The Filmmakers behind the Gabor Mate Documentary – Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo HPP 105

SPEAKERS

Maurizio Benazzo, Zaya Benazzo, Dr. Will Van Derveer, Keith Kurlander

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  00:10

Thank you for joining us for The Higher Practice Podcast. I’m Dr. Will Van Derveer with Keith Kurlander, and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health. Today you’re in for a real treat because our current guests are on fire with the mission to integrate the path of healing from trauma with the path of spiritual development. This is a really interesting area of exploration for me and for Keith in our personal path and also professional development. So we’re really excited about this topic. The first online release of Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo’s documentary, Wisdom of Trauma, was viewed by over 4 million people in over 200 countries earlier this year. A huge success. They’re making a big difference shifting the definition of trauma from a disability to an opportunity. So but not as a filmmaker from Bulgaria with degrees in engineering, environmental science and film. For many years. She worked as an environmental activist in Holland in Bulgaria, and later produced and directed several award-winning documentaries in Europe and the United States. Maurizio Benazzo grew up in Italy and in 1984 came to the United States on a 98 year old sailing boat. I’m sure there’s a story behind that. He started working as an actor, model and filmmaker, but his thirst for knowledge was only satisfied in 2001. While he was in India shooting the award-winning documentary shortcut to Nirvana. brizio anzai emerged with their lifelong passions for science and mysticism when they met in 2007. Their award winning documentary film, The Wisdom of Trauma, featuring the work of Gabor Mate, is re-airing on the dates of October 4 through 10th 2021. Welcome sign Mauricio Bonanza to the show. It’s so exciting to meet you and discuss some of these really deep topics with you. Tell us about your inspiration for this film. You’ve created this incredible documentary, which has reached millions of people in hundreds of countries. What was the inspiration for this film?

 

Zaya Benazzo  02:19

Yeah, well thank you for having us with you. Thank you.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  02:26

Everything we tend to do is to have a personal conversation. We are little kids that are trying to grow in this universe, in this body and try to make sense of what it means to be human. Before we met individually when we met it became our mission in a way it’s always in our skin everything we do from the work and spirituality we did before to now the work on trauma. So basically, to jump fully into it, it became apparent after being together for many years that this non dual feeling if you wish of oneness was really not working very well because she was pissing me off and making her mad in a relationship so we realize there is another layer and unless we go we start to look into who we are as human and not transcending to Yeah, so

 

Zaya Benazzo  03:15

Before we started working on the movie, we were organizing a conference on science and spirituality for about seven years and had a beautiful feeling but a little bit detached from reality we’re kind of transcending all the practices or the teachers were pointing little bit to the on the transcendence path,

 

Maurizio Benazzo  03:38

which is valid and helpful, but it’s not all of it.

 

Zaya Benazzo  03:41

Coming back to Maurizio’s point of view it worked in our relationship was really nice for five years we could transcend a lot and it was spacious and we were both things

 

Keith Kurlander  03:51

Did you two actually go through? I mean, I could say for both Will and I, like you went through a process where you were a more of an Eastern transcendent, seeking path, even as a couple and in yourselves and it sounds like you came to a point in that journey where you’re like, wait, there’s a much more relational field and inter personal interest psychic thing that you have to deal with.

 

Zaya Benazzo  04:17

Correct. Simply said, our trauma caught up with us.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  04:22

We couldn’t hide it. We couldn’t hold it any more. We couldn’t bypass it for many years, it was so good. Wake up.

 

Zaya Benazzo  04:32

And this year as well and also we started turning towards more bringing therapy, psychotherapy, to our events. And year seven, we had Gabor Maté as one of our keynote speakers. When we met him personally also as a human being we were very much taken by his truth-telling, direct way of being and also his authenticity, which is something I personally have been missing in the spiritual community like spiritual teachers, they tend to be a little bit removed, detached, like there is not much vulnerability, not much humaneness that is shared, which I think actually creates quite a bit of injury in some of these communities. And Gabor came fully on stage, fully authentic, fully owning, you know, his brilliance and his shadow. And it was like, wow, it’s refreshing. It was refreshing and we could feel that it stirred up something in the audience.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  05:35

And we said, Whoa, we should make a movie about this guy. We were filmmakers before we met and our first date actually was we went to make a movie in India. And then with the conference we stopped making movies.

 

Keith Kurlander  05:46

Was that a shortcut to Nirvana?

 

Maurizio Benazzo  05:48

Shortcut to Nirvana was before I met Zaya in 2004. This one is called Rays of the Absolute and it’s free on YouTube. It’s a movie about Nisargadatta Maharaj. One of the inspirations in our work in our previous incarnation 15 years ago. So Gabor was okay. We always wanted to make a movie. The conference was just a beautiful incident in our personal growth. So Gabor decided that let’s make a movie about this crazy guy, and here we are.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  06:16

Wow, wow, beautiful. I’m wondering about what it was like, I mean, for the audience in your spiritual conference to have Gabor come on the scene and give a keynote and with all of the shadow and the authenticity, did it really change the conversation?

 

Zaya Benazzo  06:34

I think it was a pivotal moment, you know, we were already moving in that direction. His appearance did steer us more in that direction.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  06:43

And not only him.

 

Zaya Benazzo  06:44

Not only Gabor but the conversation of trauma became really prominent in all of our following events. So we brought many different modalities and scientific research on trauma, and all of that. A full integration we did not achieve between scientists, spiritual teachers, and trauma therapists. That was the long term vision. We’re not there yet. But we’re hoping now with the movie, and also with the conversations that we are producing to go along with the movie to get there,

 

Maurizio Benazzo  07:20

in that direction more and more, yeah.

 

Keith Kurlander  07:23

I’m curious about your field, and where you’ve been in more in film and documentary and in our work, and we’ve sort of danced in the spiritual circles. And we’re very much involved in the mental health field, like this whole framework of trauma and the language has evolved a lot in the last 10 to 20 years and it’s becoming more front and center as a way to really understand ourselves and understand how we struggle and how we can grow and is that just also what you’ve both come to and are seeing like this framework of trauma is really something that’s very useful in terms of personal development and cultural development?

 

Maurizio Benazzo  07:59

Yeah. To me, there is no other way around. To me, the bottom line is that in the awareness of our transcendence, of our divinity, in the awareness of our absolute divinity, because we are all connected. I am God, but that is not a big deal, because everything is God. So that’s the bottom line. In that awareness, if you don’t also consider your separateness it is like you see this hand, but you only see one side and you refuse to look at the other. So to me, in the fine line between transcendent and embodiment lies the essence of being human. That’s to me at the end of the day, that’s a very simplistic way to say. I’m sure you have something way more.

 

Zaya Benazzo  08:38

One thing like since the beginning of our organization, we went into like, well, what can science tell us about our perception, right? Perception defines our reality. And we were a bit naive, looking at perception only on a biological level, like, Oh, it’s how the senses fill the reality. And as we start learning more about trauma, trauma also filters our perception and defines what we perceive. So that was a whole different level of like, No, no, no, it’s not just the senses but there is also a layer on top of that, that filters additionally what we are tuning towards what we afraid, how we contract, how we expand what we are drawn to, what kind of spiritual teachings we’re drawn to has to do also with our trauma and our history.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  09:30

It’s not for me to go into what I was saying before. The embodiment, it’s the way we act, the way we operate, the way we react to everything we never as you know, we never react to the moment we react to our perception of the past or projection of the future and that’s the trauma at the end of the day the defies that, our conditioning. So unless you analyze that and you get familiar with that, analyzing others. Unless you get familiar and you really understand and you feel it, you cannot be real.

 

Zaya Benazzo  09:57

Like in our relationship like I’m the type that is the glass is half empty and Mairizio’s the glass is half full.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  10:04

Actually, it’s fully full.

 

Keith Kurlander  10:10

You’re overflowing. Like, wait, let’s talk about this.

 

Zaya Benazzo  10:16

No. And in the past, he was very personal like why you’re always negative, why you’re always over optimistic. You know it’s like, wait, it’s not personal. It’s how we are wired, how we’ve been raised how we’ve been, you know. So that creates kind of a sense of freedom in a way we’re not so identified with. I don’t feel so identified with my tendency for negativity bias.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  10:41

That’s another personal or even more personal layer. To me, my little boy was getting really, really terrified when she was acting on me. Whenever she was talking, I was in terror. Now, my little boy has learned to adore that little girl. The little hurt girl in her and that’s to me is where our love has really blossomed. It’s not the two of us meeting now. It’s my little boy loving that little girl and that is the refreshing part, you know, I see her differently. I don’t see her for what she says now but I see why she says that, because I see her.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  11:16

I can relate so deeply to what you’re saying in terms of the growth that comes with acknowledging the younger, more vulnerable, more tender, more dysregulated, maybe parts of us. I remember, in my early 30s, I met a Buddhist teacher and I was in this transcendent path for many years, very deep hours of practice a day, and yet I was still a complete mess in relationship. And my wife at the time, it was our, her little girl and my little boy were just constantly fighting, and there wasn’t an adult around to address it. And our answer to everything was go back and sit more. And that kind of worked and kind of didn’t. And then I met people working with Peter Levine and you know, ended up studying with him and meeting Gabor and it completely changed the conversation of how are we going to really fully embrace this non duality that we do have? How can we stabilize the experience of that, and I think the only way I’ve been able to understand it is it comes through the healing and the awareness of these parts. And it’s very profound to see that healing trauma is a spiritual path. It is an original experience. Yeah.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  12:22

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. To me, it is the only integrative way. To me healing trauma is definitely the way because to me, what keeps me separate from oneness is my trauma. My inability to be relational to every being in this universe, human and animal and vegetal.

 

Zaya Benazzo  12:44

And even the deepest spiritual teachings cannot touch us if we are projecting onto the teacher, if we are bypassing or avoiding places in ourselves then the teachings cannot really blossom as well.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  12:58

Yeah, he will stay here you know, let me see more.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  13:04

The deeper, the deeper the trauma patterning, the more separate we feel, and the more difficult it is to actually access these transcendent states.

 

Keith Kurlander  13:13

This is more of a producer-director question for both of you about the Wisdom of Trauma and like how you were thinking about in the process of filming and editing like did you have sort of a big intention between the two of you is like we want to get across a certain message about trauma or was it more of a discovery process of let’s just go film and let’s just put the pieces together and see what it looks like?

 

Zaya Benazzo  13:35

Yeah it was the second. And we also said never again like this. We’ll never gonna do it again this way.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  13:44

Yeah. Because the magic of that it’s something. If you lose that magic, it’s an insane process to do it that way.

 

Zaya Benazzo  13:52

No, we really kind of jumped instinctually. This is right. We have to follow and see where this goes. And he was very challenging at times because we felt like we lost like this is not a movie this is an interview with Gabor. This doesn’t go anywhere. And then COVID hit. We didn’t have enough footage to finish. The beauty and the curse you know that there was something that emerged by us not having a rigid plan.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  14:23

Yeah, but that’s the magic you have to be able to let, unless you are able to keep the listening, the relationship and the listening. Too much of an idea. I want to go there, I want to go, I want to go to Boston, I want to go to Boston. But if the road is taking to Albuquerque. Just start to go there on the way. Make it a little longer you know, you don’t know how the famous Rolling Stones said you can totally get what you want. But if you try sometimes you get what you need. And that was the process right? We really sincerely thought we have a movie that maybe 50,000 therapists in America would like. That was the goal. Not the end goal, there was no goal.

 

Zaya Benazzo  15:04

We thought we were making a niche movie. This is not a strange conversation.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  15:10

Who cares, right? Wow.

 

Zaya Benazzo  15:13

That really we had no idea that the movie had a different light.

 

Keith Kurlander  15:17

So what were the numbers just so people know in terms of, because this thing took off.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  15:22

At least about 4 million people the four week, the four, 5 million for the first week. It was just like what? Wow.

 

Zaya Benazzo  15:30

It exploded. It really exploded. The piece was very surprising, we thought we’re making an American movie. That was how I feel that’s gonna speak to this culture. And the biggest surprise is actually our largest audience is international. And it speaks to many different cultures, too. We were going to book one night in Sofia, we were traveling in Bulgaria. We said okay, we’re gonna go one night, 20 people, nobody will come. We’re right there, sold out. One night sold out. Second night, sold out. Third night, and now it’s three months in the theaters. So now we are three months old. Yeah.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  16:09

So exciting.

 

Zaya Benazzo  16:10

And we received thousands of letters in the two months since we released the movie from people in organizations from all over the world. They are saying you told my story. I feel like I’m not alone. I felt validated by the movie.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  16:26

And to me, it was bizarre, bizarre people that’s not the right way. But the unexpected people. I said, we have an event in Italy, in a castle in Italy every summer, right? Beautiful event. The admin of the castle was like I heard about this movie. I send in the movie completely was blown away. Wait, the woman who takes care of my 92 years old cousin in Italy, or Sarah her daughter came visiting from London, and she was saying, whoa you made that movie? This thing sold around, it’s insane. There is no geographic aji of the term. And you know, your therapist, from a little on the left side.

 

Zaya Benazzo  17:10

It really touched a chord in the human psyche that I think is very present at the moment in our collective lives.

 

Keith Kurlander  17:21

Your documentary came through at a very important time where we are right now and when it was released, and there’s a lot happening globally in so many different facets that are traumatizing to people. And that people are at least experiencing trauma and through trauma, re traumatizing and not having a framework and a relationship to how to understand and really brilliantly the title, who titled this, by the way?

 

Maurizio Benazzo  17:48

The universe?

 

Keith Kurlander  17:50

How did that come through? How did that happen? The wisdom of trauma. It’s a really great title. It’s very much the way we talk about trauma. So I’m just wondering how that came through both of you?

 

Zaya Benazzo  18:03

We wanted to have a title that really captures the essence of what Gabor was communicating in the movie that our traumas are also the doorway to our deepest wisdom. We were brainstorming and we had just like three different titles with this one being the strongest. So by far, by far.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  18:23

Enough beaten up by trauma, right? I mean, it’s something that is a tool. I mean, if you think of all the major CEOs of Corporations, they are the most messed up people in the universe. I mean, when we have interviews with the movie stars and pop stars, those poor kids have been really seriously hurt. So trauma is a major tool we have, we are all here in this place at this time. At this moment, the four of us because of our trauma, for work as well is a tool and using the word wisdom connected trauma, I think is a very important let’s start to use it as a tool. Not like to use it only as a hammer on your hand. Yeah, we Yeah,

 

Zaya Benazzo  19:02

a lot of spiritual teachers, they would send this students to trauma therapists. And they would say, well, we don’t deal with trauma has nothing to do with spirituality is like that gap needs to. Yeah,

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  19:16

It’s a big mess. It suggests to me that there’s a big avoidance and blind spot there for the teacher for their own trauma. And we’ve seen how that plays out with gurus too often. Certainly more than one guru that I studied with is no longer a guru anymore because of the shadow that wasn’t acknowledged and addressed.

 

Zaya Benazzo  19:35

Yeah. And what’s hopeful is I think collectively we are learning to recognize and see that as we become more intimate with our own shadow. We also recognize it out there more easily,

 

Maurizio Benazzo  19:47

right? Absolutely. Yeah, the more light you cast on something, the bigger the shadow makes.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  19:56

For sure, the more you

 

Maurizio Benazzo  19:58

i feel like Oh, the more Realize the morning, something behind you looks at it.

 

Keith Kurlander  20:06

I’m really interested in what YouTube learns from making the documentary. Like what are some of the nuggets you got from just being involved in this project in terms of your own personal journey here.

 

Zaya Benazzo  20:20

One thing I was so moved by, I didn’t expect is when we went into the stage, let’s talk to people on the streets, let’s really speak about trauma from those that have suffered the most. And to see the amount of wisdom these people had, like the homeless on the streets of Vancouver or in San Francisco. And the level of intimacy they had with their pain felt so moving for me, so inspiring. Like they are deeply spiritual human beings. Because there’s something about meeting those human beings who share their suffering,

 

Maurizio Benazzo  21:01

and see their humanity and their knowledge. I mean, and we dismiss them just because they added misfortune in the stories why they are in distress, it still makes me furious. I mean, there was somebody we met in Vancouver, he had a family and a job that narrowly he got hit by a car. And all of a sudden, he lost, he lost everything he gave back, it’s not even his fault.

 

Zaya Benazzo  21:27

And then this learning about, like, how much we shame in society, people who are struggling with addiction, or with homelessness, just how many misunderstood notions we have about those struggling on the streets. And one thing that I was really touched, we walked on the streets of San Francisco with someone who works with homeless people and she’s saying one of the message we are trying to get across to people is to just acknowledge those human beings on the street just say hi just look in their eyes that’s way more valuable than throwing them at you know $1 or just recognize the humaneness the human being so they something that open for me in that space. We don’t need to fix each other’s problems. We don’t need to we can’t actually but what we can give one another is that kind of unconditional presence and like I see you and you’re not alone. That’s what we all long for.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  22:25

We want to make the questionnaire to the homeless person scary; otherwise, you need what you need. And everybody was expecting, you know, I need money, I need housing, I need to be seen 80% of the people selling to be seen and recognized to me that blew my mind is not the dollar

 

Zaya Benazzo  22:45

is not humans are not a problem. I mean, the government I think spends $60,000 a year per homeless person in San Francisco. So it is not a matter of money that will solve those things about shifting the way we perceive. That’s one thing I’ve learned like I used to contract when somebody comes strong with me and and I used to take it personally now it’s like no, there’s pain behind that anger, they Spain behind that defensiveness and to recognize it, and to kind of not to justify it, but don’t perpetuate by pushing it or judging it or labeling. There’s something for me that has started cheating around just having more compassion for each other. No, we’ve all suffered, and our adaptive behaviors were ways to survive. We use those, but maybe we no longer need them when we can help one

 

Maurizio Benazzo  23:41

another. No, just kidding. presen. I mean, he does no science or we treat each other. He makes absolutely no sense. They suffer the more they suffer, the more the more you suffer, the more the more you’re going to beat up.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  23:55

You could probably speak to this more from maybe a non-American perspective from your background. I’m curious if it’s the same in Europe as it is here where I think we have this distinctly cultural problem of taking a big movement toward trying to solve a problem rather than actually stopping feeling. digesting, witnessing, seeing. This is global. Of course, it’s human. Right. But what you’re saying reminds me of when I was in medical training, I had a beloved teacher in the medical school, he was in the emergency department and he would say there’s the saying in the American cultural saying of Don’t just stand there, do something and he reversed it to don’t just do something, stand there. And he was bringing this teaching inside of the emergency room where people are coming in, in all kinds of catastrophic situations and he would just be standing there witnessing the feeling. And then the action comes from seeing and being. It’s very profound. This skips toward action without feeling. I guess I’m curious if you agree with me. It seems like there’s a certain uncomfortableness that feels In my system, in my body like shame. If I’m not jumping to action right away, it’s uncomfortable and I don’t know what to do.

 

Zaya Benazzo  25:08

It gives us the illusion of control Ray. It’s interesting. This summer I was in France and there was like, suddenly a street fight. And I was so shocked to see how the people responded and how the police reacted. The police were there really to regulate the crowd. And to activate the conflict, they did not arrest anyone. I was there watching and observing for half an hour. The police didn’t arrest the guys. And they went back and tried to fight again. They just stayed there, regulated them, put them aside, spoke to people to understand what was happening. Nobody got arrested. I was thinking, well, if this was in the States, these two guys will be handcuffed and in the car in the first five minutes.

 

Keith Kurlander  25:51

Exactly and very forcibly.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  25:54

If they survive the arrest. Yeah, yeah,

 

Keith Kurlander  25:57

Exactly. Where it would show up at a fight.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  25:59

And think culturally, I mean, a fight between two guys. Oh, my God, I mean, come on. It’s a normal thing in every culture that your neighbors throw things at you. Even if those laps and then doesn’t mean that your relationship is over. That’s the other thing. Right? Right. I remember in my in the village in where I grew up in Italy, in this village, I was 14 years old, I was going to bar to play card with his old man, you know, we play cards, and there was the fascist, the communists, the priest, everybody was there, and they were playing cards together, all of a sudden, they fight, but never became violent. But they scream at each other that here they would be arrested for that as well, by the way, but then if somebody was sick, everybody was there. at the funeral of somebody in a family, everybody was there, there was no Oh, you’re I fought with you two days ago, because you don’t believe in the relative vaxxer I’m not gonna come to your funeral. We are all in this together, we can be different. That’s the beautiful lie that we were saying today. I don’t need to understand to love you. That’s like, it’s our new mantra.

 

Keith Kurlander  27:07

I think these are the conversations we’re in a lot over here. It’s that level of emotional, like neurological, spiritual maturity, we’re still very young as a species. Because my biology, it’s like you were speaking to something that really spoke to me about can you enter compassion first, almost, if somebody is kind of coming at you intensely or defensive, whatever it is, and like, you actually go into their experience for a moment just to even get them. And that sort of is an interruption from what feels like in my system, I’m starting to recognize like 1000s and 1000s of years, and that’s not what you do first, it’s not just even my personal trauma. It’s just 1000s of years of if someone comes to you, you go into gardening, and you either get bigger or you get smaller. And that’s like the system’s wiring, I think. And so this interruption of like, Well, can you go into first? What’s happening over there, right and getting into spaciousness, and I feel like I’m starting to be able to do that more. It’s like, I’m not a pro at it. But with the amount of work I’ve done on myself, which has been my whole adult life trying to work on myself and I feel like I’m just sort of having the experience now where I’m starting to go there first. I’m like, we’re very young as a species because it takes a lot of work to really be willing to try and enter that space of compassion when someone’s being a jerk.

 

Zaya Benazzo  28:38

Exactly and to tolerate the discomfort that’s another skill that I’m still learning like don’t buy pasa Don’t try to solve it just be with it. Yeah, it’s okay to be uncomfortable and to see this way to feel safe in the discomfort

 

Maurizio Benazzo  28:53

As much as it’s okay to be angry, correct. Well, it’s okay to be angry. Just learn to regulate your anger, learn to not to project it in another, you know, somebody come to you screaming, the point is, what happened to you before? Right. Nothing to do with you, but the parking lot is not the reason what happened to you.

 

Zaya Benazzo  29:14

That’s one of the aspects in the movie. If you remember Gabor was talking about how to teach children actually how to relate to anger not to suppress it not to be punished when they are angry, but to know how to express it and have a relationship with their anger. I think that’s a key parenting skill.

 

Keith Kurlander  29:32

The movies got another round coming right. We want to talk a little bit about the next round here in October. Yeah, from

 

Maurizio Benazzo  29:39

the fourth to the 10th of October. We’re gonna show again, the movie will be available for another week, six days 24 seven people can access it for free by giving a donation is by donation based so donation of dollar zero is fine and if people can afford to donate is great because it helped us to reach or organization and spread the movie, we are thinking about bringing it to our prison to high school in the US, there is a big progress long story from the fourth to the 10th. And also we have conversation, we have 17 conversations on topics related to the field panels and conversation and I think somebody like here will be

 

Zaya Benazzo  30:22

Conversations led by Dr. Gabor ma with visionaries, artists, doctors, shamans, politicians

 

Maurizio Benazzo  30:31

It will be a very rich program. Yeah.

 

Keith Kurlander  30:35

yeah. While I’ll just say, who’s ever listening, go check it out, particularly in the mental health field. This is a really important movie you guys made. So I just want to plug that here, like, go check this out. It’s a key instrument you’ve kind of injected here. It’s a good one. It’s a big one.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  30:52

Yeah, I would just add to that, tell your friends about it. Because it’s incredibly powerful. I’ve seen a few different movies with Gabor, and this by far is the most focused expression I would say, of the work. And this kind of very deep contribution that you’re making is more than just a different perspective for people about trauma. I feel like it’s actually got the capacity to level up the level of consciousness that we were talking about a few minutes ago. And this species is a huge challenge. It’s a heavy lift, to move ourselves forward, and to see the sacredness and wisdom and then there’s the necessity of trauma and bringing the consciousness to it. It’s very beautiful. So I just have deep gratitude for your work. Thank you.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  31:36

Thank you. Such an honor.

 

Keith Kurlander  31:38

What are you two cooking up in the future? I’m curious if you want to share anything.

 

Zaya Benazzo  31:45

Something is brewing about part two of the conversation and it goes deeper into intergenerational trauma and collective-society intergenerational trauma. And really go and tell those stories, not just of trauma, but also wisdom and resilience from different culture or spiritual perspectives

 

Maurizio Benazzo  32:05

From the individual to the collective, the societies.

 

Zaya Benazzo  32:11

See how that’s going to save this interesting challenge.

 

Keith Kurlander  32:16

Well, we wrap up with the questions that are gonna be for both of you, because we ask every guest this. You kind of have a billboard already because you’ve got your movie. But if you have a billboard that every human would see once in their life, it’s just a paragraph on it. What would you tell that person?

 

Zaya Benazzo  32:31

That’s a tough one. Look for the wisdom in trauma.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  32:36

Yeah, watch the movie. The Wisdom of Trauma.

 

Zaya Benazzo  32:41

We were just talking about one thing we love, like you don’t need to understand to love. We can love without understanding.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  32:50

The billboard, you don’t need to understand to love. And the other one is to watch the Wisdom of Trauma. And in the theaters, we are actually starting today, we are exploring to do a theatrical release in the US and Canada, Europe and Australia.

 

Keith Kurlander  33:11

That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much, both of you for your work and coming on the show.

 

Maurizio Benazzo  33:17

Thank you both. Such an honor and pleasure. Thank you.

 

Dr. Will Van Derveer  33:24

We look forward to connecting with you again on the next episode of The Higher Practice Podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.