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

Are you free or do you just think that you are free? Are you in fact trapped by your past and every reaction you make shaped by your history? In this moment Dr Gabor Mate discusses how trauma can become a puppet master controlling every aspect of your life and even lead to addiction as a coping mechanism to avoid pain. To overcome this Dr Mate believes you must become aware of your trauma and make it your friend rather than your master, because the opposite of trauma is liberation. Listen to the full episode here - ⁠ https://g2ul0.app.link/mHAISevPAyb The conversation cards waitlist is now open, join now - ⁠http://bit.ly/3l7dhKG⁠ Gabor: https://www.instagram.com/gabormatemd/ Watch the episodes on YouTube - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  In the diary of a CEO, we have hundreds of questions that have been left by our guests. And we've put them on these cards. And on these cards, you have the question that's been left in the diary of a CEO. The name of the person who wrote the question. And if you turn it over, there's a QR code. If you scan that code, you can see which guest answered the question and watch the video of them answering it. Every time I've done this podcast and every time we've asked the kind of questions we ask here, I feel a tremendous sense of affinity to the guest. And our aim with these cards is that you can create that sense of connection through vulnerability at home with the people you love the most. And I have some good news for you.

• 0:44Steven Bartlett?

  As of today, you can add your name to the waiting list to be the first in line to get your own set of Conversation Cards at theconversationcards.com. That is theconversationcards.com. Most people, they're living unaware of the puppet master of trauma that is driving their life.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  That's a really good analogy. The trauma really is like a puppet master behind the scenes or in the unconscious, pulling your strings and you're not aware of it, you know? Do you remember Pinocchio?

• 1:13Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  So you remember what Pinocchio says at the end where he finally becomes a real boy?

• 1:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  He says how foolish I was when I was a puppet.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  And to the extent that we're being activated by these unconscious strings that our trauma is pulling behind the scenes. And we're acting in our lives and we think we're autonomous, free beings, but we're actually being controlled by something in the past that we haven't worked out. We're puppets. We're actually puppets. And there's not, there's not much freedom in that. There's no freedom in it at all. So, I mean, I suppose the opposite of trauma, if you want to revisit that question, is liberation.

• 1:57Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting.

• 2:00Steven Bartlett?

  Liberation and by reconnection.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  By reconnection, but liberation from the inexorable power of the unconscious.

• 2:09Steven Bartlett?

  Which is like cutting the strings in a way. Kind of brings me to, there's kind of two ways I want to go with that. But the first question I have about about trauma and the puppet master analogy is, do we ever, do we ever really cut the strings? Or do we just kind of learn to pull against them when they try and tell us to do something with more force than they're exerting in the opposite direction?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  That doesn't work very well, pushing against it because they're still reactive. You're still not in charge. You're just in automatic resistance mode to something. There's no freedom in that either, you know?

• 2:40Steven Bartlett?

  Still.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  But awareness that you mentioned is huge because once you're aware that there's this, see, the thing about these things may not fray right away. But once you're aware that, ah, this reaction of mine, it's not about what's going on right now. There's something old being activated here. That awareness alone weakens the, it slackens the strings a bit. Now you're no longer, they're no longer as taught, they're no longer as automatically

• 3:15Speaker 01

  capable of pulling on you. So it does have to be, begin with awareness of them. Ultimately,

• 3:23Speaker 01

  if we realize that this puppet master is just a desperate little person trying to get you to survive, the only way he, she, they knew how when you were small, when they were small, if you make friends with it, but we relieve it of its duties, say, thanks very much, but I can handle it now.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  It eventually becomes our friend rather than sort of our master.

• 3:48Steven Bartlett?

  On that first step of just acknowledging, just understanding that there is a puppet master there controlling us and exactly which strings that puppet master is pulling in our lives, how does one go about awareness, the process of awareness? Is that, I mean, is it introspection, keeping a diary, therapy? What is it?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Well, all that, I mean, all or any. But even when you ask how you go about it, what is the it? Well, for you to say how to go about it, you already must have some degree of awareness. If you didn't, you wouldn't even be asking the question. So that's the very first step. Of realizing that there's something here to work on. There's something here to work through. It does not need to be the way it is. That already is the biggest step. The Buddha said that to recognize the source of your suffering is the first step towards relieving the suffering. And so as soon as you ask how you go about it, you've already taken a huge step. Because a lot of people don't even know that there's an it. They just think this is a reality, that this is life.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  So realizing that this it doesn't have to be the way it is. That's already a huge step now. Beyond that, yoga, meditation, nature, therapy of all kinds, bodywork of all kinds, like somatic experiencing, or craniosacral treatments, or even massage therapy. It's incredible what can be revealed just through bodywork like that. Then all kinds of forms of therapy, the ones I teach, the ones other people teach. Journaling, certain exercises in this book that we recommend.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Like just ask yourself, where you have trouble saying no in life to things you don't really want to do? And working that through on a regular basis. So there's lots of ways, once you open the door. You know, I have a chapter on psychedelics here, which is, again, it's not like a panacea or for everyone, but certainly it's a helpful modality for a lot of people. So some people may actually benefit from taking pharmaceutical medications, if their situation is dire enough, but not as the final answer, but as a way of getting respite that allows them to go to work on real issues that cause them to be depressed, or anxious, or tuning out.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  You know, so any and all of these things.

• 6:19Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of people don't even want to open those doors, though. Because there's so much pain associated with maybe going back or revisiting an early experience that they just think it's better to keep the doors shut.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:30Steven Bartlett?

  And get to tomorrow.

• 6:32Speaker 01

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

• 7:09Steven Bartlett?

  On that point, I find it so fascinating, when you mentioned in your previous book that, you know, you classified things like food,

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:17Steven Bartlett?

  social media,

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:19Steven Bartlett?

  shopping,

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:20Steven Bartlett?

  porn and work as types of addiction. That was, that in and of itself was a bit of a revelation for me because I never saw work as an addiction. The minute you said it was, and I kind of link it to, you know, heroin addiction, which is providing, you know, a certain psychological or physiological benefit to me.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, temporarily.

• 7:41Steven Bartlett?

  Temporarily. Of course, it's a fucking addiction. Of course, work is an addiction. Of course, I have that addiction.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Well, work can be an addiction.

• 7:48Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Work can also be sacred. It can also be fulfilling and a manifestation of your creative urges. But it's, so it's not the, but strange to say, not that I recommend it, but it's possible even to use heroin in a non-addictive way. I don't personally get it and I would never want to, but the addiction is never in the behavior itself. It's in your relationship to the behavior. So if the particular activity gives you temporary relief or pleasure and therefore you crave it, but it causes harm in the long term and you can't give it up, you've got an addiction. And I don't care what the activity is, it could be drugs and all the other things that we mentioned. And it employs the same brain circuits, by the way.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  The workaholic is after the same brain chemical that the cocaine addict is after, dopamine. You know, and people can be even addicted to their own stress hormones like adrenaline. The so-called adrenaline junkies, there's such a thing, you know. So almost anything can be addictive if it serves the purpose of temporarily easing some distress, but causing harm in the long term.

• 8:54Steven Bartlett?

  Is escapism the right word to use then for it? If we're, because it doesn't sound as much like we're escaping rather than we are seeking something.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  We're seeking relief from a certain mental state. Like, like, I just gave you a definition of addiction. So think, I don't know what addictions you've had or haven't or have or haven't besides, you know. But what did that do for you temporarily? It gave you something.

• 9:25Steven Bartlett?

  It made me feel like I was valid and I was pursuing a sense of accomplishment and validation.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Okay, a sense of worth.

• 9:34Steven Bartlett?

  Worth, yeah, I was worthy, yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  No, is that something that people need or not?

• 9:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good thing. But the real question is, why did you ever get the idea that you didn't have the worth? Why did I get the idea that I didn't have the worth? That's where trauma comes in.

• 9:48Steven Bartlett?

  Because I was called the N word when I was eight by a kid in school.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:52Steven Bartlett?

  And then no one would speak to me that day.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And because your mother screamed at your father.

• 9:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  You know, and so all that together. And so, and that's emotionally painful. Like, what's it feel like to be not to have a sense of worth? That's painful. And so that's why my mantra is don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. And if you want to understand why the pain, you have to look at that person's life.

• 10:16Steven Bartlett?

  And what the benefit of the addiction is. That's something that you say in previous book that I found it's a flipping of narrative where you say, we should be asking what the benefit of the addiction is.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Well, like in your case, it gives you a sense of worth. Well, okay, I'll say to you, if you come to me, because you say like I'm vocal, like it's causing some harm in my life. It's keeping me from intimate relationships. It makes me stressed and tired, whatever it is. It's the first thing I would ask you for you of you is what is it doing for you? And you say a sense of worth and I'd say, you know what?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  You deserve to have a sense of worth. I totally understand why you'd want to engage in an activity that gives it to you. But given that it's causing you harm, let's look at why you don't have a sense of worth and how else you might develop it that isn't harmful to you, you know? So, but you start with what's right about it. What are you looking for? And what you're looking for is always valid.