Trauma. It's a word that gets tossed around a lot these days, a buzzword of sorts.

But have you ever thought what does it actually mean to have trauma?

Gabour Mate unfortunately knows the answer to this all too well.

At 11 months of age, I was abandoned.

My mother handed me to a total stranger in the street in Budapest, and I didn't see her for five or six weeks.

And when I saw her again, I didn't look at her for several days, which is what infants do

when they're abandoned, when they don't see their mothers.

Now the first thing you may be wondering what type of mother gives her baby to a total stranger.

But as is so often the case, there is more to the story.

You see, Mate's mother was trying to save his life. Mate had been born into a Hungarian Jewish

family during the Holocaust.

The stranger that Mate's mother trusted

was able to keep Mate safe and then deliver him

to relatives living in hiding.

Obviously he survived, and today at 80 years old he is a renowned author and physician. Some would say that he has literally written the book on trauma and healing, several of them actually.

And yet, as you're about to hear, Mate says his past still catches up with him, sometimes,

in the smallest and most unexpected moments.

There was this one time he was at the airport on his way home from a speaking engagement.

On the way home, the airline bumps me up to first class.

I arrive home feeling really good about myself.

What a great guy, how successful, and how

wonderful life is. And then when I arrive at the airport, there's a text from my wife

...