Missing Your Exit

Summary

Bewildered Podcast: "Missing Your Exit"

Hosts: Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan
Release Date: October 30, 2024

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Episode Overview

In “Missing Your Exit,” Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan explore what happens when we lose touch with our own instincts and let societal pressures and cultural programming dictate our actions—even if it leads us away from what’s truly right for us. They use personal anecdotes, reflective humor, and metaphors of navigation and “missing exits” to illuminate the stubborn hold culture can have over our choices. The episode delves into the processes of tuning back into one’s true nature, recognizing when and why we stray from it, and cultivating self-kindness as a navigational tool.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. FOMO, Technology, and External Validation

[01:50 - 05:07]

• Rowan humorously describes Martha’s intense FOMO (fear of missing out), especially regarding anything that makes Rowan laugh online—highlighting Martha’s self-confessed difficulty navigating the internet and her dependence on Rowan as her “digital mother goose.”
  • Notable Quote
    Rowan: “You sort of police my laughter…and you try to look at my phone sometimes. If there's a possibility, I cannot deny it.” [02:35]

Insight:
This playful exchange reflects the broader theme of how external cultural stimuli (like social media) can hijack our instincts and draw us away from our true nature.

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2. When ‘Following Your Bliss’ Becomes ‘Following the Factory Line’

[11:31 - 15:57]

• Martha shares a wake-up call: after months of joyful morning walks and painting, her routine became joyless and physically painful, her body “screaming” for a change.
  • Notable Quote
    Martha: “I woke up this morning and everything hurt. And I had no desire to paint or draw, much less go for a walk. And I thought, holy crap, I missed the exit. I had stopped following the sort of guidance from inside that we always talk about here.” [13:21]

Insight:
Even the pursuit of a “true nature” activity can become oppressive if it turns into a rigid habit—demonstrating how easily we convert inspiration into cultural rule.

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3. The Battle Between Habit, Culture, and Moment-to-Moment Awareness

[15:57 – 19:41]

• Rowan notes the usefulness and seductive comfort of habits, but warns how they can deaden our sensitivity to what’s truly needed in the moment.
• Martha explains the “right brain”/“left brain” dynamic: the right hemisphere lives in the present, while the left seeks to enshrine what feels good into fixed, repeatable routines.

Insight:
There’s tension between building supportive habits and allowing for the fluid responsiveness your true nature requires.

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4. Missing Early Signals: The Gradual Cost of not Checking In

[22:47 - 24:21]

• Martha describes “driving hypnosis”—being so lost in routine that opportunities to course correct slip by unnoticed.

  • Notable Quote
    Martha: “Either you stay on a road when you should go elsewhere, or we leave the road. That takes genuine first priority.” [23:03]

• Rowan introduces the importance of “haptic feedback” (literal and metaphorical) as reminders to check in with ourselves: “How do we remember to check in? Like, what's the equivalent of getting the little haptic that says, is this your exit?” [24:21]

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5. The Role of Suffering as a Messenger

[26:47 – 30:48]

• Martha shares that suffering, physical or emotional, is often the body’s way of demanding attention and signaling it’s time for change. She recounts learning to “bless” her painful knee and listen deeply to what it needs—resulting in relief and renewed perspective.

  • Notable Quote
    Martha: “My whole self, my emotions, everything has to say, stop…It's like, let us into your attention…out of that, almost like a flower blooming, comes this set of instructions. Stop now. What's important is your family.” [27:00 – 29:15]

• Oprah’s “whisper–message–lesson–problem–crisis” progression is referenced: when ignored, gentle nudges become full-blown crises.

  • Notable Quote
    Martha: “She [Oprah] said if there's something you need to learn in your spirit, first, it speaks in a whisper…If you still don't follow…you get a problem…then a crisis.” [31:00]

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6. Cultivating an Inner Culture of Kindness

[34:03 – 36:55]

• The hosts stress that culture (externally or internally created) is inescapable, but we can intentionally cultivate an inner culture of kindness, referencing Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory.

  • Notable Quote
    Martha: “There will be a kind of culture, but it will be explicit. It will be constructed mindfully and kindly and subjected to change when it goes off course, when it misses an exit.” [35:25]

• They reflect on the dangers of letting harsh “parts” (like Martha’s “Fang,” the marathon runner) run our lives, and the power of letting kind, gentle parts lead.

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7. Challenging the Cultural Ideal of Commitment and Perfection

[37:46 – 42:38]

• Rowan provocatively asks whether making commitments is actually a betrayal of our true nature, since the future is unknowable.

  • Notable Quote
    Rowan: “To commit to something, is that actually a betrayal in advance of our true nature, to make a commitment? Because isn't a commitment just a concept your mind says, regardless of how my body feels and my heart feels and my soul feels…” [37:46]

• They discuss unconventional marriage vows (“I promise to love you until I don't”), the illusion of controlling the future, and the role of fear (especially fear of change and mortality) in our need for commitments.

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8. How to Distinguish Culture from Deepest Nature

[43:23 – 53:25]

• The hosts address the critical question: If something doesn’t feel right, how do we tell if that’s culture overriding us, or if there’s a deeper truth to the discomfort?
  • Rowan describes using deeper internal questioning (e.g., “If I could hire a night nurse to cover every night my daughter wakes, would I want that?” The answer—“absolutely not”—reveals her deeper commitment to mothering despite the pain and exhaustion).
  • Martha notes that love and duty at the deepest level are not self-sacrifice, but an energetic “honor”—a calling that runs deeper than impulse or surface desire.

Insight:
By bringing awareness and kindness to even unwanted tasks (nights with a needy child, supporting ailing family), we often see they arise from our own deepest sources of meaning, not merely externally imposed duty.

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9. Messy Imperfection is Nature

[54:22 – End]

• Rowan recites from Ani DiFranco’s poetry to encapsulate the messiness, imperfection, and “jaggedness” of real life—a counter to the toxic cultural pursuit of optimization and perfection.

  • Notable Quote
    Rowan: “To search in the darkness for someone who looks like me, though I'm not really who I said I was or who I thought I'd be. Just a collection of recollections, conversations consisting of the kind of marks we make when we're trying to make a pen work again…” [56:10]

• The episode closes by naming the ongoing task: forging a path ruled by kindness, allowing for imperfection, and returning to stillness and deep connection as the constant guide.

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Memorable Quotes

| Quote | Speaker | Timestamp | |---|---|---| | “I had stopped following the sort of guidance from inside that we always talk about here. My true nature.” | Martha | 13:21 | | “We take what is our true nature…and we turn it into culture.” | Rowan | 14:23 | | “I think that’s like—there’s different levels of true, of my true nature…also like being a parent is also intrinsically for me part of that.” | Rowan | 19:41 | | “Culture always wants to raise a zealot that will just commit to one thing.” | Martha | 23:03 | | “Your faithful ally is going to be some form of suffering.” | Martha | 26:52 | | “Cultivate an inner culture of kindness.” | Rowan | 34:59 | | “To commit to something, is that actually a betrayal in advance of our true nature, to make a commitment?” | Rowan | 37:46 | | “We get up every day thinking we know what journey we want to take through the day…But if that stillness…is the ultimate guide and if we follow it…that’s where our deepest true nature finds, forges these life experiences…” | Martha | 54:22 |

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:50 – 05:07] — FOMO and digital overwhelm
• [11:31 – 15:57] — When passion becomes obligation: missing the exit
• [22:47 – 24:21] — “Driving hypnosis” and missing moments for change
• [26:47 – 30:48] — Suffering as a signal; listening to pain
• [34:03 – 36:55] — Building an inner culture of kindness
• [37:46 – 42:38] — Is commitment anti-nature? The illusion of lifelong vows
• [43:23 – 53:25] — Surface impulses vs. deep truth: discerning what's truly “right”
• [54:22 – End] — Embracing imperfection, the poetry of chaotic living

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Conclusion

Through humor, vulnerability, and compelling metaphor, Martha and Rowan show how easy it is to let culture run our lives—even in our attempts to be authentic. The real work, they argue, is to continually tune in to suffering, cultivate kindness (toward self and others), question our habits and commitments, and accept the inevitable messiness of being human. It is only by honoring our true nature—imperfect and ever-changing—that we find the exits that lead to genuine fulfillment.

“Stay wild.”

Transcript

[A]

So we've got an interesting one for the peeps today, Mari. We're going to be talking about choosing the right navigation system to guide our course through life.

[B]

Right. Because sometimes we wake up knowing we're off course. I did that recently. So how can we be sure we're navigating by our true nature and not by those cultural rules we never chose?

[A]

You'll find out if you keep listening.

[B]

So, as some of you listeners may know, a few months ago, Ro and I started 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.

[A]

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, 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.

[B]

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.

[A]

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

[B]

Figure it out, figure it out, figure it out. What are you figuring out right now in your life, Rowan Mangan?

[A]

I am trying to figure out how you, Martha Beck, have such a strange, deep sense of FOMO fear, of missing out, that anytime I am looking at my phone and make any noise that might be construed as a laugh, you will immediately say, what? What's funny? What is it? And sometimes, you know. So we'll be sitting in silence in a room looking at our phones because this is the 21st century and this is our marriage and. Or we'll be sitting on a plane and I'll be listening to a podcast, and if I do this, you will immediately go, what? What? And so, like, even I'm listening to a podcast on a plane, and you go, what? What? And I have to pause the podcast, take out my headphones, and say, well, I was listening to this podcast, and this person said this, and then that person said that, and. And then you'll be like, oh, that's not that funny. And I. And I have to Say to you, Marty, it wasn't I. I never claimed. I would have been quite happy to just let it go by in time and space. But, like, you sort of police my laughter and, you know, so sometimes it's like we're in the room, I go. And you go, what? What's funny? What's funny? And you try to look at my phone sometimes. If there's a possibility, I cannot deny it. And sometimes, literally all I can say is, I think there was a bit of dust in my nostril.

[B]

And I went, I want some. I want some.

[A]

What is that? What's going on?

[B]

You see, you don't understand what it's like to be so bad at the Internet. Like, I am horrible at the Internet. Not in that I can never figure anything out. If I get in and tinker around, I can figure things out sometimes, but if I do that, my soul gets sucked into the Internet because anything I see makes me go, what? What? And then I'm down a rabbit hole. Right. What did this person say? Oh, they said that because another person said. And then it goes into this infinite, expanding chain of connections that ultimately crazes me.

[A]

So.

[B]

Right. Rowie, I have made you the one and only link I have with the Internet. I can't let it swallow my soul. So I have imprinted on you as a digital mother goose. And I must learn everything about the world by watching your nostrils move. And I think that shows great devotion and maybe doesn't need a lot of therapy.

[A]

You know, I. I wouldn't like to speculate, but I think that. Look, it's a lot of pressure on me to monitor my nostrils is all I'm saying. And you know my nostrils.

[B]

I love your nostrils.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you.

[B]

I can stare in the morning.

[A]

I think they're good. I think they're good nostrils as well.

[B]

You've got good nostrils. So, yeah, I understand it's a heavy burden, but if you're born with a sense of discernment and good nostrils, people are going to pay attention.

[A]

All right. I just. I'm just gonna have to live with it, I say.

[B]

I think so. Yeah. Unless you want me, my soul sucked into the interwebs.

[A]

In other words, I do.

[B]

Because you know how that goes. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. All too well.

[B]

Because I make you watch everything. It's not just that I get into it, is that I carry it around and make other people watch it. Oh, it's awful.

[A]

An evangelical streak.

[B]

Yes, it's true.

[A]

Okay, so what are you trying to figure out?

[B]

I am trying to figure Out. And again. This has to do with technology, because that is what. It's such a big part of our lives these days, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Every time I look at my phone. Well, not every time. Just at random intervals, it has up on the screen, which is sort of turned to off. The Spit of Love by Bonnie Raitt. It wants to play me a YouTube version of the song Spit of Love by Bonnie Raitt. I don't know why. I don't know what setting is making this come up. Why it doesn't do it all the time. It just does it at irregular intervals, which is. What do they call that? Random reinforcement. It makes it a very big part of my psychological life. And then I thought, well, maybe. Maybe I'm getting guidance from the universe. Have you ever heard Spit of Love by Bonnie Raitt?

[A]

Not until this began. This saga in your life began.

[B]

I gotta say, I'm a huge Bonnie Raitt fan.

[A]

As a mine loved.

[B]

Hey, she's my girl. She went to the same college I did. I won't say which one that is, but let's just say that people always say, really? Bonnie Raitt went to Harvard. Oops, there it came out. You'll have to have a drink of water, everybody. Okay, so, you know, I love anybody who goes to my school and then goes and does something that makes people say, what You. You entered, I think.

[A]

Mm. I'm gonna try not to say that Jared Kushner went to Harvard.

[B]

Oh, God. All right, forget I said anything. Anyway, I love Bonnie Grade lover music. There was a time when I will not be broken Practically kept me alive. But, honey, there's nothing. There's nothing edifying about Spit of Love.

[A]

You're upset because you want there to be a message from the universe in this. And even with your gargantuan brain, you cannot turn the lyrics of this song into a message for you. No matter.

[B]

I will give you a fragment. And this is one of the nicer fragments. It goes like this. Well, it's got me slowly turning and I'm basting on the bone. I'm skewered like some drunken fool in juices all my own. No, don't sing about your juices. No one, male or female, should sing about their juices. Well, and I like the fact that.

[A]

They'Re specifying juices all my own, so in case we think there might be some marinade mixed in there or something.

[B]

The entire graphic. Yes, it's very graphic. And it's just a long barbecue metaphor. Love. A hateful, spiteful, wrathful, revengeful love. As a sort of cannibalistic barbecue. And why does my phone keep giving it to me? Why, Ro? Why? Somebody tell me why.

[A]

Maybe you need more protein.

[B]

Okay, well, we're gonna have to buy some juices because.

[A]

Oh. Oh, no, we don't buy them. God, they're supposed to be all your own.

[B]

Don't sing about that.

[A]

Yeah, no one should sing about juices. No one should sing about anyone's juices.

[B]

I was gonna say if it's a children's show and it's, you know, juice is full of sugar, you probably shouldn't drink it, you know? But, no, no, I refuse to think that Spit of love is the. Is the lyrical, total message of my life.

[A]

So I'm skewed. I'm skewered like some drunken fool.

[B]

So they're all my own.

[A]

They're departing from the metaphor for long enough to say drunken fool. But why would a drunken fool be skewed?

[B]

It's a question.

[A]

What's the connection there?

[B]

Well, I. I don't know. I've been walking around all day thinking, why would a drunken fool be assumed to be skewered?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It fills the mind with images one would rather not entertain, quite frankly.

[A]

Vile. Just vile. Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, I love you.

[B]

I love you, Bonnie. But really, is this what they taught us at Harvard, where Jared Kushner also went?

[A]

If you are enjoying Bewildered, then 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. Community wildercommunity.com we'll see you there.

[B]

Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty, Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called five paths to your 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 masterclass about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthaveck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all.

[A]

So what shall we talk about today on our poddy pod Marimu?

[B]

Well, I wanted to talk about I had quite a wake up call this morning, and it wasn't. It was literal wake up, but it was also like a mental wake up.

[A]

Oh, a metaphorical wake up call.

[B]

Because we talk on the podcast always about where we're following cultural patterns and we're not following our true nature. And I woke up this morning and realized I was following a cultural pattern way past the place where I should have stopped.

[A]

In juices all your own.

[B]

In juices all my own. I felt skewered like a drunken fool, honestly.

[A]

I bet you did.

[B]

No, what I done is. And you know this, I got obsessed after writing my last book about creativity. Got obsessed with learning to do transparent watercolor better.

[A]

I think our listeners are pretty familiar with that now, too.

[B]

Yeah, I think people have heard about it. It's something of an obsession. I also had taken my surgically reconstructed foot out on the road and was starting to be able to walk long distances. And I'd begun to sleep better. So I started getting up at sunrise and going for long walks and then coming back and painting. And it was idyllic, Rohi. It really was. And. But for the last week or so, I've been waking up and going, ugh, again, and, like, trudging out there and my knees hurt and my feet hurt. And by yesterday, by last night, like, everything was hurting. My hands were hurting, my wrists were hurting. I tried to grab a pillow. What?

[A]

Good God, woman.

[B]

Yes, good God. I must say, they. They diagnosed it as fibromyalgia at one point. Now I'm thinking it might be. What is that thing?

[A]

Mast cell.

[B]

Mast cell activation syndrome. Yeah. Anyway, there's something wrong with me, and I was fully sick by last night. I was joyless, I was tired, and I woke up this morning and everything hurt. And I had no desire to paint or draw, much less go for a walk. And I thought, holy crap, I missed the exit. I had stopped following the sort of guidance in the inside, from inside that we always talk about here. My true nature. I was so convinced that my artistic, rambling, like, fabulous, arty life was the answer to all my dreams. And it is. It was. But I hadn't been listening. Something was telling me, no, stop, stop, don't do that. And I had to do that thing where you start looking for the next exit so you can get. Take a long detour back to the exit you should have taken.

[A]

Yeah. So we were talking about this, and. And it's kind of interesting because I think we've touched on this sort of thing before on Bewildered, because I There's. It's almost like there's this very stubborn programming in the human psyche that. That has a tendency towards this thing which is we take what is our true nature. Yeah. And we turn it into culture. So what I mean by that is like we take what is right for us right now and turn it into the Henry Ford factory line of this is what my life shall be ever after. And it is, it's fascinating to see how often this happens and, and just to you know, it's worthy. It's worth reminding ourselves that. That it's so damn stubborn.

[B]

Yeah. I have to remind myself all the time. And I do kind of see it as different brain sides that the right hemisphere is always in the present moment. Loves art, but is also responsive to the every sensation in the body and the heart. And then I toss it over to my left hemisphere which says good, we'll make a rule. It will continue forever ad infinitum. And I am back in the cultural factory model, which I have to say in my defense, my entire society programmed me to do. And it programmed you too. So while we're sharing like when does this happen to you? Going past your exit. Get past the place you should have changed course.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, constantly. And it's interesting just before I answer that, like there's a sort of tension I think that is part of us doing this. Us collectively doing this. Which is the tension between how you useful it is to build habits. Right. And how that does take a lot of that sort of day to day decision making mental load off us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then at a certain point that's switching into shutting down the parts of us that, that the part that listens to what is needed right now in this moment.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so it happens to me constantly. Like sleep patterns become.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Unquestioned. You know, like sleeping in or staying up late. I'll get into a thing and it'll be way past when I need that particular thing. And I'm still doing it and I'm not questioning it. Morning routines. I think, I think I've talked on it before about. I'm always coming up with the perfect morning routine. Now I shall always. Just the ways I work, you know, what I prioritize.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's happens all the time. And you know, like my, the horrible one, the one that is is always my. My substack, my newsletter. I've talked about it before on here. You know, I really want to do it, but it's not always something I can do. And so then there's just that terrible feeling of being inconsistent or breaking promises, you know, that. That sort of thing. So that's fun to talk about.

[B]

Not at all. But we do it. And I do think that you have a kind of idealism and I have a kind of drivenness, but it sort of takes us down that same road. But as you're speaking, I just realized, you know, you were the one who gave me the permission. And after all 30 years of talking like this, I still needed permission from a loved one to say, no. Spend your mornings painting. You don't have to help anybody. You don't have to write. You just get to, you get to draw if that's what you want to do, or go for walks. And I thought when you had Lila, who is three years old at this point, I thought, oh, here we go again, you know, life with a little baby. And you said no, you did that with your first three. I'll. I'm on Karen. And you have done all the work. So I'm at a time in my life where I am free to pass my exit and create all these, you know, chart a course to all these wonderful places I wanted to go. But you're on like. So my download from the universe is stop what you're doing, go on a different, take a different exit. You can continue on this later if you want. But there's something else for you. You're in that part of life where you've committed to a three year old child and that is nature. And from the moment you got pregnant and before, you were basically putting that above your other needs. And I see with you, you know, I see you with that substack just sort of burning a hole in your mind. We talk about your writing and your cooking and your gardening. And I remember having little kids and every time you go past an exit that says writing, like because I was there, you say, no, I can't take that. I'm on the course that says motherhood. And there's a genuine heartbreak every time you make yourself not take the exit, but it's still right for you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So I think with that it's not the true nature versus culture dichotomy. I think that's like there's different levels of true, of my true nature and there's writing and cooking or whatever, but also like being a parent is also intrinsically for me part of that. And I think, I guess it comes back to seasons again. You know, it's like this, this season of my life has this very strong theme and I I can take these tiny little paths off the main superhighway here and there, but that. But the highway is about parenthood in this season. And, yeah, so that's just. That's just. And it's actually.

[B]

It's hard, and yet it is the natural way. I mean, I think sometimes we run the danger of. Of making all. Anything that you do with your true nature sound blissful and easy. And your true nature will take you. Like David Foster Wallace said about the truth. It will set you free, but only after it's finished with you or after it's had its way with you. That was actually not the quote, but I like that better after it's had its way with you. I looked that up, and it was not David Foster Wallace, and I was bummed. Okay. Anyway, see, this is why I have to watch you for news of the Internet, because I go down these rabbit holes. So what you're saying. I like what you said about how there are different levels of sort of commitment to staying the course you're on. So sometimes we need to stop going in a straight line and take another road. And that's what happened to me this morning. I woke up and my whole body and my whole psyche were saying, take an exit, damn it. Go back to the exit you missed. And I needed to listen to that. But sometimes you're on a road and you're driving past exits you wish you could take. And there's a deeper level, I think you said, it's a deeper level of nature that says, stay the course. Keep going on this road. This is your deepest nature. Which is really interesting to me, because how do we know who. Which to choose, which thing to choose on any given day or at any given moment, when do we stay the course, no matter how much we want to exit and when do we exit? Even though in our minds we think we have to stay the course.

[A]

Right. And even to remember to ask that question, how do we know to do that? And I think often when culture overtakes nature inside us, like when you turn your walking and your art into some sort of, you know, rigorous, forced march. Yeah. That's culture inside you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you were so certain that this was the thing that you didn't even stop to ask yourself, and that's why you missed the exit. That would have made it a gentler, you know, reconfiguration. Right.

[B]

Yeah. That's what. Because culture always wants to raise a zealot that will just commit to one thing. And I. I was born among a zealous people. And yeah, I can get. I have to keep telling myself to listen to my true nature because I am so inwardly programmed to drive myself forward. And it comes up all the time. It's kind of like they call it driving hypnosis. When you're driving along and your body knows the way, and you either zip past your exit because you're so focused on something completely separate, you're not even present, and your body just takes the controls and drives either onto the exit you usually take, or away from the, you know, along the road that. So either you stay on a road when you should go elsewhere, or we leave the road. That takes genuine first priority. So when you get driving hypnosis, it's the opposite of your gps. Like, if you're in driving hypnosis just going through life detached from this present moment, this precise moment, mindfulness, experience, the GPS is turned off, and you can't know.

[A]

Someone was telling me recently that she chose one Type of map, GPS map 1 Brand of it over another, because one of them has a little haptic thing that it does on your watch when you, like when your exit is coming up. And she's so accustomed to being in driving hypnosis that she's not glancing down at the map in on her little car screen. And so if she doesn't have something actually on her body, she's. She knows she'll miss those exits. And I thought, that's so interesting, because it makes me think, okay, so we've got this situation where for whatever reason, we might miss our exits. And then. So here are my two questions. One, yes, how. How do we remember to check in? Like, what's the equivalent of getting the little haptic that says, is this your exit? That's my first question. How do we know to check in? Because if you had been checking in with yourself, you would have gone, oh, I'm tired, my knee hurts. Huh, maybe I'll skip the walk today. And you would have done that three days earlier, right?

[B]

It's not rocket surgery.

[A]

It's not rocket surgery. So that's my first question, is remembering to do that in the first place. Then the other question, which is in some ways more interesting, is how do we know then, when we do check in, if the thing that doesn't feel right is actually the culture, like, harshing our true nature in the moment, or if it's just a different level, a different layer of our true nature? Like, say it is your true nature to be an architect, but you don't enjoy going to architect school. Right. Like, and, and it's still in your true nature to do that long term, so it's not wrong. So how do we distinguish between those two things?

[B]

But let's get back to those questions right after this. Let's take your first question first. I know that's, that's a wild idea.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So. And it is the simpler idea. How do you know to check in?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And as I always say, your faithful ally is going to be some form of suffering.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And for me, it's ridiculous what my body has to do. My whole self, my emotions, everything has to say, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop for days on end. It's like this happened to me once when I was with someone, a brilliant guy who was planning to win a Nobel Prize. And he was driving along this highway and there was a red stoplight up, there was a red light ahead of us and he was cruising along at like 50 miles an hour. And he kept cruising and he kept cruising and I was like, stop, stop, stop, stop. And I was like screaming, stop. And then he finally went, oh, oh. And noticed it and hit the brake. He may have won a Nobel Prize, but let me tell you, that was one absent minded dude. So I'm not far behind that in terms of being completely impervious to messages. Let me just tell you. This morning I wake up to go for my long morning walk. My knee feels like someone has been at it with an electric drill in the night. I almost cry at the thought of having to go outside. I think about going over to my art area and painting and I do start to cry because I don't want to. And now everyone's going to be mad at me because they've given me all this room to be an artist and now I'm not using it. So I'm lying in bed like, and every part of me still hurt, but especially my knee was just like. And I was like, I have to listen to my knee. The first time I did this, my back had been hurting for about five or six years. And I remember I read Joan Borishenko's Minding the Body, Mending the Mind. And she had the radical idea of not just trying to not think about your pain, but of turning your attention directly toward it and going inside it. Put all your attention into the pain and offer it compassion. And I was like, what? And I remember doing it and just the first time I turned my attention to that back spasm and it just opened the floodgates. I cried and cried and cried and I realized I had to stop so many things in my life, and that the pain had been trying to stop me from any number of actions I was taking. Now, years later, I know how to go inside and bless my knee. Bless my heart. Bless my knee. It was when all my attention went into my knee, and it said, why are you doing this with your mind? Let us in. And it was talking about my emotions, my physical sensations, my intuition. It was like, let us into your attention. So I sort of allowed myself go in. In. Into the most painful spot. And out of that, almost like a flower blooming, comes this set of instructions. Stop now. What's important is your family. And this wave of just longing to get up and be with you and Adam and Karen and Lila. Like, it just. The whole universe seemed to unfold itself to me in this huge bloom of love. And wouldn't you know what? My niece started feeling better immediately because.

[A]

He got the message.

[B]

But I didn't go for a walk. I went downstairs to play with you guys and watch your nostrils and go, what? What?

[A]

What's this thing? I know there's this brilliant thing, but I can never remember what it is. So I always just have to use you as my remote control and go, Mari, what's the thing that Oprah said about the message?

[B]

Oprah? Yeah. This is so great. She said, if you have a. If there's a change of exit or. Yeah, you've gone past your exit and you need to.

[A]

That's not what Oprah's saying. You're adjusting.

[B]

No, no, that. That metaphor is our metaphor for the day. Metaphor du jour. But she said if there's something you need to learn in your spirit or whatever is trying to talk to you first, it speaks in a whisper. And if you don't hear the whisper, it starts to give you a message. Like, hello. Hello. It's like the haptic on your wrist. Hello. I have those haptics, and I consider them tiny massages, and blast right past my exit. I'm like, how fun. My watch is quivering. Cool. Yeah, it's not good.

[A]

And so if I flare one nostril on a plane, well, that's.

[B]

That's a very different level of my true nature. That we'll have to talk about it in another podcast. It probably has to do with the spit of love. I'm not sure.

[A]

So a whisper, and then a whisper as a message.

[B]

Message. Then a lesson. Like, something happens. Like, somebody comes up and says to you, that knee looks rough. You should take a few days off. Like, there's no hiding it. It Just comes right at you. If you still don't follow the advice of these messages and lessons, you get a problem, like a back spasm that lasts five years. And if you don't pay attention at the problem stage, you end up in a crisis, and some part or many parts of your life fall apart completely. And then you've got to, like, drag yourself back to square one and start all over on the road again. Yeah.

[A]

And so that's like the. The whole thing of cave early that you talk about, which is, you know, why not. If it's coming, let's not wait till it's a crisis. Let's hear the whisper.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Or the message. And talk a good fight. You do talk a good fight. But you know what? We're all programmed the same way. So, you know, it's. I think it's interesting. Like, it's not like I have a very big drum to beat with all of this, which is that if we treat the things that we talk about on this podcast as the. As aspects of self or life that can be perfected, we are in culture. We must not do that. So it's like, let's. Let's allow ourselves to be messy and imperfect, because that's. Nature is messy and imperfect. So. All right, but I want to come back to the. The question of how to remember to check in. Right. And how to do it before your true nature is screaming, before it's a problem or a crisis. And it's so funny because I'm like, okay, so how would we do this? Well, let's think of a way that we can automate it and set an alarm every morning at 9:00am and you will. I was like, oh, my God, get a nap. Oh, make a morning ritual that you do every day, no matter what. It's like, holy shit. I create the pattern in trying to think. Think about how to not dwell in the pattern, which is just like, it shows how. How. How in plain sight, these cultural patterns can hide. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's so funny that I saw myself do that. But what I think it really is like, how do we. How do we remind ourselves to check in with ourselves? It's almost like we need to begin cultivating inside ourselves a culture that is. That is kind to the self. You know, if we're just. Because in a way, any habit is. Is culture, I'm gonna say, because if it's something that you're doing without being responsive to the moment. So if we're gonna take advantage of that fact and that way that this, These Bodies, these systems that we live in, how they work, then let's use it to create kindness, to create this sort of relationship with ourself where we're checking in, where we're more likely to go, oh, is your knee hurt? What does it need?

[B]

That is a very powerful insight. Because another thing we need to not do is to imply that you can exist without culture. You can only do that if you're completely alone.

[A]

And if you're completely alone and have no inner monologue.

[B]

Exactly. You have no inner anything, no inner conflict.

[A]

Because the minute you're going, oh, are you okay? Exactly, then there's two of you.

[B]

Terrence McKenna's quote, you know, wherever there are two people in the room, culture is the third guest. What you just said, an inner culture of kindness, it matches with the whole internal family systems theory that says we all have different parts that feel different ways. And so I love the idea of saying, yes, there will be a kind of culture, but it will be explicit. It will be constructed mindfully and kindly and subjected to change when it goes off course, when it misses an exit. And it puts different inner people in charge. So when I woke up today, I mean, I may have mentioned my former part, Fang. Fang was the part that used to take me running marathon distances. And Fang would stay up for at 1.5 nights in a row. Never do that. You can die. Fang is a brutal part of me. And it's. But it's kind of like a wolf or something. It can run 50 miles. It will run itself to death. And it's only when I put Fang in charge that the culture becomes dominated by that ferocity and cruelty. So when I woke up today, I. The, the reason I was able to think of my knee, the first thought was, how do I, like, how do I. I overcome?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Could I, like, if I put something on it, would it be okay? And then I could go out and go walking. And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, no, this is not a time for Fang. And I found the part of myself that had looked at my own back that many years ago. And that was when it was like the, the culture pattern of my internal life shifted and I let the kind ones be in charge instead of the ferocious, the obsessive, the productive fear based parts. And that's a mirror of our culture too.

[A]

Absolutely, absolutely. It's so interesting. So you're talking about like having committed to something like for going on these long walks, you commit to them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And this is going to sound a bit. Something, bit funny, but to commit to something, is that actually a betrayal in advance of our true nature, to make a commitment? Right. Because isn't a commitment just a concept that your mind says, regardless of how my body feels and my heart feels and my soul feels, on that day, I will drive myself to do the thing? And I. I'm like kind of blowing my own mind thinking this, because where. So the idea of commitment is held up so highly in the culture. You know, like, it's. It's like a very great thing to commit to something and see it through no matter what. Right. And, you know, and I immediately think of relationships because that's where the word commit gets bandied about the most. And our friends Katie and Steven, their. Their marriage vows to each other, we might have mentioned this before was they said to each other, I promise to love you until I don't. And that. So that's, to me, a way of subverting the culture's view of commitment is to be present in the moment that you're in now and let the commitment be. I commit to being, to feeling the way I feel and all future moments.

[B]

And, you know, I've had the most intense love story. Katie and Steven have such an intense love story, probably more loving than any other couple I know. And they saw, like, the guy who was marrying them didn't want to say it, and he said he added some things to it. No, I'll love you forever. And Stephen said, no, he had to, like, lecture him to say, these are our vows and this is love. I promise to love you until I don't. Because that's love of self and it's an acknowledgement of that we can't control each other. And your question is commitment a cultural phenomenon that's provocative precisely because we think we can use commitment and the ideal of commitment to control ourselves and probably for most of us, more importantly, control each other. If I can get a commitment from you, then I can be sure you'll always be there for me.

[A]

Don't you think that so many of these things, like, when you come right down to it, it's. I'm scared to die, you know? Absolutely. I want you to commit to something forever. Like, at some level is just like, don't let it change. Don't let me be mortal. Don't let me rot in the ground and become worm food. Like all has that as a really, really fundamental root.

[B]

Yeah. The fear of impermanence and death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That in Tibet, they tell two year olds, yes, you love that toy, but it will rust and D.

[A]

Like, when.

[B]

I first started reading about it, I was like, don't tell that to your children. But then they grow up to be happier than children here, so. But it's true. It's bizarre, because commitment presupposes that we can know the future.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's an attempt. It's this proud announcement that we are going to control our future lives, which is totally impossible.

[A]

Like, I'm.

[B]

Right now, I'm freaking out, fantasizing that some listeners out there saying, she's giving my spouse permission to leave or I get permission to cheat on my spouse. Well, e. I can't. I'm not saying yes to that. But I'm also not saying the answer is totally no, because when I think about it, the only commitment I can make is to my true nature for the precisely the reason you just gave. If nothing else, if I could make a commitment to be with you forever and then I die, I've broken my commitment. Guess what? We're all gonna die.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, you can make a promise and you can be together, and there can be so much love in it. I think trying to force or control a love relationship or an exercise pattern or a hobby or whatever kills it on the spot.

[A]

And it's not the commitment. I mean, the.

[B]

The.

[A]

The commitment quote, unquote, the. The vow, the piece of paper, the thing that said. I mean, that's not gonna. That doesn't change people's behavior anyway. Everyone makes a commitment, everyone breaks it. So it's all about trying to make yourself believe something that, you know, isn't controllable anyway. Right.

[B]

So down the highway and the exits come up, and we don't really. In the end, we have no complete control over which exits we take and which we drive past.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to come back to my other question that I had for you earlier, which is, if something doesn't feel right, how do we figure out figuring it out, that moment when you remember what your podcast is supposed to be about, how do we figure out is this thing I don't want to do or I don't feel like doing or I don't enjoy? Is this the. The culture harshing my mellow, my true nature? Or is it just a different level of my true nature? Like, I want to be an architect, but I don't want to go to school to be an architect, or I want the experience of raising a child even though I feel tired and would prefer she were asleep right now at 4:00am yeah.

[B]

And you brought up this idea of the two levels. And, I mean, I went through that with my own bio kids when they were little, but I've tried to repress those nights. Tell me you're right in the thick of it. She just went through a sleep regression where you didn't sleep for, like, two weeks. And you have all kinds of exits you want to take. You have writing, and you have all kinds of adventures you want to go on. You want to live in a van. Face it, you do. You say it all the time. So word picture. You work hard. Work hard all day. Get her into bed, which is no small procedure. There's hair washing and tooth brushing and book reading and cuddling and the whole thing. Finally get her to sleep. You've done your job. You've done both shifts. You finally get to relax. You fall asleep, and around midnight, the screaming starts. She's prone. Our little one is a bit prone to nightmares at the moment. And you get up. I see you in the morning, you get up, and you know that your work's gonna suffer. You know that your body's gonna suffer the next day. And in the present moment, but you still go in to comfort her. So at that moment, my question is, how is the guidance system working inside you?

[A]

It sucks. And I hate it. And I fucking don't want to do it. And I want to go back to sleep. And I don't like this. And I don't remember signing up for this. And no one told me it would be this hard. And. And the reason that's where I am is that I think that it's normal to be living on the more surface level of the nature culture kind of, you know, that. That layer, that. That exoskeleton.

[B]

Yeah. Do I. Do I do my art or do I sleep in that kind of thing?

[A]

Yeah, like, where there's. There's that impulsive, like, no, I want to do this. You know, I want to. I'm excited to write. I'm going to cook a beautiful, hearty meal. Like, there's these sort of impulsive spasms of nature. And honestly, sleep is a really physical embodiment of that. Right?

[B]

Is like, I need impulsive spasm of Bonnie. Rach should write a song about it with that title, Impulsive Spasms of Nature. But go on.

[A]

I'm having a spasm in my own juices.

[B]

Oh, God, it's bad.

[A]

It's bad.

[B]

You went to Harvard for that. Go on.

[A]

Okay, but if I go deeper, like, if I'm there in that moment and I actually say, what if I Said to myself, she's crying in the night. And I say, okay, so if I slept well, I would be better at work, right? I'd be able to work more. So what if I set myself up that I want to earn X number of dollars extra a week with all my, like, buoyant energy that I've got from sleeping eight hours and then hire someone with that extra money. Hire someone to come and do the night shift? No. Oh, God, no. I don't. Like, I can feel that when I put that altern alternative scenario in front of me, my. There's a definite no. There's a definite guardrail against that. So then I know that there is a, like a deeper level of. Of nature that is that this is right for. Yeah. And so it's like I. I just need to ask myself the question, well, what if you changed things to realize that fundamentally in myself. I do want it. I want it all. I want. I want to be that tired.

[B]

But, yeah, don't take any of the exits. Stay on this road even though you're so exhausted.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

That is. I think that level is something that people reach when I mean the movie Arthur, which was a movie made a million years ago. It's about a guy who's raised really rich and he's just given everything he wants. And he has a personal butler who treats him with some disdain, but actually deep love. And then the butler gets sick, gets cancer. And the whole movie is about how he takes an exit off his rich life. And it becomes. Instead of having this man take care of him all the time, it switches and he learns to take care of the old man. So as you're talking, two things are coming into my mind. First is that I believe I'm consciousness frolicking in a physical human form. But consciousness exists outside of time or in the present moment, in the eternal present, where there's no linear time and wants to do everything at once. It wants to learn salsa dancing, it wants to cook a flan, it wants to do everything. And it wants to follow you around and watch your nostrils all day.

[A]

Oh, my God, it sure does.

[B]

And it will say, go off this exit, go off on that exit. And if there's joy in that and no opposition, great. Experience it all. Like, do it all. You're not going to be able to do it all at once. That's the first thing. The second thing is that there is a deeper truth level to our nature. It's not self sacrifice. It's not like I'm going to throw myself in front of a bus for the people I love. But it's the love that leads people or moves people to exit the road they thought they wanted and care about something. Care about. I mean, we have a friend right now who's caring for a sibling and, like, trashing her life to care for her sibling. And when you say, maybe you just shouldn't, she's like, no, I love this person. It could be your child, it could be a parent. It could be a dog who's lost his owner. I think we're meant to do many things, and I think we're meant to be intensely ambitious to take every exit. But in the stillness at the very, very heart of what's moving down that road, there's something that's not moving at all. And it chooses things at a deep, deep level. And at the same time that you hate what you're choosing, you love what you're choosing, and you let yourself break. You let yourself break away from the path you thought you would take so that you can feel this connection. Yesterday, after I'd done my little knee review and gotten myself back to.

[A]

I reviewed my knee. I found it wanting.

[B]

I did. I carefully reviewed my knee, my other knee and my thumb. And all of them said, not just take a break today, but be present for your family. Like, I could hear Karen with Lila downstairs, and Lila was giving her a hard time. And I'm like, karen needs a break right now. Lila needs a hug right now. I need a Lila hug right now. And suddenly I was back in the right. I was driving it my life, the way my deepest, true nature wants to drive again.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So it's tricky because you're also encouraged to sacrifice yourself for culture. But this was in no way a sacrifice. It was. It's an honor to care for one person or many people. When the road, when your GPS takes.

[A]

You that way, it's interesting that you say honor, because I was thinking about that word when we were talking about the vows and the commitment thing and the idea of honoring the reality of change and honoring the reality of love as something that changes in nature and honoring the way you feel in the day and when there is that call to sort of serve. I don't want that to sound yucky.

[B]

But like, kind of not self sacrifice, but. Yeah, because there's a. There's something pushing you.

[A]

But don't you think that that's. Because in the continuum, kindness to self and kindness to others are the same thing? Like, it's the same.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

You know, and so if you're cultivating that kindness to yourself. It's just going to spill over. And in the same way, yeah, outside of the cultural, because it's a cultural idea that says that's self sacrifice. Right.

[B]

So the kindness you bring, that says which exit shall I take? Shall I get up and take this road that is so damn hard. Shall I lie in bed and you know, break the commitment I made to myself to do hard exercise every day? The moment you would approach this with kindness and you elevate the kind parts of yourself to the governance, government of the culture inside you and the other parts have a vote, but they're all being treated with kindness. So ultimately they relax and they return the kindness. And there, there's a little engine of kindness that starts when you're at a very, very self nurturing level which then spills over into the love of others and to the connection between you. So that when you care, when you get up with your screaming child for the hundredth night and you hold her in her arms till she calms down, you are also calming yourself and you are that cannot. That cannot. That's the only exit you can take if your life is ruled and your path is charted by kindness, by compassion.

[A]

Yeah. And it can be tricky to do, to tell the one from the other. And it's like, you know, I think about exercise is ultimately, you know, not to the extent that you've been doing it, but like I, it, your deeper truth is that it's, it's good for your body to do a certain amount. And I'm, I'm like naturally quite lazy human being physically. And so, you know, I have to recognize the, the kindness that it is to my body to go and do that strength training. And it, you know, it hurts on leg day, but it's gonna feel really good getting out of bed on my 83rd birthday, hopefully touchwood, you know, like so, so holding the, the two truths of the impulsive surface part of your spirit and the, the deeper truth that is very still.

[B]

We get up every day thinking we know what journey we want to take through the day, through the week, through our lives. And then we end up either taking exits we didn't think we'd want or staying on roads that feel long and hard. But if that stillness you just talked about is the ultimate guide and if we follow it, if we remember to check it often, that's where our deepest true nature finds, forges these life experiences that are deeper. Like in Arthur the movie, he ends up at the end when his, his butler Dies and it was his father dying. He. He walks out into the world as a whole person, a mature person, a deeper person. And I think that's what our consciousness is ultimately here for. Like, it loves the fun times, but it's at the times when love becomes something unusual, something we never thought we'd do, a path we never thought we'd take, that it forges something new, something we actually can't imagine until we've become it.

[A]

It's always going to be full of messiness and compromise and imperfection. Right. Like, I have this very strong sense that we mustn't. We mustn't make this into the culture of. Of perfection, ability, perfectibility. There it is.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

I just made my own point.

[B]

Or self sacrifice.

[A]

No, no, because that's what. That's. That's what life is too. It's like, yeah, it can. I. It can suck to get up and I can I. It. I'm tired and there's sand on my eyelids and I feel crappy. And it's the. It's still the right thing for me, 100%. I have. I have some ani words. The poet love show.

[B]

Because you long ago took an exit labeled Ana DeFranco. And you have never stopped driving.

[A]

Oh, boy. That is so true. So it's about, like, to me, the connection, because sometimes that can seem quite tenuous, is about, like, looking for that. That deeper truth in yourself, the deeper, true nature. And also how life is sort of jagged and unperfect at the same time. So this is actually a poem she wrote, and this part of it says, to search for the downbeat in a tabla symphony. To search in the darkness for someone who looks like me, though I'm not really who I said I was or who I thought I'd be. Just a collection of recollections, conversations consisting of the kind of marks we make when we're trying to make a pen work again, a whole lifetime of them. So, yeah, so let's, like, we'll do all this. All the. All the things of listening and kindness, and we'll. And in that kindness, we'll try not to perfect everything and optimize everything and just accept that sometimes we'll get the right exit and we'll get it at the right time. Sometimes we'll miss it. And it's. Ultimately, it's all nature, right, because it's. It's glorious imperfection in the face of really true and wonderful intentions.

[B]

Yes. So stay on that road to your deep, true nature, the one it chooses when you can and when you can't, that's fine too. But the whole way you can always.

[A]

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 mbi. And remember, if you're having fun, please rate and review and stay wild.

[B]

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.