Gabor Mate | Confronting Guilt Journey of self discovery #gabormate #guilt #mentalhealth

there's also this belief of course that if I say no or if I say no I feel guilty right if I say no that I'm guilty how many of you got that feeling that sense that if I say no I'm going to feel guilty it's not a big problem for many of you okay great now I see okay great well let me tell you about guilt a little bit because you need to learn to get into a different relationship with guilt okay so we will do anything not to feel guilty there are two ways to deal with not feeling not wanting to feel guilty one way is never to say no then you never have to feel guilty you always saying yes yes yes yes yes yes except you're going to get headache backs spasms dry mouth lack of sleep fatigue stress overwhelmed frequent colds and finally some disease or depression but you never said no so never had to feel guilty the other way some people deal with the feeling of guilt is that they just shut down conscience altogether so they never feel the guilt because they totally shut it down we call them sociopaths or politicians as the case may be okay the well we don't want to do that either the only way to deal with guilt is to make friends with it when you try not to feel it when you try not to feel guilty you always end up in trouble so I want to give you a story about how to relate to guilt okay so let me tell you a story from the Bible you've read the Old Testament or you've seen the movie The Ten Commandments you know how the Hebrews the Jews are slaves in Egypt right and then um Mo uh becomes the leader and he he he sees the burning bush and the voice of God speaks to him and says that it's your task to lead your people out of slavery out of slavery in Egypt so that's the and you know that's that's the biblical story and again the story in the Bible says that if you remember that just during the time that Moses was going to be born the pharaoh's prophets forell that some Hebrew slave born about about to be born will challenge the Pharaoh and lead the Jews out of Egypt slavery so therefore they decide that all Hebrew firstborn males have to be thrown into the Nile remember the story and so what happens is that Moses's mother complies with that order throws the kid into the Nile with one exception though which is what yeah he he puts she puts him into a reed basket a basket woven of reeds and puts the kid into the Nile River and then the then the story in the Bible says that Moses floats down Nile and is fished out of the water pulled out of the water by by who remember that not a not a lot of Bible scholars here you haven't seen the movie The 10 Commandments Chon hon okay well yeah yeah okay but this is before your time I got it anybody remember who anyone remembers who pulls Moses out of the water sorry the Queen the pharaoh's daughter pha's da you're close the pharaoh's daughter The First Daughter okay in fact what Moses means the word Moses means pulled out of the water and so Moses is pulled out of water by the pharaoh's daughter so he's actually brought up at the pharaoh's court and I won't go on with the story except to tell you that the Bible also says that Moses was a stutterer he had a speech impediment so when when it came time for him to speak to the Pharaoh later on decades later he didn't do the speaking it was his brother Aaron that did the speaking for him now you're wondering what's this going to do with guilt okay well I'm getting there there's a legend that's not in the Bible but an ancient Hebrew legend that explains how Moses becomes a stutterer and here's why I need your attention CU I'm going to ask you a question the story is that Moses is being brought up by the pharaoh's daughter at the court like a little prince and the pharaoh's susers once more prophesize that this kid is going to challenge the pH the pharaoh's Authority when he grows up and if that's true they have to kill him so they decide to put him to a test and the test is this that they put in front of him two sparkling objects one of them is a glowing Ember of coal and the other is a royal Diamond if Moses chooses the diamond it means that he's got royal ambition and he has to be killed so they put these two sparking objects in front of the the little toddler Moses and he's delighted and his eyes light up and he looks at these two scintillating sparkling materials and he starts to reach for the diamond at which moment Gabriel an angel of God standing behind him grabs his arm and puts it onto the coal which Moses picks up and like a toddler will brings it to his lips and burns his lips and that's where he becomes develops the speech impediment okay the question I have for you now uh is to decide in your own mind was that angel Moses's friend or enemy and what would you say some of you what would you say he's a friend because save him from being killed he's saving from being killed even though he burned his lips right but he's a friend anybody not agree that he's a friend so he's a friend so I want you to consider that guilt is that friend when you're small you can't help you have no choice when you're very small you have no choice but to go along with your parents' expectations because if you don't go along with your parents expectations then you might lose the attachment relationship this is what we been talking about the whole day so there has to be a mechanism in your brain that says you better not do that you better not say no that mechanism is guilt that guilt helps you to maintain the attachment relationship with your parents and therefore you survive it also gives you a speech impediment you learn you you forget how to say no but that guilt that kept you in compliance with your parents' expectations when you're very small also saved your life because it maintained the attachment relationship that guilt is not your enemy that guilt is your friend the only problem with it is that it's a stupid friend it's got no learning capacity it doesn't know that you've grown up now it doesn't know that you're no longer in that dependent situation it just gives you the same story if you say no you're a bad person that's all it knows how to say your problem is that you don't want to feel it you don't want to be makes friends with it my suggestion is next time you feel guilt be happy about it say to yourself my God I said no I feel guilty this means hot dog I must have done something for myself for the first time in my life thank God call your friends have a party in other words rather than pushing guilt away just embrace it and say hello old buddy thank you for saving my life as a kid but you know what I don't need your advice anymore I'll listen to it but I don't have to follow it automatically I can think about it and make my own decision okay so that's how you deal with guilt not by pushing it away not by acting on it which just make it stronger but by actually accepting that it's there but not listening to its advice in our exploration of emotions Dr Gabor mate offers profound insights into the intricate nature of guilt he posits that this emotion often arises from our innate desire to belong and conform to societal expectations from a young age societal Norms shape our perceptions leading us to internalize judgments and standards that might not align with our true selves however Dr mate emphasizes the importance of introspection and acknowledgement when confronting guilt He suggests that this emotion frequently stems from unmet needs or suppressed emotions rather than allowing guilt to become a debilitating Force he advocates for a journey of self-discovery and compassion by understanding the underlying triggers and embracing vulnerability individual uals can begin to unravel the complexities of their feelings in conclusion Dr Gabor mate underscores the transformative power of self-compassion in releasing the grip of unnecessary guilt he reminds us that making mistakes is an intrinsic part of the human experience by fostering a deeper connection with oneself acknowledging imperfections and practicing empathy one can liberate themselves from the burdens of guilt Paving the way for authenticity growth and inner peace and I'm going to leave you with a final quote this is again the same spiritual teacher I've been quing all day he said the fundamental thing that happened and the greater Calamity the greatest Calamity is not that there was no love or support when you were a child the greater Calamity which was caused by that first Calamity is that you lost a connection to your essence to your authentic self that is much more important than whether your mother or father loved you or not but that's the good news the good news is that the problem isn't what happened 25 years ago or 30 years ago or 45 years ago that's the good news because if the problem was what happened all those years ago you couldn't fix it it's over it's finished because you can't go back and change even what happened five minutes ago never mind what happened decades ago but if the problem is that you lost the connection to yourself that you can fix because you you can regain that connection and you're not going to walk out of this session uh completely knowing how to do that but maybe if some of my messages got across you'll walk out of the session with a sense of how you lost connection with yourself with a sense of how it shows up when you're not being authentic with some compassion for yourself and with perhaps the somewhat enhanced ability that when you go to work and you have this tendency to take on the pain of others and the trauma of others to recognize what is it in you that resonates with the same energy and to realize that's not about you in the present but it's about you as a child and therefore to be able to stay in the present compassionately with those people who are acting out but also to stay in a present comp passionately with yourself okay that's the message now any final questions before we break now I know that there was a question earlier which let me address right now very quickly what happens in a in one of these situations where there's there's two of you on you know doing a shift and there's 50 clients in the in the house with you at the shelter and somebody starts acting out and you got this dilemma between how do you deal with this person Who's acting out and they're going to have all this impact on the other people who are already upset and stressed and traumatized and so on how do you handle that well I'm not sure I can tell you the exact answer how to handle that but I can give you a guideline that I suggest you follow or consider following one is the time to practice playing tennis is not in the middle of a game okay so if you're playing a game of tennis that's not the time to practice serving you're going to lose so you have to practice this before you get get into the game so first of all PR prepare yourself for that possibility that this is going to happen there's going to be something really somebody's going to be acting out really badly and you're going to have to be having to deal with that person calm them down bring them back to a more balanced State and at the same time you're dealing with the upset that it's causing for the rest of the clients well my suggestion is that you do a bit of discussion of this on the job and and if there's two of you on the job have a discussion and say okay how you say to your work partner where how you feeling today if somebody acts out today are you up to handling it are you up to going in there and just staying calm and present now I tell you and I you know maybe I've said it in the morning um I've had people in you know these highly addict Crystal met driven people I've had people standing this close to my face and screaming at me and on some days I was able to stay stally totally calm not take it personally in any way at all just see this their unrest they're acting out their pain Their Fear their anger and I can just receive it and stay with it and within a minute or two the situation settles down on a on another day if I'm not feeling so good and I'm stressed and I react then the situation escalates so check in with yourself that day how am I feeling today who here is capable of handling today if somebody acts out and make that decision and then that's the designated person and then the other person's job will to be with the others and to calm them down in other words you do some practice you do some preparation so you're not in a reactive mode but you're in a responsive mode response means that you take responsibility that you're not automatically triggered but that you're simply acting in the present moment so if you got that kind of partner that you working with just make that decision today doing this shift or maybe it depends on who's acting out maybe some person triggers you more than the other person then it's the other person who should deal with it so just make those decisions and then make it your conscious decision that okay today it's going to be me with such and such a person I'm going to stay present I'm not going to take it personally as best I can as best I can and then my partner's job will be to stay with the others rather than both of you running around triggered and reactive so that would be my tentative answer to that particular question try it see if it works I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit and and have um be able to sort of wrap up the day I think in our work we are constantly reacting we're reacting to the behaviors and emotions that the kids put in front of us the pace is frenetic in all of our programs and the work's unpredictable we never know what's coming through the door and I think one of the things that's been of value for us today is that Dr matate has really made us stop and look at ourselves and I want to thank all of you who were brave enough to share your stories which I think enriched the learning of of the whole group the second message I think that's been really valuable today is that sense the possibility not just in ourselves but in our youth and I think that's a real message of Hope to take forward as we journey with our youth so thank you very much my pleasure thank you

Channel: Inside Serene

Views: 23,423

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Id: MHgMVAYWbho

Length: 16min 20sec (980 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024