Gabor Mate
I went to see Gabor Mate speak last night in Sydney, with a couple of Kinesiologist colleagues. He was wonderful, such a measured speaker, with a lifetime of experience, wisdom and curiosity. He spoke about concepts from his book The Myth of Normal. He’s a busy man, with an urgency to get his message out to as many people as possible. If you haven't heard from him, here’s a link to a podcast interview he did on The Diary of a CEO, an interviewer I really enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7zWT3l3DV0
Gabor says 70% of the population is on at least one medication, 1/4 of women are on anti-depressants, and there’s a worldwide epidemic of distress, children included. Last night Gabor spoke about generational trauma and the link between illness for indigenous populations. Gabor is a Jewish Canadian. He spoke about his own childhood trauma. He said trauma is not what happens to us, but how we process it, the stories and beliefs we tell ourselves, and how we hold it and store it in the body, as he says, what happens inside us. Gabor believes healing needs to happen in the body, not just just in the head. Healing is becoming whole. Gabor performed a “felt sense” for an audience member who asked a question about feeling like she’s broken, and how can she heal herself, after trying so many modalities and treatments. Gabor said, first let me stop you, how do you feel, thinking you’re broken is not a feeling, then when she told him her feeling, he asked her, where do you feel that in your body? which is a felt sense technique. In Kinesiology we use felt sense, it’a powerful way to get into your body and understand where you may be holding trauma. Our bodies are wise, if listen to them, they can really help us, our minds, our illnesses, our symptoms, our pain. The body and the mind are not separate, Gabor believes illness happens when we do not live authentically, and that we don’t mean to not live authentically, it’s just that we are living via survival coping mechanisms from childhood, what made sense for us to survive then.
Gabor is a treasure, he is still working on himself at the age of 81 years, he is also passionate about helping people to understand how to heal themselves. He doesn’t want people to blame themselves or punish themselves for behaviour and responses that were or are perfectly normal in abnormal circumstances.
He says the good news is our brains are neuroplastic, which means we can rewire them, and the way to do that is through our whole bodies. This is what we do in Kinesiology, and it is always wonderful to hear the medical establishment understanding and helping people in this idea. We need to work together. I have clients who see psychologists and me as a Kinesiology and that can work really well. I hope there’s more of it.
If you would like to try Kinesiology with me, I would be honoured to assist you on your journey.
Best,
Kim
