, Vicar Street on the 20th and then the Galway, the Galway one on the 25th. June, Berlin, Berlin, um, my Berlin gig sold out, right? So I'm adding a second Berlin date on the 20th of June. Then I'm over in fucking Sheffield in July.

• 17:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  On the 5th is it? The 5th of July, I'm in Sheffield, looking forward to that at the Cross the Wires Festival. And then sure, fuck it, look. That big tour of England, Scotland and Wales in October, which is selling quickly even though it's ages away. Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead and Nottingham. Fanned off co.uk forward slash Blind by for tickets for that and the other gigs. The blind by podcast.ie, assuming the website is working, it's very buggy. Let's get into this chat with Gabor Mate. We speak about intergenerational trauma, capitalism.

• 18:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  We speak about breathing to calm the nervous system. Gabor's schedule is very, very busy, so I was quite lucky to get the time with him that I did. And I hope you enjoy it, I hope you enjoy this chat with Gabor Mate. And check out his website, doc, drgabbermate.com and check out his books. Gabor Mate, thank you so much for your time. The first thing I want to speak to you about is the impacts of intergenerational trauma. So I'm Irish, we're a colonised people, 800 years of, of colonisation.

• 19:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  The impacts of this are evident in our mental health, our self-image, our rates of addiction. But something else I always really struggled to understand is.

• 19:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  If you look at the history of Irish people in North America, we'll say, New York, you have this historically oppressed population arriving into New York. Like, I'm talking the 1830s, 1840s. They arrive to New York and they suddenly find themselves living alongside another oppressed population, formerly enslaved African American people. But the Irish in America brutalised their African American neighbours. If you look at like the New York draft riots where there were lynchings, or even the history of of Irish people performing in minstrel shows in the 1850s or the 1860s.

• 20:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  It would appear that the the Irish history of of oppression did not result in understanding or solidarity with other people who were oppressed. And as soon as Irish people achieved proximity to power, they willingly engaged in in the oppression of of another group. Um, you're Jewish, you're very outspoken against the conduct of Israel. I can't help but draw parallels between these two things. Jewish people are historically a very oppressed group. There's the Holocaust, and then even before the Holocaust, a history of of antisemitic

• 20:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  pogroms and ethnic cleansing, going back a thousand years all over Europe. I'd love to get your opinion on this as it relates to the conduct of Israel towards the the people of Palestine. Why does historical oppression not emerge as solidarity? Why do why do historically oppressed groups sometimes enact that same behaviour upon other oppressed people?

• 21:24Speaker 05

  Well, let's make it more general. If you look at the people that came into North America from Europe, very often they came from oppressed, deprived backgrounds. And

• 21:39Speaker 05

  They enthusiastically are joined in suppressing and massacring the indigenous peoples.

• 21:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Absolutely, yes.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  And so what you say about the Irish, they just join the general trend of immigrants who've been traumatized themselves, but then find themselves in a position of power. And now they're acting out what happened to them on people who are less powerful than they are. And the same thing happened in Palestine. So that the same British Empire that colonized and oppressed Ireland for all those years took over Palestine. And they empowered Jews from Europe, they lorded over the indigenous population.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  And the Jews there have done precisely what other escapees from trauma have done, which is to identify with power. Now we have power, we can assert ourselves, and now we don't have to be weak and victims anymore. And then they victimized the local population. And this has happened in colonial systems all around the world, from Africa to Australia and New Zealand, North America, South America, of course. So it's nothing unusual about it. It's a bit tragic, and the horror in Palestine is beyond words.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  But it's of a peace with the history of people who, under a colonial umbrella, escaped from their own suffering and they inflict suffering on others. It's a very common phenomenon.

• 23:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  Where does healing even begin with something like this?

• 23:26Speaker 05

  Well, you can't heal people who don't want to be healed. And colonizers generally don't want to be healed. So that as long as, you know, it works for them and they can maintain power and privilege, they're not looking for healing. So, you know, in Israel, there are some people, you know, very...

• 23:50Speaker 05

  Respectable minority, but a small minority, who want to heal their country's

• 23:59Speaker 05

  increasingly fascistic tendencies.

• 24:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 05

  But they are a minority. And if you look at Nazi Germany, nobody there wanted healing. As long as Germany was winning the war, you know, and dominant and, and same with the British Empire, you know, um, the British didn't want healing. They just want to maintain their dominance. So when you say where does healing come from, um, healing doesn't come unless people invite it. And as long as

• 24:34Speaker 05

  there's power and privilege and relative safety,

• 24:42Speaker 05

  people don't want healing. And you know, the Irish in New York typically, they became cops.

• 24:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 24:49Speaker 05

  And they beat up on, on the workers.

• 24:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Culture of racist brutality.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  And on black people and immigrants and so on. And that was their way of, um, of getting a sense of, um, agency and dominance, you know, of which they may deprived all those centuries. So it's an all too common human phenomenon.

• 25:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  For listeners who might not be aware, I've heard you speak very powerfully before about intergenerational trauma and your own family's history of being victims of the Holocaust. Are you okay to speak about that?

• 25:26Speaker 05

  It is okay. I'm almost today too tired of talking about it.

• 25:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 25:31Speaker 05

  Only because, um, it's, it's a story of so many people around the world, you know, uh.

• 25:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  And, and also, you know, I, I resist

• 25:45Speaker 05

  the idea that because this happened to my family or to me personally as an infant, therefore I have some kind of authority to speak on matters, you know, because.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  The same thing happened to other people and they have totally different points of view from mine. So the truth is the truth and no matter what happened to my family, the truth of Ireland is the truth of Ireland and the truth of Palestine is the truth of Palestine, you know. So one's individual story doesn't grant one authority. But, you know, yeah, so I was an infant. I don't want, not dismissing it, but, you know, I was, I was an infant under the Nazis. I was two months old when the Nazis occupied Hungary and large parts of my extended family were exterminated, including my grandparents. I stood in the very

• 26:40Speaker 05

  spot in Auschwitz last May where my grandparents would have alighted from the train and be sent right to the, to the gas chambers, you know. So that's my family history and I spent my first year as an infant in very dire conditions and being sick nearly to death as an infant and separated from my mother and all that. So that, you know, that's the history. But again, when I say we call it Palestine, the, the truth of what I say, insofar as I speak truth, is not because of what happened to me personally, but because that's just the truth,

• 27:24Speaker 05

  you know. And some Holocaust survivors will draw entirely different conclusions and what they'll, they'll conclude is that now we Jews have to assert ourselves and be dominant, otherwise we'll be massacred again, you know. And that's a completely illegitimate conclusion, as far as I'm concerned. But they can also claim Holocaust survival is kind of their platform, you know. So that, that history doesn't give me any more validation than it gives the other side any validation.

• 27:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I'm diagnosed autistic.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  What does it mean to you, the diagnosis?

• 28:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Ah, it's, it's a new word that I've been given that describes how I've been my whole life.

• 28:09Speaker 05

  What is being described?

• 28:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  I mean, sometimes I prefer the word neurodivergent.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  Divergent from what? You know?

• 28:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  See, that's the thing.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  But you use the word neurodivergent.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  The word divergence is in it.

• 28:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Uh huh.

• 28:28Speaker 05

  Divergence means that's something that you diverged from. What is that thing that you that you diverged from? In other words, it assumes a kind of normality. And you're not on that scale of normal, you're divergent from normal. But what the hell is that normal? That you're supposed to have diverged from? I'm really questioning. I know this, I know it describes certain traits and so on, but as an explanation? What are you diverging from?

• 28:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  I suppose as a kid, what I was diverging from was being able to to sit still in school. Being able to focus on on what I was told to focus on instead being consumed by by passions and interests and and this really getting in in the way of me being able to participate.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  But human beings are not meant to sit in school. The the way we evolved as human beings for millions of years, actually. And even in the life of our own species and homo sapien, our our particular species has been on the earth for hundred fifty, two hundred thousand years. Did kids sit in school most of that time? No, hell, they were running around on the savanna or in the jungle. They weren't sitting in desks made to listen to stuff that bored them. So what are we diverging from?

• 29:53Speaker 05

  What I'm saying is that this assumption that, you know, my my latest book is called The Myth of Normal.

• 29:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 05

  Trauma, illness and healing and a toxic culture. But what is this normal? Is it normal to sit in a classroom and listen to boring stuff? Not not in terms of human evolution, it isn't. It's only been, we've only been doing it for a short period of time. So what is it that you're divergent from? Why should you sit in a classroom still and listen to stuff that bores you?

• 30:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've read your book, Scattered Minds, which you you published in nineteen ninety nine. So that's twenty seven years ago. And I'd love to know. Ha has your opinion changed around around ADHD and neurodivergence in general?

• 30:42Speaker 05

  The only thing that has changed.

• 30:46Speaker 05

  Again, I do resist this phrase neurodivergence. Because I'm saying that that assumes that there's a healthy normal from which people are diverging. And I question that. My opinion has only been confirmed by science since I wrote that book. And the opinion is very simple. The human brain develops an interaction with the environment. And there are certain needs that the developing brain of the young child has for calm or tuned interaction with the nurturing adults. When the environment is stressed,

• 31:27Speaker 05

  then the brain of the particularly sensitive child is affected by that stress. And that's been confirmed by science over and over and over and over again since I wrote that book. Uh, now, the only thing that has changed is that I used to think that this diagnosis, my diagnosis with ADHD, I used to think these explains things. But actually, the diagnoses don't explain anything at all. Because let's say, in my case, Gabor's been diagnosed with ADHD. Well, how do we know he's got ADHD? Well, he says, he tends to tune out, he's had poor impulse control, and uh, he's had trouble sitting still.

• 32:11Speaker 05

  Well, why does he have poor impulse control? Why does he tune out? Why does he have trouble sitting still? Because he's got ADHD. How do we know he's got ADHD? Because he's got poor impulse control and tends to tune out and has trouble sitting still. Why does he have, you know, in other words, these, these diagnoses don't explain anything. They just describe something. But don't mistake a description for an explanation.

• 32:39Speaker 05

  If you want an explanation, look at that person's life. Look how sensitive they are genetically. Look at their environment, look at the multi-generational family history. Um, look at the early environment in the womb and on birth and after birth in the family. That's how you can explain things. So the diagnoses are just descriptions of certain traits, but they don't explain anything at all.

• 33:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  And this, this approach that you take, which is like trauma-informed and very systemic. You're, you're looking at the, at systems, at society, at inequality in society. The, it sounds very inconvenient for capitalism.

• 33:21Speaker 05

  Well, that's why the book is subtitled, uh, Trauma, Illness, and Union and Toxic Culture. Capitalism is a toxic culture.

• 33:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Uh huh.

• 33:29Speaker 05

  Because the, the, um, the fundamental assumption of capitalism is that human beings are individualistic, aggressive, acquisitive, selfish, and competitive. That's the implicit view and even the explicit view of human nature. So when we talk about Darwinism.

• 33:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  In a very wrong way, by the way. We're talking about people relentlessly competing and the strong oppressing the weak.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  That's the assumption. But that's not true about human beings. On the contrary, by evolution, we are communal creatures, meant to care for each other. And if we hadn't, we would not have evolved as a species. It's that simple. In other words, we're living in a system that makes a fundamental assumption about human beings. That's the very opposite of what human, um, evolution and needs actually would demand. It's a toxic culture and, and, and the reason why.

• 34:47Speaker 05

  The science that I'm summing up for you in terms of brain development is not even taught in medical schools is very simple because if it was, um, we'd have to question the whole system that we live in.

• 35:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 05

  You know, and, and as you say, it's very inconvenient for capitalism to recognize that human beings have needs other than a power of profit and privilege.

• 35:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Are you familiar with, um, how Abraham Maslow's work?

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Was, was, he, he initially, as I understand it, he initially worked with the Blackfoot Indigenous people in Canada. And the, the pyramid of needs, as we understand it today, is not Maslow's original observations. It's a pyramid that's been co-opted over the years by textbooks to suit capitalism.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  That's right. And what, what, um, what seems to be left out of, I'm trying to remember the pyramid of needs, but what seems to be left out of it is the need for communality. It's all about individual, um, hierarchy, but it's not about a communal, uh, whereas at the Blackfoot, it was very communal.

• 36:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  And in, in your own work, Gabor, have you ever worked with people, populations of people who exist outside of capitalism, who, uh, what I mean there is maybe indigenous people are systems of living that contradict this capitalistic way, this individualistic way that we're conditioned to see as, as the norm.

• 36:22Speaker 05

  Well, I've worked a lot with indigenous people in Canada.

• 36:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 05

  But, and I've learned something of their values and their traditions and their practices. And the way, I can sum it up in one phrase, and I quote this in The Myth of Normal, the, uh, and indigenous people greet each other, you know what they say? They see all my relations.

• 36:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  By all my relations, they mean not just other, their relatives. They mean everything they're related to, including the trees and the rocks and the animals. And this is how they greet each other. And when I've taken part in certain indigenous ceremonies, such as a sweat lodge, for example. Sweat lodges, you have this tent, you have a pit in the center. Outside the tent, they fire up these rocks, make them red hot. Then they pull them into the hole in the center of the, the pit in the center of the tent, and they pour water on it, so you get this sweat. And they close the door, you get this intense heat, sweating. But when they're dragging in the rocks, they're saying,

• 37:31Speaker 05

  "We're bringing the grandmothers and the grandfathers." So the rocks are the grandmothers and the grandmothers. No.

• 37:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  That may seem fancifully, hmm, what's the word? Naive or romanticized, but think about it. The Bible says, "We come from dust to dust."

• 37:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Uh huh.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  It's true. Those rocks, at some point, might become part of a human being. Absolutely. And, and all of our parts, all of our molecules, at some point, belong to the water or the earth, so that, it's not fanciful to call those rocks, "Here come the grandfathers and the grandmothers," this is actually scientific reality. But it's also a spiritual reality. So, I've, I've had the opportunity to experience and to witness this. The problem, of course, in Canada, is that because of the colonialism that we discussed at the very beginning of this conversation, these people have been terribly traumatized and oppressed. And that has really distorted their culture and their development and

• 38:34Speaker 05

  their families and, you know, I can...

• 38:39Speaker 05

  One little fact I can tell you is that in Canada indigenous women make up five percent of the female population, they make up seventy percent of the jail population.

• 38:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow.

• 38:52Speaker 05

  Because of colonial trauma and the same thing is true in New Zealand, Australia, where indigenous young man had something like fifteen to twenty times the risk of dying in jail than a Caucasian one. And so that people have their traditions and these days indigenous people around the world are rediscovering and revivifying their traditions, but they're doing it under tremendous colonial strain and in the aftermath of unspeakable colonial trauma, which continues to this day, as it does in Palestine.

• 39:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  And for the listeners that mightn't be familiar with you, I'd love for you to speak about how the work that you did with people in addiction on the streets of Vancouver and how this informed your view of addiction.

• 39:44Speaker 05

  By the time I went to work there, I had certain insights already, you know, but

• 39:51Speaker 05

  you know, the changing of a mind is, for me, it was never a sudden dramatic flash of insight. It was usually a process, you know. So working with this heavily addicted population and hearing their lifestyles and getting to know them as people and appreciate them as wonderful souls that they were, it deepened my understanding. And then, you know, when I wrote my book on eviction and the realm of Hungry Ghosts, I also immersed myself in the scientific literature. And again, what struck me is the gap between medical practice and the science.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  Because the science is very clear, you know, certain experiences shape the brain in ways that make people more prone for addiction. So that the biology of addiction is an outcome of life experience and particularly trauma and multi-generational trauma.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  The literature is clear on that, but medical practice completely ignores the science. And so in working in the downtown city of Vancouver and doing the reading and getting to know these people, again, I was struck by the medical ideology on the one hand and reality on the other, let alone the ideology of capitalism in general, and which would just basically, because the addict is an economic liability.

• 41:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  Is despised and ostracized. So if you're addicted to power and profit and you destroy the earth by fomenting climate change, you're considered a great success.

• 41:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  But if you're addicted to cocaine and therefore you can't hold down the job, you're an enemy. You know, it's that simple. And when I ask myself, which addiction is more harmful for life and society and the world? Well, it's clear. But we ostracize the one who's economically not util and useful, and we glorify the one that's actually destroying the earth. And they're both addictions.

• 42:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I've heard you speak before, Gabor, about the trauma that rich, privileged people have, which not a lot of people want to speak about because we don't want to view, society doesn't want to view those people compassionately because they have more than us. But this week, we're all looking at the, we're looking at the Epstein files and we're looking at elite people engaging in horrendous acts of abuse. And these are all really wealthy, privileged people. And we're just like, what's going on? You have everything. What are you doing?

• 42:53Speaker 05

  Well, they have everything except integrity and inner peace. And they want more and more, that's the nature of power, that's the nature of privilege, that's the nature of profit, is the ego wants to keep enhancing itself. And these people are runaway egos, where they don't care a damn about the impact of their behavior on other people. Now, we can look at the childhood trauma of a character like a Donald Trump, and he's a severely, he's a poster boy for trauma, as my psychiatrist friend Bessel van der Kolk says.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  One can recognize, in fact, it's impossible not to see, every time he opens his mouth, it's an expression of his internal trauma.

• 43:47Speaker 05

  At the same time, he does a tremendous amount of harm, projecting his trauma onto the rest of the world. And that's what these people in the Epstein files did. So whether they're spiritual teachers, or entertainment figures, or politicians, or business people, they were both charmed by the sociopathic charisma of this Epstein. And one can recognize the trauma-based emptiness of their souls, but at the same time, one has to stand up and resist their impact on the world.

• 44:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you ever feel that the system is set up so that only people who are comfortable with cruelty can succeed in that system? I mean, Jesus, just using something like health insurance companies as an example, like if you become the CEO of a health insurance company, or high up in a health insurance company, the company profits by, not by providing people with health insurance, but by denying them health insurance, by denying sick people health insurance. That system itself seems fairly toxic to me.

• 45:04Speaker 05

  Well, let me quote you.

• 45:07Speaker 05

  From the book The Myth of Normal, chapter twenty-one is about how corporations, it's called "They Just Don't Care If It Kills You: Sociopathy as Strategy." And what it's about is that the corporations, the food corporations, the health corporations, the resource extraction corporations, you know, the fuel, energy corporations, the cigarette companies, the pharmaceutical companies, they know, they've known for decades, the impact of their activities on the health and lives of humans, the devastating impacts.

• 45:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 05

  Like the sugar companies, the food companies, do you think they don't know how their products kill people? Of course they do.

• 45:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 05

  They have all the research. So, I was speaking to an American endocrinologist who deals with children's glandular problems, endocrine problems, including diabetes. And he says that he's seeing heart disease in kids now that he never used to see because of the foods that people eat and the sugar industry. And he says to me, "It's not that they want you to die, they only want your money. They just don't care if it kills you." And that's the corporations. Not that they want you to die, but they don't care if you do,

• 46:42Speaker 05

  you know, as long as they make a profit. That's the essence of it. And there's a, here I live in Vancouver in Canada, and there's a professor here at the University of British Columbia, who's a world-renowned expert on psychopathy. His name is Robert R. D. Hare, H-E-R-E. And he said, and I'm quoting from The Myth of Normal here, he says, "Not all psychopaths are in prison. Some are in the boardroom."

• 47:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do we reduce stress when we can't change the material conditions that are causing the stress? Now, I mean, someone who's they're trapped in their job and the job is the source of stress and they don't have the capacity to quit that job because of financial circumstances. How do we manage stress within that prison?

• 47:33Speaker 05

  Well, that's very difficult. It's very difficult. I mean, it's for people who are economically constrained to take on demeaning or meaningless, arduous work under unsympathetic bosses and supervisors. Who am I to tell them how to escape their stress? You know, this is where it becomes not an individual question, but a social question.

• 48:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 05

  In a society where unions had power to protect their workers and to fight back and to stand up for their members, that's a very different story. But as you and I both know, over the last several decades, catalyze has been very successful in attenuating the power of unions.

• 48:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 05

  Much, at least in North America, a much smaller portion of the working force is unionized than used to be, and that's devastating for a lot of people. So for people like that, how do you reduce the stress? Well, all I have is a bunch of facile words, you know? You've got to accept what you can't change and don't take it personally. In your personal life, do what you can to look after yourself, to look after your body, to eat as well as you can, to get into nature, to take some breaths, do some best practice, do some yoga, talk to somebody, share your feelings.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  Take on activities that give you some sense of meaning, whether it's artistic expression or nature, whatever it is. But you know, don't indulge yourself in addictive behaviors to get away from your stress and your pain. It's only gonna make it worse for you. It's very easy for me to say these things and in somebody who's in a tough situation, I don't know what I'd be like trying to follow my own advice.

• 49:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  I want to direct a question at the medical professional in you. You mentioned breathing. What is the power of the breath and breathing over our nervous systems and our mental health?

• 49:54Speaker 05

  If you look at traditional ancient spiritual practices, particularly from India.

• 50:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 50:03Speaker 05

  Breath has always been a huge part of it. Because when you look at how human beings breathe, they tend to breathe in a very shallow way.

• 50:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  And that has to do with stress. And that has to do with the autonomic nervous system. So our nervous system under conditions of stress and trauma are completely dysregulated. So breath practices such as various yoga breathing and various ancient Indian, you know, Kundalini yoga practices and so on, they actually regulate the autonomic nervous system, which can regulate our stresses. So breath practice, a very famous spiritual teacher once said that more important than that you should append a bunch of spiritual retreats

• 51:01Speaker 05

  and read a lot of spiritual books, take a few conscious breaths every day. So right now.

• 51:10Speaker 05

  I begin by day with a very short, but very conscious breathing practice. And as many times a day as I can remember, I'll take four or five very conscious breaths. And that helps to regulate the autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve and

• 51:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  other mechanisms. So.

• 51:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  And, and what is that breath, Gabor, just for the listener? Like, what is it specifically that you do?

• 51:34Speaker 05

  Oh, well, there's many breath practices and I don't claim to be any kind of an expert on them. But the one that I do that I've learned, it's not original to me, is, um, it's called four, seven, eight. And so it's, um, I just, you know, you take four breaths in, um, or you breathe in through the nose through a count of four, like.

• 51:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 05

  That's four. And then you hold for a count of seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And then putting your lips, putting your tongue against your teeth, your top teeth, you breathe out through the mouth to a slow count of eight.

• 52:26Speaker 05

  So it's four, seven, eight, and you do that four times. And you do that several times a day. And if you wake up at night, you do it again. And that's one particular simple breathing practice. It's called four, seven, eight.

• 52:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Have you found yourself using that in challenging situations, in emotionally triggering situations?

• 52:45Speaker 05

  I do. I, I, these days I do.

• 52:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm conscious of your time now, Gabor. I just want to say thank you so much for the chat. Um, I've been wanting to speak to you for a very, very long time and it's been an absolute privilege. Thank you so much. Dog bless.

• 53:00Speaker 05

  Well, uh, thank you so much for having me. Have a wonderful evening.

• 53:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  So that was my chat with the magnificent Dr. Gabor Mate. I thoroughly enjoyed that chat. Hopefully he'll come back at some point. I'd love to have more time with him or to speak to him in person. I'll be back next week. Hopefully with a hot take. I look forward to getting back into my office and sticking my head down and doing some research. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan, genuflect to a worm. Dog bless.

• 53:44Speaker 06

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• 54:20Speaker 07

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