Reverse, Reset, Restore
This is for all of us who have been wounded by our own (and others) judgements and expectations, who have listened to those inner voices and believed the lies we've sold ourselves and for those who truly want to love and honour who you were always meant to be. If you've struggled with self-acceptance, poor body image and a belief system that is no longer serving you (if it ever did!), then this podcast is your reminder that you're not alone and you can choose to make changes - from your health and wellbeing, to your thoughts and the way you move in the world.
Reverse, Reset, Restore
Foundation Friday: When The Body Says No - Gabor Mate
Can you hear your body speaking? Today, we're tuning into the fascinating link between repressed emotions and their physical manifestations with this months Foundation Friday's Book by Dr. Gabor Maté. His book, "When the Body Says No", comes as a beacon of wisdom that compels us to introspect our emotional health. It's not an everyday discussion, but one that's essential to understand the profound impact of stress and emotional suppression on our overall health.
As we journey through the mind-body connection, get ready to be astounded by the strong ties between diseases, addictions, and childhood trauma. Dr. Maté's insights, drawn from his personal experiences and extensive medical background, are a wake-up call for us to examine the role of our upbringing and societal pressures in shaping our emotional responses. This dialogue is more than just an intellectual discussion; it's an invitation to be cognizant of our unmet emotional needs and their potential implications.
And we don't stop at awareness. Dr. Maté's work urges us to take a step further and encourages healing by acknowledging and expressing our emotions. As we wrap up, we lean into moving beyond symptom interpretation to emotional healing. As we challenge conventional health narratives, let's all brace ourselves for an empowering exploration into self-judgment and compassion towards others. Here's to the transformative journey that awaits us all!
As always, we'll finish this episode with a quote from Gabor. I hope you reflect on just how much energy you are using against yourself instead of for yourself.
"So much of your energy goes into looking after others and so much of what remains goes into self judgment. Being this harsh on yourself takes up a lot of energy."
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Welcome to Foundation Fridays. This is an offshoot of Reverse Recept Restore Podcasts, where we drop extra info on you on the last Friday of the month. This is the place where we talk about the books that are reshaping thoughts and belief systems, teaching us and guiding us into a deeper knowing of ourselves. Think of it as the book club for the soul. I'm your host, sally, and I'm creating whole new worlds for myself, one page at a time. Change comes from within. My amazing GP, dr Mahak Woodwell, basically described with this week's book to me when I was going through a period of burnout and the inevitable negative self-talk that had come racing back into my daily habits as a result. One of the many things I love about Dr Mahak is she is all about treating people holistically. She understands and works with the mind and body connection. So when she suggested I check out when the Body Says no by Gabalmate, she introduced me to one of the greatest contemporary teachers of our time.
Speaker 1:I devoured this book, weeping much of my way through it. Page after page, case study after case study. I drew parallels to my own experiences and why I was the way I was Burnt out, stressed, feeling unseen, undervalued and full of self-hatred. This book stopped me in my tracks, or rather it got me back on the tracks. It made me realise just how much my life was driven by this need or expectation to self-sacrifice for others. Others always came first, especially in my jobs where, no matter how much I tried to be better than best, I often felt like my efforts were ignored. Hands up high in the air, if you can relate. I knew it. I knew I wasn't alone. Other people, job demands, anything and anyone else always rated more important than me. It's why I haven't finished the countless novels that languish in various forms of creation. Because I put all my energy and time into excelling for everybody else. I put myself at the end of my life, my wants and needs, my hopes and dreams and ambitions. Now, I'm not a mom, life didn't bless me in this way and that's a whole other conversation, for another time perhaps. But let me just say from my experiences as a woman, as an aunt and cousin and sister and daughter and nanny and whatever work I've ever done, I see this time and time again a woman shelving themselves and their passions and wants, putting themselves last at a very long list of demands and expectations A lot of mums in particular, but also lots of a single or childless woman too, have made an art out of self-sacrifice and all too often what we get in return is not the payoff we deserve. No, we get illnesses, disease, fatigue, chronic pain and then the more serious complaints like cancer and Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1:Dr Marte explores the answers to critical questions about how much our mind and body connect and how that plays into our physical health throughout this book. This thought-provoking and deeply insightful book delves into the intricate relationship between emotional stress, chronic diseases and the impact of repressed emotions on our bodies. I think most of us actually fall under all three categories stress, disease and repressed emotions that we were taught from childhood to suppress or repress. With his extensive medical background and first-hand experiences, marte skillfully presents a compelling argument that challenges conventional wisdom and sheds light on a crucial aspect of our overall health. Dr Marte believes that there is a strong connection between repressed emotions, childhood trauma and the body's vulnerability to illnesses such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis and more. I tend to agree. The things that happen to us don't just leave scars in our hearts and minds, but can leave tangible reminders in our body in the form of illness or disease, before we get into the nuts and bolts of this dynamite of a book.
Speaker 1:Let's learn a little bit more about Gabor. Marte Gabor was born in Hungary on January 6, 1944, in Budapest. This time being, of course, during World War II directly impacted Gabor's family in the most painful ways. His maternal grandparents died in Auschwitz and aunt went missing, and his own father was forced into slave labour by the Nazis. Gabor says that as an infant, his mother made the difficult decision to hide him away with strangers in order to save his life. He was only apart from her for about a period of six weeks, but the damage to young Gabor's psyche was profound and long-lasting. As Gabor relays what was said about his behaviour on his return home, he apparently refused to look at his mother for several days, even though he was only about seven months old or so at the time. Gabor has said that this behaviour, even as an infant who supposedly would not have known any different, created such a deep set of trauma at being separated from his mother and contributed to feelings of abandonment, rage and despair manifesting late into his adult life. Gabor has shared how this separation trauma in his infancy created problems all through his life, particularly with his marriage, because his default instinct, and that primal fear ignited in childhood was fired up whenever he perceived a threat of abandonment. In 1956, at the age of 12, gabor and his family fled Budapest and the communist regime, eventually settling in Canada. After graduating from college, he initially worked as a high school English and literature teacher before furthering his education at the University of British Columbia, where he obtained his MD.
Speaker 1:For over 20 years, dr Marte ran a private practice in East Vancouver. He is also specialised in addiction and palliative care, and this is especially clear in this book. His extensive medical experience provided him with insights into the complex interplay of physical and mental health. In terms of his work with addicts, gabor believes that addictions are a response to childhood trauma and emotional pain, themes also expressed in this book in relation to the physical manifestations of diseases he discusses as case studies and obviously threads that run through Gabor's life and then perhaps the driving force for his holistic approach. Gabor, still married to his childhood sweetheart, a father and grandfather, has kept his private life just that private. He has retired from practice, but he very much continues to be in the public eye when it comes to holistic health and lectures, presentations and books, such as when the Body Says no, okay, so on to this incredible gem of a book. He brings together a wealth of scientific research, personal anecdotes and case studies to outline the connection between emotional patterns, stress and the development of various diseases. His writing style is accessible and engaging, making complex medical concepts understandable to a wide range of readers. By interweaving medical knowledge with human stories, he allows us to relate to and understand the importance of his insights.
Speaker 1:One of the strengths of Mate's book is his ability to tackle sensitive and sometimes controversial topics such as childhood trauma, suppressed emotions and the impact of societal pressures on our health. He explores how our upbringing, our early experiences and the social environment in which we live can shape our emotional response and, ultimately, our physical well-being. By doing so, he highlights the importance of addressing and healing emotional wounds rather than merely treating physical symptoms. This is something I wish all doctors would consider that disease and illnesses will often, if not always, be tied to an emotional connection, belief system or early life experiences. How different would our medical experiences be if they were to teach medicine as a whole mind, body approach and consider factors such as lifestyle, culture, upbringing, childhood trauma? Throughout the book, marta emphasizes the necessity of acknowledging and expressing emotions as a crucial part of living a healthy and balanced life. His arguments are both compelling and backed by scientific evidence, illustrating how chronic stress and emotional repression can manifest in a wide range of diseases, including autoimmune disorders, cancer and chronic pain. I've already kind of touched on a couple of these topics, but here are the key things in the book that I want to explore with you a little more.
Speaker 1:Stress and disease. Dr Marta discusses the scientific research that supports the idea that chronic stress weakens the immune system and can lead to the onset and progression of various diseases. He presents numerous case studies and examples to illustrate the impact of stress on health. As he says, the anxiety of anger and other negative emotions like sadness and rejection may become deeply bound in the body. Eventually, it is transmuted into biological changes through the multiple and infinitely subtle cross connections of the PNI apparatus, the unifying nexus of body mind. This is the route that leads to organic disease. When anger is disarmed, so is the immune system. Or when the aggressive energy of anger is diverted inward, the immune system becomes confused. Our physiological defense is no longer protect us or may even turn mutinous, attacking the body.
Speaker 1:What I think is also a very poignant observation about stress is that we have become so accustomed to it that, in its absence, we don't know what to do. Even though we know the damaging impact of high cortisol and other hormones activated or egged on by stress, and even though we know it to be, in simple terms, something we all understand as a toxic relationship, stress has become a default way of existing. As Gabor explains, for those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness. People may become addicted to their own stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, han-saul observed. To such person, stress feels desirable, while the absence of it feels like something to be avoided.
Speaker 1:Emotional Repression this book explores how societal and familial expectations often lead for individuals to suppress their true emotions and needs. Dr Marte suggests that this emotional suppression can manifest physically, resulting in chronic health issues. He explains, emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress. The ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries. The facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss, when none exists and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others.
Speaker 1:Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria and it leads to the disruption of homostatus. Chronic disruption results in ill health. Elsewhere in the book he states if I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself acceptable to other people, I increase my risk of having to pay the price in the form of illness. The other way of protecting oneself from the stress of threatened relationships is emotional shutdown. To feel safe, the vulnerable person withdraws from others and closes against intimacy. This coping style may avoid anxiety and block the subjective experience of stress, but not the physiology of it. Emotional intimacy is a psychological and biological necessity. Those who build walls against intimacy are not self-regulated, just emotionally frozen. Their stress from having unmet needs will be high.
Speaker 1:I want you to consider yourself for a moment and see if you can pinpoint some of your unmet needs. Now dig a little deeper. Can you draw a line from the unmet needs of today back to your childhood? Do you see any parallels or commonalities between then and now? And could you consider, perhaps, that any illnesses or disease in your present may have been influenced by your past, especially if you have suppressed or repressed events and emotions?
Speaker 1:Our emotions are an essential part of being human, but we've gone out of our way to deny people the right to express them. This is particularly true for boys, who get told that boys don't cry as much as it is for girls who are told don't be a drama queen. Emotions are a defining characteristic of humans and without them, well, we'd have a world full of psychopaths and sociopaths and it would be a lot more sicker than it already is. We deem emotions acceptable for some situations and experiences, but not others. No wonder it's a confusing place to be sometimes. But when we deny or regulate the places where emotions are acceptable, we're damaging ourselves and our world view and experiences. As Gaboor puts it, emotions interpret the world for us. They have a single function telling us about our internal states as they are affected by input from the outside. Emotions are responses to the present stimuli as filtered through the memory of past experiences, and they anticipate the future based on our perception of the past.
Speaker 1:Childhood trauma Dr Marte emphasizes the significance of early life experiences, especially adverse childhood events, in shaping an individual's emotional and physical health. He argues that unresolved trauma can contribute to the development of illnesses later in life. This can also be represented as emotions like rage, anger and rejection which, in turn, if left unchecked and left instead to sulk in the corners of our life, inevitably will show up in our lives as sickness Living for others. And it's not just childhood trauma that can impact how we perceive ourselves as adults. Everything that we experience, from infancy and probably before, teaches us, trains us or shapes our view of the world. We do not get out of our childhoods unscathed, no matter how idyllic they might have been. From birth, our training begins, the programming and formatting to fit in, to be what is necessary or required, even if it is at the expense of who we could be.
Speaker 1:And this is something Gabor is quick to point out. He questions how much of our lives are built for ourselves or based on a belief of needing to please other people. This is something that gives me pause, I think, when we operate out of this need to please people. There is genuine potential there to forfeit our own desires, our own truth, even our own understanding of who we actually are. Throughout the book, it becomes clear in the conversations he has with different patients that there are similar threads that weave through and have contributed to their disease. One of these commonalities is the sacrifice of the self people make in trying to fit into the mold of which parents, other family members, friends and society have tried to pour them into. This creates the potential for instability, a lack of boundaries and opportunity for shame and blame to play their endless mind games.
Speaker 1:As Gabor writes, do I live my life according to my own deepest truths or in order to fulfill someone else's expectations? How much of what I have believed and done is actually my own and how much has been in service to a self-image I originally created in the belief it was necessary to please my parents? This I feel, this. I know that somehow somewhere I got into my noggin that as the oldest grandchild and as a pastor's kid, as a daughter and big sister and all the other labels I knighted myself with, I needed to be perfect If I felt like I let my parents down. It was crushing. Not that my parents made me feel that way, that was on me. No, somewhere I decided I needed to set the example and be perfect. It's exhausting trying to be the perfect ideal of what you think everyone else wants, when all along I was always enough. But I didn't see that and certainly didn't feel or believe that for a really long time.
Speaker 1:This book has had me reflect on the certain illnesses and diseases I have in my life and I see how, in the perfect storm of all the conditions being just right, how I have created opportunities for illness. I've also created opportunities for health as well, I might add, because we are capable of creating health and wellness just as much as disease. Which leads me to the next big takeaway the mind-body connection. Gabor highlights the intricate relationship between mental and physical health. He discusses how emotional patterns and personality traits can make individuals more susceptible to certain diseases. This is kind of what I was just alluding to that perfect storm of various conditions that create illness.
Speaker 1:I was raised with two brothers. I have type 2 diabetes, high levels of cortisol and a long term neck injury, all of which have contributed to both physical and mental health issues, including weight gain. My brothers are in great health with none of these issues. We were raised together, yet our personality types, unique body structures and life experiences have had vastly different consequences. How my parents parented me was different in some ways to the parents each of my brothers got, because we are all different and respond differently. I was so desperate to be perfect that I hardly ever took a side step in the wrong direction. One of my brothers was always pushing the limits and his behavior only made me want to be even more perfect to make up for his naughtiness. Do you see how complicated this is and how none of us are ever going to get it so called right? But this book taught me that it's not too late to see these patterns and change them, and that's something I've been working on for a long time and will continue to work on right up until I leave this planet.
Speaker 1:As Gabor says, there is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviors developed to ensure survival. What we see is indelible traits, may be no more than habitual defense techniques unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the South. They may even harbor South loathing for certain traits, for example when a person describes herself as a control freak. In reality there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a controlling personality is deep anxiety. So now I've discussed some of the themes, I want to talk about some of the challenges.
Speaker 1:This book challenges conventional views of health and disease. Some readers may find the book's thesis controversial, as it suggests that individuals may unknowingly contribute to their illness through emotional patterns and suppressed emotions. This is something that I've struggled with sometimes, because none of us want to think we've ever caused or contributed to the worst things that happened to us. But my takeaway, at least, is that even in childhood we set our adulthood up for some problems. It's not too late to make some changes. We can't go back and change what has happened to us or what we experienced or how we may even have unconsciously taken on board all the crap we didn't need to. The point is, once you know better, you do better. Through this book we are encouraged to do some self-reflection, which can be challenging for some people and, as you may have already discovered if you are a regular listener of the show. I am a big proponent of challenging yourself through reflecting. Once you realize, oh, I was the one that needed to be perfect, or whatever your personal realization may be, you can then do the work to change future outcomes.
Speaker 1:One slight drawback of the book is mate can be repetitive. Repetition can help reinforce important concepts. It may feel excessive at times, potentially causing some readers to lose interest or skim through certain sections. I know that I did this the first time I read the book, also because the print is small and there's a lot to read on each page. If you find it repetitive, it's easy to skim. Nonetheless, the overall impact and importance of the book's message outweigh this minor flaw and for some people, the repetition may be exactly what's required to reinforce the message. One of the powerful takeaways for me personally is found in this one short sentence Learn to read symptoms not only as problems to be overcome, but as messages to be heeded.
Speaker 1:I've been practicing reading my symptoms in the hopes of understanding them and reflecting on the changes I need to personally make to reduce or eliminate them and any potential health issues that could arise or be exacerbated by not responding to the language of the body In episode six. Feelings are the language of the body. I talked about how emotional feelings are felt in our body, and not only do our emotions use the body to communicate to us, but so does pain. I used to get so angry at my pain, especially in my neck. Do you think my anger helped? Did it magically erase the layers of tension built up like sediment? Nope, in fact, it only increased my pain. I'd get locked into this weird dialogue between my brain and my pain. When we learn to look at our symptoms as messages, we turn the conversation around. We open ourselves up to see what the symptoms are saying, or sometimes screaming, at us. Since I'm here and you're there, I'll use me as an example.
Speaker 1:I have a long-term neck injury from a car accident about a thousand years ago. Well, not quite, but it's definitely been over half of my lifetime living in chronic pain when I'm feeling stressed. Guess where I mostly feel it? Yep, in my neck, the eternal weak point of my body since that accident. Some days the pain is so intense it cycles around the entire neck, spreads over the shoulders as an unwelcome cloak and drapes its way down my arms and chest. It also crawls up clambering over my head and face, resting like a weight over my eyes until it blocks out all light. You can probably see why I would get so mad, because it is maddening and exhausting and completely debilitating. This pain has stolen years from me, in all honesty. So, yeah, for a long time actually really up until this year I hated this injury and everything that came along with it.
Speaker 1:Then I began to get inquisitive. I began to ask my pain questions, these symptoms that would conjure themselves into life and literally beat against my brow why, why were you here? What are you trying to say? How can I help you? What do you need from me? How can I serve you so that you don't need to feel this way? These are the things I ask my body now. I tell the pain I love it, that I'm grateful for it and that I'm listening. I let it know that my body is safe and that I want to work with it instead of against it. And every time when I have these types of conversations, the pain subsides. It's a fairly new way to interact with my body, but it sure beats the rage and frustration I used to feel, and the fact that the pain leaves is confirmation for me that I'm finally developing a relationship between my mind, emotions and my physical form. I'd be curious to know if you try this and see what happens To wrap up when the body says no is an eye opening and thought provoking exploration of the intricate relationship between emotional wellbeing and physical health.
Speaker 1:Gabal Marta's expertise and compassionate storytelling make this book an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the mind-body connection and the role emotions play in our overall wellbeing. Through his insights, readers are encouraged to take charge of their health and embrace the power of emotional healing and the impact it can have on their physical wellbeing as well. Like anything, I encourage you to approach reading this with an open mind and be prepared for a potentially paradigm-shifting perspective on health and disease. Thanks again for joining me on this Foundation Friday episode. I've included links in the show notes to purchase this month's book if you haven't already.
Speaker 1:Next month, we are looking at A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, partly because it's going to be the holiday season and partly because I want to discuss the important theme found in this famous novella Transformation, which is a theme that always shows up at the end of the year as we head into the next, usually in the form of New Year's resolutions. Speaking of which our last episode for 2023 will be about creating a word of the year rather than having a New Year's resolution, so be sure to add that into your calendar for the 26th of December. As always, we'll finish this episode with a quote from this month's author so much of your energy goes into looking after others and so much of what remains goes into self-judgment. Creating this harsh on yourself takes up a lot of energy.