1
SPEAKER_01
 If a child plays they'll be able to learn it's actually later.
1
SPEAKER_01
So free creative spontaneous play kids have no if you look at those four needs Our society denies them all No wonder we have so many kids in trouble, you know, and by the way
1
SPEAKER_01
 There's another psychologist I spoke to called Darcia Narvaez and she taught at Notre Dame University and she's researched indigenous societies, aboriginal societies, small band hunter-gatherer groups.
1
SPEAKER_01
Guess what she found?
1
SPEAKER_01
They provided their kids
1
SPEAKER_01
 All those things.
1
SPEAKER_02
Lots of time to play.
1
SPEAKER_01
Out there in nature.
1
SPEAKER_01
With other kids.
1
SPEAKER_01
Full range of emotions.
1
SPEAKER_01
All that stuff.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
 We've lost the ball somewhere, you know, in this culture.
1
SPEAKER_01
I know this culture has many achievements to its credit.
1
SPEAKER_01
Innovations, achievements, successes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Science and all that.
1
SPEAKER_01
But boy, have we lost it when it comes to what human needs are.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you can hurt people in two ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Hurt or hurt?
1
SPEAKER_01
Hurt.
1
SPEAKER_01
Hurt.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, you can hurt them in many ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
Hurt them in two ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
You can traumatize people in two ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
One is to actually do bad things to them that you shouldn't have done.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the other is to deprive them of their needs.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And this society does it both ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
By doing bad things to them?
1
SPEAKER_01
By doing bad things to them.
1
SPEAKER_01
A lot of kids have bad things done to them in schools, in homes, and so on.
1
SPEAKER_01
A lot of other kids, it's not so much that bad things are done to them, but that the good things that they need, they're deprived of.
1
SPEAKER_01
And those are the needs I just talked about.
1
SPEAKER_01
Was there a fifth one, too, or no?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, the fifth one was the parents working on themselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
That was the first one, gotcha.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so the five, gotcha.
1
SPEAKER_02
 So the five, if you're a parent or about to be a parent, do these five things.
1
SPEAKER_02
If you have kids right now and you ask yourself, am I doing these five things?
1
SPEAKER_02
Start adding them if you've been neglecting.
1
SPEAKER_02
But the first one is to do the work on yourself first.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think this is...
1
SPEAKER_02
 Dr. Shafali, I'm not sure if you know her, but she's got a conscious parenting.
1
SPEAKER_01
She's incredible.
1
SPEAKER_02
I know her very well, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think it's this, you know, she talks about doing the work yourself in a conscious way to heal so that you can parent in a conscious way as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
We talk the same language.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
I really like her work.
1
SPEAKER_02
So doing that first for yourself.
1
SPEAKER_01
 That takes courage.
1
SPEAKER_01
And ongoingly.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it's not a one day and you're done?
1
SPEAKER_01
I wish I could.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was one day.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just day one.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just spend a day working on your stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
You'll be fine.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it's ongoing.
1
SPEAKER_02
It goes on until you have kids.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
So do the work yourself first.
1
SPEAKER_02
Number two, create...
1
SPEAKER_02
 the needs for your kids, which is a secure attachment, first off, so people feel secure.
1
SPEAKER_02
The child feels secure that they just exist, not to prove that they're pretty enough or talented enough or smart enough or more advanced than other kids to get love, but just because they exist.
1
SPEAKER_02
The second one would be rest.
1
SPEAKER_02
So rest meaning
1
SPEAKER_01
 When you're resting, you're not having to work.
1
SPEAKER_01
So not having to work to make the relationship work.
1
SPEAKER_02
And with the parent, right, yeah, gotcha.
1
SPEAKER_02
The third one is the freedom to express all emotions, your full range of emotions in a safe environment.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then the last one would be
1
SPEAKER_02
 adding play in nature with multiple playmates without electronics.
1
SPEAKER_01
Spontaneous creative play.
1
SPEAKER_02
So ask yourself if you're doing these things.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, this book, The Myth of Normal, I wrote it with my eldest son, Daniel, who is now about to be 47.
1
SPEAKER_01
He talks in the book about
1
SPEAKER_01
 Did he have those things?
1
SPEAKER_01
Did he have those things with you?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, none of my kids had them.
1
SPEAKER_01
None of my children had them.
1
SPEAKER_01
I've made every mistake in the book, literally.
1
SPEAKER_01
I've made every mistake in every book I've written.
1
SPEAKER_01
About what not to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
About what not to do, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
So Daniel talks about, he used to have this recurring nightmare.
1
SPEAKER_01
 as a child, or the floor just disappearing.
1
SPEAKER_01
The floor not being the floor, which meant that he never knew when my wife and I would get into one of our really hostile tents, which changes.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he had to sort of
1
SPEAKER_01
 absorb and endure all that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, when the parents are in that state, the child does not feel secure.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, if we lived in a large community, like we used to, where there's uncles and aunts and grandparents around.
1
SPEAKER_02
Go next door and hang out.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
You have safety somewhere.
1
SPEAKER_01
Go to the next cave or go to the next tent or something.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we don't.
1
SPEAKER_01
 So you're trapped in your room.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
So Dan writes about when the floor was not the floor.
1
SPEAKER_01
And no, thank God.
1
SPEAKER_01
We've done a lot to heal our relationship.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even writing the book together was a healing exercise.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let me tell you.
1
SPEAKER_01
But you know, going back to his childhood.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
So when I point these things out, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's hard.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I certainly had to learn a lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
 from the many ways in which I showed up that weren't helpful.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
1
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I couldn't sleep at night for many, probably until, I don't even know, until I was like in my late teens or late 20s probably.
1
SPEAKER_02
I would stay up for hour, hour and a half, kind of just unable to sleep.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like I would try to go to bed early, I would go to bed late and I would just kind of like,
1
SPEAKER_02
 anxiousness or worry or just an inability to fully rest.
1
SPEAKER_02
Kind of always on this like edge.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think, you know.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And I never felt that stability with my parents, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
It was like there was always some type of tension.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it was like every other week there was an explosion of like the slamming of doors and the screaming in the kitchen and we're in the living room like, when is the explosion gonna happen next with our parents?
1
SPEAKER_01
Was there anybody in your life that you could talk to that was any kind of a safe haven for you?
1
SPEAKER_02
 No, I was the youngest of four.
1
SPEAKER_02
So my brother was 11 years older.
1
SPEAKER_02
My sisters were four years older than eight years older.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I kind of always felt like I just got to figure it out.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I left home at 13.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I begged my parents to send me away, where most kids get sent away for being bad.
1
SPEAKER_02
 I went to a private boarding school because I went to a Christian camp one summer and I met a bunch of kids that went to this school and I was like, these kids are accepting, these kids are kind, these kids are nice, these kids have joy, they're loving.
1
SPEAKER_02
I was like, I want to be around these kids.
1
SPEAKER_02
 It feels safe.
1
SPEAKER_02
Whereas I didn't feel like the school I was at before and kind of the environment at home felt safe.
1
SPEAKER_02
I was like, I begged them when I got back from this campus, said, please send me here to the school.
1
SPEAKER_02
And they were like, we're not gonna send you away.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, every day I was just like, please.
1
SPEAKER_02
And convinced them to send me away.
1
SPEAKER_02
I think that was probably like the beginning of feeling like, okay, I'm more safe now.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, even though I was in a strict dorm environment with, you know, wake up and dress code and rules, but it was like structure.
1
SPEAKER_01
Probably something you welcome to structure.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I thrived.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
I mean, some things I was resistant to, but I was also like, I felt more safe with the order and the structure and I was able to
1
SPEAKER_02
 Develop my mental and emotional skills and yeah that discipline gave me a skill set too Well, you know absolutely and going back to a discussion about that anger issue.
1
SPEAKER_01
I'm not saying that parents need to be permissive Permissiveness is a kind of neglect.
1
SPEAKER_01
What do you mean permissive permissive where the child is able to do whatever they want and in a rage or whatever, you know and
1
SPEAKER_01
 It's not a question of that, it's a question of there has to be structure, there has to be rules, and parents have to set boundaries for their children.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that's what you probably appreciated in that boarding school.
1
SPEAKER_02
Because the rules and the boundaries were scary at home.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was like discipline, you know?
1
SPEAKER_02
It was like anger rules.
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Rather than healthy rules.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, healthy rules and healthy boundaries, where it's like, hey, you know, put me in line if I need to be, but not screaming at me for my life, you know, that type of thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
 That's interesting, yeah, and so when parents, when there's tension within parents and there's kids around, and it's a pattern, whether there's a lack of affection, physical affection, a disrespect, whether it's loud or it's,
1
SPEAKER_02
 just a low-level sense of arguments.
1
SPEAKER_02
What happens then to children if there's that type of bickering, arguing, anger?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, first of all, a number of things can happen once the child disconnects, tunes out.
1
SPEAKER_02
 That's a coping mechanism.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then the brain gets wired to tune out.
1
SPEAKER_01
The child pushes down their emotions, as we talked about.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or the child takes on the role of trying to fix things, being the peacemaker, which is immediately a source of shame because they can never succeed.
1
SPEAKER_01
 So right off the bat, they're a failure.
1
SPEAKER_01
They're a failure, because my parents are still... Yeah, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
I didn't fix it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's my fault.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my gosh.
1
SPEAKER_01
So much weight on the issue.
1
SPEAKER_01
There's lots of impacts.
1
SPEAKER_01
This shows up in so many areas.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let me tell you a story.
1
SPEAKER_01
If I told you about a four-year-old girl who was bullied by neighborhood kids, and she runs into the family home to seek protection from the mother.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the mother says, there are no room for cards in this house.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Now you get out there and deal with those kids.
1
SPEAKER_01
How would you view that interaction with the mom?
1
SPEAKER_01
There's no room for what?
1
SPEAKER_01
No room for cowards in his house.
1
SPEAKER_01
Cowards?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Cowards.
1
SPEAKER_01
The kid comes in the home.
1
SPEAKER_02
Don't be a coward.
1
SPEAKER_02
Go defend yourself.
1
SPEAKER_02
As a four-year-old?
1
SPEAKER_02
Four-year-old little girl.
1
SPEAKER_02
I would say, how would I view that situation or that home?
1
SPEAKER_02
How would you view that interaction with the mother?
1
SPEAKER_02
 I would view it as that's how that mother was raised and she's not creating a safe environment for the child.
1
SPEAKER_01
What's the impact on the child?
1
SPEAKER_02
Suffering, pain, challenges.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let me tell you an amazing thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
 This story was told on public television in front of millions of people and nobody thought there was anything wrong with it.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention where she was nominated for presidency and there was a document about her life narrated by the voice of God, Morgan Freeman.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And this is described an example of good parenting, of this is how my mother helped me become resilient.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it didn't.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is how the mother taught her to suck it up and to become hard, you know.
1
SPEAKER_01
And 60 years later, she gets pneumonia during the election campaign.
1
SPEAKER_01
Remember what she did with that?
1
SPEAKER_01
She collapsed in public.
1
SPEAKER_01
She had fever.
1
SPEAKER_01
She was dehydrated.
1
SPEAKER_01
She didn't tell anybody.
1
SPEAKER_01
 She sucked it up.
1
SPEAKER_01
She said, I'm gonna be strong, I'm gonna be tough.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, there's no room for courage in this house.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
What amazes me is that, and we see this in our politicians all the time, and what amazes me is that this is a story told in front of millions, and nobody says, oh my God, that poor little girl.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everybody says, oh, this is a great example of parenting.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's how,
1
SPEAKER_01
 the nature we've become as a culture.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because a four-year-old girl who goes to mom for protection is not a coward.
1
SPEAKER_01
She's a four-year-old girl.
1
SPEAKER_01
What would a little cat do?
1
SPEAKER_01
 Run back for protection.
1
SPEAKER_01
Run back to mom, run with a little bear.
1
SPEAKER_01
Save me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Save me, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Help me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Seeking help from the adults is the most natural urge of the child.
1
SPEAKER_01
But in this culture, we've so glorified sucking it up that a presidential candidate can discuss this in public and nobody even bats an eyelash.
1
SPEAKER_01
So how do we teach our kids to have
1
SPEAKER_02
 the full range of emotions, and come to us for safety and support, but also have the courage to manage challenging times in our life.
1
SPEAKER_02
So that we're not always reliant on our parent when we're 30, but we're also, okay, we can take on challenges.
1
SPEAKER_01
See, here's the thing, nature has an agenda.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And we talked about the oak tree before.
1
SPEAKER_01
Nature's agenda is that you develop will and self-respect, given the right environment.
1
SPEAKER_01
And anybody with will and self-respect will stand up for themselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
You don't have to teach them.
1
SPEAKER_01
You have to just respect them and support them.
1
SPEAKER_01
They will develop that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you respect them, they will learn to respect themselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Nobody respects themselves, we'll put up with.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Yeah, bullies are being picked on.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or disrespect or anything.
1
SPEAKER_01
They won't, they will say, no, you don't do that to me.
1
SPEAKER_01
To me, you don't do that.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do you show that to children?
1
SPEAKER_01
How do you respect kids so they feel that and see it?
1
SPEAKER_01
By all the ways that we talked about.
1
SPEAKER_01
And anger, we have a circuitry in our brain for anger, as I said.
1
SPEAKER_01
There's such a thing as healthy anger.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now,
1
SPEAKER_01
 which is very different from uncontrolled rage.
1
SPEAKER_01
Healthy anger simply says, no.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you're in my space, get out.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, all animals have that.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, it's like.
1
SPEAKER_01
The gorilla's just like.
1
SPEAKER_01
You're in my space, you know, and the cat.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, that's healthy anger.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, look at a cat with a,
1
SPEAKER_01
 ambitious-looking dog coming near this.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don't even think about it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Forget about it, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
That's healthy anger.
1
SPEAKER_01
We don't have to teach it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's there.
1
SPEAKER_01
We just allow it.
1
SPEAKER_02
What's uncontrollable rage?
1
SPEAKER_02
What's the difference?
1
SPEAKER_01
Uncontrollable rage is different.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so here's the thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
The suppression of healthy anger promotes autoimmune disease and neurological disease.
1
SPEAKER_01
The suppression of the health, yep.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because anger is a boundary defense.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Healthy anger is a body defense.
1
SPEAKER_01
Suppressing healthy anger suppresses the immune system because of the mind-body unity.
1
SPEAKER_01
Again, this has been demonstrated.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the mind-body unity says you suppress healthy anger, you're suppressing your immune system.
1
SPEAKER_01
Your immune system may even turn against you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just like your anger can turn against you.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that's not healthy.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then there's uncontrolled rage, which is also not healthy.
1
SPEAKER_01
And people who rage a lot, they're more prone to have heart disease and strokes and high blood pressure.
1
SPEAKER_01
 because of all the adrenaline and all that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Unhealthy rage is usually because you have suppressed emotions and all of a sudden the pressure cooker just boils over and then it spills out.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I don't know if you've ever experienced rage, I have.
1
SPEAKER_01
But you know what healthy anger is?
1
SPEAKER_01
You're in my space, get out, no.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Once it's done its job, it's over.
1
SPEAKER_01
You're creating a barrier, a boundary.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and it's done its job.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you move on.
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the more I raged, the more circuits in my brain got recruited to be even more rageful.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the healthy angers are in the present moment, but in defense, unhealthy rage is usually based on the past.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
So when I would rage with my kids, it had nothing to do with my kids.
1
SPEAKER_01
It had to do with being triggered.
1
SPEAKER_02
That you had unresolved trauma.
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And until you resolve the trauma, you're going to keep having the symptoms, which for you was rage.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when you speak of that word trigger, when people talk about being triggered, have you triggered me?
1
SPEAKER_01
 It's an interesting word, because if you look at the weapon, how big a part of the weapon is the trigger?
1
SPEAKER_01
Small.
1
SPEAKER_01
Small.
1
SPEAKER_01
What's there is there is explosive material, explosive charges, ammunition.
1
SPEAKER_01
There's a mechanism to do a lot of things.
1
SPEAKER_01
So if I get triggered, I could blame you and then just rage at you for triggering me.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Or I could say, hmm, what was the explosive charge inside myself?
1
SPEAKER_01
What's the ammunition here?
1
SPEAKER_01
What is that all about?
1
SPEAKER_01
And it's got never to do with the present.
1
SPEAKER_02
It always has to do with the past.
1
SPEAKER_01
It always has to do with the past.
1
SPEAKER_02
Healing the memories of the past, healing those stories.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes we have a...
1
SPEAKER_02
 Something a memory of the past and we could either downgrade the the memory or we could elaborate the memory, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
So how do we address the memory?
1
SPEAKER_01
 by allowing the feeling that's associated with it to be present.
1
SPEAKER_01
In other words, by not being caught up with the story, either suppressing the story and diminishing it or enhancing it and dwelling on it, but by what happens to me, what's in my body when that story comes up for me.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And just being with the emotions and accepting the emotions, which is really what should have happened to you as a child.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it's not about the story, it's about what you're experiencing when you're under the influence of that story.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's how I would say.
1
SPEAKER_02
What's the biggest?
1
SPEAKER_02
 What's the challenge you feel like you're still healing or maybe the trauma or the stress that is most present for you that you're still healing?
1
SPEAKER_01
It shows up in my relationship mostly.
1
SPEAKER_01
It shows up in two ways.
1
SPEAKER_01
One of them, not so much anymore.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let's say somebody critiques my view of addiction, okay?
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, I'm totally open to being critiqued.
1
SPEAKER_01
I got no problem if they understood what I was saying.
1
SPEAKER_01
 But if they're critiquing something I don't even understand.
1
SPEAKER_01
 I just can't stand not being understood.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that can be a trigger.
1
SPEAKER_01
Not so much anymore, because I really see that it's about them.
1
SPEAKER_01
Here's what I'm saying.
1
SPEAKER_01
I'm a reasonably good communicator.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you read what I say, and if you don't get it, and then you critique me for that, well, you got a problem here of perception.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that's one.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the big one shows up in my relationship with my wife is if
1
SPEAKER_01
 But I'm really letting it go, and I've let go of it majorly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is there any sense of not being wanted?
1
SPEAKER_01
From your wife?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Any sense of not being wanted, you know, whether it's physically or emotionally.
1
SPEAKER_01
But you know what?
1
SPEAKER_01
 Maybe you're finding this, I know you're in a new relationship, and I've been in mine now for... 53 years, you said?
1
SPEAKER_01
I'm married 53 years.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
In a relationship for 55 years now.
1
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It's been my biggest teacher.
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I'm sure.
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And it's my biggest ground of spiritual and personal growth.
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So if you take away all the therapy I've done, the psychedelic work I've done,
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 This still has been, which none of which would I want to do without, but this relationship and both of us wanting to find out the truth of things.
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I mean, we were as dysfunctional as that relationship was, ultimately we were both committed to the truth and not holding on to our little stories.
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What is the truth?
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You know who said that?
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 Pontius Pilate said it to Jesus Christ, when Jesus was taken in front of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
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 He says, well, who are you?
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Jesus says, I'm here to speak the truth.
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By the way, I'm not comparing myself to Jesus.
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No, you're a Pontius Pilate, okay?
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But Jesus said, I'm here to speak the truth, and Pontius said, what is the truth?
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And you know what Jesus did with that question?
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What?
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Didn't answer him.
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The reason he didn't answer him is because the question comes from the intellect.
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 An intellect cannot grasp the truth.
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The intellect can grasp the facts, but not the truth.
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And for us to grasp the truth... Ever read The Little Prince by Antoine?
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Remember what the fox says to The Little Prince?
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He says, you cannot see with the eyes, only with the heart.
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 So truth for me goes way beyond the intellect.
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It has to do with, therefore, there's no intellectual answer.
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That's satisfying.
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But the truth actually, again, as I write about, we have three brains.
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We think we have one brain.
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We have at least three.
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There's one up here.
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 Then there's the heart, which is a nervous system of its own, an intelligence of its own, and then the gut.
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When the three are aligned, then we're in a position to apprehend or appreciate the truth.
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When they're not, we're not.
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And so there's no simple intellectual access to what is truth.
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Truth is not a fact, it's an experience.
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 You know, and I know that sounds mystical, and I'm not at all a mystical being.
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I've never had deep mystical experiences.
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I'm not, you know.
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Yeah, you're a doctor.
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I'm a doctor.
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You know, although, again, as I do write about this, with certain psychedelic experiences, I've kind of glimpsed it, you know?
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But I know people who've had experiences of truth without psychedelics, just for some spiritual opening.
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 Happened sometimes at a time of deep suffering actually judge one said to me that she surrendered to a God.
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She didn't even believe in At a moment of deep suffering mmm, so the truth can show up in all kinds of ways, but it's not an intellectual experience That's why I can't answer the question
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 How much do you think you suffer on a regular basis?
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These days?
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It's very momentary.
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And when I revisit circuits of my brain that have long outlived their usefulness.
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But I don't... But I really, I would have told you most of my life I suffered.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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And I'm not saying that as a victim.
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I mean, it just felt bad and...
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 perceived as hopeless and myself as somehow irretrievably hurt.
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You know, that was my self-image, even as I was helping other people.
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I suffered writing this book.
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 Yeah, because of what we were talking about earlier, identification.
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So I took on this big project, this book, 10 years of research.
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I collected 25,000 scientific articles and reports, hundreds of books, hundreds of people interviewed, and then I started writing it.
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 And the first chapter was like the worst piece of junk I've ever produced.
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And I said, oh my God, I've taken on something way bigger than I can possibly deliver.
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 Why did I suffer?
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That's not suffering.
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If I take on something that I can't deliver, I just say, okay, I can't do this.
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That's not suffering.
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The suffering is, I should do this.
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The world expects me to do this.
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If I don't do this, I'm a failure.
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Because I identified with it.
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The judgment you have on yourself.
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The judgment, that's what the suffering was from.
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And I identified with it.
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So, you know, I've written four books now, published in 30 languages.
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This is the fifth one.
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 It doesn't matter how successful the others are, if this one fails, I'm a failure.
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And I really expose my incompetence to the world.
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In other words, my mind was identifying myself with the book.
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 And it took me some time to realize, you know, I'm not the book.
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Let's say I write this book.
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It doesn't work for whatever reason.
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I mean, I think it will, but if it doesn't, it doesn't say a thing about me.
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It's not me.
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I'm still alive.
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Earth is still here.
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The sun is, you know.
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So it's that identification that created the suffering for me.
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And that identification had to do with the childhood sins that had to prove the value of my existence.
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 You know, so that's... And so all suffering stems from what specifically do you think for us?
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Some false belief that we developed about ourselves as a result of what happened to us.
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And the fastest way to end the suffering within ourselves?
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Well, it's to recognize that we're suffering, which means what in us recognizes that we're suffering?
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 something that some awareness or some awareness.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So then to follow that awareness, you know, and and but the Buddha.
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 You know, it's four noble truths.
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Life is suffering.
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Secondly, there is a reason for that suffering, which actually is the attachment, the identification.
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Thirdly, there's a way out of the suffering.
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 And fourthly, here's the path.
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You dis-identify.
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You dis-identify with the things that society is... Yeah, and that you've attached to, and the society has laid on you.
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So, you know, that's the Buddhist way.
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It makes a lot of sense to me.
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Let go of the identity.
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Yeah, yeah, let go of the identity, exactly.
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And when he had his enlightenment experience, that's exactly what he found, that he was not his identity.
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That it wasn't his prince, that it wasn't his ascetic, you know, this hermit.
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He wasn't any of that.
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 Now, I have not had that experience, but you know what, the funny thing is, is I talk to you about it, and I sense your understanding of it, I can only say, yeah, absolutely, that's the truth, isn't it?
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Yeah.
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I think for, I was telling you before we started that last year, over the last year, I've had so much peace in my heart and in my body, and I just,
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 Doesn't mean there's not stressful moments and challenges of business and things that maybe I'm disappointed in or frustrated with, but it doesn't stick with me like it used to.
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And I'm so grateful for the continual healing journey that I'm committed to creating and cultivating within myself because I want everyone to feel this peace.
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I want everyone to feel this inner peace and again,
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 My mission and intention is to continue to cultivate that and stay with me.
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And I'm sure every parent will say, wait till you have kids and see if you have the peace inside of you still, but that'll be the ultimate test, I guess.
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Or as Ram Dass said, if you think you're on diet and go spend a week with your family.
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Exactly, exactly.
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But listen, let me say something.
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Are you experiencing gratitude?
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All the time.
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Did you used to experience gratitude?
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 Thank you.
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 I did, yes, but I would judge myself still for not doing enough.
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Now I'm like, I'm doing enough.
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I'm not judging myself or comparing myself that I should be doing, I should.
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I used to use should a lot.
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This is good, but I should have done it better.
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So I mentioned the psychologist Peter Levine, who's a mentor and a friend, and him and I were just working together in Switzerland.
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And Peter and I were talking a year ago, and he said, he's 80 years old now, and he says,
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 he asked himself this question, am I doing enough?
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And he says, these days, he can say, yes, have I done enough?
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He says, yes, I've done enough.
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But then he says, there's another question, even deeper, he says, am I enough?
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And recently, when I'm working together in Zurich, I said, so Peter, that second question, how are you answering that one?
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He said, I'm still working on it.
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Or am I enough?
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You know?
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 fully believe that we are enough?
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I don't think there's a how.
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I think it comes when you've done the work.
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It comes, you know.
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And the other thing you said is that your passion for helping others
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 heal and find peace in their lives, as you have found it.
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I'm telling you, I used to work in Vancouver's downtown Eastside, which is North America's most concentrated area of drug use.
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We have more people there in a few square block radius using all kinds of drugs.
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These people are all terribly traumatized.
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All the women down there were sexually abused as children.
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Many of them are indigenous Canadians, which is a very traumatized segment of the Canadian population, as it is here in the States.
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 But so many of them said to me, Doc, if I ever get over this, if I ever beat this addiction, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life making sure that other people don't have to suffer as I suffered.
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Now that's what you just said, is that as you've dealt with your own suffering, you're so committed now that others won't suffer, that others can deal from suffering.
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What does that say about the true nature of human beings?
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 We care about others and we're here for each other.
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Yeah, we're not selfish competitive aggressive teachers, right?
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That's that's not a true nature.
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This is No, you may do a good job at it.
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We need sometimes do well sometimes not so well But our nature wants to express itself.
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I have a few final questions for I feel like I could talk to you for hours I love this stuff but when does someone know that there are they are on a hewing journey and
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 What is healing and when do they know they're on it?
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Talking about chapters of my new book.
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That's perfect.
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So healing comes from the word wholeness.
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The Anglo-Saxon origin of the word is whole.
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So healing is not a matter of curing anything.
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 You can be cured without being healed and you can heal without being cured.
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Healing is becoming whole, in other words, integrating all the parts and recognizing all these aspects of yourself that you've loathed and hated and rejected and tried to run away from.
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 So it's becoming whole.
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It's coming back to your authentic self, which has never went away, but you lost contact with it.
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If trauma is a loss of connection to self, then healing is the reconnection to self.
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When do you know you're on a healing path?
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 When you're asking yourself some of these questions, that's already a sign of healing, because the people that are not healing, they don't ask themselves these questions.
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When you find that things that used to trigger you don't get you so upset anymore, or when you do get upset, you get over it much quicker, because you realize, oh, here, you know.
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So really, it's when the past starts to loosen its hold over your present.
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That's so powerful.
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Yeah.
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 You know, I used to get, I guess when you use the word triggered, I used to get triggered a lot to reacting to, my big thing was feeling taken advantage of.
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Feeling used, abused, taken advantage of.
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Which is exactly what happened to you.
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Which is what happened.
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And so when little things would happen in the world, like someone cut me off in a car, or flip me off or something, I would like want to go and beat this person up.
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It was like I, it would come over me of like, I need to chase this person down.
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 And I remember being like, man, why is this?
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You know, I was addicted to that reaction, that anger feeling of like, you're going to abuse me, I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen, right?
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Rage, whatever it might be, right?
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And that addiction of that trigger
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 from what I'm hearing you say is an enslavement to that traumatic experience.
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The past has power over you.
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You don't have control, you are reacting.
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 By the way, I'm gonna ask you a personal question.
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It's just a curiosity.
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So you're a big guy.
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I mean, if you decide to beat somebody up, 95% of the time, you're gonna succeed.
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Now, I'm 5'7", and probably 134 pounds.
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 I can get that kind of rage too, but I'm in no position to actually.
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You might get beat up.
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Which is probably a good thing.
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But what was it like for you?
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Did you use your size that way?
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Oh my gosh.
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I did, and this was a big awakening.
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I remember there's two experiences.
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I've talked about this before.
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One time I was driving nearby, it was probably 10 years ago, and I,
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 I stopped at a stop sign, but then I kind of rolled to like take a turn, right?
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And there was a runner coming and he had to like stop because I was rolling.
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So I went in the crosswalk area slowly, like one mile an hour.
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He had to stop and go around the car as opposed to just going through the crosswalk.
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 And he punched my car and went around and said something to me and then went around, right?
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I literally chased the guy down in my car and like chased him around the block, got out of my car and ran him down until I was like...
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 Finally, my senses came to me and I go, what am I doing?
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Well, you came to yourself.
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Thankfully.
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But maybe like six months after that, I got in a fight on a basketball game.
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I've talked about this in my books and on my podcast where I got in a physical, like a fist fight, a pretty bad one.
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And the guy was bigger than me, but I'd played football my whole life.
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It was almost like when I had this triggering, addictive rage moments,
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 I didn't feel any pain, right?
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It was like, there was so much adrenaline.
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There was so much fight in me that it was like, this is life or death, feeling.
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And so I got in a pretty bad fist fight.
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And afterwards, I remember being like,
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 Like I saw the guy's face and I go, oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did this.
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Even though he hit me first and so it gave me the reason, right?
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I was like, I would never start it physically, but I would make sure I would always finish it if I needed to.
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I remember at that point, I was like, my best friend, Matt, who's in the other room, who I've known for a long time, he was there with me and he goes, you know, what are you doing?
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Like later, he was like, Lewis, something's wrong with you.
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 Yeah.
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Like we're playing a basketball game.
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We're having fun here.
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Yeah.
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Why are you getting in this fight, this altercation?
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Yeah.
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And that was a big wake up call for me.
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Like when my best friend like called me out, he's like, I don't want to hang out with you.
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Like I'm never playing basketball with you again.
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And you got to figure out why you're reacting to someone talking trash.
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Yeah.
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We're supposed to have fun here.
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 What are you so triggered by?
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And that was a big wake-up call.
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This is when I started the healing journey.
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This is when I started going to therapy and emotional intelligence workshops and for the first time opened up about the sexual abuse, which was kind of the first opening of healing.
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And it's been a 10-year journey of
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 what you said, integrating all the parts.
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There was one part that I started to integrate and it started to heal certain things, triggers, but there were other parts and relationships that I hadn't integrated yet.
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From parents, from other things.
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So, yeah, thankfully that was 10 years ago and I haven't got a fight.
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What that story brings up for me is you had this fit of rage.
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But I was a loving, fun guy, unless I felt like I was being taken advantage of.
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 which is what happened to you as a child.
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But what else did we talk about having fits?
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We talk about epileptic fits.
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In epileptic fits, the brain is in a different state of physiological organization.
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When you're in that fit of rage, it's almost like an epileptic fit.
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You're not even there.
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You're not conscious.
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You're not conscious.
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You're like a tiger or like a hunting or something.
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Which by the way.
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You have one focus, you don't see anything else.
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 which also speaks to a lot of how the criminal justice system doesn't understand people.
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We don't understand how often the people do the worst things.
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I'm not saying this to excuse any bad behavior or not to protect society, but how we approach it is these are really traumatized people.
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And they're not actually, often the worst thing they do
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 They're not even there.
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They're not even aware.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, so I'm grateful that I started to, I was aware of it, started to heal.
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And yeah, and now I see things.
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It's funny because it's like a completely different person 10 years ago, right?
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And from teenage years and 20s, when I'm like, I'll see something and I'll just notice it and smile, you know?
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Okay, that's just about them.
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And I'll just, and I'm so connected to it.
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 the vision of my future and my present, but my vision, my values, my intention, my appreciation for life that I'm just like, okay, I'm safe.
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I can protect the five-year-old who was abused.
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I'm the adult in the room.
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I don't need to react because I'm here for that.
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 Part of myself that didn't feel whole at a certain point.
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You get to realize that life has created me But now I get to create my life.
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Mmm, you know within limits.
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I'm not gonna live forever, right?
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You know, but but I get to create how I live my life right as long as I'm alive, you know, and that's actually
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 When you're healed, you get to create your life.
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You have the creative freedom to dream, to imagine the life you want to create, right?
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As opposed to living in survival and stress mode.
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By the way, what I don't want to get is to, when I say that, when I hear myself say that,
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 I don't want to get too New Agey about it because there's a lot of people under difficult economic or racial or political circumstances where
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 Not that they're totally helpless, but there's a lot of pressures on them externally.
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So it's not like all you gotta do is take it on.
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We also have to look at the larger political, economic, social, racial, cultural issues that keep a lot of people- Suppressed.
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Suppressed, yeah.
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There's a lot of political trauma.
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And how does someone who maybe is living in
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 a stressed environment, whether it be their home or their city or their culture, political, you know, whatever it might be, they are more suppressed than others.
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How can they support themselves to getting out of a stressed environment so that they can be more of a baseline to have the ability to thrive and flourish emotionally?
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You know, something as a privileged Caucasian-identified male with
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 economic freedom and I'm not in a position to say to somebody, these are larger political questions.
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Society has to change and people have to work to change society.
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It's a question of, at some point it becomes a question of advocacy and activism and joining with others, you know.
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 I don't want to preach to somebody else about that.
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My job is, to what extent, is to support and help, but not to provide some kind of... But if society, let's say society won't change for a period of time for certain individuals who are feeling overstressed, what can they do as an individual?
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Whether they get support externally or not, what could they start to do?
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 anything else besides, I mean, we've covered a lot that they can start to do, and they can get your book, that's for sure.
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Well, again, you know, I'm not sure I can fully answer that, but I can give examples.
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So the New Yorker a couple years ago, within the last two or three years, had an article about an American black man who was jailed for decades and kept in solitary confinement.
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SPEAKER_00
 for decades.
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SPEAKER_02
Was it Shaka Senghor?
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SPEAKER_00
I don't know.
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SPEAKER_00
I'm sure I remember the name.
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SPEAKER_00
It could be.
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SPEAKER_02
I interviewed this guy who was in solitary confinement for decades, but.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, maybe the same man.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
Wrote a bestselling book and was on Oprah.
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SPEAKER_02
It might have been the same guy, but good.
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SPEAKER_00
All right, well, my point is that, fair enough, my point is that it didn't, that he wasn't destroyed by it.
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SPEAKER_02
Right, he started to heal in the prison.
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SPEAKER_00
He found the inner strength somehow so that
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SPEAKER_00
 It's not for me to tell.
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SPEAKER_00
I don't know if I could stand it for one day, never mind for four decades or three decades.
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SPEAKER_00
But that just shows you that the strength, the capacity to heal and to hold on to oneself and to find oneself is actually inherent in all of us.
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SPEAKER_00
 So even in that unimaginably horrific, inhumane, cruel, and absolutely socially, from a social point of view, despicable way of treating a human being, that person still could hold on to themselves.
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SPEAKER_00
They suffered, but they could hold on to themselves and come out of it with dignity.
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SPEAKER_00
So that's available to all of us, I believe.
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SPEAKER_00
But again, I'm not saying
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SPEAKER_00
 I don't even want to begin to imagine how I would handle that situation, but I'm just saying it's possible.
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SPEAKER_02
I've got a couple of fun questions for you.
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SPEAKER_02
Before I ask them, I want to make sure people get the book because I think this is going to help a lot of people.
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SPEAKER_02
The Myth of Normal.
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SPEAKER_02
They can get it where books are sold or Amazon or on your website.
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SPEAKER_00
 They can't get it from me directly, but they can go there.
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SPEAKER_02
There's a link to it somewhere Yeah, yeah, but if they go to dr. Yeah, we're matte calm They can get all the information about where to get it.
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SPEAKER_02
But this book is gonna be extremely powerful ten years of research Exploring all these things bringing it together
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SPEAKER_00
 There's a research in seven, eight years of living.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, personal research and scientific research.
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SPEAKER_02
And I think this is the type of stuff people need the most is understanding how to understand their pain, their trauma, their suffering and find solutions and reclaim their wholeness so they can be in a state of peace under stress in the world potentially and find that peace.
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SPEAKER_02
And I think it's,
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SPEAKER_02
 You know, it's something I feel like I want everyone to experience, as I've been experiencing it more in the last year and a half.
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SPEAKER_02
Less 10 years, some of it, but more in the last year and a half, internally, like consistent piece.
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SPEAKER_02
And it sounds like you've been experiencing it for a long time, and I feel like I'm so inspired by your mission.
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SPEAKER_02
And I've been watching your content for a while now, and I just think
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SPEAKER_02
 We need more of these, I guess it's available information to us that we've just forgot or we're not reclaiming, so.
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SPEAKER_02
 but I'm so grateful for your doing this.
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SPEAKER_02
So the myth of normal, I want everyone to get a few copies and give it to your friends.
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SPEAKER_00
And to subtitle, trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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SPEAKER_00
Which is what we've been talking about.
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SPEAKER_02
We haven't even talked about social media consumption, and iPads, and iPhones, and just being on electronics all day, how that's probably affecting, traumatizing us in certain ways.
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SPEAKER_00
And it's actually distorting the brain development of children.
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SPEAKER_00
 by being on the iPhone or iPad all day.
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SPEAKER_00
 question of recognizing trauma is that there's been a sea change in that.
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SPEAKER_00
Like the best-selling book in New York Times bestseller list is consistently Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score.
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SPEAKER_00
It's incredible.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
It's not an easy read.
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SPEAKER_00
No.
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SPEAKER_00
It's a very, you know, it's eloquent, but it's also technical and scientific and so on.
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SPEAKER_02
 It's been out for like 10 years, right, or something?
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SPEAKER_00
No, it came out in 2015, I think.
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SPEAKER_00
14, maybe 15, something like that.
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SPEAKER_00
And this year, another psychiatrist, Bruce Perry, wrote a book with Oprah called What Happened to You?
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SPEAKER_00
The fact that these books are now
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SPEAKER_02
 So many of these books are in the top 10 best sellers.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, people are waking up.
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SPEAKER_00
So I'm just glad to be able to contribute to that.
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SPEAKER_00
Of course, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
It's very powerful.
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SPEAKER_02
This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths.
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SPEAKER_02
So it's a hypothetical question.
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SPEAKER_02
Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live and you get to live your life, creating what you want, experiencing life and the relationships you want to be in and making the impact you want to have.
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SPEAKER_02
 But it's the last day, eventually.
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SPEAKER_02
Live as long as you want.
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SPEAKER_02
For whatever reason, all of your content has to go with you.
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SPEAKER_02
No one has access to your information, your books, hypothetical scenario.
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SPEAKER_00
So after I'm gone, it's all lost?
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SPEAKER_02
It all goes with you to the next place, it goes somewhere else.
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SPEAKER_02
We don't have access to it.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, got it.
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SPEAKER_02
Hypothetical scenario.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
 But you got to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things that you know to be true that you would share with us.
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SPEAKER_02
And this is all we have to remember your information.
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SPEAKER_02
What would you say are those three truths for you?
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SPEAKER_00
Seek the reality of everything.
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SPEAKER_00
Don't get seduced by appearances of anything.
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SPEAKER_00
Second would be, don't be afraid of your pain and don't run away from it.
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SPEAKER_00
 because that running away is what leads to addictions and illness and so on.
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SPEAKER_00
Number three, it's all worth it.
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SPEAKER_00
It's worth going through all that suffering because this is what life is.
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SPEAKER_00
It's just worth being alive.
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SPEAKER_00
A friend of mine in England recently lost a very close friend to suicide.
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SPEAKER_00
She was
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SPEAKER_00
 just struck by, overwhelmed by grief.
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SPEAKER_00
And she didn't know if she could handle it.
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SPEAKER_00
And then she's got a favorite forest that she walks in.
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SPEAKER_00
She told me this like two months ago or a month ago.
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SPEAKER_00
Anyway, she went to walk in this forest and she just felt this deep grief.
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SPEAKER_00
A grief is one of the brain circuits that we have.
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SPEAKER_00
 We have circuits for grief, we have to.
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SPEAKER_00
She felt the deep grief and she felt the greatest joy at the same time.
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SPEAKER_00
And I asked her, well, are the two even compatible?
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SPEAKER_00
She said, I felt the grief and I felt such joy at the privilege of being alive to feel the grief.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
It's all worth it.
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SPEAKER_02
It's all worth it, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
 Oh man, I want to acknowledge you, Gabber, for, I mean, your journey.
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SPEAKER_02
I mean, the journey of your relationship and what you've experienced from coming together and staying together and all these different things, the journey from teaching from a place of suffering, because it sounds like for many decades you weren't at peace, but you were trying to help others.
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SPEAKER_02
From you, I want to acknowledge you for you creating peace inside of yourself and
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SPEAKER_02
 facing the pain and the trauma fully yourself and being on the healing journey and for your consistent dedication to creating Your work so that people can consume it in a way that resonates with them from your books to your content the videos to your posts
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SPEAKER_02
 this is so needed right now.
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SPEAKER_02
And I think it's gonna be needed for a long time until society and culture starts to heal.
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SPEAKER_02
So I really acknowledge you for the way you show up, your commitment and your consistency and dedication to this research.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I can't thank you enough for, first of all, creating this platform, which by the way, it means having done all the work yourself and then having the vision to create this platform.
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SPEAKER_00
 Then allowing me to speak from this platform course such a privilege and such a joy.
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SPEAKER_02
So thank you very much Yeah, you're welcome.
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SPEAKER_02
You're welcome again your book.
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SPEAKER_02
I want people to get it the myth of normal Make sure you guys go get a few copies of that right now follow you your website.
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SPEAKER_02
We'll have everything linked up as well Final question for you.
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SPEAKER_02
What's your definition of greatness?
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SPEAKER_00
 You don't make it easy on a guy, do you?
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SPEAKER_00
I gotta challenge you.
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SPEAKER_00
It's a willingness to find your best qualities and to express them in the world.
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SPEAKER_00
That's what I see as greatness.
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SPEAKER_00
And that doesn't have to do with achievement necessarily.
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SPEAKER_00
It might lead to achievement, but it's actually the willingness and the capacity to find your own best qualities and to manifest them in the world.
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SPEAKER_00
That's what greatness is.
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SPEAKER_02
 I love it.
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SPEAKER_02
Dr. Mazur, thank you so much.
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SPEAKER_00
Appreciate it.
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SPEAKER_02
 I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most.
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SPEAKER_02
And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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SPEAKER_02
And now it's time to go out there and do something great.