Gabor Maté: Is Coronavirus Showing Us Who We Really Are? #106
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee welcomes Dr. Gabor Maté, a global expert on health, compassion, and addiction, to discuss life lessons from the pandemic. They explore the value of sitting with feelings, preventing anxiety transmission to children, and understanding societal judgment during crises.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Understanding the Contagion of Fear and Information
Revisiting Gabor Maté's Philosophy on Trauma and Addiction
Defining Trauma and Its Impact on Present Responses
Minimizing Pandemic's Impact on Children and Family Dynamics
The Importance of Self-Awareness and Sitting with Emotions
Practical Steps for Parents to Manage Stress and Anxiety
The Pandemic as an Opportunity for Personal and Societal Growth
Societal Lessons: Inequality, Global Interconnectedness, and Human Kindness
Observing Judgment and Cultivating Compassion During Crisis
Long-Term Consequences of Isolation and Societal Response
Reflecting on Humanity's Capacity for Change vs. Forgetting
The Need for Vulnerability and Asking for Help
5 Key Concepts
Infodemic
This term describes the rapid and widespread circulation of information, both accurate and inaccurate, about a particular event. It highlights how panic and fear can spread virally through media and the internet, similar to a biological virus.
Trauma as a Wound
Trauma is defined as a deep hurt, metaphorically like a physical wound. It can manifest as raw pain or as thick, inflexible scar tissue that lacks feeling and capacity for growth, leading to programmed rather than consciously chosen responses to present situations.
Emotional Stress Test
This metaphor suggests that challenging situations, such as a pandemic, reveal the true state of an individual's or society's emotional and psychological resources. It's akin to a cardiac stress test that exposes the real condition of the heart under exertion.
Healthy Shame
In some aboriginal or ancient societies, individual accumulation or excessive self-importance was viewed as a weakness. Rituals or practices like giving away wealth were used to reinforce communality and prevent individuals from developing arrogance, prioritizing collective well-being over individual achievement.
Childhood Trauma and Adult Pressure
The intense internal pressure many adults feel to constantly achieve or 'save the world' often stems from childhood programming, such as feeling responsible for a parent's happiness. This pressure is distinct from a genuine desire to help and can lead to overworking or self-neglect.
8 Questions Answered
Technology, particularly social media and the internet, can act as an agent for spreading viral fear and panic, creating an 'infodemic' alongside the pandemic itself.
Trauma is a deep wound from past experiences that can cause present-day fears to be triggered, leading to responses that are more programmed and less flexible than chosen consciously.
Parents can best help their children by first taking care of themselves, observing their own emotions, and sitting with their fears rather than distracting from them. They should acknowledge their vulnerability without making it the child's problem, and openly explain their feelings to their kids.
When tension or anxiety arises, one should pay attention to it, be curious, and sit with it compassionately, similar to how one would comfort an anxious child, rather than ignoring or trying to talk oneself out of the feeling.
Yes, the crisis can clarify personal values, highlight what's truly important, and reveal internal resources for coping. On a societal level, it can expose systemic issues like inequality and prompt deeper questions about our way of life and global interconnectedness.
Judgmental reactions can stem from a lack of compassion and an inability to understand the underlying insecurities or trauma responses that might drive such behaviors, like a deep-seated distrust of authority.
While individuals may learn valuable lessons, there's a risk that society as a whole might revert to 'business as usual' due to the desire to recover economically and the influence of existing power structures.
This drive, distinct from a genuine desire to help, can be a form of childhood trauma programming where an individual feels pressure to constantly do more to validate their existence, often stemming from early experiences of needing to make a parent feel better.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Practice Compassionate Self-Inquiry
When noticing uneasy feelings, treat yourself with compassion, sitting with, noticing, and allowing the feeling, as if attending to an anxious child. This compassionate attention is a healing process, helping you understand and process emotions without judgment or suppression.
2. Cultivate Self-Awareness
Use challenging times as an opportunity to sit with discomfort, understand yourself, and determine if feelings are new or familiar, fostering deeper self-awareness. Many behaviors are distractions from internal discomfort, and this period offers a chance to confront and understand those feelings.
3. Sit with Your Feelings
Value sitting with your feelings instead of distracting yourself with external stimuli like Netflix or social media. This allows for deeper understanding and processing of emotions.
4. Listen to Your Body’s Signals
Pay attention to your body’s physical signals (e.g., tension in a specific area) as warning signs that you might be putting too much pressure on yourself. Recognizing these signals is key to self-awareness and preventing burnout.
5. Parent Self-Timeout for Upset
When feeling tense or upset as a parent, take a personal timeout (e.g., take breaths, sit and think, listen to music) to calm your nervous system without acting out on close ones. This allows you to process emotions and acknowledge vulnerability without making it your child’s problem.
6. Prioritize Self-Care for Parenting
The most effective action parents can take for their children is to prioritize their own self-care. If parents are internally anxious, children can sense it, so managing parental anxiety is crucial.
7. Be Honest with Kids
When feeling tense or busy, be honest and explain your feelings and situation to your children, rather than snapping or dismissing them. Children often understand and appreciate honesty, leading to better interactions and outcomes.
8. Involve Kids in Self-Care
If appropriate, offer children a way to help you unwind, such as playing a quick game, explaining that it would help you calm down. This makes children feel important and responsible, fostering connection while you manage your stress.
9. Inquire into Self-Pressure
When feeling self-imposed pressure (e.g., to do more than your body can bear), inquire into which ‘part’ of you is creating this pressure and its origins, potentially tracing it to childhood programming. This helps differentiate genuine desires from trauma-driven behaviors.
10. Be Vulnerable, Ask for Help
Allow yourself to be vulnerable and actively ask for help when you need it. This is a crucial lesson for everyone, especially during challenging times.
11. Practice Non-Judgmental Compassion
Cultivate compassion and the ability to non-judgmentally understand others, even those whose behavior (e.g., not social distancing, panic buying) might be frustrating. This is described as the most important skill for human beings, helping to understand others’ insecurities or trauma responses rather than just judging them.
12. Practice Daily Gratitude Journaling
Keep a daily journal to write down thoughts, especially little things you are now appreciative of and grateful for, that you might have taken for granted. This helps you sit with and understand yourself, and ensures you don’t forget these valuable lessons and insights when the crisis is over.
13. View Crisis as Growth Opportunity
Adopt a mindset that views the current global crisis as a significant learning opportunity and a ‘stress test’ for your emotional system. This perspective allows for personal growth and the development of internal resources to deal with threats to well-being.
14. Continuously Ask ‘What Can I Learn?’
As you navigate challenging times, make it a practice to continuously ask yourself, ‘What is here to be learned? What can I learn today?’ This helps you identify powerful teachings and internal resources, fostering personal growth during a crisis.
15. Reflect on Clarified Values
Reflect on how the pandemic has clarified your values, considering what previously preoccupied you now seems trivial. This helps identify what is truly important in life, such as how you feel about yourself and others, and the communality, solidarity, love, and compassion you experience.
16. Prioritize Giving Over Accumulation
Reflect on when you feel best, recognizing that giving out of free choice often brings more peace and joy than individual accumulation. This aligns with our true human nature and can be a valuable lesson from the crisis.
17. Prioritize Your Health
Make looking after your health a top priority right now. This will not only help you in the short term but also build resilience for the challenges ahead.
18. Sit in Silence to Tune In
Try to sit in silence a little bit more to truly understand and get in tune with what you are feeling. This practice is beneficial for self-understanding and emotional awareness.
19. Limit Compulsive News Consumption
Be aware that constant engagement with information about the virus, beyond what’s necessary (e.g., 5 minutes a day), can spread panic and fear virally. Excessive news consumption can be a distraction from your own feelings.
20. Form Virtual Book Clubs
Consider forming virtual book clubs with friends to discuss helpful audiobooks, listening to a chapter every few days and meeting over Zoom to share learnings. This can help understand topics like stress, anxiety, and practical ways to alleviate them, fostering calm and control.
21. Seek Professional Therapy
Consider getting regular professional therapy if something is interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving goals. Therapy can help in personal and professional life, offering professional counseling done securely online.
22. Utilize Audiobooks for Learning
Utilize audiobooks, especially during times when physical books are hard to access, to continue learning and gaining insights. Audiobooks are immediately downloadable and can provide valuable information on topics like stress and health.
23. Acknowledge Vulnerability & Upset
Don’t be ashamed to acknowledge your vulnerability and upset emotions. This is part of giving upset emotions space and checking in with yourself.
24. Join a Supportive Community
Join a supportive community, such as the ‘Dr. Chastgy Four Pillar Community Tribe’ on Facebook, to get inspiration, motivation, new ideas, tips, and support for your struggles. Having a supportive community is important, especially during challenging times.
25. Share Valuable Content
Share valuable podcast content with friends and family via social media or word-of-mouth. This helps spread helpful information and inspiration to more people.
9 Key Quotes
So take that time and do check in. And don't be ashamed to acknowledge your vulnerability and your upset.
Gabor Maté
The panic and the fear is also spreading virally.
Gabor Maté
A lot of what we physicians see in clinical practice, whether it's physical or mental health issues, can be traced to early experiences in life.
Gabor Maté
If we can sit with our own fear, then we can sit with our children's fear.
Gabor Maté
The pressure is always in childhood. So what you're describing here is just what we're talking about, about, about trauma is that there's something, some part of you that still believes that in order to validate your existence, you've got to put pressure on yourself to do more than your body can bear.
Gabor Maté
What's really interesting about the times in which we live is that we've got social media, we've got the internet. So we can, with the content we put out, we can sneeze on the brains of everyone all over the world.
Judson Brewer (quoted by Rangan Chatterjee)
This virus is waking us up to the fact that we're all living in the same world, and what happens in one country affects what happens in another country.
Gabor Maté
Aren't these just the most important things? And doesn't it just warm your heart when you see these, uh, videos from Italy with people serenading each other from their rooftops and their balcony, you know?
Gabor Maté
Let's just be vulnerable people and ask for help when we need it.
Gabor Maté
3 Protocols
Parental Timeout for Emotional Regulation
Gabor Maté- Notice how tense you are.
- Go to a quiet space (e.g., a balcony) and take a few breaths.
- Sit and think, or listen to a piece of music to calm your autonomic nervous system.
- Allow yourself to have your upset emotions and give them some space without acting them out on the people close to you.
- Check in with yourself and don't be ashamed to acknowledge your vulnerability and upset.
Responding to Children's Anxiety
Gabor Maté- Be present with your child and their feelings.
- Ask them what's going on and what they feel anxious about.
- Treat them with compassion, talk softly, and accompany them.
- Avoid ignoring them, talking them out of their feelings, making them wrong, or giving unsolicited advice.
Daily Journaling for Gratitude and Self-Reflection
Rangan Chatterjee- Each day, write down a few thoughts about things you are now appreciative of and grateful for.
- Use this practice to sit with yourself, understand your feelings, and prevent forgetting these lessons when the crisis is over.