Dr. Gabor Maté

He said, there are no dead ends.

We just found out that that wasn't the way to go.

So we didn't waste any time.

Thomas Edison said, he was once asked, what did it feel like to have failed 1,999 times to build a light bulb until you finally got it?

And he said, I didn't fail 1,999 times to build a light bulb.

I found out that there was 1,999 ways not to build a light bulb.

And so much for our dead ends and our mistakes and all these things.

You know, we had to do it to find out our reality.

That's all.

Well, Eckhart Tolle, who's another Vancouver-based teacher, internationally very well known, I'm sure very well known to this audience, he talks about a high-quality no.

So there is, it's kind of an automatic, resentful, reactive no.

which doesn't get across, it just creates more resistance?

Or there's a high quality no, where you're really honoring yourself and you're not making the other person wrong.

You're just saying, no, that does not work for me and I will not do that.

And if you can't accept that, it's not my problem.

I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what comes up for me.

And by the way, I thought I heard you say that you had cancer at some point.

Well, in my view, that's one of your body's way of saying no, is through illness.

And I've seen that all the time.

Some friends of mine who made a film about my work called The Wisdom of Trauma are just releasing a film this month.