Dr. Gabor Maté - The Myth of “Normal”
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
One of the talks that I give is entitled "The Myth of Normal"
which is to say that
we think that there are people who are normal over here
and then there is the pathological ones
who have depression, anxiety, or addiction
or shizoprenia, or
Bypolar disorder
or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
or any number of other conditions.
What I see is a continuum.
They we are all in continuum.
These traits to one degree or another
are present in almost everybody.
And it's a mythology to think that
there is the "normal" and there's the "abnormal".
According to the research,
the best place to be a shizophrenic in the world
is not North America with all its pharmacopoeia;
It's actually in village in Africa
or in India -
where there is acceptance,
where people make room for your "differentness"
where connection is not broken but is maintained,
where you are not excluded and ostracized
but you are welcomed,
and were there is room for you to act out whatever you need to act out
or to express whatever you need to express.
Where the whole community might even sing with you or chant with you
or hold ceremony with you
and maybe find some meaning in your
"craziness".
It is contextual and it is cultural.
So, disease is not an isolated phenomena of the individual -
- it's culturally manufactured
or culturally constructed paradigm.
Society that cuts us off from our spirituality
that cuts us off from society
by idealizing individualism
and by destroying social contexts
- which is our society does -
which ignores our emotianal needs
is going to be a society which generates pathology.
I think it has to do with very nature of the economic system
that says that what matters
is not who you are
but how you are valued by others.
And our society values people
- it's materialistic society
which specificaly means
that what we value is not who people are
but what they produce or what they consume.
And the people that neither consume
nor do produce
are shunned to the side and totally devalued.
Hence the rejection of the old people
because they no longer pursue to produce and not rich enough to consume either.
So, the very nature of this materialistic society
dictates,
generates
and promotes
that separation from ourselves.
There is an intelligence
- and I'm not speaking about an operative creature
up there or out there somewhere doing things and deciding things -
but there is an inteligence in Nature and Creation
that if we ignore we are creating suffering
for ourselves and other people.
And aligning with that intelligence
and aligning with that connection
is really -
wheter we do so consciously
or whether we do so
because we are called to do that
in ways that
manifest compassion and connection
and love
- that's the way we're meant to be.
Recognizing this and striving for this
is what I call spirituality.
The paths are many,
some find it through religion
sometimes religion is an obstacle to that
- in fact, often it is -
but it may be a conduit to it as well
depending who and how and where,
it's what people are seeking,
many other that paths are not religious
but fundamentally
there's this spiritual nature
that if we ignore,
we are actually ignoring
an essential part of ourselves.