WEBVTT - In Conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.640 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Now. If you 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:08.360 look at the word healing and it's word origins, it 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:11.120 comes from an Anglo Saxon word for wholeness. So yeah, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.520 literally is the process of ephole, which begs the question 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.360 I mean whole hole in the first place? Well, yes, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.600 the nessence you are, but as a result of trauma, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.480 you get cut off from parts of yourself. That's Doctor 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:31.159 gobor Mate, physician, renowned speaker, and best selling author of 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.920 five books, including most recently The Myth of Normal. Doctor 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.240 Matte is a leading expert in the field of trauma, addiction, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:55.000 and childhood development. I'm Danny Shapiro and this is a 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.800 special bonus episode of Family Secrets. The secrets that are 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.960 kept from us, secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:08.360 secrets we keep from ourselves. Early in your book, you 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.920 recount a moment from a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace, 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.280 the parable of two young fish who encounter an elder 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.280 fish on their aquatic paths, and the elder says to 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.119 the younger fish, morning, boys, how's the water? And the 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.200 elder fish says, what the hell is water? What does 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.480 this story mean to you? Well, it means the exactly 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.199 what David Foster follows what was intendedive to me, which 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.840 is sometimes there's things that we were most used to 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.480 and really swimming, and we don't recognize if we used 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.280 as Summing's normal, we are not even related to it. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.560 We just carry on our merry way without actually being 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.000 aware of the mel You that we're in, of the 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:55.080 impact of the Melians. So those they know the everyday thinks, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:02:00.640 he says, have the greatest consequences for our lives. He 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.400 himself is a tragic example because, as you may know, 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.480 he committed suicide. You know, it was this incredible talent, 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.720 but I don't think either was able to fully metabolize 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.799 your suffering until all he could do was to escape 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.240 from it. Yeah, that reminds me. Elsewhere in your book, 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:25.480 you describe Elizabeth Wurtzel, who wrote fairly late in her 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.799 All Too Brief Life, she wrote about having discovered that 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.600 her father who raised her wasn't her biological father, and 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.000 she writes about her depression. And there's something that you 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.120 write about this kind of suffering that can go along 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:47.400 with a glittering career, and yet underneath that there is 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:55.960 this trauma that is either not understood or certainly not healed. Yeah, well, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.200 there are all too many people out there with glittering 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.160 careers who have suffered tremendously, and many of them in 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:09.119 the entertainment world. And we know these figures who are 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.080 at the very top of their profession and adulated by millions. 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.440 And look at the riches that Elvis accrued and that 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.440 were stolen from the actually by his manager. And he 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.120 was a suffering person. He had a twin brother who 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:27.919 died at birth, and lots of other trauma, and much 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:33.760 of his corriginal came from his suffering. Also as incredible talent, 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.480 Marilyn Monroe the same thing. Lots of examples of this 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.840 Aretha Franklin as another one, you know, incredible iconic singer. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.400 She sings the song always BCP about respect, and in 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.240 her life she was never respected. She was traumatized as 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.080 a child, abused as an adult, and didn't have the 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.080 self respect to set boundaries for herself because of her 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.760 childhood trauma. These people are suffered to trauma their childhood, 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.960 and that trauma shows up even in their successes. That's 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.880 part of the toxicity of our culture. It's sometimes reward 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.400 people's desperate hoping mechanisms. That's really fascinating. Do you think 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:21.640 that there's some correlation between talent or perhaps ambition or 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.719 what makes somebody strive for that kind of worldly success, 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.599 whether it's in art or it's in politics, and you 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.159 know the initial wound or is that coincidence or do 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.440 we only know these stories because these people are famous. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.320 To give my own personal example, before I wrote books 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:46.039 and worked in trauma of a family physician and very successful. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:51.280 I had endless demand for my services and I never 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.560 said no, I was a pure workaholic, and that work 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.160 hasn't really hurt my family whood, my kids have hurt 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.880 my wife that calls and was rewarded by the world. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.360 Everybody said, what a great doctor is always available. And 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.680 of course the more I made myself available day or night, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.480 the more gratitude came my way, and the more money 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.880 I made, so the world rewarded my Workhals and Bobbo 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.680 was driving. It was a desperation to prove my value 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.960 as a un being, because as an infant that value 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:27.480 was not affirmed given the historical circumstances under which I 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.680 was born and the suffering of my mother and my 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.800 family and so on. I had no sense of birth 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.080 that was the independent of what I do know. Now 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.240 you can go to the autabagasies of a lot of 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.360 famous people, including any number of US presidents, and see 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.320 the same dynamic. And you know what, anybody's well versed 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.320 in trauma, you can see the trauma in the demeanor. 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.760 I mean, look at so many politicians anywhere in the world. 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.840 They hate giving up power because they don't think very 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:59.600 much of themselves deep down, unconsciously. There's a part in 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.240 your book that I found extremely difficult to read. It's 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.760 in this chapter called a sturdy or a fragile foundation, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.120 And I really wanted to unpack this with you because 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.159 you quote Raffi, So Raffie says, we discover who we 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.200 are from the inside. What's forming is no less than 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.760 how it feels to be human. And then later in 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.000 that same chapter you quote a book called the Secret 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.640 History of the Unborn Child. This whole idea of long 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.960 term influence, this was something I mean, I literally was 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.039 writing exclamation points in the margins. But long term influence 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.640 of the intrauterine period on emotional health and in my 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.720 own history, and the reason that I started this podcast. 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:51.719 I discovered in midlife that the dad who raised me 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.680 had not been my biological father, That my parents had 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:59.440 experienced infertility as a couple in the nineteen sixties, that 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.520 they had used was a sperm donor, that they had 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.920 been told to never tell a soul, to certainly never 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.640 tell the child, right. I mean, I have a really 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:16.120 successful and wonderful life, But in terms of early childhood intrauterine, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:21.280 my mother, I am convinced now must have been absolutely 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.720 petrified the entire time she was pregnant. Fortunately, on the 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.160 biology side, my biological father, who I was able to 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.600 find and identify, has a constitution that is very, very stable, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.960 and I actually think that that had a lot to 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.880 do and also with the way that I was surrounded 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.000 by various adults who loved me and helped me. But 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.440 I'm saying all this because what does it mean. We 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.960 can't change where we started. We can't change the stories 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.559 that were told that form our identity from the time 0:07:55.600 --> 0:08:01.000 that we're sentient beings. And there's so much that we 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:02.880 can do, but there are things that we can't do. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.040 And your book is full of both. It's full of 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.720 you know, the bad news and the good news, and 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.920 there's so much about healing in there, but there's also 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.960 the ways in which we can never alter or if 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:22.480 we were formed in this way very early on, with 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.520 a kind of lack of maternal connection with fear, even 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.320 in the uterus, what do we do with that in 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.200 our lives. There was a quote that so speaks to 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:38.480 your situation, and she writes a certain kind of silence 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.720 that which comes from holding back to truth is in 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.840 itself abusive to a child. The soul has a natural 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.320 movement towards knowledge, so that not to know can lead 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.480 to despair. In the posity of explanation for a mood, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.120 a look, a gesture, the child takes on the blame 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.040 and cares, thus a guilt for circumstances beyond childish influence. 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.320 And that would have hurt you because the chot can 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.520 sense that there's something wrong, there's something not being said, 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.960 but it's so confusing, and all the chot can do 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.520 is to develop a sense of lack of safety and 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.200 self blame, and that's what happens. One of the things 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:25.760 that I came to realize is that whole idea of 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.640 the kind of trauma big t trauma you know as 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.960 you write about in the myth of normal in which 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.720 the person is trapped and powerless and there's nothing to 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:40.160 be done as opposed to actually being able to make 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.080 meaning out of it, do something with it, and that 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:49.160 changes the game. That's right, So to forget your question 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.000 about what to do about it all. Here's the good 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.600 news about trauma. Trauma is not what happened to you. 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:58.880 Trauma is what happened inside you as a result of 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.960 what happened to you. Your trauma wasn't that they would 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.679 have the truth from you. The trauma is the emotional 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.439 psychological wound being green in your body and your nervous system. 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.360 In terms of what to do about it, if the 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.080 trauma was what happened to you, which is the circumstances 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.880 are on your gestation and birth and child, trauma is 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.920 what happened to me as a Jewish infant under the 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.200 Nazis in hungry. If that was the trauma, there's nothing 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.320 you can do, nothing I can do because it happened, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.079 it will never not at But if the trauma is 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.280 what we made it mean about ourselves, which is that 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.079 I didn't have value as it in being. But that's 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.079 summer you were, you were faulty or not worthy or 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.240 whatever you made it mean, that can be healed at 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:44.120 any time. You can help heal what we made the 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.280 past mean. And that's the actual journey. And so this 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.200 is why I called the Buddha as well. He says that, 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.120 you know, he points out that with our minds to 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.480 create the world, Like, if my mind tells me that 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.760 I'm not worthy, then I'm living in life. I'm living 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.200 in a world where I was at the pool. My 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.760 worthiness and how do people feel about me is hugely important. 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:06.640 If I live in a world where I know that 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.240 I'm worth a lot because I exist, it doesn't matter 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.760 so much for any big things and what success you achieve, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.520 but what success I don't achieve, you know. So the 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:17.800 Buddha said, every the minds, you get the world. What 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.640 Buddha didn't say is that before with our minds you 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:26.080 create the world, the world creates our minds, so that 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:32.120 the mind and the brain which we interpret and interface 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.079 of the world is created by our early circumstances, under 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.560 conditions we had no control about whatsoever. And the whole 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:45.160 idea of hearing them resigns in gaining agency. We were 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.760 helpless in our origin story, but we're not helpless in 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.920 the present moment. So whatever I believe or you believed 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.160 as a result of all that, they can drop those beliefs, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:02.160 and we can drop the physical patelilogical reactions that those beliefs. 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:09.640 That's a liberation that we're in a present form. We'll 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:26.400 be right back. Do you think that the dropping of 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.480 those beliefs is something that we can do and then 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.280 be done with or is life a little bit more 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.720 like a game of shoots and ladders where you know, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.800 you write in the myth of normal about the real 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.560 meaning of triggers, not the way that it's often used 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.840 in the culture today. And this may be a rhetorical question, 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.560 but is there a kind of place that you get 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.839 to where it's like, no, you're good, You're done, and 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.040 that history no longer has the power to haunt. I'll 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.480 let you know when I get though. I sometimes talk 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.760 about my epitask. I've created my own it's going to 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.160 be carved on my great STONI what's gonna say. It'll 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:09.679 say it was a lot more work than I had anticipated, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.520 you know, and that work goes down forever. It's not 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.439 that I can't get a triggered now, and we can 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.400 talk about the meaning of trigger, but when I do 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.840 get upset. Let's take a very personal example of the occasion. 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.440 I talked about this with my explanation. So let's say 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.720 one night in a long distance panse twenty years ago, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.120 I want to sleep with her and she says no, 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.120 and my response typically would be occurred into a fetal 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:39.840 ball and be in despair and being a rageful state, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.839 and my body would really be like this, sir, It 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:48.959 would really be tense and constricted. You know, wow, what's 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.920 that about. It's not the response of a mature adults 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.840 who says, oh, too bad, I'm onder what's going on 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.720 for you, or maybe you're too tired, or I'm disappointed. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.920 Let's talk about it tomorrow. You know that'd be immature. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.040 My response to go until field ball is literally the 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.839 response of an infant. I'm being rejected by mother, which 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.280 was my experience. Not that she rejected me, but she 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.400 gave me to a stranger and I didn't see her 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.360 for six weeks to save my life. But I experienced 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.120 it as a rejection and that response is still ingrained 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:25.160 in my body now. These days should have happen, it 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.400 doesn't trigger the same reaction because I dealt with it. 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.760 At most, I might feel a disappointment. You know, I 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.160 wanted something I don't get it. Well, that's disappointed, you know. Well, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.440 you know what, I'm overstating my healing here. I can 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.640 still feel some tension around it. So if you look 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.920 at what a trigger is, a trigger is a metaphor 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.280 drawn from weaponry. No, in a weapon, how big a 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.160 part of the weapon is the trigger. It's a tiny 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.600 little thing. The only reason the trigger works is because 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:04.560 there's a whole weapon there with ammunition and explosive charge. Now, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.640 if you say something that triggers me, I could say, 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.640 what was the explosive material inside need that got set 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.040 off here? And that's by far the more interesting question. 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.600 So triggers, I think are really useful. If you get triggered, boy, 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.800 you've got a lot of beautiful material to learn from 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.360 about yourself if you ask the right questions. The anger, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.200 if I cost your boundaries or hurt you some way, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.600 or let you down in stificant ways, you should be 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.720 angered with me, you know, and you should say you 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.240 don't do this to me. I will not interact with you. 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.280 That's healthy anger, that's not being triggered. That's a healthy 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:48.800 response to a present boundary violation. Do you means that 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:54.160 we lose consciousness of what's driving us and we put 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.720 all the blame externally and even you not even know 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.320 where that were triggered. A body literally changes, and I've 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:07.520 been in that state plenty of time, and whenever that 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.080 happens to a person, rest assured that it's something about 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.920 the past, not in the present. This is a present 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.280 somehow resemble the past, and that's what the little trigger 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.760 is well. And you also you also write quite a 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.880 bit in the Myths of Normal about blame and one 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.360 of the things in this lexicon of triggering, if you're 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.360 triggering me, then I blame you instead of what is 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.280 it in me that has just gotten set off by 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.200 this little trigger? That is this seismic thing that's happening 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.720 in my body or in my psyche exactly. Yeah, from 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.160 that point of view, my marriage has been my biggest 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.920 institution of learning, because that's why we have learned about 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:51.840 myself to I mean, I've done a lot of learning, 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.880 you know, in all kinds of platforms or venues, but 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.960 the biggest transformation is always in relationship that you really 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.400 have to do. If you want to, you've got to 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.119 deal with your own stuff. Either that or you expect 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.360 the other person to suppress themselves to suit you. And 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:13.040 when that happens, more stuffering happens. Well. That leads me 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.840 to something that I found to be this really provocative, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:21.000 interesting idea, This idea that you put so succinctly and 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:25.080 beautifully about attachment in family and the ways that we 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.679 are our laboratories in a way, like a family is 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.959 its own kind of laboratory for all of it, for growth, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.720 for triggers, for whatever it is we do to each other, 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.760 and for each other. Also being stunted. Both can happen 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.040 even to the same person. So the thing that you 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.159 write about that I found really fascinating is the idea 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.679 that we want to feel attached. It's essential that we 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.919 feel attached to the people that we love and the 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.200 people who are closest to us. And at the same time, 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:59.240 it's possible when that goes awry that when we are 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:04.920 our author centic selves, we are putting that attachment at risk. Somehow, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.800 it took me a lifetime and perhaps even the death 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.160 of my mother to fully inhabit my authentic self because 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:17.399 it was going to deeply threaten whatever that attachment was 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.600 that I needed so badly. That at tension between attachment 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.600 and authenticity is a major seeming in a lot of 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.560 people's lives. There's no bargain between parents and child. Ideally speaking, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.120 here's what I have to do that my mother loved 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.000 me or my father accept me. You know, there's no bargain. 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:38.680 There's only a one way responsibility. That responsibility is I'm 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.320 going to accept you as you are, no matter who 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.880 you or who you are, because you are, and there'll 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.520 be no conditions on that acceptance. Don't have to be pitty, smart, compliant, 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:57.960 to sweet, healthful, obedient, anything. You just accepted for who 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.200 you are because you are. No bargain and without that 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.560 attachment relationship will being taken care of. We just can't survive. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.719 No mammalian infant can survive. So attachment is like wired 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.919 into our biology. That soul is authenticity wired into abology, 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.000 the capacity to know what we feel and to be 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.040 able to act on it. I mean, as we evolved, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.920 these creatures are in nature, how long would be have 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.320 survived if we weren't in touch with our good feelings? 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.760 You know? And so that's another need a lot of people. 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.720 If you really might be accepted, you have to hold 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.399 up your end of a bargain. Then the child will 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.040 suppress the authenticity of their genuine series who their view 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:46.040 you are for the sake of being accepted, and that 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.000 tragic tension between authenticity and attention, and it's wired in 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.359 and they will let spend the rest of our lives 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.600 living out of it. So then in our future relationships 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.600 we hide our deepest desires and our deepest fears and 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.320 who media are really think and on a job there 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.240 not express ourselves, and to our friends will not be there, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.879 not be authentic, and to our partners who are afraid 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.479 of being authentic for being rejected, because that was your 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.200 experience as a child, that when you're authentic, you will 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.440 not give an acceptance, but your poor parents couldn't give 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.200 it to you because they themselves never had it. You know, 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:27.520 part of what you're saying, I feel thrumbs beneath so 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.960 many of the stories that my guest share with me 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:36.320 on this podcast, because when you're talking about secrecy, you're 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:41.840 automatically and instantly talking about a lack of authenticity. If 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.600 you're keeping a secret, it's very often or almost always, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.240 out of shame or out of the fear that it 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:56.080 will destroy an attachment that feels important. And you know, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.560 I think one of the things that happens in the 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.000 stories that my guests share, it's me because if they've 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.399 come on this podcast, it means very often they've already 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.520 dealt with a lot of this, And it really has 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.200 to do with, well, what is the liberation that is 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:16.840 available when a secret is finally voiced, spoken, metabolized, understood. Yeah, 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:18.720 so I think you had the same experience that I 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.520 had as a writer. Like you begin to write a 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:23.440 book because you think you want to tell people something, 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:26.480 and then you actually find out that you were writing 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.040 about what you have to learn yourself so that you 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.920 write the book. And I just thought I wanted to 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.520 tell the world stuff. But in the posts of writing, 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:36.800 the stuff emerged about me that I had to learn, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:39.920 or about the ideas that it was expanding on. It 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.520 took them much deeper than I would have had I 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.520 not written about them. And so in that sense, I 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.040 think what you and I have in common is that 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.639 any secrets we have don't stay secrets well, and that 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.600 discovery is always at the heart of what makes what 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:58.920 makes a book a good book is what's alive on 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.720 the page. Is you actually feel the writer discovering something exactly? Yeah, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.119 I guess I want to ask you a little bit 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:10.560 more about healing and the ways in which we can 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:15.359 understand our wounds intellectually. What can you say about this 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:20.440 ongoing process of moving through life and actually the difference 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.080 between the gaping wound, the scar tissue that you write about, 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.920 and perhaps the true healing. It's a process that occurs 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.960 over time. Now, if you look at the word healing, 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.400 and it's the word origins, it comes from an Anglo 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.919 Saxon word for wholeness. So yeah, literally is the process 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:45.000 of beginning being whole now, which begs the question, what 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.680 I mean whole? Are going whole in the first place? Well, yes, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:51.920 in essence you are. But as a result of trauma, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.240 you get cut off from parts of yourself. So the 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.440 essence of trauma is actually a disconnection from ourselves, which 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.960 also means that the healing means connecting with ourselves. But 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:07.240 hearing is the process of connecting with all answerts of ourselves, 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:13.800 which takes compassionate dance of judgment, and it stakes curiosity. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.440 If I'm triggered, I could not judge myself and say, 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.280 what an idiot you did it again? Or I could say, huh, 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.639 what in me was set off by that trigger That 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:29.360 hasn't looked at yet. So the therapeutic approach I've developed, 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:33.920 it's called compassionate inquiry, and we've had about three thousand 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.280 students nor in eighty countries in the last three years 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:41.080 studying it. So it's a process. It has many different dimensions. 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:44.240 I don't claim that either my book or my method 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:48.440 is the answer. There's no doubt answer. There is all 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:51.520 kinds of healing adalgies, but in general I would say 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.040 that healim ofdalogies that don't allow you to get to 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:56.639 know your trauma and to befriended and to learn from 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.400 it don't work. So whatever healing needs, it needs becoming whole, 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:07.119 and that means confunding, defending, dealing with all the wounds 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:10.400 that we carried, and doing so in a compassionate man. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:25.200 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zakour is 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:28.360 the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:31.639 If you have a family secret you'd like to share, 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:34.440 Please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.840 on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:42.080 eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:47.000 find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder and if you'd 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:49.480 like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, 0:24:49.920 --> 0:25:02.520 check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:06.120 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:07.119 to your favorite shows.