Speaker 1: Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, Hello, beautiful people. I am so happy
Speaker 1: to have you joined me for today's Holy Human because
Speaker 1: my guest is seriously one of the wisest humans I
Speaker 1: have ever come across, and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: In addition to holding three degrees A B, A, M, A,
Speaker 1: and PhD, all from Harvard University, Martha Beck is a sociologist,
Speaker 1: world renowned life coach, and best selling New York Times author.
Speaker 1: Her latest book of the Way of Integrity, Finding the
Speaker 1: Path to Your True Self, has had a tremendous impact
Speaker 1: on me and I cannot wait to share this conversation
Speaker 1: with you. Welcome to Holy Human, my friends, Martha Beck,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today on Holy Human.
Speaker 1: It is such an honor to have you on here.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, um, there are very few
Speaker 1: people that scare the ship out of me, and you
Speaker 1: are one of them. Yes, because I am homicidal and
Speaker 1: in the best of ways, in the best of ways,
Speaker 1: I have so much respect for you and your life.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cry because I just I just your level
Speaker 1: of integrity, um is something like it's a north star.
Speaker 1: It really is. Um. People like you, women like you
Speaker 1: who uh really inspired me and you make me question
Speaker 1: my life. Like I started reading Um, I started reading
Speaker 1: two of your books at the same time. I started
Speaker 1: on the Joy Diet and then I started in on
Speaker 1: the Way of Integrity, and man, I had, I had.
Speaker 1: I've had many conversations, like deep conversations of truth, UM,
Speaker 1: and they have. Yeah, it's been the last four weeks
Speaker 1: of those two books have been incredibly powerful and eye opening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why you scare me. Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so weird. You sit in your little I sit in
Speaker 1: my bedroom typing away and then I throw stuff out
Speaker 1: like a message in a bottle from a desert island,
Speaker 1: and you just sort of sit in your room going
Speaker 1: to hope that works and then to hear back, you know,
Speaker 1: through time and through space from someone I've admired for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Is It's surreal in a very
Speaker 1: wonderful way. But please do stay gared, because I like
Speaker 1: people to be afraid as much as possible. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: do you. I think you kind of when you start
Speaker 1: questioning everything about your life and you start to live
Speaker 1: in this kind of level of integrity. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like I have deep integrity, but I always know
Speaker 1: that there's a new level. I guess, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: like how honest can you be in the moment? I
Speaker 1: do you feel like integrity? Do you feel like it
Speaker 1: comes to you in layers like one? I know that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't okay because I know one day you decided
Speaker 1: to go through basically it was a year long integrity clans.
Speaker 1: Basically like when you were going to lie. Um, how
Speaker 1: do I mean, how does one just make that decision
Speaker 1: and then keep it for a year? One word suffering
Speaker 1: Like I was suffering so hard. I was depressed. I
Speaker 1: was in a lot of physical pain, people from autoimmune diseases.
Speaker 1: People didn't understand, and I was just desperate. And I
Speaker 1: was like, they say, the truth will set you free,
Speaker 1: So I'll try not lying for a year and see
Speaker 1: what happens. And I might as well have detonated a
Speaker 1: nuclear device. It just went like everything in my life, Um,
Speaker 1: I either walked away or quit except for my children,
Speaker 1: and I lost a lot of things. I lost a
Speaker 1: lot of relationships, my family of origin, my religion of origin,
Speaker 1: my job. Realized I didn't like it, so I do
Speaker 1: not advise anyone out there to do to do things
Speaker 1: that abruptly. Integrity literally means whole, and it's just about
Speaker 1: doing what keeps you whole. Okay, So that's how you
Speaker 1: define integrity, is what keeps you whole. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: structural integrity and a machine. If the machine parts are
Speaker 1: all lined up, it works. And that's not a judgment,
Speaker 1: it's just what happens. And when you're living in the truth,
Speaker 1: and I know you've done so much work on this,
Speaker 1: when you're speaking the truth in your case, singing the truth,
Speaker 1: living the truth, all the hearts line up and the
Speaker 1: machine of your life works incredibly well. So it's not
Speaker 1: about integrity or I'll hate you and you'll be bad,
Speaker 1: you'll go to health. It's you've lost pieces of yourself,
Speaker 1: bring them together and teach them to love each other,
Speaker 1: and you will not believe how the world transforms to
Speaker 1: a gentle, benevolent space. I think that's what's so interesting
Speaker 1: about that word integrity, because a lot of people consider it,
Speaker 1: you know, a moral compass, and I know you talk
Speaker 1: a lot about our true nature and culture clashing, which
Speaker 1: I find like completely true in so many ways, Like
Speaker 1: with with integrity. I think a lot of people think
Speaker 1: of it as, like I said, a moral compass, and
Speaker 1: whose moral compass are you going? Like? What we've been
Speaker 1: fed and taught and if we never question those like,
Speaker 1: do we ever find our integrity? No? I don't think
Speaker 1: we do. And by culture I mean any group of
Speaker 1: other people. So everybody. Anytime there are two people in
Speaker 1: a room, culture is the third guest, like we all
Speaker 1: and it's just pressure to behave in certain ways, and
Speaker 1: we all have multiple cultures, family, ethnicity, whatever and what what.
Speaker 1: We're born whole. We're born to our true nature, but
Speaker 1: before we can even talk, we're pressured to do things
Speaker 1: more the way other people like us. So maybe cry
Speaker 1: less than you want to be, braver than you want to,
Speaker 1: or less brave than you want to be. And we're
Speaker 1: just structured so that, as little babies, we start splitting
Speaker 1: away from our nature to serve the culture. And that
Speaker 1: is emotionally and ultimately physically painful. It hurts to be
Speaker 1: divided from yourself. So integrity is finding the lost parts
Speaker 1: of yourself and bringing them back into the fold and
Speaker 1: uniting with them and it feels wonderful. Well, you said
Speaker 1: suffering was what inspired integrity. And then there's when you
Speaker 1: blew up your life, which I've done a couple of times. Um,
Speaker 1: it sucks. Um, you know it does. It sucks. But
Speaker 1: I almost and I'll get I want to ask you
Speaker 1: this because is there another way? But I do. It's
Speaker 1: like you you go from one pain to the other. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the if you're If you're going to be in
Speaker 1: that much pain, I guess you might as well do
Speaker 1: it in truth, right, I Mean that's the thing. Where
Speaker 1: do we suffer either way? Well, the real, the clean
Speaker 1: suffering doesn't last. So there's a guy I quote in
Speaker 1: the book, Mario Martinez, who says, when you break from
Speaker 1: the lies of your past, you go through something called morning,
Speaker 1: the known misery. So you're grieving for what you knew
Speaker 1: because it was familiar, it was all you knew, and
Speaker 1: to be pulled away from that is this involves loss
Speaker 1: in it initiates huge tidal waves of grief, like that's
Speaker 1: how we process loss. But when you've lost yourself, it
Speaker 1: never it never ends. It's just this dull, sad, painful
Speaker 1: and whatever it is for your anger, whatever, it just
Speaker 1: goes on and on and on. When you separate from
Speaker 1: the things that have been pulling you away from your nature,
Speaker 1: and you say, I must live according to my nature.
Speaker 1: There's sorrow for losing the people and things that go away,
Speaker 1: but it heals. It's like having a broken bone that's
Speaker 1: been set and it heals. So it does, and and
Speaker 1: we become strong in the broken places. So there's an
Speaker 1: end to that suffering. And when we come out of it,
Speaker 1: there's enormous joy, wherewith losing yourself there is none. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's powerful. The suffering, though, I mean the the avoidance
Speaker 1: of grief. This has been something I've really been going
Speaker 1: down myself and understanding how deeply I've built my life
Speaker 1: around the avoidance of grief. Yeah, we all do that. Now.
Speaker 1: We're running toward anything that feels good and away from
Speaker 1: everything that feels pain, and that's perfectly normal. But when
Speaker 1: it takes us away from the stillness in our cores,
Speaker 1: when we lose that essential hardcore of ourselves, um, we
Speaker 1: actually are running into a much worse form of suffering
Speaker 1: than any grief. So Carl Young, the psychologist, said, every
Speaker 1: neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering. And what he
Speaker 1: means by that is if you're crazy. If you're messed
Speaker 1: up in any way whatsoever, it's because there's a part
Speaker 1: of you that can't quite face the legitimate suffering that
Speaker 1: is part of your life story. And you have to
Speaker 1: sit in that grief and let it consume you. And
Speaker 1: it consumes all the pain, and it leaves you with nothing.
Speaker 1: It's like a smelter. It leaves you with nothing but
Speaker 1: pure gold. But it hurts, and it's normal to avoid
Speaker 1: it for as long as you can. So don't blame
Speaker 1: yourself if that's what you're doing that. No, I mean
Speaker 1: I I just have come to understand it by some
Speaker 1: really d work of like, Oh that's that's been a
Speaker 1: guiding force in my life as to avoid grief. So
Speaker 1: how do you go? Have you started going into it now,
Speaker 1: changing and turning towards it? I think so a little
Speaker 1: by little. Um, I haven't blown up my life yet.
Speaker 1: Um again, but I yeah, I always it's always time
Speaker 1: for that. I'm only thirty nine. I'm about about to
Speaker 1: turn forty in August. I feel like you know that
Speaker 1: that's probably gonna blow up my life in some way. Um,
Speaker 1: But I do think, like I say it as a
Speaker 1: joke about it, but it's you know the times that
Speaker 1: I have um, there has been so much, so much
Speaker 1: beauty that's come out of that. It's just continuing, like
Speaker 1: when do you how do you choose to turn towards it?
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the hard part. Well, I had this,
Speaker 1: you know. One of the events in my life was
Speaker 1: that I had a child who was diagnosed with Down
Speaker 1: syndrome before he was born. And I had just like
Speaker 1: a few days where it would have been legal to
Speaker 1: terminate the pregnancy. But and I'm actually pro choice, but
Speaker 1: I want I was already in love with the baby,
Speaker 1: so I kept him. And I would walk around and
Speaker 1: I was getting a PhD at Harvard at the time,
Speaker 1: and I would walk around and see all these brilliant people,
Speaker 1: and I think, my son will never be one of
Speaker 1: these people. What can he do? You know? And then
Speaker 1: I started to think what is worth doing. I'd go
Speaker 1: into people's offices and they all look haunted and miserable,
Speaker 1: and other students were miserable and exhausted, and I would think,
Speaker 1: why why this this is like, we're at the apex
Speaker 1: of academia. We should be happy. And then I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: it's about being happy. Like one thing, my son absolutely
Speaker 1: will be able to do his experience joy and so
Speaker 1: that became the absolutely Emerson said, beauty is its own
Speaker 1: excuse for being, and I think joy is its own
Speaker 1: excuse for being. And going toward joy became the whole
Speaker 1: focus of my life. So if it doesn't feel like joy,
Speaker 1: I turn away from it. And sometimes that means I
Speaker 1: turn into a situation that's hard or sad or scary.
Speaker 1: But if the life I had led was not bringing
Speaker 1: me joy and a situation is in the way of joy,
Speaker 1: and I know it, I'm sort of honor bound to
Speaker 1: go straight into the worst um the thing I'm avoiding
Speaker 1: the most, and it's on the other side of the
Speaker 1: thing I've been avoiding the most that I always find
Speaker 1: the greatest liberation. Yeah. Absolutely, well that's true. Let's just turning,
Speaker 1: just turning towards that thing. It doesn't need to hurry,
Speaker 1: like take it super easy and don't don't do it
Speaker 1: one minute before you feel like it's the thing you
Speaker 1: absolutely must do. Yeah. Well, I think what's been interesting
Speaker 1: for me that I've been questioning is what is truth?
Speaker 1: Because you know what what is truth? Because truth can
Speaker 1: be very subjective, and like what's true for me right
Speaker 1: now might not be true for me ten minutes from now.
Speaker 1: When you talk about true nature or truth, like where
Speaker 1: what is truth? How you're absolutely right? Is completely subjective
Speaker 1: and we can't know, you know, and Um Descartes said, man,
Speaker 1: the only thing I can know is that I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: So I guess that's the reason I know I exist.
Speaker 1: But I can't know if your truth is like my truth,
Speaker 1: or if if any truth sustains. So the first thing
Speaker 1: is um for me, I think there's a sense of
Speaker 1: truth in us, and it comes when all our ways
Speaker 1: of making meaning, our mind, our heart, our body, and
Speaker 1: our soul they all align and there's a sensation of
Speaker 1: physical sensation that comes with that, of of landing, of loosening.
Speaker 1: And it's only in the present moment. The truth never
Speaker 1: goes to the pastor of the future. It's always right here,
Speaker 1: right now, and it's we enter it by feeling something
Speaker 1: with our entire bodies. And there's actually a phrase. After
Speaker 1: years and years of coaching, I kept trying to see
Speaker 1: what would give people that ring of truth or that sensation,
Speaker 1: and the biggest thing I found was the phrase, I
Speaker 1: am meant to live in peace. So anyone I've I've
Speaker 1: worked with people in prison, I've worked with people who
Speaker 1: should be in prison but aren't. I've worked with billionaires,
Speaker 1: and there's never been a person who said that didn't
Speaker 1: feel true to them. I am meant to live in peace.
Speaker 1: So then if you find I mean, if you say
Speaker 1: that a couple of times in your mind, do you
Speaker 1: feel it? There's a wholeness and alignment that comes. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: There's there's a kind of quiet calm. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: can go so deep. At first we don't even notice
Speaker 1: it because our culture is all about bright lights, big city,
Speaker 1: you know, big noise, and it's so quiet, but damn
Speaker 1: it goes down forever into this place of sweetness and
Speaker 1: it becomes this sort of fountain that can feed you
Speaker 1: every minute of your life. Mm hmmm. What are your
Speaker 1: How do you stay connected to that in your everyday life?
Speaker 1: I meditate. That's that's like bedrock. Every culture in the
Speaker 1: world has its own way of saying, go sit by
Speaker 1: yourself for a while and don't make any noise. Um.
Speaker 1: But I also writing as a form of staying on
Speaker 1: on truth. For me, because I'm very alert when I'm writing.
Speaker 1: I associate with people who bring me that joy, and
Speaker 1: who will tell me when I'm lying, They will call
Speaker 1: me on my bullshit. And I love that. So I
Speaker 1: just structure my whole life around staying in that zone
Speaker 1: of joy because I don't ever want to leave it.
Speaker 1: It sucks to leave it. All right, We are going
Speaker 1: to leave that thought for just a moment, for a
Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be right back, and we're back
Speaker 1: with Martha Beck talking about the joyous but sometimes complicated
Speaker 1: concept of joy. Joy has been really interesting for me,
Speaker 1: and I think it might be for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and in the way that it can feel very uncomfortable. Um.
Speaker 1: I grew up a gripping as an only child, and
Speaker 1: I had a mom who was very depressed and sad
Speaker 1: and a dad who was angry, and so you know,
Speaker 1: being in joy was almost um it was something that
Speaker 1: would almost alienate my parents. Um oh yeah, absolutely, it
Speaker 1: was threatening. I guess. Wow, that's that's a hell of
Speaker 1: a culture to run into, as you know, as an
Speaker 1: innocent little baby. Wow. So have you found it? Have
Speaker 1: you found a sensation where you they're these moments when
Speaker 1: and for me, they used to be incredibly rare and
Speaker 1: when all these forces would align and for one moment
Speaker 1: I would feel this sweetness and this clarity, and I
Speaker 1: would think, please, please never let me lose this, and
Speaker 1: then I would lose it. Yeah, of course, don't go No, Yes,
Speaker 1: I have had. I actually I just finished writing and
Speaker 1: recording an album and I had I wrote this song
Speaker 1: called Innocent on my album, and I had this moment.
Speaker 1: I was doing some somatic work and I had this
Speaker 1: moment where like innocence and this this joy was like
Speaker 1: outside of me, it was up here, and I found
Speaker 1: this moment where it like dropped into my body and
Speaker 1: it was I just burst into tears because it was
Speaker 1: so like you're saying, sweet and pure, And out of
Speaker 1: that came a song. But I remember, for about forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, I could like tap back into that place
Speaker 1: of like for me, it felt like endless possibility and
Speaker 1: just openness and sweetness and like you're saying, it was like,
Speaker 1: please don't go anywhere. Um Can I recreate this feeling
Speaker 1: of dropping it and I can revisit it to an
Speaker 1: extent um and I find moments. I've been looking more
Speaker 1: for moments of joy in my life because it's so
Speaker 1: easy for our brain too, you know, when we're locked
Speaker 1: into this old trauma pattern of finding trying to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves safe. It's so easy to miss out on the
Speaker 1: joy that is present. So for me, that one experience
Speaker 1: made me realize, oh that is that is part of
Speaker 1: my true nature and I I do miss it when
Speaker 1: it's not there. It's very it's very heartbreaking. Can you
Speaker 1: find it? And this is I'm putting on the spot.
Speaker 1: Can you find it now? Yeah? I can. There's a
Speaker 1: sense of it. So like where sorry, this is turning
Speaker 1: into a country where totally people learned through me too.
Speaker 1: So where is it? Where is it in your body?
Speaker 1: I feel it like here around your head? Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: I can't see. Um, I feel it like around my
Speaker 1: left side, especially of my my face, my head, my shoulder.
Speaker 1: What does it feel like physically? Um, it feels very vibratory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels light. So can you go into that, like
Speaker 1: put all your attention, as you said, onto that and
Speaker 1: make it make the vibration stronger and deeper and louder, stronger, deeper,
Speaker 1: louder that. Yeah, And it's about focus. I mean right
Speaker 1: now you've sort of you're sort of looking up into
Speaker 1: the to the left I think, so you're using a
Speaker 1: certain part of your brain to track the sensation of
Speaker 1: joy the way a hunter might track an animal um
Speaker 1: to keep it as a pet, not to kill it
Speaker 1: um exactly. But we all have ways that we can
Speaker 1: track it, and we have to sit quietly to find that.
Speaker 1: It's a deep internal uh sort of knowledge. In the
Speaker 1: East and Asia, science and the great thinkers didn't look
Speaker 1: at the outside world the way they did in the West.
Speaker 1: They turned inward and everything was about tracking joy through
Speaker 1: the body, tracking suffering through the body, the mind, the soul,
Speaker 1: and it can go as deeply into you as an
Speaker 1: astronomer could study the galaxies going outward like it's infinite,
Speaker 1: and it becomes quite fascinating when you start to find
Speaker 1: it and feel it and then be able to hold it.
Speaker 1: And I actually think you really did that brilliantly in
Speaker 1: your Human and Holy album Thank You, Like the song
Speaker 1: be Still and No Damn, you actually make audible a
Speaker 1: vibration that I had I love to find in meditation.
Speaker 1: And I love that because it was just just turn
Speaker 1: on a song and it can take you where hours
Speaker 1: of meditation might not be able to. So I know
Speaker 1: you've been there, and I know well that came through meditation.
Speaker 1: I mean those songs, everything that I was on that record,
Speaker 1: I sat and meditated, and in fact I did it
Speaker 1: right before we jumped on here because I'm working on
Speaker 1: the next chair record, and I just sat there and
Speaker 1: I just I listen and I whatever, I don't judge it,
Speaker 1: and just let whatever comes through come through. And it's
Speaker 1: so cool too to see, just like what spills out
Speaker 1: of my mouth from silence. It's so fascinating because, um,
Speaker 1: we know from brain science that if you put two
Speaker 1: people in a room and they don't even talk to
Speaker 1: each other, three people whatever, within twenty minutes, they're the
Speaker 1: vibrations of their brain, the patterns of electrical activity in
Speaker 1: the brain and in the heart will will come to
Speaker 1: match the calmest person in the group, even though they're
Speaker 1: not speaking or looking at each other. And it's something
Speaker 1: called entrainment, and it actually pulls the brain state. It's
Speaker 1: an electrical signal. Just like our iPhones or our laptops
Speaker 1: or whatever are electrical machines that operate wirelessly. We're the
Speaker 1: same thing. Are our nervous systems are electrical systems made
Speaker 1: of meat, and they have a wireless communication and feature.
Speaker 1: And um, certain sounds and certain and the presence of
Speaker 1: certain people will pull other people's energy into that state.
Speaker 1: So I can't say enough about that album of yours
Speaker 1: because it pulls that state in and makes it so
Speaker 1: much easier to access. And it's like getting a piggyback
Speaker 1: ride to happiness. Love it, love it. That makes me
Speaker 1: so happy. You know, music is music is amazing. It's
Speaker 1: such a gift to be able to write and express emotionally,
Speaker 1: like what not only I'm feeling, but like I know,
Speaker 1: I speak for so many people when I do emote
Speaker 1: and express, and it's such a cool gift. And then
Speaker 1: to to be able to write my feelings down. I've
Speaker 1: always been in awe of that process because like we create.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you write a book, it's the same
Speaker 1: thing you when you're a creator, you create something out
Speaker 1: of thin air, like from nothing, and then you sit there.
Speaker 1: I was. I was playing my the actual record of
Speaker 1: my new album UM the other night, and I's just
Speaker 1: sitting there bawling because I'm like, this is such a
Speaker 1: gift that has come through me UM, which I love
Speaker 1: because you talk a lot about creativity and creative energy,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the biggest Miskins options about
Speaker 1: creative energy and creativity is that only creators quote unquote
Speaker 1: creators like that create music or art art creators and
Speaker 1: we all came from creative energy. Like that's yeah, And
Speaker 1: is that when you talk about true nature? I mean
Speaker 1: that creative energy is that basically the core? Yes, And
Speaker 1: interestingly the whole the way life fragments us, and it
Speaker 1: fragments us all we all get pulled away from our
Speaker 1: true nature is just the way things are in human life.
Speaker 1: So we get fragmented, and parts of ourselves go out
Speaker 1: and suffer because they're separate, and they're split away from truth,
Speaker 1: from love, from wholeness. Then when we come together. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing about creativity is seen from a brain perspective,
Speaker 1: is that it occurs when things that are very different
Speaker 1: are brought together. And there's actually a thing in the
Speaker 1: brain called a far transfer where something that's really different
Speaker 1: from anything you've thought ever connects with something else that
Speaker 1: you're thinking, and it brings this brand new thing that
Speaker 1: no one else could bring in because nobody else has
Speaker 1: the same fragments. So even the suffering that we have,
Speaker 1: but I mean, that's my justification for suffering. It hurts
Speaker 1: a lot, and we're having all these experiences. But then
Speaker 1: when they come back together, which I think they're always
Speaker 1: meant to do. We were supposed to go out and
Speaker 1: be fractured and then regain our integrity, and when we do,
Speaker 1: we have this far transfer of all these experiences and
Speaker 1: when they come together in a place of peace, of wholeness.
Speaker 1: We are creation. We don't have creativity. We're not products
Speaker 1: of the creator. We are aspects of the creator. And
Speaker 1: there is nothing about us that doesn't create. When we're
Speaker 1: a whole, and it creates everything as you said, events, relationships, moods, poems, songs, whatever,
Speaker 1: But we are we are by nature creation itself. I
Speaker 1: love that, even offering a course offering called think like
Speaker 1: a Wayfinder. I was watching the four steps. That was
Speaker 1: part of it was create creating. How do you how
Speaker 1: would you define wayfinder? Like? What are the pieces? Are
Speaker 1: components of thinking like a wayfinder? So I borrowed the
Speaker 1: term from an anthropologist who studied the people of the
Speaker 1: Pacific Islands, who are such great navigators that they can
Speaker 1: actually they set off from like Papua New Guinea, and
Speaker 1: they knew that there would be the Hawaiian Islands three
Speaker 1: thousand miles away because they understood wave patterns so at
Speaker 1: such an incredible level, and they would travel three thousand
Speaker 1: miles over open water and find these little islands. And
Speaker 1: I thought, the way change is so intense right now
Speaker 1: and it will be for the foreseeable future. Societies are changing,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at the pandemic. Everything can change any time,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like we're on these tossed seas a
Speaker 1: sea in a storm, Like how do you navigate life?
Speaker 1: You have to be like these people who were the
Speaker 1: way finders, And for me, it's getting into becoming whole,
Speaker 1: getting into that state of integrity, because it's like there's
Speaker 1: a built in navigator that will take us over any
Speaker 1: rough water towards any destination as long as we stay
Speaker 1: absolutely on our compass right, like really true, and if
Speaker 1: it wobbles and change this intense we're all kind of
Speaker 1: there's a lot of danger. If you're off your true path,
Speaker 1: things are going faster and rougher than they ever have before.
Speaker 1: So if you stay really clean and think like a wayfinder,
Speaker 1: like focus on those internal compasses and don't let yourself
Speaker 1: be distracted by the pressures on you, that's how your
Speaker 1: life is peaceful, even in the middle of chaos. M Yes,
Speaker 1: I like that you with create with creativity, you know,
Speaker 1: part of creativity. I feel like it's play, which is
Speaker 1: another we talk about joy and play like things I
Speaker 1: really I didn't get to do as a kid much. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'd really like it never affected me how much.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a childhood until like I've had my
Speaker 1: stepson's and then one of them turned eleven, and I
Speaker 1: remember going, I signed my record deal at your age
Speaker 1: and wow, like you you have no concept of that
Speaker 1: at all in your life, and like this was how
Speaker 1: this was how child is supposed to kind of develop. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't occur to me. How odd that was? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, so I know I had no I had
Speaker 1: nothing to go off of until them. So play for me,
Speaker 1: play has been very convoluted. Like I don't even sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to begin, um to allow
Speaker 1: myself play. Where do you where do you find inspiration
Speaker 1: for play? Like? What's play in your life? Um? Nature?
Speaker 1: And you know I got to have a kind of
Speaker 1: wild and crazy childhood seventh of eight kids, wild and crazy,
Speaker 1: but it was really crazy. It just wasn't a childhood
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, and and by the way people think
Speaker 1: that being famous and having people fawn on you and
Speaker 1: all that stuff is going to make them happy. And
Speaker 1: when I work with people who have had all that,
Speaker 1: it is the worst thing that could ever happen to you.
Speaker 1: I mean it really is. One of the being famous
Speaker 1: is like one of the worst things that could happen
Speaker 1: to people. I truly believe this. So anyway, back to
Speaker 1: your childhood and enjoy and play. Um, if you go
Speaker 1: into nature and you like you look at baby things.
Speaker 1: Humans have this really interesting mutation where we were born
Speaker 1: in we're like apes, except that we don't have the
Speaker 1: gene that turns off are playing mechanism when we hit puberty.
Speaker 1: Other like chimpanzees and guerillas, they have this. They're very
Speaker 1: curious and playful. Then they hit puberty and they're brain
Speaker 1: says okay, I'm set, and they stopped playing. But humans
Speaker 1: have a mutation where we never stopped playing. And if
Speaker 1: we keep playing like children, which you don't know how
Speaker 1: to do, I'm learning that we never we never have
Speaker 1: to be old in our minds and hearts. So the
Speaker 1: first thing, first, you look at the suffering that's there,
Speaker 1: that's keeping because playing through sorrow is not real playing.
Speaker 1: When a child is grieving, you don't send her out
Speaker 1: to play. You hold her in your lap, and you say,
Speaker 1: what would feel like relief, sweetie, And maybe that means
Speaker 1: bundling up in bed. I mean, my mother died last
Speaker 1: week and we hadn't Yeah, we hadn't been in touch
Speaker 1: for a long time because of I left Mormonism and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But um, there was a day when I just I
Speaker 1: got to go to her funeral. It was live streamed,
Speaker 1: and um so even though I'm the black sheep of
Speaker 1: the family, someone sent me the link. And the only
Speaker 1: thing I could to do that with the day was
Speaker 1: curl up in bed and let myself be loved by
Speaker 1: my family and grieve and think and cry. And that
Speaker 1: was my play for the day. But the next day,
Speaker 1: when I was feeling a little better, I went out
Speaker 1: and played in the yard with my bird feeder and
Speaker 1: all the I like to meditate in the forest. I
Speaker 1: cover myself with bird seed and the birds come sit
Speaker 1: on me, and I really love it. And so I
Speaker 1: have learned a lot of my play from animals and babies,
Speaker 1: but animals more because babies they're being pressured. You were
Speaker 1: being pressured from the moment you were a baby. So
Speaker 1: with you, I would say, play is how can you
Speaker 1: find comfort, sweetness, anything that makes you go, that's your
Speaker 1: play for now. And if you go there, then the
Speaker 1: wild stuck ups later. Bird seed is great. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's the best I have. I've been wanting hummingbird feeders
Speaker 1: because we have we have all these hummingbirds in our backyard. Um.
Speaker 1: I've been really touching into nature a lot, and we
Speaker 1: have we have hawks that fly around the backyard like
Speaker 1: it's just it's pretty amazing. So nature has definitely been
Speaker 1: something that I agree has taught me how to play more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go join them, because really the heart of play is
Speaker 1: loving connection. And I'll never forget the first bird that
Speaker 1: landed up because I didn't really I was very depressed
Speaker 1: from an early age, also as a result of um abuse,
Speaker 1: sexual abuse that stride when I was five, so I
Speaker 1: didn't feel happy as a child after that. But when
Speaker 1: I was fifty something and I sat there with bird
Speaker 1: seed all over me in California in the forest, and
Speaker 1: the first bird dared to land on my leg, I
Speaker 1: could I still feel a little scratch of his tiny
Speaker 1: little claws, and he knew I was there, he knew
Speaker 1: what I was, and he looked straight up at me
Speaker 1: with so much trust, and it was like my heart
Speaker 1: exploded with joy. And it was because I was actually
Speaker 1: being loved into a childhood state by this sweet, little
Speaker 1: innocent creature. You never know who your teachers are going
Speaker 1: to be, but if you open yourself, they come, yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: that's so true. And on that thought, we are going
Speaker 1: to pause for a quick breath, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more and Martha Beck welcome back, Loves. Martha
Speaker 1: Beck and I were just discussing the powerful role that
Speaker 1: play can have in our lives and how it can
Speaker 1: often reveal lessons we need to learn. I know my
Speaker 1: dog teaches me so much. My dog before she's actually
Speaker 1: sitting right by me right now. She's out. Um. My
Speaker 1: dog before her was like super intense, and it was
Speaker 1: like she used to talk to me like by looking
Speaker 1: at me. And this one was so very different than her.
Speaker 1: She has so much joy, and she's also much bigger.
Speaker 1: She's seventy pounds child um, but she she has so
Speaker 1: much joy and she wants to play all the time.
Speaker 1: And I can. I sometimes will see myself going like
Speaker 1: basically I don't have time for that amount of play.
Speaker 1: And I catch myself because I'm like, she's trying to
Speaker 1: teach me exactly what I'm asking, Like, she's trying to
Speaker 1: teach me how to play, and that that energy has
Speaker 1: been so wonderful in my life because it's been so
Speaker 1: opposite of what I learned. Here's what I think, And
Speaker 1: I actually thought of this while I was working on
Speaker 1: thinks like a wayfinder. The whole process of my life.
Speaker 1: Now what I'm having a good day is play until
Speaker 1: you feel like resting, because everything I do for work
Speaker 1: or whatever feels like play. Play until you feel like resting,
Speaker 1: then rest until you feel like playing, then repeat. This
Speaker 1: is your entire life. This, I believe is how nature
Speaker 1: and the divine want us to live. Nothing but play
Speaker 1: until you feel like resting, and then rest until you
Speaker 1: feel like playing. Wow, that's amazing. So there's no work involved, no,
Speaker 1: not ever. You know, people say, oh, he works like
Speaker 1: a dog. Have you ever seen dogs work? They love it,
Speaker 1: like like I can catch your frisbee, I can check
Speaker 1: out bombs from the airport. I can do and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go work. It's that's how we're mental work. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's what you love and do it. That's interesting well,
Speaker 1: and you can also lose the love for what you love.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, that's what I've I've definitely gone
Speaker 1: through periods of time and still do like it depends
Speaker 1: on the day where what I love like I've lost
Speaker 1: the sweetness or the purity so many things. And that's
Speaker 1: once again culture. You know, you mentioned fame like being
Speaker 1: the worst thing that could happen, and it's it becomes
Speaker 1: so confusing because you're like, well, where especially when you're
Speaker 1: trying to keep up a career and you know, part
Speaker 1: of your job is like if people like you or not,
Speaker 1: and then you're trying to figure out if you even
Speaker 1: like yourself and like who who are you? And who
Speaker 1: are you without them? And who are you without someone
Speaker 1: telling you who to be? And you know, when you
Speaker 1: take a stand, this is my been my experience, when
Speaker 1: you take a stand and you you go deeper into truth, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the culture can be like, well, we don't
Speaker 1: like you in that truth it's like part of it's
Speaker 1: part of my job to care and then like I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to care at the same time, so it's
Speaker 1: very freaking confused. Yeah, it's so hard when you and
Speaker 1: this is something I've seen also a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are very gifted. I've been privileged to coach people
Speaker 1: who have incredible skills and talent, and almost all of them,
Speaker 1: at some point they do something for the joy of it,
Speaker 1: and they're so good at it, and their joy just
Speaker 1: rings out and it's so magnetic and infectious, and then
Speaker 1: immediately a whole bunch of people grab it and say,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it into a factory. It's gonna support
Speaker 1: us for the rest of our lives because it is.
Speaker 1: Everybody craves that kind of pure, sweet energy that comes
Speaker 1: through someone who's got a real talent, and then it
Speaker 1: gets mercantilized. And that is I mean the one I
Speaker 1: have a podcast called Bewildered and it's a pun because
Speaker 1: it's be Wilder. And the thing that I always rail against,
Speaker 1: and I get too because I have a PhD in sociology,
Speaker 1: is um I rail against the factory culture that turns
Speaker 1: every single thing into work for more money. Everything you do,
Speaker 1: it becomes work, and the purpose of the work is
Speaker 1: more money for more people, and it just it becomes
Speaker 1: this massive grind that just one sociologist. Early sociologist called
Speaker 1: it the iron cage. It just closes around you and
Speaker 1: all the joy goes out of the thing you do
Speaker 1: for love. And if you're lucky, and I think you
Speaker 1: really are, if you're looking, you're smart, and you're brave,
Speaker 1: you are if you find your way back to integrity,
Speaker 1: you usually stop that for a while, and then when
Speaker 1: it comes back, it's purified by that suffering and by
Speaker 1: the search for self, and you come back with more
Speaker 1: integrity than people who've never been torn apart. And then
Speaker 1: I think this is why, um, human and holy is
Speaker 1: I think? So powerful is this? You've found this pure
Speaker 1: core of self after being torn to a million pieces
Speaker 1: by this culture that is all about like, mechanize it,
Speaker 1: monetize it. So man, I think you have a really
Speaker 1: really good time ahead of you as that comes back
Speaker 1: and you can sift away all the crap that got
Speaker 1: put on it. Thank you. I think that's why that album,
Speaker 1: to create a chant record that was like I really
Speaker 1: didn't I just did it for joy. I did it
Speaker 1: for my own healing, to help people find that place
Speaker 1: in themselves. Um and it. You're right, it wasn't about money.
Speaker 1: There was something so pure about that, and I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, trust me, I've I followed that for a
Speaker 1: long time with my music and in that integrity and
Speaker 1: purity of like what wants to come through me. But
Speaker 1: I think I, like you're saying, I've deepened it more
Speaker 1: and more, and sometimes, you know, I have the new
Speaker 1: records called God's Work, and it's basically about, you know,
Speaker 1: if we can if we could move through all what
Speaker 1: you've talked about and done so well, the superstition and
Speaker 1: the doctrine of things and our our division, um, everything
Speaker 1: that divides us, if we could move past that, we
Speaker 1: could get to doing God's work. We could get to
Speaker 1: doing like what we're here to do. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: I'm terrified of what comes through me because I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I really supposed to be talking about? Like I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'm ready. I mean, Leonard Cohen
Speaker 1: had this great line, um, don't really have the courage
Speaker 1: to do what I must do? Uh don't really know?
Speaker 1: Sent me to lift my voice and pray me the
Speaker 1: lights in the land of Plenty shine on the truth someday.
Speaker 1: It's this really beautiful lyric about being chosen as a
Speaker 1: mouthpiece by something holy and the inadequac So many people
Speaker 1: will grab that and say, I'm holy, listen to me,
Speaker 1: I'll be your guru. But people who who respect the
Speaker 1: truth and who have their integrity and who then feel
Speaker 1: themselves being compelled to speak some of that truth as
Speaker 1: sing some of that truth, there's it's it's a huge
Speaker 1: and beautiful risk to put yourself, you know, to be
Speaker 1: a pencil in the hand of God, as Mother Teresa said.
Speaker 1: And like, I have this feeling sometimes two people tell
Speaker 1: me I've said something that helped them, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't actually remember saying that, but something said it.
Speaker 1: And then I think, am I delusional? Do I think
Speaker 1: I grew up around people who said they spoke for God?
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that. But the force of
Speaker 1: like the whatever beauty is, whatever joy is, whatever freedom is,
Speaker 1: whatever truth is, it wants to express itself through us
Speaker 1: and putting down the fear and saying I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do it anyway. That's when stuff comes through that literally
Speaker 1: shifts people's consciousness. And I think that's what you're about doing. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm in awe of the process every time,
Speaker 1: and more in awe the more I do it, because
Speaker 1: it's like it's it is in that aspect of my life,
Speaker 1: like this endless well that if you keep going back
Speaker 1: to the well like it, it doesn't dry up like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's there to be tapped into, which is
Speaker 1: so cool. Um, yeah, so interesting that you were talking
Speaker 1: about you kind of you've shied away from the you are.
Speaker 1: You ran away from the people being the mouthpiece of
Speaker 1: God basically, and then here you are. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I grew up, I grew up Southern Baptist, and you know,
Speaker 1: my my mom is born again Christian, and I respect
Speaker 1: everyone's views on everything like totally to each their own.
Speaker 1: It's just organized religion has never been for me. And
Speaker 1: to like you're saying, to go into this place where
Speaker 1: God has taken on like a whole new meaning for me.
Speaker 1: It's not a person like it's for me, it's an energy,
Speaker 1: it's creativity, it's it's yeah, it's we all are it.
Speaker 1: And um, you know there's no hierarchy of things like
Speaker 1: for me when I speak of God. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: so interesting that word in itself and how triggering it
Speaker 1: can be for so many people. It is a bit uh,
Speaker 1: mind boggling sometimes as I go into you know, this
Speaker 1: world of talking about it with people with such great
Speaker 1: respect and reverence for where everyone is at. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just a it's a new world that's opened up for
Speaker 1: me with the title called God's have to say. I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah it, Um, it's quite beautiful. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean when when you talk about the not being worthy,
Speaker 1: how do you deal with how do you deal with
Speaker 1: those feelings of unworthiness? Well, I know that the eye
Speaker 1: that's saying I'm not worthy is also the eye that
Speaker 1: wants to be. Um. It's an ego. It's the part
Speaker 1: of me that cares what people think. It's the part
Speaker 1: of me that, um wants to do it right or
Speaker 1: whatever when I know there is I have no access
Speaker 1: to absolute right. So I know when I hear I'm
Speaker 1: not worthy in my head. Um, it's part of my
Speaker 1: integrity practice. I always if something stops me or hurts me,
Speaker 1: I say, is it true? Am I sure? Am I
Speaker 1: sure that you know I'm not worthy? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: so and the thought hurts and it stops me from
Speaker 1: expressing myself. So I am going to choose to disbelieve
Speaker 1: it at this point, and then then you enter the
Speaker 1: work of it, the creative work. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: if you can just get past all the little barricades
Speaker 1: in your brain into the part of creation that you're
Speaker 1: meant to do, whether that's raising a child or writing
Speaker 1: songs or whatever, the process of the work takes you
Speaker 1: into a sort of wordless um, even if you're working
Speaker 1: with words. My friend Liz Gilbert says, it's when the
Speaker 1: room falls away and there's just you and the creation
Speaker 1: and the creator. And I like to call that God sometimes,
Speaker 1: but I know that a lot of people don't. I
Speaker 1: don't really care, because it doesn't care what we call it.
Speaker 1: And there you go. That's what I was getting at.
Speaker 1: It doesn't care. And to me, exactly like you, there's
Speaker 1: as much divine in a glass of water as there
Speaker 1: is in a kitten as there is in me. It's
Speaker 1: all God to me. I agree you. You talk about
Speaker 1: integrity challenges, What is that and like? And how does
Speaker 1: one begin to to dive into that without blowing up
Speaker 1: their whole entire life? Yeah. I in the book, I
Speaker 1: use the analogy of an airplane and when it's in
Speaker 1: structural and hegridy. It can fly anywhere it wants. And
Speaker 1: the way I suggest people change is one degree turns.
Speaker 1: So if you're flying a plane ten thousand miles in
Speaker 1: every half hour, you turn by one degree. You won't
Speaker 1: really even notice the shift, but you'll end up in
Speaker 1: a really different place. So very simple way to do
Speaker 1: it is write down a list of things to do
Speaker 1: that you're going to do this week. Look at each
Speaker 1: thing and feel whether that's really an authentic thing for
Speaker 1: you to do. Will it make you happy? Will it
Speaker 1: make you feel whole? Will it make you feel like
Speaker 1: you're really on course connected to yourself? If it doesn't,
Speaker 1: change it a little, you know, or cancel it. So
Speaker 1: whatever it is, move slightly in the direction of something
Speaker 1: that feels more whole. So when I clean the kitchen,
Speaker 1: I also put on music. This makes it feel like
Speaker 1: a dance to me. And that's a one degree turn.
Speaker 1: It's not like you're gonna make the headline with that one,
Speaker 1: but you make tiny, tiny, one degree turns, you end
Speaker 1: up in really different lives. Just keep doing that. That's doable,
Speaker 1: that's doable. I'm gonna go. I'm actually gonna go make
Speaker 1: my list when I'm done. You know, it's just a
Speaker 1: nudge it toward happy and do it in a slightly
Speaker 1: different way, or do a slightly different thing. And the
Speaker 1: journey of a thousand miles is just one step by
Speaker 1: one step by one step. Yeah, I mean there's certain things,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, like cleaning the kitchen, there's certain things
Speaker 1: you have to do kind of quote unquote like it's
Speaker 1: not a half to but there's certain things that you
Speaker 1: want to do to take care of yourself that maybe
Speaker 1: you don't like, or certain things that you have to
Speaker 1: do at this moment that maybe you don't like. So
Speaker 1: how can you make those more enjoyable? What's so weird
Speaker 1: is that when you are focused on integrity um as
Speaker 1: a on wholeness, what makes you feel whole? Like it
Speaker 1: feels very risky for me to give up behaviors that
Speaker 1: the cultures like, what if I really gave up worky,
Speaker 1: like the stuff that was like work? What if I
Speaker 1: really just did what feels like play. I remember struggling
Speaker 1: with this and thinking if I stopped working, you know,
Speaker 1: my I was supporting my kids, I was supporting I.
Speaker 1: What would happen if I stopped working? I did stop working.
Speaker 1: And what happened was it all transformed into a kind
Speaker 1: of play and I started to do better. I actually
Speaker 1: did sort of what you did, um, stepping back. I
Speaker 1: stepped back and wrote a book that was I was
Speaker 1: being so pulled around by publishers that I stepped back
Speaker 1: and wrote a book, a novel about a woman and
Speaker 1: a pig called Diana Herself, which no one wanted and
Speaker 1: no one cared about it. I don't know, like it's
Speaker 1: like on Amazon. But I didn't never do much with
Speaker 1: it except play. And then the next book I wrote
Speaker 1: was The Way of Integrity, and I expected nothing to
Speaker 1: come of that either, but I didn't care anymore. I
Speaker 1: was just playing. And actually the reception to that book
Speaker 1: has been much bigger than any book I've written in
Speaker 1: the past. So what happens is a wave of fear
Speaker 1: followed by a wave of fun, followed by a wave
Speaker 1: of oh my god, is happening. Like I'm not working,
Speaker 1: but it works. I like that I'm not working. I
Speaker 1: mean it's the same thing with like I look at rest.
Speaker 1: You know, Rest has been such a it's been challenging,
Speaker 1: especially for someone like me. And I'm not just myself,
Speaker 1: I know, so many people listening, like especially women, you know,
Speaker 1: to to rest, like when we're supposed to be juggling
Speaker 1: a gazillion things in our lives and doing it all
Speaker 1: really well and beautifully. Um, I joke about that because
Speaker 1: it never looks like that, but it's you know, rest
Speaker 1: is rest is like play like it. They think For me,
Speaker 1: they go hand in hand of like how do I
Speaker 1: you know? I don't. For me, I've I've kind of
Speaker 1: gone through those moments where I've had to get sick
Speaker 1: to rest, which I think was really interesting about COVID.
Speaker 1: I actually I had it not long ago. It was
Speaker 1: first time I I sat there and I was like
Speaker 1: my my type a like achieving brain. I finally went,
Speaker 1: if I can just feel like shit, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: that's goin. I'm achieving something, I'm doing really well. If
Speaker 1: I can let myself feel like shit, I'm achieving. And
Speaker 1: it was the first moment I think I actually felt
Speaker 1: what surrender was truly and that's beautiful. All right, It's
Speaker 1: that time against pause for a quick breath, but we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Welcome back. My friends. Martha Beck and
Speaker 1: I were just talking about the incredible clarity that can
Speaker 1: come from truly surrendering and letting go, which is something
Speaker 1: I had to surrender to when I had COVID. I
Speaker 1: remember thinking it's kind of like joy, I don't to
Speaker 1: let go of this lesson of true surrender and true rest.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna as I'm gonna keep this as a
Speaker 1: reminder in my body to to not have to get
Speaker 1: sick to come to this rest and I have. I've
Speaker 1: started to. I've started to make those one degree turns
Speaker 1: of like I found a show I really love the
Speaker 1: show Grace and Frankie. I've never let myself watch TV
Speaker 1: and I on a Sunday now will like put on
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna, I just want thirty minutes of joy
Speaker 1: of watching Grace and Frankie. And I've done that for
Speaker 1: last like three three Sundays, and it's just I know,
Speaker 1: but is it is for me because it's like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: those are those kind of like I feel like one
Speaker 1: degree turns that you're saying with life, like to make
Speaker 1: it a little bit sweeter, like what are those what
Speaker 1: are those things that can bring you joy? And you're right,
Speaker 1: when it's so different than what culture has taught us
Speaker 1: terrifying and it always rest and play are not on
Speaker 1: the docket in our in our culture, and that's all
Speaker 1: I think life should be. But I think there may
Speaker 1: be a new culture coming up over the horizon where
Speaker 1: some of the structures, they're so dysfunctional, some of the
Speaker 1: social structures, and they're all breaking. And I've been waiting
Speaker 1: for this my whole life. Really, I always had a sense, seriously,
Speaker 1: since I was a kid, that something would shift in
Speaker 1: the way people think during my lifetime, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll study it and be a social scientist. And then
Speaker 1: I was like, no, that's not right. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a mouth deeper, more profound, and more sacred transition UM,
Speaker 1: and it's desperately needed because we're destroying everything. What do
Speaker 1: you what do you envision for the future for now?
Speaker 1: I think that it's got to be. You know, when
Speaker 1: you look at history, it's UM basically a record of
Speaker 1: who could kill the most people fastest, like who killed
Speaker 1: who on one day. We're doing a great job of
Speaker 1: that now, yes we are, and the whole culture is
Speaker 1: set on it. And I always think, you know, it
Speaker 1: takes nothing now to press a button and blow up
Speaker 1: a thousand people. How much work does it take to
Speaker 1: keep a thousand people alive and happy, to feed, clothes,
Speaker 1: clean them. There's this. The real power of human life
Speaker 1: is that it's the sustenance of life, not the destruction
Speaker 1: of it. And we've lived in a culture that glorifies
Speaker 1: destruction for the last few thousand years and we have
Speaker 1: to come around. And there are many, many other cultures
Speaker 1: besides the destructive ones who were completely focused on nurture
Speaker 1: and the sustenance of balance and harmony in the ecosystem
Speaker 1: with other creatures, with each other. And it's a much
Speaker 1: more balanced male female. There's much more feminine energy in
Speaker 1: it than our culture, and it has so it's shifting
Speaker 1: towards that. There's the loudest things are the ones that
Speaker 1: are still killing people. You know, check the news, you'll
Speaker 1: want to die. But silently everywhere in the world people
Speaker 1: are watching atrocities and being able to see them in
Speaker 1: real time and communicate with the people who are experiencing them.
Speaker 1: And so the ethos of nurture and love and balance
Speaker 1: and come to me. I love it in the Bible
Speaker 1: when Jesus says, come unto me, all you that labor
Speaker 1: and are heavy, heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Speaker 1: I remember, and I'm not any organized religion either, but
Speaker 1: I love Jesus and it's like the concept weight. That's
Speaker 1: what he wants. He I'll give you rest. That's the
Speaker 1: promise of the divine, not I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: bright lights, big city. I will give you rest, and
Speaker 1: then I will give you life more abundantly, not a
Speaker 1: life of more money, but a life that itself. The life, energy,
Speaker 1: the joy, the beauty, the love. Those will become more
Speaker 1: and more abundant. So it's rest and play. And I
Speaker 1: think we're moving towards that. I hope we are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope so too. Yeah. A lot of us get
Speaker 1: that confused when we think of abundance, like we've always
Speaker 1: been taught to think of money, not of the fullness
Speaker 1: of life. That's the culture, but our nature is you know,
Speaker 1: when the when the white people moved into South Africa,
Speaker 1: the Cooisson who had lived there for a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: years without a problem, they're like, you guys are crazy.
Speaker 1: You're always afraid that life won't give you what you
Speaker 1: need to live. It always gives us what we need
Speaker 1: to live. And they thought that the farmers who hoarded,
Speaker 1: you know, the white farmers who hoarded grain for the
Speaker 1: winter or whatever. They're just like, that's a mental illness,
Speaker 1: and I actually think they were right. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're far off from that at all. You know, you
Speaker 1: really advocate for questioning our beliefs and are really kind
Speaker 1: of sorting through what does not align with our integrity.
Speaker 1: How do we do that when our beliefs like we
Speaker 1: truly believe, like our core beliefs, we truly believe that
Speaker 1: they're true. I mean we see it all the time
Speaker 1: now with you know, people are so split, there's so divided,
Speaker 1: and they're so latched onto like what I believe is true.
Speaker 1: How do we, like, how do we get out of
Speaker 1: our own bullshit when it comes. Yeah, the brain really
Speaker 1: locks onto the bullshit as a way of defending itself
Speaker 1: when it feels afraid. So, wherever you have someone who's
Speaker 1: saying I am right and you are wrong, and I
Speaker 1: will always be right and I will never question anything,
Speaker 1: guarantee that that that gripped belief is based in fear.
Speaker 1: And you know you can't change if you try to
Speaker 1: tell someone who's in that you're wrong. I think differently,
Speaker 1: they will just double down, They'll just get even worse
Speaker 1: as we're seeing everywhere, right, But if you in yourself,
Speaker 1: you can change it. So if you sit and think,
Speaker 1: like I've been doing this thing that I call hardcore
Speaker 1: kindness because I've been reading about anxiety and how self
Speaker 1: criticism drives anxiety and a lot of other illnesses. So
Speaker 1: I've ah, I still have self critical that's not integrity.
Speaker 1: So instead, every time I have a self critical thought,
Speaker 1: I try to see if the opposite is true. And
Speaker 1: I really believe those self critical thoughts like you don't
Speaker 1: work hard enough, get up, get going. I really believe
Speaker 1: them so deeply that I've never questioned them. But I've
Speaker 1: been like, looking, Okay, is that self critical? Is it
Speaker 1: fear or is it love? That's the simple question. It's
Speaker 1: not it's fear. Okay. You can let go of any
Speaker 1: belief that is based in fear and you will get happier.
Speaker 1: You can't force anyone else to do it. But in
Speaker 1: the warmth of your inner peace, if you walk through
Speaker 1: the world in a place of inner peace because you're
Speaker 1: dropping those gripped beliefs, remember entrainment, the energy of your
Speaker 1: peace will begin to draw other people's energy in and
Speaker 1: they'll start to shift and be more willing to let
Speaker 1: go of the beliefs that come from fear in um.
Speaker 1: And I used to think that you could change the
Speaker 1: world with policies and wars, and now I think that
Speaker 1: that is literally the only way we changed the world.
Speaker 1: M M. I love that. Did you just mentioned to
Speaker 1: think there's a there's a song on my album called
Speaker 1: the Only Way and it's the only way to get
Speaker 1: there is if we hold each other's hand, And that's
Speaker 1: that's so true. I'm like, I love creative energy too,
Speaker 1: because you were on the same wavelength of creating very
Speaker 1: similar things in very different ways, and it's just that's
Speaker 1: the why. Yeah, it's such an honor and talk about entrainment.
Speaker 1: I'm like, sitting here with you and your peace, and
Speaker 1: I think that's why I've looked so forward to this,
Speaker 1: because I you just have this peace and grace and
Speaker 1: playfulness and it's just infectious to be around. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on here. It's been an
Speaker 1: absolute joy. And I I'm really honored that you would
Speaker 1: say we're doing the same work in different ways because
Speaker 1: your work is so deep and profound and is shifting
Speaker 1: so many lives and I'm just so lucky to get
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Thank you. I'm such an honor.
Speaker 1: I Before I let you go, I always ask my guests,
Speaker 1: because music is such a big deal to me, I
Speaker 1: ask you, I want to talk about your holy five.
Speaker 1: Do you have five songs that either from your past,
Speaker 1: your your whole life, or just right now that you
Speaker 1: are digging and why? Uh? Yeah, there's one. It's not
Speaker 1: a song. It's part of the soundtrack from the Moving
Speaker 1: the mission. It's called On Earth As it Is in
Speaker 1: Heaven by Ennio Morricone. It's a glorious, glorious instrumental piece.
Speaker 1: I love Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. And there's
Speaker 1: a song by Cheryl Wheeler called Gandhi Buddha and it's
Speaker 1: the joyful song. It's like I must have been gone
Speaker 1: to your Buddha in a past life to get to
Speaker 1: love you. Oh that's Cools the Brown Wrist and it's
Speaker 1: so happy. Yeah, check that one out. Love Itself by
Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen incredible. Love Itself is about an experience he
Speaker 1: had when he was a monk, and it's it's transcendent,
Speaker 1: it's gorgeous. And then a song my son who has
Speaker 1: down syndrome. I heard him singing in his room when
Speaker 1: he was in his teens, and he found this song
Speaker 1: by Bibo Norman called Great Light of the World, and
Speaker 1: he would sing that. He still sings that. He's thirty
Speaker 1: three and he sings that a lot, and I felt
Speaker 1: like it sort of brought the Great Light of the
Speaker 1: World into the house. And I love that song too.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's so cool. Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing those. I'm gonna and definitely on my list. I
Speaker 1: love it, I love it. Thank you so much. Honestly,
Speaker 1: this was such an honor, and yeah, you're just a
Speaker 1: fantastic human. Thank you for lighting the way for so
Speaker 1: many of us. The honor was aline and back at you,
Speaker 1: and that, my beautiful friends, brings my visit with a
Speaker 1: wonderfully wise Martha Peck two and in very sadly again.
Speaker 1: Her latest book is called The Way of Integrity and
Speaker 1: Finding the Path to Your True Self, and it is
Speaker 1: very much worth your time to pick up a copy.
Speaker 1: I promise it's life changing. It made a massive massive
Speaker 1: impact on me, as did this conversation. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it as much as I did. I would love
Speaker 1: to know your thoughts too, so please share them in
Speaker 1: the comments and reviews where you listen, and yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: see you soon. You guys, take care of one and other.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Holy Human, I'll be joined
Speaker 1: by author Brian Scott, who will share the near death
Speaker 1: experience that put him on the path to write his
Speaker 1: fascinating book, The Reality Revolution. You won't want to miss
Speaker 1: his life changing and mind expanding take on how we
Speaker 1: can hack our reality. You won't want to miss this episode.
Speaker 1: I had the best time chatting with him. He's truly
Speaker 1: truly fascinating, So join us. It's super cool stuff. Holy
Speaker 1: Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes on
Speaker 1: the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: the podcast that matter most to you.