How Modern Life Can Make Us Feel Alienated

In today’s fast-paced and technology-driven world, feelings of alienation are becoming increasingly common. In this insightful video, Dr. Gabor Mate explores the four key ways modern life contributes to our sense of separation and disconnection. He explains how we are alienated from nature, from each other, from our work, and most importantly, from ourselves. This profound analysis sheds light on the underlying causes of our collective anxiety, depression, and sense of meaninglessness.

Dr. Mate delves into the impact of being disconnected from nature, highlighting the environmental destruction that mirrors our internal disconnection. He also discusses how our social interactions have become superficial, leading to a lack of trust and intimacy, which significantly affects our mental and physical health. Moreover, he addresses the alienation from work, where many people find themselves in unfulfilling jobs that do not resonate with their true selves, resulting in a pervasive sense of emptiness and the pursuit of materialistic substitutes for genuine meaning.

The most critical form of alienation, according to Dr. Mate, is the disconnection from our own selves. He emphasizes the importance of gut feelings and how modern culture often suppresses these instinctual signals, leading to a loss of authenticity and personal truth. However, the video also offers hope, suggesting that it is possible to reconnect with our true nature. Dr. Mate emphasizes that humans are inherently wired for empathy, love, and connection, and by rediscovering these innate qualities, we can overcome the alienation imposed by modern life.

Watch this enlightening video to understand how modern society shapes our experiences of disconnection and discover ways to reclaim a sense of belonging and authenticity in an increasingly alienated world. Dr. Mate’s wisdom and compassionate insights provide a roadmap to reconnecting with nature, others, our work, and ultimately, ourselves.

Alienation is a separation. Being a stranger to something. You’re an alien to something. There are four alienations in this culture.

One is we are alienated from Nature. I don’t have to say much to you to show how alienated we are from Nature when we are destroying Nature itself.

The second alienation is from other people. And that means we have less contract, we have less intimacy, we have less trust, we have less of a sense of relationship, and that leads to increased propensity to illness, both physical and mental.

We are alienated from our work. A lot of people no longer do work that has any meaning to them. When we do work that is not creative, that does not reflect who we are, that imposes, depression, anxiety, a sense of meaninglessness, and when we have a sense of meaningless, we will want to substitute that sense of meaning that we’ve lost by all kinds of other activities. And then we get all hung up on how we look or how people feel about us, what we can obtain, what we can possess, what success we can achieve, in other words, all the false substitutes, which cannot possibly compensate us for the lack of genuine meaning. And of course what this society does is sell us a bunch of products which substitute for the loss of meaning. In fact, much of the economy is based on a loss of meaning in our culture.

And finally and most importantly, we become alienated from ourselves. Let me ask you a question. How many of you have had the following experience? You had a powerful gut feeling about something, you didn’t pay attention to it, and you were sorry afterwards?

Well you know what you are telling me? You are telling me that at some point in your childhood, you got separated from yourself. Because no infant is born without gut feelings. Infants are totally connected to their gut feelings. Have you ever met a 2-day old that didn’t know how to express their gut feelings?

And that means in this culture, something very powerful happens to alienate you from your true self because the world couldn’t stand who you really were. And your parents will too stressed themselves to honor and recognize who you really were. And then we become alienated from ourselves. We shut down our gut feelings. 

And our gut feelings are not luxuries, you know. They tell is what is right and what is wrong. They tell us what is safe and what is dangerous. And they tell us what is true and what is false. So when we are alienated from our gut feelings, we no longer have a sense of reality, nor a sense of truth.

Well, the good news is that human beings can regain their sense of connection to themselves just as we can regain our sense of connection to our nature. Empathy, which is a genuine human quality, is in us. We are actually wired for empathy. We are wired for connection. We are wired for love. We are wired for compassion. All we have to do, not an easy task, but it is certainly available to us, is to get back to our true nature.

Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-Canadian physician. He has a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development and trauma, and in their potential lifelong impacts on physical and mental health, including on autoimmune disease, cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), addictions, and a wide range of other conditions. Maté’s approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery. In his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Maté discusses the types of trauma suffered by addicts and how this affects their decision making in later life. He believes in the connection between mind and body health. He has authored four books exploring topics including ADHD, stress, developmental psychology, and addiction.

For more information about the speaker, visit his website.

Music credits:

Splinter by Lights and Motion