🌿 Pioneers of the Possible: Dr. Gabor Maté
Trauma, Illness & Stress in a Toxic Culture
📅 Monday, January 12th · 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET
🎥 Watch Live on YouTube →
💬 Submit Your Question Here
We’re honoured to be hosting Dr. Gabor Maté on Pioneers of the Possible this Monday, January 12th.
This Q&A conversation will explore what it means for students—and all of us—to be well in a world that keeps speeding up: a world where stress feels constant, disconnection is common, and so many quietly carry pain.
We’re taking questions in advance for this event, and we’re especially encouraging youth to write in and share what they’re curious about. What would you ask someone who has spent a lifetime studying the roots of our suffering and the pathways to healing?
👉 Submit your question here.
Pioneers of the Possible Monthly Series
🍃Why I Wanted to Invite Dr. Gabor Maté
The intention behind this event—and this series—is deeply personal. Pioneers of the Possible exists to give people tools and inspiration from those who push the boundaries of how we understand ourselves, and what it means to explore- our internal and external worlds, thrive and heal.
We are living through extraordinary times. So much devastation and loss—both visible and invisible—ripples through our lives. Grief has become a shared language, though we rarely name it. It’s hard to know how to feel, what to feel, or even what to do.
Our personal experiences of loss and suffering are now woven tightly with planetary ones:
the melting of ice caps, the extinction of species, the silencing of languages, the collapse of democracies, and the fraying of systems that once held us.
The boundaries between the personal and the global—between inner pain and outer crisis—are dissolving.
This is why I wanted to bring Gabor into this space, if I was lucky enough to contact him. He is a generous man.Thanks to a few friends and backdoors I was able to ask him. He didn’t hesitate and for that I am profoundly grateful.
His work reminds us that healing is not about escaping pain, but about meeting it with awareness and compassion—for ourselves, for others, and for the Earth that sustains us.
🍃 What I Learned at Plum Village
In October 2024, I spent time at Plum Village Monastery in France, hosted by the monastics of Thich Nhat Hanh’s community and Christiana Figueres.
That gathering was my first deep dive into the lived experiences of people on the front lines of climate change, conflict, and humanitarian work—people who have given their lives to protecting what remains of our fragile world.
What I witnessed there was both humbling and heartbreaking:
scientists, activists, journalists, and peacebuilders carrying immense grief and fatigue beneath their commitment. Many spoke of the toll this work takes—the immense loss and quiet suffering that accumulates when you’re trying to hold up the world.
It struck me how few spaces exist for these stories to be held with compassion.
We often focus on data, policy, and progress, but not the human heart that bears it all. I left Plum Village feeling a renewed conviction that we need to talk about this collective pain—because even if our experiences differ, we are all feeling it.
Gabor’s work offers a way into that conversation—one rooted in understanding, tenderness, and truth.
🕊️ A Closing Thought
My time at Plum Village reminded me of something I first learned during the long, dark months of overwintering in the Arctic: that silence can be a teacher, and stillness can be a form of courage.
When we stop running from pain—whether it’s personal or planetary—we begin to feel the small pulse of life that endures beneath it.
That pulse is connection, and it’s what heals us.
This conversation with Dr. Maté is an invitation to pause, to listen, and to remember that none of us are alone in our struggle to stay human in a rapidly changing world.
If you miss the live event, no stress allowed, it will be recorded. I do encourage you to get his book. If you have sent in questions or have them- write them down and do your own homework on putting tools in that box of yours. We all matter !!!
And please, if you have friends that you think might want to stay connected to my blogs, monthly series, travel opportunities etc get them to sign up here ( ITS FREEEEEEE! )
✨ Join Us Live
🗓 Monday, January 12th
🕚 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET
🎥 Watch on YouTube
