‘Never waste a good crisis’: Ruminations on starting over, with Gabor Maté, Aquakultre and Zehra Allibhai | Canada Voices

The thing about endings – marriage, work, treatment for cancer – is they take you back to square one.

You wake up one morning and, suddenly, the routine you’ve had on repeat for decades is turned upside down. You refinance the house, sit the kids down and realize while browsing the supermarket near your Airbnb that you’ve forgotten how to shop for yourself. Life on Mars by David Bowie is playing in your head. A new era dawns: Who are you if not who you were? Who do you want to be?

This is the Fresh Start Effect. It’s a psychological concept, referring to a boost that can happen at certain time-markers such as New Year’s Day and birthdays. Something similar happened to me while grappling with a recent divorce, and again when a medical checkup in the winter of 2023 revealed cancer. The upheaval wasn’t only emotional and financial, but physical, too. After my surgery was successful, my cancer removed and my personal life settled down, I realized I had been gifted – twice – with the chance to start new.

Today, I manifest the Fresh Start Effect, vowing not to squander something all of us have at the start of the year.

“Transitions are a chance for reflection: What’s the new way you want your life to be?” asks Dr. Todd Cunningham, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychology and Human Development. Cunningham says for the Fresh Start Effect to last, be intentional with your actions: foster community, give yourself small, obtainable, consistent goals and, most importantly, define your purpose.

“At the start of the year, there’s excitement and hope, but unless you sort out your values, it’s easy to fall back into ruts,” Cunningham says.

Starting over means summoning power and drawing courage because change, real change, is painful. Here, I speak with people I admire for tips on how to start over and I’m grateful – for all of us, there’s time.

Gabor Maté on deepening relationships

Gabor Maté is one of the world’s most popular psychiatrists, and I knew my quest for stability and health had to begin at the good doctor’s knee. Earlier this year, he was in Toronto and I had an easier time scoring tickets for my daughter and I to see Olivia Rodrigo’s Massey Hall show than to hear the Holocaust-survivor speak. Nevertheless, Maté preaches resiliency and, heeding the call, I pinned him down over Zoom.

His ‘a-ha’ moment:

When his wife Rae was pregnant with the family’s third child, Maté understood there was time to chart a different, better course. “I was a successful physician but disconnected from myself and depressed, and because of that disconnection I had problems in my marriage and with my family,” says Maté, who’d received every manner of outward success and accolades while knowingly, painfully, not showing up at home.

Some of his negative behaviour was rooted in childhood trauma. He realized, however, after looking within, that the trauma responses in his life could not only be changed, but that he could teach others what he had learned from his own journey: his professional life skyrocketed when, using himself as an example, he helped audiences derive power from pain.

“I became more aware, more conscious, more in connection with myself and, in that way, I became more compassionate and more understanding.”

His starting-over story:

Maté was born in Budapest in 1944. His Jewish family was caught up in the Nazi horrors, his grandparents killed in Auschwitz and his family corralled in a Hungarian ghetto. At 14 months old, he was separated from his mother and given to a Christian woman, ostensibly to keep him out of harm’s way. While he was safe, he says he experienced the trauma of being “detached” from his family. He also mentions the effects his mother’s terror had on him when, in vitro, he was flooded with her cortisol, a stress hormone.

“If I had to choose, I wouldn’t be born a Jewish kid in Hungary in 1944 – the hell I would – but I’m grateful for the lessons,” he says, adding that the conditions of his childhood gifted him an ability to perform at a high level, go without food or rest or apparently need basic human comforts, such as tenderness and love.

He worked as a physician in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and became an expert in addiction, psychology and recovery, penning five books and being named to the Order of Canada in 2018. When he realized his success wasn’t bringing him fulfilment, he unlocked the premise that would form the Myth of Normal, his most recent book.

“Once you recognize that society is dysfunctional and your neuroses are responses to abnormal circumstances, you can begin healing your wounds,” Maté told me. Recognizing the need to start over, Maté says he practised “compassionate curiosity,” turning his self-loathing into self-compassion and recognizing his behaviour as survival techniques learned in infancy that were no longer of service in his role as husband and dad.

“I needed to learn from my trauma and recognize there’s wisdom in it,” says Maté.

While he searched for healthy coping mechanisms, he says his brain developed new circuits in response to the new experiences. This is neuroplasticity – while we change our behaviour, we change our brain.

“There’s insight, wisdom and peace that’s available to everybody. It’s a lifelong process.”

His starting-over tip:

Maté says to be kind to yourself as you start over. “At age 81, I can sometimes function like a lizard if triggered,” he says, referring to our “lizard brain,” the seat of our most basic animal responses. “Someone without the mark of trauma will be an outlier in our society,” Maté says, stressing that it’s okay to feel like something is wrong with you. Let it go. “Nobody is ‘damaged goods.’ All the things we think are wrong with us are responses and adaptations to abnormal circumstances, which is our current society.”

When I told Maté my story, he offered this gem: “Never waste a good crisis.”

Lance Sampson on finding purpose

Lance Sampson is a writer and musician who records as Aquakultre. Raised in Halifax’s Uniacke Square, he was a drug dealer until, during his second stint behind bars, he discovered music and poetry. I spoke with the winner of CBC’s Searchlight competition as he began promotion on 1783, his fourth disc.

His ‘a-ha’ moment:

Sampson had two – the first was in prison when men he respected encouraged him to drop the macho facade he’d clung to all his life. “I learned I could earn respect with patience and intelligence,” says Sampson, who thrived in English class, but never saw it as a means to future success. Sampson used his Fresh Start to discover history, guitar and to fall back in love with his early fondness for writing. Later, he returned to Uniacke Square after being released from jail, and worried about how he’d be received. Turns out, people were pleased to see him grow. “I didn’t need to be anyone but myself – people respected that and allowed me to change.”

His starting-over story:

Sampson was raised by a single mother in a government housing project where the street-life temptations were all he knew. Simply put: He needed money, and felt like there was only one way to get it. “Once you get a taste of making $1,500 a day, why would you work for $1,500 a month?” says Sampson.

As a juvenile, he was sentenced to a Youth Correctional Facility known as Waterville and, at 18, was arrested and sent to Springhill Institution. He was released and worked in demolition, construction and plumbing, but felt targeted by the police and succumbed to carrying a weapon and dealing drugs. Arrested again at 21, and sentenced to a five-year bid at Burnside Correctional Facility, he was able to set the lasting foundation for rebuilding his life.

“I got in there thinking that I had to be a Square Town Soldier, but the OGs were feeding me books,” he says, counting Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill as an inspiration. At Burnside, he wrote Sure, the song that would win the Searchlight competition, and began studying his past. “I found myself within those walls.”

Sampson, a married father of two, is currently working as an outreach counsellor at a youth rehabilitation centre in Halifax called Leave Out Violence. He is also pushing for the exoneration of his great-great-grandfather Daniel P. Sampson, who in 1935 became the last person to be executed in Nova Scotia. Legal experts have called it a wrongful murder conviction, as recent evidence revealed hidden documents, forged confessions and lies under oath.

“I’ve always been a just person, but I wasn’t in the right environment to stand on my values,” he says. “I feel like I have a responsibility to say things that are true.”

His starting-over tip:

Sampson thinks everyone can benefit from self-reflection and incremental growth. “You have to spend time with yourself to understand yourself – and then be yourself,” he says. “Understand your history and be courageous enough to go against what you know isn’t right.”

Zehra Allibhai on building community

Zehra Allibhai is a fitness influencer and cookbook author who transformed a class for seniors at her local mosque into a business that flies women to locations around the world. A 44-year-old married mother of two teenagers, Allibhai started her life over by building a circle around her based on health and support with the FitNest, a wellness hub she started that specializes in reaching Muslim women. She spoke with me at (of course) Fitsquad, her gym.

Her ‘a-ha’ moment:

Allibhai knew what made her feel good and confident – travelling, eating healthy and exercise – but only when she posted about it on social media did she realize her experiences were unique for women in her Muslim community.

“I didn’t think it was strange to see someone in a hijab hiking, but learned that it wasn’t common,” she says. “I realized the more my community sees it, the more they can be it.”

Her starting-over story:

Growing up in Etobicoke, Ont., the first Canadian-born daughter to Kenyan immigrants, Allibhai was encouraged to think big. “You’re going to do things and you’re going to do it in a hijab and you’re going to do it better than anyone else,” was the advice Allibhai remembers hearing from her father, who encouraged her to run track, play volleyball and be captain of her high-school basketball team. After university, she took a job at GoodLife, where she was twice promoted in five years. Originally, she didn’t grasp her potential.

“I had barriers with myself – sometimes we put ourselves in boxes – and I didn’t always let myself think big.” It was only after having her second child and sharing clips of the seniors’ yoga class she taught at her mosque that Allibhai began understanding her potential: Muslim women were seeking guidance and connection.

She rented a CrossFit gym in the hours before it opened for women-only classes, and posted workouts and recipes on her growing Instagram feed. She began offering training sessions and, in 2021, took 12 women to the Maldives and was blown away by the experience.

“They trusted me and I was a proud mother watching them come out of their shells,” says Allibhai, who began each morning with a prayer and let her guests see her insecurity. “It strengthened our connection – people know when you’re real.”

She says she starts over to seize momentum. Her dream for the new year is taking women to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. “My intention is to bring other women up with me as I grow.”

Her starting-over tip:

“Being authentic is the only way you can last.” She adds that it’s okay to ask for help, keep all doors open. “None of us have everything figured out, but we know what makes us feel good, alive and brings us joy,” she says.