Is there really a way to understand politics if you understand grief? In this bonus episode with Dr. Gabor Maté, we explore the interconnections of grief, trauma, politics, and policies. If you think politics and grief have nothing in common (or you think you don’t care about politics!) this short conversation might change your mind.
In this episode we cover:
About the guest:
Dr. Gabor Maté is a renowned speaker and author, with expertise in trauma, stress, addiction, and child development. He’s the NYT best-selling author of The Myth of Normal, the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, and many other books.
Find him at drgabormate.com
About Megan:
Psychotherapist and bestselling author Megan Devine is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. She helms a consulting practice in Los Angeles and serves as an organizational consultant for the healthcare and human resources industries.
The best-selling book on grief in over a decade, Megan’s It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, is a global phenomenon that has been translated into more than 25 languages. Her celebrated animations and explainers have garnered over 75 million views and are used in training programs around the world.
Additional resources:
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You're Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed
Books and research mentioned in this episode
Books and resources may contain affiliate links.
Get in touch:
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This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm your host, Megan Divine. If you listen to the main episode this week with doctor Gabor Matte, you know we covered a lot of territory really quickly. We jumped from the personal to the cultural, to the historical, and back to the personal, making connections between grief and trauma and a whole host of mental health and relational health concerns. But there's a topic that Gabor and I got into that I wanted to set apart from the rest with this bonus episode. We mentioned the impact of grief on politics and on politicians really briefly in our main conversation, but our broader conversation went a lot deeper. Now, I do this work for a living. I am constantly looking at the places that grief shows up in our personal lives, in our cultural lives, and on our wider community scale. So if you know me, or you've been listening or following me for a while, you also know that I often talk about grief as a political issue, especially when policies or the lack of policies create suffering or death, because both suffering and death create grief, which is often political, but Gabor connected some dots on this topic that even I hadn't connected. And as you'll hear in this short bonus episode like he got to Me, you'll hear it in my response to the example Gabor uses to talk about the impact of grief on politics, This idea of independence, someone who's strong and handles stuff on their own. Do we ever wonder where that independence comes from? That got me so the answer, along with some other interesting intersections of grief and politics coming right up in this bonus episode with doctor Gabor Matte. One of the things that I love about your work, and specifically in the method Normal, is talking about the ways that trauma and misalignment and the lack of acknowledgment, the way that that shows up in politics and in society. Can you tell me a little bit about that how that shows up.
In my chapter on politics? And people are wondering why is there chapter on politics and a book on health. The reason is because it's all connected. My whole point is that individual pathology is not individual pathology, but it reflects the function of multi generational families in the context of a culture. So in the chapter on politics, actually quote somebody who is a very close observer of politicians being in that world himself. Michael Wolf or a book called Landslide The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, and Michael Wolf writes in his book in inside of political Circles, almost all politicians are seen difficult and even damaged people necessarily tolerated because they were elected. So then I look at two example, well, I look at several examples, but to give you the American examples, I look at the two opposing candidates in twenty sixteen as Donald Trump and is Hillary Clinton. Now Trump's trauma has front page news. I mean, you should have been his niece, Mary Trump, herself a psychologist, wrote a book about the Trump family where her grandfather, Trump's father is described as a sociopath. This is Fred Trump, Fred Trump Junior. Mary's father died of alcoholic disease in his forties. The child to Trump and that family was the immense and Trump in his I'm not talking on politics here, I'm talking about personality here. He was like besil Vandercock told me, Trump is a postal vote for trauma, and he is randiosity, that difficulty accepting reality, the need to make up stories, the aggressiveness, the random cruelty of the way he talks about others. These are all signs of trauma. But what was it, opponent? Now, if I told you a story, if you didn't know who I was talking about, But if I told you a story of a four year old girl was bullied by neighborhood kids and then runs into her home to seek protection from the mother, and the mother says, there's no room for cards in his house. Now you get out there and deal with that, then what would you think of that?
What would I personally think of that with that interaction, that interaction, Well, one, it's cruel, Yeah, right, it's cruel on so many levels. There is there's no help here for you.
Yeah, and what is the long term impact on a child?
Fierce independence?
Yeah that's Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, that's also me.
Yeah. And this story, well, I see that you're removed here, and this story was told at the Democratic Convention in front of millions of people. Is a wonderful example of resilience building. And out of the millions of people who watched and all the media that took this in, nobody commented that what was being celebrated here is the traumatization of a four year old girl. Yeah. Six years later, that four year old girl runs for the presidency and she has pneumonia. Remember what she did.
She kept working, right, she kept going, and she was like falling over and.
She collapsed in the street with fear and deieration. But she was all alone. She had to suck it up, right, And this is celebrated. Is a wonderful thing. Yeah.
The fetishization of resilience and independence and strength.
Really the fatization of trauma. Yeah, because there's nothing more natural. You tell a mother bear to ignore the distress of the cub, right, you know, So this society celebrates that very disconnection in validation of children. It really you know, you know what the mother could have said, talk about grief. Pick picked up Hillary and said, it really hurts you that the kids are hurting you. What a drag? Come here? Yeah, that's the proper response.
Yep.
Not get out there and deal with it. No room for cards in this house. Again. I'm not talking about the politics of that person here. Personally I don't like the politics of either of them very much, but that doesn't matter here. I'm talking about the formation of the personality in accrucible of trauma, which is actually celebrated in this culture. Don't have you grief, Just be tough.
When I talk about politics or policy in my work, I don't get backlash as often as you might think in a sort of an ugly internet world. But I do get some complaints like can you just stick to grief? And you know, my response is always like I am sticking to grief.
Yeah, I know, I get the same thing. You're a doctor, but you talk about politics. I talk about politics because everything affects everything else. That's right, because human health is not an individual or individualized quality. It's a reflection of our relationship from in udu or onwards, with our parents, with our environment, with our community, and with our whole culture. Nothing is separable. So if you look at so called political factors. There's an article in the New York Times ten days ago another as we speak about black women giving birth and their risk of the child dying or them dying is higher than white women, regardless of economic status. It's about the inflammatory literally physiologically inflammatory impacts of racism. Another study three months ago in the afthmatic racism. If you look at the person, they have higher inflammatory processes in their bodies put that project that on a lifelong basis no wonder than if you look at the health of populations such as Indigenous Canadians or Black Americans, and every measure they come out worse. And it's got nothing to do with genetics. It has to do with politics and society and sociology and culture and history. So how can we not talk about it when it's all one That's the whole point.
Yeah, yeah, you can't separate that stuff, because policies create grief. Systems create grief, and systems and policies are created by humans that are carrying deep trauma and a lack of alignment and a lack of being seen. And we can't talk about the need to acknowledge and honor grief and find community and find relationship and not talk about politics, policy, and culture because they are all one cloth. There is no such thing as sticking to grief, friends, Grief is everywhere. Politics, politicians, policies. They aren't immune. Grief is everywhere. I am sticking to grief when I talk about the intersections of grief and politics. For more of my conversation with doctor gaber Matte, be sure to listen to the main episode now grief and politics. This usually brings up a lot of comments and a lot of connections from on one end like the stick to grief grumpy stuff, to the other end of Wow. I never thought of it that way, but that's totally true. So let me know where you are in this intersection of grief and politics. Are you the stick to grief, grumpy or did you learn something or somewhere in between. Let me know. Follow Refuge in Grief on Instagram and Twitter to leave a comment on the social post for this bonus episode and tag Refuge and Grief when you share the episode. Same thing on TikTok but over there, you can follow It's Okay Pod on any social platform use the hashtag It's Okay pod so I can find you. I totally search on that hashtag to see what you have to say. Now we are back on Monday with author, speaker and television host Baratunde Thurston for a conversation full of as much joy as there is grief. Don't miss it, friends, It's okay that You're not okay. The podcast is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, social media support by Micah, post production and editing by Houston Tilley. Music provided by Wave Crush, Background noise provided by the Spring Tree Cleanup. Finally happening in sunny downtown Burbank