Wallowing in Magic

Summary

Bewildered Podcast: "Wallowing in Magic"

Hosts: Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan
Date: January 28, 2026

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Overview

In this engaging and laughter-filled episode, Martha and Rowan pick up where they left off in the previous episode about "authorizing your knowing"—that deep, non-cognitive sense of guidance that can lead to a more authentic, joyful life. The focus here is on what comes next: embracing the often unconventional, magical-feeling steps that follow when you let your inner truth—not culture—set your path. Through personal stories and playful banter, they discuss how to "wallow in magic," write the code of your own life, trust synchronicity, and create a reality that feels fun, meaningful, and genuinely your own.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Awkwardness with Cultural Small Talk and Authentic Connection

• Rowan and Martha open with an honest (and hilarious) discussion about the pain of small talk and not fitting in with mainstream social expectations. This discomfort, they argue, is linked to being "bewildered" by cultural norms that silence authentic knowing.
• Memorable Quote:

  "And then they proceeded to do three and a half days of small talk just to show us how it's done...I literally thought I was gonna have to die to get out of that room."
  —Rowan ([03:02])

2. "Authorizing Your Knowing" and Life as a Programmable Video Game

• Martha describes the sensation of living as an avatar in a video game—except that once you "authorize your knowing," you start to "write the code" for your own life rather than just follow preset paths.
• This awakening, she says, is what she calls "wallowing in magic," where life becomes increasingly responsive and synchronistic.
• Memorable Quote:

  "You start to feel and see things that make you feel more that you are actually writing the code for the game. You're no longer just knocking around, dealing with the world as it is. You are somehow creating what's happening."
  —Martha ([16:36])

3. The Technology of Magic vs. Cultural Programming

• The hosts discuss "the technology of magic" as a legitimate way of engaging with the world, contrasting it with what most Western cultures dismiss as mere magical thinking.
• Martha gives anthropological examples to illustrate how indigenous technologies can be dismissed as magic—but are just very different ways of knowing.
• Quote:

  "'The plants gave us the recipe.' They sing and they tell us the recipe and we say magic. And they look at us and go, no—technology."
  —Martha ([18:22])

4. Recognizing Authentic Desire: The "Get-It-Up" Test

• The core test for whether a yearning is authentic (essence-driven) or culturally implanted is whether your body, heart, and soul "get it up" for the thing.
• If you can't muster true enthusiasm, it's probably not your path—no matter how much the culture insists it should be.
• Quote:

  "It's like you can either get it up or you can't get it up...You know, it means your excitement is up."
  —Rowan ([24:08])

• Quote:

  "The mind is the slave of the culture...it will lead us straight down the lines of the cultural rules and maybe to our own misery."
  —Martha ([24:48])

5. Synchronicities as Feedback from the Game

• When you follow these authentic pulls and start "writing the code," life responds with synchronicities—"little shiny things" that guide you, almost like breadcrumbs.
• The process is reciprocal: you are co-creating with the universe (or the 'game').
• Quote:

  "It's almost as if something wants you to want something. And it is very much like falling in love."
  —Martha ([27:18])

6. Personal Examples: Following Magic Into Real Life

• The hosts recount big and small examples of wallowing in magic:
  • Martha's client who chose to stay with her beloved horse rather than accept a high-status job she didn't want ([21:00]).
  • Their own move from Pennsylvania to upstate New York, guided by a series of odd, undeniable nudges and synchronicities ([28:22]).
  • Manifesting friendships (such as with Liz Gilbert) and even their dog Bilbo through desire, vivid imagination, and storytelling ([53:01], [54:58]).
• Quote:

  "We decided we were living perfectly happily in Pennsylvania, and then a series of nudges told us to move to this area, and we did. And the more we turned our head in the direction of here, the more synchronicities piled up to say, yes, ridiculous. Yes. Yes."
  —Rowan ([28:48])

7. Storytelling as the Act of Magic

• The way we create our lives is by telling stories first in our own minds, then to others.
• The "juice" or excitement in a story is the key—if it makes you come alive, it's a sign you're writing generative code.
• Quote:

  "I actually think that the component of writing the game is storytelling...If the story has juice, you can get it up for that story."
  —Martha ([33:25])

8. The Three N’s: Notice, Narrow, Name

• Martha describes her practical magic methodology:
  • Notice what genuinely excites you or carries “juice”.
  • Narrow it down by focusing in on the specifics or most intense version.
  • Name it—articulate or claim what it is, but only once it’s basically manifest.
• Quote:

  "You notice first what you can get it up for; you narrow it down to the most intense version of that feeling...Mostly you'll go towards something by noticing and narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, until you come up with just a few options and go to the one that has the most heat."
  —Martha ([39:21])

9. Wallowing in Advance: Imagination as Creation

• Both hosts emphasize the importance of "wallowing" in the sensory, emotional experience of what you desire before it arrives.
• The fantasy should feel delicious and enjoyable in itself—even before it manifests.
• Martha and Rowan share vivid mental movies they relished, from book deals to specific friendships to arriving at Martha's ranch ([44:02], [46:22]).
• Memorable Moment:
  Martha:

  "I could hear the utensils clinking and I could smell that restaurant. It was easy. It felt like it was given to me. And it went on and on and on and every single day I enjoyed it." ([44:08])

10. What Happens When Magic Becomes Normal: The Dew Point

• Over time, as desires manifest and the cycle repeats, “magic” becomes the new normal:

  "When the vision of the thing you want has been wallowed in long enough, it starts to feel normal. Magic feels normal, or what we would call the technology of magic feels normal. So the way I put it is, it's like the dew point of magic is normal."
  —Martha ([60:34])

• The more you experience these creative successes, the more momentum you get. This is why, in fairy tales, it's the older "witches" or "sorcerers" who wield the most magic—they have built up evidence.

11. Challenges Along the Path

• It's not always smooth. There’s often a period of frustration or dissonance before reality catches up with the potency of your inner world.
• Adventuring off the beaten (cultural) path takes courage and willingness to be misunderstood.
• Quote:

  "The battle is not only with...circumstance around you. The battle is with your own disbelief that what you're wallowing in is real."
  —Martha ([63:54])

12. Gratitude and Recapitulation: How to Keep the Magic Flowing

• Continually telling (and retelling) stories of magic, wallowing in gratitude, and sharing them with others, keeps the process alive and vital.
• Quote:

  "Wallowing in the ones that have happened—another word for that is gratitude, right?"
  —Rowan ([52:45])

13. The Opposite of Paranoia: Pronoia

• Trusting that “everything is conspiring to support you” — the hosts jokingly call this “pronoia.”
• Quote:

  "Instead of being afraid the world is out to get you, you become crazily convinced that everything is out to help you."
  —Martha ([61:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "People are terrifying." —Rowan ([05:44])
• "I have to prevaricate for a bit. You can make things work, but they become more difficult and boring and awful the further you push them down. I'm going to live the culturally approved life. And when you let go of that and you go with the...magical version...that's when things start coming together magically or seemingly by magic." —Martha ([41:14])
• "Things happen to help you, and they can be from the most trivial to the most incredible emergency." —Martha ([27:18])
• "Our magic should be more powerful as the years go by." —Ani DiFranco, quoted by Rowan ([51:43])
• On manifesting their dog, Bilbo:

  "You got out of the car and said, 'Here, Bilbo.' And this dog came running straight to you. He has always responded to that name." —Martha ([56:35])

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Essential Timestamps

• Cultural small talk & not fitting in: [01:10]–[07:45]
• Authorizing Knowing & video game metaphor: [16:35]–[18:04]
• Technology of Magic: [18:04]–[19:29]
• Authentic desire—'get it up' concept: [24:08]–[25:56]
• Client's story—choosing the horse over the job: [20:23]–[22:02]
• Synchronicity and moving to NY: [28:22]–[29:31]
• Three N’s: Notice, Narrow, Name: [39:21]–[41:14]
• Personal fantasy stories—manifesting friendships, publishing, dogs: [44:02]–[56:56]
• Concept of magic's dew point—when magic becomes normal: [60:34]–[62:22]
• Facing friction and believing in the magic: [62:22]–[63:54]
• Pronoia—everything is conspiring to help you: [61:58]
• Importance of gratitude & storytelling: [52:45]–[54:13]

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Tone, Style, and Takeaways

Martha and Rowan bring warmth, humor, self-deprecation, and plenty of laughter to "Wallowing in Magic". The episode is both practical and delightfully weird: they don’t offer rigid steps, but instead invite listeners to honor their true desires, embrace imagination, and enjoy the process—even when it means being out of sync with societal norms.

At its heart, this episode champions freeing yourself from external programming, trusting your instincts and body’s signals, following the magic of synchronicity, and actively wallowing in joy (past, present, and future). In doing so, you help “write the code” for a kinder, wilder, and more magical existence.

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Quick Summary List

• Cultural rules stifle authentic knowing—awkwardness is a clue.
• “Get it up” for what excites you—otherwise, it’s not your path.
• Synchronicities are signs you’re collaborating with the universe.
• Storytelling is literal magic—a way to shape reality.
• Notice, Narrow, Name: move from excitement to clarity.
• Wallow in sensory joy of your wishes, even before they appear.
• With time and experience, magic becomes normal—the “dew point.”
• Don’t be afraid to be misunderstood; joy is the guide, not conformity.
• Gratitude feeds future magic; retelling your story keeps it alive.
• Pronoia: let yourself believe the world wants to help you.

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Welcome to Bewildered, where living true to yourself—and laughing about it—is the real magic.

Transcript

[A]

So, Mari, fun episode coming up. The last time we spoke, it was about authorizing your knowing and giving permission for the deep knowing that goes far deeper than cultural expectations of us and tells us how we really should be living in our true nature.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And today we kind of picked up on that conversation at the point of. And once you have authorized your knowing, what are the next steps? And those steps are pretty freaking out there. Yeah.

[B]

I said it was like you're playing a video game. You're a character in a video game, but the character is just bopping around and suddenly starts to realize they can write the code of the game itself. And the process of writing the code of the world for your own life is something I call wallowing in magic.

[A]

We hope you enjoy this episode, and we'll see you on the other side.

[B]

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.

[B]

Oh, so bewildered.

[A]

So bewildered. So trying to figure it out. What is on your figure it out list this week? Mighty Moo.

[B]

I have been doing a lot of travel, Interact. Yes, yes. Interacting with many strangers on a kind of light social level. I know, right? People enjoy this, and I. I honor them for it, but I can't. I can't.

[A]

I have a way of dealing with this. Do you want. Do you want to hear it?

[B]

Does it involve explosives?

[A]

Nope. This is what I do. So do you have a dog? If in doubt, just, like, pull out the office. It's that moment when you realize you're supposed to also ask them the question, right? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I always just ask them if they've been attacked by an animal, any animal. I'm sure I've said that before on the podcast because that literally is my only go to thing, but you and I had an experience some months hence hither. No hence.

[A]

Does hence mean after right now?

[B]

No. No. Some months before hence. No, it does.

[A]

It does.

[B]

Some months ago.

[A]

If in doubt, let's go for the word we use every day.

[B]

Have a. We were sitting in a meeting. I will not say for what I do not wish.

[A]

You don't want to cast aspersions.

[B]

No, I will cast no aspersions. But I will say we were sitting in there, in this room, and there were maybe five or six people. We were waiting for one person who was coming late, and those six people had this conversation that I know you remember. Unless you've repressed it.

[A]

Oh, I remember.

[B]

I may need medication to forget it. They started talking about how the Problem with young people today, and you always.

[A]

Know that's going to a good place.

[B]

Is that they don't know how to make small talk. They were like, they just don't say anything. They're just looking at their phones and talking about the world. They don't know how. And everyone agreed. Yes, this is the problem with young people. And then they proceeded to do three and a half days of small talk just to show us how it's done.

[A]

It was unbelievable.

[B]

You know when you go down to the stands over the KY and they have those lobster rolls? They have big lobster rolls. Really? Because I had a smaller lobster roll somewhere else. No, you got to go there. They get big. How big? How big? They're as big as your hand. Really? That's a lot of lobster. Yeah. And then they sell you the Bo. A five hour discussion on bottled water. I literally thought I was gonna have to die to get out of that room. And it would have. I was close to death, actually. It was horrifying. And I realized I'm nowhere close in my dotage. I am still nowhere close to being able to make small talk, which is the main problem with young people today. Do you have a dog? Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, do you have a dog? We literally just sat there, getting slowly more despondent and unable to function. Do you remember it?

[A]

Oh, vividly. I think in, like, some part of me will always be in that room.

[B]

Do you know what I mean?

[A]

Like, it's like. It's like a escape room thing. And. But they just won't stop talking about what the different bottled water brands are called and how much they cost. Oh, and it's not a listing prices.

[B]

The prices of each brand of bottled water. Like, an hour on that. I was fixated on this painting on the wall behind them. It was a woman and a child in a rowboat. And I began violently correcting the drawing errors in the painting, which, by the way, had a freaking ton of drawing errors, I have to say. And that it moved me into the right half of my brain so that they were just going, lobster roll.

[A]

Lobster roll.

[B]

Bo. It was more bearable then, but still, this whole last month, I've been traveling so much, and somebody says, hi, I've read your books, and I'm thinking, lobster roll. Like, what do I do now? I run. I hide.

[A]

Of course you do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How could you?

[B]

Not a normal reaction.

[A]

Yeah, it's hard. I mean, people are terrifying.

[B]

Yes, they are.

[A]

And it's this weird thing where I. I have a fear reaction. Yeah. To awkward social situations.

[B]

Me too.

[A]

That is. And you know, I've been face to face with a lion. It's not like I don't know the difference, but that was relatively relaxing.

[B]

Yes. Compared to being in that room with those people. Why?

[A]

I don't know. Why does my nervous system act as though it's like a real threat when what it is is mildly inconvenient?

[B]

No, it's a real threat. It's a real threat. You don't fit into the troop. See, the social primate troop, like the baboon or the monkey, they have troops. And you get in if you can sit and groom the others and go. Lobster rule. But you have to put the right words in. They made it clear before they started that people who can't do small talk.

[A]

Are bad and young.

[B]

And young. And that they have problems. And then they just took it to town, baby. It was like a virtuoso performance of these six people. Once the topic had been established. Yes. The gauntlet had been thrown and they all went in to show their skills. They were the most boring human beings. Being more boring, I think, than anyone had ever been. I never even conceived of a universe where people could be that boring. And it was a good thing for them.

[A]

I worry that people might be comparing our podcast with that experience, and I hope that's not the experience.

[B]

I'm not saying you're wrong. I just like to talk about being face to face with a lion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's more to me. That's large shock is what what's her face said. Who wrote the Bell Jar? Sylvia Plath. About her college. I was not good at small talk and large talk was not encouraged. And then she ended up, well, you know, being very depressed for most of her life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Short life. So. Ro. What? She couldn't make small talk. It's practically lethal. So, honey.

[A]

Yes, my love, my dear.

[B]

My sweet, darling angel. What are you trying to figure out? Well, do you have a dog?

[A]

We used to have a dog.

[B]

We, you and I, or we, you and someone else?

[A]

We, you and I and Karen used to have a dog named Claire.

[B]

Oh, Claire.

[A]

And I was looking at photos of her this morning, and I was remembering something that she did that I will be trying to figure out until the end of my days. Do you remember? And we might have even talked about it on this podcast before, back when. Claire was.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's one of the weirdest things, because dogs, like most dogs, there's a sort of range of behaviors. Yeah, right. And they'll do one or two little slightly individual things, but they sort of fit into a general range of behaviors. Claire was a different. She. Claire was an interesting one. And you didn't know to meet her because she was a very good looking golden retriever. Beautiful, gorgeous.

[B]

So it was weird doggy do good camp.

[A]

Well, I wasn't going to talk about that. That was before my time.

[B]

We adopted her. She was a rescue dog. We took her to doggy do good camp where she would learn basic commands and comportment of dogs. And it was a two week program. Live in. It was like boarding school. And after two weeks, they said, could we keep her for another two weeks? And at the end of the next two weeks, she had a vague, vague concept of the word stay, but she didn't really believe it. And it came with a certificate that said, claire is a very adorable dog. Her scores are very low.

[A]

So one of the things that Claire used to do. And in Claire's defense, she was not into small talk either.

[B]

Not at all.

[A]

She was. She was in. She was in her own kind of universe. And in that universe there were rituals to be observed. Yes. And one of her favorite rituals that we would find her doing on the regular. Well, first of all, there was a. Just a general, like personal hygiene thing, which was that her. Her lower undercarriage.

[B]

Her.

[A]

Her. Her.

[B]

It's not really her bikini area. The area between her belly button and her bikini area.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That patch of lower abdomen.

[A]

Yeah. Where there's not a lot of hair, but usually there's like. It's not completely bald. No. With Claire that was kept completely bald.

[B]

She. She shave it. Did you ever catch her shaving it? It was absolutely bald. And she kept it that way.

[A]

She kept it. And the reason that it had to be kept that way is so that the ritual could be observed. Yes. Which was where she would go out and find herself some gravel.

[B]

Gravel. That's true.

[A]

She would find herself some gravel and she would arrange herself just so like if you imagine back legs. Oh, gosh, back legs splayed. It's actually, I don't think a human body can do this. I don't even think a dog's body could do.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Anyway, she would. Her back half would be lying as though on its back.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But her front half would kind of be twisted around in order that she could place the individual pieces of gravel carefully on the bald patch of belly. And then once she'd done that, it was safe to begin eating the gravel.

[B]

Which she did.

[A]

Which she did. But only if the four mentioned steps had been followed to the letter.

[B]

This bald area was like the size of a dinner plate. She was doing that, right? It was truly. It was obviously some sort of, you know, table setting, but the eating of the gravel. She had multiple surgeries. A lot of rocks for eating gravel, but always in that specific, ritualized way.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's terrible. Like, we're talking about a deeply traumatized dog and the things that come out of that. But, you know, still funny.

[B]

Still. Yeah, she was. Her scores were. Her scores were very, very freaking low. Yeah, we loved her.

[A]

She was always happy, though. Mildly confused, but, like, willing to go along with whatever the group was into.

[B]

I swear, when we got her, she was so nervous. You didn't know her then, but she got into bed with me and. And she fully spooned me and pressed her muzzle into my head and I. I swear to God, I could hear her thinking and she was like this. Hello. Hello. I am slightly anxious. Could I please press my face against your face? This helps me with my anxiety. Please, please. I actually wrote it into a novel. This feeling of having this. This snout pressed to my head while the dog was communicating telepathically or I was dreaming. Either way, it was the one time that she was verbal, at least in my mind. Whereas Bilbo, the dog we have now, is running a credit card validation scheme or something.

[A]

Yeah, he's up to something.

[B]

Yeah, he's got a lot of things going on. I think he works for the CIA.

[A]

Karen just said to him with a straight face earlier today, come on, Bilbo, it's time we go pay some invoices. Bilbo was like, no rest for the wicked.

[B]

Off we go.

[A]

Come on, then.

[B]

Yeah, it was something. But, yeah, we've never figured that out, what she was doing.

[A]

No. It will remain a sacred mystery and.

[B]

It'S really worth looking back on. Thank you. Which, the mystery that is worth looking back on. That brings us to our topic.

[A]

Hi there. I'm Ro and I'll be your podcaster for today. Do you know how to tip your podcaster? It's actually pretty easy. You can rate our pod with lots of stars, all your stars. You can review it with your best superlatives. You can even subscribe or follow Bewildered, so you'll never miss an episode. Then, of course, if you're ready to go all in, Our paid online community is called Wilder, A Sanctuary for the Bewildered. And I. I can honestly say it's one of the few true sanctuaries online. You can go to wildercommunity.com to check it out. Great review. Subscribe, join, and you all have a great day now.

[B]

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 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 those who listened to our last episode will remember that we left them on a little bit of a cliffhanger, pretty much saying, next time.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And by some miracle, we remembered that we had said that. And here we are.

[B]

Here we are remembering.

[A]

Remember to do it. To remember to do what we said we would do.

[B]

They have no idea how hard that is for us.

[A]

No idea.

[B]

None for you.

[A]

We do this for you.

[B]

We do it all for you. Yeah. So what we. Last one was called authorize your knowing, and it was about this sort of deep, deep inner knowing that we have that goes beyond the mere cognitive and the wonderful. Lisa Miller, who's a psychologist at Columbia University and a doctorate, said, you have to authorize that part of yourself to be your authority. Authorize it to be your authority. Sorry, I need to go to doggy do. Good. My scores are very low. So at the end of that, after we talked about authorizing your knowing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I said for the last couple of decades that I've been doing that because I've done it quite a bit. It starts to feel like life is a video game and we're all just the avatars of ourselves in the video game. And if you authorize your knowing completely, you start to feel and see things that make you feel more that you are actually writing the code for the game. You're no longer just knocking around, dealing with the world as it is. You are somehow creating what's happening.

[A]

Yeah. Instead of playing within the rules, you start to create the rules.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. And we sort of, I think, hinted that the synchronicities start happening. That as you authorize your knowing, as you go into this way of living. Yeah. Gets weird.

[B]

It does.

[A]

In the best way.

[B]

Really, really good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah.

[A]

So I think, like, the way that it makes sense to me to kick us off is to talk about the, like, what is It. That we want to create in the video game. Like, what is the thing that if we're given the. I'm trying to like, do the video game metaphor, Right. If we're able to write the code, what do. What do we want the physics of our world to be? What do we want to create in our world?

[B]

Well, first of all, I don't think we can create the physics of it, but there's a way to work within the physics that you start to feel. So the first thing I want to say is that this will sound like magic. It will sound like magical thinking. And we were talking about this before we came in. It's actually a way of knowing. And there are a lot of people who are in non western cultures who use it very ably. And it's a kind of technology. I called it the technology of magic in one of my books. And the way that they operate in the world looks magical to us. So, like if you go to the rainforest and meet an uncontacted tribe and show them your iPhone, they might say, magic. And you say, no, no technology. And then they go out and pick three different plants and use specific parts of those three plants to cook in a sequence of steps. That makes it a very powerful psychoactive drug. And you say, how did you do that? And they said, the plants gave us the recipe. They sing and they tell us the recipe and we say magic. And they look at us and go, no technology. So that's what I'm supposing here, that there is a technology of magic. And that is what I was talking about when I said I think you can write code in the game. But you're right, it has to start out with what does your knowing want to have happen? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And it's. It's such an interesting thing because you can want something with your brain or your encultured self.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it has no oomph. Yeah. You know, it. There are things that. It's like you. It doesn't really begin with you. Does that make sense? It's like something wants to happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's why I can get super excited about creating this one circumstance in my life. And just the other thing that looks just as shiny, I just can't care. And it's almost like the yearning itself itself is showing you what you can do and what you can't do.

[B]

It's the game inviting you to come write code. That's what it is. And I was thinking about this client I had who had this problem of not being able to be enthusiastic about anything in her life. She wasn't depressed. It was just. Everything was flat beer. And she was very successful. She was just finishing business school, and she'd been given all these job offers, and we talked about which one she wanted, and it was just, meh. Like, she'd be like, yeah, that sounds good. But I could feel that the juice wasn't there. There was no heat, you know, to use two different metaphors. And I was so puzzled. And we talked around this for, like, three sessions. And then she started to talk about, okay, so I'm gonna take this one in Chicago, and I'll do that, and I'll have to sell my horse. And suddenly it was just like. And I was like, wait, stop. Tell me about the horse. All her joy in life was coming from this horse and her relationship with it and riding and they'd go out together, and the horse was literally the being she loved most in this world, and she was going to get rid of it to go take any of these jobs. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to tell you what to do. But in my head, I was thinking, turn them all down. Stay with that horse. And she did. Ultimately, she came to that by herself, and she still was very successful, but she got to keep the horse. And what the video game of culture says is, you take the highfalutin job in Chicago, you know, you can't turn that down. You can't turn it down for a person, much less a horse. You leave your kids at home, you know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But that's not what the game wanted of her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that would not have been a game that would have expanded her soul. Yeah.

[A]

You gotta be willing to order off menu. And the culture is very particular about the menu.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the menu is like, success, money, status, the appearance of fulfillment, if not fulfillment.

[B]

Right, right. Wealth, power, the whole. We all know that the pyramid of power, wealth, and status is.

[A]

We know it and we don't. Because you. You're swimming around in water and you don't know you're wet. Right. Like, it's. It's. I think it's one of these things that we have to keep reminding ourselves that we're breathing because it does look invisible a lot of the time. So it's worth sort of saying, yeah, that's not inherent necessarily, that you want to move to Chicago and be a business suit person.

[B]

Yeah. Some people are lucky enough to have, like, an essential self, I call it, that lines up with what culture looks at. Yeah, go do your Chicago thing. Sell your horse if that's what brings you joy. But there was no magic in it. There was no essence that matched the essence of herself. And so what I think we need to do is find. Be very, very focused on our own. Knowing that deep, deep knowing that, essential. I call it essential for two reasons, is absolutely needed. And it's the essence of who you are. It's like a unique flavor that is only you. So you authorize that, and then you start to receive ideas of what you want that seem to be collaborative with the world. Like they're coming from inside you, but they're also coming from around you. And they start to line up in this very, very, almost spooky way sometimes.

[A]

Can I be really crude?

[B]

Yes, please.

[A]

So I think the difference between the thing that wants to happen and so you can make it happen and the thing that. That the culture might be whispering in your ear, that. That would be very nice. It's like the feeling of excitement is either there or not. And so I was saying to you, it's like you can either get it up or. Or you can't get it up. Like, you can't. And I think people know what I mean by that.

[B]

I think they do.

[A]

Even the.

[B]

Just take it as a phrase.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it means your excitement is up.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Something's up.

[B]

But this is a really good point, because the mind is the slave of the culture, and the left hemisphere is the slave of the culture. And that's what, you know, it makes measurements of what we should want and what we do want.

[A]

And.

[B]

And it will lead us astray. It will lead us straight down the lines of the cultural rules and maybe to our own misery. That woman would have sold the most important person in her life to take a job she didn't want. That's what your mind will tell you. But the reason the get it up analogy works is that it literally is the body. And you could call it the heart, you could call it the soul, but it. It shows up. I almost said manifest, and that's like a New Agey word, but it's real. It manifests first in your body as a kind of eros, which originally it meant sexual desire, but it also meant that which pulls you toward another thing, toward a sense of satisfaction. You can get no other way. So we limit it to sexuality, but it actually has a broader application here. And your body is what responds.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it's there or it isn't there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And you can't use Will. No willpower to make yourself want something that doesn't want to happen through you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I feel like that's an early part of the discernment that we can make.

[B]

Have you ever tried to do that? Try to get it up for something like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Come to think of it, you dated a lot of men.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes. There's one.

[A]

You can fake it.

[B]

Yeah. It's easier to make it if you're female, but. Yeah, I think we've all done that. I mean, I tried so hard to want to be a Harvard professor. I really thought I wanted it.

[A]

Yeah. That's why it's tricky.

[B]

Yeah. I did not want a child with a disability. And when I went with the child with a disability, which is what my body, heart and soul said to do, and my mind was just like. They were all telling me, you've thrown your life away. And I did, but it wasn't the life I wanted. There was no Eros in it. There was just work.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing is, that's so interesting is the work that you do in the service of one of these things is so joyful. And it's like having a tailwind. Oh, my God, we're into our metaphor soup. Yeah. It's like you have so much energy and so much. It almost feels like support behind you to do stuff.

[B]

And not just. It almost feels like support behind you. Things happen to help you, and they can be from the most trivial to the most incredible emergency. So when you're very first starting to, like, play the video game and write the code, there has to be that. There has to be the pull from within and without. And it starts to feel really reciprocal. Like it's almost as if something wants you to want something. And it is very much like falling in love.

[A]

And there's those little bits of feedback that come, like just these little shiny things that come along the pathway to go. Uh huh huh. Very good.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. That's right. You get it? Got it. Warmer.

[B]

Yeah. And Lisa Miller said this. Synchronicities. Synchronicities. Carl Jung has something going on. There will be synchronicities as you start to follow what wants to happen.

[A]

Yeah. Isn't that wild, how that happens? Yeah. Like, it is just so fascinating. You can't force it again. It's like you cannot do this with willpower. Yeah.

[B]

It's like Hansel and Gretel leaving the little white stones in the path. It's just little synchronicities start to line up like they did when we decided to move to upstate New York. Just crazy. You could spend hours talking about the synchronicities that happen to us.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

And based on that and the feeling of being pulled, we moved our whole life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It was not like we have a job there. We just felt it.

[A]

And that's the thing, is that you almost have to. I feel like we need to step into, like, a broader worldview for a second. Right. So it's like we did that. We decided we were living perfectly happily in Pennsylvania, and then a series of nudges told us to move to this area, and we did. And the more we turned our head in the direction of here, the more synchronicities piled up to say, yes, ridiculous. Yes. Yes. Like, to the point that it was really silly and it was just people.

[B]

Strangers running up to us in airports saying, you should move to King, you know, like.

[A]

Yeah, it was just. It was wild. And so what. What I feel like we need to communicate in here is what do we believe that we would abandon a perfectly okay situation to head into the unknown based on these little nudges, like, what is it? And I. I'm. I'm, like, actually asking you, even though I'm right in the midst of.

[B]

Sounds so lame when I say it, because culturally, we are told that this is a lame reason to do things, but it's this sense of passion again. It's back to a metaphor of sexuality. There's something almost erotic about the idea that wants to be born, the place that wants to go on. And you feel it. I feel it in my body, as sometimes I feel the chill of truth. Like, I literally get physical sensations of chills washing through me along with all the synchronicities. And if you believe that following the synchronicities is the way to win the game, is the way to write the code. That is a. I don't hold any beliefs tightly, but I don't not believe that. I don't refuse to believe that we are making the game and we're programming the game. When we follow this pull along with Synchronicities along the path, I think that.

[A]

The belief system is something like, there is a quest that you can be taking in this game that will be a very rich and rewarding way to play it. And, you know, the sort of language we use is like, I texted you and Karen when I first came to this town. I think we're supposed to move here. We're supposed to. It's. And. And it's not anything that we hold in some sort of complex cosmology or anything, but there is this sense of we're being pushed here for a reason. That's what it is. There's some sort of reason for us to be here. And it's not like something bad would happen if we stayed in Pennsylvania, but something more exciting, something good, more shiny, shimmery. You know, positive. Yeah.

[B]

And the key is we don't know the reason.

[A]

No.

[B]

It's like the T.S. eliot lines that I used to hear in my head all the time. Wait without thought, for it would be for you are not ready for thought. I said to my soul, be still and wait without love, without hope, because they would be for the wrong things. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. So you get pulled to a place and I kind of have ideas about why it might be the right place to be. But actually, I don't know.

[A]

It's so funny because we never are going to know.

[B]

No, right.

[A]

Not in any definitive way. There's no way to. And there's no way to test it against any other.

[B]

The timeline can't double bind that shit.

[A]

No, you cannot double blind.

[B]

No, no double blind. Okay. I said double bind.

[A]

Sorry. You can't test it, so you'll never know. But we tell ourselves stories about it, which I find so fascinating. Like. And I think humans just do this anyway. And it's so interesting how storytelling wends its way into this way of living so much, because it's also how we then create the circumstances to let the thing that wants to happen happen.

[B]

I actually think that the component of writing the game is storytelling. You tell it in your own mind. You tell it to your family, you tell it to other people. And it's. If the story has juice, you can get it up for that story. And then there are stories that are like, I need. There's a very good retirement package, which for me, I mean, for some people, that would have juice. For me, it doesn't. So I think that's actually the storytelling is the magic. Actually, a lot of magical. A lot of writers who write fantasy will talk about the storytelling itself as being the creation of a world.

[A]

I also wonder whether. Because I'm thinking, to me, it's so great to have this really recent example of this totally madcap scheme of moving to another state for no reason. And it's constantly something that people are asking, so why'd you move here?

[B]

I know.

[A]

I had a feeling. Tingle.

[B]

Yeah, There were tingles and there were synchronicities and here we are.

[A]

Here we are. But it feels to me as though the experience of when you've authorized your knowing and you're starting to be steered a little bit, not in any directive way, but in a. If you want, you could do, you.

[B]

Know, a desire way.

[A]

Yeah. Through your desire, the storytelling becomes the way that we unite the spiritual or the meta or the part of us that isn't in form with the part of us that is, you know, or you might say the. You know, you. You bring it through the whole brain by making. Setting it a story to something that is largely outside of language, which is just this, like, warmer, cooler feeling. Yeah.

[B]

The storytelling is the magic that links, I mean, the right and left hemispheres. The left hemisphere is the more verbal, and the right hemisphere only uses words for songs, jokes, and poems. But. But I also. That's what it says in the literature, but I also think that a great story is going on between both hemispheres, so. You're absolutely right. That's why writer's block is so hard. When you do dancing or visual art or whatever, you're just in your art, but with storytelling, you're painting pictures, but with words. So you're having to use both sides of the brain. And it is actually quite difficult to tell a story that really has life in it. And you'll tell a story. I mean, I tell myself stories about why we moved to New York that are just flat beer. And then I tell other stories, and they're always just like, well, I became obsessed with Sojourner Truth, who was a great black emancipator, feminist, brilliant genius, obsessed. I wanted to be a Sojourner. I told you, right? And you came back from upstate New York going, this place. This place is amazing. And I was like, shut up. I want to be a Sojourner. Like Sojourner Truth. And then you said, well, where did she live? Kingston, New York. There's a national forest named for her here. And I'm still obsessed with Sojourner Truth, but it was just so odd. Where did that come from? It came from.

[A]

There's so many stories. There are even better stories than that.

[B]

That we can tell.

[A]

But I feel like the storytelling piece is also where we encounter the culture and where, you know, the authorize your knowing rubber meets the road. Because you've got to, like. It's just like, oh, the small talk. It always happens in the small talk.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And where did you move from? And why did you move?

[B]

Do you have a dog? Lobster roll. God, yeah. It's horrible.

[A]

And then you don't have an answer. Because you don't know how to tell it in that vernacular.

[B]

The magics, the real chain of thoughts and events that brought us here is would. It's like leaving toilet paper out in the rain. The story just falls apart. So the culture, like leaving toilet paper.

[A]

Out in the rain. Is it that well worn thing that people do?

[B]

There's a variation on the song MacArthur park where you leave a cake out in the rain. This is toilet paper. Look it up, folks. My point is there'll be. If we told the real story. Well, we're telling it. Ro really liked this place. Fell in love with ginkgo leaves. We saw one single ginkgo leaf later where it shouldn't have been.

[A]

We actually talked about this on the podcast.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Okay. So people ran up to us talking about Kingston, New York, for no reason. I somehow had this idea that some of my friends lived there. I had no idea where they lived. Same place. It just. I didn't know. But I did know in some weird thing. And that's what I mean. It falls apart because subjected to the culture's stringent standards of what is important that just has no fiber, it just falls apart like toilet paper in the rain. And I don't think that I can take it. That's. Sorry, that's from MacArthur Park. Now we're getting to a point here, so I don't want to lose it. This flimsy story from the culture's perspective all the time. I'm telling clients to follow that. And then I'm like, okay, we need a cover story for you. We need a cultural cover story. While you investigate this magic that's happening in your life. I'll say to some kid, this is what you're gonna make. Your passion will combine these weird courses. We're gonna tell your parents this.

[A]

Yeah. You have to frame it up in a way that the culture can understand. And honestly, for me, most of the time now, in these small talk situations, it sounds like fell in love with you, came to visit. Fell in love with the area. We work for ourselves so we can work from anywhere but deal with it.

[B]

Sounds like we're just so wealthy we can just pop in and buy a home anywhere. Do you have a dog? But to us, following that is writing the code. And we've been doing it for a while. And there's a kind of methodology that I use, and I call it the three ends. Notice what gives you the passion, and then start to narrow it down more and more and more specifics. And only usually only when it's already a done deal. Do you come to naming the thing so you notice first what you can get it up for you narrow it down to the most intense version of that feeling and you may find yourself doing something or moving somewhere. Our address only became the name of our home once we'd already moved when we bought that house. So naming it was the last thing. And mostly you'll go towards something by noticing and narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, until you come up with just a few options and go to the one that has the most heat.

[A]

So we're talking about when you're wanting to make something happen in your life, you notice where the, where the excitement lies because otherwise you're just not going to be able to make it happen. Right. It's just not going to happen.

[B]

Without that energy, it will not happen.

[A]

So forget it. If, if, if it's just a thought form, it's most likely cultural.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And if not from like the culture at large, then from a culture that.

[B]

You have participated in, family culture, religious culture, whatever.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, sorry, that's it. That's not going to work.

[B]

Not going to work.

[A]

If it's got juice, you start to move towards it and notice narrow. And then eventually name.

[B]

I have to prevaricate for a bit. You can make things work, but they become more difficult and boring and awful the further you push them down. I'm going to live the culturally approved life. And when you let go of that and you go with the, with the magical version, with the code writing version, that's when things start coming together magically or seemingly by magic.

[A]

Okay. So we've noticed where the heat is, we're narrowing it and eventually we can name it, then what do we do?

[B]

So once you've noticed what you want and you're starting to narrow it down, what happens is your imagination starts to create pictures. The storyteller in you doesn't just have words, it's actually starting to give you images and almost sensory experiences of what it could be. Like this thing that you love.

[A]

Right. And so then it's almost like your role is not as passive receiver of that, but you actually have to like get invested in them. Right? Yeah.

[B]

You have to actually imagine the deliciousness of the thing that is going to happen before it has happened, which is really hard because a lot of people don't want to get their expectations up because they'll be crushed. That's the cultural thing. It's safer not to trust anything until it's there. But actually the experience of something coming true is just the final Conclusion of somebody imagining that experience in the past. Like there's nothing around us that was not made from imagination before. It was made from three dimensional stuff. And in this case, there's a feeling tone to what you want to experience. So I had this thing. I don't know, maybe you have one too. But when I was trying to get published, that was back when publishing was a thing. And I had this very vivid fantasy based on many movies of going to a Manhattan restaurant with my publisher and my editor and all the publishing people and they would buy me lunch and talk about my book. And it was years before that came true. But I experienced it every single day for years. It was just a place I went to wallow. It felt yummy.

[A]

So you're like watching the movie in your head of that happening and what that means, like what you're situating that in is I have a publisher, I have an editor, I am a published author. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that's the thing, that's the, the goal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But what you're doing is you're telling this really rich and vivid story in your head of going to this restaurant, full sensory.

[B]

The. The sounds of. I can still remember how I would sit there and I was like alone in Phoenix or taking care of kids who were throwing up and I could hear the utensils clinking and I could smell that restaurant. And it's not like I was like, I'm gonna make this happen, so help me God. I'll imagine into being. It was easy. It felt like it was given to me. And it went on and on and on and every single day I enjoyed it.

[A]

And that's why it's wallowing and not forcing or eating your vegetables or doing your homework.

[B]

No, it's just you are. You think maybe you're thinking it up, but it also feels like it's being given.

[A]

So I have one of these. But it's very embarrassing and it does make me look like a weird little stalky freak, but that's not going to stop me. So here we go. I was in Australia, I was reading your books and I was thinking, yeah, I think I'm supposed to be friends with her at least.

[B]

At the very least.

[A]

And I would. You have so much stuff out there that you can listen to. And so I would have like your voice on in the car or something. And over time, I started to like. At one point I imagined you and Karen coming to my house in Melbourne. And it didn't really. I couldn't get a lot of lift in that one, like, it was fun. And I can still picture it. I can still picture the scene as. As it played out my little movie, but that wasn't it. It was about going to your ranch in California. And I'd heard you say that there was a butterfly gate. A gate in the shape of a butterfly, which is one of your symbols. Right. And it was one of the amazing things that drew you to the ranch. But for me, it was like a little. It's like a signal. It's like you're like. In the same way that you were, like, here is my editor universe. Take note, one does not have a publisher if one is not published. Mine was like, I am going to a very specific coordinates of longitude and latitude. Look for the damn gate. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So my thing that I would imagine there would. There were actually two. One was having dinner with you and some of our friends, and the other one was arriving at the ranch to, like, to say hi and like, a reunion of sorts. And I had. Was in such vivid detail. I drove up and I was in a black Jeep. Don't know what that was about. Never been in one. Never. That's what it was. That didn't eventuate. The universe understood that that was not that the car is never the important part unless it's a van and getting out and you, Karen, Adam, coming through the gate and walking up and just being like, hey, like, in that, yay, we made it kind of way. And that would just play and in so much vivid detail. And it was. It's like eating an ice cream or something. Like, it wants to play.

[B]

You're happy when it's playing.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You don't actually need to go anywhere else. I remember one time when I was imagining some wonderful, glittery celebrity event before I sort of got out of that cultural mode. But I was gonna meet this. I was gonna be with these celebrities, like, and one of them called me, and she had a problem she wanted to talk to. And I literally was like, I was ready to hang out the phone because she was interrupting my fantasy of her, you know? And, like, that's how delicious the meeting was in the future. And it happened. But she was actually interfering with my. With the deliciousness of my fantasy of seeing her later.

[A]

You're like, you're gathering the fuel to bring it. Like, you know, all the. The manifesting New age people are like, you are bringing it from the field of all possibility into, you know, I don't not believe. No, no, no. I mean, I don't have an explanation for it. I just know that that's the fuel that generates the thing happening in these apparent three dimensions.

[B]

Yes. The sense of wallowing.

[A]

Yes. Wallow in advance.

[B]

Wallow in advance. And our friend Boyd Vardy in Africa, who was raised in South Africa, he always said that when the animals wallow in the mud, they go oolulu. And really, when. When you get. It's not a thought construction, it's an imaginary construction that involves all the senses. And it's so delicious. You wallow in it. That's the sound you make. And I remember you coming through that gate and the weird sense of joy I had. Like, I barely know this woman. Why do I feel so very pleased she's coming through the gate? Like, it was almost as if the story was happening to both of us. I didn't know that you had that story, but your story was strong enough to give me so much energy that when I saw you, it was like the joy of that story in your mind that you'd been basking in communicated to me to the point where I was kind of like, why do I feel such a strong sensation of pleasure that this person has shown up? It's really interesting.

[A]

It is. It's like their atoms have been polished around the moment, and so they're just a bit shimmery when it happens.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that when it actually happens, you don't have much time to wallow, because it's true. Like, when I finally got that lunch with my editor and my publisher and everybody, I got up and went to the restroom. Not because I had to, but so I could stand in the restroom. I mean, stand in the back of the restaurant and smell the smells I'd been smelling for years and listen to the silverware clinking and see the table where we were sitting. And I really, like, took a photograph with my whole mind and body because that was wonderful to wallow in. And then I wallowed in it afterward. These wallows are things to keep doing well.

[A]

And I think what happens then is that you're like, they. There's a word. There's a cumulative, like, power to having experienced something come true before.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

That buoys up, like, your belief in what you want to create next.

[B]

Because you said a minute ago, you can't test this, and of course you can't scientifically, but once it has tested out experientially over and over and over that you have this feeling of wallowing. You notice what you love, you narrow it down, then you wallow. Wallow wallow. And it freaking happens. And then you wallow, wallow, wallow some more. You start to collect dozens of stories of this happening. And I think this is why in fairy tales, the witches, the sorceresses or whatever and the sorcerers, they're always older because they've had the experience of the magic working and working and working to the point where they just stop doubting it and they stop going off after cultural stories and just invite ululu, bring it to me. Right.

[A]

Ani DiFranco has a line.

[B]

I can't believe you mentioned Ani DiFranco.

[A]

Poet Laureate of the show.

[B]

Yes, indeed.

[A]

Has a line that hasn't. I only just realized that this is what she's saying, is what you're saying. And the line is, our magic should be more powerful as the years go by. And I think that's it. I think it is. It gets some momentum when you see it work. Yeah.

[B]

And when you're trying to build things the cultural way, you tend to get exhausted. Maybe you succeed for a while, but ultimately it doesn't feed you. So the feeling is deflation. Even if you succeed more often, you can't succeed. And life becomes more and more discouraging.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think it's because we're always being pushed toward learning to write the code, so we're not gonna that doing it. The cultural way is never reinforced by the game.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The game responds when you start to feel the magic, and then wallow, wallow, wallow. And the more times you wallow on something that has happened before, this is something I really noticed as we were talking about this. Our whole relationship is about wallowing in the moments that have happened and the ones that are to come and the.

[A]

Ones happening now and actually wallowing in the ones that have happened. Another word for that is gratitude, right?

[B]

Yes, indeed.

[A]

It's looking around. And I think the other person that you and I both manifested into our lives is our friend Liz Gilbert. Our wonderful friend, who separately, we were both like, yeah, probably gonna end up being friends with her.

[B]

Oh, my God. I would have dreams about her, and I would analyze the dream to see what she represented. And she was always just Liz. Okay.

[A]

And one of the things that Liz often says and that we have stolen shamelessly from her is just that we are the Luckies.

[B]

We are the Luckies.

[A]

We are the ones who are the Luckies.

[B]

And we spend a lot of time going over it in such detail why we are so the Luckies. Can you believe that? And by the way, the same time you were first at the ranch. Liz came for the first time, you know, and so I didn't know you'd been thinking about her as friendship material. I thought it was just me manifesting, not manifesting. That's so New Agey. It was part of the physics of reality that we were already friends. You and I were already friends, Liz. And we were already friends. But it all came together in a very, very small space of time within like three or four days. And we've been wallowing in it ever since, you know?

[A]

Yeah, but we're not insufferable.

[B]

Like, maybe we are.

[A]

Yeah, but what I mean is we're not smug. We're delighted, and we're excited about playing the game.

[B]

Yeah. And it's like you wanted a dog and you went online. This was during the same period, basically. And we found the right dog and it was our dog. And ever since then, every time we pet Bilbo Baggins, I'm like, rope totally just pulled him in from the universe.

[A]

Yeah. And actually that's an interesting one. I hadn't thought about that. But remember that feeling that I had? I was just like annoyed that our dog wasn't with us yet. And I was like, where's the dog?

[B]

Where is the dog?

[A]

And then Claire would come in like, huh? Be like, oh, sweetie, not you.

[B]

She needs surgery again. Yeah. And I remember going online to look for dogs that needed homes. And we saw him and not many people adopt black dogs. And we saw him and both of us felt the magic. And you started to wallow in this. You made like a 60 page dossier of why to give to the people at the shelter about why we should be the ones to adopt this dog.

[A]

To the family that had him. Yeah. And they had someone else who'd expressed interest first. But I don't be putting up with that.

[B]

The storytelling came on board. You had, you know, these are the places he will run free and be happy.

[A]

I had photos of all the places.

[B]

And things that he would have. And it was. And they told it. So they called us because you did this incredible storytelling job of, this dog is supposed to be with us. So they were shaken. Or maybe the universe was working with them too, because they called us and they said, okay, we would love to meet you and see how he responds to you. His name is Wally, after a. A comic book character or movie character.

[A]

Yeah. A little robot guy.

[B]

Yeah. And they said he's never learned his name. It's quite frustrating. He's not stupid, but he just won't come. But if you do. And like, here, boy. Here, boy. He will come. And then you and Karen drove for like five hours to the middle of the desert.

[A]

Yes, we did.

[B]

To meet this little cockapoo. And as Karen tells the story, you got out of the car and we'd already decided what his name was, or we sort of pulled from what we felt that his name was. You got out of the car and said, here, Bilbo. And this dog came running straight to you. He has always responded to that name.

[A]

He has, yeah. Little guy.

[B]

And how much fun is it to wallow in that experience and how you brought him home and how. How he is like the perfect dog. And, I mean, Claire was also the perfect dog. They're all the perfect dog. But Bilbo is an intellectual and, you know, very.

[A]

He's a lover of the finer things.

[B]

He is a lover of finer things.

[A]

He's a payer of invoices.

[B]

He is. He's a great being. And he was always named Bilbo, apparently.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because that's what we got and that's what he got.

[A]

And because you don't call a fucking dog Wally.

[B]

I know you don't do that.

[A]

You don't do that.

[B]

Do you have a dog?

[A]

Do you have a dog?

[B]

And if so, why? It can be the tiniest thing. Like, I really wanted some carrot cake. I went to the store, they had carrot cake.

[A]

Tell them Maria Bamford 1. So Maria Bamford was learning from her sister, the life coach, the Martha Beck life coach. Hi, Sarah.

[B]

Hi, Sarah. She's really good.

[A]

Yeah. And Sarah was teaching her sister, Maria Bamford, most brilliant comic in the history of the world.

[B]

So funny.

[A]

So funny. How to manifest shit. And please take it from here, Marty.

[B]

So she said, tell the universe what you want and the universe will give it to you.

[A]

If he wants to get on a vision board.

[B]

Yeah. And Maria said, well, I need a microwave. And Sarah, according to Maria's later comedy routine, said, a microwave. All you want is a fucking microwave. I'll buy you a microwave. Boom. Manifested. But it was. That's the thing. It just. Stuff like that keeps happening and usually it looks really normal. Sometimes it's so far outside of normal that you're just thinking, what the hell made that happen?

[A]

Three women living together. Come on.

[B]

In a highly satisfying domestic situation.

[A]

That's kind.

[B]

But, you know, we imagined Lila the same way.

[A]

Yes, we did.

[B]

I mean, in such detail. We've imagined. You imagined the garden that you're making right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So blood, sweat and tears are going into doing that. You were outside heaving woods and I was playing. Well, you. You were doing hard physical labor, that's all. I was not going to go out there and help you manifest this. So, you know, she was lugging around very heavy objects and doing things that have to do with, I don't know where the sun is at different times. What the hell is this? It just does. It doesn't have the.

[A]

You cannot get it up.

[B]

Can't get it up for the garden.

[A]

And she tries to life coach me out of doing gardening and cooking. She's like, no, sweetie, no one enjoys that.

[B]

Meanwhile, you're always trying to get me off the hook for building furniture, which is the one thing I love more than anything else in the world.

[A]

And will you. You will say four letter words and injure yourself and bang yourself in the head with a hammer.

[B]

I love to hate it, but yeah. So what I'm saying is you put your blood, sweat and tears into it. You put the muscle into it. When the pull is there, when you can get it up, then you go find the thing you love and you court it and woo it or whatever. And then the whole universe starts to be feeling the same thing toward you. And that's when it gets really extraordinary. There's not enough time to tell all the stories that have happened to me. And that's why as I get older and there are more stories to tell and I'm wallowing all the time, the world plays the game with me more and more and more directly to the point where I decided that when the vision of the thing you want has been wallowed in long enough, it starts to feel normal. Magic feels normal, or what we would call the technology of magic feels normal. So the way I put it is, it's like the dew point of magic is normal. The dew point is like the temperature that it takes for water to condense out of steam and become liquid. So if you're outside at night and the temperature drops and it's a misty day or a humid day, when the temperature drops low enough, dew forms spontaneously on the grass as if by magic. It's not magic. This is the way the universe works. And when you get to the point where you've wallowed in something truly, sensuously beautiful for you for long enough to feel like it's just normal, that's when it happens.

[A]

Oh, this is the day when I get out of the black jeep and everyone comes out and says hi, and it's like, oh, it's so good to see you again. It's not A big deal. It's just, hey, cool. Oh, that's going to be so nice. I'm really looking forward to that.

[B]

Exactly. And that's. The more it happens to me, the more I'm like, well, yeah, I wrote the code. Everybody around me is helping write the code. We're all on the same page. Everything's conspiring to help us. It's pronoia, which is the opposite of paranoia. Instead of being afraid the world is out to get you, you become crazily convinced that everything is out to help you.

[A]

I think there's also. There's friction in it as well, though it's not just like, whoopee down the water slide. It's like, to me, there's also a period of time where the normalness of the movie I'm watching about the thing and the absence of that thing is just, like, very frustrating. It's like. But the movie, the restaurant, the silverware is clinking. Why can I not see this now?

[B]

And to me, that is the hero's call to adventure. In the hero saga that is in every culture. It is the feeling of, I know things are meant to be. I can't really specify it, but I am feeling like the way things are now is somehow wrong. And the pull is, will you dare to go on an adventure with no obvious outcome except the potential feeling that maybe it's going to be the right thing? Like, it's. So it takes you away from the normal world, and the hero always rejects the call. And then it comes again. It won't stop. And then finally, he leaves the normal.

[A]

Pennsylvania.

[B]

He leaves the normal world and goes into the other world, and all his adventures take place there. And it is hard. But the battle is not only with. Well, it's not at all with the circumstance around you. The battle is with your own disbelief that what you're wallowing in is real.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. I got distracted by a meme that I saw the other day that was like, I'm in my 40s now, and I still haven't had a call to adventure. I'm a bit worried that I'm not a protagonist.

[B]

I'm not the protagonist. And you know what? If culture had its way, nobody would be the protagonist except maybe the people at the very top of the pyramid.

[A]

Well, it would be the Truman show, and the whole point of the Truman show was to advertise the pancake mix or whatever.

[B]

And it's so. It's so enervating. It's so deflating. Life becomes really meaningless when that's all you're chasing. But if you can find where the heat goes and then start wallowing in it right away, and then it comes and it's normal. So you just wallow in it as it happens, and then you keep wallowing.

[A]

And tell the stories of the things of the magic that has happened.

[B]

Yes. The storytelling, which is the active agent of the creation. It has to keep going. Then it becomes legend about what happened.

[A]

And then the dew point of magic being normal is every day. And so the wonders just keep kind of rolling towards you, because that's normal.

[B]

And honest to God, for me, there are a lot of days when I don't necessarily feel that way, but I'd say the majority of days feel like the universe is conspiring to support me in ways that are just flabbergastingly magical.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm going to tell that story.

[A]

So glad we authorized our knowing.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that we made it write a story.

[B]

It's an author now. That's right.

[A]

It's going to lunch.

[B]

Yes. Do you also have a dog? Yes, I also have a dog. You need a dog. I'll buy you a dog.

[A]

Boom.

[B]

Manifest it.

[A]

And that's how we 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 Bewildered podcast. 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.