The Real Reason You Can't Stop Your Addiction | Dr. Gabor Maté

29:20That's the whole point. And most of us, I'll speak for myself, I wasn't taught, and I think most of us are not taught on how to express the emotional traumas, the emotional pains, fears, insecurities, shames, guilt, where we're not taught the skills. It's one of the reasons why I started the School of Greatness, because I was like, I wish I would have learned these skills in school. Yeah. You know, most people's parents are messed up in some way or have some issues and they aren't taught this. And so we're, you know, I grew up in a household that was very stressful and chaotic and there wasn't stability.

29:55So did my kids, by the way. Right. And you're like the guy, right? But I wasn't the guy then. You weren't the guy then. Yeah. So your kids had some traumas that they had to face because of you and their parents. It's not even a matter of skills learning. It's deeper than that. because you don't have to teach any one day old baby how to express their emotions, do you? No. If they're sad, lonely, do you hear about it? If they're hungry or uncomfortable, do you hear about it? Of course you do. There's nothing to teach. You have to allow it, and you have to give space for it, and you have to hear it and respond to it.

30:34The problem with most parents is not that they don't teach their kids these skills. It's the way they live their lives because of their own traumas, and because of the stresses in the society, they actually discourage kids. Don't cry. Stop crying. Yeah, from what's natural. Suck it up. Well, look. Don't do this. Don't do that, right? Well, you know, there's a very famous Canadian psychologist. I don't know if he's been on your program, but he says that an angry child should be made to sit by themselves until they come back to normal. Interesting. In other words, anger in a two-year-old is not normal, and we have to socialize it out of them.

31:15Now, there's nothing more natural than an angry two-year-old. There's nothing more natural than an angry two-year-old? They get frustrated. They want a cookie. They get a cookie before. They don't get what they want. They want a cookie before dinner. And if you're a good parent, you're not going to give them a cookie before dinner. Right. When does someone learn how to not express anger every 10 minutes, though? Well, here's the point. If that two-year-old then starts screaming or throwing a tantrum or getting angry, if you say time out and you're not going to be with them, now you're presenting a child with a tragic dilemma.

31:55I can have my authentic emotion or I can have my relationship with my parent on whom my life depends. So I can be authentic or I can be attached in a relationship, but I can't have both. Interesting. Because if I'm not authentic, or if I'm authentic, then I'm going to be alone. Exactly. I'm going to be on timeout or whatever. And to the child, the timeout is life-threatening. Because you might be alone forever, right? Yeah, the child doesn't know that, you see. Yeah. So basically, you're threatening the child with depriving them of the greatest need, which is the connection with you. Yeah, love.

32:31Yeah, the love, yeah. Now... But isn't there a point, though, if you're a 21-year-old man now and you're, you know, screaming every 10 minutes because you don't get the cookie. But that's not the answer. The answer is when they're screaming, to pick them up. You're angry at daddy, aren't you? You really wish you had that cookie. Yeah. Oh, I get it. And then the child relaxes and the anger moves through them. And you know what they learn? That anger is just something that moves through you. You can let go of it. If you don't see the child, don't accept the child's emotion, they're going to have to repress it.

33:09You'll have to stuff it. What's another word for stuffing? It's pushing down. Trap it, yeah. Pushing down. What's another word for pushing down? Depressing. Where does depression come from? It's not this disease. Depression comes from having had to push down your emotions. Literally, you had to push down your emotions. In other words, why did you have to push down your emotions? To stay connected to your parents. In other words, it was a coping mechanism. And what I'm saying is that a lot of illness, whether of the mind or the body or both, comes from coping mechanisms. There are normal coping mechanisms in response to an abnormal situation.

33:48It's not normal for a child to be banished from the peasants of the parent. If you look at indigenous people, they carry their kids everywhere. The kids are always with their parents. and the pilgrims when they arrived in North America they were very upset with how the natives reared their children you know why? because the indigenous people did not hit their kids they didn't hit their kids they didn't hit their kids and the Christians couldn't understand this why they didn't you know create obedience with them right? yeah yeah so what do they do? they nourish them and when you nourish a child see nature has got a natural agenda is that you should grow up to be a self-regulated adult in connection with yourself and with other people.

34:34That's nature's agenda. It's like nature has an agenda for an acorn to become an oak tree. But an acorn doesn't spontaneously become an oak tree. It has to have the right conditions. So it's not a question of teaching the oak tree, the acorn to be an oak tree. Just give it the nourishment and the sunlight and the earth and irrigation that it needs. its nature is to become an oak tree. The nature of human beings is to become self-regulated, socially responsible creatures. That's how we evolved. Given the right conditions, that will happen. So it's not a question of teaching all these things. Yeah, there's some teaching about.

35:15Mostly it's the question of meeting children's needs, giving them the right conditions, and then they will develop self-regulation. They learn it because you're self-regulated, so they're watching you. You're not reactive and explosive and screaming. You know, your eyes, oh, I'm angry. Okay, I'm angry. But you're not screaming at the kid. You know, so in a right environment, these traits spontaneously evolve or develop in a human being. So our society is always about how do we teach these skills and those skills? Well, teaching is important, but more important is the child's spontaneous growth given the right environment.

35:57And what I'm saying about this toxic culture, we don't give our kids the right environment. Yeah, I mean, you hear the number, the statistic that 50 % of marriages turn into divorce these days. And also probably, I think when I had Esther Perel on, I was like, how many of the 50 % that are married are actually happy? It's a very small percentage too. So I've had a marriage that we've had a lot of unhappiness. We've been married 53 years now. 53? Yeah, we're very happy together. Now you are. But it took a lot of work, a lot of commitment. But here's what I want to say. There's two ways you can tell if a marriage is unhappy.

36:34One is you can ask the parents. The other is you can measure the cortisol level of the children. Oh, wow. Because the parent stresses affect the physiology of the child. Oh, man, my cortisol must have been off the charts. All of us children, yeah. It probably would have been. And so in this society, and this is not the fault of individual parents, like it begins in the uterus, actually. Already stresses on the pregnant woman will affect the physiology of the child. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, in this society, so many pregnant women are so stressed. In the states particularly. You're talking about more emotional stress because there's physical stress of like the body's expanding and growing and aches and pains, but the emotional stress i mean the emotional stress of having to um the nervous system on the job or being in a difficult relationship in in one of the chapters in the book i talk about it begins with the diary of my wife who was writing it when she was pregnant with her one of our children about how unhappy she was and she's talking to the infant saying please don't take this stress personally and she wrote that and i quoted it in in the myth of normal and she knew what I didn't know.

37:50No, she was unhappy because of our relationship. She was unhappy because of the relationship. She was unhappy because of what was going on in her relationship with me, being a workaholic doctor. Not being there, not being available emotionally. Exactly, and even blaming her for how I was feeling. Wow. So she's talking to this infant inside her, and that's why I opened one of the chapters. So already in the uterus, these stresses start happening. A lot of evidence for that scientifically. brain scans bloods work all kinds of stuff then there's labor which in our society is very often mechanical and and and emotionally very difficult and in the united states 25 percent of women have to go back to work within two weeks of giving birth now that infant is meant to be with the mother for at least nine months i would say years but at least nine months that infant is abandoned in the two weeks.

38:42That's how they experience it. Oh, man. Even if they're looked after by someone else. But the infant needs the mother's body. Yeah, that was, my mom was working pretty, probably pretty fast after each one of us were born. You know, had to go back to work and yeah. Yeah, and I'm not blaming the women. Right. They have no choice. Yes. I'm saying, but this society puts some stresses on women. It then doesn't support them through the pregnancy. then it puts a lot and not only that we didn't grow up in individual isolated nuclear families did we? We evolved in small band hunter-gatherer groups where people supported each other where children were with adults all day where adults collaborated they had to otherwise they wouldn't survive so that's where our nature actually evolved so when you get to society which tells you that people are by nature selfish and aggressive and competitive, which isolates mothers in separate homes where the community is more and more.

39:51There's lots of work done by sociologists and others in the States about how communities are breaking down. There was that book Bowling Alone some years ago, 20 years ago now, about the breakdown of community so that people are not getting support. And that means they're stressed. And the mothers are doing it all on their own. Exactly. Right. But they're also expecting the husband to, you know, work and also be at home as opposed to reaching out to peers or family or friends. Exactly. So it's a very unnatural culture. And no wonder so many kids are getting diagnosed with ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder or depression.

40:29You know, there's an article in the New Yorker a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, also in the New York Times, I think. about the rising rate of childhood and adolescent suicides in the U.S. It's mysterious. It's not mysterious. These kids are no longer having their developmental needs met. They feel alone and desperate and scared. And the drug use is on the rise and addiction and suicide. That's right. There's nothing mysterious about it if you look at the cultural setting. It's only mysterious if we think we're dealing with isolated mental health issues or isolated physiological issues.

41:08Don't we see the connections? Nothing mysterious. So what are the main, I guess, mental health, are they diseases or are they not considered a disease like depression, ADD, ADHD? What are the main mental health symptoms out in the world right now, could you say? Yeah, so depression and anxiety are fast growing and they're major challenges. More and more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD. More and more kids are being diagnosed with something called oppositional defiant disorder. What is that? That's when the kid is defiant and oppositional. and goes against adult values and adult expectations.

42:01But we think there's something wrong with the kid instead of looking at the context of what makes the kid... The environment. No. Are these diseases... Well,

42:13you can talk about them as diseases to some degree and certainly I've had depression and I've taken medication for it in my 40s and it really made a difference for me. You might call it a disease, but actually, that's a shallow way of looking at it. Because actually, what does it go back to? It goes back to being a one-year-old infant, or being a three-month-old infant. In the book, The Myth of Normal, the first chapter has a painting in it. The painting is by my wife, based on a photograph of me and my mother. This is Budapest, Hungary, 1944. and I'm three months of age. And my mother in the photograph is one of the yellow star that Jews had to wear.

42:59My father was away in forced labor, and within two months, her parents would be killed in Auschwitz. That was my first year of life. Oh, my gosh. And the look on my face is full of terror. I was absorbing my mother's fear and my mother's anxiety. Because she had terror in her face, and you're mimicking. She had it in her body. Body. You're connected to her, feeding 10 times a day. Exactly. And you're feeling the stress. Exactly. There's probably now no calm in her. There's no calm there. But she's already so stressed, and she's just trying to make sure that we survive. She's not there to really receive my feelings.

43:39And then when I'm a year old, 11 months old, she hands me to a complete stranger in the street to save my life because she didn't think where we're staying I would survive for a day. and probably I wouldn't have. Wow. So I didn't see her for six weeks, five or six weeks. And you're one? I was one then, yeah. Oh my gosh. And now, what could I do as a one-year-old? I could do two things. Or as an infant going through all that. First of all, how do I deal with all that stress? I tune out. I tune out, I become absent-minded as an adaptive mechanism. A coping mechanism. Exactly. 55 years later I'm diagnosed with ADHD which is characterized by tuning out is it a disease?

44:26the heck it's a disease it started as a coping mechanism I'm also diagnosed with depression why? because in that environment I had to push my feelings down in order to not to burden my mother it was already burdened enough create more peace so I took that on so I pushed down my feelings I depressed my feelings then I have this depression so I did diseases well you can talk about them that way but I say they began as coping mechanisms and I'll tell you another story I'm 78 now so 6-7 years ago I'm in San Francisco with a therapist and I've taken mushrooms she works with mushrooms and I've worked with psychedelics and it's one of the things I write about but this time I'm the patient I'm the client and I'm lying there on the mat under the influence of the psilocybin and I know exactly who I am I'm 71 years old I'm a medical doctor I'm a writer I'm a speaker I'm married to such you know my wife Ray this is a therapist so I'm not like hallucinating I know exactly where I am but at the same time I'm experiencing myself as a one year old infant oh my goodness and this therapist is my mom is my mom and I start crying and I say, I'm so sorry I've made your life so difficult.

45:50Wow. That's my one-year-old self. All of a sudden, under the influence, speaking up. I took it on that early that I'm responsible. Now, you talked about... Oh, my gosh. In our conversation before, you told me about how you were in this relationship and you couldn't leave it even long after you realized it wasn't right for you because you took on the responsibility of how the other person would feel if you quote let them down i'm telling you that's your one-year-old speaking that you took responsibility for the suffering of your parents wow and and and how you you mustn't let anybody down because it's your responsibility we take this stuff on so early without without words actually they just become ingrained and then we then we live our lives out of it until something happens as it did for you, your body rebelled.

46:41You have a breakdown or something happens, right? And you're like, you either keep breaking down or it wakes you up and say, okay, why is this happening? What is off? What is out of alignment? What is, you know, where am I? Out of integrity, whatever it might be. Exactly. And I feel the challenge is, I was like, I want to end this suffering. You know, I've repeated this pattern many times. I'm sick and tired of this suffering. I'll do whatever. You know, I think when you, for me, I was like, I've felt enough of this. I don't want it anymore. But it took so much courage to face these things for me.

47:18And I know other people have deeper traumas or different traumas. And it just seems so challenging. I wouldn't go there. I would not compare your trauma with anybody else's. Well, we all have our unique traumas, right? Different experiences that we face. That's right. Why is it so challenging for people to face it and start addressing it? I was telling you, I've been doing pretty intensive therapy for about a year and a half now, every two weeks. Not because I feel like something's wrong with me anymore, that I'm stressed more, but because I wanna maintain a level of peace. And I wanna continue to maintain peace.

47:53Good for you. So once I realized and started healing, I didn't say I'm good. I was like, I wanna go to the next level of peace. love, you know, an environment of beauty inside of my emotions. But why is it so hard for so many people to face it and actually speak the shame, guilt, insecurity, you know, imperfection about them? Well, I think in your own work, you've touched upon very accurately on why it's so difficult. For one thing, if you just, just the words that you just used, peace and love and connection, if you had played that to your 20-year-old self, how would he have responded? He'd been like, suck it up, or he'd been like, what are you talking about?

48:37You're fine. Like, yeah, don't be a little wuss, or, you know, just work harder, you know. Yeah, but where would that have come from? I mean, just my entire conditioning growing up from sports and, you know. Okay, so there's that. The house, you know. So that's one of the factors, is the conditioning in this culture, okay? Mm-hmm. I also say it would have come from intense fear. Oh. Because if you'd actually, it's very fearful to look at all that pain inside oneself. It's terrifying. Yeah, it's terrifying. So there's intense fear. So there's the conditioning, as you say, then there's the fear.

49:17It really is fear, painful. Nobody wants to have pain, you know, but that's called growing pains. and the third factor is we all develop this personality now the personality we think that's us but it's not us right the personality is the traits that we took on to survive our childhoods along with some genuine traits so the personality is kind of an amalgam of childhood coping mechanisms and genuine qualities yeah some good stuff but then that's also coping yeah yeah because I remember I used to be like I was a fun loving guy I was like a kind, generous, but then when there was a trigger, like I was angry and, you know, defensive and guarded and things like that.

50:01Or you talk about the various masks, the sexual mask or the... Material mask. Material, you know, aggressive mask, you know. When I started reading a chapter on the sexual mask, you were about some guy whose name I forget, but who's sort of the champion picking up women. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes for one split second. But what's that? It's having to prove to himself that he's lovable. Where's that come from? So, but we identify with it. So we think we're the personality. I'm this sexually attractive guy, or I'm this aggressive guy. I'm this material guy who's gonna make it in the world.

50:42And so we think that we are our personality. So it comes from, I say, three sources. One is the conditioning, the other is the fear for the pain. And then thirdly, the identification with the personality. We think that's who we are. And we don't know who would be without it. All of which is all based on trauma. Yeah, it's the identity, you know, building this identity that, you know, and I talk about how the identity has supported you to accomplishing certain things or protecting you from certain things by having this identity. But it's also not serving us to hold on to that identity if we want the next level of peace and freedom.

51:19Exactly. So it's, but it's so hard to kill an identity. It's like you've had this thing for decades maybe, and you've got to let go of this thing. Yeah, but you see, I wouldn't even talk about killing. I mean, in my healing chapters of this book, I talk about, let's make friends with it. Like, for example, I have to, by the way, I have to be honest. I said that I wouldn't be in this guy's shoes for a minute. That's not true. Part of me was envying him. You know, even here, I'm 78 and married 53 years, but I read about this guy who slept with all these women. Why couldn't I be that guy? I don't wanna go there and I wouldn't.

51:55I've long ago chosen not to, but there's still something that, who doesn't wanna be wanted that much? Right. Something with the ego or the desire, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, but if we didn't kill those parts, but made friends with them, if somebody came to me with that kind of pattern of, I'm not a sexual guy. But they realize that it's not, they might feel high for a moment, like any addict will. It's not fulfilling. It's not fulfilling. I wouldn't say kill that part of you. I'd say let's make friends with it. Let's find out what it's really trying to do for you. What it's trying to do for you is trying to make you feel wanted, making you feel valuable, making you feel desirable, making you feel loved temporarily, making you feel powerful.

52:49What happened to you that you don't feel lovable, that you don't feel desirable, that you don't feel powerful? You know, in other words, it's not a matter of getting rid of these parts or these aspects of ourselves. It's a question of actually getting to know them. And they all began as coping mechanisms. That man that you describe in your book, I guarantee he's a highly traumatized human being. Mm-hmm. So when we start to ask ourself this question that you're asking is what happened to you? Or when, you know, when did you feel not powerful or not lovable or not wanted? Yeah. And let's say we're able to, someone watching or listening is able to assess themselves and actually be present, really reflect on the painful moments of the past, which a lot of people aren't even willing to talk about it to themselves, right?

53:37That's right. For 25 years, I had a memory of being sexually abused and thought about it almost every day, like for a moment. It would come at least weekly, maybe not every day, but it was like a memory, yeah, that's there. But I never told anyone for 25 years because it was so shameful and I didn't wanna be made fun of or all these things. And so if someone's able to self-assess and say, okay, I had this pain, this trauma, I felt not powerful or whatever it might be, what's the next step for them once they start to journal about it and be aware of it and they're like I really want to heal what would be that next step in the process well I mean it's not that I can prescribe but sure it should be for everybody and there's many different ways of working but one of the things I would address first of all is the shame like one of the impacts of trauma is shame because children are narcissists by nature.

54:36When I say narcissist, I don't mean in a pathological negative sense. I mean they think it's all about them. The world just revolves around me. Exactly. So if bad things are happening to me, it must be a bad person. You know. Number one. Number two, I didn't fight back. I couldn't defend myself. So that makes me weak and I'm ashamed of that. Now actually, when you look at it, the not fighting back is nature's coping mechanism. Part of your nervous system just freezes. Because if you fought back, what would happen? Just depends on what age you are. No, but as a young child. If you fight back on...

55:23Against a sexual abuser. Oh, right. What would happen to you? Who knows? I mean, it could have been even worse. And were you in a position to run? No. No. I was trapped in a bathroom. So the part of your nervous system that would have you fight or run away gets inactivated. It's protecting yourself. You're protecting yourself. And the part of the nervous system that freezes you, just be still. You get through this. Wait till it passes. Yeah. That takes over. So it's actually what you're ashamed about is actually the brilliance of your nervous system that protected you. but you're beating yourself up in retrospect saying i i should have ran i should have fought back i should have done this that's the first point man the second point is um if i can ask you how old were you when this happened to you five and how long did it go on for it's probably 10 15 minutes yeah no but it was only one time one time okay who did you speak to about it no one Okay, now, you don't have kids yet.

56:25No. But if you did have a child five years old, and this happened to, who would you want them to speak to? Me? Yeah. Now, if you found out that this happened to your child, and your child never told you, how would you explain that? How would I explain it to... How would you explain to yourself why my child is not talking to me about this terrible thing that happened? I would explain it by saying it's something I'm not doing. I'm not creating a safe environment. to allow this child to speak up. And that was your primary trauma. Yeah. So the sexual abuse is a secondary trauma. As a matter of fact, the abuser, like you were bullied in school, you said, and the bullies can always sense the vulnerability.

57:07The bullies have like a... The weakness in you. They have a laser like... Here's an insecure, weak person, yeah. Which, by the way, speaks to their own trauma. Right. But they have a laser like the physicians who abuse their patients, the spiritual leaders who do that to their followers. They see a weakness. They laser like they sense it. And that's who they pick on. And the bullies do the same thing. Now that weakness, as we call it, comes from not having the solid support and protection and confidence and security in your family of origin. So that's the primary trauma. That's the first thing that happened.

57:48Yeah, I mean, that's the case for sure. So to answer your question, if somebody comes to me with those issues, first of all, if somebody realizes those things, I'd say, don't try to do this on your own. It's so hard. Talk to somebody. It's so hard. Yeah. Well, look, people with addictions, at least they have the 12-step groups where they can actually talk about it, and people ideally will not judge them. It's a safe space. It's a safe space. or you might have friends or you might reach out to a professional or you might have an intimate partner that the relationship is close enough where you can actually share this but you have to bring it out of you by the way

58:38this reminds me this is one of the ancient gospels written on the same time as the other gospels it's the gospel of Thomas in which Jesus says that what you shall bring out of you will save you. And what you don't bring out of yourself will doom you. He says something like that. Right. He was a supreme psychologist. Wow. And so you got to bring it out. Yeah, what you suppress becomes more depressed, right? It's like... Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's got to start with that somewhere. You've got to bring it out. And if someone has a... What if they say, well, it wasn't that big of a deal. This thing that happened back in the day, I was a kid and it only happened a few times.

59:18Whether it's sexual abuse or someone screaming at you or you were neglected or put in the corner, you know. I hear that all the time. It wasn't that big of a deal. I hear that all the time. Yeah, we're coming. I shouldn't be that concerned about it. It was five. Who cares? You know, it's like, what do we... Okay, then it's a very simple way to answer that. Why are we so messed up right now? No, no, no, no, not at all. If a five-year-old kid came to you and you were the uncle, Uncle Lewis, this guy did such and such to me and I'm really scared and hurt would you say to them oh no big deal no think of all the other kids that worse things have happened to would you say that why wouldn't you say that because I'd want to be there for my nephew and make sure he felt supported and seen and loved and what would be the impact if you did say that I feel like it'd probably affect him for a long time.

1:00:19If that was a pattern of that was the response that he got. But you see, that's what you're saying to yourself. Right. When you say that it's no big deal, you're saying to the five-year-old that was hurt, it doesn't matter. In other words, there's no self-compassion there. Right. What you would never say to anybody else, you're saying to yourself. And one of the impacts of trauma is lack of self-compassion. And again, and I, if I may mention my book, The Myth of Normal, I talk about that, about how this idea of self-compassion, and I see it all the time. And so when somebody says to me, no big deal, you know, I say, okay, take any other child in your position, plug them into that situation, and tell them it's no big deal.

1:01:05And of course, I wouldn't. But people do. They do say these things to their kids or to their nephews or nieces. they're saying like, ah, it'll be all right, you know? And I think it's because they don't have the emotional courage to handle the wide range of emotions because they probably suppress the emotions themselves. I mean, that's the whole point. Right. Is that they're not comfortable with the child's pain. Somebody crying, they're like, I can't handle it. They can't handle it, yeah. You know, my dad used to be like, stop crying, you know, just stop. You know, there was no like hugging and like, He had a lot of love and affection in other ways, but he couldn't handle the crying and the scream.

1:01:46Yeah, the emotions. Well, in the book, I talk about the essential needs of children. And one of them is that they're given their freedom to feel all their emotions, particularly sadness and grief and pain. Also joy and everything else. But I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this, but what do you know about your dad's childhood? Oh, man, yeah, it was messed up too. Yeah. Yeah. So this goes on from generation. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of people listening or watching this can relate and say, you know, I don't think anyone's like, I had the perfect parents, right? There's some of them maybe said, man, I had a great childhood and my parents did amazing.

1:02:24But I would say probably a majority of people had something where they didn't feel emotionally seen or accepted by their parents or some type of challenge. and they probably would all say, well, yeah, their parents, you know, had struggle from the war, from this, or from the depression, and their parents suffered, and it was all about survival. It wasn't about thriving. Yeah. So how do we break, I guess, the generational trauma? Yeah. And not let it pass down to our children? So not being seen is a major source of trauma. Just not being seen in general. Just not being seen for who you are. Not being accepted for your authentic self.

1:03:05Yeah, yeah. Expected to be different than who you actually are. It's a major trauma for people in society, and it's very common. And how does someone who maybe is living in a stressed environment, whether it be their home or their city or their culture, political, whatever it might be, they are more suppressed than others. how can they support themselves to getting out of a stressed environment so that they can be more of a baseline to have the ability to thrive and flourish emotionally? You know something as a privileged Caucasian identified male with economic freedom and I'm not in a position to say to somebody, these are larger political questions these people society has to change and people have to work to change society it's a question of at some point it becomes a question of advocacy and activism and joining with others you know I don't want to preach to somebody else about that my job is to what extent is to support and help but not to provide some kind of But if society, let's say society won't change for a period of time for certain individuals who are feeling overstressed, what can they do as an individual?

1:04:37Whether they get support externally or not, what could they start to do? Anything else besides, I mean, we've covered a lot that they can start to do. And they get your book, that's for sure. Well, again, you know, I'm not sure I can fully answer that, but I can give examples. so the new yorker a couple years ago within the last two or three years had an article about a an american black man who was jailed for decades and kept in solitary confinement for decades was this shaka singor i don't know i should remember the name it could be i interviewed this guy who yeah was in solitary confinement for decades but yeah well maybe the same man yeah wrote a best-selling book and was on oprah it might have been the same guy but go ahead all right well my point is that fair enough my point is that it didn't that it wasn't destroyed by it right he started to heal in the prison you know he found the inner strength somehow so that it's not for me to tell i don't know if i could stand it for one day and never mind for four decades or three decades but but that just shows you that the strength the capacity to heal and to hold on to oneself and to find oneself is actually inherent in all of us.

1:05:54Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness? You don't make it easy in a guy, do you? I've got to challenge you. It's a willingness to find your best qualities and to express them in the world. That's what I see as greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

1:06:34Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.