Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I came across this very interesting article on Gabor Maté leading a group of physicians, therapists and psychologists to do an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru. Apparently he was fired from leading the retreat by the shamans because he was carrying too much trauma energy, a funny story!
https://mindshiftcoaching.se/en/when-the-healer-was-healed-at-his-own-retreat-2/
There’s also a book of his that has been making some waves, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture which I have heard very good things about and may have to read.
0
Comments
32 years ago, Gabor Mate was my partner's doctor in Vancouver. When we were heading towards separating, he kindly offered couples counseling for us during his lunch times in his general practice. I met with him for a few visits and the three notes of interest that I still remember were .....
I was the only one in these couples counseling sessions that showed up.
He thought my answers to him about suffering's cause were little more than the doctrinal responses that he'd expect from a practicing Buddhist.
&
I marveled at the degree to which he cared for the well-being of others while also being one of the most obviously trauma-bound individuals I had yet to meet.
It’s interesting that he also did a video testimonial about his time with Ayahuasca…
That's interesting @Jeroen especially the part in the video where he says the Sharman found it ironic that the healers who came to the retreat whose job it was to help heal others were carrying a lot of dark energy themselves....
This reminds me of the Tibetan lamas who are based in Western countries, having to deal with Western students many of whom carry lots of dark energy ...When the Lamas go back to Tibet, Nepal or Indian, for a break, their first port of call is to visit a Sharman, for a cleansing... recharging one's batteries so to speak...
Yes, if you read a little further into the subject they talk about how practitioners of western medicine know how to care for the physical, but largely ignore the emotional and are totally ignorant of the spiritual and the energetic components of their work. Which is why they end up picking up lots of dark energy from the clients they meet… I find it really encouraging that these people are going to the Amazon to meet the native practitioners and learn from them these other practices of medicine.
That makes total sense to me — unfortunately shaman you meet in the west are a very mixed bag, a lot of people got interested from Carlos Castaneda’s books about Don Juan which came out in the 1970’s and those stories contain a lot of references to power. It’s one of the core shamanic concerns but not really the most healthy avenue.
I’ve been watching a few YouTube videos where Dr Maté talks about this book, and the more I hear about it the more I think this is an important book about western society and how it functions. I will definitely be getting a copy. I’ve collected a few quotes from it…
“Time after time it was the “nice” people, the ones who compulsively put other’s expectations and needs ahead of their own and who repressed their so-called negative emotions, who showed up with chronic illness in my family practice, or who came under my care at the hospital palliative ward I directed.”
― Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
“A society that fails to value communality — our need to belong, to care for one another, and to feel caring energy flowing toward us — is a society facing away from the essence of what it means to be human. Pathology cannot but ensue. To say so is not a moral assertion but an objective assessment.
"When people start to lose a sense of meaning and get disconnected, that's where disease comes from, that's where breakdown in our health — mental, physical, social health — occurs," the psychiatrist and neuroscientist Bruce Perry told me. If a gene or virus were found that caused the same impacts on the population's well-being as disconnection does, news of it would bellow from front-page headlines. Because it transpires on so many levels and so pervasively, we almost take it for granted; it is the water we swim in.
We are steeped in the normalized myth that we are, each of us, mere individuals striving to attain private goals. The more we define ourselves that way, the more estranged we become from vital aspects of who we are and what we need to be healthy. Among psychologists there is a wide-ranging consensus about what our core needs consist of. These have been variously listed as:
None of this tells you anything you don't already know or intuit. You can check your own experience: What's it like when each of the above needs is met? What happens in your mind and body when it's lacking, denied, or withdrawn?”
― Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
“Is it possible nevertheless that our consumer culture does make good on its promises, or could do so? Might these, if fulfilled, lead to a more satisfying life? When I put the question to renowned psychologist Tim Krasser, professor emeritus of psychology at Knox College, his response was unequivocal. "Research consistently shows," he told me, "that the more people value materialistic aspirations as goals, the lower their happiness and life satisfaction and the fewer pleasant emotions they experience day to day. Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse also tend to be higher among people who value the aims encouraged by consumer society."
He points to four central principles of what he calls ACC — American corporate capitalism: it "fosters and encourages a set of values based on self-interest, a strong desire for financial success, high levels of consumption, and interpersonal styles based on competition."
There is a seesaw oscillation, Tim found, between materialistic concerns on the one hand and prosocial values like empathy, generosity, and cooperation on the other: the more the former are elevated, the lower the latter descend. For example, when people strongly endorse money, image, and status as prime concerns, they are less likely to engage in ecologically beneficial activities and the emptier and more insecure they will experience themselves to be. They will have also lower-quality interpersonal relationships. In turn, the more insecure people feel, the more they focus on material things.
As materialism promises satisfaction but, instead, yields hollow dissatisfaction, it creates more craving. This massive and self-perpetuating addictive spiral is one of the mechanisms by which consumer society preserves itself by exploiting the very insecurities it generates.
Disconnection in all its guises — alienation, loneliness, loss of meaning, and dislocation — is becoming our culture's most plentiful product. No wonder we are more addicted, chronically ill, and mentally disordered than ever before, enfeebled as we are by such malnourishment of mind, body and soul.”
― Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
A lot of wise words. Thank you!
Pd: I will order the book too!
I like a lot of what he says about the problem of alienation and disconnection in the world today. To me though his words fall too much into a good/bad dichotomy rather than seeing the interplay of connection and individuality.
I think I must live in some sort of cultural bubble. There's the research that says that the most and least materially successful people are the givers, the distinction has to do with avoiding the takers. Successful people I know are that way because they are industrious and maintain and add value to their world, and they are generous and build strong connections with others. They aren't status driven, they do what they do because they enjoy creating and want to share it with others. But they also gate keep and reject those who would take advantage and not seek to contribute in kind. So I agree that status seeking and the other ills he highlights have downsides, I more push back on the overall tone (which I've done elsewhere with Mate). It comes across as a wholesale rejection into the "bad" pile and becomes blind to the positive aspects of individualism and the down sides of collectivism.
A big part of the reason our western society has moved to an unhealthy level of individualistic attitudes is a reaction to the way collective cultural attitudes oppressed many individual's genuine expression.
People need one another, and a sense of belonging is vital to human well being. But an intrinsic part of belonging to a community is modifying one's attitudes and behavior to allow for social cohesion. Even an attitude of "no judgements" and "all are welcome" impose constraints on those who want to be able to choose who they invite to their party or want people to remove their shoes in the house.
My predilection would be if individuals could realize the importance of relationship and community and make the voluntary choice to be part of various collectives. I can see a big potential pitfall of that way of doing things though. That we all form small pockets of groups that have very different habits and language with no over arching sense of belonging to other groups, such that our tribal instincts kick in and conflict increases, or we fall into a sort of modern day Tower of Babel situation.
I was reading the "No Buddhist Quotes" thread and the latest quote by Mate stood out.
― Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
He talks about the problems of individualism in one breath and then here he says impositions from others are false and that real being is all about us. I don't get it, it sounds completely absent from any sense of living with other people. Like, its really important to have connections and community, but we all should live like we're the only one who's views matter.
What I mean is, when being in community we need to be aware of and consider other individual's and the group as a whole's interest. It doesn't seem possible to me to be fully genuine and be in community, unless that necessarily small community also happens to align with your own authenticity. If you're a member of a motorcycle club, there is some expectation from the group that you come riding a motorcycle and don't want to join in by driving your Prius. You can join a Prius group instead, but at some point have to interact and cooperate with the motorcycle club. At that point there needs to be some sort of accommodation and the community's interest imposes constraints on us.
Its possible I truly don't get it, the attitude is pretty alien to my mind. But that doesn't mean I'm right. Is there another way? Am I missing something? Is there a way to be fully authentic and be part of community? I'm genuinely asking.
They’re only quotes, they don’t convey a coherent argument, I guess if you want to participate more fully in these debates you’d have to read the book.
My own experience is that US citizens tend to be more extreme in their individualism than for example Dutch, British or German people. Here there is more a tendency towards a social form of expression, and social supported government policies.
In answer to your question, of course there is a compromise. People follow their community’s trend on some things, and some people rebel, according to how they feel. If it’s something important, they might move away to another part of the country.
But Gabor explains this tension, the conflict between attachment and authenticity is a theme throughout the book, and things like childhood traumas often result from too little attachment while later in life too little authenticity and too much people-pleasing can become a problem.
What do you mean by social expression? You mean like genuinely being part of a group, like the example of proudly belonging to a motorcycle club? Or a nation in your example, to socially express yourself as proud to be an American can be a problem in some areas of the country these days.
This is kind of an issue I worry about, there is a lot of self sorting. On the one hand its great that we can be around people we have more in common with. On the other hand, people are less and less able to interact and communicate across group boundaries.
I've listened to a few interviews of him. He does say things to balance his overall presentation, I guess they come across to my ears as some level of lip service. He probably thinks it but doesn't truly believe it deep down. Maybe he's just not my cup of tea?
Not really, merely that European people tend to identify more as members of a social fabric consisting of family, community like neighbourhoods, city and province members. There is more adherence to the idea of unity here. It’s kinda hard to describe, but for example my stepfather gets a socially funded budget to buy care in the home from the government because of his Alzheimer’s.
I have a lot of respect for Dr Maté, I think he cares deeply for his patients and for wider society. That’s why I find this book so gripping, it is ultimately so human, and it makes an argument on multiple levels for how capitalist society has failed to create an environment that is as healthy for humans as what might be natural. Yes there is a lot of affluence, life expectancy is up but there is also a lot of disease, suffering and premature death.
If you don’t like his message, maybe it’s because of your own attachments? There will probably be quite a few people who choose for their way to make a living rather than listen to an argument about how our culture is toxic and we need to make some drastic reforms to the way we live in order to be healthier?
Like I've said, I must live in some sort of cultural bubble, this sounds like the type of people I live with. Maybe the difference is community I know comes more directly from the people in it, rather than mediated through the government?
Not sure how to put this politely, but the argument that if you don't like something or agree with part of it is due to some deficiency within said person is really demeaning. I'm pretty able to live a healthier life without feeling the need to blame the world for my difficulties. Again, its not so much about the points as it is the tone, its judgmental and overly neurotic to my ears.
There are structural situations which make certain decisions or scenarios much more likely. There is still some autonomy as not everything is solid and determined. Your self-concept is modeled by what surrounds you, by what you engage with, and your own specific dispositions. This goes from your temperament, to your parents, to your local and global sociocultural milieu which composes your reality.
I have seen people repeating patterns that trace back to their parents, and these to their own parents. It reminds me of kamma and habits (unskillful actions) which are inherited and copied. To help them realise these connections does alleviate and provide a path towards change. This does not mean to blame the world and adopt the role of victim. This ends up making people spiteful, angry... a full of new unskillful means!
The story of an annoyed Yama comes to mind. I refer to it constantly: the Lord of Death hearing two people suffering from their misdeeds, blaming their past kamma. Yama replied: it was you that commited those actions!
🙏🏻
Pd: one case I can share is the following family. Missing father (fighter for Frente Polisario) and a mother that could not take care of them. Environment of war, horror, and poverty in Western Sahara. They tried their luck emigrating to Spain. One stayed. The others returned.
1. Became a soldier at the Frente Polisario.
2. Became a drug addict and homeless.
3. Studied in Rabat and ended up becoming a university philosophy professor.
This last example surprised me. He managed to defy all odds and predictions. He managed to break what seemed to be his determined path. Not everything is as fixed as it seems, but the power that those "structural configurations" might have upon humans is a possible and, unfortunately, common reality.
My sister is really into those stories by people who have had horrific childhoods only to escape and break the patterns, like in your last example. This has raised the question in me that I've never really gotten an answer to. What makes these people so different, that they're able to do this with their lives? I think this is kind of what positive psychology is trying to answer, not just what our pathologies and traumas are that cause us misery and stress. But what are the positive qualities that bring people striving and flourishing.
Trauma is not really a blaming of the world for one’s troubles though. It is incorrect coping, often because the person doing the coping does not have the skill or context to correctly relate to what is happening to him. That trauma exists and malforms our lives is beyond doubt, it’s just whether you choose to be kind enough to yourself to see it.
There is such a thing as toxic positivity, which is thinking that is insensitively positive, and in effect blinds you to what is really going on.
If you are interested, in Psychology, the field of differential psychology has brought up a lot of possible answers.
Anyway, all these cases end up becoming really strong examples of our potential. From what I studied, there is this concept of resillience. I would also like to add patience, compassion, loving-kindness and equanimity. I really like positive psychology. We sometimes concentrate too much on what hurts and not so much on those other aspects (what makes us happy).
Maybe that is why I find so admirable many Zen and Thai Forest practioners / bhikkhus: under circumstances where most would react, protest and succumb, they can remain at peace, if you know what I mean... The same goes for these examples.
So my question is...
How do you keep your mind at peace while the world is out of order?
I guess I'll just share something by a psychologist that is more to my taste.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/08/tragic-optimism-opposite-toxic-positivity/619786/
In Hindu philosophy there is the idea that the world is illusion, maya. That is one way to keep the mind at peace, although not one that I personally find satisfying. A key facet is the idea that nothing truly matters. An advanced Buddhist practitioner also arrives there, via the path of letting go of desires and fears, once you have given up your desires and fears you have perfect equanimity, perfect peace.
But you lose so much of the colour of life, the flavour of it. I’m far from convinced that that state of being is a better one than what we have now. Now, enlightenment, that is a different kettle of fish. If you really examine what people like Tony Parsons say about their experience, it’s more that a core component of I-ness disappears, there is no longer an I.
I did like Ram Dass’ answer: everything is just perfect, exactly as it is.
I'm not that knowledgeable about Hindu beliefs, but you've only captured half of the Buddhist view.
Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T'san, The Third Patriarch of Zen
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
My copy has arrived, I have been reading it last night and this morning. Good stuff!
The early part of the book is concerned with proving by citing a number of scientific studies and other books and case histories that the mind has a large influence on the health of the body. Then it continues on to talk about how the mind is influenced by its environment and the society it is present in.
I was listening to an interview with the Dutch historian and author of Utopia for Realists Rutger Bregman. The interviewer (Scott Galloway) was an American and they talked a bit about the cultural differences. My main takeaway was what Rutger said about "tall poppy syndrome", the idea that its frowned on there for people to stick out too much and how he noticed the difference in his time in America that people are much freer and diverse with their personal expression. So to me its more about tradeoffs and preferences than thinking in terms of good and bad.
I like this sort of passage, the Taoist origins come across. My main experience is with Tibetan and Western Theravada Buddhism, in both of those the practice of compassion is pretty central. So when I read something like this I categorize it as a wisdom teaching on view rather than something comprehensive.
I was thinking more today that there is the Western mindset that can make incorporating a Buddhist view into one's own challenging. At least it was for me, it might have been 20 or so years into my practice.
In the west we tend to look to external conditions for happiness and suffering. With the Noble Truths, particularly the 2nd, the Buddha teaches us to look inward. Not only that external sources of happiness and suffering are temporary, but hedonic adaptation is a real factor. The material development of the world, the west in particular, is at unbelievable high levels compared to historic standards, but people are often just as miserable, maybe even more with the loss of meaning today.
That's not an argument for doing nothing. One of Buddhism's lists is the three types of generosity, giving material aid, giving the gift of fearlessness and giving the gift of the Dharma. The first is external and the second could be external or internal.
Edit: I don't think I really explained very well what I'm referring to regarding external/internal. In my own practice, I worked to ease my own mental discomfort and then when making efforts to develop the compassion side of my practice thoughts directed at giving external, material aid didn't have much of an impact. I guess because what helped ease my suffering was the internal work. So what tends to activate compassion in my mind are efforts at helping people learn to improve their mental states. This is work people have to do themselves, so there is only so much one can do aside from setting an example or the occasional bit of wisdom. And then it often seems like some of the efforts at offering external support work against the causes and conditions for internally driven happiness. There's too much there to really explain, but something like carrying someone rehabbing from an injury around everywhere, rather than letting or requiring them to move around on their own and thus improving their health.
I found this lady’s ayahuasca testimonial very beautiful. Maybe I’ll go do this at some point.
This has a lot to do with Gabor Maté’s book The Myth of Normal that I am reading at the moment. In it he describes things like how health challenges like autoimmune disease, addiction, mental health and even general health conditions relate to adverse events in childhood, how families are not given the time to bond properly with young children, how the marketing of products targets young minds to not make them resilient but make them dependent on consumption.
We have created a society which is geared towards not allowing people to live their best lives but to make them into good consumerist cogs in the corporate machinery. We are the only species on earth who creates an environment that is inimical to its own wellbeing. There are a lot of different health crises raising their heads, from obesity to opiate addiction to mental health, and they all have roots in adaptation to trauma, our society and environment.
My YouTube feed brings me a few of these Ayahuasca stories once in a while, this one came along this morning, I thought it was beautiful, also how it connects to the story of indigenous people.
One thing that she said from her experience that stayed with me, that we all embody our ancestors, we literally carry them with us in our genes. In a way, though her people have a lot more of a connection with their ancestor spirits, that is true for us Westerners as well.
Where can you do this? Is it legal in the Netherlands?
About what you said about our current society: Lanzarote is suffering this problem. Constructing a consumer society, poisoning our environment, and letting the very same people that sustain it (waiters, cooks, airport representatives, hotel staff, etc) suffer as they cannot afford rent, a mortgage. There is a growing epidemic of people having to move to old vans and camping outside. This is nothing new though: migrants that come from Africa usually live in small apartments and in vast groups (I'm talking about sharing a kitchen floor with 6 people); I've heard south americans usually "start off" here by having people renting them out garages in order to move in with their families....
I'm trying to find suitable housing and it is imposible. Perhaps I should risk buying a property in Titerroy (a neighbourhood that is drug infested with poor infrastructure ) in hopes of it becoming the new Soho (LOL!).
This always makes me think: money and growth on the short-term, misery and poverty on the long-term. This is a very unskillful habit of humans. Not seeing beyond our current life, year, month, situation... and ignoring our people and world.
Ayahuasca is not legal in the Netherlands, no. These kind of retreats are most often done in the jungle in Peru, where it is considered spiritual medicine, or in Costa Rica.
I do agree with you: capitalism is responsible for a lot of the world’s ills.
@Jeroen , The Journey of Transformation video was interesting, what she was saying sounds a lot like a meditation experience of "Vipassana..... on steroids" ....
I have a Brazilian friends living on the island who were back in Brazil over the Xmas holidays and went on a seven day ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon , taking ayahuasca over the seven days period...A long with the head/leader Shaman, there were Shamans from different tribes along with people/healers from around the world, including some Kiwi Maori healers...
I bumped into him a week after he got back, his experience was similar to the young woman in the video, he said it was an amazing out of this world experience...
It does seem to be one of those things that a lot of people are doing. If you have a choice between a once in a lifetime tourist trip to see the antiquities in Greece and Egypt, or doing an authentic Ayahuasca healing journey with indigenous shamans in the jungle… what would bring you more in the end?
Egypt hands down for me
Egypt. No question.
Neither!
Couldn't justify the carbon footprint involved in doing either trip at this point in time.
Yes, I can understand that. I used to travel quite a bit but since returning to the Netherlands I’ve been in a mode of not travelling… I was in my flat by the beach, high up, and I would study Buddhism, do a little meditating, walk or cycle in the dunes. I’ve hardly left the country for about ten years, let alone gone on a long intercontinental flight.
The proposal to go to Egypt was my dads idea, he is now 75 and doesn’t want to go by himself so he invited me. We’d each pay our own way but it wouldn’t be cheap, about 1800 euros. But included would be visits to the Pyramids, the valley of the Kings, the temples at Luxor, a Nile cruise, the museum of antiquities in Caïro, and a few other things.
On the one hand it is quite tempting, on the other I find looking at man-made artefacts a lot less fascinating than I used to. Even here in the Netherlands I have found I visit museums a lot less than I used to, maybe once every few years.
I have now finished reading the book, the last few chapters contain some practical handles on how to go about healing, correcting faulty beliefs about the self, and making a start on a more holistic society. In the end, it is not a book that shows a complete journey for the society to go from trauma-inducing to wholly healthy, instead it more does its job of pointing at all the areas where trauma makes people’s lives more difficult.
It alerts you to the importance of trauma and encourages you to look at your own trauma’s more carefully. Even those of us who think we have had a happy childhood probably are suppressing a few things, such as the ex-prisoner in Gabor’s story who thought he had a happy childhood but in fact the father was an alcoholic who often fought with the mother and the tension in the house could be cut with a knife due to his temper. This man had built a picture of a happy childhood out of a few carefully selected memories.
So in a way the ‘myth of normal’ is that there is anyone who is entirely normal. We all have our sensitivities and come out of childhood having taken some damage.
The way I tend to look at something like this is that such events teach us things that are often unskillful or served us at one time but now hold us back. It isn't about denial, its about seeing ourselves honestly and looking forward at what will serve us better rather than looking back with regret and thinking of ourselves as damaged goods.
Going back to an example Mate has used in interviews, he talks about how the trauma of his youth caused him to excessively strive and become a therapist. To me, that achievement is something to celebrate and be grateful for, while at the same time its possible to recognize the downsides of that striving attitude and seek to change. His attitude came across as all negative and regretful. He only talked about the pain of it.
We're all unique, and part of that is how our lives shaped us. Maybe its just me, thinking of myself as damaged is an unpleasant way to view myself. I've learned to like myself as I am, while at the same time wanting to be better. As Shunryu Suzuki said, “Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.”
You must have seen some different interviews from the ones I have seen, because I’ve noticed him honouring people’s achievements in coming to terms with their traumas, as he also frequently does in the book. In his own background too he often talks about both trauma, it’s effects, and how he has worked at overcoming it.
That too can be a limiting view, it builds up certain defences and negative reactions to those who challenge that view. My own background is a mixture of light and dark, some positive things and some traumatic things, but I don’t look at myself as damaged. These are simply the things that made me as I am, and the places where the traumatic things overcame my ability to cope are the places that I am now revisiting with a more adult loving compassion.
At some point you have to realise the need to be a loving parent to your own inner child, to succour its wounds and then let it go. There is no need to cling or hold on, instead just be there for your younger self for as long as the moment lasts.
I see that as toxic positivity, the not acknowledging another’s pain and difficulty. Trauma is part of what people experience, and some people experience a lot more than me. I have friends who have parents with serious mental illness and difficult childhoods, backgrounds of abuse, coping with parents’ blood-soaked suicide at a young age. Some of them have come to terms with these things in adulthood, and others still struggle to cope with it in old age, despite therapy and having written books about it.
I think we're talking past each other here and my language was probably a bit broad rather than focusing on the specific example. Overall he does honor people's accomplishments, what I'm referring to regarding a negative attitude is how he talked about how his own trauma led him to stress and strive to win love and acceptance. In his language he takes for granted and dismisses the benefit of gaining an education in therapy and how it brought him to where he is today. His pain wasn't something to learn from and move past, it was something to regret and linger on.
I don't know, people often comment to me on how I don't take things personally. My disagreement here has to do with the ideas presented.
The quote is a sort of paradox and is meant to be taken together. I believe it was in response to a challenging of the Buddhist notion of innate goodness. I take it as meaning we should start where we are, look at ourselves with love and respect warts and all. Saying our warts are damage or something wrong with us, starts from a place that thinks there is a normal we need to get back to.
There's a somewhat famous story of when the Dalai Lama first met with some western psychologists and they brought up self hatred. The DL had no idea what they were talking about, the concept was totally alien to him. It seems perhaps like a western Judeo-Christian creation.
Toxic positivity is a thing, not acknowledging pain is problematic and a denial. Mindfulness addresses that, its about what comes after, do you dwell on it or learn from it? Another interview with someone advocating a mindful CBT talked about this, that we need to first honestly look at where we are to truly be able to progress, but the goal is progress.
I look at it like this, take two people who experience the same painful experience. One says to themselves, this is so bad what happened to me, I'm hurt and damaged, I'm set back from where I should be. The other says to themselves, that sucks, what can I learn from this, how can I use this experience to better myself and the world. This language is loaded as its been weaponized for the culture war, but is your mindset one of a victim or a victor?
Like I said in my other post about accentuating the positive or eliminating the negative. Perhaps like introversion/extroversion a trauma focused approach is more suited to and helpful to certain dispositions and the approach I'm advocating for is akin to telling an introvert "they just need to come out of their shell". I think what I'm trying to get at is a trauma focused approach isn't appealing to me and probably many others, I don't think its a universal cure. And even though this attitude seems to be prevalent in the culture today, while diminishing others may seem to make one feel more equal it does nothing to actually build one up, for example labeling things that don't suit you as toxic. That's toxic extroversion, rather than understanding and valuing the qualities of introversion. Then there's something Thich Nhat Hahn once said about taking out anger on a pillow, you aren't really letting it out, you are practicing anger. We need to care for it so we can let it go. To me a trauma focus is practicing dwelling in our pain.
For myself, I'll take away the importance of acknowledging pain rather than sweeping it away. But on the whole I'll leave it.
To me this is a typical viewpoint of someone who has no lived experience of trauma, and it sounds rather disrespectful. You don’t get to make a choice about how to live with the experience, instead it just happens to you. Its main feature is that it overwhelms reason and your defences, taking up residence in the hindbrain only to emerge again as lifelong anxiety or sudden bouts of crying and shaking or crippling post-traumatic stress disorder.
Low levels of trauma can be cured just by gaining insight into what happened to you and what you told yourself, and this is very much worth doing. This is work Gabor Maté has been involved in for many years, amongst addicts and the severely ill. I think that if you consider his work a “lingering in pain” then you are taking a wrong turn.
The book makes a good case that a trauma-focussed view is exactly what Western society needs right now, there is a lot more trauma around than people are willing to acknowledge. If you read the book you’ll soon notice it in the Indigenous people, the prison population, the black people (and everyone who has suffered racism), the lhbtq population as well as many ordinary people who had difficult parents.
As the book notes, the root of healing is wholeness, and that is the goal. Trauma is often a divisive experience, where memories get tucked away in hidden corners because they’re just too painful, and the self ends up being divided. Trauma healing is about looking unafraid and with compassion into those dark corners.
@person
The description provided, I mean the dichotomy between the forms that someone can engage with a traumatic experiences reveal the vast variety of differences amongst humankind regarding how to respond to stress and suffering. Unfortunately, the "negative" route is quite common and popular...
It seems people get stuck there. Some in their victimhood, some in resentment; others simply live in denial and end up twirling around in a maelstorm of abuse (this I have seen with trauma bonding, depression, and substance abuse).
This is why showing the resolution and success of the other route is important: these stories serve as a reminder of the potential lying out ahead. Unfortunately, some traumas are eally complex and you cannot even understand that something as basic as ordering your room and washing yourself is a positive start.
May all beings attain freedom!😿❤️
For people with deep trauma this seems to make sense, as a general approach to life I don't think its helpful. We don't get to choose what happens to us, your response however is up to you. This is long given spiritual advice, pain is what happens, suffering is how we respond internally. This isn't a "suck it up and get over it", its a process of rewiring our brain's conditioned responses. Its also about where you put the responsibility, not the blame. The world may be to blame for harmful experiences, its still your responsibility to do the work of recovery. There's the lojong phrase, drive all blames into one.
Maybe I'm taking mindfulness for granted where I'm coming from since I've been in it for so long. The forward looking sort of attitude I'm advocating for does rely on a deep looking at the mind rather than a casual dismissing of pain. Acknowledge and understand, then move toward health. If Mate's approach genuinely doesn't cause people to linger in pain or spin up neurosis then I probably don't take issue with it. That's not the impression I've gotten from him, but maybe that has to do somewhat with where my headspace was at the time, or a difference in disposition. I guess I should give him another chance or two.
Well, my personal level of trauma is not huge, and yet I got quite a lot out of this book and its approach to trauma. I think people would get more from it than they think, it’s a different way of searching through one’s memories.
Mindfulness is great from a general wellness point of view, but it doesn’t focus you specifically on the pain points you are still carrying with you. Having tried both, I think they are good for different things, and you can benefit from both in turn.
I was watching this video this morning, and it gave me a strong feeling of connectedness. It’s about Ayahuasca, you might get something out of it.
This might keep the happy hopefuls hape with Holy snuff. Any other shortcuts? Not really ...
https://theheartquarters.org/hape-medicine-sacred-shamanic-snuff-explained/