The Mel Robbins Podcast - How to Find Your Purpose & Design the Life You Want

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

In today’s episode, you’ll learn a process to figure out what you really want, design a life you love, and find your purpose. If you feel stuck, lost, or unsure about what’s next, this conversation will give you the clarity and tools you’ve been searching for. This is your roadmap for creating the life you want. For two decades, Mel has followed the work of Dr. Martha Beck from afar. She is the #1 life coach in the world and her teachings have inspired Mel every single step of her own journey. In this episode, for the very first time, Mel and Dr. Beck are sitting down to give you the coaching session of a lifetime.  Dr. Beck is here to give you the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for and the wisdom you’ve been craving. Using her own powerful comeback story of strength and resilience , she’ll inspire you to step into your purpose and create a bold, authentic life that’s fully aligned with who you are and what you truly want.For more resources, including links to Dr. Martha Beck’s research, website, and social media, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked this research-packed episode, your next listen should be this episode: If You Struggle With Stress & Anxiety, This Will Change Your Life Connect with Mel: Get Mel’s new book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Have you ever had a full circle moment? You know, a moment in life where you realized, holy cow, I've come full circle from where I was in the past. Well, I am so excited for our conversation today because I'm inviting you to experience a full circle moment with me as it happens live here in the studio. And at the same time, you're going to be getting the coaching session of your entire life from one of the world's most renowned life coaches and New York Times bestselling author.

She is here in our studios. I already have chills and I'm going to tell you why. I wouldn't be sitting here in this chair hosting this podcast if 19 years ago I hadn't walked into the Boston Convention Center, sat down in a chair, looked up and a woman I had never seen before walked on stage, and everything she said that day changed the entire trajectory of my life. Who was it? Martha Beck. I've never met her. I've never told her that story.

And she is here to teach you all about how you're gonna discover your purpose, how you need to trust where your life is taking you. And I have no idea where this conversation is going to take me, but I know it's going to be one of the most extraordinary and amazingly impactful ones of both your and my life. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am thrilled that you're here.

We're going to experience something so extraordinary together. And if you're brand new, I want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. This is the perfect episode to be listening to right now because we're going to be digging into the topic of purpose, of discovering your power. You're going to learn so much from our guest today. This is a woman that I've admired for 19 years. She has changed my life. She's gonna change yours today.

And the fact that you hit play on this episode tells me that you're the type of person who values your time and you're also interested in creating more meaning and purpose in your life. And I love that. And today you're gonna get that. Because we have the number one life coach on the planet who is here today to help you make your life better.

If you feel stuck, if you're looking for some guidance, if you wanna figure out what your next step is, or if you just have this feeling that something that you're doing, it just isn't working. You're just not quite where you're supposed to be. Well, you're in the right place right now. You're supposed to be here with your friend Mel, and you and I are in for the coaching session of a lifetime.

And let me just give you the context for how amazing this is. If you wanted to hire the person who's in our studio today, you couldn't book a session with her. Like that is how renowned she is. But today, she has hopped on a plane and flown across the country and she is here for you. Dr. Martha Beck is the number one life coach in the world and she's here to speak with you and me and to help you live your best life. Dr. Martha Beck is a world-renowned life coach who holds three sociology degrees from Harvard. She's a six-time New York Times bestselling author. She is famously known as Oprah's life coach, and she's also been my life coach for 19 years, but from afar. And this is the very first time that I'm meeting her in person.

Through her books, her conversations, she has helped me get clear about what I want and has inspired me to take bigger and more purposeful risks. And she's here for you to share her best tactics, tools, research and insights that are gonna help you have the breakthrough that you need and deserve. So please help me welcome the extraordinary Martha Beck

to the Mel Robbins podcast. I just have to say, I am unbelievably thrilled that you're here. I can't believe that I'm sitting across from you actually. I'm like, pinch me, pinch me. I feel the same way. I feel like I know you because you've been in my life for so long and I just am eternally grateful

that you got on a plane and you are taking the time to be with me and the person who's listening. Wow. I just, I am so honored to be here and it's like, we're just looking in the mirror here because we've both had parasocial relationships with each other. I feel like you're talking to me all the time and it's just such an honor to be here. I am so excited that you're here because there are just so many different topics that I cannot wait to learn from you about, from how you find your deeply personal sense of purpose

to how you can use the tools that you write about in your new book to manage anxiety, to learning how to live a life that's truly authentic to you. And I've thought a lot about how I wanted to start our conversation. And I'd like to start it by telling you a personal story. Martha, I have been waiting for this day to be able to get you on the Mel Robbins podcast because I know that everything that you have to share and teach us today about finding your purpose and living a life that is authentic to who you are

is going to change not only my life, but the person's life who's listening to this conversation right now. And I've been thinking a lot about, okay, how do we start? There's just so much that you cover and so much that you have to teach us today. And I realized I wanted to start by telling you a deeply personal story. Okay. So it would have been early 2005. And I was a young mom with two and I had left the practice of law and I had studied and become

a life coach and I had a small business coaching individuals and people that ran small businesses and Oprah Winfrey was doing a big event and it was at the Boston Convention Center. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And yeah, and I thought, well, what better place to go to prospect for clients who feel stuck than at an Oprah Winfrey conference. And I walked in and I sat down in a chair and a woman that I had never seen walked on stage and she started talking and it was you. Oh my goodness. And there was something about you.

And I don't even know what the hell you were saying. You were talking about purpose. And I remember just feeling the stress of having two kids and trying to grow this business. And my husband had just been laid off and he wanted to go into the restaurant business and you were up there and there was something inside me and you talk, I'd never thought about it as peace, but everything went quiet.

And I don't even remember a word that you said, but I remember feeling I wanna be doing that. And I didn't even know what that meant. And so when you walked off stage, I picked up one of the magazines and I learned about you and I started reading your column and I said to myself, I'm gonna just figure out how I can write books or how I can speak to people. And this was before I gave that TEDx talk, it was before I had ever done anything. Wow. And it was you. That's

incredible. And I remember I was sitting there one night and somebody forwarded me an email and I was up late at night kind of working and the kids had been put to bed and this email comes across my inbox and it's from a friend and she said, hey Mel, I work in PR in New York and I see that somebody is looking to interview a life coach for an article in this magazine. So I scroll down and I notice, oh, well, this is two months old. And oh, I have none of the credentials. And oh, it looks like the deadline's already passed.

And then I said, well, what would Martha Beck do? And I hit reply and I responded. And it was the kind of beginning of everything changing in my life. And it all began with that moment that I had an experience with you. Oh, my goodness. And I've been waiting 19 years to meet you. Oh, my heart is just like exploding right now. I just, you know, I remember going out in front of crowds and I had terrible performance anxiety, but I would always stop and think somebody out there feels the way I did once. And I would just think whoever it is, and I'd just say, please speak to them.

And I don't know what the hell I said either. It's like throwing a message out in a bottle and just wondering, did anyone pick it up? And then to have you say, I found the message you left in the bottle and I picked it up. And then you come back to me and it's an answer to my prayers to feel heard and seen the way we all want to feel heard and seen. And we all want to feel heard and seen. And it's, talk about full circle moments, this whole day has been just this deep magic and I really, I love you for bringing that to life and putting it out into the world. Well, I love you for starting the spark.

And one of the reasons why I was so excited beyond just my selfish desire to have the full circle moment and to meet you and thank you is that you more than anybody in the world helps people get unstuck. Oh, wow. It's true. Like so much of your work is truly about finding purpose and learning how to find your way, especially when you have no peace, especially when you don't know what comes next or life has thrown something at you.

Can you just expand a bit about your personal background and how you got to the point where you were writing all of these New York Times by selling books, because there was a lot of personal history that led up to where you are now. I would just love for you to share a little bit about your background. Sure.

In case the person listening is getting the gift of meeting you for the first time. Oh, hello, it's so nice to meet you. Yeah, I was privileged enough to have some fairly difficult things in my life. And one of the hardest, probably the hardest, was growing up in the heart of very Mormon Mormonism with a father who was one of the great luminaries of the Mormon faith. He defended the faith. It's called being an apologist. So, he was very important to Mormonism. And

I think it made him crazy. And part of his crazy was that he sexually abused me. And then I grew up and after I was having children and trying to not tell any lies. The moment I decided one year not to tell any lies, the memory of the abuse just erupted. If you've had that happen to you, call someone you need community. So you had suppressed all of the memories of it and then it erupts? Kind of, yeah. When you're, you were actually at Harvard at the time, right? Yeah, I was finishing my PhD.

Yeah. Harvard at the time, right? Yeah, I was finishing my PhD. But yeah, I had, I mean, it literally, I had so much scar tissue in my body. My body wasn't working very well because of all the scar tissue in sensitive areas. So I had surgery for that as well and that blew it wide open. And I started having what they call intrusive flashbacks. But at the same time, I was looking at, is this religion, like I love my father, he's passed on, but I love him. And I really think it made him crazy to try to wrap his mind around telling people that something was true when it wasn't. It's just there were things that were not true that he found a way to say, oh, they're

true. So I never hated him. But I realized that without speaking the truth and living in harmony with my truth, I couldn't survive psychologically. I was very close to taking my own life. Couldn't do that to my kids. So I decided to like get therapy, do other things. And at that point, I started, my family was like, in communi- like, no, this did not happen. They tried to shut it down. I started getting scary messages from unknown people saying, you've been spreading rumors about your father, you need to, you know, I'm going to, you know, drag you behind my truck until you tell the truth, that kind of stuff. It was like, just from strangers. Yeah. And then 10 years later, I waited 10 years. And then I wrote a book about it called Leaving the Saints, How I Left the Mormons and Found My Faith, because it was about

how I had been set free by the experience of dealing with that and that lo and behold, I decided I believed that there was a divine consciousness that loves us all and is always taking care of us. So when that book came out, yeah, my family tried to take legal action to have me put in prison. I lost every friendship I'd had growing up because everyone was Mormon in that community. And going against the church and leaving the church is considered the only sin worse than murder. Well, and you not only did that, but to live in

your integrity and to live your truth and to set yourself free, you also wrote about it. Yeah. And that's what… In a book that became a massive New York Times bestseller. I was hoping no one would read it. I knew I had to write it. Yes. But I was terrified.

And pretty much all the things that I thought would happen, happened. My publishers called me after the galleys came out and said, why didn't you tell us about this? And I was like, I tried. They were like, we're getting death threats. I was like, yeah, I know. Don't rock the boat in that, in any very strongly committed ideological community, right? Yeah. So, it was just loss after loss after loss after loss. There was immense fear. There was fear for my children whose lives were threatened anonymously by people sending me letters and stuff.

Had to leave my home at the same time. Realized I didn't really like academia, so I left my job. Realized I was gay. Oh, so there went my marriage. Just everything, everything left and everything arrived, everything painful that was so hard to lose. I had to let them go. And in the spaciousness that opened up, the thing I call God moved in. And there's just joy, joy, joy, joy in letting go. I want that for all of us. I do too. I want that so much. I want that for every single person. I want that

so much for you. How did you go from that experience in your life and in your career and in your marriage and publicly to then making this decision that you would put yourself out there even more and help everyone else find their way. Because you have in your work represents around the world, a pathway towards purpose, a way to find your authentic self, a way to truly find the courage to speak your truth. I mean, that's what you represent in the world. Thank you. You know, I was, we're in Boston. I haven't been back to Boston for like 30 years.

Really? Yeah. And I was living in Cambridge, which is right here, when I was, my son was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome. So I was six months pregnant. I knew he had Down syndrome. And I had never really experienced peace. And I was very, very upset. And I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. And I remember being in my apartment in Cambridge, curled over my big pregnant belly, which terrified me because I didn't know what was going to happen to my life and to him. And I was under such a weight of grief that I did something, and your new book is like perfect, because I just allowed what was happening to happen. I said, let the world

be what it is, let this child be what it is, and I sort of collapsed forward. And I swear to God, I felt arms go around me in that moment. And it was as if something picked me up and I was curled on the floor, but I felt as if I didn't picked up like a baby and held. And I don't know what that was, but it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. And I don't know how long it lasted because it felt outside of time and it was just overwhelming. And after it ended, my entire life was about, I have to get back there. And that is, to this very very day what I'm doing here Well, and that's the work that you do with people around the world

You know, well, I think you succeed and helping us come home to ourselves. Yeah, I can't believe you haven't been back to Boston Yeah, it was it was a difficult city for me. Yeah Well, then I are or at least you haven't haven't been around, you haven't been back to Cambridge. I did today and it was really... What was that like? Oh, everywhere I went, I was tapping my younger self on the shoulder, because I was there from the time I was 17 until I was like 28. And I would just tap my younger self on the shoulder and say, hey, I'm from your future. And I know with 100% accuracy,

you're going to get through this and you're going to be happy. And I just kept telling my younger selves that all morning, going around with my wonderful partner, it was time travel. It was magic. I had three social science degrees from Harvard and they taught me well. It was a brutal education, but one thing was very true, and that is, I'm a social scientist by training. You can't really know what another person's life is

like for them. So the only truth story you can tell is your own. Never presume to tell another person's story. If I'm going to speak the truth, I speak it from my own experience because I will not impose that on you. But if you're invited to come share, if you feel the same thing. But that's why I had to tell my own story because standing on some pedestal and saying, I know these things because I'm a social scientist, bullshit. I know I found the way out of suffering because I was suffering horribly. Here's the path I followed. If it feels good to you, come with me. I love you. Good luck." And what's available to the person listening right now or to somebody that they love if

they're suffering deeply in this conversation today? You're okay right now. Mel and I were here. We got you. There is a community of love. It's invisible, but if you feel it with your senses and your heart, something will start to shift because we've got you and it's going to be okay. Just this moment, a breath at a time, we got you. I believe you. It's true. And I also believe that you're going to walk us through exactly how we can believe it for ourselves too. That's my dream. That's the dream. Well, that's what we're going to do today. And so I would love to have you just talk a little bit about how you think about the experience of being stuck in life and even moments in your life where

you have felt stuck and will just start there. Oh, yeah. Well, the story I just told you, I felt completely and totally stuck. I mean, my advisors at Harvard, even the doctors told me I was throwing my life away by keeping my son, and I'm very pro-choice, by the way, but he was diagnosed like a week before my sixth month. I had already really bonded to him. So, I felt stuck then. And here's the thing, the release came from a surrender to what was, but then being caught by some force that is not something we really talk about in our culture. And over and over in my life, when I've gotten stuck, when I was, you know,

the daughter of one of Mormonism's most famous defendants and then I'm dealing with memories of sexual abuse and the whole religion is, you know, vested in keeping me quiet, I felt very stuck then. And when my whole family and all the friends I'd had as a child sort of wrote me off and I've never spoken to them again, that felt very, I felt very stuck. But I've come to have a really delightful relationship with the feeling of being stuck. And now I even know the brain science behind it. When you have a really big need or desire and you're really feeling stuck, I call it an impasse, this is when your brain, the feeling of just bumping up against it, that is the brain saying, I'm about to give you a big

leap forward. I'm about to tell you things that will blow your mind. So be stuck, get right down in the mud with it, say, I hate this, I'm miserable. And then say, screw it, and go for a walk or go for a ride in the car. Or if you can't get out of your house, watch the birds outside your window. There is a part of your brain that will actually take the impasse, the stuckness, and you will come eventually to an idea you have never imagined before. Like, and I compare it to the caterpillar cannot imagine being a butterfly, but that is its destiny. Stuckness always means you're about to be transformed. So embrace it with both arms, enjoy it, lean in, you're going to love it.

It's so hard to do though. And I mean, and you literally coach people through this. And I think about moments in my life where I have felt so stuck and also directionless, right? Like I don't know what I should be doing next. And so could you speak directly to the person who's listening? Yes.

That feels that right now, like they're not only feeling that frustration and is this all my life is going to be in the sense that there's something else, but I don't even know how to access it. Yep. Okay. So two things. You have two best friends that go with you everywhere. One is your body. The other is suffering. And these are your allies, and our culture really discounts both of them. We need to get a little wilder, as I say in my little online community called wilder. And the way you get wilder is you sink into the body and you feel for suffering. So if you wouldn't mind, I don't do hypothetical work, so I wanted to work on you. So what

I do with myself and what I would do with you if I were coaching you, I would say in this moment, is there anything in you that is not peaceful? Yes. Okay. Where in your body do you experience most of the not peace? I feel it as like this tension in my chest, like it's right between my breasts. It's almost like this like plate right in here. Yeah. Okay. like this like plate right in here. Yeah, okay. And when you start to describe it,

you're actually will be using the language of the body. This tells everyone in the world, no matter what language they speak, we've all felt that. The armoring of the heart, the flinching away. When you focus on that, what emotion comes up? And there are four categories. Fear. Mad, sad, glad, and scared. Scared. Okay. So breathe into that. So now you have your friend suffering, saying, I'm afraid. And you have your friend body saying, it doesn't need words. It's, okay. This is helping you find your way through life. So the first thing you do is, in your face, let it be. Let the emotion be bigger. Let the fear, the scaredness be there. Let it be huge. Let it fill your internal

space. Let it leak over into the world. Let that plate armor in your chest really, really get as big as it wants to be. It's like a nuclear cloud now. Okay, fantastic. Now it's like, yeah, okay, let it, let it, let it. You should write another book called Let It. What happens when you relax into it is you're no longer resisting the lesson that is coming from your, you know, fear is another word for anxiety. So it's coming from your anxiety, it's coming from life circumstances. So now, if that were a being you loved, and you asked it, first of all, say, be yourself. I have no resistance to you. Come in, sit

down with me. The suffering? Yes. Be huge. Be yourself. Be huge, be scary. I have zero resistance to you. Come in, sit down with me. The suffering? Yes. Be huge. Be yourself. Be huge, be scary. I have zero resistance to this. Yeah. And then this will take too much time for the broadcast, but you say to yourself, tell me everything. Write it all down. Tell me everything you're feeling. You know what's interesting about inviting the suffering in as a person and taking the feeling in your body and visualizing it into something bigger is the second that you said that

the kind of tension in the chest mushroomed into this like nuclear cloud, which ironically made it feel smaller. Well, look at the amount of energy you had compacted into your chest. When you let it go, there's a kind of release. Yes. You're not having to hold all that pain anymore. You're just letting it be. And what ended up happening,

because this is a particular fear about something going on in my financial life, is that the second that I kind of imagined it big and you invited it in to sit with me, it immediately started talking. Oh, really? Yes. And it brought me right back to 15 years ago when I was on the brink of bankruptcy. Really?

And like, I'm afraid because I've been in a place where I've felt out over the tips of my skis. I've been in a place where I've felt out over the tips of my skis. I've been in a place where I've been really scared and struggling financially. And it's not at all the same situation, but it's triggering it. Yes, it is. And if we were working this in person, I would have you write down or tell me every thought that is causing suffering. Because here's the thing, there are two sources of suffering. One is clean and one is dirty. The clean suffering is like if I punched you in the head, it would hurt. That's just clean suffering. But dirty suffering comes from

our thoughts about events. So then you would think, she hates me, why does she do that? Did I deserve it? She shouldn't have done that." So there would be this storm of thoughts and we all have different storms. But most of our pain, most of our suffering doesn't come from events. It comes from our thoughts about events. So as your pain tells its story, you are unblending from it. And you said, it's not the same situation at all. You're able to see that. That means you have a little perspective. But don't shut it down. Don't say, oh, you don't need to worry. This is different. No. Suffering is your ally. It will tell you everything you need if you let it speak. And I'm going to ask you because you're good at this stuff. Tell me one of the scariest thoughts that comes up when you let your fear

speak. That you've just spent 15 years getting yourself out of financial debt and making yourself feel safe because you've been really good about savings and you are about to do something stupid. Okay. I'm going to boil that down to you're about to do something stupid and all the alarm is attached to it, right? Yes.

Here's the deal. Here's how suffering is your friend. It always tells you the opposite of what you actually need to know. So it's very specific. It's not just, oh, let it go, it'll be fine. That thought that caused, the more suffering it causes, the more it's getting your attention, but it's backwards. So, what is the back, like I can't even wrap my brain around this.

I'm like, wait, so what is backwards about it's about to? I would say, you know, you've spent all this time getting yourself out of it and now you're about to do something really brilliant. Feel that? Yes. Yeah. The opposite of the most painful thought in your head, the opposite of that thought is your next step toward awakening. Oh my God, that's beautiful. It always works. Can we try that with a breakup? Yes, please. So I watched my daughter go through just a wildly painful heartbreak this summer. Ouch. And the biggest fear is that it was two. It was like, I'll never find love again.

Or I've made a huge mistake and I blew it. And so if we take this truth and wisdom and you invite the suffering in, and let's just take the statement that a lot of people feel, I'll never find love again, I'll never find somebody who loves me, what is the opposite of that? So, you have to really listen to the suffering till the point where you're sick of it, because before that you're going to cling to this thought. It's part of your ego trying to defend itself. But as we know, trying to cling to things to defend yourself is the way into misery. So, I'll never find love again. It will sound radical, but the opposite would be, I will always find

love again. Now, if you sit with that and start to look for ways it could be true, oh, I will always find love. I love that tree outside the window. I love my cat. I love my mother. I love, oh, there's just love everywhere. When you say, I'll always find love. I'll find it everywhere. Everything starts to love you back. Try this, try this. Go into a coffee shop or someplace you like to go to, like, have lunch. Go in thinking your most painful thought, I'll never find love again, I'll never find love again, and watch how people react to you, okay? The next day, go in again, but this time you have to repeat the opposite. I'll always find love everywhere. I'll always find love everywhere and watch how people react to you.

They will open doors for you. They will give you free stuff. They will smile. I'm telling you, people talk about me being woo-woo. It's just what happens. Go test it. Well, I also think there's a lot of science to this. There is, yeah.

Because aren't you training your mind to show you what you're looking for? Like if you're more open to it, is that also? Because I believe in both the magic and the spiritual and the woo woo. And you can explain it and you do in your work over and over again about how this is also a tactic to reprogram your spirit and your brain to be open to this. Yeah. Selective attention. You've probably seen that experiment where they have six people bouncing a basketball and you tell someone watching the film, count the times they bounce the ball.

In the middle of the film, a person in a gorilla suit comes in and does a little dance and then leaves. And people watching that film don't see the gorilla because they're busy watching the times the ball bounces. And the gorilla is not subtle. It is right in the middle of the frame. It's big. We don't see what we don't pay attention to. So if you are constantly saying, I'm not going to find love, I'm not going to find love, the only things you'll see will be things that make you jealous and hurt and sad. And if you walk around thinking, I'm going to see love everywhere always, it happens. The other thing is mirror neurons. Other people's brains, if you took a sip of water, my brain would actually have the same activity in it

as if I had taken a sip of water. Our brains are constantly moving to reflect one another. So when you walk around going, there's love everywhere, a person meets your eyes and suddenly sees love everywhere. You're giving them a different brain by going around thinking, I'll always find love. I just, everything that comes out of your mouth is like, oh my God. I felt my chest collapse. Almost like falling backwards, like a trust fall, when you said you're about to make

the most brilliant decision. And I think you're right. Look how aware you are, look how experienced you are. Of course you're gonna make a brilliant decision. But what I love about this conversation is that when you see somebody that you care about who's stuck or going through heartbreak or who is afraid because they're taking a risk, when we see that person from the outside, we credit them and give them the benefit

of all the things we know to be true, which is yes, this is breaking your heart in a million pieces and there's love all around you and there is love in your life and you will absolutely find love again. And you will be loved, but it's hard for you as the person stuck in it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I am just blown away by being with you. I know as you're listening, you're thinking the same thing. I cannot wait for you to share this with the people that you care about.

So here's what we're going to do. Let's hit the pause button and we're going to hear a word from our amazing sponsors, but don't you dare go anywhere because Martha Beck and I are going to be waiting for you after a short break and she has so much more to share with you. So stay with me. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today you and I have the honor of getting coaching from the extraordinary Dr. Martha Beck. So is being stuck different than not having a purpose?

Or are you saying- They're very related. Yeah. Because people, the biggest reason people consult me is a sense of not having a purpose. And they'll put that above things like heartbreak or disease. Like not having a purpose is really a big problem. And it's really related to being stuck because our knowledge of the direction we want to take is informed by a sense of purpose. And when we don't have a sense of purpose, we have no way of knowing where to go. And that gets us stuck. I do seminars in Africa. And one of the things we do

is we take people rhinoceros tracking, because that's an obvious thing to do, right? If you don't have a sense of purpose. The rhinoceros is your purpose. You learn to see every sign it leaves on the earth and everything. And then we take them back to the camp and we say, now you're going to track your purpose the way we track the rhino. And the way you've tracked, the track of your purpose is joy in the body. Oh, a sense of joy lifting or lightness, relaxation in the body is a track. It never says, here's what you're going to be in 20 years or even 20 minutes. It says, here's your next step forward. So with this financial situation, you're about to make a brilliant decision.

If you say that, what happens in your body? I feel that freedom and peace and ease that you talk about. So the Buddha used to say, and he said it a lot, wherever you find water, you can know if it's the ocean because no matter what it looks like, the ocean always tastes of salt. And when you find enlightenment, you will always recognize it no matter what it looks like because enlightenment always tastes of freedom. Not giddy joy, not bliss, freedom. It can be scary as hell to serve your purpose, but it's free.

You are free. So when you say you felt lighter and freer, that's a track. So now, okay, you know that that's what you're going to follow instead of the thing that says, oh my God, I'm going to make a terrible decision. Or I'm always going to be alone or it's never going to work out for me or I'm never going to be good enough. Like that is one lane. Yeah. And using these tools, you're now accessing and flipping the suffering. Yeah. And you're tracking what brings you more freedom in the body, more joy in the

body. So if you're making the decision, okay, I'm going brings you more freedom in the body, more joy in the body. So if you're making the decision, okay, I'm going to put this money in this account or in that account, literally sit there and say, okay, if I make decision A, what happens in my body? Shut down. If I make decision B, what happens in my body? A little bit lighter. So I always say to people, think of the worst

experience you had and then feel how that was in your body and give that a score, negative 10 on the happy meter. Then remember the most peaceful and free you've ever felt, that's a positive 10. And everything in between, zero is neutral. So you may make a decision with this financial thing where it's just a, that's plus one, that's minus three. Okay, it might be subtle, but as you learn to feel what sets you free, what removes suffering and replaces it with, ah, that's how you know the next step.

And as the steps start to add up, you go, oh my God, that's my purpose? Is everybody's purpose different? Yes. Absolutely. Oh, you said that was such certainty. Yeah. Yeah, it's as individual as our fingerprints.

And how do you define purpose? That which brings you the greatest satisfaction and joy as a being on this earth and that allows you to contribute the most satisfaction and joy to the rest of the world. That's your purpose. It's where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. A theologian said that once. I think it was Fred Boeckner. And how do you discover this? You talked about the rhino hunting, and then you take people back and say, okay, we're going to do that exact same process.

Do you look backwards and start to look for tracks and clues in your past? Or do you look forward? Well, you do. You realize what feels like the way forward and what is not the way forward. And it's really simple. If it sets you free even a little bit, go there. That's your purpose. If it traps you, if it makes you feel encased, no matter how slightly, that is what my friend

Boyd who tracks with me calls the track of not there. So we go through life banging into suffering and oh my God, and that is just the track of not there. After you learn to track joy, you won't even pay much attention to all of that noise. You'll be so focused following your joy, and then you'll look up and go, oh my God, that's where I'm headed? Like think of your story of being in the audience at the convention. I'm so glad we're going there because I have been stuck so many times in my life, and a

lot of times, and I know you find this with people too, when you're stuck, you're stuck, and you're pretty convinced you are, and you're scared you're gonna stay there. And when you hear somebody like you say, we gotta track your joy, you gotta move toward freedom, when you're that stuck, it's sort of like, what the hell does that even mean?

Right. Like I can barely get out of bed. I don't like the job that I have. I can't pay my bills. And that's kind of where I was when I was sitting in that audience. And you gave me a taste of that, oh, there's something that feels different here. I'm going to move toward this and that the simple tool I came up with was what would Martha Beck do? And I'll just do that because woman has life that feels different than mine. And so I'm going to just kind of move toward that even though I don't even know what she would do. I'm just going to guess what she would do. And so if, if the person listening is in it with us, and they're also like, okay, yeah, but what

do I do when I wake up? What do I do in my life right now to find these small pockets of joy in my day? Because I'm assuming that's where you start. No, actually, it's not. Oh, it's not? It's not in the day. Oh, thank God, I asked you. It's always in this moment, and it's always inside the self.

There is no such thing as a circumstance that will set you free. All your feeling of captivity is always coming from the mind, from the fear-based mind. When you set yourself free in your mind, like I was bedridden for 12 years with a whole bunch of autoimmune diseases, a lot of which they told me were incurable and progressive. I don't have any symptoms. But that didn't start after, like, for 12 years, I was in constant chronic pain and severe disability, okay? Like I raised my kids on a king-size bed and I felt very, very stuck. And then I realized that the feeling of being stuck was torture and that I could shift the feeling.

So it always starts, what am I thinking? I'm thinking I'm stuck, I'm stuck, there's nowhere to go. That causes suffering. What's the opposite? I'm free. I'm free. I could go in any direction. And then find a way in which that may be true, even if you just find

one little note of it in what looks like a sea of pain. Once I got on a plane and I was at the airport and this guy started talking to me. He was a professional hockey player. He said, here's the thing. The net is small and the goalie is big in hockey, but you can't ever look at the goalie. You look at the five little spaces where the putt can go because where your eyes go, the putt goes. So get on the plane and the guy beside me says, I'm a whitewater rafter. And let me tell you, there are times when it just looks like all rocks and just a little

tiny bit of water, but you never look at the rocks because where your eyes go, the boat goes. I was like, okay, something's happening. I get off the plane, I go take a horse riding lesson and my teacher says, always look where you want the horse to go, where your eyes go, the horse goes. And I was just like, I get it, I get it. Where my attention goes, my life goes. If you feel stuck, I'm there for you. Tell me everything. And when

you're done telling me everything, I'll say, where are you free? And when I started finding the places I was free, one by one, these incurable symptoms disappeared. I'm 61. Last month I went on a walk in England and I walked 75 miles in six days after being told I'd never walk again. It's because I know how this thing works and we can use it to lock us down or we can use it to set us free no matter what. What were some of the little things when you started doing this for yourself after being bedridden for 12 years that were pockets of freedom for you, just to give the person listening like a sense of what you're talking about? I started looking at the things that hurt most because it was like having knives stuck

in me, these thoughts that I thought. And everybody has these, I'm not good enough. This person doesn't love me. Life is a bitch and then you die. Whatever it was. I'd be like, life is a bitch and then you die. All right. I'll never get out of this bed. Okay. That hurts. I'll always get out of this bed. That can't be true. I'm lying. Wait, wait. I can read a book and be a million miles away. I can watch a show and space travel. I can talk to a friend and feel everything they're feeling and be at the dance where they're dancing. And I am free because the human imagination can do anything. That's where my attention went and that's where my life went. Because everything else just hurt too much.

How long did it take? I'm like, I'm sitting here asking these questions on behalf of the skeptic. Because you want to believe that it's going to work, right? But your mind is so against you at times that even when you get these little morsels where you feel like, it is true. If I watch a movie, I'm no longer in this bed because my mind is in the movie. Yeah.

And it's a small way to find freedom. And as I start to unshackle myself from these painful thoughts and I bring freedom into my experience, things open up. Yeah. And the thing to notice is just, does it feel a little bit better? Does it feel a little bit freer? What's happening when people feel stuck is, and I don't want to get all brain sciency, but honest to God, there's a little spiral that happens in a part of our brain that it's such a strange thing. That part of the brain believes that it's stuck and also believes that nothing that contradicts it is true at all. So you get into this tiny, I call it an anxiety spiral, and it believes that only it is real. And people who have like, strokes and they can only use that part of their brain,

they believe that half the world doesn't exist because they're only perceiving it with the anxious mind and nothing else exists. But if you can go from, I'm always going to be stuck in this bed to, I'm always going to be free in this bed, then part of your brain lets go of the anxiety and it turns to the part of the brain that is creative. And that is the part that a lot of people don't understand, that the opposite of your worst thought is not this serene bliss or calm. It is that you suddenly walk into the zone of the human imagination at its most creative and it can solve anything. Well that is the topic of your new seventh instant New York Times bestselling book,

Beyond Anxiety. And I would love to have you explain that tool of flipping from that kind of anxiety spiral to how you tap into the creative brain. Because when you are stuck, when you do feel like you don't know what your purpose is, anxiety does take over. Because you're so worried, what if I never get unstuck?

What if I never figure it out? What if I die and I wasted all this time? What if I never even figured out who I was or what I was meant to be? And this is where all your work with people and what you've written about for years really helps people figure out. And so what do you want us to know about curiosity and creativity, especially for somebody who's stuck? Here's the first thing you need to know. Anxiety always lies, but only always. Wait, what does that mean, but only always?

I just like to say it. It's like, you know, a thing that makes you feel entrapped is always bad for you, but only always. And it's just a joke. It's a way of, because people think, I know that's sort of, no, I really mean it. All your anxiety is lying. Oh, no, it isn't. I put that at the end of the book. If I'd put it at the beginning, people would have said, F you, and just thrown it at the

wall, right? Yes. Because it feels so convincing that your most frightening, self-hating thoughts are the truth and it's lying. So that's the first thing. Just hear me now, understand me later. I'm stealing that. Hear me now, understand me later.

That is amazing. Okay. So you nailed it in your book, Let Them, because let them, a phrase where you're in this tense state you're trying to control. So the anxiety spiral goes fear, control, back to fear again, and it just spins and it gets bigger and bigger and the attempt to control gets bigger. And let them as a way out of the spiral. And it's genius. It's genius. So, you know that it's genius.

You have it tattooed on your bodies, you know. So, let them kind of relax as the spiral. And then when you say, let me, let me do something given that this person or this world event is happening the way it's happening. Let me assume my response ability, my ability to respond given that my mind is free. Okay. So let me do what? Now you are using the part of your brain that creates. And there's tons of evidence showing that anxiety shuts down creativity. What there's not a lot of studies about is creativity also

shuts down anxiety. So if you can go into that creative space, you will go for three or four hours and then realize, I haven't been anxious for three or four hours. So when you sit down to write and you shared with me that you have dyslexia, right? So the written word has not always been your friend, but you create these amazing books. Think about being inside that creative process. I don't know how you do it. For me, it's always somebody sitting across from me who's in prison. What do you mean? Well, I once met a warden from a woman's prison. And this is when I was doing my Oprah magazine column.

And she told me that when they tossed the cells, the most common thing they found were copies of my column from Oprah magazine. And I remember going back to my hotel room and crying because I felt such tremendous empathy with someone sitting, talk about stuck, no options. I think the part of me that was so trapped and found its way to freedom has always been trying to find the trapped part of other people and say, we're going to get you out of here. Wow. Yeah.

I just love you. And I'm so honored that we get to be coached by you and to feel so inspired by you. And thank you for being here. I want to take a quick break so that we can just let all this sink in and so that you can share this with people that you care about and that our sponsors who are Bringing you Martha Beck at zero cost Can share a few words with you, but don't you dare go anywhere because I can tell that Martha Beck is just getting started

I mean, she's got so much more to say to you and you need to hear it and we'll be talking to you about it After a short break. Stay with me. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. You and I are getting coaching today from the extraordinary Dr. Martha Beck. So over the years, you've worked with so many people. What are the kind of top most painful thoughts? Like if you had like a list of ones you hear over and over, and we all kind of think we're the only one. Yeah. Right? And so I think it would be very validating for someone listening to hear just some of

the top things that are the most painful thoughts people have shared with you over the decades and how you flip it. Okay, so number one off the charts is, I'm not good enough. I'm not, you know, I'm not valuable. I'm not worthy. And it can be imposter syndrome. It can be jealousy. It can be whatever. But the root of it is, I'm not good. Not even enough. I'm not good. The biggest lie ever told. Go to a nursery in a hospital and pick up a baby and tell me which one of them isn't good. If we knew ourselves to be that precious, we would automatically live our purpose. If we could experience ourselves as being these innocent creatures that are bumbling through life. And I just, I feel like the powers that be the divine force of the universe is just going, oh, sweetie, oh, honey, how

could you think that? Don't you know? I mean, I remember looking at some horses once and going, oh, they're so beautiful. And this woman who was with me knew horses and she said, well, that one's swaybacked and that one's, and I'm like, shut up, they're so beautiful. And this woman who was with me knew horses and she said, well, that one swaybacked and that one's, and I'm like, shut up. They're all perfect. They're all beautiful. And I, when you step out of suffering enough times, you sit down and say, I'm not good enough, immediately flips to, oh my God, I'm so good. I'm so good. I haven't had to earn it. It's not something I did. My favorite spiritual teacher Byron Katie says, if you understood how important you are, you would shatter into a billion pieces and just be light. And she had that experience. And I believe she went beyond suffering. And I've come out of suffering over

and over again, like someone surfacing out of deep water, you know, and taking a breath of the truth. There is no word to describe how utterly precious you are. You have no, like, hear me now, understand me later. I had a near-death experience once. What happened? Oh my God. emulator. I had a near-death experience once. What happened? Oh my God. I mean, I've written about it. I've talked about it. I wasn't dead. I was in surgery for actually scars that were inflicted by sexual abuse when I was a child. I was getting flashbacks and the scar tissue had started bleeding internally. Did that happen? It did with me. It's actually not that uncommon for post-traumatic stress syndrome to re-inflict wounds that were inflicted on you at the time of the trauma. Wow.

To get your attention because suffering is always trying to say, here, here, look here. So I was in the surgery and I opened my eyes and I sat up and I looked around and then I thought, wait a second, I'm lying down, my eyes are taped shut, what's happening? And I looked at the surgeons and I was sitting up and my body was lying down and they were working. And I was like, I became very confused and I lay back down into my body and I looked up at the surgical lights, which were very, very bright. And then in between all of them, and you've got to understand this was a time of maximum suffering for me. I was in physical agony, I had three little

kids under five, all kinds of nonsense. They say we only see a trillionth of the available light spectrum, and it was the whole thing. It was the most beautiful thing. Even for years, if I even read about somebody seeing this light, I would just bawl like a baby. It is so beautiful. And it started to grow and just infuse things, and then it touched me. And I was utterly home. I was utterly loved. I was utterly, I belonged. I had nothing to prove. I was absolutely included in this love and it was laughing with me. And it was like, you said you wouldn't forget, but you

totally forgot this, didn't you? And I was like, yes, you wouldn't forget, but you totally forgot this, didn't you? And I was like, yes! I really thought life is a bitch and then you die and that's all there is. I was laughing together. And it was so happy that I started crying. And one of the surgeons saw the tears and thought that I could feel the surgery, but I was numb. You're kidding.

And so he said, she's in pain, she's in pain. And the anesthesiologist went to increase the medication. And later when I said, I want to talk to the anesthesiologist because I thought that might be a drug effect. It was not a drug effect. And I wanted to quiz him and he said, what happened in there? And I sort of told him and he said, I went to increase the medication and a voice said to me, don't do that, she's crying because

she's happy. And he was just pale because he thought he'd done the wrong thing and he said, did I do something horrible? I was like, no, no. He said, you know how many times that's happened to me in 33 years of practice? I said no, and he said once. And then he kissed me on the forehead and went away. But when the light touched me and sort of suffused me, it just said, you're about to go through some really hard stuff. And I was. Complete loss of all my family members, my job, my industry, my home, all my friends. Totally gone.

And it says … And is that because you left the church? Yeah. Yeah. I left everything. And it said, I just, you're about to go through something really hard. Just remember I'm always, always with you. And I came out of that surgery and my, it was kind of like the experience in Cambridge where

I just said, okay, that light is with us. I am going to live as if I can see it all the time. And then I had a son with Down syndrome who told me at a friend's funeral that he can see it all the time. He said, life isn't so sad after the light comes and opens your heart. And I was like, who told you that? And he told me that when he was 13, a light had appeared in his bedroom and filled him with peace and told him, I'm your teacher, you can do this.

Wow. And I said, you know, I can see it a lot. The light told me it's always with us even though we can't see it. And Adam said, oh, I can see it a lot. I said, the light told me it's always with us, even though we can't see it. And Adam said, oh, I can see it. And I was like, what? Now you can? He was like, yeah, can't you? I was like, no, where is it?

Is it up there in here? And he said, Mom, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. You have this incredible exercise that you walk people through that I do think can help you feel and see the light. And it's called Ideal Perfect Day. The Ideal Day, yeah. Can you walk us through it? Sure.

It's really simple. And now you're grounded in your body. This is the track. We have to follow the track. This is how you track forward. So we're recording this in 2024, end of 2024. How far would you like to go in the future? We're going to do time travel.

So you, I don't do hypotheticals. I want to know what you're going to do. I immediately thought a decade, 10 years. Okay. So is that a good thing? Yeah, thought a decade, 10 years. Okay. And is that a good thing? Yeah, that's great. 10 years? Okay.

So it's 2034. Okay. Think about, you don't have to say it, think about the age you'll be and the age your husband, your children will be, sort of move your mind forward like a calendar. Now here are the instructions. Your life is absolutely what it was meant to be. Every expression of your greatest joy and your greatest fulfillment. You're going to wake up on a day that is an ordinary day in a perfect life, in an ideal life. So what I'm going to do is I'll prompt you with a few things and I want you to

let your senses answer these questions, not your mind. So your mind can't time travel. It will tell you it can, but it can't. Only the body can time travel. And this is how it goes. You wake up on this morning and you don't even open your eyes. You listen. What do you hear on this day, an ordinary day in your perfect life in 2034.

What do you hear? You want me to tell you? Yeah. I hear waves and I hear little kids laughing. Okay, so smell the air. Don't open your eyes yet. What do you smell? Salt.

And coffee. I'm seeing a theme here. All right. Open your eyes. Look at the sheets. What color are they? White. Look at the floor.

What does it look like? Wood, carpet? Yeah, it's a wide planked wood floor that's sort of, it's kind of, it's not shiny. It's like worn. Cool. Look over across from you in the bed. Who's there, if anyone? Chris. Loaded question.

Okay, great. Look at the room. What do you see, the whole room? It's very, like, just kind of modern Very like just kind of modern and unfussy and beautiful and... Are there photographs on the walls? No, there was like a painting or a photograph. Okay, what does it look like? It was like a big beach scene.

Ah, this theme is strong here. It's very strong. All right. Are there windows in the room? There's one. Okay. Get up and go to the window and look out. Okay.

What do you see? Your life is perfect. What do you see? The ocean. Okay. It could also be like the Alps and the Sahara. Like you can see anything. There are no rules here.

Okay. It's just imagination. Yeah. But you see the ocean. Is it like a tropical ocean or is it northern? No, it's sort of northern. Okay. Rocky or just sandy?

Don't think. It's just the ocean. Cool. All right. So you go into your bathroom. It's the perfect bathroom. Look at the design of everything in the bathroom. And then look at yourself in the mirror and you are your healthiest, most radiant,

physically fit self. Take that in. You are looking fabulous. Yes. And so you do your morning stuff, take shower or whatever. Then you go to your closet and open the door. This is very important. The clothes in your closet reflect everything you do in your perfect life because you have to wear different things. So I always ask people, look at the shoes. What kinds of shoes do you have?

Oh, they're all like flip flops and Birkenstocks. No, like strappy sandals with stiletto heels. Absolutely nothing. Nope. Hiking boots. Not at this house. Oh, you have more than one house. See how that came in?

Fabulous. So this is your beach house, clearly, and you do not do formal wear at the beach house. So what you're going to do now, Chris is still in the bed, maybe you go into the kitchen and you walk through this house. As you walk through the house, see if there are pictures of events that have happened. Like right now, I can see a picture behind you of a wonderful family trip to the ocean. Look for the pictures that have been taken in the years between 2024 and 2034. Two weddings. Awesome.

Yeah. Cool. Well. Grandbabies. Oh, good. Is it their laughter you can hear? Yeah. Oh, I thought so. I laughter you can hear? Yeah. Oh, I thought so. I love it.

I love that. Can you feel that you are creating this future as we go through this? You are out of anxiety and into imagination and the tears in your eyes tell me it's real. Yeah. You're finding your purpose right now. And the things that bring tears to your eyes are the real purpose. Forget career, forget money, forget all that bullshit. When you're dying, it's the pictures of your grandkids you're going to look at. It's the hugs they give you. It's stuff that society says isn't valuable because there's

no money attached to it. That's bullshit. When I walk people through this, we go through the whole day, who's in the kitchen, and walk all the way, I won't do it now because it would take the whole session. But you go through the whole morning and see, I'll ask you, what do you do in the mornings? Well, you know what's interesting is I walk the beach. I have a big thing of water. I practice yoga. I read on the porch. Who's there? I'm just hanging my family and my parents. Yeah. Can you feel how free that is?

Yeah. Like, because you've done so much in the world that says, you know, be a lawyer, be that you got, all that stuff that was harsh and cruel and sort of tried to knock the sentimentality out of you. It was pushing you away from your purpose and into fear anxiety because when we leave the track of our joy, a natural response is to be terrified. And then we get stuck in that spiral and we can't come back. But when you begin to create, which you just did, with your senses and your imagination, not verbal mind, don't be counting things and measuring how it's going to happen.

No. That's all left hemisphere thinking. Senses and joy. That's how you track your future. And as you track it, you create it. I wanted to ask you about the senses. Yeah. Because what happens when you tap into that creativity

and you really navigate through a day like that using only senses? Because I did catch myself at times, and I'm sure as you were listening and you were imagining your ideal day, you caught yourself thinking too. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it takes you out of the feel. Why do the senses matter and why do they help you unlock your sense of purpose and joy and tap into this creativity? I'm so glad you asked.

And again, I don't want to get all sciency here, but the left hemisphere of the brain, which is glorified by our society, that left hemisphere is what talks and counts and measures time and thinks of problems and tries to get what it wants. And it's very fear-based, so it gets stuck in anxiety. When you go to the senses, if I asked you, imagine the taste of lemon, immediately the right hemisphere would start to light up. The senses and our sense of being in place activate the right hemisphere,

and so does imagination. So, and creativity like sums it all up. So, any artist is just in the present moment, very much in contact with what we're making and not stuck in fear at all. The interesting thing is that after you come out of a session of that, because your right hemisphere doesn't track time and you go back into the verbal left hemisphere, it will say, well, that was nothing. That didn't even happen. There was no time. I don't know what you were doing.

What is that about? So when you say, you know, I say, oh yeah, bliss and white light and everything, and you're like, ah, how does that add up? It's the right hemisphere that gives us our sense of meaning, our sense of connection, our sense of joy. And the mind that goes, ah, no, brr, that actually is a completely different part of the brain. But as I said, anxiety shuts down creativity, but creativity shuts down anxiety. So while you were doing the ideal day, how anxious were you? Zero.

Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. Just pure feeling. Yeah. And that's how animals live. You know, they don't have, I remember watching this movie about bears. It was called Bears.

There's this grizzly ma who comes out of hibernation. She's got two cubs and she's in the sun and they're nursing. And she's like, you know how, I don't know if you nursed breastfed your kids, you got oxytocin like squirting out of your ears. It's the cuddle hormone. And the narrator says, the mother bear is happy, but she's worried about her milk supply. And I'm watching it and I'm like, no, she's not. She is most definitively not worrying about anything. Look at her face. It's just language. Some scientists, some psychologists set out to discover why we have all species on earth. There's a certain proportion of us that take our own lives on purpose.

No other animal does that that we know of. And the answer to why we do that is language. Because of the way we think in language and time, we can construct a future that is so painful to live with that it outweighs our fear of death. A structure made of nothing but words and thoughts can torture us until we want to die. And I lived that way for about 32 years. And then I decided I was going to live in that, the awareness of that light. Was that surgery the moment that you made the decision that you were not going to live like that anymore?

Pretty much. I came out of it and that was when I took my first, what I call an integrity cleanse. I decided not to tell a single lie for a year, not a lie of any kind. What was that like? Like, you know, don't believe in my religion. There that goes. Okay, those friends don't like me now. They think I'm the devil. Okay, bye. That goes in.

Because I wouldn't say to them, you know, I really, you know, I see why. I would just go, no, what you're saying makes no sense to me at all. And so I came out of that with a motto, which is burn every bridge but love. Like if there's a bridge that's connecting you to suffering and tragedy and pain and lack of authenticity, it will kill you. Burn it. I am much more gentle with clients. I just say, maybe try a day where you don't lie at all and just notice the places where you have been lying and don't lie to yourself. What do people discover when they even just go through a day and they don't tell a lie?

And I realize there's a difference between being harsh and truthful and telling the truth with a little bit of compassion. Yeah, you learn to be very gentle about the truth. But what do you find that when you go through a day of integrity and you tell not a single lie, what are the things that come up for people over and over again? Over and over you notice that you are lying to fit in, that it's all about what I call the social self, that you know not to lie about things like, did I leave the stove on? But when you're with someone who says, oh, I just love you and you feel that they don't,

just notice, oh, I would have gone along with that and kind of believed it before. Oh, okay. And I would, during that year, I was so clumsy. So people would say, oh, I really miss you. And I would say something like, I miss the concept of you as a friend. And people were so put off and so offended. But I was in agony and I had to get out. And every truth I told, it's true,

the truth will set you free. But it's the truth about little things like, am I lying to make the other person feel good? You can say what you're going to say, but know that you're telling a lie and don't tell it to yourself and that will set you free. Some of the work that you've done that has truly changed my life is about learning how to follow your North Star and finding that true North. Can you explain to the person listening in case they're in a place in their life where they don't even know who they are. Like, it's kind of an odd thing to say, but I think it's a very common experience to go, I don't even know who I am. Like, I've lost myself in this relationship. I've lost myself in work. I

have lost a sense of what's actually important to me. Yeah. Everybody gets lost. And the thing is that we live in a cloudy world. It's very hard to see the North Star if it's cloudy all the time. And the thoughts we are told to think are like clouds. So if you think the thought, I'm not good enough, that's a huge cloud bank. As long as you believe that, you won't be able to see the stars. So where does that leave you? Well, it leaves you with several inbuilt compasses that are always turning toward true north, no matter how cloudy it gets.

The most reliable one is your body. It will give you suffering as a gift to stop you from going any direction but north. Let me make sure I got this. So suffering is a gift because it stops you from going any direction other than your true north. It's almost like it spins the compass. It just says not north. Absolutely not north.

And so do you, and what you've been teaching us is invite the suffering in and then flip it to the opposite. Yeah. And it will say pain, pain, pain, pain. You hear it out. And then you get to the core of it and you say, the opposite of that is north. The opposite of that is my truth, is my destiny, is my purpose. And I know it will be hard to imagine that.

It's very hard, but just sitting with it. The reason I wrote about anxiety is that I'd written a book about integrity. And people came to me and they said, well, I'm in total integrity now. I don't lie at all, but I'm afraid all the time. And I was like, well, you can't tell the truth and be afraid all the time. But I only know that because I've spent like hours and hours and hours meditating and looking at every thought that scares me and saying, okay, is that true right now? The other day, things were going on in the world that I didn't like. And I was meditating and I was saying to whatever, that's what I call God, whatever. I was like, how can I be at peace even in the middle of this? And a voice inside me said, you mean

your bedroom? Come into the present moment, come into what's actually happened, come into the things you thought would annihilate you and notice that they all helped you be free. And so then I wrote a book about anxiety because I realized that physically in the brain people are getting stuck there. And so you have to use creativity to pull yourself out and then you can see the truth because it feels wonderful. So the body will go, ah, not north. And you go, what's a slightly improved thought? I'm OK right now. OK, more north. I've been okay a long time. More north. I'll always be okay even when I die. Ooh, due north.

You know, I have, I don't know why, this sense of someone listening that is really scared to either end the relationship. Yeah. Or to quit a job and start something. Yeah. Or to do like you did and say, this doesn't work for me and I'm going to tell you, and risk having people say,

well then, I don't love you anymore. And they do. And they do. Yeah. I don't love you anymore. And they do. And they do. Yeah. How can you use this true north to help you make the right decision even though in that

moment it always feels so wrong? You know what I mean? Yeah, it feels scary. Yes. It feels very frightening. And you tell yourself a lot of stories about if I lose this, if I let go of this, I will suffer, it will be horrible. And if you look back at, like now I'm old enough that I can look back on the history of things that I thought would destroy me. And I always thought if

I lose this, horrible things will happen. And it turned into, if I don't lose this, horrible things will happen. Oh crap, if I'd stayed in the things that I walked away from, oh my God, that was horrible. And it also could be, if I go, wonderful things will happen to me. If I let go of this, amazing, wonderful things could happen to me. Don't look at the goalie, look at the spaces. And feel in your body that your body is saying, yeah, that feels truer, that feels more. Check your breath. Like if you're used to watching your breath in meditation, you'll notice that when you say a true thought, your body goes, and your chest literally expands. That thought may go against everything. Everybody in your

life has always told you where it all comes down is believe that thought against everything else. It is so hard to do. It's so hard. And that's why my most recent craze is community. And you talk in your work a lot about the sense of community and separation from community. We are social primates, we need each other. A horse in catastrophe will look for a safe place. A social predator like us will look for a safe person, a safe other. And when I did that, when I left everything, I was very much, I have to do this alone. And I thought that was really true because our society is individualistic, I have to do this alone. And it was almost like a challenge, I'm going to do

this alone. And it was horrible. And it took me years because I had so little trust in other people, because they did diss me. They did tell me I was the antichrist. They did. My family tried to have me put in prison. Like, the people I loved most were doing these things, and it was horrific. And I didn't trust community for some years after that. And then over time, I realized that I was lying to myself, thinking, I'm not securely connected to anyone. And then sitting with, I am securely connected to everyone. Part of me rose up then that knows that and is looking at you in the audience and there are 3,000 people and maybe everybody else is asleep, but I am connected to you because we're all connected to each other. And that,

it's not what our society tells us, which is why my online community is called Wilder. It's a wilder way to be, to know that you are securely connected to everyone. And if they don't love you, just look at them and say, oh, sweetheart, and let them. And then you say, let me know that I am connected to you. And when you come back, and a few people came back to me after 30 years or so, I am loving you the whole way. And then your heart never breaks in a way that feels toxic. It breaks open. Hmm. Um, just beautiful. A lot of people wake up in a life that just doesn't feel good to them.

Oh yeah. And what would you say to that person right now? Congratulations. This is very exciting. Oh my God. This is the best thing that could happen to you. Why? to that person right now. Congratulations, this is very exciting. This is the best thing that could happen to you. Why? Because it means that you know, I always wonder, caterpillars, they come out and they're like, I'm gonna get bigger. I will be a bigger caterpillar, munch, munch, munch. And then I wonder, what are they thinking the day they go, wait,

I will make a tiny sleeping bag out of my own saliva. And I will go in there and completely dissolve because that's what they do in there. They dissolve? They melt into a liquid, some species. If you cut open the cocoon, it's liquid inside. And when it's totally disaggregated, when it's complete bug soup, it triggers this response and the DNA starts reconstructing a butterfly out of those same cells.

But the caterpillar is gone and the butterfly is not there yet. When you think, what is this life? This is not me. It's you knowing it's time to transform. And I would say, if you came to me, let's make your cocoon. We're going to create a safe space with safe people. Join something. Join a book club. Join a going to create a safe space with safe people. Join something, join a book club, join a church, join an online community, join something, because you're going to need a cocooning space and you need people around you you can

trust. And those people are there. Find them. Your heart will lead you to them. You'll recognize them. Mine were mostly authors of books who'd been dead for centuries, you know? But as a coach, or as coaches, we get to say, we'll help you build the cocoon. And then we're going to watch you melt, you know, which is, it's about grieving the loss of the life you thought you'd have, grieving the people you love who aren't coming with you, grieving the loss of your identity, grieving the loss of your physical identity, whatever. And then when you're completely relaxed, when you've said, let them to absolutely everything, something will go, I think I'll change my hair. It's always one of the first things people do is

they change their hair. Really? Yeah. It's because haircuts are one of the primary signs of identity. This is social science. So when people change their hairstyle, it's a real, it's a signal to the rest of society in the world, this is who I am now. And then they start rearranging their furniture. Then they sell their car and get another one. You're nodding as it happened to you.

The furniture rearranging, when I have been the most stuck and miserable, especially when I have no money. Yeah. I literally rearranged the furniture wherever I live all the time. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And it became like a joke in our family because the kids would come home from school and they'd

be like, how did you move the couch by yourself? And I'm like, I've got a lot of energy. I'm really stuck right now. So I'm going to think my life will feel better if I push the couch against that wall. And look where you are right now. Millions of people listening to you. Guess what? It's true. You had a lot of energy. You moved the couch, you shifted the inside as you shifted the outside. And this is what is happening right now, which is pretty freaking awesome, Mel. Well, you know, what I love is that you have so many tools because you're validating the

experience and actually applauding its arrival of being stuck or feeling like your life doesn't fit or having no purpose. Yes. Of being stuck or feeling like your life doesn't fit. Yeah. Or having no purpose. And Martha Beck is literally giving you a standing ovation and saying, welcome to the transformation. Yes. It's so exciting.

And get ready for the haircut and the furniture moving around as you're shifting energy and recognizing this. But even just that exercise of the ideal day gets you out of the thinking trap and into what you write about in your book Beyond Anxiety, which is asking yourself, what can I create? And that exercise through your senses and visualization of the ideal day, you experience something different. Yes, completely. Before it exists.

Yeah. And so if somebody's hanging on to every word right now, what is the most important step that they could take away from this conversation? I think it's shifting from what do I do now to what do I make now? What can I do now? What can I make now? The moment you ask, what can I make? You awaken your creativity and your anxiety as you think it through.

Just notice the anxiety will go to zero and you will start making communities. You will start making art. You will start making pies. You will start making communities, you will start making art, you will start making pies, you will start making friends, you will start making things because we are endlessly generative beings. And when we think in anxiety, we generate anxiety. When we think about danger and isolation, we generate them. When we think about invention and imagination and sensory delights and cuddles and puppies. I mean, it sounds so cheesy, but let's make a world that is joyful and abundant and beautiful. And we can do it just by saying, instead of, oh God, what do I do now? What can I make now? And the moment you really,

literally, like put something in your hands and start making something, your whole brain will be different and then your whole life will be different. Oh, I love that. Do you have something that you recommend when you're working with somebody who just has a lot of fear? Yeah. So you can do the visualization, you can understand the true north, You can truly keep asking yourself, what can I create? But then the fear and the anxiety and you're just, like you and I have been for years.

Decades. Decades. Yeah. So the first thing, it's not enough to say go get oil paints, you'll feel good. No. There are three steps and I remember them with the acronym CAT, K-A-T. So A is art making things and T is transformation and transcendence, but K is kindness. And everything depends on kindness. There's something I call KISSED, K-I-S-T, kind internal self-talk. When you're afraid, just say these things. You don't have to believe them. Say it to yourself all day long. I'm here. It's okay. You're all right. I've got you. You're going to get through this. I've got you. I'm here. It's okay. Maybe let's get a blanket. Would you like some tea? Tell me everything. I'm listening.

Oh, that sounds like it hurts. You're loved. I'm here. You're okay." That's how I've gotten out of the deepest, like most horrific fear. And let me tell you, it was bad. And that was the only thing that brought me back from the darkness. And so when I'm working with people, I used to be all like, let's build your ideal life. And now I'm like, good, we know your ideal life now. Tell me about your fear. Tell me everything. You're going to be okay. We've got you.

I've got you. Yeah. You know, you started by saying that you went back to Cambridge. Yeah. Where you were when you were 25 years old and were expecting Adam, which is also the title of the first book of yours that I ever read. Yeah. And what would you go back and tell yourself at that age?

I would say not a single painful experience you're having will ever be wasted. Hear me now, understand me later. Nothing is ever wasted. Nothing you've never made a wrong choice. You're only here to experience life as this sort of hapless little creature. Nothing you do is wrong because your soul is here to experience life and your soul is not afraid to suffer. But its destiny will always be joy. And there will only be more joy because of everything you've suffered. It's all precious.

It's all good. You've never put a foot wrong. Wow. Yeah. If the person listening who just spent a bunch of time with us takes just one thing from this and you could wave a magic wand and pick what it would be, what do you want them to take away?

You're safe. I was listening to the sound of the planets. These NASA spacecraft go by and they get radio waves and can transform them into sounds. You can NASA space sounds go Google it. It's great. And my son Adam walked by and he did a double take and he couldn't barely talk. But he came into the room and he said, what are those sounds? I have those sounds in my body. And we were like, you do? He was like, yeah. We said, well, that's the planets. And he was like, oh, the message. And he said like, and we were like, what?

He said, message, like the call. We said, oh, message. He said, yeah. And I said, so the planets are sending us a message? And he said, yes, always. And I said, so the planets are sending us a message? And he said, yes, always. And I said, what's the message? And he said that we're safe. We're safe.

I know it doesn't feel that way, but you're safe. You're safe. Even if it looks really dark and dangerous, there is a deep, deep way in which you are always safe, always loved, always held, always cherished and there's a ton of us out here for you. Better believe it. What are your parting words? I love you, Mel.

I love you, person. I do. I love you. Thank you for changing my life. Thank you for changing my life. Oh, thank you for changing mine. You're beautiful. And you're beautiful. Whew. Wow. Martha Beck. What fun. What fun. And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you what Martha told you to, which is I love you and I believe in you and I believe in be sure to tell you what Martha told you to, which is, I love you and I

believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there's zero doubt in my mind if you take anything that Martha shared with us today and you pour it into yourself, you will. Tell me when you're ready. You're good already? Oh my gosh, Janaya. Here we go. Oh my gosh. We still need a segue. Okay, here we go.

Magic, magic, magic. I'll stop. I'll stop. I'll segue. I promise I'll segue. No, it's great. No, fantastic. I am so excited that you're here.

There is so much I cannot wait to share. My Lord. I am so excited that you're here and there are so many things I wanna talk to you about that your work has. Oh lordy. And I can't wait to get into that. And I've thought, oh my lord. Oh my God.

Wow. Wow. Oh my God. Oh my God. Get in here. Get in here. Holy shit. You're unbelievable. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language.

You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer.

I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer.

I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sticher.