Podcast Summary: Bewildered — "You Have One Missed Call From Destiny"
Hosts: Martha Beck (A), Rowan Mangan (B)
Release Date: February 5, 2025
Episode Overview
In this episode of Bewildered, Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan dive into the theme of reconnecting with our own intuition and learning to distinguish its true voice from the clamor of cultural conditioning. With characteristic humor and warmth, they explore why so many of us feel bewildered or disconnected from our sense of purpose, and how society's constant noise drowns out our inner knowing. The episode is filled with playful banter (such as orcas wearing salmon hats), personal anecdotes, and practical advice for tuning into our intuition, all delivered in the duo's signature style that balances depth with laughter.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Intuition vs. The Noise of Culture
- Central Metaphor: Our intuition is always trying to "call" us, but we’re stuck on the other line with culture.
- “You don't take the call from intuition, because you are on the other line with culture.” (B, 00:05)
- Culture’s conditioning—voices of family, society, and internalized expectations—blocks our access to inner knowing.
- “We're on a Zoom meeting with culture... Their little voices are always, like, coming at us... so plugged into that that we never even hear the call coming in.” (A, 20:14)
- The missed call metaphor is "tortured" throughout, providing both levity and clarity (see extended riffs, 15:34–20:44).
2. Humor & The Wearable Fish
- The episode opens with a playful tangent about orcas in the Northern Pacific wearing salmon on their heads, which becomes a recurring motif.
- “I'm really trying hard to figure out why orcas in the Northern Pacific... picked up a habit of wearing salmon on their heads...” (A, 02:32)
- The orca/salmon motif becomes a symbol of tuning out culture and following one’s own quirky instincts.
- “You are a funny, funny woman, Martha Beck. You were like an orca with a salmon on its head.” (B, 22:40)
- This banter sets up their comfort with strangeness—echoing the encouragement to trust what seems weird if it feels true.
3. The Role of Alarms, Psyche, & Self-Dialogue
- Rowan shares her iPhone alarms as a metaphor for how our minds “alarm” us constantly—mirroring how culture and psyche interact.
- “‘Last chance, last chance, Last chance for lotion etc.’ God almighty. It's a strange thing to have a psyche and evidence of it.” (B, 12:41)
- The conversation leads to the insight that our psyches can become so full of competing cultural voices that we become “alarming” rather than intuitively guided.
- “It's very much like how our psyches are though. We just sit around alarming each other.” (B, 13:04)
- Segues into the necessity of distinguishing intuition from the clamor of inner and outer voices.
4. The Value—and Science—of Intuition
- Martha discusses how society frames “reality” as only what is measurable, dismissing intuitive or energetic experiences.
- “The culture will say to you, if you can't see it, if you can't measure it... then it does not exist.” (B, 22:55)
- She recounts her own struggle between trusting direct experience versus adhering to culture.
- "[I] had to free my mind from the culture I'd been educated in and allow that these nonmaterial, spooky wookie things were actually real..." (A, 24:14)
- She uses the metaphor of a telescope: unless you use the proper tools (such as mind-stilling practices), you’ll never “see the rings of Saturn"—or the depth of intuition.
- “That's like saying, we know there are no rings around Saturn because we can see Saturn and there are no rings. The telescope in this analogy is like a metaphysical practice...” (A, 28:25)
5. Keys to Accessing Intuition
- Stillness and Solitude: Practices from various traditions focus on stilling the mind and accessing the right hemisphere of the brain.
- “If you can still your mind... your verbal, logical mind... you can connect to [intuitive] energies.” (A, 26:13)
- Calm vs. Anxiety: Intuition is calm and quiet, not anxious or dramatic.
- “Nothing intuitively accurate comes out of anxiety. When I've had intuition about danger, it's been super calm.” (A, 54:13)
- Testing Intuition in Practice: Martha shares the story of “take the walking sticks”—an internal, calm directive that proved very helpful.
- “Something said really, really calmly but very strongly, take those sticks... The voice stopped... it was just sort of an idea that formed in my mind.” (A, 34:13)
- Shared Intuition: Both hosts recount moments when their mutual intuitive responses (e.g., feeling “ahh” when crossing into Pennsylvania) steered major life decisions.
- “It was almost like this huge, clean breath that we both inhaled and just felt like, oh, this is better.” (A, 39:07)
6. Why We Miss the Call from Destiny
Rowan identifies three key cultural obstacles:
- Cultural Reason/Logic: We override intuition with what we’ve been taught is “logical” or “reasonable.” (41:23)
- Anxiety & Paranoia: We confuse intuition with anxiety, mistaking nervous “stories” for guidance (aka the "Blair Witch Phenomenon"). (52:41)
- Consensus-Seeking: We discount our intuitive hits as “just me,” seeking external validation over internal knowing. (57:27)
- Martha notes that authentic intuitive guidance feels like “the right puzzle pieces clicking together”—clear, grounded, and self-reliant.
7. How To Tune In
- Hang Up on Culture: You must carve out moments of solitude and silence to access intuition—it rarely breaks through “group calls” with culture.
- “You actually have to hang up occasionally. Hang up on culture.” (A, 60:43)
- Listen/Relax/Trust: Real intuition brings a touch of joy or lift, is specific and pragmatic, and is felt in the body. Don’t try to force consensus—sink into your own senses.
- “The real voice of intuition... always feels like you’re being lifted. It’s a pleasant feeling.” (A, 63:09)
- “Instead of listen... the key is to relax. It's that simple.” (A, 64:42)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On Culture’s Distraction:
“We're always already on a call with culture... So plugged into that that we never even hear the call coming in.”
— Martha Beck (20:14) -
On Intuitive Experience:
“Something said really, really calmly but very strongly, take those sticks... it would not stop. So I put them in my backpack. The voice stopped.”
— Martha Beck (34:13) -
On Intuition vs. Anxiety:
“Nothing intuitively accurate comes out of anxiety. When I've had intuition about danger, it's been super calm.”
— Martha Beck (54:13) -
On Empirical Resistance:
“So what you're saying is the culture of science has actually kind of is consistently interfering with the spirit of science.”
— Rowan Mangan (42:34) -
On Inner Authority:
“There is no force outside me, there is no group of people outside me that can give me the instructions to find my destiny. I have to trust what I feel and hear as the call in my own being.”
— Martha Beck (58:31) -
On the Practice:
“You actually have to hang up occasionally. Hang up on culture.”
— Martha Beck (60:43) -
Signature Banter:
“You were like an orca with a salmon on its head.”
— Rowan Mangan (22:40)
Timestamps for Important Segments
- 00:05 — Culture vs. Intuition: opening metaphor
- 02:31 – 05:53 — Orcas & salmon as symbols of nonconformity
- 08:47 – 12:41 — Alarms, psyche, and the inner voices
- 15:34 — “Missed Calls” & Destiny: central metaphor explored
- 19:30 – 21:41 — How culture's “call” drowns out intuition
- 22:55 – 28:25 — Science, skepticism, & opening to intuitive experience (the "telescope" metaphor)
- 34:13 – 35:53 — The walking stick anecdote: calm intuitive directive
- 39:07 — Shared intuition: house-hunting and the “clean breath” moment
- 41:23 – 44:54 — Three cultural obstacles to intuition: logic, anxiety, consensus
- 54:13 – 56:33 — Calm as the marker of true intuition vs. anxiety
- 60:43 — Practical advice: "hang up" on culture, solitude, and trust
Takeaways & Practical Steps
- Intuition is innate, calm, and often obscured by the noisy, anxious, and logic-driven voices of culture.
- Regularly seek solitude and quiet to allow intuitive insights to surface.
- Trust sensations that feel pragmatic, calm, joyful, and “lifted.”
- Distinguish between anxious, consensus-seeking inner commentary and the steady pulse of your own knowing.
- The journey to intuition may feel quirky (“wear a salmon on your head”), and that’s a sign you’re on the right track.
Final Message
Your destiny is always calling you, but you have to occasionally "hang up" on culture, relax, and listen for the quiet, joyful message that's meant for you—no matter how strange it might look to others:
- “All you have to do… is literally unplug and relax and then trust what comes.” (A, 66:05)
Stay wild.