3 things I picked up from binge-listening to podcast episodes starring world-renowned trauma researcher, Dr. Gabor Maté.
Who is Dr. Gabor Maté, I hear you ask?
He is essentially the don of trauma research.
He’s a world-renowned physician and thought leader, who is highly respected for his expertise on things like complex trauma, addiction, stress, and the unconscious ways we prevent ourselves from having the lives we really want.
He leads the conversation on how our nervous systems and our bodies hold the key to our mental wellbeing (he’s written several books about it) and has developed methods for overcoming things like addiction, overwhelm, burnout and stress using his infamous therapy technique, compassionate inquiry.
We’re fascinated by the idea of mind-body connection and total healing. So, I binge-listened to some recent podcasts he’s been on and I’m sharing the 3 biggest lessons I learned:
1) Trauma is not a 6 letter word.
When you hear the word trauma, what do you think?
I used to think, car accidents. Gaping wounds. Those scenes in Gray’s anatomy where the doctors are shouting incoherently about internal bleeding and walking very briskly whilst wheeling someone through a crowded hospital.
But, Gabor Mate teaches us that trauma is those things. And, it’s also a thousand tiny papercuts.
It’s the time your third grade teacher told you to keep your voice down, because you talk too loud. It’s the memories you have of being labelled, “the funny one” – when deep down you just wanted someone to tell you you were beautiful, too.
It’s the ways your parents might not have shown up for you. The ways you didn’t feel seen or heard. Even if you had a perfectly happy childhood. Even if your memories are all great ones. They likely didn’t have the right tools to fulfil your needs as a developing human being in the exact ways that you needed them to. And that’s OK. But, we also get to become aware of the ways that these micro-traumas might unconsciously hold us back in life or in relationships.
These smaller, more innocuous and more complex traumas are so much more common than we might think. And, the more we research and understand them, the more of a chance we have at collective healing and raising healthier children.
In this episode with Lewis Howes, you will also learn:
The difference between primary and secondary trauma.
The five things every parent needs to do for their children.
Why suppressing your anger is doing more harm than good.
The parts of yourself you need to integrate to feel whole
“Not being seen is a major source of trauma." - Dr Gabor Maté
2) You can’t love children too much
One of the best things I learned on my Gabor Maté binge day, as a mother of two, is that you cannot love children too much.
It’s literally scientifically proven and impossible. So, all those people that tell you you’re going to smother your children from loving them too much? You can tell them they’re wrong and science agrees.
On this episode of Motivation Thrive, Gabor talks about a research study that was recently concluded. There were hundreds of new mothers included in the study, and researchers basically watched how they behaved with their infants, most of them loved their children fairly. Some of them weren’t super available. Some of them related well. And some were a little extra doting, coddling and loved up with their infants.
The study concluded by looking at the adults 35 years later, and the people that were the most independent, successful and self actualised were actually the children who had the extra doting and super-loving mothers.
So the study’s conclusion? You can’t love children too much.
In this episode of Motivation Thrive, you’ll also learn:
Success, money, marriage are not precursors to a healthy family life (and what it is instead)
The best gift a parent can give to their children
What unconscious parenting is and what it can do
The biggest issues with our societal beliefs about parenting
3) We’re more wired, but more disconnected than ever before
A common narrative right now is that, “we’re more connected than ever before”. But, that’s not true. At least, according to Gabor.
We’re wired and easily accessible, but we’re disconnected. We can talk to our friends through apps, we can see what they’re doing so we don’t see a need to actually go and see them in person. But, this is dangerous.
Gabor says real human connection must happen in real life. Human nature requires co-regulation, it requires hearing another voice in real life. Even the sound, intonation, body language, casual touch, are all instrumental in healthy human existence.
We need true, connected, interested friends. We need people to be present with us, to make us feel seen, heard, alive.
We’re substituting friendship for Facebook and Instagram and then wonder why we’re feeling lonely, lost, disconnected. Why we’re addicted to numbing out with Instagram, sugar, or alcohol.
So, perhaps the most obvious - yet most important - lesson I learned in my Gabor Mate podcast binge, is that social media is not a substitute for real human interaction.
You do still need to see your friends in real life. You do still need to celebrate and live and exist inside your real life.
In this episode with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, you’ll also learn:
Suppressing past pain is a smart human adaptation
The gap between our internal world and external persona
Where traditional medicine misses the mark by ignoring the impact of trauma on our physiology
The two ways in which childhood trauma can impact our adult lives.
What’s up next
