Dr. Gabor Maté: Constantly Worrying What People Think of You? (THIS Simple Shift Will Help You Trust Yourself and Stop Seeking Approval)

At some point, something has to happen for you,

that causes you to wonder who am I really, and everything that I manifest and speak and do, is it designed to fit other people's expectations or does it line up with who are really young? I truly am so excited to be here tonight

at the orphan theatre in Vancouver. With a dear friend, someone that I consider to be the utmost expert goat, the greatest of all time in its face, like there is no one like Dr. Gabo Mattei.

Could you say more about that? We've been talking tonight about worrying about how we're perceived by others, and how that blocks us from things in our life.

Where does that come from?

Why is it that we're so obsessed and addicted to what people think about us?

“It's a great topic, and I think in this culture,”

it's fundamental one. There's a wonderful Catholic monk, a mystic, called Thomas Merton, who talked about how we live in other people's minds. So when we're concerned about what does people think of us,

how they see us, perceive us, judge us, love us, hate us. We're not living in ourselves, we're living in other people's minds. So what does that come from?

One of the needs of the human child, it's an essential need. Just as we have the need to be held, physically, to be fed, to be nurtured, we also have the need to be seen.

Because we get to see ourselves the way others see us. When the parents can't see the child, in the child's essence, in the child's, well, the great psychiatrist and co-writer with Oprah

“of Bruce Perry has written a book called "Bornful Love".”

And we're essentially born for love. It's a developmental need, and love isn't just other people feel about us as do they see us. And if they can't see us for we are,

for who we are, because of their own limitations, and a lot of parents have trouble doing that. I certainly did. Then the child wants to be seen in a positive way

by the parent, and then they'll change themselves, high-parts of themselves, exaggerate other-parts of themselves,

basically create an image

that they want the other person to see, because they can't see their real person. The need comes to my earliest relationships, where we were not seen for who we are. Had we been seen for who we are,

we would just accept ourselves, and not be so concerned with other people to see us. So, go back to our earliest days. In homes where the parents actually loved the child. We're not blaming the parent here.

We're saying that the parent's own limitations, prevent them from seeing the child, for exactly who they are, which child will mold themselves into whoever the parent wants them to be. Well, how do you see someone for who they are,

and not who you want them to be, who you think they could be, or just the best part to them?

“Because what I'm hearing is that's what we end up doing, right?”

Yeah, well, that's the key question, and somewhere I heard you say that people love you, but they may not love you the way you want them to love you. And we actually have trouble loving people, the way they need to be loved.

We think that love is the feeling that we have for them, and that's certainly true, but it's much more than that. You can have all kinds of loving feeling towards somebody, but be limited by your own traumas

from seeing them for who they are, and then, and also a lot of parents in this culture wants their kids to fit in with the culture. Now, that means you have a preconceived idea of who the child should be, and then when you don't see the child as the way you want them to be,

you decide to slide with them. Another child will behave in more impetus to fit themselves into the parent's expectations. So, it comes from this culture's incapacity to see people who they actually are.

Yeah, I mean, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about just the amount of moments there are in our lives, where the person's trauma creates new challenges for us, that doesn't get healed, that then gets passed on.

how do we all make sure that we are people where that cycle stops, that we can break that cycle, that we can interrupt that pattern, that we can be the people in our families,

in the lives of people who have children, even if you don't choose to, how do you become the person that changes that trajectory for your family? At some point, something has to happen for you

that causes you to wander, who am I really? And everything that I manifest and speak and do, is it designed to fit other people's expectations or does it line up with who are really young? And people get to that point,

“and that's what they call them mid-life crisis, actually.”

And I always said, "You start wondering,

"Who's life am I leading anyway? "I suddenly went to that, still going through it." 81 years old and still going through a mid-life crisis, you know? See, you're not too old, that's the end. 26 is all right, you do just fine.

You do just fine, that's all. But what I'm saying, Jay, is there has to be a questioning there? At some point, you have to recognize that it's not working the way that feels good in the heart or in the gut. So there's to be that recognition.

Then there's to be a curiosity. No, you're asking about future generations, but the way we gift future generations is actually working on ourselves. Not by trying to be better parents,

but by actually dealing with our own stuff, that's the way we avoid as best we can, passing it on to the next generation. [applause]

“I think one of the ways the inner critic and that inner voice”

keeps us imprisoned is that it makes us believe we're only valuable when we're busy. We're only valuable if this. Right now we're in another language. The guy who just starts a 13-city tour, and who he's just asked me to go there.

You can't expose me on my own show. Look, I just believe in our wife's in the audience, and she wants her to me, but you're written a book called when the body says no. No, you better write one called when the wife says no.

[laughter] Precisely for the same reason. [laughter] That's so good. That's so good.

You didn't answer my question. Sorry? [laughter] So I missed what you said. No, I was saying, yeah, I mean, me included.

We definitely have that belief that I am valuable if, and fill in the blank, it could be I'm only valuable if I'm busy, I'm only valuable if this person says I am, I'm only valuable if I get promoted, I'm only valuable.

I know, and we do have this idea that we're only as valuable as how we appear or what we do, but not for who we are. And again, it was back the very early days. And I've often talked about something my friend, the great trauma psychologist, Pioneer Peter Levine,

said to me a couple of years ago,

“and Peter is, I think, a year or two older than I am,”

he's done an amazing work in the world, one of my mentors, and Peter said, "If I ask myself, have I done enough?"

The answer is very much yes,

but if I ask myself the question, am I enough? I still don't know the answer. You know, and in this society, every very much program to identify a value, we what we do.

And it's very interesting when I talk to people about it, because people who tell me, I'm only as valuable as I do, and they ask them this question, "Do you value me, talk on myself as a human being?"

And they say, "Yeah, of course." I say, "Okay, what if God forbid tomorrow, I'd have a stroke?" And I couldn't speak, and I couldn't move,

and I couldn't give anything to anybody. Would you say to me, then, "Gab or your worthless?" And they say, "Of course not." I said, "And why are you saying it to yourself? That you only as valuable as what you do?"

So that there's this inner concept that I'm only as valuable as what I do, or how I show up. There's a tremendous lack of self-compassion. Wow, that's, yeah, please give it up.

[applause]

I've never thought about it like that,

and the distinction you just made between those two questions. Have I done enough? Am I enough? Yeah.

How do we learn to give a positive,

How do we rewire when the whole world is telling us

like what you do is who you are,

“your title, your followers, your Instagram bio,”

the whole world is telling us that how do you kind of even begin to re-maneuver how the mind is being programmed? Yeah. Well, it's, I can't say that I've fully worked it out,

but two things come to mind when I hear your question. One is, would you say to a one day old baby who can't do a thing? Would you ever say to them or believe about them, you're not enough?

Of course you wouldn't. Then why are you saying it to yourself? Okay? That's the first answer.

And then the second answer is, who's even asking?

Who's it, you know? Gabber, on the flip side of feeling like we only have value because we work hard, a lot of us are guilty or feel guilty for resting. If you look at the studies in the United States,

high percentages of people don't use their annual leave. And the annual vacation in the US is far less. I'm hoping in Canada people use their annual leave. (audience laughs) And in the UK, we definitely use our annual leave.

(audience laughs) But there's that sense that we all still feel as like guilt for resting. We feel like guilt for taking a break. I can totally relate when I was a busy

and we're called like family doctor. Literally. And you know, I used to live with babies and look after pregnant women. I'd feel terrible going on holiday with my family

because somebody might give birth without me. You know, it's like imagine somebody in the world is born without me. (audience laughs)

“How did humanity survive all those millions of years?”

(audience laughs) But the voice, I mean, I'm committed to that patient. I have to be there in the sense of guilt that I'm actually looking after myself. That comes from that same belief

that we're not enough, unless we're doing something. That lack of evaluation of ourselves just for being. Yeah, that resonates so strongly and so many of us are constantly challenged by it. Walk us through what's actually happening

to the brain when we stress ourselves physically or get close to burnout. What's actually happening to us that we don't see the invisible effects? We know that we get tired, we get exhausted,

but what's actually happening inside that we often miss? Well, so stress, by the way, we Canadians can be proud of the word stress because actually it was coined right here in Canada in the way that we used it today.

I didn't know that. Yeah, I know a lot of people don't. There was coined by another fellow Hungarian of mine called Yano Shohan, Celia, S.E.L.Y.E. who was a physician and researcher

who came to Canada in early 20th century

just after the First World War

and he did his research on stress at the University of the Montreal in Montreal. And he's the one that showed in the laboratory the impact of stress on diminishing the immune system overgoing the Yano Grand, which is the stress gland

and also awaiting the intestines. And he's the one that the stress wasn't new but the way he used it was new. He's the one who established it internationally. And the thing with stress is

“it's an essential response to life challenges”

if you're confronting a threat. You're better of a stress response, which means you'll have activation of your nervous system in a good way and make you more alert. You love more adrenaline to give you more energy

and strength to fight back. More cortisol that gives you more blood sugar to have energy for the challenge you had in the long term that's a positive and necessary physiological response of all animals.

In the long term, those same stress hormones and this is something that my profession and medical profession I only which would understand and practice more is that in a long term, the same stress hormones give you high blood pressure, constrict your blood vessels

high risk of strokes and heart disease, thin your bones, so you have multiple osteoporosis, suppressed immune system, or can even turn it against you so you get autoimmune disease, make your depressed, put fat on your belly so that your more risk of heart disease

turns off genes that can protect your against cancer

and cause inflammation in the body. So this is what we all bring on ourselves and people don't realize how because they've taken on these driven values of this culture they're actually literally makes the noise of sick

and sometimes it takes an illness to wake people up and I don't recommend that way you're waking up but in my God, it works that way very often one of the Greek playwrights, Escalus, wrote in a play called Agamemnon,

written 2400 years ago and he said the way that the guards created us, human beings that we have to suffer into truth,

“you have to have pain, wake us up to reality”

and unfortunately too often, it's these stresses that we impose on ourselves that they create pain, illness, dysfunction that then wake us up. That may be the way I'm living,

isn't the way I'm meant to live. But I hate, I hate, I don't hate it. I regret that that's what people have to wake up but it often is certainly, I have to be dragged kicking and screaming

to the truth, I don't gravitate automatically. [Music] If someone's sitting there right now and wondering,

Gabo, I noticed stress early, I can see it's getting worse. What do I do? Where do I start? What should I be thinking about

doing changing shifting? If I want to walk out of here tonight and I want to really prioritize this because I don't want to end up

“with that long laundry list of pains in my life,”

what should I do? What would you say? Well, read my books. [Laughter] [Applause]

Well, actually, I did mention the book I wrote and the body says no, which is the whole point is that when you don't say no, the body was said for you in a form of illness. In my most recent book that we've discussed before

the metanormal, there's actually a whole chapter on this and when I say this, this simple question to the inquiry that you just made

for that person, I would say, "Where in your life are you not saying no?" And by that I mean, but there's a no that wants to be sad, but you're not saying it.

Because you're afraid of what the world will perceive you. You're afraid that people will not like you. You're afraid that people might be disappointed in you. Where is there no that the organism wants to say, but you're not saying it.

Start with that. Where is the week that I not say no? Where today did I not say no? And that usually happens in two arenas of life in personal relationships.

That happens all the time in personal relationships. And and work. Where does it know that wants to be said, but you're not saying it again to you. That the know that you're not saying is going to be a source of stress for you.

So that's the first question.

Other questions follow, but that's the first one. Where am I not saying no? That's a great first question. Everyone resonate with that?

That idea of where am I not saying no? That resonates so strongly with me because I think you're spot on. We were talking about that in the first half. We're talking about that inner voice.

That if you just sit and listen to it, but we're moving so fast. We're so busy that that know can be really quiet. It's like this little whisper that's barely getting.

“Well, that's small still voice that the Bible talks about, right?”

And there's a related question as well, which comes later in the same exercise you might say, which is where am I not saying yes? There were times in my life where I had certain creative edges or desires, but I was too busy not saying no.

That there was no space for me to say yes to what I wanted to say yes to. So those two questions, where am I not saying no? Excuse me. I just came back from a 12-day speaking trip.

So my voice is saying no. You know. Here you are. Yeah. I like to see you at the inner district.

But those two questions, those two little words,

yes and no, that crucial in people's lives.

They're small little words in every language. They're very short little words. You know, during a nine, Hungarian, now Russian, NET, you know, French, no. Very short little words.

But they're just decisive in people's lives. And it's very interesting.

What is the word that your kids start saying it one on a half?

No. Put your shoes on. No. And you think, as my fact, I have told this story before I had a friend called Harold,

who had a so called Ben. And we were medical residents at the same time. This is decades ago, it's only 47 years ago. And Harold, the father, sister, son, Ben, who was two years old, Ben, do you want an apple?

And Ben said, "No, I want an apple." And what's that so about is the nature putting a barrier

“for the child behind which he can develop his own self?”

And before you, yes, it's mean anything. You have to go with the saying, "No." And in a society, we call that inner stability. We call that the terrible twos. When it's perfectly natural.

So we start with that word. And then we be stifled in people. And at age 45, they don't know how to say, "No." It's so interesting because I feel like our mind convinces us. I don't know if you're like this as well.

Our mind convinces us that I can't say no. Like, "Oh, my God, I just couldn't." If I started doing that, my life would just fall apart. I can't do it. It's not possible.

And our mind says, "Oh, no." And I can't say, "Yes, to this." Because so we almost kind of fool ourselves. Well, we do. And the Buddha said that 25 years ago, in so many almost in so many ways,

that with our minds we create the world. Now, if your mind lives in a world where you're saying no threatens you, then you're not going to say no. Now, what the Buddha didn't say is that, which is more modern psychology, is that before the mind's create the world, the world creates our minds.

So, if you go up in a family where you know wasn't respected, where was seen as a sign of disrespect, disobedience, something to be suppressed or punished, and your acceptance dependent on your acquiescence, then you forget how to say no in order to protect yourself. So, it starts off as an adaptation.

Sometimes when I give my lectures, I play a song by Elvis Presley. Did you see that wonderful documentary by Presley, about Presley called "The Return of the King?" I haven't seen that one, but... Okay, it's wonderful. He goes through this phase where he sings terrible songs,

where he gives up on his incredible charismatic energy and talent,

and it just becomes a puppet in the hands of his manager. And then he does this combat concert, and he shows up on stage dressed like a god in leather clothing, just the most beautiful man on earth, and he sings his rock, rockers, rebald, wonderful rock and roll,

and he's fully himself, but then he gave that up. And he sings this song called "Anyway in Want Me." That's the way I'll be strong as a mountain or weakest of 103. I'll be anything that you want me to be,

“and that's why he ended up living his life,”

ended up dying very young in very tragic circumstances. He's somebody who's raw genius was of world significance, and his energy was unbelievable, and he gave it all up. Yeah, it's a... And he paid a heavy price.

Yeah, those stories, and when we have hindsight,

can be so powerful for us, even if we're not living that life,

whatever it may be, they're so powerful for us to look back on. And tonight, I wanted to make this an extremely special experience, because I want you to know just how deeply grateful I am that you're here today, and I've asked Dr. Gabo as my first guest if he was comfortable leading and guiding,

an individual who wanted to go through his compassionate inquiry, personally, in this seat up here tonight. And so if there's anyone who's going through something, feels like they've been held back, feel like they've been challenged, who wants to, before we take questions,

would like to go through a process in front of the audience. He'd happily walk you through.

“So if you want to just raise your hands,”

and I'll have a look around. Well, thanks for coming up. I hope you're not nervous. There's only a thousand strangers. A thousand strangers are watching here.

What would you like to talk about? I'm on your chapter on Entudement, Entudement. And I guess I would love to hear it from your point of view, because I think I'm really trying as if this week

and refine my instinct and listen to my gut.

And I would just stop trying to be seen. Stop trying to explain myself is something I'm really working on right now, and I want to pass on to my children, and would really love to see how that starts.

“And I think you guys kind of gave a really good intro to that today.”

All right, thank you. So are you concerned about if you don't figure this out, that might affect your children somehow? Yeah. Okay.

Well, let's start with the beginning. How old are your kids? You said one and three? Yes. And how old are you when your mother began to work on herself?

That's the tough question. Well, what's the answer? Probably now. Okay.

What would it have meant for you if your mother had begun to work on herself

when you were one year's old? I made a big difference. How so? You would know who you were. Yes.

You've already given that gift to your children. Notice that, okay? Because you've already begun to work. You've already began to answer those questions. Ask those questions.

So you've got nothing to worry about. That's the first point. Okay. The second point is, who's the one who's even asking the question?

“Who's the one that notices that sometimes you don't follow your gut?”

That sometimes you don't listen to your heart? Who's the one in you that notices that? Me? Yeah. So you're already here.

You say, "I'm trying to be myself." You don't have to try anything. It's already here. You said to pay more attention to it. Well, that part of you, that sees and asks.

Can you check him with that and your body? What does that feel like and your body? Peace? Yeah. Peace.

But you said it with a kind of a scrunched up face. Please. Just checking again. I'm not criticizing you. I'm just noticing.

Like you're not quite ready to believe yourself. So checking again, that part of that notices and it's committing committed to being you. And it's committed to helping your children be themselves. How does that part feel like inside you?

Confidence. Thank you. Notice that you said that with absolute confidence. What else do you need to know?

“Is there anything else you need to know?”

I'm asking you. So how do you just be confident? You just did it. You know what you do? You're checking with your body.

This thing that I'm doing is called compassionate inquiry. It's a therapeutic method that I've helped to develop. And we teach it internationally online. You can look it up on nine if you want to. But it's based on the fundamental belief that there's nothing wrong with anybody

to start with. That everything, for example, you're disconnecting from your gut feelings, was an adaptation.

But at the truth is inside you.

And by asking you to write questions, the truth will emerge. It's as simple as that. And I think the audience has been witnessing that. Truth emerging from you.

Very easily. That's my sense unless you're pretending, which I don't believe you are. Okay? So just keep asking yourself, where am I not saying, "Oh, today,

if I didn't pay attention to my gut feelings, not judge yourself." I didn't, I, you know, screw up again. But I noticed I didn't pay attention to my gut feeling today. In that situation, I wonder why not.

What did I believe at the time? So just keep asking yourself. Just keep showing up for yourself. Which is what you're already doing. Something, you're on the right track already.

Far more than I was at your age, by the way. Okay? Thank you. You're very welcome. Thanks.

I really love that method.

you were practicing on yourself. Right, right. Because as I was listening in,

“there was a real sense of just how we constantly think we're not on the path.”

Yeah. We constantly think we're not doing the work. We constantly think that there's something wrong with us and something broken. Right. And you were just saying, actually, that is the challenge that you know.

Yeah. And I'm saying that whether for you or for me or anybody in the audience, whatever you think is wrong with you at some point, so the purpose. So if a Christina at some point disconnected from her gut feelings, so the purpose of being accepted by the people that she had to be accepted by.

It wasn't a mistake, it wasn't the moral failure. It was an adaptation.

The problem is that these early adaptations then become ingrained.

And that which was helpful in one situation becomes. Elimitation and another situation. But asking yourself the right questions. We'll get us back to source.

“If I may mention, I'm wearing this bracelet here.”

And I was given this in a height of why, which is. People in British Columbia know that it's a beautiful set of islands in the north of our province. Where indigenous people have lived for some like 10 or 12,000 years. And then it was colonized and they were treated terribly. And I gave a trauma workshop up there, year and a half ago.

And an elderly woman came up to me and I've told this story before of. She was so ashamed of herself because she forgot her native tribal national language. And I said, "Well, what happened to you?" And I was given this bracelet at that workshop. And what happened was she went into the residential school.

We're indigenous people who had to surrender their children to the state and to the church. And she made them stake of speaking her native tongue. At which point they took a stake and they beat her. Wow. Who are forgetting her language at that point saved her life?

And then she was ashamed. I didn't fight back. I said, "Okay, you were five years old. Could you escape?" No.

Could you ask for help? No. What would happen if you fought back? They might have killed me. So I'm not fighting back what she's judging herself as cowardice.

Was actually her organisms with them to save her life. And when I'm saying is that all these things in ourselves, that's an extreme example. But all these things in ourselves that we be radar ourselves for, judge ourselves for, criticize ourselves for, they began as adaptations.

We need to be very kind to ourselves.

“And that's why I'm saying compassionate inquiry.”

And there's a spiritual teacher who says that only one compassion is present with people who don't stop to see the truth. What that compassion needs to be extended to ourselves. And then we can extend it to others as well. Oh.

It's so. Yeah.

It's so powerful for me to hear that from you because I think we're so good at saying,

"Oh God, the last three years, we're just a waste of time." But now I figured it out. You know, that job that I was in 10 years ago, I just, I should have left it earlier. You know, that relationship, we're so good at be rating, as you said, and just saying, "Oh, that was a waste of time."

And it's almost like, "Well, no, no, no." It wasn't ideal. It wasn't easy. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't nice.

But it's aided you. It's helped you. It served you. And you're so right there." Well, you know what?

The great German philosopher Nietzsche. He said once that we unfair phrasing him. But he said, "We talk about these dead ends that we went down." He said, "There are no dead ends. We just found out that that wasn't a way to go."

So we didn't waste any time. Thomas Edison said, he was once asked, "What did it feel like to have failed

1,999 times to build a light bulb until you finally got it?"

And he said, "I didn't fail 1,999 times to build a light bulb." I found out that there was 1,999. He's not to build a light bulb. And so much for our dead ends and our mistakes and all these things to add. We had to do it to find out our reality.

That's all.

I wanted to give you all an opportunity this evening to ask questions

“to talk to Gabo Maté as we have him here for the last few moments.”

If you would like to ask a question, I'm going to come out with the audience and hand you a mic. So raise your hands. And I'm going to come and find you. So, yeah, keep them ready so I can see you.

Even as an adult, in my experience of working with many different people in marketing and business. And when you say no to someone right away, whether you have and reason to, people abruptly shut down. They don't hear what comes after the no.

So what I've been doing with my children, I'm also a school counselor.

So I talk about diplomatically saying no.

Saying, like, just that pause moment for you to share your no, without saying no right away. What are your thoughts on that? Well, Eckhardt Tolle, who's another Vancouver based teacher, internationally very well known.

I'm sure very well known to this audience. He talks about a high quality no. So there is, that's kind of an automatic resentful, reactive no, which doesn't get across. It just creates more resistance.

Or there's a high quality no, where you're really honoring yourself. And you're not making the other person wrong. You're just saying no, that does not work for me. And I will not do that. And if you can't accept that, it's not my problem.

“I don't have to ask you a question, but that's what comes up for me.”

Thank you so much. And by the way, I thought I heard you say that you're a cancer at some point. Well, in my view, not that's one of your bodies we have saying no, is through illness. You know, and I've seen that all the time.

So my question is, as an indigenous person, who's had family better, went to residential school. As I get more serious, my partner. We're talking about children. How do I know if I'm healed enough to not pass on that trauma?

Well, some friends of mine who made a film about my work of the wisdom of trauma are just releasing a film this month. It's called the Eternal Song. And it's about indigenous wisdom around the world. And they came to Hade Guay, they came to northern Berscondia,

Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand. They spoke everywhere to indigenous people. And the Eternal Song, the Universal Message, everywhere, is about the importance of learning from the heart and unity with nature, unity with the whole world.

And when I speak in indigenous communities here in Canada, what I stress is that you own traditions, that they try to kill in you. And one Canadian politician said about the residential schools that the intention is to drive the Indian out of the Indian.

So when you ask me how to not to pass it on to your kids,

I say first of all, as I said before, working on your own trauma,

but also as much as possible, connect with that deep wisdom and your own traditions that would be so beneficial, not just for your people, but for the whole society and anything. It's one of the tragedies of modern civilization. I've just been speaking to an Australia.

In Australia, there have been indigenous people for 60,000 years. A continuous culture to 60,000 years. Canada is not 200 years old here.

“Do you think in 60,000 years that might learn a few things?”

Do you think in 60,000 years, they are over there or you are people here. My little learned a few things. That would be worthwhile for the rest of us to learn. So what I'm saying, respectful in response to your question,

is deal with your traumas, working through, but also go back to your own wisdom because there's so much there that is healing, the unity, the chanting, the drumming, the dancing, the sun dancing, the cedar brushing,

the smoke that you, certain plant,

So combine modern trauma, work with your own traditions and let the heal up the perfect brew. That's my best advice to you. Thank you. So I'm just wondering how relating actually to your previous conversation,

how does one balances the desire to self-improve and self-acceptance? You see some kind of a contradiction between what you call self-improve and self-acceptance. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

“What is the contradiction that you're perceiving there?”

The way I see it is for you to want to improve in the first place,

you might see maybe yourself as not enough in some situation or facets. And that's true. If you're working on self-improvement, you're making some kind of an accusation against yourself.

But how about if you just put the two together as how can I reach my full potential? And I just have that question. Then there's no contradiction. How can I reach my full potential?

And what is keeping me for my full potential? There's no accusation in that. There's no self judgment in that. There's no subjection in that. This says, "How can I reach my full potential?"

And that is a lifelong process. But it's a beautiful one. And there's no contradiction in it. I hope that answers your question. Thank you so much.

I've been on a similar journey, kind of that's Jay-Shari. I grew into wanting to help people. Since a really young age,

I always wanted to just be there for my friends, for my family.

“And I think one of the things that I've been that have limited me a bit”

is just feeling too young to help people to give guidance or to, you know, just, and yeah. I recently started a YouTube channel. And like I was saying, I feel like there's just a lot of things for me to still learn. And I feel sometimes too young to be spreading out whatever it is that I know.

And like what we were talking about earlier, like feeling like I'm going to be judged or be like that as like, "What do you know?" But I'm 22 years old, so I do feel really, really young still. Yeah, so I guess just my question would be, "How do I, how do I, I guess, tap into that wisdom that I have without feeling like it's not enough?"

What I heard you say is that you feel that you're too young. And you have a fear that other people will judge you as doing mature, as just not ready to make a contribution. That's what I heard you say. Now, I can think of lots of people that age 22,

who were recognized geniuses by the time they were 22. Mozart was one of them. You know, he was composing stuff when he was 11 years old.

You know, so that age is a good method to, that's the first point.

Second point is when you say, "I feel I'm too young, that's not a feeling." Things are, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm sad, I'm angry. Those are feelings. I am too young, it's not a feeling, it's a belief. Okay, can you see the distinction?

Okay. "If a friend of yours, like age 22, I was at university, and I was writing columns for the student newspaper. Would you have come to me and say, "Gabber, you just told me to, you're too young to write anything?"

Would you have said that to me? How come you wouldn't have said that?

“I think one of the things that I see is that,”

like we were talking about earlier, too. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm just asking a simple question. Your 22, and you're saying yourself, "I'm too young." But you would not said that to me at age 22.

I didn't have you to, it wasn't you to have them. What was the newspaper that I wrote for?

How come? Because you're not me.

“Oh, so there's different rules for you and me, is that right?”

No, but I think I would just not automatically think that you're good.

Well, here's what I'm thinking.

Are you willing to apply the same rules to both of us? Yeah. Then just apply the same rule to yourself as you do. And as my fact, even if a friend of yours was your age, said, "Hey, I got this idea of a YouTube channel.

I don't make a contribution and express myself." We just said to them, "Hey, you're too young." Okay. So again, notice what I referred to before as the lack of self-compassion. And just notice it.

Now don't judge yourself for lacking self-compassion, just notice it.

“And then make an effort to teach yourself the way that you treat me or anybody else.”

And you'll be just fine. Now, you know what? People may judge you. That's totally true. That may be true.

So what? What's the headline?

Human beings, judges of the human being?

People judge me all the time. I mean, just go to the YouTube channel, all the stuff of mine, and lots of wonderful comments, but some people say, "This guy borrows me the death." Okay.

And one of them, actually, I love this one today. It was an aposical issue that obviously, this person didn't agree with me, but they said, "Gabor obviously has dementia." Okay. So what?

Okay. Thank you so much.

Gabor, you have been such a joy and such a treat to have my first ever live interview for the podcast.

We've ever done to do in Vancouver, to do it with you. Someone that I genuinely learn so much from every time you speak, every time you share. Someone that I'm so grateful to call a friend. We've meditated together. We've had plenty of conversations there.

Yeah. And I want to ask you one last question before I... But before you do, let me just also say that it's a real honor and a pleasure for me to be invited by you to speak with your audience. And to be the first one on this tour, to be a guinea pig for you. (Laughter)

We've all been guinea pigs tonight. That's right. We're in it together. But I want to end with one last question. I want to ask you, which is, if there's...

One thought you'd love for people to discuss as they left today. Something that they could talk to on the way home with their friend that they came with. The partner, the family member. And if they came alone, something they can start a conversation tomorrow at work at home. What would you encourage them to?

Well, I tell you what comes up right away for me. Ask yourself this question. What is true for me? What is true for me? Ask yourself that question.

“And keep asking us that question. Keep asking that all your life. That's what comes up.”

What is true for me? Yeah. I love it. Dr. Gabel Mata, everyone. Thank you.

If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabel Mata on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past. I've just once said to me that if your parents didn't know or hold you, you developed a mind-you-hold yourself with. It's a fate of pain and it's designed to keep you from experiencing pain.

This isn't "I Heart Podcast." Guaranteed human.