The Mind-Body Connection: What Gabor Maté Taught Me About Healing
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we separate the mind from the body-as if they exist in two different universes, barely talking to each other. But the more I learn, the more I realize how deeply intertwined they actually are. Our thoughts, emotions, traumas, and stressors don’t just live in our heads. They show up-in our posture, in our guts, in our immune systems, in chronic conditions we can't quite explain.
I recently had the privilege of hearing Dr. Gabor Maté speak, and I left that room with a completely different understanding of health. He’s not just talking about illness in the conventional medical sense. He’s talking about what happens when we don’t feel safe to be who we truly are. When we suppress emotions to be "good," or disconnect from our bodies just to get through the day.
Indigenous Wisdom and the Broken Western Model
One of the most powerful things Maté said was that Indigenous cultures got it right. They didn’t see children as problems to be managed-they carried them close, nurtured them with constant contact. Elders were revered, not hidden away. The land wasn’t a resource to be exploited, but a sacred partner in life. Community wasn’t a luxury, it was the foundation.
Now? We live in a world that rewards disconnection. Hustle. Numbness. Isolation. We pathologize emotion, glorify independence, and bury our pain-until it shows up as something the doctor can’t quite fix.
Maté dives deep into this in his book The Myth of Normal, where he challenges everything we think is "just how life is." What if the real sickness is in the culture itself?
The Body Says No—But Are We Listening?
In another one of his books, When the Body Says No, Maté explores how certain diseases disproportionately affect people who tend to suppress their emotions, ignore their boundaries, or carry chronic stress. We think of illnesses like cancer, ALS, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis as random or genetic-but what if there’s more to the story?
He shares case after case of people who were outwardly kind, always putting others first, never expressing anger… and yet, their bodies were silently breaking down. One story that stuck with me was about a woman with breast cancer who said she never wanted to be a burden to anyone. Her needs were buried so deep, her body had no choice but to scream for her.
This isn’t about blame-it’s about awareness. If stress and unexpressed emotion can make us sick, then healing isn’t just about medication. It’s about finally telling the truth. To ourselves. To others.
Addiction and the Hungry Ghosts
In In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Maté turns his attention to addiction-something he sees not as a moral failing, but as an attempt to soothe pain. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, gambling, work, food, or even social media, addiction is the body and mind crying out for relief, for safety, for something that feels like love.
He worked with some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable populations-people with complex trauma, homelessness, and heavy substance use. And time and time again, the common thread wasn’t "bad choices." It was pain. Childhood neglect. Abuse. Disconnection.
As he says, "The question is never, 'Why the addiction?' The real question is, 'Why the pain?'"
That shift changes everything.
How Do We Start to Heal?
Knowing all this-how trauma, stress, and emotional repression affect the body-can feel overwhelming at first. But Maté also offers hope. Healing isn’t just possible-it’s essential.
Here’s what he says we can do:
Stop suppressing what you feel. Emotion isn’t the enemy. Suppression is. Anger, sadness, fear-they’re messengers. Let them speak.
Live authentically. That doesn’t mean being perfect. It means telling the truth about who you are, what you need, and what you feel-even when it’s messy.
Reconnect with your body. Whether it’s through breathwork, yoga, somatic therapy, or simply being still long enough to notice what you’re feeling-your body carries wisdom your mind has forgotten.
Revisit your childhood with compassion. What were the messages you internalized? Were you allowed to express anger? Was your sadness met with comfort or dismissal? Recognizing these patterns is the first step to breaking them.
Create space for presence. Slowness isn’t laziness. Stillness isn’t a waste of time. It’s where healing starts. When you slow down, you can actually hear what your body’s been trying to tell you.
Final Thoughts
We are not doomed by our genes. Our fate is not sealed by diagnosis or childhood experiences. But we do need to wake up to the fact that how we live, how we feel, and how we relate to ourselves and others-these things matter more than we’ve been taught to believe.
Maté’s work is a powerful reminder that healing begins when we stop pretending. When we start listening. When we start living from a place of truth-not performance. And when we finally learn to treat ourselves with the same compassion we’ve been giving away to everyone else. Your body is talking. Are you ready to listen?
