DeepSummary
The episode features two segments - one with Dr. Gabor Maté discussing addiction, trauma, and healing, and another with Dr. BJ Miller on palliative care, hospice, and finding meaning in life. Gabor Maté talks about compassionate inquiry, understanding trauma's roots in childhood, and how practices like yoga and psychedelics can aid in healing and reconnecting with oneself. He emphasizes the importance of intention and reframing perceptions.
BJ Miller shares his experiences working at the Zen Hospice Project, discussing the differences between palliative and hospice care. He highlights the value of simple pleasures, appreciating purposelessness, and finding beauty in embracing life's impermanence. Miller also touches on using psychedelics for existential suffering and advises practicing forgiveness and seeing the good in others.
Throughout the conversation, both guests encourage examining perspectives, connecting with nature and aesthetic experiences, and exploring meaning through compassion and mindfulness practices. Their insights revolve around living more fully by confronting mortality and finding joy in life's smallest moments.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Trauma stems from disconnection from emotions, body, and present moment rather than just external events.
- Reconnecting with oneself through compassion, mindfulness practices like yoga, and psychedelic-assisted therapy can aid in healing trauma and addiction.
- Appreciating life's impermanence, finding beauty in purposelessness, and savoring simple aesthetic moments can bring meaning amidst suffering.
- Integrating arts, philosophy, and exploring existential questions is valuable in palliative and end-of-life care.
- Forgiveness, seeing good in others, and examining perceptions can foster more fulfilling living.
- Confronting mortality through hospice work and contemplating death can paradoxically teach how to live better.
- Reframing intentions and not blindly believing thoughts can shift perspectives in a positive way.
- Childhood experiences and traumas often underlie addictive and self-destructive patterns in adulthood.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Art for its own sake. Art, as part of its poignancy in music and dance, is its purposelessness and just delighting in the wacky fact of perhaps a meaningless universe. And how remarkable that is.“ by BJ Miller
- “We have named this thing existential suffering, which is so mysterious, right? And there's so much, it's so ripe to invite the arts into this mix, philosophy into this mix.“ by BJ Miller
- “I often find myself prescribing people for their existential suffering, you know, to remember what it is that they love, to keep an eye out for aesthetic moments in their days where they feel something, anything, whether it's that snowball or sun on their skin, some just to note when you feel happy to be alive.“ by BJ Miller
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Episode Information
The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
5/17/24
This episode is a two-for-one, and that’s because the podcast recently hit its 10-year anniversary and passed one billion downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best—some of my favorites—from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited. The episode features segments from episode #298 “Dr. Gabor Maté — New Paradigms, Ayahuasca, and Redefining Addiction” and episode #153 “The Man Who Studied 1,000 Deaths to Learn How to Live.”
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
SHOW NOTES:
- [05:37] Notes about this supercombo format.
- [06:57] Enter Gabor Maté.
- [07:22] Compassionate inquiry and trauma vs. traumatic.
- [11:06] Self-reconnection resources.
- [14:40] How Gabor benefits from yoga.
- [16:27] Gabor’s thoughts on the therapeutic value of psychedelics.
- [18:14] What’s been revealed by Gabor’s experiences with ayahuasca?
- [25:32] Essential intention.
- [26:30] We don’t respond to what happens, but to our perception of what happens.
- [32:48] Enter BJ Miller.
- [33:07] What does BJ do?
- [35:32] What does the first meeting look like for a new patient at the Zen Hospice Project?
- [37:18] Defining palliative care.
- [40:54] What happens when a patient dies in Zen Hospice compared to a regular hospital?
- [45:03] How many deaths has BJ experienced?
- [45:42] What has observing hundreds of deaths taught BJ about living?
- [50:39] On keeping a mindfulness or meditation practice.
- [55:05] About the Dinky (a terrifying story of electrocution).
- [1:04:29] The miracle of a snowball in the burn ward.
- [1:07:48] BJ’s experience as an undergraduate student at Princeton.
- [1:08:46] On the idea of art.
- [1:14:46] How BJ would support someone who suffered injuries similar to his own.
- [1:16:57] What helps people most in hospice care?
- [1:21:22] Why cookies matter.
- [1:23:12] Thoughts on the use of psychoactive compounds in end-of-life care and treating existential suffering.
- [1:33:46] BJ’s secret habit that might surprise most people.
- [1:38:32] Suggested material for an introverted hospice patient.
- [1:45:04] What comes to mind when BJ hears the word “successful?”
- [1:48:13] Daily practices for seeing good in people.
- [1:51:00] How to ride a motorcycle when missing three limbs.
- [1:55:01] What purchase of $100 or less has most positively affected BJ’s life?
- [1:56:53] BJ’s billboard.
- [1:58:24] BJ’s advice to his 30-year-old-self.
- [1:59:58] What has BJ changed his mind about in the last few years?
- [2:01:26] BJ’s requests/asks/suggestions of the audience.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
Connect with Dr. Gabor Maté:
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
- The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté | Amazon
- In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté | Amazon
- Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg | Amazon
- Compassionate Inquiry with Dr. Gabor Maté
- Are We Mislabeling Our Trauma? Why Dr. Gabor Maté Believes We Need to Change the Way We Think about Pain | CBC
- Trauma Is a ‘Stupid Friend’ That Our Minds & Bodies Don’t Forget: Dr. Gabor Maté | CBC
- The Wisdom Of Trauma with Dr. Gabor Maté
- Traumas of Omission | Complex Trauma Resources
- Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick | Amazon
- Peter Levine on Trauma Healing: A Somatic Approach | Psychotherapy.net
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Emotional Freedom Techniques | The Tapping Solution
- Sensory Integration Therapy | Wikipedia
- Yoga | Wikipedia
- Sadhguru Opens Vancouver Physician Gabor Maté’s Inner Eye to Benefits of His Yoga Program | Georgia Straight
- Inner Engineering
- The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale (Ayahuasca) | The New Yorker
- The Profound Power of an Amazonian Plant – And the Respect It Demands | The Globe and Mail
- The Trauma Doctor: Gabor Maté on Happiness, Hope and How to Heal Our Deepest Wounds | The Guardian
- Take the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Quiz — and Learn What It Does and Doesn’t Mean | NPR
- You Can’t Always Control What Happens, But You Can Control How You React To It | Collective World
Connect with BJ Miller and Zen Hospice:
- BJ Miller ’93: Wounded Healer | Princeton Alumni Weekly
- BJ Miller: What Really Matters at the End of Life | TED Talk
- Design Thinking Sprints for Social Impact | OpenIDEO Challenges
- Adam Gazzaley: The Maverick of Brain Optimization | The Tim Ferriss Show #83
- Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach | Amazon
- Princeton Dinky | NJ Transit
- 7 Tips for City Stargazing from Chicago’s Park Astronomer | The Trust for Public Land
- The Trip Treatment | The New Yorker
- A Bridge to the Relinquished Parts of Self and Society | The RiverStyx Foundation
- Heffter Research Institute | Wikipedia
- Our Vision Is a World of Mental Well-Being | COMPASS Pathways
- Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
- Kurt Vonnegut Once Told a Story About Buying One Envelope at a Time | Snopes
- Waiting For Guffman | Prime Video
- Kentucky Fried Movie | Prime Video
- Grizzly Man | Prime Video
- Upgrade Your Resolutions | Scuderia West
- Roots in the Past, Stakes in the Future | Joseph Swan Winery
- Symptom Management Service | UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Be an Advocate | Hospice Action Network
PEOPLE MENTIONED
- Peter Levine
- Sadhguru
- A.H. Almaas
- Gautama Buddha
- Adam Gazzaley
- Justin Burke
- Michael Rabow
- Mark Rothko
- Jackson Pollock
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Oprah Winfrey
- Deepak Chopra
- Mert Lawwill
The post Dr. Gabor Maté and BJ Miller, MD (#738) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.