3 Books With Neil Pasricha - Chapter 115: Gabor Maté targets toxic triggers to transcend trauma

Chapter 115: Gabor Maté targets toxic triggers to transcend trauma

11/08/22 • 76 min

Let’s flash back to Budapest Hungary in 1944 where a little baby boy named Gabor lay crying in his crib. He wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. His mother called the doctor who said, “All my Jewish babies are crying”.

Nazis had taken over the country and killed Gabor’s grandparents in Auschwitz. Gabor’s dad was put into forced labor and his aunt was missing. Today we understand that Gabor was experiencing trauma through his mother’s stress.

His father thankfully returned after the war and when he was 12 years old, the family moved to Canada. Gabor went to the University of British Columbia before becoming a high school english teacher through the 60s and early 70s and then returned to university to become a doctor in 1977. Gabor spent over 20 years practicing family and palliative care medicine in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver -- a neighbourhood with one of the world's highest concentrations of drug addiction.

Today Gabor is the bestselling author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, Hold Onto Your Kids, and his brand new New York Times bestseller The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic World.

I bought the book when it came out from Caversham Booksellers, which is North America’s largest mental health bookstore and located in downtown Toronto. They told me Gabor had been by many times and proudly had all his books in the front window. I cracked it open and couldn't stop reading. Gabor is entrancing, passionate, and wise and I was thrilled to sit down with him at Penguin Random House headquarters during the Canadian leg of his international book tour.

We discuss: play, love, Jordan Peterson, innocence, attachment parenting, Winnie the Pooh, father-son relationships, identifying and healing from trauma, curiosity and living, shifting attitudes, formative books, and much, much more...

This conversation is a journey I don't think you'll soon forget. I find myself thinking about it nearly every day.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 115 now...

What You'll Learn:

Why is loss of innocence so poignant?
Why should we not give up play?
How is love manifested?
What is attachment parenting?
Why is our culture so toxic?
Why must we let kids manifest the full range of their emotions?
How do you develop a strong father/son relationship?
What is trauma?
How can we begin healing from trauma?
How can we build better connections with our children?
How can we make sure we are meeting our children’s needs?
How do we balance curiosity and life?
How should we choose to live?
How can we learn to shift our attitudes towards events?

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/115

Leave us a voicemail. Your message may be included in a future chapter: 1-833-READ-A-LOT.

3 Books is a completely insane and totally epic 22-year-long quest to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world. Each chapter discusses the 3 most formative books of an inspiring person. Sample guests include: Brené Brown, David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, George Saunders, Angie Thomas, Daniels, Cheryl Strayed, Rich Roll, Soyoung the Variety Store Owner, Derek the Hype Man, Kevin the Bookseller, Vishwas the Uber Driver, Roxane Gay, David Mitchell, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Mark Manson, Seth Godin, Judy Blume, and Quentin Tarantino. 3 Books is published on the lunar calendar with each of the 333 chapters dropped on the exact minute of every single full moon all the way up to April 26, 2040. 3 Books is an Apple "Best Of" award-winning show and is 100% non-profit with no ads, no sponsors, no commercials, and no interruptions. 3 Books has 3 clubs including the End of the Podcast Club, the Cover to Cover Club, and the Secret Club, which operates entirely through the mail and is only accessible by calling 1-833-READ-A-LOT. Each chapter is hosted by Neil Pasricha, New York Tim...

This conversation is a journey I don't think you'll soon forget. I find myself thinking about it nearly every day.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 115 now...

What You'll Learn:

Why is loss of innocence so poignant?
Why should we not give up play?
How is love manifested?
What is attachment parenting?
Why is our culture so toxic?
Why must we let kids manifest the full range of their emotions?
How do you develop a strong father/son relationship?
What is trauma?
How can we begin healing from trauma?
How can we build better connections with our children?
How can we make sure we are meeting our children’s needs?
How do we balance curiosity and life?
How should we choose to live?
How can we learn to shift our attitudes towards events?

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/115

Leave us a voicemail. Your message may be included in a future chapter: 1-833-READ-A-LOT.

Previous Episode

Chapter 114: Light Watkins on Mexico's marvels, meditation myths, and mental mastery

Five years ago I was invited down to Brooklyn to speak at an event called The Shine Movement. It was an intriguing soul-refueling combination of meditation, drumming, giving, and a few words by me. The event attracted a fascinating subculture of people and I felt slightly entranced meeting the man and mind behind it all: Light Watkins.

Light Watkins is someone I consider a master of spirit and mind. He grew up in Montgomery, Alabama (with siblings Candy, Trey, and Dusty!) in the 70s and 80s, traveled the world as a fashion model, and then worked as one of the most prominent yoga instructors in LA (including teaching future princesses). Deepak Chopra calls his meditation insights "simple and profound." Today Light has taught meditation to thousands of people from all walks of life in retreats and workshops around the world. He is the author of three bestselling books: The Inner Gym, Bliss More, and Knowing Where to Look. And each morning since 2016, Light has been sending out a daily dose of inspiration email.

Light also hosts The Light Watkins Show, a podcast that shares inspiring stories of regular people who’ve found their purpose in life.

Not only is Light incredibly prolific but he is also a wandering spirit -- literally. He lives out of a backpack. Not a giant hiking backpack, either! A normal backpack. I was grateful to catch up to him from Mexico City to finally reconnect many years later. I think you'll love this conversation and his 3 most formative books.

We discuss: fostering community, happiness as a muscle, learning to meditate, leading with your heart, managing resistance, and much, much more...

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 114 now...

What You'll Learn:

What is the Shine Movement?
How do you cultivate community?
Why is consistency so critical to personal growth?
Why does criticism not work?
How can you establish a meditation practice?
Why are more people not leaning towards meditation?
Why is passion in teaching so critical?
Why is happiness a muscle?
How can we learn to master our minds?
How can meditation help with sleep?
When is the optimal time to meditate?
What does it mean to live out of a backpack?
Why is Mexico City so special?
What does it mean to seek to understand?
Why should you begin with the end in mind?
Why is name change controversial in the West?
How did Light get his name?
How can we let our heart guide us?
How can we manage resistance?
How can we manage overwhelm and guarantee rest?
How can we learn to prioritize?

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/114

Leave us a voicemail. Your message may be included in a future chapter: 1-833-READ-A-LOT.

Next Episode

Chapter 116: Bryan Stevenson on handling haunting histories with heart and hope

I got a phone call at 1-833-READ-A-LOT from Austin Wong in Oregon telling me we had to get Bryan Stevenson on 3 Books. I looked into Austin’s request and came upon Bryan's incredible bestseller Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. I listened to his 10-million plus hit TED Talk "We need to talk about an injustice" and approached the Equal Justice Initiative to have him on as a guest.

We finally found a time to have the conversation way down in Austin, Texas, where we were both scheduled to speak at the same conference. He came to my hotel room at 7am -- 7am! -- and we had a wonderful exchange in front of floor-to-ceiling glass windows with the sun brightening the Texas hills outside our window. I then went downstairs two hours later and watched Bryan captivate a room full of 700 people and get the loudest standing O I may have ever heard. This is a man on a mission. And his work and his words are so vital.

Bryan Stevenson has been representing capital defendants and death row prisoners in the deep South since 1985 when he was a staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 1989 he has been Executive Director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a private non profit law organization that focuses on social justice and human rights in the context of criminal justice reform in the US. In practice? Bryan and his team take on the cases nobody else wants: litigating on behalf of condemned prisoners, people sentenced to die in prison at age 13, disabled prisoners sentenced to death, people wrongly convicted or charged, and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct.

Bryan has won the McArthur Fellowship "Genius" Award, multiple Human Rights Awards, and the ACLU National Medal of Liberty. He has a degree from Harvard Law and more honorary degrees than anyone I’ve interviewed before including from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn and it goes on and on.

His book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a captivating must-read with 23,268 reviews on Amazon as of right now. It's been turned into a movie starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. Perhaps interesting: all 3 of Bryan’s formative books are fiction. Buckle up for a heart-shaking conversation around hope, justice, slavery, capital punishment, truth, trust and much, much more. It's an honor to help amplify the incredible work of Bryan Stevenson. Thank you to Bryan, Caitlin, McCarthy Tétrault, and the Equal Justice Initiative for helping to make this conversation happen.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 116 now...

What You'll Learn: