80-year-old Gabor Mate is a Canadian physician and author who is best known for his work on childhood development, trauma, and lifelong impacts on physical and mental health and addictions. During an appearance on the Feel Better Live More Podcast host Chatter Jee asked Mate How would he approach life if he were to live it over again…
Gabor Mate: Do you know Winnie the Pooh?
Chatter Jee: Yeah, OK, not personally.
Gabor Mate: The end of that book would bring tears to my eyes for years. Christopher Robin has to go to school, and he's telling his friends, the toy animals, that he won't be able to play with them so much anymore. And what I wasn't aware of when I went to medical school and when I was a physician is how driven I was to justify my existence in the world. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters. And what matters is what you were telling me last night about how every summer you take a bunch of weeks away from your podcast and you just spend time enjoying your kids and your wife and your family. I didn't do that. I always felt they had to keep working. And the book ends with the statement.And whatever they do or wherever they go in the Enchanted Forest, the little boy and his bear will always be playing together. And that phase would bring tears to my eyes for years. People sacrifice their playfulness, their joyfulness, being driven by unconscious needs to validate your existence. Then where does that come from? Again, that comes from childhood. Trauma play is so important and joy is so important. In that sense, we can always keep playing in the Enchanted Forest and that's just essential, I think, if I were to choose to live.
What do you think? How would you live your life if you had to do it all over again?
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You can find the Feel Better, Live More Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts.
On that note, I'm james brown, and as always be well.
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