20 Most Asked Questions

Can you speak about intergenerational trauma?

"What about intergenerational trauma?" That's one question. Well, I will not spend time on that for a
very simple reason, that virtually all trauma is intergenerational. I've talked about how I passed some of
my own trauma to my children. If they work it out before they have children themselves, they may not
pass it on. But, to the extent that they won't work it out, they will pass it on. Not because they don't
love their kids, not because they're not doing their best, just because that's how it works. If the virus is
in you, you're going to pass it onto the next generation. And somebody once said to me, a therapist
once said to me that if your parents gave you this much shit, and you gave your kids only this much,
you've done a great job. So rather than worrying about passing it on, just to work on your own stuff. The
more you work on your own stuff, the less you will pass it on. Otherwise, it's inevitably
multigenerational. That's just the nature of it.

Why do we choose partners with qualities we most disliked in our parents?

Somebody asked "When you said that we look in our partners for the qualities we most disliked in our
parents, why is that?" Well, what actually was said was that when we find partners, we'll find in them all
the negative, and probably some of the positive qualities of our parents as well, but why would we
choose somebody with the negative qualities? And by the way, we don't choose it. It's not conscious.
When you see somebody and you fall in love with them, your reasons have nothing to do with the basic
reasons. I mean, they might be attractive. They might be funny. They might be intelligent. They might
resonate with you on different levels. That's all good. That's the good part. But what you're not seeing is
the other part.
Now, why would you unconsciously choose—by the way, notice the contradiction: if it's unconscious,
you're not choosing it; choice has no meaning unless it's conscious. Why are you drawn to somebody
with the perpetrator energy of your parents? Very simple. When you were small, whose love did you
want most? Your understanding of love is what you received from those people. You're going to want
people like that because those are the ones whose love you want. You don't even know that there's any
other kind of love, not unconsciously. As a child, the love you receive is the love you understand as love.
And my mother, when she wasn't picking me up, she loved me. So guess what? My unconscious idea of
love is somebody who will feel good towards me, but won't really support me, won't really understand
me, won't really see me. So to some extent, I'll be drawn to that kind of a person. That's not necessarily
a bad thing because the other person chose you for the same reason. Now there's an opportunity, as
adults, to work out what you couldn't have worked out as a child. But I'm telling you. If you meet two
people, if one of them is...it's not a question of how much trauma they suffered as children, it's a
question of how much trauma they have resolved. So, two people, if one person has this much better
trauma resolution than this one, they will never meet, they will meet if they're on the same level.
And sometimes you think my partner had all this childhood trauma and I didn't. Uh, uh, you did, it just
didn't look the same. But that's where the love is most attractive because that's what you desperately
wanted as a child.

Why don't I feel safe when I am with people?

"Gabor mentioned that safety as the presence of connection; my experience is the opposite: I feel more
safe when I'm by myself. Thoughts on this one?" So you think about that for a minute. This person's

Page 1 of 13
asking, I said that safety is the presence of connection. This person says, I feel the opposite, I feel most
safe when I'm by myself, what are the thoughts? Well, you know what the answer is? There's no
connection. The reason that you don't like being with people, basically, is you're not connected with
them. I didn't say that safety is the presence of other people. I said, safety is the presence of connection.
If you feel more safe on your own, it's because you're not connected to other people. And then you have
to inquire, well, what is it in me that keeps me from getting connected? What am I projecting on these
other people? What fears do I bring there? What expectations do I bring that are disappointed? But
being with other people, that's not connection. You can be with a million people and not be connected.

Is my child's mental health issue my fault?

"I'd like to ascertain that I'm understanding correctly what I've been hearing for the past two days. My
31-year old daughter's eating disorder, since 2006, and diagnosis of bipolar disorder type two, is related
to my husband and I not attuning to our daughter when she was a child? We did not appropriately listen
to her 'No,' which led to her mental health issues? "
I wish I could talk to you, but I don't have time. I am saying, that mental illness, or manifestations of it,
arise out of trauma. I'm saying that. I'm saying that about the depression of my own children, about the
ADHD of a couple of them. So yes, I'm saying that, but it's not as simple as your question would imply.
I'm not saying you did anything wrong and I don't doubt that you loved your child as much as it's
possible to love a child. I don't doubt that for a minute.
I'm suggesting that your daughter... What I have seen in every case of eating disorder is that it does have
a purpose. I've just written about it in my new book. And when I talked to people with eating disorder,
"what does it do for you?" I do that with addiction. "What does it do for you?" What eating disorder
does for people, it gives them a sense of control, a sense of false autonomy of, "I'm in charge. I get to
decide what I eat and I don't eat." If they're bulimic, it also gives them this temporary relief. So it always
has a function.
Now, why did the person need to develop that sense of control? So in general, in every case of eating
disorder I've seen, there were family dynamics—not the parents' fault—multi-generational family
dynamics. So in order to answer your question, I'd really have to ask you about what happened to you in
your childhood, and what happened to your husband in his childhood—or your partner in their
childhood. And how did those two histories merge together to create an atmosphere in which your
daughter might've felt, might've perceived that she had no control.
So there's a book called It Didn't Begin With You. It didn't begin with you. It has to do with
multigenerational trauma. And so in order to answer your question, there's two things I'd have to know.
One is, I'm guessing that your daughter is one of these highly sensitive people. By high degree of
sensitivity, I mean they're very affected by things, they feel things. Sensitivity comes from the Latin word
'sensere,' to feel. The more sensitive you are, the more you feel; the more you feel, the less has to
happen to make you feel that way. There's lots of people out there who had families that were no less
"troubled" than yours, where people don't develop eating disorder. But try this experiment, all of you,
tap yourself on the shoulder like this, how much did that hurt? Didn't hurt at all.
But imagine now that your skin... that you are not wearing clothing, your skin is bare and there's a burn
there. So that the top layers of the skin had been sloughed off and your nerve endings are close to the
surface. Now tap yourself and you'll see, that will create excruciating pain. The tap, the external
stimulus, was no greater, but the pain was immensely greater. Why? Because of the sensitivity. So there
are these sensitive kids who download the pain of the generations and the traumas of the parents. And
that's what I see in many cases of mental illness.

Page 2 of 13
Having said that, yes, there was something that happened in the family. Yeah. Just like in mine, just like
in almost everybody else's here. So that's what I will say about sensitivity.

How to navigate a romantic relationship

"As someone who experienced emotional neglect, childhood developmental trauma, how can I navigate
romantic relationships without alternating between terror, anxiety, fear of abandonment during the
relationship and depression, intense pain loss when the relationship ends?"
Notice the way you set up the question. The question says, how do I navigate romantic relationships
without alternating between the terror, anxiety, and fear of abandonment or depression when it's lost?
Well, you can't, as long as you keep going back into the same kind of relationships. So the first thing to
notice is, first of all, what attracts me to a person, because if you read Michael Brown and I do suggest
you read The Presence Process, but that's not the only book or Harville Hendrix's Getting the Love You
Want, we keep going for relationships that bring back to us... We have this adult idea of who we want in
a love relationship, and it's really a nice package.
We want them to be attractive and intelligent and sensitive and humorous and playful and whatever our
fantasy is, but that's not who we keep falling in love with. At least that's only on the surface, all that
stuff might be there on the surface, but who we really keep falling in love with are people that bring
back to us exactly the situation we were in as kids. Those are people that we're really attracted to.
We're unerringly attracted to people that are going to bring back everything that didn't work in our
childhood. And why do we keep being attracted to those people? Because we want to fix it once and for
all. Didn't work the first time, can I make it work this time?
So until we work on ourselves, it's inevitable that we're going to be drawn into those kinds of
relationships. In fact, it's almost inevitable that we will anyway. And then the question becomes, in this
relationship, is there room to acknowledge this stuff? My wife Rae, her father was a workaholic and had
a music addiction, music shopping addiction. Guess who she marries, somebody who's a workaholic and
develops a music shopping... I didn't even have the music shopping addiction when I met her, but I
developed it. Not because of her, but because that was in me in the first place.
So what I'm saying to this question here, Evelyn, is that: notice who you're attracted to and be curious
about why you're attracted to them, number one. And number two, is there room in this relationship to
work on it? Because just as partner A, we're recognizing partner B and be attracted in partner B to the
dysfunction from their childhood, the same is mutually true. That's just how it works. There's nothing
wrong with it. It's a beautiful opportunity to work it out. But do you have a partner that you're going to
work with? Do you have a partner that you can invite to do this work with you? If you don't, it's difficult.
So that's my answer to that question.

What is the distinction between gut feeling and triggered emotion?

"The distinction between a gut feeling and strong emotion, triggered emotion." So I'll give you a
theoretical answer and then I'll give you a more practical answer, but it's a very difficult one. I would say
it's a difficult dilemma to know, it really is. And no answer will possibly clarify it for you totally, but you
can play with it and see what happens for you. As Eckhart Tolle points out somewhere, emotions,
including strong emotions, are responses to your mind, to what your mind is telling you.
So let's say you raise your hand for a question, but you don't get picked. And then you feel sad and you
feel angry. Those aren't gut feelings, they're responses to what your mind is telling you, because
nobody's actually being ignored or rejected. It's just that we've only so much space and we trust the
process. But that sense of being rejected or ignored or discounted, that's your childhood showing up. So

Page 3 of 13
if I may say, strong emotions for the most part are responses to your mind and your mind is interpreting
the present through the prism of the past. That's what emotions are.
Now, gut feelings, as Eckhart again says, are responses to the environment, to what's actually happening
out there. So, when you're sitting there and a saber-toothed tiger appears on the horizon and you feel
fear, that's not some emotion based on some interpretation of your mind. That's a real danger. Damn
right that you should feel fear, because that fear will help you. So that's the distinction. Now, that
doesn't tell you though how to tell the difference in practice. How to tell the difference in practice is
that with a gut feeling, there's no upset, there's just, "I don't want this. I do not want this. I will not be in
this situation."
There's no big upset. There's no big story. There's no big drama. And once the gut feeling has
manifested itself and you've acted on it, it goes away because it has no reason to be there anymore.
Whereas with the emotion, there's always an upset, there's always a story and it continues beyond its
value, beyond its necessary role. And so, just take that information and play with it. So the next time
you're wondering, just check in with yourself. Is there a big upset here? Am I telling a big story about it,
about the other person and this and that, or am I just asserting, "here's how it is for me"? And you're
calm about it. In fact, there's a grounded strength about it. That's the gut feeling.

How to work with anxiety and overwhelm?

"How to work with anxiety, how to work with overwhelming feelings, how to feel when it's painfully
overwhelming?" So first of all, overwhelmed is also a point of view. So in the overwhelm is a point of
view. Overwhelmed, the word actually means being upset or turned over, like being literally turned
upside down or submerged, as by a wave. So you're just underneath something. And sometimes it feels
like that. Now when you're overwhelmed, submerged, turned over, the first thing is to acknowledge it.
That's how it occurs to me right now. That's how life is showing up right now. Then it's a question of,
now, how to relate to that. The infant part of you just falls to pieces because it can't handle it. So it does
take the adult part in you showing up to deal with it. The adult part of you can deal with it in two ways.
Well, the one way actually, is just to ask for help, to ask for resources.
And those resources are either internal or they're external. But begin by not making the anxiety or the
overwhelmed wrong. "I shouldn't be feeling this way. Why am I feeling this way?" You can ask, "why am
I feeling this way?" But not, "why am I feeling this way? [angry tone]" "Why am I feeling this way" is a
good question. "Why am I feeling this way? [angry tone]" is saying I shouldn't be feeling this way. So
start by not running away from it, by accepting that it's there and become curious about it. Now if you're
really submerged, again you can find resources. You couldn't as an infant. If you could have as an infant,
you wouldn't be overwhelmed now.
So the resources can be, as I said, external or internal. So just own it, but reach out for help. In other
words, don't be ashamed of it, don't reject it. Say "here's what is right in front for right now" and reach
out for help. And you have to decide who is it in your life that you're going to ask for help. Your friend,
your partner, your therapist, but there's got to be somebody out there. You have to find somebody out
there that can be a resource for you. It's like in AA. When you feel like using, you have a sponsor, you're
going to call them. You know what? I feel like drinking. I feel like injecting. So own it. Accept it. Be
curious about it and find a resource. If you have internal resource that you might have developed
through mindfulness, then you can meditate with it. You can sit with it.
There's that part of me that can observe this without joining in the overwhelm. I can just observe it. I
can allow it to calm. I can allow it to be there. I can feel it. I can permit it in my body and I can observe it.
So the three points I've made was, acceptance that there it is; two, curiosity, like "what is this all about?
What is it trying to teach me?" and three, resourcing yourself either externally or internally or both.

Page 4 of 13
Now, let me say something a bit off message, but as a physician, I'll say it. I'm not a great prescriber or
advocate for medications. In fact, I think that they are often misused, mis-prescribed and they're
presented as the answer to some biological problem, which is never the case. And they're usually given
long-term, and they're given instead of delving into what the real issues are. I have all kinds of issues
with medications, but sometimes, if you can't function, if you find some that functioning overwhelmed
all the time, anxious all the time, and these other resources are not helping you through, you might
consider taking a medication for a while. A few of you here might want to do that.
Occasionally I have. I don't need them anymore and if I try them, in recent years, all they do is give me
side effects, which means I have changed, my physiology has changed. But there was a time when it
actually, when I was yelling at my kids all the time, it really helped.
Just to add a word, why angry is so anxiety-producing. Remember what I said about your need for
authenticity and attachment? Well, if in your childhood, you either saw a lot of anger and that really
frightened you in your family, or, when you were angry, you were cut off from your parents, can you
imagine what fear or anger will bring up for you? And so then it's a very anxiety-producing emotion.
One more thing about anxiety; we're not separate individuals, we live in an environment. So you might
ask yourself, even if there's no threat that I perceive, what is my system picking up on maybe? You
know, there's a cartoon, the old cartoon trope of the guy. It's three in the morning, the bar is just about
to close, there's one customer that's deep into his cups, and the bartender is looking bored and is wiping
off the counter. And the caption is, the guy, the customer is saying, "My problem is that my wife doesn't
understand me." Well, my version of it is that I'm the customer in the bar. It's three in the morning. The
bartender is wiping the counter and looking bored. And I'm deep into my cups and I'm saying, "My
problem is that my wife understands me." Because she reads me like a book.
And so years ago, she learned that when she's feeling anxious, I'm probably lying to her. So consider that
your anxiety sometimes could be about something in your environment that you're consciously not
letting in, but your system is letting you know about. And that's why in all those years of marriage, I've
never got away with anything. Good thing.

How to work with shame?

"How to work with shame?" There are many questions about shame. "How to release it?" So let me say
two things about that. One is, realize that it's not personal. It's not personal to you. And it's got nothing
to do with... You haven't done anything wrong. Okay? You can shame a nine-month-old baby who's got
no idea of having done anything wrong, or even of the concept of right or wrong. You know what shame
looks like? What does shame look like? It looks like this: Your neck slumps, your head goes down, your
body slumps forward. You want to sink into the ground. The nerves that keep you alert and looking into
somebodies eyes in a social mode, and you turn your head to track them—those nerves all go offline.
When you go into this state, that's what shame looks like. You can do it to a dog.
How do you do it to a nine-month-old child? You break contact with them. They're looking at you and
interacting, and all of a sudden you break contact. At first, they'll be very enraged and they'll be
demanding that you come back; and then they'll go into a shame state. So the first shame that we
experienced was a loss of contact with our caregivers, through no fault of our own. So notice that arising
for you and say "this is not about me."
Secondly, I talked to you about a close relative of shame yesterday, guilt, and that was a mechanism to
keep you connected with your parent. If you remember that part of the message from yesterday. So
shame is not about anything you've done. Shame is about the self itself. You might have remorse for
what you've done and that's good, but that's not the same as shame. Shame is the sense that I shouldn't
even exist. And it really means being cut off from the world.

Page 5 of 13
So when you ask me how to release it, don't release it—You can't. I don't know how to release shame, I
don't. If somebody here does, let them tell us, that'd be great. Notice it, just notice it and say, "well,
here it is, this is old stuff. It's not about me. I'll let it be there, but I won't let it tell me what to do." So
just accept it as something that was programmed into you for no fault of your own. And since it's there,
just notice it, just don't let it govern your behavior.

How is self-harm related to trauma?

"Self-harm, how this is related to trauma?" Self-harm always reflects trauma. Let me put self-harm for
you in very specific terms. People who self-harm want a pain they can handle, as compared with the
pain they can't handle. If you cut yourself, you can handle that pain. Not only that, it releases
endorphins in your brain that actually soothe the pain. Self-harm in that sense is another addictive
behavior. And actually somebody once said to me that "self-harm gives me pain I can handle to replace
the pain I can't handle." It distracts from the pain, the searing emotional pain. That's what that is.

What kind of healing is helpful with sexual abuse?

"What kind of healing is helpful for incest, sexual abuse, rape and adult sexual assault?" The form of the
assault on your system, the traumatic event is not the trauma. I said this the first day, but it's something
I need to re-emphasize. The trauma is not that you were sexually assaulted. The trauma is not that you
were raped, you were abused. That was trauma-tic, intensely painful, horrible. It should never have
happened, but it did. That wasn't the trauma. The trauma is the wound that you sustained as a result.
Those wounds show up in very similar ways across the board. So rather than focusing on the "what
happened" —I mean, yeah, you need to recognize what happened—but rather than focusing on that,
focus on "what is the impact on me of what happened? What is the wound that I sustained? Where am I
sensitive?" Where you touch that wound and it hurts. Or "where did I develop scar tissue, where I'm not
flexible, and I'm rigid and I don't feel." That's what you have to concentrate on and there's no single
way, but put the emphasis on the impact on you. Going over the... some therapists do this. They go over
and over the event, it doesn't help. Ultimately it doesn't help, because what really happened, the wound
is what happened to you inside of you. Not what happened to you externally, but what happened inside
of you.
Especially, those of you that were sexually abused in childhood. You tend to believe that that was the
original traumatic event, but I'm telling you it wasn't. Not that it wasn't traumatic, but it wasn't the
original traumatic event, because I've seen this and I've done this a number of times. So, I want you to
hear, just for lack of time, but I'll tell you about it. In any group that I talk with and I'll say, "Those of you
that are willing to acknowledge that you were sexually abused as a child, put your hand up." 10, 15, 20,
30 people put their hands up.
And I'll say, "Are some of you are willing to talk with me?" And they'll say, "Yeah." And I say, "Okay. How
old were you when that had happened? How long did it go on for?" "Oh, from four to age eight." Or "it
happened over a two-week period," whatever. And then I'll say, "Who did you talk to about it?" And the
answer is going to be, 95% of the time, "nobody." And then I'll say, "Well, if you had a child and
somebody even looked them the wrong way, never mind touched them, who would you want them to
talk to, if you're the parent?" And everybody says, "Well, I'd want my child to talk to me."
And then I'll say, "Well, if you found out that this happened to your child over four years and she didn't
talk to you about it, or he didn't talk to you about it, how would you understand that? Not 'how would
you feel about it?' You'd feel horrified, but how would you understand it?" "Oh, they didn't trust me." In
other words, by the time the abuse happened, that child was already cut off from the parent. And their

Page 6 of 13
perpetrator knew that, because the bully energy, the perpetrator energy knows exactly who's
vulnerable. They can tell energetically.
So this is not to blame the victim, it's not to say that you invited it or you deserved it, or you did
anything to bring it on. You didn't at any age, whenever it happened. None of that is true, but the
perpetrator could tell that you are not protected, that you lack that boundary. And that boundary would
come from being nurtured and held and seen by adults and feeling safe and a perpetrator energy laser-
like accuracy can tell when that's absent. So, the first trauma was not the abuse or the rape. In most
cases, it was the loss of that protective energy, where the perpetrator found their way. And when you
talk to men who perpetrated child abuse and they're in therapy, they will tell you, "Oh, in a room of 20
kids, I can tell exactly." Because they can. So the original trauma was that loss of contact with the
parent. So when you're working with these traumas of sexual violation, yes, you got to deal with that
and look at the wound, but also look at how you lost contact, because that was the original trauma.

Why do abused people seem to attract further abuse?

When you were small, whose love did you most want? You wanted the love of the people that were
hurting you. This is how you come to understand love, this became your definition of love. So you're
going to look for people and you're going to hope that this time they're going to give it to you. So
unconsciously, the mind will recognize, long before you're aware of it consciously, your mind will
recognize, "Oh yeah, here's the same energy here. This is where I want love." It's like a magnet. And
you're going to go for it. So you keep putting yourself in those situations, because you're hoping this
time you're going to get it right, and this time you're going to get the love. Rather than grieving, rather
than grieving, "but I didn't get the love, and I am so bereft," you keep trying to get it.
And you keep trying to get it from the same sources and you're going to... Now, how do they recognize
you? Well, let me tell you a story. And again, I'm going to talk about abuse again, and some of you may
misperceive me, I'll tell you right now, as being blamed for your own suffering, which is as far from my
intention as it could possibly be, this is warning you. So let me tell you a story. In a medical building
where I used to work, a lot of medical offices, there was a gynecologist middle-aged, handsome, British,
middle-class type, clipped accent. He was a gynecologist. Occasionally I referred people to him. I didn't
really like him, if I think about it, but I did refer it to him. It was convenient. He was in the same building.
One day a patient of mine came to me and said that he made some sexual comments or even some
sexual touch. Now, this was before I knew about abuse, and this is before I did my own work. And I did
say the appropriate things. I said, "well, if you want to pursue this, I will support you doing that if you
want to make a complaint," but I didn't really explore it with her. I didn't really come on her side. In
other words, she would've left my office not really being supported. I didn't make her wrong, but I also
didn't support her.
Some years later, it came out. This guy had been abusing women. He would have—I won't go into the
details—as inappropriate as you can possibly get. And he ended up losing his license. But the majority of
his patients said, guess what they said, "This is impossible. He was always the perfect gentleman." How
do you explain that? You know how I explain it? Your abuser always knows who's available and who
isn't. Laser-like, not because the women or the man or the child, or anybody wants the abuse, asks for it,
deserves it, has it coming, in any way invites it. But simply because the abuser knows that they're
unprotected, that they have no boundaries.
The child who was not held doesn't develop boundaries. And these are the kids that get bullied. The
other kids can tell the vulnerability, and the bully energy is attracted to the vulnerability, because that's
how the bully achieves dominance, by exploiting somebody else's vulnerability. So there's something
about... People have said to me, "Is there some sign on my forehead?" Well, yeah, there is kind of a sign

Page 7 of 13
on your forehead, which doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. This doesn't mean that you
deserve it. None of that, it just means that the abusing energy can always pick up the vulnerable energy.
So this is why.
And I think I said this the other day, but I'll repeat it if I did. Those of you that have been in adult abusive
relationships, and if you asked yourself, before the abuse formally started, was there any inkling? Well,
let me tell you a personal story. So some years ago I gave a talk in Calgary. Okay. And the woman who
arranged it was going to pay me a certain amount of money, and guarantee a certain number of people.
But this is before I became really famous. Now I don't... So, I was quite insecure about it.
Something in my gut told me that, there's something wrong about this woman. I didn't pay attention to
it. She ended up not paying me, not that many people showed up, totally dysfunctional scene. I just let
go of it. I said, "Okay, good learning experience." But I did have the gut feeling, I didn't pay attention to
it. Last November. I just got a feeling not to go on a certain trip, a speaking trip. I went and I came back
and I coughed for eight weeks. I couldn't do my work. It wasn't COVID. It was before COVID. My gut had
warned me, I didn't pay any attention. Now, those of you that have been in abusive relationships, my
sense is that very often there were some gut feelings there. You just didn't pay attention to them,
because you learned in childhood not to. And the abuser can always tell. They can always tell..
Now, this is not to take them off the hook, but how can they tell? From their own trauma. So you have
the bully trauma energy joining the vulnerable unboundaried victim energy that keeps happening. So
they're drawn to each other like magnets. Okay. That's what answers that question.
I can totally understand that what I just said about the unboundaried energy, unconsciously inviting the
bully energy can be triggering for some of you, because you may perceive, and I warned you about that,
that you're being blamed, but you're not. I'm saying that this is a natural outcome, one natural outcome
of what happened to you as a child. You're not at fault, nobody's blaming you, but the more you can
recognize this dynamic in yourself, the more responsibility you can take, the more boundaries you can
develop and the more protected you will be.

Can you heal an illness by healing the trauma?

"Can you heal an illness by healing the trauma?" The answer is yes, but I'm not going to say more about
it now. A lot of healing has happened in people I know, people with multiple sclerosis, cancers and so
on. I've seen a lot of healing with or without medical treatment. I'm not recommending that you go
without medical treatment. I'm just saying there's a lot of healing with dealing with the trauma. And I
could show you a photograph of a woman with systemic lupus, which is an autoimmune disease that
attacks every part of the body. Three years ago, her hands were white. There was no circulation to her
fingers. She's dealt with her trauma. She's not on medication. And she sent me a photograph. If I could
show it to you I would. Her hands are now beautiful, pink and functioning. And she did that by dealing
with her trauma. So I'm not recommending that you replace whatever treatment you might be under
from your physicians. I'm saying add to it the trauma work. And yes, it can heal.

What is the relationship between trauma and illness in children?

People have written articles about various medical conditions: fibromyalgia, endometriosis, chronic
cystitis, let alone all the immune diseases and so on. I'm telling you, not only this is my opinion, there's
all kinds of research that all of these conditions are linked to childhood trauma. Nobody with
endometriosis wasn't traumatized as a child, nobody with fibromyalgia was not traumatized as a child.
Nobody.

Page 8 of 13
And the disease is your body's way of saying no, because you were inhibited from saying no, because
you had to attach. So there was that attachment versus authenticity. Then you had to go for the
attachment. And you keep going for the attachment. And your body's saying "no," the body's saying,
"no, you need to be authentic." And it's a harsh way to learn. And again, I don't recommend it, but that's
just simply how it works. Now, related to this, there was a question from a medical doctor, let me just
find it here.
He says, "I'm a pediatric oncologist and a marrow transplant director for 30 years. I agree past trauma is
a major contributor underlying most adult cancers. So that's my point of view as well. But cancer in
children is very different and there's still very little known about its causes. Yet most children with
cancer, about 80% today appear to be cured. So what do you make of the importance of past trauma as
a likely contributor to childhood cancer? And how might that play into their much higher cure rate than
most adult cancers?"
Well, I don't claim to have answers to everything, but let me tell you what I think in response. There's
been very little research on the relationship of emotional dynamics and childhood cancers. So I can only
speak from impression, I can't speak from knowledge. So I have to make that distinction. When it comes
to the adult stuff, I can pretty much quote you book and chapter and verse. I can't do that with
childhood cancer. I can only give you impressions from what I've witnessed in practice and my reading of
the world.
So forget childhood cancer for a minute, but look at something like childhood asthma. And the reason
we can do that is because there's been a lot of research. And so it's clear from childhood asthma, this is
just absolute scientific fact, that the most stressed the parents are, the more likely their child is to have
asthma. In fact, sometimes the amount of medication and hospitalization the child will need, can be
predicted by how stressed the parents are.
So what happens in asthma is you got a narrowing of the airways and inflammation of the airways. And
how do we treat childhood asthma? How do we treat adult asthma? We give medications to open up
the airways and to suppress the inflammation. What are these medications that we give to suppress
inflammation and to open up the airways, they're hormones. What kind of hormones are they? They're
stress hormones. We give adrenaline, or medications like it, to open up the airways and we give cortisol,
or medication like that, to suppress the inflammation. These happen to be the hormones secreted by
the adrenal glands in response to stress.
What happens in chronic stress is that this mechanism actually gets exhausted. And now we have to give
extra stress hormones just to keep the airways open, and not inflamed. In other words, the child's lung
functioning and inflammation levels has everything to do with how stressed the parents are. In other
words, the parent's emotional states program the child's physiology. Well, I don't see why the same
thing can't happen in cancer. That the parents stresses might somehow affect the child's immune
system. I'm not saying that's the only factor. The younger something happens in somebody, the more
likely it is that there might be some genetic factors involved.
And there's a lots of stressed parents whose kids don't develop asthma, whose kids don't develop
cancer. So it's not a question of saying A causes B, it's a question of, is it a contributing factor? So we
know that in the case of eczema and so on, the more stressed the parents are, the more likely to get is
to get eczema. Same thing with psoriasis. The most stress is in the family, the more likely a person is to
have psoriasis. So I don't see why there would be any exceptions to that general trend. It's a very
delicate, sensitive subject though, because the last thing I want to say to parents whose kid is struggling
with cancer is, "Oh listen, this somehow because of you." So it's not something I talk about, it's not
something I write about, I'm only answering your question. And in such situations, I would look at the

Page 9 of 13
multi-generational trauma picture. But in general, everything is connected to everything else. That's just
my sense.

What does healing look like?

"How does healing look like? When do you know you have healed trauma?" I love to tell people my
epitaph, I've created my own epitaph. After they put me underground, carved into my gravestone will
be the phrase, "It was a lot more work than I had anticipated." It's a lot of work, people, and it's ongoing
work, but it's beautiful work, it is work that you deserve. Don't look for absolutes! "Healed from
trauma," what a phrase that is! But I can tell you something. I learned something recently. I used to
believe that I could help the whole world, but I couldn't be helped myself, that I was hurt so early and so
deeply that the light was gone. The light for myself was gone. I gave them that victory.
Some years ago, I was having lunch with the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. Traumatologist, wonderful
book he wrote called The Body Keeps the Score. It's on your reading list. And Bessel looked at me over
lunch, and he peered over his glasses, and he said, "You know Gabor, you don't have to drag Auschwitz
around with you everywhere you go." And intellectually I got it. But it also bothered me because, you
see, all my life, when people said, "what a wonderful world we live in, it's a wonderful world," then I
said, "how can it be a wonderful world when there was Auschwitz? And how can I be even joyful?" How
can I ... joy was very foreign to me, because I said, "how can I be joyful when there was Auschwitz? What
right do I have to be joyful?"
Not only Auschwitz then, but all the perpetrations and all the horrors and all the suffering and the
oppression that's being perpetrated and thrust upon people right now from Palestine to Iran, to the
United States, to Canada, to virtually every country in the world. And only recently did I realize, I mean, I
really don't have to. No, I don't have to drag Auschwitz around with me. It happened and there's nothing
I can do about it. And it hurts that it happened and there's nothing that I can do about it. But the pain of
that does not have to destroy my joy. That it happened and continues to happen, doesn't have to define
my view of the world and it doesn't have to define how I see my own possibilities. That's the sense in
which I don't have to drag it around with me.
So for me, that was a big step in healing, big step. So I don't know what healing looks like. I know what it
feels like. There's more calm. There's more peace. There's more possibility. There's less... Remember I
said that trauma was the scar, this constriction; there's expansion. So don't look for what it looks like.
But when you see, when you feel expansion in yourself, when you allow yourself to have your pain and
not give up on joy, when you can have your pain without that destroying your trust in life, that's what it
feels like. And for some of you, what I've just said, if I had listened to these words some time ago, you
know what would've experienced? Envy. And I would have said "Why them and not me?" And believe
me I said that so often to myself. So if that's what you're saying to yourself now, I understand. And if my
words are only words to you, I understand that too. I won't say more about that.

Do we have to know what happened to heal the trauma?

"Is it important to investigate what happened? Can we not find healing without finding out why? How
do you even heal trauma without knowing what happened to you, but experiencing physical symptoms,
such as startle response, anxiety, impending doom?"
Okay. Do we have to know exactly what happened? It's helpful, but it's not absolutely necessary. First of
all, much of what happened, happened pre-verbally, when we have no recollection. By the way, think of
all the mothers and fathers you see walking in the streets these days, pushing their babies in a tram or
carrying them while they're looking at their cell phones. You know the trauma that's being perpetuated
every day?

Page 10 of 13
So let's say you don't know exactly what happened because it's pre-verbal. Now, the reason it's not
necessary is because the trauma is not what happened to you, keep remembering that. The trauma is
what happened inside you, the trauma is the wound where there's pain and where there's constriction.
And if you came to me with a flesh wound, a deep gash in your arm, in order for me to help you, or in
order for the wound to heal, if I start asking you, well, was it a knife or was it a sharp machete? Or was it
maybe a scissor? And was it wielded by a woman or a man? Or did you accidentally hurt yourself? If it
was a knife, did it have a handle? Was the handle red or black or blue or brown? Would any of that
matter? No. What matters is you have a wound there, that already tells you.

How to embody the teachings?

Somebody says that they cling to old habits even though they know that they are harmful and not
helpful, they feel like comfortable or old friends, even though they're causing me discomfort. So how
can I live out and embody the teachings?
Well, this is the dilemma we all have, and here's what you have to ask yourself: What are you
committed to? Because if you keep acting out the same patterns over and over again, let me tell you,
you're committed to acting out those patterns. So that means you're split. Part of you knows that this is
not right, it's not serving you, but part of you is totally committed to the old ways. Then you have to do
an inquiry: "What is it in me that's committed to the old ways?" And not a self-judgmental inquiry, but:
"okay, what is it?" And you know what you're going to find? You're going to find that you're going for
attachment versus authenticity, because those old ways are the ways you maintained the attachment as
a small child. And you're still choosing to go that way.

How do I get my eating disorder under control?

Someone asks, "How do I finally and forever get my eating disorder under control? I know the response I
had. I know it was a response I had to my trauma is a part of this, but I still cannot seem to let it go?"
Well, my suggestion is, don't try and let anything go. Because, take the image of letting go, there's this
object here, I'm holding it. I can let it go. I'm holding it. I can let it go. That's voluntary, but your eating
disorder is not voluntary, so you can't let it go. So if you set yourself to task on letting it go, you're
setting yourself up for failure. You can't let it go. The question is, what will it take for it to let you go?
Because that's really how it's working here. Is it got you? Now, on some level, it's true, a deep part of
you is choosing it, but that deep part you're not conscious of, and you're not in control of. So trying to
control it just brings up stress and invites failure. So then how do you work with it? Well, I can't solve the
problem for you, but I said earlier, I'm not here to solve a problem. I'm here to help you develop some
curiosity. Be curious!
The next time the urge is upon you to eat too much, or to restrict your eating, or to purge, whichever
way the eating disorder is showing up, just be curious about it and ask yourself, "Okay, what am I getting
from this? What is it trying to do for me? What benefit is it trying to provide? Why is it here? How do I
feel towards it? In this present moment, just before I engage in a behavior, what's happening for me?
What triggers, last night or this morning or today, or yesterday, may have invited it? Did I get into a fight
with somebody? Was I unhappy about something? Was it totally random? What is the feeling inside my
body?" Ask yourself all these questions and hang out with them.
Usually you'll find as with any addiction, it is providing something, maybe a sense of control, maybe a
sense of distraction, maybe a sense of release. Just be curious about it. So what I'm saying is, don't try
and let go of it, make friends with it, and ask it what it requires for it to stop coming around, what does
it need from you? So for example, if it soothes you, then ask yourself, "What do I need soothing from?
And how can I soothe myself? How can I relax myself without having to engage in that behavior?" So

Page 11 of 13
that would be my answer to that question. In other words, the answer to the question is a whole lot
more questions, and curiosity, and compassion.
Do you judge yourself for not being able to let go? Are you criticizing yourself? Well, if you are, that's not
very compassionate. Okay?

How do I not fall back into old trauma-response patterns?

"I'm a cancer patient, how do I ensure that I don't fall back into old patterns after doing trauma work
and a recent four day ayahuasca retreat?" Well, this is for all of you. Don't worry about falling back into
old patterns, and the reason I'm telling you don't worry about it, because you're going to. Okay, just take
it for granted that you're going to, it's just going to happen. That's how life works. That's how your brain
is programmed. So rather than worrying about how do I... I mean, the question comes out of fear. So
just be conscious of yourself. Notice the fear. "Oh, I have a fear of driving back into old patterns. Hmm,
what is that fear about?"
And when you do fall back into old patterns, which you're going to at least momentarily, be curious
about it. So rather than "I shouldn't have fallen back, I've fallen back. I've failed. It's never going to get
any better," "Oh, I just noticed an old pattern on the rise again. Wonder what's going on? What
triggered it? How else could I have responded? What can I learn from it?" So again, notice the fear and
be curious about everything. That's really the way out, everybody.

Do I have a self to reconnect with?

"Too much trauma, no sense of self. Do I have a self to reconnect with?" Well, what you want to ask is,
who's asking? Who's the one that wants to know if there's a self to reconnect with. I'm not going to
answer that question. I'm asking you, ask yourself that. Who's the one who wants to know? Who's the
one? Who's the one who cares enough about you, that it wants to know the answers. Who's the one?
Who's that one? Just ask yourself that question. Not as an intellectual question, but to be with it.

How do I forgive?
"How do I forgive those who traumatized me?" Well, who said you should? I'm not saying don't, but
who's saying that you should? So where does that question come from? Does it come from this idea that
I 'should' forgive them to be spiritually real, or do you want to forgive them because you think that'll
help you heal? I'll tell you what I think about it. I never teach forgiveness. I teach understanding. And
you know what Jesus said on the cross, he said, "Forgive them father for they know not what they do."
But I'm telling you anybody who hurt you, what was making them do that was that, what did I call it
yesterday? Perpetrator energy that took them over, a virus that had taken them over. That's why they
did it.
Now, that may help you understand them. And maybe that understanding will help you forgive them.
But sometimes we can understand with our minds "Oh, yeah, I get it, they did it because they were
traumatized," but you still haven't let go of the anger or the resentment. So you can't kind of talk
yourself out of it. It helps to understand whoever did anything to you was only acting out their own
misery. That's the fact, that's the reality, that's how it actually is, but that may not help you forgive in
that sense. And I say to you, don't force yourself to forgive. Forgiveness happens spontaneously.
Now, there are practices around forgiveness, only I don't teach them. So you can talk to people who
practice forgiveness mantras, and meditations, and if that helps you, terrific. I don't go that way. I don't
go that route personally. Here's what I think, forgiveness is a natural outcome of healing. So, as long as I
think I'm damaged goods, I'm going to be angry at the person who damaged me.

Page 12 of 13
But if I realize that ultimately, you know what? They didn't touch me at all. They cause a lot of pain and
suffering, but the result of all that is that I found myself, and here I am, and there's no damage. If there's
no damage, then there's nobody to be punished for causing damage because they didn't. Now, that's an
outcome of healing. It's not an intellectual trip that you lay on yourself. But let me tell you, when you
find the love, you'll find the forgiveness. So don't work at it. If there's anger in you, feel it for God's
sakes, let it be there.

How do I come to love myself?

Somebody asked, "how do I come to love myself?" I know where that question comes from, because I've
never had any gooey loving feelings towards myself. I've never had that. I have no idea for how to tell
you how to get it. But you know where the question comes from, it comes from having a certain idea of
what self-love should look like and feel like. If you think it's some gooey, sentimental, warm sensation
towards yourself, well, I've known people who've experienced that, I've seen it in certain contexts. I've
never experienced it like that. But who's asking the question?
The part that cares about you, the part that's asking the question "How do I love myself" is the part that
loves you, otherwise they wouldn't be asking the question. Stop looking for it, I'm suggesting, as some
big gooey experience. Notice the ways in which you do care about yourself. Love is not a feeling. Lots of
us were loved in the sense of parents having love towards us. I love my kids in the sense of having love
towards them. But what I felt towards them is not what mattered. What mattered to them is how I
showed up for them, how much I cared for them. In some ways I did, in some ways I didn't, and the
same with yourself. So appreciate the way that you show up for yourself. That's how you love yourself.
It's already there. You don't have to look for it. And everything that you do that is not loving, is a
substitute that you try to replace the love you didn't get in childhood.

Page 13 of 13