(gabor on) pain
Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain’s widely used definition defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”; however, due to it being a complex, subjective phenomenon, defining pain has been a challenge. In medical diagnosis, pain is regarded as a symptom of an underlying condition.
Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. Most pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease.
Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in most developed countries. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can interfere with a person’s quality of lifeand general functioning. Simple pain medications are useful in 20% to 70% of cases. Psychological factors such as social support, hypnotic suggestion, excitement, or distraction can significantly affect pain’s intensity or unpleasantness. In some debates regarding physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, pain has been used as an argument to permit people who are terminally ill to end their lives.
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adding page this day:
Human Pain and Healing – Gabor Maté Interview
[also adding maté basic needs 2018]
Dr. Gabor Maté (@DrGaborMate) tweeted at 8:39 AM on Sat, Dec 15, 2018:
A pleasure to speak with @m_smieszek on her #HowWeAreHuman podcast in my original hometown of Budapest about traumas—national, racial, and individual—as well as violence, conflict, addiction, and being with our pain rather than acting it out on others. https://t.co/yLIjF8DQU8
(https://twitter.com/DrGaborMate/status/1073965878859964416?s=03)
45 min podcast (times below counting backwards)
i can solve my pain politically by attacking someone else.. rather than just being vulnerable and feeling my pain
42 min – 13 when i left hungary.. grade 6
36 min – what it comes down to – are we willing to look at what we’ve done to others.. rather than just what they’ve done to us.. don’t want to feel the pain.. want to project it onto others.. we do this politically all the time..
34 min – whole thing comes down to a human difficulty in holding pain – we look for external solutions to our internal pain..t
33 min – when i can learn to hold that pain is when there’s a nurturing adult who gets what you feel.. and holds you.. then the child learns that the pain comes and goes.. but so many of us don’t have that experience.. because parents are too stressed/distracted
32 min – so we have our pain.. but we don’t know how to move thru it.. because nobody is holding us thru it the way that we need to be held.. therefore.. pain becomes unbearable and promises to be eternal unless we do something to kill the pain.. and that’s where the addiction comes in..t
we talk about pain killers.. an interesting phrase.. you can never kill the pain.. you can numb it.. temporarily.. it can be worked thru but it can never be killed
and so the addictions.. to drugs/alchohol/sex/shopping/eating/internet/porn/gambling/whatever.. always an attempt to numb the pain temp.. because of difficulty we have in holding the pain and being vulnerable to it
30 min – rather than looking for distinctions.. we have to look for connections.. ie: what person believes about self.. i conclude at 1 yr old when mom gives me away to save me.. that i am unlovable..
29 min – my self belief that i’m not worthy/lovable didn’t originate inside myself.. nor did my mother give it to me deliberately.. whole of history conspired to make me believe i’m worthless.. then i act out that worthlessness..
when i ask the question of what’s biological and what’s social.. that’s the whole point.. and i’m just writing a book about that.. we’re actually bio/psycho/social creatures.. our bio cannot be separated from our psycho/social existence.. so that experience w mother giving me away.. not only gives me a psycho experience.. it also shapes my brain.. bio of brain very much affected by what happens to me early in life
28 min – people often mistake bio for genetics.. if something is bio it has to be genetic.. it isn’t.. a lot of our bio is actually created by what happens to us early in life..
27 min – there are diseases that are purely genetic.. if have gene .. going to get the disease.. ie: ms.. that’s very rare.. for most illnesses.. there might be pre dispositions.. but they’re not determinant.. and.. most illnesses don’t even have that genetic component.. they’re just purely responses to the environ
26 min – specifically mental health.. no body has ever discovered a single gene that has caused mental illness.. nobody ever.. doesn’t exist.. they talk about multiple genes.. to me .. the whole discussion of genetics is rather tiresome.. and the reason it’s tiresome is.. what can you do about it.. if you’ve got a gene you’ve got a gene.. however.. the part that we can do something about is the environ
so if it’s the environ that turns genes on/off.. which is the case.. then let’s look at the environ.. what kind of environ’s do people need to become full, self-expressed, present, functional human beings..t
gershenfeld something else law
these are questions politicians/society don’t want to deal with.. because those questions threaten the way things are run much of the time..t
25 min – addictions.. change (brain) chemistry.. just like that
24 min – any living creature.. if a plant isn’t growing in your backyard.. you’d ask yourself.. what is it missing..t
human nature is that we have certain needs.. if met.. going to be ok.. if not met.. might not be..t
let’s focus on that.. ie: 2 convers as infra
23 min – human beings are ultimately creatures of connection.. if there’s no connection.. there’d be no human life.. no human being could evolve on his/her own.. if we were like snakes.. we wouldn’t survive.. we were wired to connect.. that wiring for connection stays with us all our lives.. so we’re social creatures.. that’s part of our nature
thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman (@BobThurman)
22 min – and fundamentally what happens is.. whatever diminishes/denies/subverts our need for connection is going to lead to some kind of pathology
22 min – trauma is the disconnection.. the essence of trauma is disconnection from *self/others.. t
suffering pain and being traumatized are not the same thing.. if suffer pain with disconnect.. not traumatized..
and it happens because the connections weren’t there to protect you.. the attachment wasn’t there to hold you
21 min – the more exclusion people suffer.. either as individuals in childhood.. or as people.. the more likely they are going to be addicted.. but exclusion is not sufficient for that.. ie: colonized people.. doesn’t just exclude native but does everything to destroy self concept
so exclusion but also destruction of self.. that’s what leads to addiction.. t
18 min – not genetic because prior to this conquest.. didn’t have this
17 min – indigenous healing.. almost internationally anywhere you look.. they don’t separate the mind from the body like the rest of medicine does.. their tools/science far less developed.. but their fundamental concepts are more holistic/wiser..
16 min – we wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of the advances of western medicine in order to open ourselves to some of the wisdom of aboriginal medicine either.. we would gain a lot actually
(magdalena) how do bridge gaps in system change when a lot of these are now illegal
15 min – partly it’s a matter of *control.. and partly.. western mind so dominated by ego.. threatened.. a fear.. of being exposed.. to these spiritual practices.. if there’s a common thread in these practices.. it knocks the ego for a loop
14 min – third – a kind of arrogance.. developed med science to high degree.. we tend to believe we know everything.. or.. what others believe is not worth knowing.. because we’re so good..
sicko et al
13 min – it does change brain chem.. which only shows us that what we think of self and reality.. is only a chem state.. forget psychedelics.. just by breathing deeply changes blood chem.. less acidic .. all of a sudden reality looks diff..
12 min – reality .. a rather narrow band of perceptions.. when people move outside that band.. whether thru meditation. . religious chants.. fasting.. treking.. things show up more deeply than we perceive..
11 min – magdalena quoting gabor
‘this refusal to see the us in them and the them in what we take to be us.. such failure of imagination is seen in every realm.. from personal relationships to international politics.. simply put.. *it reflects that clinging to identity with group of any dimension narrower than all of humanity.. there must be others who by defn do not belong .. and we may believe .. at least unconsciously.. that we are superior’..t
us/them.. marsh label law.. identity
10 min – it’s a question of what we id with.. the word identify comes from the latin phrase – to make the same as.. so if i id strictly as a hungarian.. that already creates an exclusion w everybody who is not hungarian.. so identifications create the *boundaries in which we live our lives..t
but what is the fundamental reality..? the fundamental reality is that we are all human beings.. and we basically all have the same needs.. your fundamental needs are human needs you share w every other human on earth..t
all – nationality: human with maté basic needs
so let’s go that deep.. ie: deep enough for 7bn people to resonate with today.. via 2 convers as infra
9 min – while group id’s are useful as long as we recognize they are fluid/temp/arbitrary.. and they are not who we are
it’s one thing to play w id’s.. and realize they are utterly meaningless and fluid and arbitrary.. (ie: gather w soccer buddies to watch game.. but winning team makes no diff in life).. it’s quite another thing to take these solid entities and live your life out of them.. and unfortunately.. we’re encouraged by our lives/ego-defensiveness to take these id’s to ultimate reality.. be against everyone else who doesn’t id
8 min – (on soccer) games are important.. play is an important aspect of a human being.. the need for play doesn’t end in childhood.. child’s play is not a trivial thing.. but what happens when ie: you lose.. 65 yrs later still pain in heart.. wasn’t from a loss of game.. but of id.. and that we had to be winners.. so that didn’t feel bad about selves
5 min – violence around ie: football games.. from people who don’t have a sense of belonging.. and ie: in us.. can’t even do a baseball game w/o flag and flyover of military jet planes.. & sanctified singing of national anthem.. even the sport celebrations exist to support the war machine.. so it’s not innocent
3 min – on an individual level.. people need to ask themselves who they think they are.. if people just ponder who they actually are.. they might find that who they think they are is not who they actually are and that identification is really an illusion.. an illusion that comes out of pain/fear.. if they could only allow themselves to feel the pain/fear w/o having to soothe it w/o id’ing with something.. they might open up possibilities of freedom..for themselves and more contact w others..t
everyday.. ie: self-talk as data.. the ai humanity needs..augmenting interconnectedness
getting us to eudaimoniative surplus
2 min – human nature is basically.. connected.. collaborating.. and loving.. that’s human nature.. and everything that arises.. happens because of a denial of human nature in the frustration of human needs
human nature.. not whales in sea world
political systems that exist are not in service of human needs.. they’re in service of power structures.. and service of the ego
but i do think there are possibilities beyond that.. and i think it’s in the nature of human beings that we will strive for those possibilities almost despite ourselves.. so in that sense.. i’m optimistic about the possibilties
will i see significant changes in my own lifetime..? probably not.. but optimism doesn’t have to do w things happening to turn out the way you want them in your lifetime.. it has to do w how you see the long term trajectory of human life and that’s how i see it..
now there’s also dangers.. ie: destruction of environ looming over us significantly.. but.. a wise man once said: ‘human beings only set those problems they are capable of solutions’ .. so i still think it’s w/in us.. i don’t want to predict .. but.. i do believe in human beings..
begs we leap – esp since today we can.. for (blank)’s sake.. ie: a nother way
magdalena: so that compassion is the only way.. i don’t know if there is a more creative way
i’m not into giving solutions.. i just look at possibilities.. what is our personal responsibility’/interest.. that’s highly individual .. history will do that.. we can’t make that happen
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be you. 