Bewildered: "Authorize Your Knowing"

Podcast: Bewildered
Hosts: Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan
Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Episode Overview

In this rich, funny, and deeply sincere episode of Bewildered, Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan explore the central theme of authorizing your own knowing—reclaiming your instinctive, internal wisdom from the forces of cultural conditioning and external authority. Inspired by Dr. Lisa Miller’s research on spirituality and mental health, the hosts discuss how society teaches us to distrust our own guidance and why rekindling that sense of inner knowing is vital for personal healing and the co-creation of a compassionate, sustainable world.

The hosts' signature blend of personal anecdotes, sharp humor, and philosophical musings creates a lively and relatable conversation designed to empower listeners who feel just as "bewildered" by life as they do.

Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Opening Stories & Household Chaos

(00:54 – 10:45)

• Tool Aprons, DIY, and Domestic Disasters:
  Martha’s attempt at DIY plumbing repair leads to flooding and chaos—serving as a metaphor for navigating life’s "walls" without always knowing what lies behind them.
  • "I take this massive portable saw and I put it to the board and I turn it... and the ricochet from it throws me across the closet." — Martha [03:25]
  • Humorously highlights the unpredictability and “kickback” of trying to take action without full information, and the necessity (and comedy) of improvisation.
• Children and Language:
  Their daughter, Lila, learns new vocabulary from witnessing the chaos, dropping her first F-bomb in response to the disaster.
  • "She walked in and saw the water spraying out of that closet and said in her little baby voice, ‘fucking shit.’" — Martha [05:26]
• The Relatability of Everyday Struggles:
  These stories set the tone for the episode, blending vulnerability with light-heartedness and introducing the idea that real life (and real knowing) is messy.

2. Navigating Bureaucracy: Culture vs. Knowing

(10:21 – 17:00)

• Moving, Pharmacies, and DMVs:
  Rowan shares her experience as a people-pleasing Australian navigating American bureaucracy, whose encounters with pharmacy and DMV staff embody the tension between following "the rules" and seeking human connection or intuition.
  • "I was ready for the full CVS experience... No. And I was like, wow, I’m sure getting the CVS experience here." — Rowan [11:47]
  • Encounters warmth, helpfulness, and unexpected assistance—people going beyond bureaucratic scripts.
• Culture as a Limiting Authority:
  Martha and Rowan joke about the external authorities that control access to everyday necessities, highlighting how reliance on external validation or permission can be both restrictive and arbitrary.

3. Introducing "Authorize Your Knowing"

(18:27 – 25:38)

• Interview with Dr. Lisa Miller:
  Martha recounts her interview with Dr. Lisa Miller, Columbia University psychologist and scientist, who found statistically significant positive effects of spirituality on mental health, particularly for women.

  • "She got up in academic meetings and said: spirituality has this incredibly positive effect on people’s mental health. And she got pilloried for it... but she wouldn’t let go because she knows she’s got the science right." — Martha [20:03]

• The Phrase that Shifted Everything:
  Both Martha and Rowan were struck by Dr. Miller’s advice: "Authorize your knowing."

  • "You had taken one note and it said, all caps, bold, ‘authorize your knowing.’ And I was like, that one hit us both so hard in such a good way..." — Martha [21:18]

4. What Is "Knowing"? Culture vs. Inner Wisdom

(22:00 – 33:50)

• Nature of Knowing:
  Not logical or factual, but a deep, inward sense of what is true for oneself.
  • "It is not a mental way of knowing. It’s a deep, inward sense of something being true or not true." — Martha [22:14]
  • Marriage of humor and insight: "[Life coaching could be] someone comes in and says, ‘I don’t know what to do with my life.’ You just say, ‘Oh, yes you do.’ They start to cry, and then they give you money. And that’s the whole profession." — Martha [23:07]
• How Culture Disrupts Inner Knowing:
  From early childhood, society teaches us to ignore our instincts in favor of fitting in—leading to estrangement from our genuine sense of what is right for us.
  • "A baby cries and is told not to cry and sucks it up... that divorce from the self, the split, starts really young." — Martha [27:16]
• Types of Knowing:
  • External knowing (data, factual information).
  • Internal knowing (personal truths, life directions).
  • Only some things can be known inwardly; culture tells us otherwise.

5. Restoring and Trusting Your Knowing

(33:51 – 44:00)

• The Feeling of Knowing:
  Described as a calm, relaxed sureness that occurs even amid cultural pressure to conform or obey.

  • "What happens is you just sink into a kind of rightness that feels profoundly relaxing. And that’s how you know it’s right." — Martha [36:45]

• Muscle-Building & Authorizing:
  Authorizing knowing is like using a new muscle; you must both listen for your knowing and act on it, even (or especially) when it contradicts cultural norms.

• Personal and Dramatic Example:
  Martha shares a near-death surgery experience where an anesthetist chose not to follow orders but trusted his inner knowing, which was ultimately correct and potentially life-saving.

  • "He looked at me and he said, ‘I was going to give you more medication, and something just said, no, don’t do that. She’s happy.’" — Martha [35:10]
  • Rowan: "Talk about the most loaded situation... and to go against, like, that’s massive." [35:36]

6. Why the Culture Distrusts Individual Knowing

(44:42 – 50:11)

• Culture Sees Inner Knowing as Seditious:
  • "To me, I reckon that the culture is threatened by our knowing. The culture, for the culture, our knowing is perfidious." — Rowan [45:09]
  • "It’s more than that. It’s seditious. It’s insurrectionist." — Martha [45:12]
• The Authority Pyramid:
  Culture establishes a hierarchy where we’re trained to look up the pyramid for validation, making self-authorization a cultural taboo and even a revolutionary act.

7. Escaping the Pyramid: Charisma and True Authority

(48:38 – 52:07)

• The Paradox of Charisma:

  • Genuine inner knowing and authority not only liberate the individual, but paradoxically, others start to treat them as authorities.
  • Roots in sociology: Max Weber’s concept of charisma ("the person who is listening to the gods and not to anybody else"), leading to new social groupings forming around those rooted in their knowing.
  • "[Charisma] literally meant the person who is listening to the gods and not to anybody else." — Martha [48:40]

• Dangers of Being Propped Up:
  Even as people try to build pyramids around those who know, true teachers continually hand back authority to others, sustaining real community rather than hierarchy.

  • "The more you give people their own authority back, the more they love you, the more they value you." — Martha [50:27]
  • "If you don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m an authority figure in the hierarchy... what you experience with people who are in that state is just love." — Martha [51:13]

8. Practical Steps to Authorize Your Own Knowing

(52:35 – 61:08)

• Trust and Act on Your Knowing:

  • Make choices based on your deepest sense of rightness, even when reason or society argue otherwise.
  • "That’s maybe the key to how we come to our senses... is someone presents you with an opportunity. Culture says, ‘Absolutely!’ But I turned in [to my knowing]." — Martha [58:38]
  • Examples include major life and career decisions, such as turning down prestigious offers when instinct says otherwise.
  • "I just can’t do it. And they’re like, ‘Why not?’" — Martha [58:45]

• The “Author” in Authority:

  • True authority is being the "author" of your life—speaking and acting from your own knowing, not from repetition of what you’ve been given.

9. The Magic and Synchronicity of Living from Knowing

(61:40 – 67:13)

• Synchronicity & Life’s Game:
  Acting on your knowing changes the “code” of your experience—opening up to synchronicity, magic, and unexplainable good fortune.
  • "It’s like you are a character in the video game who learns to write code for the video game. Because that knowing is writing the code." — Martha [66:47]
  • "Here is a synchronicity, and here is impossible scenario taking place that you would never have thought possible." — Rowan [63:11]

10. Quotes, Literature & Summing Up

[Throughout, Highlighted at End]

• Anais Nin:
  • Referencing the knowing and the children’s book/song by Ani DiFranco:
    "Underneath all that I know is the knowing." — Rowan quoting Ani DiFranco [53:49]
• Upanishads:
  • "Not that which the eye sees, but that whereby the eye can see. Know that to be Brahma, the Eternal..." — Martha [54:35]
• Byron Katie:
  • "Do you know to do it?… I just knew to do it. Don’t you know to do it?" — Martha sharing Katie’s words [57:16]
• On Not Explaining:
  • "I just knew to do it. And they can just... put it in their pipes and smoke it." — Martha [66:06]

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "Authorize your knowing." — [21:18]
  The episode’s central phrase, first credited to Lisa Miller and resonant for both hosts.
• "You know exactly what to do with your life. And then they start to cry, and then they give you money, and that’s the whole profession." — Martha [23:07]
• "It’s not a mental way of knowing. It’s a deep, inward sense of something being true or not true." — Martha [22:14]
• "The more you give people their own authority back, the more they love you, the more they value you. But it’s not the kind of... transactional relationship that you get on the pyramid." — Martha [50:27]
• "When you authorize your knowing... it’s like you are a character in the video game who learns to write code for the video game." — Martha [66:47]

Segment Guide / Timestamps

• 00:54 – 10:45: Opening stories, house chaos, setting the tone
• 10:21 – 17:00: Bureaucratic run-ins, culture vs. connection
• 18:27 – 25:38: Lisa Miller and the impact of spirituality, coining “authorize your knowing”
• 22:00 – 33:50: Defining and reclaiming knowing; culture’s interference
• 33:51 – 44:00: Trusting and acting on knowing; building the muscle; clinical example
• 44:42 – 50:11: Culture's fear of personal knowing; the authority pyramid
• 48:38 – 52:07: Charisma, groups, and how pyramids form around authentic knowing
• 52:35 – 61:08: Practical steps for authorizing knowing; key stories of choosing knowing over culture
• 61:40 – 67:13: The magic and video game metaphor; synchronicities; closing reflections

Tone & Style

This episode’s tone is intimate, hilarious, and earnest. Martha and Rowan’s playful banter, self-effacing humor, and unpretentious wisdom are as notable as the content itself. They frequently interrupt each other with jokes, gentle ribbing, and pop culture references—making the episode as much a comedy as a philosophical treatise.

For Listeners

If you often feel lost in a culture that prizes external validation over inner truth, or wonder how to trust yourself after being taught not to—you’re in good company here. Martha and Rowan won’t just tell you why it’s important to reclaim your own knowing; they’ll make you laugh, wince, and feel a whole lot less alone in the process.

Final message:
You don’t need permission to know what’s right for you. Authorize your own knowing—and the world will transform, from the inside out.

Memorable Sign-Off
"I just knew to do it. And if they don’t like it, they can put it in their pipes and smoke it." — Martha [66:06]