Awkward Moments

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bewildered with Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan

Episode: Awkward Moments
Date: November 13, 2024
Hosts: Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan

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Overview

This playful and insightful episode explores the paradoxical power of awkward moments: the situations that make us cringe but, when handled openly, can spark genuine connection and transformation. Martha and Rowan share personal (sometimes hilarious, sometimes mortifying) stories, debate the cultural narratives around embarrassment, and ultimately propose that these moments offer a “portal” to rescuing both personal authenticity and collective well-being. The episode is full of lively banter, vulnerable storytelling, and philosophical questioning—always with humor and warmth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Awkward Moments Matter

• Martha and Rowan discuss how modern culture disconnects us from our instinctive selves and sets rigid standards that make embarrassment feel dangerous.
• The episode argues that awkward moments “break the rules” of culture and, if embraced, can dissolve ego barriers and build new bonds.

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2. Personal Awkward Moments: Laughter and Empathy

Martha’s Pill Story

• [01:48–07:29] Martha recounts taking an unfamiliar, soggy pill found on a friend's bathroom floor, only to realize hers were still in her pocket. She discovers later it was a toothpaste tablet.
  • “I just took it and then I checked my hip-pocket and guess what was there. All my medication, obviously. So now this is what I'm trying to figure out, why I would just take a limp, soggy pill off the floor... Sucking pills off floors. But not like an addict, just like an idiot.” — Martha [05:44]
  • Rowan responds with mock concern and delight at Martha’s blunder, underscoring the absurdity and relatability of such human moments.

Rowan’s Turmeric Mishap

• [10:17–13:56] Rowan confesses to prepping for the podcast by consuming “eaty vitamins” (nutritional food chunks), only to discover as she began to sing that her entire mouth had turned orange from turmeric.
  • “I realized that the entirety of my inside mouth is bright orange.” — Rowan [13:53]
  • The ensuing laughter segues perfectly into the theme of feeling persistently odd or socially off-kilter.

Accidental Exposure (The Babysitter Story)

• [16:30–21:54] Rowan narrates her most embarrassing moment: her child, hiding shyly, inadvertently pulls down Rowan’s pajama pants in front of the new babysitter.
  • “I moved forward, my pajama pants came down. ... We both tried very hard to pretend it hadn't happened. That's what you do, don't you? But it did happen.” — Rowan [21:24]
  • The babysitter and Rowan defaulted to pretending nothing happened—a model for how most people handle awkwardness.

Martha’s Writers Group Fart Story

• [23:00–27:32] Martha shares an excruciating incident at her first writers' group meeting, where someone attempted a discreet fart that turned out to be “loud... it went on a long time,” and Martha, not realizing what happened, scanned for animals, making it even more awkward.
  • “I reacted. I thought it was an animal... eyes wide in my chair, as if I'd seen some sort of... I was in a rictus of horror.” — Martha [27:02]

“Pussy” in Class: Martha’s Accidental Vulgarity

• [29:40–32:58] Martha describes mistakenly saying “pussy” instead of “pushy” during a formal lecture, then dramatically walking out and re-entering to own the awkwardness.
  • “I think you'll find I'm less pussy than he can be. ... The silence was dead golden. So I closed my briefcase... and just let the door shut behind me.” — Martha [31:10]
  • Her open, humorous handling of the gaffe forges a new bond with her students.

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3. The Culture of Embarrassment

• Martha and Rowan explore how awkwardness and embarrassment are “taboo-breakers” that threaten the ego’s control—thus culture trains us to feel deep shame and to avoid or conceal such moments.

• Noteworthy quote:

  • “When you break a taboo... you’re bringing everyone into breaking the rules of the culture.” — Rowan [33:00]

• They discuss a study demonstrating that watching someone else be embarrassed (like singing the Star-Spangled Banner badly) causes strong empathy and embarrassment in observers, thanks to “mirror neurons.” [36:35]

• Comedy is often seen as “lesser” than seriousness; but the hosts challenge this, connecting openness to embarrassment with healing, magic, and even spiritual enlightenment.

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4. Awkward Moments as Portals to Connection

• They propose a “two-doors” theory: when embarrassing things happen, you can choose between the path of tragedy (ego, withdrawal, denial) or the path of comedy (authenticity, connection, laughter).

  • “When you have your embarrassing moment, two doors appear before you... tragedy is one and comedy is the other.” — Rowan [41:01]

• Drawing on Shakespeare, they note that tragedy results when ego is clung to, while comedy and magic come from yielding and letting others in on the joke.

  • “If you walk around with a mind primed for comedy... it makes me think of when I learned karate in Phoenix...” — Martha [47:23]

• Rowan: “When we see someone embarrassed, we get into that excruciating place. And when that person seems at ease... it is a catharsis because we’re all afraid of doing something stupid.” [40:07]

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5. Community, Compassion, and Cultural Change

• Both hosts argue that healing begins with personal acceptance and extends to community. They highlight their "Wilder" community as a space for belonging and mutual acceptance.

• They reference Audre Lorde's powerful quote:

  • “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.” — Audre Lorde (quoted by Martha) [52:31]

• Radical self-acceptance and storytelling with others can transform humiliation into shared magic and resilience. Even imagined “future community” (like writing for unseen readers) can empower.

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6. Closing Reflections and Practical Wisdom

• Key Takeaway: When awkwardness strikes, choose connection over shame. Embrace your humanity and share your vulnerability—it's both a relief and a subversive act.
  • “Hang with people who love you. Hang with people who accept you as you are. Always remember that nothing you've fully accepted about yourself can be used to humiliate you.” — Martha [61:52]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I was just like, alright, here we go. God knows what kind of evening I might have had.”
  — Martha, on taking the mystery pill [05:19]

• “My own special sauce. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
  — Martha, on her quirky spelling of ‘awkward’ [15:02]

• “We’re both weird. We’re both weirdos. We’ve established that. And actually, it’s quite a good segue into today's topic.”
  — Rowan [14:37]

• “Awkward moments. We've all had them. Some of us are having this spelled word right now.”
  — Martha [14:43]

• “The ego is very rigid. ... The moment you accept that you have been embarrassed, a part of your ego liquefies and sloughs off.”
  — Martha [34:39]

• “In embarrassment, in laughing at yourself when you break a taboo, you’re breaking down the culture. So isn’t it in the culture’s interest to make sure that we are, like, magical fairies dancing about? He’s crazy.”
  — Rowan [46:21]

• “If you walk around, instead of being afraid to be humiliated or embarrassed and thereby having a life primed for tragedy, if you walk around with a mind primed for comedy, for opportunities to let go of ego...”
  — Martha [47:23]

• “Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.”
  — Martha, quoting Audre Lorde [52:31]

• “Even if you've made a fool of yourself and then grabbed your ego with both hands and run away, it's never too late to go back...”
  — Martha [59:22]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:48–07:29]: Martha’s “mystery pill” saga
• [10:17–13:56]: Rowan’s turmeric mouth incident
• [16:30–21:54]: Pajama pants-down story
• [23:00–27:32]: Writer’s group fart story
• [29:40–32:58]: “Pussy” vs. “pushy” lectern incident
• [33:00–47:26]: Awkwardness as taboo-breaking; comedy vs. tragedy; cultural narratives
• [52:31]: Audre Lorde quote; radical self-acceptance
• [59:03–62:04]: The necessity of a safe, accepting community

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The Bewildered Approach

Martha and Rowan thread humor, vulnerability, and philosophical inquiry throughout, making it feel safe—and even delightful—to confront the most mortifying parts of being human. Their advice: Accept yourself, laugh at yourself, and surround yourself with people (or even just an imagined audience) who accept you too. In doing so, you dissolve shame and build exactly the kind of authentic, caring world we long for.

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Stay wild, stay awkward, and remember: Nothing you accept about yourself can be used to diminish you.

Transcript

[A]

Do you ever lie awake burning with embarrassment about your most awkward moments?

[B]

In today's episode of Bewildered, we are going to talk about how those awful, awkward moments when your child pulled your pants down in front of the babysitter could actually be the moments that give us access to personal and maybe even global revolution.

[A]

Come figure out how those two go together.

[B]

See you on the other side.

[A]

So, as some of you listeners may know, a few months ago, Ro and I started some something called the Wilder Community, which is kind of an online village where people like us who want to find our true nature, even if it peels us away from culture, can get together, commune, make friends, and do things.

[B]

We have all kinds of regular events in there that are just so fun. We have a weekly hang where we get together and we have conversation and we make art in our own little rooms, in our own little places. But all together, there are group meditations that Martha leads that are crazy powerful, and there are just all kinds of, like, monthly themes and, like, personal development stuff that we work through together, and just a hive of activity and connection among really wonderful people.

[A]

Yeah. So if you're feeling drawn to belong to a community in these troubled times, give Wilder a try. It'[e-mail] all one word, and we hope we'll see you there. Hi, I'm Martha Beck.

[B]

And I'm Rowan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the podcast for people trying to figure it out. What are you trying to figure out?

[A]

Oh, me? Well, an incident occurred in a friend's apartment recently.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And it made me question my judgment and what's become of my. Well, my mind, to be frank. Because here's what happened. We were going out to dinner, and I have to take medication at very specific times of day to cope with my MCAs. If nothing else. Anybody else out there in MCAs suffer?

[B]

They are, but they don't know it yet because it's something that's just.

[A]

Yeah, nobody knows. It's hard to diagnose. Anyway, so I carefully tucked away a couple of these little pills I was supposed to take, which aren't really familiar to me.

[B]

Well, when you say tucked away, it really makes it sound like you're doing illicit drugs. I just tucked them away.

[A]

I was wearing pants that had fake pockets. You know, sometimes on women's pants, this is part of misogyny. They put what appears to be a pocket, but it never really is.

[B]

No, that's right.

[A]

Like just a tiny little slub of fabric that could be the greatest Trick.

[B]

The devil ever pulled was making fake pockets on pants.

[A]

That's true. That's true. Wears them all, all the time. So there was this tiny pocket around my hip area where I could stuffed a couple of pills and I could just like poke my butt and see, oh, they're there. I can take them at the appointed time. I just have to remember I'm putting a little reminder on my watch. So I'll take them during dinner.

[B]

Just randomly poking your own butt at various times to make sure they're still there.

[A]

It's what I do best. So as you well know. So then I went in to do my prophylactic pee before we went to the restaurant. You always got to do the prophylactic pee.

[B]

You really must stop saying that because I know that, I know that it's okay.

[A]

It's preventative pee.

[B]

Yeah, I know, but it just sounds like you're peeing into a condom.

[A]

Oh, who says I'm not?

[B]

This has already gone weird.

[A]

I know, I know. I have problems to deal with and that's why we're here. So anyway, I do my pee and I come out and then one of the people in the apartment was going in to do her own. You know, we do these things. We pee in preparation for everything. Everybody knows that peeing is the most sacred act of preparation.

[B]

I. None of that is the problem. Just stop using the word prophylactic.

[A]

You just, you just did. You did. I'm not weird. They're weird. So the next person in line was going into the bathroom and she said, oh, a pill. And she reached down and she plucked a pill from the bathroom floor. And I thought, oh, when I pulled down my pants, the little slub pocket spewed out its contents and now my pill is on the floor. I was like, you know, this is getting nerve wracking. I just, I'm not going to do this right. I should just take it right now. So I said, oh, let me see it. And she handed it over and it didn't look familiar. That's on one hand. But on the other hand it was sort of wet and soggy. So I thought, oh, it's lost its little outer coating. So this is a pill with which I'm not familiar. So I thought, okay, my pill is dissolving. I have to take it now. So I just took it and then I checked my hip pocket and guess what was there. All my medication, obviously. So now this is what I'm trying to figure out, why I would just take a limp, soggy pillow. Oh, my God. From someone else's bathroom floor without even, like. I didn't even vomit or anything. I was just like, all right, here we go. God knows what kind of evening I might have had.

[B]

That. By the way, there's so many things wrong with you.

[A]

I know, I know. I was considered once to be a person of some intellectual capacity, and it's gone. And now I'm just, like, sucking pills off floors. But not like an addict, just like an idiot.

[B]

I just love. And the way you told me this story, like, I. I enjoyed the way you played it out for our listeners. But when you told me this story, you were like, so I found a pill on our friend's floor and I took it. I was just like, what? What is going on in your mind that you would just take. At least poke your own bottom first and see if you're missing one. I love that you were like, okay, so somehow you've pulled down your pants. The fake pocket. It fell out, by the way. That was a stupid system then. So it's fallen out. It's somehow gotten wet enough on the floor.

[A]

I'd splashed a little when I washed my hands. I know it's not good. It's not like I'm. It's not like I've figured it out, Ro. I'm trying to figure it out. That's why I'm on this podcast. I am trying to figure it out. So then here's what was even worse. I had to fess up to the. What pills do you have just sort of lying on the floor for fairly long periods of time?

[B]

What's the name of the pills you keep on the bathroom floor?

[A]

Are you on? And it was a best case scenario from then on because of what it turned out. At least this is what she told me. I've never heard of it before and maybe I should have, like, interrogated further before just accepting it. She said, oh, that was a toothpaste pill. Yeah. And I did notice it was a little minty.

[B]

Speechless.

[A]

Yeah. It just gave me pause because the next time I see a random pill on someone else's bathroom floor, am I just going to be down there like an anteater, just sucking it into my face? What's going wrong with me?

[B]

Oh, Marty.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Oh, Marty.

[A]

I should. Okay. I shouldn't go anywhere without a handler.

[B]

You shouldn't go anywhere. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about.

[A]

What are you trying to figure out? Let's take some of the pressure off me so that I'm not the only person trying to figure it out. What are you trying to figure out?

[B]

Well, I had this whole thing prepared that was about the time that I found you Googling people who have hair all over their body.

[A]

But that's fascinating.

[B]

Which is still funny.

[A]

That does not need figuring out. There are people with hair all over their bodies. Mic drop. Mind blown. Just Google.

[B]

And it wasn't at first time.

[A]

Not by any means, nor will it be the last.

[B]

It's funny when you say it, but you have to imagine people who have, like, just typed out in Google with no function. People who have hair all over their body.

[A]

Well, okay, first of all, all of us have hair all over our bodies pretty much. So we all fit into that. And the other thing is, they're beautiful, lovely human beings who deserve our respect, our attention, our compassion. And, like, how could I not be invested in their cause?

[B]

I've cried.

[A]

No, and seriously, we're not. We are not, like, poking fun at people who have this genetic aberration.

[B]

There's laughing at you, babe.

[A]

Okay, good.

[B]

I was just wondering if maybe the. There was something in the pill that. That raised.

[A]

Made me grow hair all over my body?

[B]

No, it just made you more curious about it. Anyway, that's not what I'm trying to figure out, as it turns out, because even though I'm literally crying with laughter remembering that what I am trying to.

[A]

Figure out, we should just publish my Google list, because that was one of the least interesting.

[B]

There is a thing that you once Googled and it was in no way sexual at all. But I will never be able to say it on the podcast because it would embarrass you so much and require too much backstory. But let me just say, finding people who have hair who have hair all over their body. Someone's Google search list is not definitely not the weirdest. But hey, I'm about to embarrass myself. So listen. Yes, here's what I'm actually trying to figure out. Please, I have a. I have a situation that happens to me regularly that you don't know about.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

But it hasn't happened before, just when we're about to make a podcast. And today that has happened. And what it is is that I've got a really great system going where I get these vitamins that I call my ET vitamins. They're not. They're not pills such as you might find on a friend's bathroom floor. And immediately.

[A]

What could it hurt?

[B]

Rather, they are little chunks of food that come in a bag and it's easier for your body to absorb nutrients when it's in food than when it's in a capsule form, especially.

[A]

By any chance, do these say Dorito on the package? Because I do find it easier to, you know, access vitamins when they are in these little packs of food.

[B]

As you say, I know for a fact that when you take your handfuls of supplements that you take every day, you were saying in your head, M and M's, M and M's, M and M's.

[A]

M and M's. I have MCAs. I get to take all the supplements I want. And I don't chew anyway. Go on, keep talking about. I could probably eat almost anything without chewing now, given the number of supplements I have to take.

[B]

M&M's.

[A]

What happened to you with your eating vitamins?

[B]

So then when I'm up in my room getting ready to go on a podcast, thinking about the podcast, getting in the mood for the podcast, I get hungry sometimes. Hey, I'm only human, all right?

[A]

It happens.

[B]

It happens. It happens to the best of us. I get hungry, and this is where the brilliant system comes in. Then I think, oh, I know what I've got to eat. My little chunks of nutrients in my little bag.

[A]

Should be on a menu item. It's so sad. You don't own a fast food restaurant because you don't.

[B]

Well, I do. It's cold. My top drawer with my little eaty vitamins in it.

[A]

Little chunks of food is, I think, the most beautiful name for a restaurant I've ever heard.

[B]

All right, so what you don't know about. Well, you actually do know because you like my chunks of food, but is that one of the most important things that we can get in our lives is turmeric? Our bodies need turmeric.

[A]

What?

[B]

We need turmeric.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because it's an anti inflammatory. It's.

[A]

I know, but how many people have access to that around the world? Why would that evolve as individuals?

[B]

Dude, the spice corridor thing. Turmeric. We all have turmeric.

[A]

But is it like a flower or bark? Or.

[B]

Do you not know what turmeric is?

[A]

It's a spice. I know it's a spice. It turns everything yellow. But how? What is it? Is it a pill you might find on the floor or is it bark you might chew off a tree? What?

[B]

It is a spice. It is. Oh, God. I don't know what it's from.

[A]

No, actually I do.

[B]

It's a root. It's like. It's like ginger. But anyway, they dry it out. They dry it out. They Grind it up, and they make it into a powder or little chunk of food. Little chunk of food. Little chunk of nutrition right there.

[A]

Little chunks of food. A restaurant.

[B]

And then I ate about four of them. And then I'm also in a great mood. And so I began to sing a lot as I was getting set up. Doop, do, do, do, do. But not like doop, do, do, do. I can't do what I was doing because as I opened my mouth wide to let out the beautiful notes, I realized that the entirety of my inside mouth is bright orange.

[A]

Oh, okay. Come on. Come on. Open up.

[B]

No.

[A]

Open up.

[B]

Because it turns out people do actually watch this on YouTube. I didn't think they did. And then I went there and discovered. Oh, my God, there's all these people who watch this. This nonsense.

[A]

I know. By the way, your mama is in the house with us. I was not saying I'm your mama because that's gross. What I was saying, you need to show your mama the inside of your mouth. If it's bright orange, only your mama knows what to do about it. What?

[B]

I didn't even hear you say that.

[A]

I said, show Mama your orange mouth.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And I stand by it. I stand by my statement in that pill. Come on.

[B]

All right. We're both weird. We're both weirdos. We've established that. And actually, it's quite a good segue into today's topic, which is.

[A]

Yeah. Awkward moments. Awkward moments.

[B]

We've all had them. Some of us are having this spelled word right now.

[A]

No other word has a wkw in it.

[B]

Well, it's especially spelled, especially weirdly, when you've randomly put a backslash at the beginning before the A. I'm not sure what you were going for.

[A]

My own special sauce. That's why they pay me the big bucks.

[B]

If you are enjoying Bewildered, there are a few ways you can express your support for us. You can subscribe to the POD or follow it, depending on your app. It's a great way to get us in front of more people. And as always, we love a little rate and review action. Especially when the reviews are kind and the ratings are high, strangely. And finally, if you really want to go to the next level with Bewildered, check out our online community, wildercommunity.com. we'll see you there.

[A]

Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called Five Paths to youo Purpose. Probably the most common question I get from people is, how do I find my purpose? Why don't I feel that I'm on purpose. Well, it turns out there are certain things you have to do to find your purpose. And I broke them down into five and I made a little master class about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthabeck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all.

[B]

So you were.

[A]

You had an awkward moment to, like, send us off on this topic. Yes.

[B]

Cab Daddy. Yeah, Cab Daddy. Not so very long ago, our small child. We've got a small child. Don't know if we endlessly use her as content material for our podcast.

[A]

She's all we ever do.

[B]

She's all we ever do is just our child. So I was in New York with our small child. Oh, child of lesbians, Let it be said, very relatable story for children of lesbians, or lesbians with children, I imagine. Get in the car.

[A]

Cab.

[B]

It's called Cab Daddy. So we got in a cab and Lila immediately proclaimed, having learned it from Peppa Pig or whatever, whatever show was raising her that week, Daddy. To the cab driver who was like 21 years old and literally looked so terrified, like, I was about to force him to give me alimony. And. And he was. His whole face was just like, oh, no, you are not pinning this one on me. Not this one. No, I know. I never with. No, I did not.

[A]

Oh, God. Ask him to take her to the water park or anything.

[B]

No. But there was like a very tense, very silent, long cab drive.

[A]

That's brutal.

[B]

Town.

[A]

That's brutal.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So Cab Daddy happened and. And will always linger in my memory. And. But we. Thinking about awkward moments. We're thinking there's something magical about awkward moments.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, there is. So first we just went to the Internet looking at awkward moments, because I do Google things that are a little less interesting. This is quite interesting. Awkward moments. Google it. It's great. But then I started remembering all the awkward moments I've had. And I said, we should swap back and forth and tell some awkward moment stories. And it turns out you don't have any. All you have is stuff from the Internet because you have not been resourceful in your creation of awkward moments. That is my standing on this.

[B]

Did I or did I not flash my vagina at our babysitter?

[A]

It sounds like you're in the woods or something. And just lift your tail to invite to say, I am an estrus.

[B]

I don't have a tail.

[A]

Only I have a tail. But you know, horses and stuff, you know what? Female horses, they do that. They, like, put their tail to one side, and it's called. And I did not make this up. This is literally true. Google it. It's called winking.

[B]

So they just like their tail.

[A]

They're like.

[B]

Like what you see?

[A]

Yeah, they, like, move their. They see the boy horse and they, like, move their tails to one side. Or maybe they see the other girl horse.

[B]

I'm not a boy horse. Look at this.

[A]

Okay, so I think you've explained this on the podcast before, but I think you should refresh people's memories just in case they think you're doing this deliberately and even illegally.

[B]

So. So once upon a time, I slept in when a babysitter was coming. And so, okay, when the babysitter came at 9am I was a little bit frazzled because I'd just gotten up 10 minutes before I was in my pajamas. I was running around. I was trying to feed our child because I had promised to have her fed by the time I left her with the babysitter. So picture it. I'm in the kitchen. I've got a bowl of oatmeal for our daughter in one hand. I've got a cup of coffee for myself, very much needed in the other hand. The babysitter has just walked in the door. Okay, that's fine. You know, it's a bit embarrassing to be in your pajamas, but that's okay. So I am like, hi. Hey, how's it going? We're just. And. And at that point, Lila decided she was going to do one of those things where she pretends to be shy. And so she comes around and she, like, hides behind my legs kind of coily, and that's sweet, you know, that's all right.

[A]

So coy.

[B]

So coy. And then I start to walk forward. Remember, I've got both my hands full of hot stuff. Right? And then Lila just stays put. And she's short. I moved forward, my pajama pants came down. And as I believe I said last time I brought this up on the podcast, yes, I don't wear.

[A]

Can't stop talking about it, can you? To bed.

[B]

All right, so there you have it. If that's not an awkward moment, I really.

[A]

And what did she do, the babysitter, I mean.

[B]

Well, we both tried very hard to pretend it hadn't happened.

[A]

That's what you do, don't you?

[B]

But. But it.

[A]

It did happen.

[B]

And it happened bit longer than it should have because I had to figure out what to do with the tooth. I couldn't Pull them right back up. They couldn't go straight back up. No, I. I was like, oh. And then she's like, oh, is this. No, I was just there going, oh, didn't know I could do that. And we.

[A]

Oh. So imagine if you just grab for your pants and thrown a cup of hot coffee all over the babysitter as, like, a finale to the great moment.

[B]

Yeah. No, I mean, because I'm picturing the moment and where everyone was relative to each other. It's burned into my skull. It wouldn't have worked that way. What I would have ended up doing is pouring oatmeal over my own left side and coffee over my own right side and then stood there in that.

[A]

Well, you've done that a lot. Yeah, as we know.

[B]

You're right. Oh, dear. And I didn't even know. So, actually, it's good. It's good to tell this story because I. Later that day, I'm usually quite. Quite a reserved person. I don't usually talk like this. But anyway, later that day, I was telling everyone I knew about it, and my colleagues reacted in a very favorable way to me telling them this story. And I was like, oh, interesting that people are really into hearing this incredibly embarrassing story. And I think that's when I started to wonder if there's something more going on. When we have our awkward moments. Marty, have you ever had an awkward moment?

[A]

I have. This reminds me of a time.

[B]

Other than when you took the pill off your friends?

[A]

Other than when I took that pill, yes. Mine are. I have them by the dozen. But I remember long ago this is one of the most awkward moments of my whole life. So I had just moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Didn't know a soul there. Wanted to become a writer. I was just working on my first memoir, but I'd never been published or finished the book or anything. And I happened through a series of really fortuitous coincidences to gather together three other people who wanted to be writers, and we formed a writers group.

[B]

Lovely.

[A]

And we had our very first meeting. Nobody there had met everyone. So it was this very, like, formal. One of the ladies had offered to let us have this at her house, and she had a beautiful deck out on a picture, the patio. It was a cool evening. We all sat out there. The crickets were chirping. It was very idyllic. And we were reading each other's pages and eating a lot of nachos and bean dip, which, if you would know, is a way to get vitamins into your body without taking a pill.

[B]

Interesting. What a great system. What a great system.

[A]

Little chunks of food. We were munching and munching, and the bean dip was wonderful. And you know how beans do.

[B]

Oh, do I ever.

[A]

The more you eat, the more you toot. Well, I was okay, because my paranoia about farting. I'll just say it.

[B]

I'll use the clinical extreme.

[A]

Farting flatulence is so extreme that my entire digestive system had tied itself into a tight double knot, which took years to untangle. So I was. Okay. A little bit puffy, but okay. And then we're reading this woman's very, very heartfelt novel, and things were really silent. And I think. I don't know because I never spoke to her about it. But one of the other ladies, very classy, very wealthy lady, I think she had so much bean dip going on in there, and the pressure had become intolerable. And I think that she had. She took a calculated risk. I think she decided, I'm gonna let it out slowly and silently. We're outside.

[B]

We've all been there.

[A]

Ever expect it's gonna be slow and silent, just a little at a time.

[B]

So I'll feel better. No one will know. It's fine.

[A]

That's right. That's right. And maybe this has happened to you, too. You think you're gonna do a strategic silent fart?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

But it just so happens that. That the physics of your rump, your chair. I don't know what it is. Rumps have physics. Everything has physics, but they are so arranged that you basically have a musical instrument down there. You know? And it was loud. Like, it was very loud. And it went on a long time.

[B]

But believe it or not, that's not the most awkward part of this story, because Marty has this white.

[A]

But that is not. Yeah, that's everything.

[B]

Weird.

[A]

That's not the embarrassing part. The other two women just held form, just kept reading the pages. Yes, I see. Let me adjust my reading glasses. But I reacted. I thought it was an animal that had come, like a coyote or something. I didn't know what would make that call. So what I did was to sit up right as it began and just look wildly around. What is that? And it just went on, and I went on and.

[B]

And was there a point where you realized what was happening? Yeah, and it was still ongoing.

[A]

And then I just froze, eyes wide in my chair, as if I'd seen some sort of. I was in a rictus of horror at what I had done. There was no going back. Right. What was I supposed to say? So I just. So it was. What is it? What is it? The fart was still going.

[B]

I just, I love the idea of your wide eyes, like, just.

[A]

Oh, I was having. What have I done? We never spoke of it again.

[B]

Of course not.

[A]

We never spoke of it quite rightly again. So, yeah, that was an awkward one for me. But as we were talking about our awkward moments and you were. I. We. You look down the Internet internaut for a few fabulous ones. So we, we.

[B]

We had this memory of seeing like a BuzzFeed collection of, of tweets about awkward moments. And so we tried to like, dig them up because, you know, I mean, already I, I have cried with laughter twice since we started doing this.

[A]

And you're a sad woman.

[B]

I'm a very amused woman, for your information. And so anyway, we pulled some of these up because it's fun, right? It's fun.

[A]

And we do have a point. We have a. We have a nugget of truth that came into our brains as a result of this topic.

[B]

So, boy, we're springing you along for a while. Before you get to it, I'm going to. I have two to choose between. What do you think?

[A]

Oh, I think it's going to be like the library.

[B]

All right, so this one, this is a. This is an. I think this is actually believe it or not, from Tumblr based on the font and the general sort of look of it. So. And I'd like to give attribution to ghost hyphen plot. And this is what it says. I had to go to a library to pay a fee. And I was practicing in the car between I have to pay a fine and I have to pay a fee. And I walked in and firmly stated I have to pee, and slapped five dollar bill on the counter. The fee was like 10 cents and walked out. This was like three years ago and I still haven't been back.

[A]

And see, that's the thing is there's that there. Once that's happened, there is avoidance. Right. So it separates. It's probably tears families apart. Awkward moments that no one can talk about. But then I remembered another really awkward moment, and it turned out a little differently. So I'm going to tell them about it. Can I tell them about it?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So at the time, I was married to a dude and he was a business school professor and I had. I was a sociologist. And there's an overlap there. Yeah. So he was teaching this class of business school students. Now you have to picture business school classes in a lot of universities. Are shaped as amphitheaters. So you go in at the ground level and it goes down, especially because it was in Arizona and everything's underground. To try to be cool. I mean, literally physically cool. Wow, that's really cool. There are a hundred chairs kind of in a semicircle going down like a funnel. And the teacher is at the bottom of the funnel at a lectern. And there's a blackboard behind you. So there's all. And there were 92 students arrayed in this room. So I had this clever thing I was going to do to start, because he wasn't even coming in, I was starting, and his name was Beck. I took his name when I got married and kept it because it's a great beer. But I walked in early, had my little business suit on. Students came in, they filed in, they're looking for the professor. I finally stand up and they're all quiet. And I said, I, you're probably waiting for Dr. Beck. And I have to tell you, I am Dr. Beck. This is how I dress sometimes. And there are some. And then I was like, haha, no, I'm actually married to the Dr. Beck you're expecting. I was being oh so cute. And then I said, I said, here, you'll find some differences between him and me. That, by the way, is the grammatical way to say it. Not between he and I, between him and me. Just learn it, okay? So I said, you know, I'm more in the social science sociology thing. I tend to be. I remember people's names, whatever. And I said, I think you'll find he's. I'm less pushy than he can be. But what I actually said was, I think you'll find I'm less pussy than he can be. And I said it clearly. There was no mistaking what I had said. And the silence was dead golden. So what I did was I closed my briefcase that I had there on the lectern. I, without saying a word, I packed up and I walked up the steps between all the students and out of the room and just let the door shut behind me.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

And then I. I waited for about 30 seconds and then I came back in and I said, okay, so now you know how badly I can screw up. I will. I'm sure you just want to learn everything about business from me. And what it did was form this bond between me and the students because something about my own reaction was I had taken it on, but without shame.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And yeah, it. So it created this bond and from then on, they were like my favorite people in the world, and we had a wonderful time.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So.

[B]

So there's this kind of theory that Marty and I are working on that embarrassing moments like that, or awkward moments are magical, that they can be a hack, a portal, if you will, to connection between people because you're breaking the rules of the culture in that moment. And so either you can go back to. You can do what I. And the babysitter with my pants around my ankles did and went, that never happened. Let us continue. Which was, you know, understandable, or you can do what Marty did by turning the comedy of the moment overt and breaking the, you know, like, bringing everyone into breaking the rules of the culture. And humor is amazing. Like that. And so when you've got that intimacy or that potential for intimacy that comes with the taboo thing.

[A]

Yes. You've broken the taboo.

[B]

Yeah. So that we can. We can use those moments, if we see them as portals, and then we. When we next find ourselves in one. What if we could use them just when it might seem most dangerous? What if we own our embarrassment and the truth of the awkwardness? And what if that gives us immense power? What then?

[A]

It's so interesting because I love the whole Chinese philosophy thing, that whatever yields, whatever gives up its rigidity is what wins a contest.

[B]

I was totally going to Chinese philosophy as well with that.

[A]

The ego is. Of course, you always do. The ego is very rigid. And in the moment, you accept that you have been embarrassed, that a part of your ego liquefies and sloughs off. Like, you can't hang on to it. You can't get your dignity back. You have to give up ego or try to hold onto it by the cultural norm of pretending nothing happened.

[B]

Right. And I think where, like, when one person is embarrassed, I think for most of us, if we're the students in the amphitheater in your example, what we're experiencing most is embarrassment. Like, because we're like, yes. We're so tuned into you. We're like, we're an empathetic species or whatever. And so you're, like, smashing through the egoic structure.

[A]

Right.

[B]

With culture by. Go on.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

I love aureplice.

[A]

After you. Well, I love what you said about the people who are watching are embarrassed as well. It's not just your. Like, I was not the one farting at that thing I was watching, but I was extremely embarrassed. But also, other people weren't looking wildly around for bears, so. But I read a study once where they needed they wanted to study blushing. They wanted to make people blush for, for this study. And so they had to embarrass them. And the way they did it, they wouldn't humiliate anyone. So they had, they hired these college students to come in and they were. People who did were not trained singers. And they were, they would put the, they would put a student who had been paid like $10 for this into a room. And then in a room that was separated by a one way glass, they would put the subject that they were looking at and trying to make them blush. And the thing they did to make the subject blush was they forced the, the student that they'd hired to sing the Star Spangled Banner, which is almost impossible to sing. I mean, that, that is, that's why they throw it out there at Olympic event or not Olympics, but at sporting events for people who.

[B]

America is not the center of their universe. The Star Spangled Banner is the national anthem of this culture.

[A]

United States. Yes. And it's very hard to sing. It has tremendous range. It was originally a melody that came from a drinking song. You have to be very drunk or very loose to sing it. And nobody remembers the words because they're weird. So these students would start singing and they would get, they would just flub it so horribly and they would get embarrassed. And the person watching them almost could not bear it, right? They would get so shamebound and embarrassed and they would blush like, you know, like forest fire would start from their necks and go up to their heads. And it was because maybe it is the mirror neurons you're talking about and the empathy how we all, when someone is being embarrassed or humiliated, we all sort of feel it. And then a few years later, after I read this study, I saw Eddie Izzard, who's a wonderful, wonderful comedian. Pronouns she, her, and at the time she was doing a comedy act. And part of it was, there's no way to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Like, just give up on trying to make it sound good or to remember the words, which are completely impossible to remember. So Eddie said you just, you really get into it and you always either confirm or deny. So you bring your face up and sing and then you sweep your arm down into fires. You just like make it really big. If you're gonna flub something, own it. And that's the same principle.

[B]

I'd love to try that, but my, the entirety of my inside of my mouth is bright orange, so I can't even try.

[A]

Watching me sing the Star Spangled Banner. Yeah. Ro Blushes in her mouth.

[B]

I blush orange, bright orange in my mouth.

[A]

It's a.

[B]

It's just this weird thing.

[A]

Wouldn't that be cool if, like, someone. Their tongue turned green or something when they were embarrassed?

[B]

Maybe let's. Let's take that one.

[A]

I would Google that. Okay. Anyway, back to our topic.

[B]

Yeah. So so many things that are going on. Like you bring the other person or people into your embarrassing moment by laughing at yourself. Yeah, Right. And that's Releases the humor, like the. The acknowledgment that the taboo thing happened is the, like, the opening of. Of humor and intimacy and release. It's cathartic, isn't it?

[A]

What?

[B]

It's a catharsis. Laughing at embarrassment.

[A]

I think it really is because everybody's holding a sort of rigid mask for the. The culture, and we're trying to hold our egos up and present well. And then when we see someone embarrassed, we get into that excruciating place. And when that person seems at ease and to be enjoying it, it is a catharsis because we're all afraid of doing something stupid, of being something. Doing something that is deemed, you know, clumsy or like taking a pill off somebody's bathroom floor.

[B]

Something like that. Yeah, yeah. For instance.

[A]

And so everybody's always got a little bit of fear of being mocked and humiliated. And when that becomes a possibility and the person at the center of it is relaxed and willing to let go of ego, everybody's true selves, true nature can relax with that. And everybody sees, oh, I can let go of that. That cultural mask. I can let go of that rigid ego in this room with these people, and it starts to forge a bond.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So what if, in these embarrassing moments, like where we're standing there, the pants get pulled down, you say pussy in front of a whole bunch of business students, whatever it is, same time, at the same time.

[A]

This is a lecture. I would use a drawing, but I would rather model it.

[B]

It's weird that both these things have to do with pussy. Anyway, so when you have your embarrassing moment, two doors appear before you. Let us say metaphorically, tragedy is one and comedy is the other. Now there is a school of.

[A]

I.

[B]

Don'T know, story theory or something that. That says that basically what determines us like a story is someone who wants something, right? That's. That's what drives the story. And what has to happen at the climax of the story is that the person is presented with the choice to either get what they want by giving up a crucial sense of who they are. Their ego and getting what they've always wanted, or they choose to hold on to their self image. And that's when they. And that's. That's what forms a tragedy if. If they can't allow themselves to shed the skin and. And move into their own dream. So, yeah, and so if the hero won't give up his or her ego, it can be comedy or hero saga, but otherwise, it's a tragedy because the ego cannot stand to be laughed at.

[A]

Yeah. You think about King Lear out there, like, screaming in the. In the storm and going mad because he could not stand that his youngest daughter. He asked his daughters how much they loved him, and two of them gave him flowery ego pandering accounts, you know, like groveling, flattery. And the third daughter said, I love you like salt, as salt loves meat. And so he. He casts her out, and he tries to depend on his two older daughters, and it turns out they hate him and throw him out in the street, well, onto the moor. And he realizes out there that his youngest daughter was the one who loved him. The. But he's a king, and he won't give that up. You know, he's. And so he's just out there taking the storm in the teeth because he won't say, oh, I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I'll go back and find my younger daughter and apologize. And really, that's a pretty good way to be loved. So anyway, sorry. Get off. Shakespearean. When you said comedy and tragedy, that's where my mind goes.

[B]

Listener. She was, like, reciting Shakespeare to herself in the bathroom yesterday. I overheard that, Martha. I know you were doing that.

[A]

I think I was just singing a little ditty to myself.

[B]

And you didn't know you were reciting Shakespeare to see if you remembered it.

[A]

Oh, that's right. That. That is right. And that was from the Tempest, which is about somebody who similarly has assaults on his ego. But he decides to give up his, like, noble standing, and he becomes somebody who forgives and who can therefore create magic. It's in the Tempest. Compare King Lear. The Tempest. My favorite two plays to compare.

[B]

Now, it's so cool that on the one side is comedy magic.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, because, like, think about Midsummer Night's Dream or whatever. You know, like, on the comedy side, there is so much potential, and it just feels, like more colorful and more dynamic. And then on the tragedy side, it's just like this wall of. No, this wall of.

[A]

Ouch. And, you know, when I was. I took one Shakespeare class in my life, it was my first year at. Yeah, that university, Harvard. And they got up and told us. The professor got up and told us that the four tragedies where people choose their ego and their life shatters and everyone ends up dead, those were Shakespeare's moments of greatness. And then he started writing these plays where there were magical components and people loved each other and people forgave each other, and there was connection between everything and everyone. And they said that was because he was probably losing his mind. He probably had dementia.

[B]

Shakespeare 50.

[A]

Yeah, Shakespeare did. He would only write these redemptive, wonderful, beautiful, uplifting plays about connection and letting go of the ego because he was out of his mind. Because we know. And I'll never forget the. The professor would read to us in this. And when some person in the crowd raised a hand and said, I have a question. And he said, yes. And the student said, where does your accent come from? And actually, he did it. He said, pure affectation.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

And everybody. Yeah, because he knew they'd go find out that he was from, like, Des Moines.

[B]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

So he had to own the ego slip.

[B]

And.

[A]

And by doing that, he won more affection for me than with all his loftiness.

[B]

But at the same time, he's the one peddling the theory that to write a comedy, you must be out of your mind. And I. I think it's really interesting, right, because it's saying, you know, and it's. It's. I think it would probably be a pretty relatable idea for our listeners that. That in the culture at large, comedy is seen as lesser, As a lesser form.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

You know, that, like, serious is superior to silly. And isn't that interesting? Because if, like, we're sort of arguing that in embarrassment, in laughing at yourself, when you break a taboo, you're breaking down the culture. So isn't it in the culture's interest to make sure that we are, like.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Magical fairies dancing about. He's crazy.

[A]

He's crazy and stupid. Yes. Stupid Shakespeare. So I'm gonna kick you in the knee now. Get back here. I'll bite your kneecaps off. No, that's from Monty Python. I'm confusing my British geniuses here. So what you're saying is that our culture sends us out into the world with a mind primed for tragedy, a mind that is primed to grab the ego with both hands and never let it go? There is nothing wrong with me. Everything about me is fantastic. There are politicians like this.

[B]

Well, very much like King Lear, wandering around on the moors, right?

[A]

Wandering around, that's where you end up. And he says, unaccommodated man is nothing but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. I love that. That's the first thing I said to my son when he was born. And yes, I did. And he just dropped his ego right at the door, my little one. But here's the thing. If you walk around, instead of being afraid to be humiliated or embarrassed, and thereby having a life primed for tragedy, if you walk around with a mind primed for comedy, for opportunities to let go of ego, it makes me think of when I learned karate in Phoenix, because I took Adam when he was five and started school. He has down syndrome, of course. I took him to this place called Special Dragons where they worked with special needs kids because I wanted him to be able to beat up anybody who made fun of him. And he was like, we did the first lesson. He was like, I don't want to hit anyone. Why would I do that? And so he never went back, but I did because I wanted to beat up anyone who made fun of him. Not little kids, adults, right. And I never actually did it. But the thing was, this was a very special dojo and not everyone in it had a disability. The. The instructor did. He had cerebral poly, fought from a wheelchair. And my God, he would take you out. Oh, by the way, that's an awkward moment. When he used to make us. He'd hold a paddle and he's sitting in his wheelchair. J Cool. What a cool dude he was. Literally, that's his name. And he would hold this paddle way up high, and we would have to kick it, which is fine the first hundred times you kick it. But the 200th time, I mean, the guy was relentless. Kick it again, kick it again. And your leg starts to sink because it's tired. And pretty soon, what happened to me all the time, it was, I was accidentally kick his wheelchair and cut open my foot or my leg.

[B]

So then I was beating this guy up, I kicked him 200 times, and then I accidentally, like, clipped his wheelchair.

[A]

Actually. People would say, oh, my God, what the hell happened to your foot? And I would say, not thinking about it. Yeah, I was. I was kicking this man, and then I accidentally hit the wheelchair. And it's just. It's not a good look. It's not. It's not a non embarrassing moment when you say that. So anyway, but this, this dojo, everyone went in primed for comedy. They had.

[B]

That was the culture that they had created.

[A]

They had created A subculture where we. We just pound each other senseless for an hour, and then we'd all sit down and have a beer that was like. We'd all be bleeding and bruised. And I was woman, and they were all these beautiful, big, adolescent males, and we would. They would sit there and trade stories that were always putting them themselves as the butt of the joke. Like, everybody would talk about how they had to find this woman who was 85 or something, and she knew she'd been doing tai chi her whole life. And they'd be like that. It looks weird when you do it slowly, but when you've done it for all those years, it is the deadliest. So they would go to fight her, and they would come back and they would say, it was like a religious experience. She deconstructed my entire body. I don't know if I'll ever move comfortably again. The woman is deadly. And then somebody else would say, you think she beat you up? This is what she did to me. And everything was always laughing about how they'd been bested by some person who is small and didn't appear very threatening. And I love those dudes.

[B]

I swear to God, there was once an intruder in my mother's backyard in the middle of the night. And my mother is a diminutive older lady. She. She stormed up to the back door, opened it up and screamed, I have a brown belt in Tai chi at the top of. And I was so confused. He, like, bolted.

[A]

I love that brown belt and Tai chi. People don't know. It's actually a fighting art. You know, you sent me. You showed me a quotation yesterday from Audre Lorde, who is just an absolute genius, and it stopped my mind. It was so profound. And it really pertains here. It pertains to different things that are much more. Have much more depth and evil to them, like racism and all the isms. But what Audre Lorde wrote is, nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. That's how you prime your life for comedy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Except about yourself. The things that embarrass you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Once you have deeply accepted them, they cannot be used to humiliate you.

[B]

That is so true. It's almost like that's the map. Like, everything we've been talking about is like the map for spiritual enlightenment, for saving us from capitalism and patriarchy, for, like, for transforming the world is radical self acceptance.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in the process, allowing yourself, like, laughing at yourself. Yeah. Because you won't be diminished even in these embarrassing moments. And so there's that, yeah, like vulnerability and becoming the safe space where it's okay, we can laugh at ourselves. You know, it reminds me of the.

[A]

Contrast between a certain politician who's. Who was. I don't know when you're listening to this podcast, but obsessed with crowd size. It's just an anonymous politician.

[B]

Could, could be anyone.

[A]

Could be anyone, but obsessed with crowd size. And I compare that to a fabulous, very successful writer. And I don't know if he's a coach or what he is, but he's. He's a self improvement guru. Jay Shetty. And he had an experience. He was a monk briefly in India and he wrote a book called Think Like a Monk, which is a huge bestseller all over the world. But he talks about going, getting out of monkness and going to university and deciding that people needed monk skills to tolerate university living. So he decided he was going to give a little seminar on how to think like a monk for college students. And he put up flyers and he tried to advertise it around the school. And then he went in at the appointed time. He'd gotten a little. Gotten permission to use a classroom and everything. And he went in and no one came. Not one single person. And you know what Jay Shetty did, what he do, he got up and he gave his full presentation in an empty room because that was okay with him. He did not need one single person there to validate his ego. What he needed was to give the performance. That's what he felt in his heart and that's what he was going to do. And he did it. And now he tells the story like there's no embarrassment in him in it. And that's why he's massively popular, because he's willing to say no one came and I gave my presentation anyway and my heart was broken, but it all turned out okay. That's a life primed for comedy, success, happiness, whatever you want to say. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Wow. I think maybe the component that needs to be there. So here is us, this little human animal, this creature who's been taught this set of norms that we call culture. And that to go outside of the norms is taboo. Something happens that forces us into that liminal space of the taboo thing. We didn't mean to, but it happened. And the one other thing that needs to be there in order to have the kind of breakthroughs that you're talking about and that we're talking about in this episode, the one component that's necessary is someone else to laugh With. To tell the story of when nobody showed up to, you know, to. There has to be a sharing of it.

[A]

Yeah. And I think we don't talk about that enough on Bewildered. Because it's not about having no culture, because we are social primates. We need each other. We need people. And anytime two people create a relationship, they have a little mini culture with them. I think it's about being very aware of the fact that you are in culture and you're moving in culture and your ego is interacting in culture. And I'm sure that Jay Shetty was thinking, I'll go tell my posse about that. I'll go tell my friends or my parents or whoever he went to to tell this story. But he also told it to the whole world. And during some of the worst times of my life. Well, I. I wrote a book that was. It was embarrassing in a way, because my publishers said it was crazy. It was called Finding youg Way in a Wild New World. And it was about people who have a sort of magic and a calling to heal the world, heal each other, heal the planet. And I just wrote this book against considerable pushback from my publisher, imagining that there were people out there that I was writing to who were longing for wildness and who were longing for healing and to be healers. And I had this community, but it was in my imagination, but I believed that it was real.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I sent the book out to find it, to find them. To find, as it turns out, you among others. Yeah. And so I think you do. You need somebody, even if it's an imaginary person in the future that allows you to be totally yourself with complete acceptance. You know, it's great. Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. But also nothing my posse accepts completely about me can be used as powerfully to diminish me.

[B]

And when I tell the story to my posse, every single one of them gets permission to be vulnerable and shed that flake of ego at the same time. Not at the same time, but in the same way. And you know that. I mean, this is a big part of why we created our community. Wilder, right is the wilder community. The wilder community is that we wanted a place where we could come back to. Sometimes when you're trying to live counterculturally, you. You can come back home feeling like you've kind of got some cuts and bruises.

[A]

It's big weather out there on the. The countercultural field.

[B]

Yeah. And so that's. That's part of what that is. Is designed to Be is a safe space where you can tell those stories and turn what sometimes can feel like tragedy into comedy and magic on the other side.

[A]

That. I think that is a great note to end on. Because even if you've done it the other way, even if you've made a fool of yourself and then grabbed your ego with both hands and run away, it's never too late to go back and find whoever you were ashamed. You could go back and find our babysitter and say, I deliberately showed you my naked body and I would like to do it again. Don't need to be afraid. I'm not going to try anything. This is just something I do with the people I feel close to. I'm just trying to become enlightened. Just let me pull my pants down that one more time. This is my road to awakening. Wow.

[B]

This is my spiritual practice.

[A]

Can I tell you one last thing? Since we're doing this, it's been a long, hot summer as we're recording. This is at the end of summer. And I make the same mistake over and over again when I do presentations. I'm working with corporate clients. I'm. I'm doing, like, zoom group coaching stuff. And I always put on nice clothes that they know I'm gonna. You know, I care about them. And then I come over and the little cranny where I do all my recording. Ooh, It's. Get your mind out of the gutter. A cranny is just a little nook. So don't say ew again. So what happens is I start to sweat. And of course, I'm wearing makeup for the occasion, so I'm afraid I'm gonna start an avalanche on my face. And that's very disconcerting. We saw it with Rudy Giuliani where his hair dye melted and rolled down his face. It's disconcerting for the audience. So for their sake, I take off my. Take off your shoes and socks quietly. Just using my feet under the desk. And that cooled me down.

[B]

And what did you take off?

[A]

Minutes.

[B]

Yeah, my pants. Happen to know about this? I haven't had photographic evidence of it, actually.

[A]

Oh. Oh, good heavens.

[B]

It's so funny because it's like, you know, upstairs is all business, and downstairs.

[A]

I have underwear on. At least I wear underwear.

[B]

Rowan Mangan flesh toned underwear.

[A]

Well, I. All right, well, with that awkward moment out in the. In the blogosphere, I don't know I'm having.

[B]

What this is to you?

[A]

I don't know. My brain is in spasm right now. Anyway. Yeah. Be hang. Hang with people who love you. Hang with people who accept you as you are. Always remember that nothing you've fully accepted about yourself can be used to humiliate.

[B]

You and Stay Wild we hope you're enjoying Bewildered. If you're in the USA and want to be notified when a new episode comes out, text the word wild to 570-873-0144. We're also on Instagram. Our handle is bewilderedpodcast. You can follow us to get updates, hear funny snippets and outtakes, and chat with other fans of the show. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the Brilliant team at M mbi. And remember, if you're having fun, please rate and review and stay wild.

[A]

People are always asking me, how did you get into training life coaches? And the answer is backwards. I did it backwards. That is, I didn't set up a program and then look for people to fill it. It's just that so many people were coming to me for coaching that I realized in order to serve the market, I was going to have to train other people in my methods. That was decades ago, and now the Wayfinder program contains all my very best wisdom and tools for living, boiled down to their savory essence. Now, if that sounds interesting to you, head on over to MarthaBeck.com and find your way.