Adapting to a Toxic Culture

Gabor is a physician and bestselling author on a range of topics, from addiction and attention deficit disorder (ADD) to mind-body wellness, adolescent mental health, and parenting. He focuses on the broader context in which human disease and disorders arise. He is approach is holistic and kaleidoscopic – linking everything from neurophysiology, immunology, and developmental psychology to economic and social policy – and even touches on the spiritual dimensions of disease and healing.

Our training centers on the literacy of feelings and needs. Instead of speaking a language of feelings and needs, most people have been taught a language of criticism, moralistic judgments, analysis and diagnoses. They're trained to say to other people, "the problem with you is…” They have a wide vocabulary for telling people what wrong with them. Nonviolent Communication says get good at expressing two things: what's alive in you right now and what would make life more wonderful. Learn how to say just that without any criticism or demand. Just say what's alive in you, how you are in other words, and what would make life wonderful. And no matter what other people say, hear only what's alive in them and what would make life wonderful.

Neurobiology in the Development of Human Morality, Evolution, Culture and Wisdom is about trying to shift our imagination to remind us that our human nature is different from what we see today and the way we raise children can be different also and they’re linked to what we think is human nature and what we think of as normal human adult behavior is not normal. We are very abnormal. But unfortunately the people who are abnormal are the ones that are spreading their view of the world all over the world as if that’s normal, to be selfish and always thinking about what you can gain for yourself.  That’s a very primitive morality.

Marian was a neuroscientist at U.C Berkeley researching the neuroanatomy of the forebrain, notably the impact of the environment on brain development, published under the title “Enriching Heredity: The Impact of the Environment on the Anatomy of the Brain.” Marian describes how rich interaction with the environment literally grows and shapes the brain lifelong. “There are a hundred billion nerve cells in a brain and many of those nerve cell can make connections with thousands of others. The brain is responding to the external environment and to the internal environment at all times. The nerve cells are designed to receive stimuli, store information and transmit information. Every cell receives input from both the internal and the external environment at all times .And we've shown that we can (physically) change the brain by changing the internal and external environments at any age.”

Approximately twenty five percent of the motor cortex in the human brain (the part of the brain which controls all movement in the body) is devoted to the muscles of the hands. Frank explores the hand's evolution--and how its intimate communication with the brain affects areas such as neurology, psychology, and linguistics--offering provocative new ideas about human creativity and how best to nurture it. One of the most interesting aspects of Frank’s thesis is something termed Kinesthetic Imagination, how the body learns, moves and imagines, as a foundation for cognitive thought and imagination. This is of particular interest as thumbs and forefingers, interacting with technology, replace whole body movements the developing brain gets swimming in and relating to nature.