Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | 3 Life Lessons People Learn Too Late | Dr Gabor Maté #515

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Today’s guest is respected the world over as an expert on trauma, stress, addiction and childhood development.  Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart.��Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. In today’s clip from episode 440, I’m joined by fellow physician, author, speaker and friend, the incredible Dr Gabor Maté. Gabor has been a regular guest on Feel Better Live More since his first appearance way back in 2018, and we both agreed that this was perhaps our favourite conversation to date. In a previous podcast episode, I had a wonderful conversation with Bronnie Ware, author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. In this clip we explore some of those life regrets through the lens of Gabor's thoughts and work and he offers some thought-provoking insights on each. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/440 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bikesize episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free

travel packs to 10 and these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More Byte Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. In today's clip from episode 440, I'm joined by fellow physician, From episode 440, I'm joined by fellow physician, author, speaker and friend, the incredible Dr. Gabor Matej. In this clip, we explore some of the common life regrets that people have at the end of their lives. And Gabor shares his thought-provoking insights. The second regret, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Yeah, that's an interesting one.

If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And what I wasn't aware of when I went to medical school and when I was a physician for decades, is how driven I was to justify my existence in the world and to prove that I was important and worthwhile and so on. And that had to do with the loss of that confidence owing to early childhood trauma.

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 much it matters for you to spend time with your family. So 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. And I didn't do that. For me it was very hard to even take holidays. I always felt I had to keep working.

If somebody was pregnant, my God, what if I would miss their delivery? Like the baby couldn't enter the world without me, you know? So that drivenness is what makes people work too hard. And so nobody says, I wish I hadn't worked hard to achieve something in life. You have to work hard. What makes you work too hard, and that's what these people are saying, is you're driven by something that you're not even aware of. And that to part, the T-O-O part, comes from being driven by unconscious needs to validate

your existence. Well, why should any human being have to validate their existence? And so, not a matter of working hard, it's a matter of working too hard. And where does that come from? Again, that comes from childhood trauma. The fifth one is, I wish I'd let myself be happier. Yeah. What does that say? Well, do you know Winnie the Pooh?

Yeah. Okay. Not personally. No, no. Not personally. The book. It's always been one of my favorite books. The end of that book would bring tears to my eyes for years. Because how it ends is Christopher Robin, a little boy, and I used 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. He's telling his friends, the toy animals, that he won't be able to play with them so much anymore. And in the end, Christopher and the bear, a little brain, who's the smartest of the whole lot, and they walk off together and the book ends with the statement, something like, and whatever they do, 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 because play is so important and joy is so important and that's what these people are talking about and they didn't allow

themselves to experience it they sacrificed the play and the joy for all these other things. I believe what's being described in that last regret is people sacrifice their playfulness, their joyfulness for the sake of being accepted and being successful and all that. It's a huge one. Play is built into our brains. Kids play spontaneously, infants play. And in that sense, we can all be Winnie the Pooh and Christopher. We can always keep playing in the enchanted forest and that's just essential, I think. And that regret is the word happier. Yeah.

What does happiness mean to you? Really, it means the capacity to play and to be in the present moment. And, you know, the kids, when the kids play, they're just playing in the moment. They're fully present to themselves in imaginative, almost hypnotically imaginative states. So happiness just means being in the present and being allowed to be, no matter what, to have the capacity to play. Yeah. Fourth regret.

I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. Yeah. Well, what we're talking there is, and it goes back to the others, about working too hard, you know, for example. What are they discussing there is the need for attachment, for connection, for belonging. And what these people are saying is, I was too driven by whatever factors impelled me to ignore my personal relationships and to port my attention on things that ultimately don't matter. My acquisition,

my attainment, my achievement, rather than the heart-to-heart human contact with people that matter to me. And again, people are driven to be that way. And when they look back on their life, they regret it because nobody has, it's often been said, nobody ever on their deathbed regrets not going to the office often enough. But they do regret the hard connection

that they sacrificed. One of my books, When the Body Says No, that's the title. In the myth of normal, there's a chapter called Before the Body Says No. Where in your life are you not saying no? Where there's a no that wants to be said, but you're not saying it for the sake of pleasing others. Can you just consider that one? Because that simple issue of not saying no can play havoc with your health.

Cause if you're not saying no, when you're wanting to say no, you're actually suppressing yourself and then you're taking on more stress and more burden. Yeah. And then you're taking on more stress and more burden. Yeah. You seem to be someone who has this love of life, this vigor, this message you want to share. You seem to be traveling all over the globe. But a lot of 80 year olds are not doing that.

And the longevity space within medicine has really exploded over the last few years. People love talking about longevity. Yes, some people want to know how can I not necessarily live longer, but be independent, mobile, vital as long as I live. So health span versus lifespan. And I get that. But there's a lot of talk these days about extending lifespan,

living to 150 and beyond and all kinds of crazy stuff. And one of my fears is that in pursuit of living longer, are we missing something about the beauty and the essence of what life really is? Life is finite. The fact that it's finite is what makes it so beautiful. If we could live to 200, would we have even more of these regrets? Because we'd keep taking life for granted.

You know what? You're talking my language because to tell you the truth, to coin a phrase, all this stuff about longevity bores me to death, you know? I just don't care. You know? What really matters is what does this moment bring us or what can we bring to this moment? You know? Let the future take care of itself. You know, like Jesus says, take no thought for tomorrow. You know?

And I really think that this longevity movement is a sign of deep social anxiety. And especially, you get these rich people in California with their cryo technology of freezing the body, hoping that 100 years from now, they'll be able to unfrozen and there'll be treatments for the, you know, it bores me, you know. What really matters is, for me, is what makes life meaningful and active and engaged in

the present moment. And it's interesting, in English, we talk about growing older. We could just say, like you said earlier, get older, which is just a chronological progression. But growing older implies that this growth is actually possible. So in what sense can we actually grow? And I think actually we can actually grow into the present moment and growing in our appreciation for life and what matters and knowing what doesn't matter and growing in wisdom. Indigenous cultures, they don't talk about elderly, they talk about

elders. There's a huge difference. So I think there's a natural reverence for age that senior cultures would respect and modern society kind of dismisses. Now, do I wish that my hair was blacker and more curly the way it used to be? Yeah, I do. You know, and it wasn't gray and my hair wasn't thinning at the top and I sure I wish that, but hair wasn't thinning at the top and I, sure I wish that, but at the same time, I would not want to be as unconscious as I was when my hair was blacker and curlier, you know? Yeah. We've been talking a lot about these regrets, the regrets of the dying. And the final question I want to put to you is about the word regret. I have been playing with the idea over the last 12 months or so that regret is actually a form of perfectionism. So I actually now very much subscribe to the philosophy of no regrets,

but not in the kind of derogatory way, you know, I'm going to live my life my way, it doesn't matter who comes to my way. No, with this really compassionate understanding that I've always done the best that I can based upon where I was in life at that time. So even the things that I look back on and go, actually, you know what? If I was in that situation again today, I would act differently. I don't see them as regrets. I see them as situations that happen that have taught me something which is allowing me to be a better version of myself today.

So in my life today, there is no room for regret anymore. And I guess I would love to know, you know, right at the end here, what's your perspective on the word regret? I think chronic regret is debilitating. It's a lack of self-forgiveness. It's also kind of egotism of that somehow I'm not important. It's quite something to recognize. I do recognize that some of the way I parented my kids, the way I showed up, I've often talked about this in your program too, wasn't the best for them, but it was the best I could do at the time.

So it's not the question of justifying anything, but it's also not dwelling on the past. Regret is to dwell on the past. And what's the point? It's quite something to recognize that I did things that had I known differently, I would not have done the same way. That's just learning. Regret is an emotional state of that values the past more than the present and it accuses yourself of doing things for which you had no consciousness to do otherwise. So that's where I stand with you, go ahead.

Gabor, you know what a big fan I am of your work. For someone who has heard us speak today, something connected with them, something you said spoke to them and they thought, wow, yeah, I don't express my emotions. I'm not living a life that is true to me. Yeah. What are some of your final words for them?

Well, it's the word that you used, curiosity. So, not why am I living this way, but why am I living this way? You know, what happened to me? What am I carrying here? So, the key phrase is the necessity to be curious in a compassionate way. So you don't do an interrogation of yourself like you're a prosecuting detective. Why did you or why did you not? But compassionately, Why did you not? Yeah. Why did you? And if you ask these questions compassionately and with curiosity, the answers will emerge

as well the capacity for you to make different choices as you move forward. So where there wasn't choice before because you were compelled or driven. Now you can have some freedom if you're willing to be curious. So curiosity is the word. Yeah. Gabo, you're now 80 years old. Does it in some way change the way you see yourself or I guess reflect differently on who you are and where you are in your life? On most days I can say this, and not on every day for sure, but as a kind of ease has entered my life, even with all that's going on in the world, I'm just sort of more, I don't struggle with the way things are so much.

I mean, like them or not like them, I may react or not respond or... But there's not a struggle against just the beingness of things. I'm certainly noticing that. And people... I had a visitor a week ago who I hadn't seen for a few years, and she says, you've changed. And I said, oh yeah, she says, you've become softer. You know? And if that's true, it's good.

It's a sign of kind of loosening inside. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five and each week I share things that I do not share on social

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