Gabor Mate on How We Become Who We Are | Conversations with Tom

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Conversations with Tom. I am here with the legendary thinker and best-selling author Gabor Maté. Gabor, thank you so much for joining me today. It's a great pleasure. Thanks for having me. Man, I'm really excited about this. You've got such a cool breadth of work that focuses in on an area that I care deeply about, which is I'll sum up in a way that I don't know if you'll agree with, but um when I look at your work, it seems to all slot into how we develop and how we become who we are. And that is an area of deep fascination for me. And especially with your um lens of looking at things through childhood trauma, um having worked so much in addiction, um it I think you have a really unique understanding of sort of how we're put together. And I would love to start with something that you begin a lot of your um your in-person sessions with, which is the song by Johnny Cash, In Your Mind, which I had never heard. So, I had to I went and listened to it and I loved it. What is it about that song um that's going to teach us about who we are? Well, as people, we always think we're looking out at reality and our view of it sees reality the way it is. But it's been a spiritual teaching for eons that really Well, the Buddha said it. The the very first statement in the collection of the saying the Dhammapada is that our thoughts are in the lead. And so so whatever our thoughts tell us, that's the reality that we see. So, essentially, with our minds, we create the world. Now, you Johnny Cash in his song says, "It's all in your mind." Um one foot on Jacob's ladder, which is the stairway to heaven, which by the way wasn't originated with Led Zeppelin. The stairway to heaven is actually from the Bible, uh where where Jacob dreams that the angels are going up to heaven. Or one foot in the fire. So, Cash sings one one foot on the ladder, one foot in the fire. It all goes down in your mind. So, the the kind of thoughts and beliefs that we have create the world that we live in. And that's what I get from that song. Now, what the song doesn't say is that before with our minds we create the world, the world creates our minds. So, this is where development comes in. That given our early experiences, we create a view of the world and of ourselves and of other people that then governs how we are in the world and how we feel about everything. But we do forget those early experiences and those shaping influences, and as a result, we mistake our view of the world for the world itself. It all goes down in your mind, which is what Johnny sings. What's the What's the time period of that profound shaping window of development? Is it just a couple years in the beginning? Is it till we're 15? Till the brain stops developing at 25? Like what what does that window look like? It begins in the uterus. So, already the stresses or the experiences of the mother um shape how the infant experiences the world. Um we know this so that we can talk about it maybe later in detail if you wish, but there's lots of evidence now that the child's brain is actually in its development is significantly influenced by the mother's emotional states. So, it goes back that far. So, getting into the What I really want to understand is the the foundation of of that. So, I've heard you talk before about in um, native societies, it was always understood that if somebody was angry, you would just keep them away from a pregnant person cuz you didn't want that anger transferring. But my question is, why not? What what is it about um, intense emotions or negative emotions? What is it doing to the substructures of the brain that then make that disadvantageous as the child grows? Well, so there was a study done after 9/11. Um, women who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder while they were pregnant as a result of 9/11. A year later, their offspring still had abnormal stress hormone levels. So fundamentally, what happens is is that the brain's capacity to perceive stress and to process it gets impaired. So that means people are now more prone to feel stressed when there's no real threat. Or they may be more prone not to recognize a threat when it is there. So our whole perception of the world and safety and our responses to stress, the physiological apparatus for handling stress is affected in already by what happens in the womb. So thinking about um, the gym for instance. So you go to the gym and you want a stressor, you want a certain level of difficulty in order to in that case you're tearing the muscle slightly and then as it heals it grows back stronger. Yeah. Is it that the brain reacts differently to stress and that any amount of stress is bad or is there a certain amount that is um, useful and just we're going too far? Well, this is where I think language becomes very important. Well, how do what we mean by we use the word stress. So if you if you mean by stress, the challenge, life is full of challenges, which will get your adrenaline going and so on. That's a good thing. When I talk about stress, I talk about a threat that the organism doesn't know how to respond to. And it's too much. And so that the um the uh the person who actually coined the word stress was a fellow Hungarian Canadian, Hans Selye. Uh He's the word the word the one who coined the word in its present usage. Um he really meant pressure on an organism that's too much for the organism to handle. So, that's what I mean by stress. I don't I don't mean the stress of a freely chosen challenge, such as going to the gym and and working your muscles hard and and and going even beyond what you could do before. I don't mean that I That's not what I mean by stress. Um I mean by stress and and and the the biggest triggers for stress, according to the research, are loss of control, uncertainty, lack of information, and conflict. So, when you subject people to those circumstances, which in this society happens a lot, people are stressed often beyond their capacity to deal with it. Now, that capacity is very much programmed by what happened to us very early in life. And where does that So, begins in utero, where is the sort of closing of that hyper malleability phase? Cuz where where one thing that really drives me is the question of Okay, damage has been done. Um you know, like in your case where you're born 2 months after or excuse me, 2 months before the Nazis invade Hungary. It's like not a lot to be done about that. That is what it is. So, now the question becomes, can we undo it? Uh is there a window of hyper malleability where the you could sort of reprogram the infant? Or is it like almost like an imprinting machine where it's like, "Nope, you had this heavy amount of stress in utero, that's imprinted, and no matter what you do in the first 3 years is never going to undo that." It is imprinted uh in many ways biologically which we could talk about that the person is not even aware of. Imprinted in how their genes are turned on and off, imprinted on how their chromosomes function, imprinted on how their stress apparatus responds to the external environment um imprinted in their cells, imprinted in inflammation in their bodies, and so on and so on. And the earlier it happens, and the more it happens, and the more temperamentally sensitive the child, the greater the effects. Having said that, it's never not reversible. It's never not approachable. Now, fact is, people can heal. People can um rewire themselves. People can um uh find a equilibrium, but the more happened earlier, and the earlier it happened, the more difficult that work becomes, which brings me to my um epitaph that I've designed for my gravestone. You know what it's going to say? It's going to say It's going to say it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. You know? It It's a fair assessment. I'm It's ongoing work. Look, I'm 77. It's ongoing work. And you know, um when I don't take care of myself emotionally, when I don't do my yoga, when I don't get myself into the swimming pool or on the exercise bike, um when I take on too much in my life, it gets activated. So, yes, it can be dealt with and it can be healed and it can be regulated, but it takes consciousness. It takes awareness. Given your perspective with having dealt with a lot of people that have had severe early traumas that have echoed through their adult lives in the form of addiction, um what is it if it's identifiable, what is it that makes some people able to get in there, do the work harder, you know, than expected though it is, and other people that get stuck? Yeah. Well, that's the important question. First of all, let me just say that trauma shows up in multiple ways. Addiction is only one of them. So-called mental illnesses, depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, whatever others. Um physical illnesses, chronic physical illnesses like cancer and and autoimmune disease very often reflect trauma. And in physical ways, which we can talk about, and I'm not just giving you a personal opinion. I'm telling you what the research shows. So, trauma has multiple manifestations of which addiction is only one. Now, what makes the difference? Uh I don't think there's one single factor, but there are a number. Uh first of all, has there been anybody along the way that was empathetic and supportive to you? If there was, that can make it, no matter what happened, that can make a huge difference. Um earlier in your life the better, but if there was a teacher, if there was a uncle, an aunt, anybody who who maybe couldn't change your situation, but could listen to you or just validate you or speak to you empathetically, that can make a difference. Um social class has a lot to do with it because um if you can afford to see a therapist and talk to somebody, that puts you at an advantage. How much stress you continue to be under in your life, that has a lot to do with it. When people are trying to just to survive, it's hard for them to consider transformation. So, people that are under economic pressure or racially oppressed or or um under um economic threat, um political conflict, these make it difficult for people cuz people are just in survival mode. Uh people that are highly sensitive, they're both in an advantage and a disadvantage. They're at a disadvantage in that the more sensitive they are, the more it hurts when stuff happens. But, also the more sensitive they are, the more likely they might have to have some insight or awareness or some creative outlets. So, that can work both ways. I would say the biggest difference is was there some empathetic support in your life at any time? And and even if you talk to people who've been addiction for a long time and say, "Well, what made the difference?" Somebody talked to me like a human being. Somebody didn't judge me. They accepted me. Um What what window does that open up for them? Is it uh it begins to allow themselves to stop judging themselves and to develop self-awareness, or is there something else at play? No, it's it's the very first thing you said. Um Anybody who's traumatized and by trauma, I mean a broad range of experiences from abuse, extreme things on one hand to just parents who are too stressed to pay attention to you or to really see you and receive you. When children are not seen for who they are and or when they're hurt, they can make two assumptions. One, there's something wrong with the world and my parents are not capable or they don't love me. Or they can make the or they can make the assumption, and that's why this is happening. Because I deserve to be loved and I deserve to be treated well, but these people are incapable and they don't care. You can make that assumption or you can make the assumption I'm talking about unconscious assumption. Or you can make the assumption there's something wrong with me. Those are the two choices. Now, it's much safer for the child to assume that there's something wrong with them. Otherwise It's safer. It's a lot safer, yeah. Why safer? Why is it safer? Because what what's it like to live with a danger as a 4-year-old living in a world where your parents are dysfunctional and they are uh perhaps hateful towards you. How could you endure that for 1 minute? That's interesting. So, you have to make the other opposite assumption. If this stuff is happening to me, it's cuz I deserve it. Something wrong with me. Now, we're back to your question. Somebody comes along and and and treats you compassionately, Oh. Maybe I'm not that bad person. Here's a person who's Here's somebody who's treating me like I was a worthwhile human being. Maybe I am a worthwhile human being. So, that compassionate reflection that you get from this other human being subverts your image of yourself as worthless. And that's what makes the big difference. Ooh. So, that points to something that is really interesting, maybe a little bit scary. Um so, Lisa Feldman Barrett, who you may or may not know, uh has really interesting thoughts. So, I'm always trying to figure out how much of who we are as nature, how much of us is nurture. And she told me, "Tom, look, you're you're asking the wrong question." So, the reality is we have a nature that requires nurture. And as you talk about this, it and I'm I'm going to put words in your mouth, tell me if they're accurate. It sounds like you're saying our minds are essentially co-created. And we are presenting ourselves and looking for an echo back of or a reflection back of what people think about what they see. And we're using both of those things, our own sort of sense of who we are, plus what's being reflected back to us to figure out who we are. So, if something negative is reflected back, that's actually going to shape my sense of self. And if something positive is reflected back, that's going to shape my sense of self. Now, that to me begs a question. I'm so curious to know what you think about this. So, my response to that is, "Cool. I'm going to become totally self-sufficient. I'm going to get to the point where I don't need somebody's reflection back." But I can feel the danger in that. It seems like a risky game to say, "I'm going to totally withdraw. I'm going to do all the work internally. I'm going to make sure that I know who I am, that I don't need that reflection back." Um but knowing how important loving relationships are and things like that, I can feel while there would be some upside to totally knowing who you are, believing in yourself, but you're also walling yourself off. Um how do you conceptualize handling that? Well, it's a question of who's doing it and why. Because you can do that walling off in two ways. So, the Buddha you know the story. He He goes through all these teachers and he wants to get enlightened and he goes through all these very rigorous, self-denying ascetic practices and he just doesn't the truth doesn't come to him. And finally, he goes off by himself and he sits under a tree. By himself. And he just sits there and he meditates. And he contemplates everything that arises in his mind. And then after a while, he has his nirvana. He has this um enlightenment experience. And then he's got a decision to make. He He understands his own nature. He understands the nature of reality and he really does He's one of the outstanding minds in history. But then he's got a decision to make. So, I'm going Do I just revel in this spiritual liberation that I have worked so hard to attain? And no, he decides he's going to go back and teach other people because he wants to be connected to humanity. And he wants to enlighten other people as well. What can you articulate what his um sort of breakthrough enlightenment realization was? Well, um it'd be presumptuous of me to do so. Because I've not had that realization myself. I've only read about it or I've seen other people talk about it. Um I don't mind a regurgitation of what other people have said. I actually So, I know Buddhism at a 30,000 ft view. So, I actually don't know other than life is suffering. Um I don't know what sort of the key revelations are. Yeah, life is suffering is I mean, I I his real teaching is that life doesn't need to be suffering. But, the way we set it up with our minds, it is suffering. So, it really has to do with goes back to the Johnny Cash song. It all goes on in your mind. You disidentify from your mind. And reality is much greater and much deeper and much more sacred than your mind will ever tell you. That's interesting. Can you say that another way? Even even I don't know if if this is your own understanding of life or um a reflection of Buddhism, but I'm curious to know if life is more profound than your mind, what are the elements that make it profound? Is it beauty? Is it love? Is it What is it? The problem with the conversation, Tom, is that there's two minds talking about the nature of reality. And uh In that we don't use the same words or No, no, no. No, it's that we're we're still in the mind. Whereas um my very modest understanding of the spiritual teaching, it's not just Buddhist spiritual teaching, but Sufi teachings or Jewish spiritual teaching, Christian spiritual teaching. I'm talking about the spiritual teachings, not the religion. Mhm. Um is that there is essence, there's truth that goes beyond what the mind itself can uh comprehend. So, for But, we must have access to it in some way, even if only through pure experience. But, but it is But, that's the whole point. It is pure pure experience that a great poet like Rumi can write about or Hafez can write about. But, um I cannot claim to have had that pure experience. So, if I did, I didn't recognize it as such. Can I give you one of the experiences I've heard you talk about, and I'll be curious to know if if you were grazing along the edges of something. I believe it was your first experience with ayahuasca. You said that you were there and suddenly had this rush of just pure love. And that you, if I remember right, you started crying and and you were just overwhelmed with this sense of just just love in its purest form. And in in that moment realized you had closed yourself off to that experience. Is when I think about people talking about there being something more profound, those are the only sort of moments that I can relate to where I think that feeling is so elevated and wonderful that but that's the only thing I've ever touched on in my own life where that seems like what they could be talking about. Uh does that Is that getting close? Well, it's it's it's heading in the right direction. Um I think that real spiritual teachers would say that that what I experienced there wasn't a feeling. It was Feelings are like activities of our nervous systems. And they would say there's something deeper than the nervous system. So, what I experienced was a state of of being uh manifesting in love. And the manner Love might not be the only manifestation of it. Might be courage, clarity, um compassion, um uh justice, um strength, will. I know one spiritual teacher specifically who talks about it in those terms. But these are not feelings. The feeling of love and the state of love are not necessarily the same thing. But yeah, there's more to it than just a mental experience. There's the direct the the the mental thought um or even the emotional resonance. It's it's more like a direct experience of something and um you know, it's clear that what the Buddha had was for one, he wasn't the only one. Uh was a direct experience. But, to go back to your question about isolation. So, there's a way of isolating yourself as a way of committing yourself to re-enlightenment, which doesn't mean that you'll stay away from other people for the rest of your life. It just means that you're going to go deep into yourself and not be distracted by all that the world throws at you. Then there's another way to isolate yourself, which is a defensive one, which is the world is so awful and heck with them all. I don't need anybody. That will protect you from some kinds of hurt. Cuz if you withdraw from relationships, you'll never be betrayed. Well, that's true. On the other hand, that itself is a state of pain. That isolation itself is a state of pain. So, when you talk about isolation, it depends who's doing it and where is it coming from and and to go back to the original question. And you mentioned um nurture nature, it's perfectly true that we're born with certain expectations for the world. I mean, every creature is. Like, our our lungs are an expectation for oxygen. If it wasn't for oxygen, we wouldn't have lungs. So, we evolved in response to the availability of oxygen. Otherwise, we would not have evolved the way we did. There might be some kind of creatures around, but it wouldn't be us. So, our lungs are an expectation for for for oxygen. In the same way, our nervous systems are an expectation for love, for nurturing, for being held, for being valued, for being enjoyed. That's what the infant is born with those expectations. And whether we develop well or whether we don't, depends very much on how fully those expectations are met. Now, we can survive without them. My God, many of us have. But survival and fully being alive and fully living are not the same thing. And fully and and survival adapting to things, I mean, you can adapt. Uh human beings are particularly good at adapting to vast range of environments. But that doesn't mean that we thrive in all those environments. So, one of my arguments one of my points about the culture that we're living in now is that, yeah, we're surviving, but we're hardly thriving. And we're not thriving precisely because our expectations, I'm talking about our built-in natural expectations. I'm not talking about artificial expectations like expect to be wealthy or expect to be respected by everybody or expect to be achieving this or achieving that. No, I'm talking about the natural expectations of a human being. And the less those expectations are met by the rearing environment in the early years, the more distorted we become cuz the more we have to adapt to something less than what we need. And and in my view, as as I'm sure you're well aware, much much of disease, physical, mental, afflictions, addictions, and so on. They all arise out of the ways we had to adapt to unnatural circumstances where our natural built-in expectations were thwarted. Gabor, that's a really um useful way to look at things. I like that a lot. So, um I use different words to kind of describe something's maybe similar if not identical, which I call the physics of being human. So, there are just some things we have needs, we have um compulsions. We For instance, there there is going to be a voice in your head talking to you. There is I've never met anybody that doesn't have a negative voice in their head talking to them. And we have we're an active species, right? But we're an active species that also tries to conserve calories. So, you get this weird sort of conflict. And that insight that you just gave I find really powerful when I think about early development. So, this notion that our brain comes with um I like to think of it in a a biological way though I'm sure what I'm about to describe will be inaccurate, but that there are essentially neurons in the brain that are looking for that love, the validation, being enjoyed. I There's something about the way you said that that really hit me. Um and that our brain is going to It's It comes like lungs expecting the air. It comes expecting that love, that validation, that enjoyment, and getting all of that reflected back. And you talk a lot about a child being narcissistic, and so that's part of the physics of being human. It just is. Everyone is. And not in a negative way, just it's all about me. That's where their brain is at in their development. And if we sort of run the experiment of saying well, that's probably the most advantageous thing at least from a historical context that you so got that it was so prevalent that to think erroneously, to think that a parent's happiness means that you're good is such a great way to establish confidence and a sense of worth and you know, all these things that are going to propel you forward. Gabor, you're really making me put things together that I've I've never had been able to draw the lines between. Um That is amazing. Yeah, I say it to all the good ones. How about that? But it's interesting especially when you put it in context of your upcoming book which of course I have not read called the myth of normal and how sort of broken our society is. I've always approached it from the the like, "Hey, this society is is like any society in time where you can have a path through it that is pathological or like the Buddha, you can find a path that is beautiful and profound." And you take I think a more aggressive approach of saying, "No, no, no, there's something uniquely disruptive about the era that we're living through and sort of just walking through what you were saying about the the ex- the brain has expectations of love the way that lungs have expectations of air and there's something about the way that we have structured society that is breaking that and in breaking that we're dysregulating the immune system and a whole host of other things. That is really interesting. Um walk me through then some of the specifics that you've covered in shattered and in some of your articles and talks. How is modern society dysregulating us and what can we do to resolve some of that? Well, first of all, it's very interesting. You said shattered. I don't have a book called shattered. It's called scattered. Sorry, sorry, scattered, scattered. but what's interesting is how many people say it that way. That's interesting. That's very What have I just revealed? Yeah. Well, yeah, and to me it's always revealing something about the person and their self-image. You know, cuz I don't think anybody's ever shattered. Um scattered has to do with the scattered mind. The American The Canadian title was Scattered Minds. It had to do with ADHD and you know, the the dispersal of attention. Um Gosh, you say so many things that I'm going to engage with Tom. Let me Let me jump back to what you said about everybody's got this negative voice in their heads. Yeah. Yeah, but that's not a given. It's just what happens in this society. So you think there are societies where that would not be present or at least not ever present? I think we haven't had societies like that for a long long long long time. But that has to do with what civilization does to human beings. So I'm sure that voice has been there since the beginning of civilization. But not necessarily in our aboriginal state. That's hunter-gatherer small band people. Now we might have a conscience that keeps us in line. But that's not the same as a voice that keeps telling you how bad you are, how worthless you are. I think that's particularly is a that itself is a product of life experience. What what exactly, if you have a sense, causes that? Like what in civilization leads to that? Kids not being valued and enjoyed and played with for just who they are. Kids having to live up to expectations in order to meet the approval and welcoming of their parents. Well, if that's the case, they'd better install a little voice in their heads that will keep them in line. Otherwise, they won't get loved. Now this is not a conscious process. Nobody does this, "Oh, I'm going to install a little the in my head." It's not that. it's this this is a it's a natural adaptation to an unnatural situation. In this society, and I'm not blaming parents, in this society, it's extraordinarily difficult for parents to give those conditions of what the American psychotherapist Carl Rogers called unconditional positive regard, a regard that has no conditions of worth attached to it. I accept you just for who you are, the way you are. That's very difficult for parents to deliver, even with the best of goodwill, cuz they never had it themselves. Not only that, then there's so much stress. So, you mentioned my book Scattered, which is on ADHD, and I was diagnosed with it at a, you know, in my 50s, and I never bought into the idea that it was a genetic disease, and even less do I buy into it now. But the tuning out, that Scattered Minds that I wrote about, that itself is a coping mechanism. So, when there's when a when an infant is under stress, because the parents are stressed, as I was as a Jewish infant under the Nazis, uh there's a lot of stress, as you can imagine, for a whole year of my first year of life, and more than that. Of course I tuned out as a way of escaping from the unbearable stress that my mother was under. Cuz as an infant, you just soak in the stress of your parents. But this is happening when my brain was developing. So, that gets programmed into my brain as an adaptation. Now, you don't need World War, and you don't need genocide to make an infant stressed. You just need parents who are under economic stress, who've got relationship issues, who've got unresolved childhood trauma, who are isolated themselves, who are struggling in their lives, who have depression or anxiety in their lives. And infants, young children, pick up on that. They make it about themselves. It's too much for them. Some of them will tune out to to deal with it. The tuning out becomes programmed into their brain, cuz that's when the brain develops under the impact of the environment. And then 5 years later, or 10 years later, or in my case, 55 years later, they're diagnosed with the so-called inherited disease. Which it wasn't. It was an adaptation. And it began as an adaptation. It becomes a source of a disorder, but that's my whole point. That these early adaptations have their function, but then they're only meant to be temporary, but since they become wired in, now they create problems later on. And that, I think, is the source of much of illness in our society. Let me ask, what would be a worse, or what would be a better scenario, depending on how you want to answer it. Would you rather somebody be um loved, validated, enjoyed, held, touched, up until the age of 3, but then after that, they're put into foster care, with all of the woes of foster care. Or, would you rather somebody um have a very dysregulated initial 3 years, um mother is giving the child up for adoption, which basically tells you that the pregnancy was incredibly stressed, um gives the child away, it spends the first 3 years in, let's say, an orphanage, but then gets adopted to a truly loving family that wants them, enjoys them, validates them, hugs them, and gives them all those things. Which of those is the more distressing circumstance? Well, I mean, I I find that a tough one to answer because what you're setting up is um um two tragedies. And you're asking me to choose the least tragic. And um I don't know whether I know how to do that. I do know I think my bias would be that if the child had everything for the first 3 years, they'll probably have some inner resilience to handle what going happens later. Although it would be still be a terrible scenario that you have in mind. That total disregulation in the first 3 years, I think would be very hard to overcome. Um not impossible. But you know, it's when you think about it, the scenario of somebody getting all that in the first 3 years and then ending up in a horrible situation, totally unlikely. I mean, why why would that even happen? You know. Yeah, I mean, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I but but if your question is designed to um look at the heart of what is the most important developmental period, for sure it's the first 3 years. From conception till the end of the first 3 years. Not that it's over then, but those are that's the template. Mhm. That's the template. And if our society just understood that, just give the kids 3 good years. And and and and do everything you can get do everything you can as a society, as a community to support parents giving those kids those first 3 years, whatever that takes. We would save so much disease, so much dysfunction, so much crime, so much addiction, so much political conflict for that matter. So, that's the importance of that question is is if if we only my friend the uh children's troubadour Raffi, and you probably remember Raffi. He he created something called the child-honoring society, you know, child-honoring project. And he just says, "Well, if the society honored children, what would it look like?" Well, guess what? We'd pay attention to the environment. We would um make sure that parents have the right support, that children are treated well, that parents who need the help get it, so that they don't traumatize their children. So, that schools um instead of focused on turning out gears and and and machines in the form of human beings, focused on promoting healthy self-image and healthy self-development and healthy brain development. What if that was the focus of the schools? It wouldn't be It wouldn't be more expensive than what we're doing now. It'd be less expensive. So, yeah, those first 3 years are crucial. There's a guy named Geoffrey Canada who introduced me to a concept that I found both intriguing and terrifying, which goes along with why I was asking that question. And he was looking at kids that grow up in the inner cities and why they end up doing poorly the rest of their lives and kids that grow up in um middle-income families and why they end up doing better. And he said that he believed they could be boiled down to the number of words a child hears by the age of 3 and the ratio of positive to negative. And I thought, "Oh my god, is it really that simple?" And he was basically saying that you're it's it comes down to the language centers of the brain developing. And if in that period where those those parts of the brain are actually being constructed, if you know that the construction is going to be based on the environment and you give it a paltry environment where there is very little language to interact with, then you get an underdeveloped language center of the brain, which ends up holding them back later where communication becomes extraordinarily important in today's environment. Yes. And I just thought one, that's thrilling news because anybody that encounters that information when they're pregnant or about to become pregnant can do something with it and and it will have lifelong positive impact, but it's terrifying to think that you catch a kid at age six and it's like you can do the work and for sure, like you were saying, you can always, like there can be improvement and I would never want people to hear that and just give up, but whoa, the road becomes a lot harder to hoe. Well, I have to say I don't agree with you. What was the man's name? Jeffrey Canada. Okay, well, good name. I don't agree with um I mean, it's not that I disagree with what he's saying, but I think there's there's a deeper layer there. Give it to me. Because what develops first, see, the language is the is the left side of the brain, okay? And what actually develops first, if you look at it, is the right side of the brain, which holds the unconscious. And it's that right side of unconscious template that's most important more important than There's lots of people that have beautiful language development, articulate, they're called professors and academics, who are emotionally infants. Um and sometimes the left the the language center is in the left side of the brain can become a refuge from the lack of emotional grounding in the right side of the brain. So, no, what actually matters is how those infants are held, how they're sung to, how they're played with. There's a great neuroscientist, unfortunately died untimely a couple of years ago, Jaak Panksepp his name was, and he distinguished a number of brain systems that we share with other animals. They include seeking, so the exploration of the environment. They include lust, obviously, which is sexuality, necessary. Rage, which is healthy anger to protect your boundaries. Um caring, so that we care for infants and others. These are brain systems. And uh what he calls grief and panic, which is what happens when we lose our attachment relationships, so that there should be grief, there should be panic, those are healthy when our attachment relationships are threatened. And there was also play. And all animals play. And infants start playing peekaboo at 2 months, long before they have language. And play is much more important for the development of the brain than language is. Uh according to a whole lot of developmentalists. And so a sense of why. So so so because it sets the um your sense of yourself in the world. And so it's not that what this man Canada says about language isn't important. It's just that first there has to be this right brain emotionally grounded template for all that. And even later on, it's not the language skills we have to help people develop, not that we don't, we do, but we have to work on their sense of themselves and and and and essentially rewire the right side of the unconscious brain. So in LA, there's a very famous psychotherapist psychologist called um Alan Shore, who's now working on what he calls the right-sided psychotherapy or right brain psychotherapy with adults who've got all kinds of language skills, but who don't have properly developed unconscious because of what happened to them early on in life. Let me quickly read you a list. There's a wonderful psychologist at Notre Dame called Darcia Narvaez, who by the way, you might want to talk to sometime. And she studied hunter-gatherer societies. Which is how we evolved. That was our evolutionary niche and for millions of years and for hundreds of thousands of years and even for until 15,000 years ago everybody lived in those societies. So, that's where we evolved. And he says, "What do these people provide to their infants?" And she lists them. Soothing perinatal experience. Prompt responsiveness to the infant to the needs of the infant. None of this business of letting kids cry it out. Those kids are picked up as soon as they whimper. In fact, they may be even put down. Extensive touch and constant physical presence, including touch with movement. So, the parents are always walking around holding their kids. The papoose on the back of the parent. Frequent infant-initiated breastfeeding up for up to two to five years. Woah. With the average weaning age at age four. Now, here in North America, here in North America, we're lucky if women are able to breastfeed their kids for two months. And about 25% of American women have to go back to work after two weeks. Well, that's an insult to the infant. I'm not blaming the women. It's the economy. It's the society. A community of multiple warm responsive adult caregivers. So, the whole tribe is there to hold you and to enjoy you. Um creative free play in nature with multi-age playmates. Now, how many kids in our society get anything close to any of that? Then we wonder why do kids have so many mental health issues and behavior problems and so on. And then we do and then we focus on the behavior problems and we try and correct the behaviors instead of looking at well, what is this child manifesting through that behavior? You know? So, I think we need a lot we need to look a lot more at not the cognitive developmental stuff, but at the emotional developmental side of things. So, that granted, what your friend says about language is very important. That not being granted, we're barking up the wrong tree. What so, I I think a lot about what my North Star is, what I want in my own life, what sort of my ideal life looks like, and then when I'm working with other people and trying to help them, I think about, you know, what what is the North Star that somebody's really in trouble I would advise, "Hey, adopt this as your North Star." Do you have something like that that you think that people ought to strive for for their own sake? The reason I smirk when you ask that question is because um it puts me in a position of some kind of expert um whereas believe me, every day I still work at figuring myself out and finding my direction and and or or or refinding my direction and so on. So, it's not like I can say, "Here's this pearl of wisdom. Take it and run with it and this will, you know, it's not like that for me. Um Well, look, let me turn the question on just for a moment, and and and and as a way for me to think about your question. Sure. Um So, like I I don't know a lot about you, you know, but what I do understand is that in significant ways you've made a tremendous success in your life. Uh a lot of you know, achieved things that a lot of people look at and my god, if I only had that, I'd be okay. But, let me just ask you this, I'm just absolutely curious. Having achieved all that in the material world, did you come to saying to yourself, "Oh, I'm okay now. The quest is over." Definitely not. So, what So, so what were you looking for? So, my North Star in the beginning was wealth. And that was I showed up every day trying to get rich. And at about eight years into that, I was absolutely devastated. Spiritually is probably the right way to think about it. I just felt dead inside. And I at that point I was worth about $2 million on paper. So, my actual life was not Yeah. the life of a wealthy person, but um I had equity in the company. And I went to my wife and I said, "Hey, I know that I promised I would make you rich one day. I'm going to need to take a step back for a minute because I am profoundly unhappy." Yeah. And she was like, "Hey, what I want for is your happiness. And so, do whatever you need to." And so, we were going to um move to a tiny village in Greece, and I was going to go back to writing, which was my first love. Okay. And just do things that made me feel alive. Long story short, um my then business partner said, "Hey, don't leave. Um we actually feel the same way. So, why don't we build something that would give us what we're looking for?" And so, if I had to shorthand what I came to realize I'm looking for, which is very much my North Star, is fulfillment. And I'll define fulfillment as working really hard to build a set of skills that I care about that serve not only me but other people. And in doing that, I am addressing what I think are the physics of being human. Now, I may be misunderstanding that it is the physics only of humans in this era. I'm very open to this is within the context of the civilization that I grew up in. Here are the things that seem to come pre-built into our hardwiring. Um and and maybe not um historically accurate. But, given the world that I live in, um doing something working really hard is a big part of um I feel there's just a subroutine in my brain that wants me to earn things. And when I do that, I feel good. When I work hard in the gym, I feel good. When I take a cold shower, I feel good. When I um you know, do something difficult for my wife, I feel good about that. And I definitely enjoy that loop. And then Well, let me let me interrupt, okay? Yeah, please. So, if I could find one word to summarize what you what I think I heard you say, it's meaning. Definitely. Yeah, so so that's that's one of those human expectations is meaning, I think. That's a need. Okay, now, how you find that is a very individual thing. But, let me ask you a very scary question though, because it it puzzles me. Um you identify meaning with hard work. Well, I've seen this happen, by the way. Not God willing, it won't, but what if you had a stroke tomorrow? Or some idiot plowed into you when you were bicycling and and and and and you you became quadriplegic. Now, you couldn't work hard anymore. Then it would be I love that question. I obsess about things like that. So, I thought a lot about that one in particular. Um so, I would give myself 30 days to mourn, whether I should or shouldn't. Uh I would, and I would be very I would allow myself to wallow in the sense that it was unfair, and that now I have to change um the things that I engage in that bring me joy. But, then at the end of that, it it is what it is. And so, getting lost in unfairness is not going to serve me. So, then I would immediately turn my attention to finding a way to have meaning and purpose. I think that that Nothing that I've ever experienced in life leads me to believe that I would ever feel fulfilled without meaning and purpose. Okay, good. So, finding a way to tap into that. And then I have a a sort of safety valve, which is my wife and I remind each other of this all the time, because we've already had all the financial success. At this point, to do something for the sake of money would be so crazy. So, we definitely don't do that. And what we remind each other of is, you should love your life. Like, just from a joy perspective. And if you don't check in with is this joyful? Because if you're working hard and it's joyful, that makes sense to me. If you're working hard and it's deteriorating your joy, your sense of self, whatever, then that's just madness. So, for even for our employees, what we say is, look, you're an adult. I want you to control when you need a day off. So, you have an unlimited vacation policy, use it as you see fit. Um I do want people that are hard workers, don't get me wrong. But, I know there are sometimes where on a Tuesday, I'm just like, I'm I'm burning out. Like, this isn't fun. And so, I stop immediately, because I know what my priorities are in life. And joy is extraordinarily high, and it is certainly higher than success. Okay. Well, that's great. Um that makes it easier for me to answer your question. In terms of my own style, um joy is something that um for me is an ongoing project, you know? And I really do think that goes back to the lack of play that I received in the first year or two of my life, you know? Under conditions of war time and genocide, there isn't a lot of cheerful play that happens with a baby. Um but what really lights my fire is truth. I just want to know the truth, whatever that is. Because you like knowing how the world works? There is no because. You see, truth is its own value. I don't I mean, I could I could give you all kinds of good reasons why truth is a good thing, but ultimately, uh it's just a value in itself, for its own sake. And so, I'm passionate about truth, um both internal truth and external truth, and I'm passionate that my work is to, as much as I can perceive truth, and as much as I can communicate my perceptions, that other people have access to truth, as well. Or that they Or that their own passion and and truth is kindled uh in in its own right. So, that's that's my If you ask for a North Star, that's what I would say for myself. That's really interesting. Not at all what I thought you were going to say. Can I interpret, when I look at the books you've written and I look at, you know, your willingness to come and do a podcast like this, can I read that all as an exploration of truth or are these sort of side tangents? No. Purely, that's what it's about. It just so happens that as a medical doctor, somebody who dealt with depression and ADHD myself, um dealt with terminal illness and palliative care, dealt with addictions, delivered babies, um my path to truth has been through my own experience and through my medical and my personal experience, what I've been through as a person, what I'm going through as a person, and what I saw, experienced, and learned as a physician. So, the books express all that when it comes to physical illness or addictions or child development or whatever, but the lodestar is always the truth. And from that point of view, I never cared much who agrees with me and who doesn't and to what extent my colleagues value or don't value it. You know, that just is I see it, folks, you know, and uh um in this society, and I this is not a personal lament, it's a just a general comment that um truth is not hard to come by not easy to come by because uh for all the knowledge that's out there and for all the expertise, um it's also split and it's also disintegrated. So, people have a hard time seeing the overall reality of things. And so, my attempt always is to look at the context and look at the overall reality. So, not just how do you how do you change a kid's behavior, but why is the kid behaving that behaving that way? And what is it in the in the environment that the kid is reacting to? Or somebody's addicted, not just why are they using a substance or why they are obsessed with pornography or gambling, but what is that doing for them? What is that giving them that they need? What peace of mind, what temporary relief, what numbing numbing of painful emotions, and where do those painful emotions come from? And what happened to them? What's the context in which it happened? So, that everything leads back to everything else. And uh so, I'm always looking for the larger truth of things, which demands a broader look, not isolating everything, but looking at everything as as one, which scientifically and spiritually and materially it is. I am obsessed with what is true, so I resonate with you there big time. What I don't understand is I'm going to ask you a follow-up question to see if I can isolate um what it is about the the nature of truth just in and of itself that is meaningful to you. So, um I'm interested in the truth for one reason and one reason only if I'm really honest with myself, and that is it has so much utility. Once you understand, it's like it's like physics to me. Because we understand physics, we can send things to the moon, we can create satellites, you know, better manufacturing, whatever. Um would the truth be as meaningful to you if you were trapped on a desert island with access to all the information in the world, but you could never engage with another human. So, you could assimilate the truth. You could learn what it is, synthesize it, maybe even have insights that other people are missing, and and know to the core of your being that you have uncovered something that is true. Would that be meaningful, or is part of what makes it matter to you that you can put it back out into the world, and that ultimately somebody can use it? Well, so first of all, let's not confuse truth with information. Uh interesting. So, help me understand what I'm missing. Well, there's lots of facts out there, but truth is much larger than facts. It's It's It's integrating the facts in a in a in in a picture of of reality. So, that and I I'm maybe putting very clumsy language on what may be a far more beautiful sentiment. Um so, when when I hear you say that, and I take it in totality of how all these things come together, I come back to this idea of the truth is that is the way the world works. So, don't ask about the the addiction, ask about what caused the pain. Like, that makes sense to me because now you can actually address it and heal. But, what makes that capital T truth interesting is the healing, for me. But, but And so, I But, why why do you want people to heal? Um because of my North Star. So, my North Star, which seems self-evident to me, and I'm always surprised that it isn't everybody's North Star, is that there is uh the only thing that matters to me, in the way that I view the world, is your neurochemical state. And your neurochemistry, the only thing that's resilient, cuz joy comes and goes, suffering comes and goes, hopefully. And the only thing that gives you the resilience to even in the middle of a a painful moment, a storm, to have emotional equilibrium is what I call fulfillment. So, again, meaning and purpose derived from working hard for something um that you have developed a unique set of skills, so you really matter in that situation. And it it isn't only alleviating your suffering, it's helping other people. And that to me feels so inherent to the human animal that as a social species, we're just never going to be able to escape getting psychologically punished for failing to help others, and we're never going to escape getting rewarded for helping others. And I think that the more uniquely we can do that, so in a way that matters to me, right? So, you're not still a high school teacher, you're you're expressing helping others in in a very unique way that I mean, literally, I've never come across anybody that's got the unique um conflagration of things that you have. So, that makes your contributions all the more individual and therefore, I would imagine, precious to you. So, anyway, because of my North Star, I want to alleviate that pain by having worked hard to offer something to somebody that they're going, "Whoa, like this alleviated my pain, and now I can also go do something that helps other people." Um That's why the healing matters. Okay, so look, so then to go back to your desert island question, the Buddha put himself on a desert island, you know? I mean, metaphorically speaking, isolated in the forest, didn't see anybody, you know? He No, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about him, the way I understand that historical figure. He would have been perfectly okay being on his own. Cuz he attained a sense of reality that was complete. And then he made a decision out of compassion to come back and teach others. And you are talking about compassion as well. You're talking about not truth as utility, you're talking about truth as compassion. So, it's not as useful because you can build things with it. But we would define it is you want the truth so you can alleviate the suffering of others. And that's part of the truth. And as Jesus said, you know, he another great spiritual avatar and teacher, he says, "You will know the truth and the truth will liberate you." He didn't say the truth will liberate you. He said, "You will know the truth and it'll liberate you." So, when you know the truth, that's where freedom is. So, truth goes way beyond facts. Truth ultimately as I understand it and as I've been taught has to do with liberation and freedom. And it has to do with compassion. In exactly the way you talked about it as well. So, when you say telling the truth is what I'm telling you, it's got all these aspects. And it goes back to our conversation about meaning. So, that a life without truth is not a meaningful life. That is uh that's very interesting. As you were talking, I was like, "Oh, please God, let him write a book about truth." I would uh hearing you say all that, I would definitely sign up for that book. I want to talk about the idea of a Bodhisattva. So, this is one of the things that I found super interesting about Buddhism. Uh and again, hey, a guy that understands it at 30,000 ft does not know the specifics, but um that idea of hey, there's two things you can do with enlightenment. You can hey, you're enlightened and and now you sort of stand apart from everybody else, or you get enlightened and decide to be a Bodhisattva to reengage, to go back in to help other people. And do you think uh this is maybe a dangerous question, but do you think any body would like knowing what you know about the human mind, would anybody ever that attained enlightenment actually just go peace, I'm out? It seems like the very nature of that moment would sort of propel you back to other people. Well, first of all, the last thing I could I'm going to present myself as as any kind of an expert on Buddhism. that might be your response. Yeah, you know. But yeah, I mean, there have been in the Christian tradition, there were saints that went to the desert and they just stayed there. And then certainly on the other all the Hindu traditions, there are all these people and the Buddhist tradition as well. I think there are people who um you know, sit in caves and they just contemplate reality. That's what they do. Um which doesn't mean that what they do has no impact on others. But they're not going out but they're not out there trying to recruit others or to teach others. They're just doing what they're doing. I have actually a difficulty imagining myself being one of those people. Um which I'm not sure is either is is an advantage for me. I I I might be more advanced if I could handle the idea of being on my own and and not doing anything. And just being. And just valuing being period. I imagine that for a person like me might be a step forward. But I But yeah, there I think for my limited understanding there are people there have been people who have done that and they're part of the human spectrum, I think. Very well said. Gabor, what at this point, you're 77? Yeah. You're so productive. What is it that keeps you going? When most people are like counting the days until they can retire at 64 or whatever. Um what what keeps you going? Uh Botox, steroid injections. Um um Well, look, I mean you talked about meaning. Uh there's so much meaning in my life. I am I'm so fortunate, you know, that that and I've never stopped developing. Not that I've arrived there, but I've never stopped developing. Like I've never stopped being curious. Um I believe I have a I finally come to accept that yeah, I do have a contribution to make and and and and and uh and that that has value in the world and it is value for me. So at this point it's just it's not keeps me going. It's it's it's like it's just who I am at this point. You know, is is is I'm curious about what I'm doing. I'm excited about much of what I do. I'm excited about having conversations like this. I'm excited about the book I'm writing, the teaching that I do. I'm excited about spending time with my wife of 51 years now. I'm excited about that I can still go swimming and bicycling and do the yoga and and just you know, my life is just a very blessed one at this point. Not that I feel like that every moment. But since you asked, it's not like I'm You know what it is? When people talk about work, what is work? I I think um if I remember right from physics, one way to look at work is energy expended against resistance. And the more energy ex- you expend against more resistance, the harder you have to work and the more fatiguing it is. But I'm fortunate enough and I'm free enough in my life right now that I don't have to face resistance, internal resistance. I want to do what I'm doing and there's just so much more and and um and I'm sure that my vision of reality is still very limited and maybe there's more to find out. In fact, I'm sure there's more to find out. So, it's just uh it's just an expansion into old age, I think, if if we're fortunate enough. We'll see how that goes and you know, one never knows what tonight will bring, let alone the day after tomorrow might bring, but so far it's an expansion, not physically, cuz as we get older uh physically, I don't swim as fast as I used to, but but there's an expansion that's available to us mentally and spiritually, relationally, in terms of understanding. And that's I don't know if that's I don't know what that sounds like, but that's what keeps me going. How do How do we expand spiritually? And that's probably a word that would warrant definition. But I'm curious how you think about that. Well, so spirituality is really beyond who we are as bodies and as minds. So, it it's an awareness that lies underneath all that and it can hold all that, but isn't identical with it. And this is where it's hard for me to say, am I saying anything I truly know, or am I just repeating what spiritual teachers that I've respected and have learned from have mouthed and I'm just repeating what they told me. But it's both, I think. I I do have a sense that there's more to us, and that more is I think what we call spirituality. And and it's all kinds of shapes and forms, and I'm not concerned about that. But I do know that um I am not who I used to think I was. And that nobody is who they think they are. Um they're they're beyond that. And I that's the common teachings, I think, of all spiritual traditions. Which I'm very inadequate and I I and this is not false modesty, I'm just telling you uh it's it's I'm inadequate at translating because I haven't had that deep experience that other people have had. It's It's very interesting, and I believe you that you're not just being um falsely humble, but as somebody who works so much with there's two two parts of your background that probably lean into what I would consider spiritual, but I think we may define that slightly differently, but one is the palliative care, which I'm extraordinarily fascinated by people that do that. And then your I don't know if you would call yourself a guide of um of hallucinogenic transformation. I'm not sure exactly what your involvement is with that, but I know that you've you've explored it enough to to sort of have at least a sideways glance at what's going on there. Talk to me first about palliative care. I know that you sort of ended up there by accident, but what makes that fascinating to me is you've got subtracting out the pain. You've got somebody who's there themselves, but all of the sudden their future is a known quantity and it's very short. And the profound change that that makes in the human mind I find interesting. What did you learn about life, about yourself in your time in palliative care? Well, the the people, the nurses and the physicians and the um the social workers and and and the others who work in palliative care tend to be a very special breed in that they're not afraid of death. So learning not to be afraid of human death and giving up your sense of omnipotence are liberating. By a sense of omnipotence, I mean physicians are trained to save lives. I'm telling you, Tom, I knew physicians that would barely visit their patients in palliative care cuz they couldn't stand what they considered to be their own failure, which of course it wasn't. But the their self-image as healers or physi- curers just couldn't withstand the white heat of death. And so that's very liberating when you just you get to talk to somebody and you get to minister to them and you're not pretending to be able to do anything more than you can do. But you can really listen to people and get to know people in their final days and their final hours, final weeks. It's an absolute privilege. Um What What about it is a privilege? Is Is there an inside getting to know getting to know people without pretension. You're not pretending to do anything you can't do. And they're past pretending. If they want to die right, they're past pretending. That's interesting. What do you mean die right? Well, there's ways of dying. You can You can resist it. You can resent it. You can be angry about it. Or you can uh actually accept it. And allow so much of what may be repressed in life to finally arise for yourself. Cuz because before then you were too busy and you were too intent on your role and your personality and getting this done and getting that done. You know, in one of my books when the body says no, I I talk about this guy who um who had a company selling shark cartilage as a treatment for cancer. I was totally shocked. But he believed in it. And then he developed cancer himself. And he was admitted to the palliative care unit and I was looking after him. And he was still eating he had terminal cancer all over his body. He had week or two left. He was still eating shark cartilage which smelled awful. You could when you stepped off the elevator to the palliative care floor you could smell the shark cartilage. And I finally said to him, "What is that? It smells kind of to smell. What does it taste like?" He said, "It tastes awful. I hate it." I said, "Why are you eating it?" And he he said, "Do you think it'll help your cancer?" He said, "No, I no longer believe that. But my business partner would be so disappointed if I stopped eating it." And so one of the last things I was able to do for him as they say is to actually convince him to help him see that, "Look, you don't have to pretend anything anymore. It's not your job whether or not your business partner is disappointed." He had to literally walk into the last week of his life before he could let go of his role as being responsible for other people. So, that coming towards death experience can be a powerful teacher for people. And I've seen real love and real beauty and uh real inspiration from a lot of these people. So, it's beautiful work. And I I know that everybody who works in palliative care will tell you the same thing. It's a real privilege. Can you share some of the beauty? Well, I think I just did. Just people being them allowing themselves to be touched, to be helped, um to be honest with themselves, um to share stuff that they maybe never told anybody else before in their lives because they're too afraid to. Um to accept real lessons in acceptance. You talked earlier about how you you might use up a month to resent and so on, you know. So, these people are very often are past that point. Well, that's a privilege to witness. Knowing how resentful I can get when life doesn't go my way, you know. Are there things that um would it be a valuable exercise for people to run the thought experiment of you know, look, I might not make it to tonight, like you said, let alone tomorrow. Um do you think that there is uh insight to be had from that or is there another way for us to access um getting beyond like if if you're defining beauty as you don't have to pretend anymore, you don't have to play a role, um you can really be who you are and maybe this dips into big T truth. Um how do we access that now without needing to be truly facing a terminal illness? Well, again, I don't know that I am. It's very easy for me to speak from my present position as a as a healthy active 77-year-old. And I know what I like I know what it gets like when I get a stopped toe, and how life is unfair, you know, why why did I stub my toe? Now I can't get on my elliptical machine, you know, so again, I'm in no position to give you stage advice, but I can tell you two things. One is I've talked to a young fellow in his 30s. He's written a book called Blessed with a Brain Tumor. His name is Will Pi. And this guy's a brain tumor. And I said, "Well, what's the blessing here?" I interviewed him. He said, "Well, for one thing, when I'm interacting with somebody now, I value each moment. Cuz I never know that this might be the last time I ever speak to them." Um and the Buddha again, I'm I'm talking like some kind of Buddhist, which I'm not, but um he had his monks do a meditation where they had to imagine themselves dead in a in in in a graveyard, and they had to imagine themselves being eaten by worms till the flesh melts off their bones. It's a rotting flesh. And then they had to imagine themselves as bones just lying there, disarticulated bones, and finally even the bones being ground into dust, you know, and he had them contemplate this as a way of bringing them to present day reality, present moment reality. Now, I can't say that I've attained any of that. I mean, I'm just telling you, there are practices. There are practices There's a book on my shelf by Stephen Jenkinson, who's another fascinating guy. He It's called Die Wise. And he said, you know, it's basically about, you want to die well, start preparing it for it now. What's the wisdom, if you remember from the book? The wisdom is that I haven't read the book yet. My son just gave it to me um as a birthday gift a few weeks ago, so I'll read it, but I haven't read it yet. That's really interesting. Um yeah, I for me it has been a very useful thought experiment to remind myself that for a long time I focused entirely on um I'm I want to live forever and I was um really trying to uh do all the things that I thought would extend my life to say 120 years believing that in that period of time, you know, that science would get better and we sort of hit health escape velocity where every year that I lived there was, you know, a year and a day added to um our ability to cure illness. And that really served me for a long time and it allowed me to make long-range plans that other people not might not be willing to make and really made me feel excited and connected and then there was something about probably about a year ago that I started to have this feeling that I would be better served and more motivated by flipping it and to start now thinking about how transient my life is and that almost certainly, since none of us know what's going to happen, um almost certainly I am going to die and I don't get a heaviness from that. Um quite the contrary. There's something about it that I find very motivating that I do see the beauty that people so often talk about that, you know, you have this life for such a limited time and to waste it playing a role, to waste it doing things that don't fill you with joy, to waste it chasing somebody else's dream, like it just doesn't make sense. And that that has been fun and I I enjoyed both sides of the coin and I got something very beautiful out of each and it I didn't even like consciously make the shift. I just found myself more and more sort of getting a bigger gust of wind of of elevating wind, if you will, uh from the side of thinking, "Man, this really is like how lucky, how transient, how beautiful in its sort of ephemeral nature, how wonderful it is." Um and I think part of that part of what was releasing in that for me is I am very much driven to matter, but never at the cost of joy, right? So, it's like, "I really want to matter. I want to do things that like are going to be felt, but I don't think about legacy. I don't think about living beyond myself or doing things that need to outlive me." Um I just think about like, "Hey, what can I do right now that will bring me more fulfillment, that will give me more joy?" And yeah, it was very it was very fascinating to see that transition happen where I went from the only thing that gave me that push was thinking of myself living forever, and then all of the sudden realizing, "No, it's actually now more advantageous to think of sort of imminent death." Which, trust me, I'm not in any way, shape, or form eager for. Um but just interesting that that change happened. I don't know if that's just sort of a natural thing about, you know, getting into my mid-40s and everybody is going to have that sort of same realization, but No, everybody will not have the same realization. I think everybody might feel the life pricking of that question, but not everybody will resolve it the same way. And some people will resolve it by getting Botox injections. And uh life-enhancing ageless supplements and if they're if they're wealthy enough, they'll and they'll invest in cryotechnologies so that they can be frozen and then who knows, miraculously resurrected and uh which I think is personally is total scientific nonsense, but um uh not everybody's And some people will just ignore it, and and they'll try to escape from it by trying to keep their lives busy, and and and and follow all kinds of compulsions. So, I think the question the pain of that question is inside everybody, but I don't think everybody resolves resolves it the same way. And um And I don't you know, you're you're much more younger than I, and you say you have resolved it, and maybe you have. Or maybe it's just something that you're still quite comfortable telling yourself at your young age, and who knows how you'll feel about it by the time you get my age. Yeah, I don't I actually wouldn't characterize it that I've resolved it. I I am making only one statement that right now, at the age that I'm at, it's more useful, it's more motivating to realize that I'm going to die. Uh when I was saying I'm not rushing towards that, I if I actually thought it would work, I would cryogenically freeze myself. Like, I would much prefer to live forever. Um Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's not even like a a question for me, and that may be mental illness. I'm perfectly willing to accept that. But, in terms of what is motivating to me, that, for sure. Like, one of my great pains, and this is what it actually bothers me so much I can't allow myself to think about it, um that I can't pursue all the things that I'm passionate about, cuz there just isn't enough time. I know that one. And that's like that's one of those far more than stubbing my toe would make me think life is unfair. That one does, and it really messes with my head, and so I I just have to put it out of my mind. Yeah, but it only messes with your head cuz you have a certain belief. I mean, there's a there's a belief underneath. I totally get it. I mean, I think I think a lot of us have experienced that. I certainly have. Somebody once said, "Every choice excludes." Every time you make a choice, you're excluding something else. You know, and that's certainly true. The the question is, what part of me or you doesn't want to accept that? What do we have a problem with it? And there's some underlying belief there that creates pain around it. It doesn't need to be painful. It's going to be just this reality. You know, but so if it hurts, so if it bothers us, there's some belief there. I haven't thought about it, but now that you mention it, there's some belief there that creates the the pain. It's just like, why do I have to be everything and do everything? Why? I am a limited human being. You know, and that's I'll take a swag at it, and let me know what you think. So, um part of what I do, um is so my company actually tells stories. So, movies, TV shows, comic books, that whole thing. Yeah. And when we're developing a project, we need to figure out what the style of that project, let's say it's a comic book. We have to figure out the style. Okay. So, you go and you start, you know, looking at materials and seeing it, and you realize that there's a hundred different ways you could go, two hundred different ways, more. And you'll respond so intensely to seven of them. Yeah. And it is very hard to know that I won't get to spend a year in that style, right? That I have to narrow it down to to just one. And it's interesting, like what I always tell entrepreneurs is, what really trips people up is you're standing in a room with a thousand doors, and your job is to close 999 of them, right? To decide comes from what the Latin to cut. It's like, to your point about exclusion, that there's going back to the physics of being human, I don't know why and maybe it's a modern society thing, but humans have a hard time closing those doors. They have a much harder time of closing the other doors than they have walking through one. Cuz if I say, "Hey, you can walk through that one. You can come right back." then they'll walk through it. But if I say, "You have to pick one that you're going to walk through forever." that they would just stand there paralyzed. But isn't we have the same dilemma when it comes to relationships as well? You know, it's interesting. When I was saying that, my wife popped into my mind. And I don't With relationships, I have not struggled with that. Um I It was a part of the calculus of whether or not to marry my wife that I'll never sleep with another woman again. Um but it wasn't a hard part of the calculus. So, I don't know if that's just uh Okay. my patterns or what. Sure. And that's great. And what about before you met your wife? Gabriel, this is interesting. And uh any insight you have here will be greatly welcomed. I understood very early on the utility of um commitment. So, I was very bad with women when I was young. Extraordinarily bad. And my mom though gave me a piece of advice which was mind-blowing to me. And she said, "For a woman, trust is required for an orgasm." And I thought, "What?" Like that seems so strange to me. As a guy, I was like, "Let me tell you that trust does not enter into my mind when it comes to whether or not I can have an orgasm." And but I thought, "Ooh, that's really interesting." And so, then sort of looking at women, how they're prized for their beauty, and committing to somebody which always struck me as a good idea, that the value in a shared life. Like, if you ever watch this interview over again, look at my face when you say you've been married for 51 years. I was smiling ear to ear. Um because that's something that really matters to me is sharing a life with my wife for as long as humanly possible. And all the things that I have to give up pale in comparison to what it means to share a life with somebody like that. Um so putting the okay, women need trust. That's interesting. They're prized for their beauty, which means that it's going to go away over time. As their partner wanting to give them that love and security and and and to be seen and desired, which I think is um something that people long for in a romantic relationship. I need my wife to know that I will always find other women attractive because it's just hardwired in me. But I so covet commitment and and being in a bonded relationship with you that I want you to know, no matter what, you're going to turn into a bag of wrinkles. God willing, we get to that stage. You're old, I'm old, we're not physically attractive in the the typical, you know, cues of beauty and fertility, but I'm still going to be into you because we've shared a life. So anyway, that notion hit me very early. And so I've always I haven't struggled with commitment. I guess that was a lot of words around that. And I and I have been a commitment phobe, you know. Really? Which has What what was the push? Well, which has to do with my own childhood history, you know. Is that to commit something is to invite pain and rejection. You know, but it goes back to being 1 year old and being given to a stranger by my mother to save my life. And I didn't see her for 6 weeks, 5 or 6 weeks. So to be to open your heart and to be committed means to be hurt. You know, I'm not making excuses. I'm saying that's how it worked for me. I've learned commitment. So you your gave you a advice, But I've had to learn that over time. The good news I can tell you, Tom, is the beauty does not go away. The the the Should your marriage come to 51 years as mine has, you'll be looking to your wife's eyes and you'll be looking to you'll be seeing the same beauty that you saw the first day you met her. It's going to be amazing. It's not like that. It's not like all those wrinkles and stuff. They don't take away the beauty. That's not where the beauty comes from. You know, so that that that that that again is our society's um travesty when it comes to defining beauty. Um So, I'm telling you I've got good news for you. No, I love that. Um I know you're uh very clear about the things you consider yourself an expert in and what you don't, and I'm more than happy to hear just your thoughts out loud. But I'm curious, in 51 years of marriage, other than that that beauty remains, um what are things that you've learned? It seems like your marriage is better now than it was before based on things I've heard you say before. Um What what advice do you have for people that are you know, much earlier in the relationship than you? Um It's time to marriage is um a wonderful opportunity to learn about yourself and about life if you're willing to be curious. And um and that it's not 50/50. It's 100% it's 100%. So, you're each 100% responsible for how way show up. And every difficulty we've ever had has been a powerful learning experience. And this is where the commitment to truth comes in cuz that's one thing we've shared. Is that it's not easy to give up your point of view and your grievance and your stance. But there's a deep payoff in when you do that. So that the marriage is just the most wonderful school there is for development. If you're willing to look at it like that and if if you and if you when you need the help if you're willing to get the help to look at it that way. And so how do you open yourself up to that? Is it soliciting feedback from your partner about what they see and how you are and helping you understand the truth about yourself or is it something totally different? Well, there's a lot of there there is certainly that. That's a really important part of it. Um it's also it goes back to a lot of my work is that any deep pain that you're experiencing is you confusing the present moment for the past. So that in the marriage you're going to get triggered. But when you think of a trigger, it's a very small little thing. And what's much more important is the ammunition and the explosive that the trigger sets off. And guess what? Who's carrying the ammunition and explosive? You are. So you can focus on the trigger. She said this or he said that or they didn't say that, they didn't do that. Or you can focus on oh what's exploding inside me and how long have I been carrying this? So it takes that curiosity and the willingness to look at yourself. Speaking of trauma and how we're carrying around that explosive charge, are there universals to healing from trauma? What do you mean universals? Things that apply to everybody. So, um I'm guessing a big part of it's going to be self-awareness. You need to become self-aware. Um but when I think about adults trying to heal from childhood trauma, that strikes me as a very difficult road. And I'm just wondering um you know, I I hope that it's a hopeful road. Certainly from what I've encountered with your work, there is definitely a lot of hope. Um and I'm just curious you know, for somebody watching this who's who is just in the grips of you know, childhood traumas both sort of known and unconscious. Um what can they do to begin to heal? So, there's many healing paths, but my own approach can be summed up in two words. And it's also the title of a course that I teach for therapists and so on. Um and there's versions of it for the lay public as well. I'm not recommending my particular work. I'm talking about the name, compassionate inquiry. So, if you can be curious, the inquiry part is the curiosity part. I reacted that way. Oh. Why did I react that way? Not why did I react that way? That's not compassionate. I reacted that way. I felt this pain. I felt overwhelmed. I felt hatred. I felt rage. I felt despair. Huh. What is that about? So, you have to have that curiosity. And you have to have the compassion to look at yourself not through that voice that tells you that you're worthless. But to say if I reacted that way, there must be a good reason for it. Something in me There's something happened to me that made me react that way at some point. So to be So rather than putting oneself down or thinking that if I have problems, it means I'm deficient. Have the curiosity to look into it and the compassion and to not to judge yourself for it. And that Both can be learned. Both the curiosity and the compassion can be learned. And any good therapist any any person you work with whether they call it compassion and inquiry or whether they call it something else, whatever they work with, those two attitudes will be embedded in their approach if they're going to be helpful to you. So compassionate curiosity curiosity I think is the key. And then are there tools? So let's say that somebody's doing the passionate inquiry, they really begin to understand what happened to them. In fact, maybe this is a better question. So let's say that you had had the upbringing that you had, all the things you went through in Hungary in your infancy, but no one ever told you about it. What does somebody who they clearly are suffering from some sort of trauma um but they they don't know what it is. How can they process through that? Oh. Yeah, uh that's not very difficult because it shows up in the present. And I can easily I do that with people all the time. So don't need the why, they just need to know that they are reacting that way. Well, it's not difficult to get them to see um that what they think is a reaction to the present is actually a reaction to the past. This is without any recall because there's all kinds of memory in the body carries memory even if it doesn't carry recall. And a lot of things that people that have happened to people happened before they had conscious recall. So, uh in my work, I don't find it difficult to drill down to what is it that people are carrying in the present, you know, and I it's just a simple exercise that I do with people. Uh So, that what I'm say but but to make it long story short, the past shows up in the present all the time. And that goes back to Johnny Cash, it all goes down in your mind. You think you're reacting to something now? Uh, no, you're not. You know, the uh there's a wonderful um um Italian writer who survived the Holocaust called Primo Levi who's just the most profound writer on the Holocaust of them all and he went through Auschwitz, he survived ended up committing suicide decades later. Um but he said uh I'm just um looking for the precise quote here on my cell phone. If I can find it, I will uh give it to you if you can bear with me. Pre I mean, the the setup here, I'm more than happy to wait. Okay, Primo my breath. Levi Okay, here it is. So, he says um Anguish is known to everyone, even children. And everyone knows that it is even blank and undifferentiated. Rarely does it carry a clearly written label that also contains its motivation. In other words, people are all beyond the suffering, but we don't always know what it's about. He says, "And any label that it does carry can be mendacious." In other words, we can tell ourselves that we're suffering because of this, but it's not necessarily true. He says, "One can believe" This is the heart of it. "One can believe or declare oneself to be anguished for one reason and be so for something totally different. One can think that one is suffering at facing the future and instead be suffering because of one's past. One can think that one is suffering for others out of pity, out of compassion, and instead be suffering for one's own reasons." And so on and so on. And I just don't find it that difficult to speak to somebody and show them that their present suffering is actually a memory of past suffering. So, that you know, so recall is helpful. And you know, there's ways to get at it. Sometimes if if it's totally inaccessible, people do hypnosis sometimes. People do EMDR sometimes. People do What's EMDR? I've heard you mention that before, but I don't know what Eye movement desensitization reprogramming. It's a way of working with conscious and unconscious memories. Um there's psychedelic work that sometimes I've seen people under the influence of psychedelics recall all of things um that are not available to conscious memory usually. But none of that is crucial. What is crucial is to make the distinction that what I'm experiencing now is a resonance of the past. And I don't have to keep having that same resonance. If I can um reinterpret the meaning that I gave to that past experience. Now, without demonstrating it live, I can't say more about it except again to say that we don't have to worry about recalling because the past shows up in a form of physiological and emotional memory every day in your life and particularly when you're upset. So, that it's not that difficult to to get at it. And and you and usually what happens, you see, is not so much that people don't remember suffering. No. It's not so much that people don't remember what happened. Is that they don't associate with suffering because already when they were experiencing it, they had to repress their emotions. So, when you say a lot of people have told me, "I had a happy childhood." Um I still have mental illness and addiction later on, but I had a happy childhood. It takes me 3 minutes of of just a few questions. Turns out that that childhood wasn't so happy at all. And it's not that they didn't remember even events, is that they didn't associate it with the pain cuz they had already suppressed the pain. That's how they survived it. So, that's not difficult work. It's work that you do extraordinarily well. Um and I encourage everybody to follow you. Where would be the easiest place to get a hold of you? Is it books first? Is it social media? Well, I don't personally post or read social media. I just life is too short. Um uh Yeah, there's my four books out there. There's a website, drgaboramate.com. I have all kinds of events happening. A lot of Look, for example, in March, I'm doing an event with a California-based organization called Spirituality and Nonduality. And I I think it's called The Wisdom of Trauma. It'll be a 4-day online workshop, very intense. Last time, there was about a thousand people who took it. Probably will be that again in a few weeks. That's a four-day immersion into my work. It's not for the faint-hearted because it it'll take you deep. And it'll be difficult at times, but I think it'll be liberating as well. So, there's all kind of stuff that I do online. It's all at the website at my website. There's my books and if you don't want to spend money on books, you don't have to. For one reason or another, people have posted all kinds of stuff of mine on YouTube. So, there's lots of my talks on YouTube. None of that costs any any money to access nor do you have to sign up for anything. So, there's YouTube, there's my website, there are my books. Um Perfect. There's lot lots of stuff out there. A lot of amazing stuff. I've seen a whole lot of it and I can just say it's absolutely incredible. Uh Gabor, thank you so much for taking the time, man. I have wanted to sit down with you for a very long time, so I'm very grateful that you made the time. Guys, trust me when I say that this is somebody who has a lot more to offer than can be fit in 2 hours. So, by all means check out the books, look at the other stuff that you can find, you'll be richly rewarded. And speaking of being richly rewarded, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.