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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We are starting 2026 with a gift for you. Nothing says New Year's energy like Martha Beck. So today we're revisiting our very first conversation together. Think of this as an invitation for an hour.
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Feel what you feel, know what you.
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A
Know, and then begin again. Martha has always helped me with that process. She has helped me restart my life, so several times. Not from her advice, but from the.
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B
Way she constantly guides me back to myself.
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A
When I first fell in love with.
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B
Abby, I was the happiest I had.
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A
Ever been in my life. And I was also deeply afraid. It was like I felt this incredible warmth and comfort and freedom for the first time. But my mind was telling me I.
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C
Could not have it.
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A
My mind was trying to control it. My mind was saying, no, no, while.
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B
The rest of me was saying, yes, please.
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A
My mind has always been a little stronger than the rest of me, and it was winning. So one day, I called my friend Martha and I told her all of the reasons why I was desperately in love and happy. And then I told her all of the reasons why that love was impossible, why it couldn't happen, why my entire life would fall apart if I did.
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B
Try to make it happen.
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A
And I was spinning and spinning and spinning, making a really strong case to Martha about how none of this could happen. And she just said, glennon, stop. I need you to remove yourself from your head, which always makes an excellent case. And I need you to get back into your body, and for one moment, I need you to think about what feels warmer. When you think about going towards Abby, going towards this love, letting yourself have this love, do you feel warm or cold? And I said, warm. And she said, when you consider cutting it off, stopping it, going back to your old life, do you feel warm or cold? And I said, that feels very cold. And she said, okay, well, I'm making dinner now. I have to go. I hope that was enough information for you. Martha is a master of returning us to ourselves, and that is why I trust her today. She will help you return to yourself. She will stop making dinner. She will listen to your spinning brain, and she will return you to the deepest wisdom you have, which is in your body. Pod Squad, we hope you love this episode as much as we do. Let's go, Martha.
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B
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. And I just want to tell you that I'm super excited today because we have someone with us who has helped and changed millions of lives, but mine in particular. She has personally walked me through some of the trickiest times that I've had, and I'm excited. The person that we have here today, well, first of all, I'll stop being mysterious and tell you that her name is Martha Beck. The Martha Beck is here. Hello, Martha.
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C
Hi. Hi.
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B
I am so grateful that you're here. My sister for many years has heard me talking about you. So, sister, this is Martha. This is the Martha I'm always here. Hello.
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C
The famous and yet mysterious sister behind the sister word.
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D
After lo these many years, it's such a joy to meet you, Martha. Thank you. Thank you for everything you did for Glenn and Abby.
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C
Oh, the joy is all mine.
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B
And Martha, I want to tell you some stories as we start off here that I don't think you know, because you have been helping me for a lot longer than you know. So I first found your work lo so many years ago when I was pregnant with Chase.
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C
Really?
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B
Okay, so I haven't told you this story, but when I was pregnant with Chase with my first kid, I was like 14 minutes sober. Okay. So I got sober the day I found out I was pregnant with him. So I was trying to figure out how to human and how to maybe be a mother at the same time. And then a couple months in, I don't know exactly when, but when I started having tests, the doctors found three markers of down syndrome.
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C
Oh, wow.
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B
Yeah. And now I don't know how they do it now. Okay. I think things have evolved in how they're figuring all of this out. So for most of my pregnancy, we thought that Chase had Down syndrome.
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E
Wow.
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C
Okay.
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B
So, yeah, so I did all of the prep and we were ready, and I met with the doctors who were familiar with the things, and we were. So I read Expecting Adam during that time, and that book more than anything else, just set me at such joy and peace during that time.
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C
Oh, my goodness. This is blowing my freaking mind. Because I, you know, I read about you and you were there, and now I feel like I'm time traveling back to the woman I was reading about. And now we're in the same room, only I don't know it until what, like 20 years later?
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B
Exactly.
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C
I may just have to go lie down for a while. Like, I'm not sure I can continue.
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B
Yeah. And then so for you listening, Expecting Adam. Well, can you describe it and just tell them what it's about so that they know why this is a big deal?
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C
Yeah, I was. I was born in a faculty brat family, so I thought academia was all that. And I just kept going to school And I went to Harvard for BA, MA, PhD. And in the middle of my PhD program, I was. I'd gotten married. I was pregnant with my second child. And about six. Six months into the pregnancy, we had an amniocentesis. And it turned out he had down syndrome. And I had like a week to choose whether or not to terminate. I am very outspokenly pro choice, but I couldn't do it. I was already in love with him, so. Plus, I'd been having these weird experiences from the moment I got pregnant. I was. I'll just say it. I'd have psychic experiences, like there was something weird about the kid, and there still is today, and he's 33. I went against all my advisors advice, and I. I kept him. They told me I was throwing my life away, and they were absolutely right. And the life I threw away was stupid and sucked. And the life I got instead is awesome. So that's that.
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B
Oh, so good. So I had some. So then I just turned my life into expecting Chase. Okay. Wow.
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A
And then.
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B
So I'm expecting Chase with down syndrome, and then Chase is born, and he doesn't freaking have down syndrome, only opposite. So then I let go of that life that I thought we were going into, because by that time, Martha, that's what I was expecting. That's what I was ready for. That's what he was. That's what we were ready. Oh, my God. Okay, right. Then fast forward. I'm married to a man. He keeps accidentally cheating on me.
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C
I tripped.
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B
Yeah. I find out all the things. It was kind of a public situation.
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C
I heard about it.
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B
Right.
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C
Read about it.
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B
Right. I had this situation where I was so confused. I was stuck because I had always led my life by polling and asking everyone what I should do. Right? And then they would tell me and I would get a consensus, and that's how I would know what I was supposed to do. Okay. That's how I ended up married to a man. Okay. So I've always been in this Christian feminist spot.
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C
Strange position.
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B
It's a hard Venn diagram, Martha.
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C
It is.
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B
And this is the moment where I. Okay. All of my Christian friends were like, the right thing to do is to stay. A good woman would stay. A brave mother would stay. And all of my feminist friends were like, the right thing to do is get your ass out of there. Right? A strong mother would leave. And Martha, this is the moment where I realized, oh, I see. Good, Right? Wrong. These are not real things.
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C
These are completely subjective, subject, cultural.
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B
These are the barking sheepdogs. That keep the herd in. Right. These are the, like this beautiful moment where a woman realizes, oh, if I can't, I can't please everybody.
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C
Yay.
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B
Which means I guess I'll please myself. The only problem is I don't know what the Frick self is.
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C
Uh huh.
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B
But this is when I read was it North Star? This is when I was reading the book about academia versus spiritual world, which for me was Christian world versus feminine world.
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C
Right, right.
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B
Feminist world. So tell us about that for a minute. Tell us how you realize. Because. Because when you say it was academia versus you, didn't you also figure out that the answers weren't in the woo woo world completely and it wasn't in the Harvard world completely?
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C
Yeah, yeah. It's so funny that you use the word, the term coming to consensus, because that actually is the way most people live. We look around at the pressures on us from other people and we come to consensus and we choose what makes us fit in best. I actually just started a podcast with my partner Ronan Mangan, and we talk the theme, it's called Bewildered. And the theme is stopping. Don't live by coming to consensus, Live by coming to your senses. So what happens when you realize that the consensus is off? So I was raised Mormon, okay, Like super duper Mormon. And that just turned me into a hardcore atheist by the time I went to Harvard. And I was like, yeah, intellect is everything. Then I get pregnant. I'm having psychic experiences. Like, I am so broken by the diagnosis. I'm not as good a person as you are. So I'm like, I hate life and I want to die. When you get to the place where you hate life and you want to die and you actually let that part of you die, there's still something left and it comes to its senses. It's like it's often a place where no social pressure can reach and it kind of raises its head out of the crowd of the world and says, okay, over here. Oh come here. And it is, whatever your belief system is, a profoundly mystical experience. And I actually did my dissertation on this at Harvard. I had to be very careful about it. But after I had Adam, it was like they said, you've thrown your career away. And I thought, well, I'll just go back to finish my dissertation in Provo, Utah, where I grew up, and everyone will understand why I didn't have an abortion and they'll all be proud of me, which they were. But then I went there and figured out I was a lesbian. So I went to Harvard to Have a child with intellectual disabilities. Then I went to Utah and became a lesbian. And people ask me for advice. I'm telling you, the world is insane. I have no knowledge of anything. I've. But I just know that if you come to your senses in any given moment, the knowledge of what to do next is there. It's not in the brain, but it's in all the senses. It's in every single bit of you once the clamor of consensus is gone.
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B
And that's what you told me. My first real life experience with you. Okay, so our relationship had been one sided. It had been as most of my relationships are. Me with pages.
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C
But wait, wait. It was actually a four way. Cause I was there with your books. So that's two of us there and then there's you with my books. There's actually four of us there. This is getting kinkier by the minute.
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B
Exactly.
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C
Like this is very. We have a very strange relationship, Glenn. And a lot of history, I might add.
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B
And so there's this moment where we meet for real on the phone because I call one of my dearest friends on earth, who is also one of your dearest friends on the earth, whose name is Lizzie Gilbert.
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C
I love her.
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B
And I told her that now I have accidentally fallen in love with a.
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C
Woman, which is the best love story I've ever read.
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B
It was just so exciting. But at the time, Martha, I was scared shitless, okay. Because I kept. Because I had some other things going on in the world that might have opinions about this thing that had happened where I was kind of like a Mormon who just became a lesbian. I mean, I was kind of in that situation.
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F
Okay, well, the consensus of your professional world was like, okay, let's just keep this hush hush for a second.
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C
Yeah, that was that consensus.
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F
And you were like, that doesn't feel right. What's happening? And that's why you called Martha.
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B
Well, I called Liz first and I told Liz all the reasons why this was the worst idea in the world and why I couldn't do it. And Liz said, I hear you. And in this particular situation, we're gonna need to call in the big guns. And I need you to talk to Martha and I do what Lizzie says. So I called you and you actually, you took my call and I said, yeah. All the reasons why I was desperately in love. And this was the best feeling that I'd ever had in my life. And I was like full of warmth and joy for the first time. And also, I could not do it.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And Listed all the reasons why I couldn't do it. And I was going through my mind, my monkey mind, of all the reasons why it couldn't happen. And you said to me, I need you to get back into your body and I need you to tell me what feels warm. I don't know why, but that, at the moment, changed my life. I started to go towards what felt warm a few months later. Abby and I were together now because we kept following what was warm. And then we called you together because we were so scared about how to go public.
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C
Oh, so scary. You guys were so brave. Holy crap.
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B
We were so scared. And you said to us, abby, can you tell Martha what she said to us? Because she might have other people that she gives advice to. I don't know. I'm just guessing. And she might not remember what she said to us. Exactly. Do you remember what we said? How do we tell them? How do we make them understand? How. How are we going to make them accept us? How are we. Whatever. And do you remember the what sentence?
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F
She said just love each other.
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B
Yeah. She said, all you ever have to do, all the two of you ever have to do is love each other out loud.
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F
Out loud.
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C
Right, right, right, right. That was a good thing I said.
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B
Yeah. And you were right. You were right. And we come back to it once a week, probably.
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C
Aw. And oh, my God, have you guys ever done it? If everybody had as much integrity as you guys, this would be a very different world. It's becoming a different world because you guys are loving each other out loud all the time. Foreign.
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E
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D
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G
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E
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F
I can actually explain.
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E
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F
I remember having these conversations with Glennon early on. I come from a generation of fear. More fear in the coming out, right? And so my internalized homophobia with children and like, are we going to bring our children into this mix?
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B
Hopefully.
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F
And Glennon never really had that internalized.
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C
Homophobia like I was raised in with.
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F
The church, Christianity, Catholicism. But I just, I just can't thank you enough because number one, we have taught our children about go inside of yourself and feel what feels warm, feel what feels cold, lean in towards the warm and the warmth of your life and the warmth of like your internal senses. And then to living our life and our love out loud.
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C
I don't know.
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F
I think that you've saved not only our life and our love, but you've also helped save our son Chase's life in some way. He came out to us a couple of years ago and had it not been for you to tell us to lean into our own knowing and our own internalized belief of what this love was, I just think that all of these kind of dominoes that started to fall into place is in large part due to the, to the belief that you gave us in our own selves.
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B
And that's why we trust you. That's why we invited you here today. Because we only really trust teachers who remind us to trust ourselves. That's the only, the only. I don't. Anybody starts to give me advice, I'm like, oh, nope, you've automatically disqualified yourself. The only people I trust are the people who over and over again remind me to trust myself. And so that's. You helped us come back to ourselves. We want you here to help all of our listeners know how to or start the journey back to self. Because we know as women, we lose ourselves along the way. And so when somebody figures out they're living by consensus, how do we get them back? But before we jump into these questions, we want to tell you Martha's situation. She's a best selling author, life coach speaker. Her written work includes several New York Times and international bestsellers, as well as over 150 magazine articles. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science and Ms. Oprah Winfrey has called her one of the smartest women I know. Oh my God.
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C
Oprah doesn't get out much.
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B
Martha is a passionate and engaging speaker, known for her unique combination of science, humorous and spirituality. And for over two decades she has been, in the words of NPR in USA Today, the best known life coach in America. Her published works include the New York Times international bestsellers, finding your own North Star. I've read it. The joy Diet. I've read it. Expecting Adam. I've read it. Martha's newest book, the way of Integrity, I've read it twice. Finding the path to your true self was obviously an instant New York Times bestseller. So Martha, for people who are listening right now.
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C
Yeah.
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B
How do people get back to this guide inside of themselves when they've been living their life by consensus? Permission? Outer voices. How do we tap into the self inside that some people call knowing? Some people call North Star spirit. Whatever you call it, how do we get back to that compass?
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C
Well, some people like, like our sons apparently seem to be born always aware of their inner compass and they don't leave it. So if you were lucky enough to be one of those people, and I Think more and more young people are, congratulations. For the rest of us, the single sign that we've lost ourselves is suffering. It's so simple and, and it's a gift I used to hate. I don't like suffering. I'm not like other people. I hate suffering. It hurts me. But now I actually really value and prize suffering because I've come to understand that it's always telling me that I've lost myself. I'm not coming to my senses. I'm coming to some kind of consensus. Pain can occur. If you hurt your foot or something, that's just pain. But if you then add on to it a bunch of consensual social stuff like, oh, I'm not helping out around the house anymore, I'm not a proper woman, or I should be exercising or whatever, the pain of that foot becomes suffering. So the more we accept consensus and it goes against our natural way of being so the culture takes away our nature, the more we suffer. And the world feels toxic and horrible and we don't feel like we have a sense of purpose and our relationships don't go well and we often get addicted to things. And at a certain point it gets so bad that suffering won't let us continue to abandon our true selves. And that is its gift. It's always a friend, it's always an ally. And if we stop and say, okay, this hurts so much, I'm going to go in my room by myself and figure out how to let go of what hurts me. That usually is the only thing that starts the process for people because the desire to fit in is so overwhelming that to break free requires an equal and opposite force. And that is intense. And you've been through it. You've all been through it, right? It's not fun. But to be set free by suffering is usually the way it starts. People start looking and then there are different ways of finding.
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B
Okay, so I want you, Martha, to understand that I'm sure you've had some challenges in your life with telling people to follow their warmth and woo woo things such as this, but it's possible that you have never met a match like you're about to meet in my sister.
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C
Okay, so let's hear it.
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B
So I can only imagine, though I don't remember this time because I was drunk in love, but when I'm sure when I called my sister and said, okay, so what I'm gonna do is whatever feels warm, she probably said something like, oh, for fuck's sake, right? Like.
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D
So.
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B
But, but Martha, now We make our business in our thinks. Sister says, well, this just didn't feel warm. This feels. So your lexicon has entered our. But I want Sister, I want you to talk to Martha and ask her questions with your doubt about us being able to just follow our bliss or whatever. Can you just begin, please?
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D
Well, first I will say the way of integrity. I read it. I loved it. When you say every truth makes us relaxed and every lie makes us tense. It feels warm to me.
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B
I understand.
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D
It feels like intellectually and spiritually, yes, like ringing, ringing, ringing to me. But what I guess what I just want to understand is I hear what you just said about the kind of the rock bottom of that suffering when you're like, it is just not working. But what anyone who's listening, myself included, that helps people who are just maybe low grade suffering. The. Like, my friends and I all feel like we're just like army crawling through life. Like, just like every day is just like getting through it. And I think if I lived according to just my nature, like what only responded to the call of my body, that I would just stay in bed and I would definitely not do what it takes to get the kids on the bus or to baseball practice and I would not file my taxes. How does this way of life apply to those of us for whom tension and kind of pushing through the hard, annoying shit that's required of life feels like it just what it takes to live?
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C
Well, you might be surprised actually, because sometimes I send, like I just sent this one client, really, really high achieving, hard driving young man in circles in Washington where he was very influential and all his projects had been collapsing. And I said, you're pushing so hard, like, you've got to stop pushing. Everything in you is straining. And I know for a fact that straining isn't the way to make things work. So he started meditating, came back, and he was doing a little better. And then I said, you know, go even more. So he went out into the wilderness and he stayed there for like a couple of weeks meditating. And he let go of everything. And he literally said, I was ready to do nothing because he had been suffering a lot. And he came out of the wilderness and Afghanistan was happening. The US Started to pull out of Afghanistan and He said within three weeks he had raised $17 million for welcoming Afghan refugees into the U.S. he'd gotten a board together that includes the Clintons, the Bushes and the Obamas. He had all these corporations, not unlike what you guys have done, you know, to get families back together at the border. And he said it was so weird. It was like I. I barely slept. Was I breaking the rules? And I said, no, because when you stop doing things by pushing, there's. As a Chinese major, as an undergraduate, and there's this Chinese saying that when nothing is done, nothing remains undone. And it sounds so weird, but what it means is that when you stop doing things by the struggle of your individual will and you relax into nature, the power of nature itself has intentions, and it has a design for you, and it will pick you up like a river, and it will take every skill you've learned, every bit of talent that you inherited, your position in life, and it will throw you at the problem, and it will get the kids up, and it will do all these things. And then there's this weird sensation. I'm not actually having to do this. It's happening through me. And it's a very weird idea for Americans. I remember coming back from Asia when I was, like, 20, because I went there and studied for a year, and I came back, and I was like, why is everybody so tense in the West? Like, what? And then I realized they think they have to do everything where in Asia, there's this bedrock philosophy that relaxing into freedom allows you to be useful to the Force. And there's no God imagery like there is in Christianity. It's just the flow of goodness. So the place where you are, Amanda, is this. I'm afraid to let go because my pushing is making it work, I think.
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D
Correct.
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C
And the idea that's causing the suffering, the untrue idea, is I'm making this work. Abby, when you're playing inspired soccer, have you ever felt that feeling of something's doing this with my body and it's heaven? Yeah.
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F
I wasn't doing nothing. I was just part. I was like. I even had, like, the consciousness of, like, being able to look at myself from the outside in certain big, wild moments. I can't remember them. It's like, I wasn't doing it. I was almost, like being the witness or the observer experiencing. Exactly, yeah. Outside of myself. Yep.
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C
Yeah. And that's what meditation is, getting yourself into the observer space so that you identify with that, and then you watch stuff happening through you. And, I mean, Glenna, did you have this feeling when you were working with the border issues? I mean, I remember you were such a shining star in. In the darkness of that horrible time and what you did with. You gathered us all together, and you got the money, and you started to mend the families and everything. Were you Pushing or were you in the river?
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A
Both.
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C
Both. Okay.
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B
For sure.
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A
Both.
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B
I mean, that was a matter of the. You know, the first couple weeks were 12 hours a day on the computer doing the things, doing the. You know, we have a team of women who work extremely hard. I mean, like, I don't think any of them would be, like, it's just happening. But when it works, it's because there's a magic that we all feel, I think, during it. So I think it's. And both. It's like we're showing up and something else is showing up. Right.
- [31:52]
C
I think. Okay, so that's a great point, because I want to clarify it. Sometimes, like, when Abby's playing inspired soccer, she's sweating, she's running, she's using the energy. She's very much present. She's trained to do this. She's learned it. She's done it for 10,000 million hours, and she's bringing everything she has to it. And then if you let go at that point, you're moving full on. So it's not like you. It's not like you're floating down a river. That's not you. The river of energy is you. And it's everything you've learned to be. It's everything your addiction taught you to be and your parenting taught you to be, and everything you've learned from your pain and from your brilliance and from everything. It says, I'm using this, only it's so much bigger, and you can be exhausted but carried by it. And then it will say, like I said to my client the other day, okay, you've just saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And now it will tell you to sleep again. It says, I would say it's this infinity loop of play until you feel like resting. And I mean, play like playing soccer or playing the piano, like, at a masterful level. Play as hard as you can with everything you've got until you feel like resting, and then rest until you feel like playing again. And you will want to get up and go do things, and then it just. Then you're living like a wild animal, then you're living like a cheetah. That's how cheetahs live.
- [33:20]
B
How do people who. Okay, so if we're in the suffering, right, and we're in the strain and we're in the consensus.
- [33:27]
C
Yeah.
- [33:28]
B
I just want you to talk us through how we. What are the actual ways that we return? We're in that bedroom where you just talked about, and we're like, we are set. We're we know there's more to life than this. We want to be free. We want to have joy. We want to feel like whatever the f. You just said. We want to feel like that. Like, I. Yeah, how do we start? Like, where does a woman who's got three kids who need her to get out of bed and get to school and, you know, a job that she doesn't feel like she's playing at. And where do we begin?
- [34:00]
C
Yep, that was me. Three kids under four, one with a disability, trying to get my degree and teach when I had such bad autoimmune illnesses that I couldn't stand, sit, or use my hands like I was at the bottom. So this is how you do it. You push yourself to the point where you can't do it anymore. Then you go in your room and you say, get out a piece of paper and you say, here is what I am sick of. Here is what I will. I hate this. I hate it. I called it. I call it liberation through pain and rage. I hate this. And you write it all down. Yeah. And then that's what consensus is making you do. Because the rage inside you is the natural. It's the wild animal saying no. And that's where you. Yeah, that's where you let the cheetah be a cheetah. And that's the first thing it'll say is good.
- [34:56]
D
Write it down.
- [34:56]
C
Or for some people, there's not that energy. It's just like, I cannot go on. I cannot move. I cannot stand this. And then that's the wild animal, okay? So you let the soft animal of your body love what it loves, and then you express it and write it down. Write it all down. The most forbidden things. Because the forbidden things you're thinking are the things that consensus has shoved on you and told you never to think. And the natural response is to fight that. Or to go completely inert and say, well, then I'll just die. That was my response. I think I'll just die. And, yeah, I did. And then I was still alive, and I was like, well, now I've. I don't really give. I don't really give a shit what anybody thinks of me because I'm dead. So I think I'm gay. Freedom.
- [35:49]
B
They think I'm dead. I think they're gay.
- [35:52]
C
Even more than warm versus warm. The Buddha used to say, wherever you find the ocean, you can know it's the ocean because it always tastes of salt, no matter what it looks like. Wherever you find enlightenment, you can know what it looks like, it'll take all kinds of forms that look weird to you, but you will know it's enlightenment because enlightenment always tastes of freedom. Freedom always. So it may hurt, it may make your family hate you, it may, it may terrify the crap out of you, but it will feel like freedom. And when you loved each other out loud, all the rest of us gay people went, they're, they're setting us all free. You're setting us all freer and freer and freer. And you didn't mean to do that. You guys were the force, picked you up and threw you to each other. Tell me where I'm wrong here.
- [36:45]
B
No, you're correct.
- [36:46]
C
I love that story because it's pure magic.
- [36:55]
E
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- [37:57]
G
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- [40:07]
B
I love the Parton way of integrity too, where when you said write down all of the rage, write down what you hate. I feel like that was such an important chapter for me and something that I've always known to be true, which is that this compulsive fake positivity.
- [40:25]
C
Yeah.
- [40:25]
B
Like we're told. What will help you is if you just keep saying it's great. If you just keep saying, I'm so grateful. This is fine. I am happy and whole. I am whatever we think that will set us free. But what actually sets us free is to tell the freaking truth. I hate this. I won't take this anymore.
- [40:44]
C
I freaking hate it. Here's an interesting thing. There's a ton of research that shows the moment you start lying, your body starts going to hell, your immune system starts to crash, your energy gets lower, your muscles get weaker. So when you are going to your horrible job and going, every day in every way, this is getting better and better. You're actually just lying and lying and you get weaker and stupid sicker. I got so sick of my professor job that I would pull up my car in the parking lot and I didn't have the strength to open the car door because I hated that job so much. So after you say, fuck this, I hate you all or I'm dead and I don't care, then you say, here's what I Would like you to say, here's what I want you to do. Here's how I want you to treat me. I want you to treat me like my opinion matters. I want you to treat me like I'm free to become whatever I want. You know, you just write down on what they should be doing, and then you go up to the top and you cross out their name and you put your own name in and it becomes a letter saying, here's what I should be letting me do. And you do it, even if they don't like it. And here's what you tell them. Somebody tried to gay shame me the other day, and I looked at them and I said, I love you so much. And I don't care what you think. I just don't. I deeply do not care. You can't even imagine how little I care what you think of me. And I really love you and I wish you well in life and I never want to see you again.
- [42:18]
B
Right.
- [42:20]
C
But, yeah, the instructions are there. They're there inside the rage. They're there inside the dejection and the limpness and the suffering. The suffering is teaching you the instructions for your life. And here's the cool thing. Nobody else has them. The only way you're going to ever find them is if you go in and get them from inside yourself. Your instructions are nowhere else but inside you.
- [42:46]
B
If it's possible. Sister, I feel like your revolution you're having recently, right, with just, like, feeling a lot of all of the daily grind so much that it's grinding you out of your life and your humanity. Would you mind just, like, describing what's happening with you just for a minute and just asking Martha, like, what is the 1% thing you'd do next? You know what I mean? Like, what's the next step for someone who's in Sister's life moment? Because I feel like so many people are.
- [43:22]
D
Yeah, I feel like I've all. I'm like a chef who has all the ingredients of a really lovely meal. So I have, like, all the parts of life that should be creating this, like, beautiful, beautiful life. But yet I have this, like, anger and resentment and really short fuse about everything. And I feel like I. What the realization I came to recently is that I don't have the things that are coming from me.
- [43:55]
C
Yeah.
- [43:56]
D
Like, everything is, like a duty on me. Like. Yeah. Things that should be joyful or duties. And I realize that I don't have any room in my life to. For any of those things to grow, to respond to so everything just feels like duty.
- [44:12]
C
Yeah.
- [44:13]
D
So that's why you're kind of 1% idea of like just every little choice, being able to open something, open up felt like possible to me. As opposed to some radical life changing new way of living. I just don't know how to implement that, to begin to give myself what I need. So I'm not resenting all the people around me that I don't have it.
- [44:43]
C
Okay, so here's the deal. You don't want to make a violent life change all at once. I tried that. It's. It works. But it's extremely traumatic, so don't do that. What you've described is a life with no freedom, with no sense of freedom. So it can't be enlightenment. Right? And you've got resentment and anger, which are your best friends, because they're sharply pointing you to the places where your freedom is most constrained. And that inner self knows that it's wrong. Your mind is socialized to say, well, I've got to do all this stuff. So how do I give myself enough bubble baths and, you know, time with trashy novels to restore me so that I can be an absolute drone servant of the human consensus again? Well, I think what happens, you go into the deepest resentment and you start to dig yourself a tunnel in the Count of Monte Cristo. This guy's falsely imprisoned in a dungeon, but they give him a spoon and he spends 14 years burrowing through solid rock with his spoon. I don't know why the spoon lasts. It's. He actually gets out. And the reason he doesn't go insane is he's always digging. Right. And the digging is what keeps him sane. So what, I just go to your. Like, can you, like, do you dare tell us what your deepest resentment is right now? Like, what galls you the most? Oh, it doesn't have to be the most. If it's sensitive, just bring up something.
- [46:09]
B
No, for sure it needs to be the most.
- [46:12]
D
It's just that, like, I feel like it's all on me. That like, if any, I can never stop, like working or thinking or planning or. Nothing will come together and be right. And I really want things to come together and be right.
- [46:31]
C
What would that look like to you though? What is coming together and being right? What does that look like?
- [46:39]
D
I mean, looks like our finances being in order. It looks like our kids getting the 514 plan that they need. It looks like our, That our life runs smoothly. Looks like we're at places on time.
- [47:01]
G
It looks like the life I want to Have.
- [47:04]
D
But it feels like I have to think and plan.
- [47:11]
B
Okay?
- [47:12]
C
But it is exactly how human culture always works. Okay? So everything you're talking about, the way your life is supposed to work, I don't see it filling you with joy and freedom. You just have a strong belief that that's how things are supposed to go. So if you're left alone to do it, it's like, oh, I have to do this. It's still not freedom. But there are all these people pressuring you in subtle ways, sometimes almost unseeable, and you're responding to them. I have to do this because if I don't set this up right, my life will be unlivable. Because this is the way the culture says it's supposed to look. And how the institutions are set up, how the money is set up. I have to do what the culture says. And you're already like, the wild part of you is going to, what? Why? So the whole cultural thing is about force and. And pushing. So there's some people tell me they want to control everything in their children's or their parent, their spouse's lives because they love them so much. And I call that. When you're trying to control or manipulate someone and you're calling it love, it's what I call spider love. Because a spider loves flies, right? Like, genuinely loves them because they're so delicious. So the way a spider expresses its love is to wrap something up alive so it cannot move and then take out its life force little by little, and it loves that fly. Delicious.
- [48:41]
B
I thought we just called that mothering.
- [48:45]
F
Or wifing.
- [48:47]
C
Or husbanding. But the point is, real love always sets the beloved free. So if you allow yourself to live by love, if you were to love yourself, and this social constraint that's trying to keep you in its spider grip says, no, you stay where we want you. You let us take your life force. Every time you do something like that, it's taking a bit of your life force out. And it's a huge risk to stop. It's huge. It is huge to stop doing the things you think you have to do. Because culture says if you don't, your life won't be worth a plug nickel. And then people come in, your kids, your husband. You're like, okay, I'm in the business of setting everything free. So who are you and what do you feel like doing? And I know that's. But everything would go to rack and ruin if we lived that way. I decided to live that way, and everything went to rack and Ruin. I mean, really, seriously, within one year, when I was 29, I decided I wouldn't tell a single lie for a whole year. And I did it. And during that. And by the way, you guys, this is not going to happen to you. But I was in a really weird situation. And so not lying led to me leaving or being left by my community of origin, my whole Mormon thing, my family of origin, which was huge. And I depended on them very much. No contact, my marriage, my job, my profession. I had no money coming in. Like, everything went, except, like, my kids. That was it. And I just waited. I was like, if I live wild, what's going to happen? And what happened is I got this strange job teaching at a business school. And the students there, for some reason started paying me to just talk to them about their lives. Because there was something about a life lived without any of those constraints that made me interesting to them. Something in their wildness looked at me and went, what. What is she doing? Because I had no family constraints, no professional constraints, nothing. I didn't have anything. And it made me able to just follow the river. And then I read in USA Today that I was the most famous life coach in America. And I didn't even know the term life coach. I was like, how the. Did that happen? All right, all right. You know, and people, like, showed up to help me with money and stuff. Oh, oh, all right. And it's that. That was 30 years ago. And I. It's been the same ever since. All I ever do, like, what feels like freedom. I came here along a road where I just did not give a. What anyone said I was supposed to do. I thought I would just run amok. And in fact, I was like, damn, I love almost everybody and I want everybody to be happy. So.
- [51:47]
B
But Martha, what you're saying right now is so important because one of the things that people say to me all the time is if we follow our knowing. Oh, we're just gonna follow our. No. I was in an interview recently where someone said, well, we're all just gonna be. We're gonna be running around killing each other. It's gonna be murder. So that's what you think of human nature.
- [52:07]
C
The reason I did that whole thing about not lying was that I had a surgery. And in the surgery, I had one of those. It wasn't a near death experience because I was pale and hearty, but I was not conscious. And then I was conscious. And then I was watching my body from above. And then I leaned back and this light appeared. And I was ready to. If I hadn't had kids, I was so ready to be dead. And this light came, and it was so exquisite. Like it was more beautiful than anything you could imagine. And it was expanded, and it touched me and filled my body with the most exquisite joy and love and illuminate like it was all that. It's all that in a box of cookies. It's everything people say it is. And I came out of there, out of the surgery, out of the anesthesia, and there was this janitor mopping the floor. And I remember opening my eyes and going, I love you so much. And then the nurses came in. I'm like, I love you all so much. And I talked to the anesthesiologist, and I was like, what is it? Give me more. And he said, no, that he was giving me the anesthesia. And when the light touched me, I started to cry. And my eyes were taped shut, but tears came down, and the doctors thought I was conscious, and I could feel the pain, so they freaked out. And the anesthesiologist was like, oh, my God, she needs more meds. And then he told me he turned to put more medication in the drip, and a voice said, it's okay. She's crying because she's happy. And he said. He told me in terror. He said, I just did what it said. Was I okay? Did I do okay? So I kind of told him what happened to me. And he said, do you know how many times this has happened to me in 33 years of practice? And I said, no. He said, once. And then he kissed me on the forehead and went away. And I lay there in that bed and just sobbing with joy, not knowing what had happened, but saying, whatever that was, it's in charge of the universe, and I will no longer do anything that doesn't feel like the warmth of that light. And that's what I was telling you guys to do with your love, the warmth of that light. And my son Adam, who has down syndrome, when he was 19, his friend became an orphan, his best friend. And his father died, and then his mother died, both from cancer. And we were coming home from the funeral, and Adam said, I didn't cry. And I said, yeah, but it's really sad. And it's okay for strong men to cry at sad times. And he said, it's not as bad after the light comes and opens your heart. And I was like, what? Say what? A light came to you and opened your heart? And he said, in my bedroom. And I was like, when did this Happen. And he said, May 10th. And I was like, this was in, like, February. I was like, this last year? He said, no, it was like five years earlier. And I said, well, what happened? He said, this light came and it touched my heart, and it said, you're okay. You can do this. I'm your teacher. You can do this. And we were pulling into the garage, and I was like, you know what, Adam? I've seen that light. And he was like, oh, whoa. Like, he didn't know I had it in me. And I said, you know, it told me that it's always going to be with me, even though I can't see it. And then he looked disappointed, and he goes, oh, I can see it. And I said, what now? And he was like, yes. I said, well, where is it? Is it, like, up there? Is it over there? Is it in your heart or your head? And he just shook his head. He was like, mom, it's everywhere. It's everywhere he looks. He sees that light. And I am telling you, that's what catches you when you stop doing all the fucking paperwork.
- [55:58]
B
I want no one to panic because Martha's gonna stay with us for our next episode to answer some practical questions about how we begin.
- [56:04]
C
Oh, God, I'm here. I'll stay all week.
- [56:07]
B
But.
- [56:09]
C
You are my flies and I am the spider.
- [56:13]
B
But for our next Right thing, we do a next Right thing every week. Just a little thing that people can do or not do if they don't feel like it.
- [56:21]
G
Great.
- [56:21]
B
If somebody wants to begin, what do they do today to return to their wild, to become bewildered this very day?
- [56:31]
C
You make a list of things you have to do. You see which one makes you most upset. Then you make another list of things that make you genuinely happy. And then you replace 10 minutes of the thing you hate with the thing you love. And you do that every day for a week. And then you move 10 minutes again, and you just keep doing that. And I call it one degree turns. And it's like flying a plane 10,000 miles, and you just turn one degree. Nobody even knows. You don't even notice. But if you do that every week, you end up in a totally different place.
- [57:06]
B
Sister. Do you want to try that?
- [57:09]
D
That Martha Beck I can do, right?
- [57:11]
C
That's what I do now. I'm not going on any no lie for a year things again. That sucks.
- [57:20]
D
That's amazing. I love that.
- [57:24]
B
All right, y'. All sister's gonna think about what she loves to do so she can add 10 minutes of that a day. We will report back to you all. Martha will be back on Thursday to answer some really amazing questions that you've sent to us about intuition and knowing and how we get back to that way of life which we were born with. And if this week gets hard where you're adding your 10 minutes a day, don't forget that we can do hard things. Martha Beck, we love you. Thank you for helping us live a warmer existence.
- [57:54]
C
I love you guys more than you can possibly know. And I love everyone out there listening to this. It's going to be okay, you guys. It really is.
- [58:02]
B
It's going to be okay. It's gonna be okay. We can do hard things. We'll see you back here soon. Bye. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us. We can do hard Things on Instagram and We Can Do Hard things show on TikTok.