July 7, 2022 • 51 mins
This week, Anne and Heather are joined by self-described “Wayfinder” Dr. Martha Beckto unlock the power of integrity. Martha is a Harvard-trained sociologist, world-renowned coach and New York Times bestselling author. She has published nine non-fiction books, one novel, and more than 200 magazine articles, including her most recent book, The Way of Integrity .
You can follow Martha on IG and FB @themarthabeck
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media Tata Martha Beck is on Better Together
with an Another, and she's going to make us so
much better with a step by step guide to how
to live with integrity in your life.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oprah calls her one of the smartest people she knows,
and we get to talk to her and you guys
get to livet smart and learn from her. She really
talks about integrity and about the process that you use
to find your sense of purpose and emotional healing and
how to be free of mental suffering and really just
(00:37):
live your best life by looking at yourself in an
honest way and treating others in an honest way, and
gives us all sorts of tips on how to do that.
And this is something you don't want to miss. I
promise let's get better Together.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
We're better to get within and.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hi, everybody, welcome back to Better Together with than in Heather. Today,
we have a show that I think fits right in
line with exactly what we've decided to do with Better Together,
and that is to bring on the experts. In this case,
a doctor sociology is an incredible speaker, writer author.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Calls her the smartest person she knows.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh well, Okay, today, you guys, here's a gift. We
have doctor Martha Beck, the smartest person Oprah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Knows to bring to you. Heather taking it aread. I
don't know how you are going to introduce her in
less than an hour, but go for it. Martha Beck.
She holds three degrees, a BA, an, MA, and a
PhD from a little old school called Harvard University. She
is a world renowned coach, speaker, and writer for the
Oprah magazine. She's authored several books. In her most recent book,
(01:48):
The Way of Integrity, is a New York Times bestseller
and an Oprah Book Club selection. We're so grateful to
have you here today.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Welcome, I'm so grateful to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Thank you so much. Today we want to focus and
ask ask the question, how can you align with your
inner truth, to find the path to integrity, to step
into your full capacity and infuse more joy into your life.
And that's really what your latest book is about and
what we want to dig into today. Absolutely, I don't
know how it began.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I think one of the most difficult things to do
is to give people a guide to how to take
on the responsibility and say I want to live integrity.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to live with intent. I want to know
how to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And what you do is break it down into four
very specific categories. Would you like to describe your book
and how it came to you, and then we'll kind
of dig into to how you began your journey in
this incredible life that you're offering.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You can to give us some of the wisdom of today.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Ah, thank you? Yeah cool.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
First of all, I just started out my life very
unhappy and wanting to be very happy.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, just for about thirty years. It didn't take long.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
So I was looking for any way to be happy.
And the word integrity, the way I'm using it here,
means being whole, becoming a whole again, so integrity just
means intact. And I felt shredded and I didn't know why.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I just knew that.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
You know, when an airplane is not in structural integrity,
it will crash. And all the structural integrity means is
that all the parts work together. So I thought, okay,
I've got to find integrity, but I'm completely in the dark.
And then I read, oh, you'll all be familiar with this,
The Divine Comedy by Dante, and it starts out in
the middle of my life. I came to in a
(03:36):
dark wood and I had lost the right way. I
didn't know where I came from, didn't know how I
got there, and that really grabbed me. When I was
eighteen years old, I remember thinking, well, that's how I feel. So,
you know, A million liter years later, I come around
to writing a book about integrity, after I've worked with
thousands of clients and everything, and I went back to
(03:56):
Dante and I thought he really kind of broke it down.
So there are four parts. One is where he's in
the dark and he doesn't know what to do. The
next is where he goes through hell. He has to
go into himself and find out where he's divided from
the truth, because that's what's hurting, is that division from
the truth. Then, once he knows the truth inside, he
has to behave differently outside. So once we know our truth,
(04:18):
like in our therapist's office, the challenge then is to
go out and live it with our friend's family, the public,
you know, against possible pressure, because the moment, the only
reason we lose integrity is that we're pushed to do
so by socialization and sometimes trauma. But those are inflicted
by other people. So when we get our integrity back,
(04:40):
we're going to face pressure from the culture that made
us lose our integrity. So in my case, I'm gay.
I thought I was straight until I was like thirty one,
and when I realized my true identity, I then had
to live it. And that is what Dante calls purgatory.
You're working your way toward your truth. The top of that,
(05:01):
it's a hill he has to climb. You start to
get it, starts to get easier and easier, and then
there's a place where everything comes into harmony and clicks
together and you find your integrity. And from there on
there's so much joy, there's so much efficacy, there's so
much miracles started happening. I did not expect that. I
just I just did this for the book. I thought
(05:22):
I'm going to be in total integrity. I don't need
to do any of them woo oo stuff. Guess what
you get into your integrity. You start manifesting things like
there is no tomorrow. It's really the way.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I'm gonna put a pin in you for one second. Well,
first of all, we're gonna stop with miracle. We're gonna
start with integrity and Dante. And I'm going to tell
you that our audience, but including me, knows why why
Oprah calls you the smartest woman in the world. Because
after about Dante and getting into the dark forest, we're like,
beep beep, beep beep, help.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Us out, I'll bet.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So what I would like to do is first to
find and one of the things I find is the
most of miracle about you. And I always say this too.
Love is a science. We are here to study something.
You're trying to make logic for us out of what
integrity is. And I would like to go back to
the beginning of integrity and say, could you define for
us what integrity is?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Why do we want to be on this path? Why
are we willing to go through the darkness? Why are we.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Willing to get through up to purgatory to try to
live through it, to get us to the miracles and
kind of break it down a little bit, because I
think our audience right now is just in the journey
with us. We're saying, yes, we want to love, we
want to know how to do it. Yes, we want
to tell the truth, we want to know how to
execute it. And you are really giving us the third component,
which is to identify that if you want both of
(06:37):
those things, integrity.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Is the pathway to live in it. Does that breakdown
for you too, Heather, So, so.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
What I'd really love for you to do is break
down integrity for us and tell us why we're going
to go through this journey with you, why you want
to read your book. And I just got to tell you, guys,
you do not have to read Dante, because Martha has
broken it down for us in her books so that
we can all understand those pathways. But I want you
to identify integrity. It really feels like the active participation
(07:05):
of love and truth.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, you don't even have to put in this stuff
about Dante.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
So integrity a lot of us kind of hear it
as a Sunday school word, like you gotta be nice,
and it's kind of puritanical and yucky. That's not the
way I mean it. The way I mean it is
simply coming together to work as a whole. So integrity
means intact, that's the literal meaning of it. And if
our true selves are being reflected in every part of
(07:31):
our lives, we are intact got it and we're born
that way. Where all every baby is born completely and
totally herself for himself, for themselves, but probably before they
even have language, where we were all pressured away from
our true selves, from our nature. We were pressured by
(07:52):
the people around us, which I call culture, and every
single one of us gets split into that way and
we don't even know it happens before we have words.
So then later we're just walking around going, why don't
I feel good? Why why am I looking for myself?
I mean, where could myself have gone? We know we've
lost ourselves, but we have no idea where to start looking.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So when you're out of when your life is out
of line with how you feel. For example, you have
talked about growing up in the Mormon Church and feeling
that the Mormon Church treated women like second class citizens,
and their views on women didn't align with how you
felt about yourself. So is that would that be an
example of not being in alignment?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Perfect example, And you know, sexism, racism, all of that
stuff bothered me. But even when I was a little kid,
before I understood those things, there was a feeling that
things weren't working right inside me, that I wasn't like.
I tried very hard to be a good girl. Nobody
comes out of integrity because they're trying to be evil.
(08:56):
Everyone does it trying to be good. So it doesn't
even get to the point where you're talking about religion.
It can just be a good girl behaves this way,
and I want you to behave like a good girl,
And so you do what your parents say as a
good girl. But you feel bad. You've left a part
of yourself to please other people, and that split feels
(09:18):
like suffering. I think all psychological suffering comes from being
split from our true nature. And at first it's just
this pain. We don't know where it's coming from, and
that's what makes it so hard to fix.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, did you have a family that surrounded you?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And I don't know how how deep you want to
get into what the culture of Mormonism was for you,
but I mean, I of course been very interested in this.
I myself was raised in a religious cult that was
it was a very sexual cult. I was abused for beers,
and all of our audience knows that. That's what I
talk about getting on the other side of our abuse.
And I think you and I are in line a
(09:53):
lot about what we say about the separation and distinction
of ourselves away from that. Once we are given something
that's not ours, talk about what goes in into yourself.
I say, whatever goes in feeling bad, it's not yours,
and you have to figure out how to give it
away and give it back to where it belongs, and
then you can release it. It becomes a bad ja
of honor. And I think you speaks with a lot
about that and what goes in. Were you surrounded by
(10:16):
a family that was at all understanding.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Of what you were going through?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Were you in I know that you were in a
position where you were being mistreated, and I don't know
how far you want to go into that. Was that
a part of your mental split and your drive to
become and get on the other.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Side of it and become something new. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I was raised my siblings. I'm the seventh of eight siblings,
and I felt very loved by my siblings, and they
were all kind of struggling. We were all struggling. We
didn't know why.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I remember having nightmares as.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
A three four year old about Jesus coming across the
Eastern mountains and all the other people being lifted up
to meet Jesus, and I couldn't be lifted up because
I was bad. There was something bad about me. So
that's just this basic thing that religions teach little kids
that they're somehow bad. So there was that, and my
siblings were in it too.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I was sexually.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Abused by my father, who was this sort of, you know,
epic figure in Mormonism. My siblings don't agree with me
on that, and I haven't spoken to most of them
for a few decades.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Actually it's kind of a pattern, don't you think.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, I was a huge loss, but not as huge
a loss as losing your entire self to a set
of beliefs and practices that are being foisted on you
that clearly cause suffering.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And I think you're so right, Anne, if it hurts,
it's not your truth.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well it's not your choice.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Certainly, if you had a choice, then we wouldn't need
the choice to have something going is feeling bad. We're
all are all of your fe are all of your
siblings still a part of the church.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
They're not so much.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
I mean I recently found out that a lot of
them have have sort of fallen away from it, but
they haven't really reconnected with me.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And what I did was a betrayal.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I wrote a book about Mormonism and about my history
of abuse, and that was such a violation of the
family code that I think it sort of just broke
those relationships.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I have the same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The reason why I'm asking you such specifics is because
I think people need to know that when this is
the pattern. The sameness that I share with Martha is
when you do this, when you tell the truth, and
you are so ostracized. And it's not just in a
religious setting, although I do feel like there are a
lot of children who have been sexually abused that has
been shrouded in the lie of the religion that they
(12:36):
have been doused with that gives them the right to
say that we're not in the truth they are.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And I really.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Appreciate that you're courageous enough to tell the truth about
that and the result of it, because I think the
more of us that say so, the more we'll be
willing to share.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So I appreciate that very specifically.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
However, I do want to share as well, this is
not just about a religious upbringing, and Martha is saying
that too.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
This is about anything that separates.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yourself and distinguishes yourself from the suffering self and the
one that lives in love. How did you start to
find yourself and your path in that obviously world that
was not being supported into the incredible scholar that you
are and get yourself to Harvard?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Is that the next question you want to ask.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I feel like I was guided by something that guides
us all and that is suffering. I know that sounds
kind of paradoxical, but I think if we were anything
less painful than suffering, we wouldn't go to the trouble
of figuring out who we really are. So like what,
I went through a number of forms of suffering, and
since I've been a coach, I've seen this in a
(13:46):
lot of people who are split. And the first thing
is you're just you have negative emotions. You feel sad,
you feel angry, you feel afraid all the time. Then
you get physical symptoms. By the time I was eighteen,
I was already in like a back brace and on
crutches for reasons nobody could understand. I later was diagnosed
with a lot of autoimmune diseases. Then your relationships start
(14:09):
to go wrong. Then you can't push forward with your career.
You may get addictions, and all of these are the
result of trying to ease the pain of being split
from yourself. So again, I didn't know that was the problem.
I didn't know I was out of my truth. I
was just hurting enough to go looking and that leads
us to our truth.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Would now be the appropriate time to talk about, because
I'm very curious about that year of not lying that
you did and to get to get in line with
your integrity, you decided that you were not going to
you were going to be truthful about everything. Can you
talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
So yes, I did something I called my integrity clans.
And this is when I was twenty nine years old,
and I have since done it many times. I called
it an integrity cleans not that I was cleansing away integrity.
I was cleansing away everything else. And my first thing
was just like, okay, I was twenty nine years old
and they said, all these wisdom traditions were telling me
the truth will set you free. So I was like, okay,
(15:12):
I won't lie for three hundred and sixty five days,
not once, not in any way, and.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
I do not recommend it.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
It set me free. It made me a happy person today.
But it is not the easy way. I did not
tell a single life for a year. And you probably think,
like sitting here, I think like, I don't tell lies.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But then you think about it and there's probably like
different ways that you aren't truthful.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Right, yeah, little white lies.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
I mean, research shows that most people lie to each
other three times in every ten minute conversation. Wow, but
it's just polite, you know, a lot of it's just politeness.
I wasn't cheating on my taxes or my husband at
the time or anything like that. I was just telling
lies like oh I'm fine when I was not. So
I stopped that and lost my you know, my religion,
(16:04):
my family of origin, my whole community of origin.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I realized I was gay, so there were in my marriage.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
I quit my job, my industry, didn't want to be
a professor anymore, lost my left my home. Uh, pretty
much everything went on to that fire except my children.
And the one thing I got back was my soul.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So it was worth it. Well why, I think it's
really frightening for people when they hear about this.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
But I don't like the words sacrifice very much because
I think that in the journey that I've taken in
the truth you only get and you only benefit out
of life. And you talked about miracles, and I do
the thing that you when you start to live and love,
you understand the benefits. But I don't know, is a
very difficult thing to show from the outside. And I
think a lot of what we think about success means
(16:54):
is what happens from the outside in and you and
we talk about that too. So you're talking about all
the things that I would say, you know, if I'm
a person who's lived my life the way that it's
supposed to be lived, and I've lived in my in
the fundamentals of a good Christian life or a good
but you know, a good Samaritan would or my parents
told me I have a good house.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I do.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I do want my family around me. I do want
my church around me, or my more and my social group.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
I do.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And you gave up all of that. So from the
outside in, that looks like, hey man, I don't want
to be a part of that. No, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And you're saying, well, I got my soul. So one
I wanted to understand what soul means and what that
what that gift is that you received and the power
of that gift being bigger than all of those things
that the outside say we're crushing it. And I also
know that you use one of the words you know
that I really like that that we've spoken about a
little is that is the hustle once you're not getting
(17:46):
all those outside things the way that you want. So
I want to talk to about the soul and why
the hustle to get things rather than the soul is
the wind and the win for you, and why you
talk about it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, the hustle. It's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's one word that had five definitions when I looked
it up in dictionaries, and they were these were the definitions.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
The first one is to just move rapidly in a
certain direction. Second one is to push someone else to
move in a certain direction. The third one is to
make something happen by force. The fourth one is swindle
or cheat, and the fifth one is prostitute oneself. So
right there, people say you got to have hustled, Well
there's some what kind of hustle do you want? Yeah, exactly,
(18:30):
And yeah, I use the word prostitution. And I don't
mean to say anything bad about sex workers, but what
I mean is you sell bits of your life. You
sell yourself for something that you know is not actually
worth yourself, and that is other.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
People's approval or even money.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
You take a job you hate and you get money
for it, and you go to work every day and
you get money to that supposedly makes your life good.
But you're in hell because you hate your job, or
you're in a relationship where you've sold out and you're miserable.
But it looks good and that's all you're getting from it.
And if that's all you're getting from it, your soul
(19:10):
will not lie quietly down. It starts to raise a ruckus.
It tells you things are bad. It creates illness, it
creates addiction, and it says, get.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Me out of here.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'd be surprised to know how many people are probably
in that too, write how many Americans are in that?
I think. I don't think it's just our country, it's
probably it's probably well, I mean, they live differently in
other places. I feel like America specifically.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Really yeah, there are different reasons we are a big
hustle country. The American people are big on selling out
to get glamour and wealth and fame. Other countries can
be like very restrictive in other ways, you know, restrictive politic.
Right now, we're recording this right after the Supreme Court
(20:04):
overturned Row versus Way. That's not a hustle thing. That's
the restriction by government of personal freedoms. And that's why
it feels so scary and horrible to so many of us.
And you know, right there, if you've got that feeling
in you, this scary, horrible feeling is because part of
(20:24):
you is saying no, you can't actually lie down and
accept that and stay in your integrity. So yeah, it's
a scary moment, and all countries have it.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, right, that is actually a great example of feeling
out of whack with it because it doesn't reflect how
we feel yet it's been forced upon us. Right well,
I mean it's really shocking.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I mean people went through this with the vaccine and
I don't need to bring that up again, but it
was a personal right that you had to say no,
h yes, And then people were saying whether or not
your opinion on it was one there or another. The
fact of the matter was they were saying, you have
to put something into your body and if you don't
agree to it, too bad, you can't get on an airplane,
you can't do the things that we Now that's a
personal right.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, that is a further pa. It is different in
the cities. I'm just set. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But you're still saying that you need to do something
and if you don't agree with it yourself, you have
to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
We just had some laws turned over in Florida and
we are now we are now.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
We now have a system that is saying, whether or
not you agree with it or not, what you do
with your body we're going to take control of and
it's beginning to catapul itself into other arenas and areas
where basically what we're doing is looking back in time
rather than looking forward creating and generating something that is
in forward movement. And we're looking backwards and.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Saying, you know what I want to do. I want
to go dig up the thing that already has.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That it has already been made forward and we're going
to push it back, which is the exact opposite of
how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
The universe works in forward motion. It cannot look back.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It doesn't go gee, I forgot granddad's billionth birthday. I'm
going to go back and give.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Them a tie.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You can't do that.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
It's putting things back in motion, and that's really what's happening.
We are am trying to stop the system of forward movement,
which is called evolution, and we're doing it consistently. That's
why our voices are so important to stand up for
integrity and say you can't stand up for it, because
I think people do feel really trapped right now, I
as a woman, feel really trapped knowing what the hell
(22:16):
to do? How do you We've already stood up. I
saw one of the one of the things yesterday a
woman saying I stood up for this already in the sixties.
Here I am standing up again.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Mind?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And how can we be doing this twice? And why
do we want to Why are of easeectomy is still allowed? Right?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Why can you can you choose?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Well?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, here's the here's the thing to me that doesn't
make any sense at all. We are we are making
sure that we don't that we're taking care of the
what we're calling the feet is the live feet is. However,
what we're not taking care of us, of our children.
That we send ou to war and we'll put them
in the front line. You are adults who are eighteen
to twenty five year old, at the top of their life,
(23:03):
at the top of their game, at the top of
their intelligence potentially, and we are not standing up to
not send them to war to be killed, but we
are going to do.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Why is that something?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It's an exact contradiction of what life is and I
think and this is the not making sense. We're not
making sense out of the nonsense, and we're not standing
up to make sense out of the nonsense. And that's
why all of these things are able to bubble up
because we're not telling the truth about what is actually
really happening.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Was actually really happening, is that.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
We're sending our children to war still and that is
creating disease and hurt and shame and sorrow in our lives.
And we're trying to stand up for ourselves and we
don't know how to do it because life doesn't really
make any sense when we'll kill our children willingly.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, the hypocrisy of the system is just everywhere. I
could you know that example is brilliant. I could cite
a thousand more, and the whole thing is that there's
a very corrupt external culture, but it goes to war
on anything that tries to sort.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Of rock its boat. So you could get a little
kid saying, well, I was born a girl, but I
feel like.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
A boy, and people in Congress will be shouting that
that child is threatening their way of life.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And here's the thing they actually are.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
They are because insisting that people only divide into two genders,
insisting that marriage looks a certain way and parenting looks
a certain way, all of that cultural pressure is going
to be disrupted if people become truly themselves and begin
doing it out loud.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Because they'll be empowered. And then God knows, you can't
overpower somebody who's empowered. You can't overpower a culture that's empowered.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In talking about living in integrity and when things aren't
aligned with your thinking, something that I think has come
up a lot in the past several years, especially with
the Trump presidency and now with Roe v. Wade, and
with some of the laws that were the legislation recent
legislation in Florida with the Don't Say Gay Bill has
(25:15):
has brought up a lot of political issues among family
and friends and people that have different political viewpoints than you,
and it's a very difficult thing to navigate. I found
that I was able to navigate through the Trump era
without too much too much. I just I was able
(25:38):
to navigate it. But recently, the latest issues that have
come up are sort of insurmountable. And there's people who say,
you know, you just cut those people out of your life.
They're not. But it's difficult because there's some people that
have been in your life, your entire life, and it's
do you have any advice for how is there a
way to continue to have these people in your life
(26:00):
and still be in your integrity or I.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Actually am writing about that subject in the next book
that I'm working on, which is about anxiety, and there's
this huge spike in anxiety, and I think it is
because it's what you were saying. The culture seems hell
bent on pushing into every person's life to the point
where we can't even have an ordinary conversation without appearing
to take sides on some issue.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
And it's getting really divisive. So how do you cope
with it?
Speaker 4 (26:29):
You're as honest and as kind as you know how
to be, and that's the thing. It's so frustrating when
these issues come up that we want to go into
an aggressive posture. And I kind of write about this
in the book. There's a thing called the righteous mind,
where it's like I'm right and I don't care what
you say, and there's no listening to each other, there's
no communication.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
If you can get away from that righteous.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Mind, and if you can be present and listen to someone,
it may be that you just go, Okay, that's we
don't have anything in common. I will see you later,
and it's not. This sounds horrible, but it's not that
big a loss because you're just going to be arguing.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The entire time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
You'll have to grieve the relationship, but it's not that
big a loss.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
But if you can get into your own integrity, which
involves treating other people the way you would want to
be treated, then very often, if you listen enough, people
will start to soften and they will come to meet you,
and that's when minds start to change. And I just
take it as my responsibility to be the first one
not to pick up a weapon, but to sit with
(27:32):
compassion and empathy. Well, I would pick up a weapon
if I felt, you know, for self, I have a
brown belt in martial arts. I would fight if I
had to, but yeah, not to be the first one
to pick up a weapon, but the first one to
listen with kindness.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So if you see somebody posting something on social media
that you absolutely are horrified by and disagree with and
is remotely racist, you don't say anything.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You see what's in your integrity, You go inside.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
I mean, for ten years after I left Mormonism, it
didn't feel right to talk about my sexual abuse and
what I felt were the hypocrisy is in Mormon culture.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And then ten years later it was like, now it's time.
And I was terrified, but it was time.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
And that's the thing nobody can tell you for you
what act is in integrity at any given moment. You
have to be so tuned into what I call your
sense of truth. And that's like I'll tell your listeners
how to feel what your sense of truth feels like.
This is the statement that I've found with thousands of
people gets them into truth more than any other. It's
(28:39):
really simple. You say it to yourself silently a few times,
and it's I am meant to live in peace. I
am meant to live in peace. And if you say
it a few times. Your body will say yes, your
heart will say yes, your mind will say yes, and
your soul will say yes. And that's tegrity when they're
(29:00):
all saying yes. And then you say, and I meant
to live in peace, and I need to let my
racist uncle come to my party. And it'll be like no,
or maybe it will be yes because he's it's ready
for him. It's time for him to change. Only you
can know and the right thing to do. You have
to choose it a thousand times a day. What does
(29:24):
what feels true, what feels peaceful, what feels compassionate within myself?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
And then you have to do it.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yep, yeah, I mean that makes sense. It's really listened
to your internal self, right, there's nothing else. And I
think it gets to a certain point. I know for
me personally, I got to a certain point in my
life where I couldn't not listen to it anymore, right,
And I think that that's kind of what happens. I
always describe things for me as as a jar of jellybeans,
(29:55):
and on the last the last one, like there was
it just fell out. It was just no more room
to put it, and I was done. And had to
and had to face things because I think for me
and I know that this is true for a lot
of people, and we already touched on it a little
bit that I think I spent a lot of my
life living to, you know, do the right thing, make
(30:16):
my parents proud, make my make my ancestors proud. And
then you get to a certain point where no, I
actually want to make the next generation proud. I want
to make my kids proud. And and that's a different
that's a different path than what you know. And I
want to make myself proud, and you start living for
yourself and for the next generation rather than for the
(30:39):
last generation. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Well, I mean for me, it's very difficult to be
in a situation where I know that I want to
change the mind of the person who has the opinion
that differs from mine. And that's what you're saying, you know,
getting into a conversation, getting into a thing, knowing that
even if I come in kindness or living in loving
kind is this boo is the is the active participation
(31:03):
better together to to try to enjoin that other, that
other point of view. The fact of the matter is,
I do not believe and I will never believe and
I don't agree that the universe has anything that that
that supports division, because the only thing that gets us
further is a plus one and that's just math.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
One of the things that I like that you talk
a lot about is math. I try to break things down.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
In terms of my own system is mathematical in terms
of how I'm trying to further or go farther. And
so when I try to actively participate in conversation that
I differ with Heather and I used to joke about
words that I couldn't say before and one of the
you know, one of the words was God, and one
of you know, one of the words was you know, whatever.
We couldn't say, but we would look for different different definitions.
(31:51):
So I call God Kieky now because it's her it's
her grandbrother's name. But but one of and and one
of these words, and I understand it's a funny word,
and it's deposit because when I when I talk about
thinking of what you are doing in every single day
from the morment you wake up and this is really now,
I'm going to go back to your book talking about
when we wake up in the morning and you really
(32:11):
talk about when I wake up in the morning, you
want to wake up and get out of bed, and
you're like a cheerleader for yourself and yeah, hurrah, I'm
going to go. And I thought when I first started
reading the book, I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
This is try that. Sometimes. I tried that. This morning.
I was like, it's gonna be a good day. You're
going to accomplish a lot. You're awesome. You go girl.
But it was forced because I was tired.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And it's it's a it's a it's a promise that
you that you give if you get through the four
steps of integrity. And what I see and that is
my active participation in that is and what gives me
the joy. And sometimes it's not that feeling of like yepe,
I just feel so freaking great, Like I woke up
(32:52):
this morning, I have a head cold and I don't
and and I've been trying to get rid of whatever
it's not. We have to remember that we have three
parts of our body that are actively participating our mind,
as you say, the soul, our minds, our hearts, and
our bodies, and each one of them can guide the
way to that feeling. You don't need It's like one
can take up the ore for the other if the
(33:13):
other one's feeling down. So to me, sometimes it's about
what you deposit. Am I depositing the thing first that
I think is going to further the intention of my day,
and that can relate to I'm feeling good about what
I'm doing. You don't necessarily need to feel like you're
just bubbling up like you just had the best class
of champagne and somebody.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Just ask you to marry them that you really want
and your bread.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yet, my god, you just got a million dollars in
the mail, which is sometimes what we think in the mail,
when do I like to get it into the mail?
When we think about when people are talking about healthy
things or how we want to live our lives, the
inner joy with yourself is and I think this is
where intent and intention really come together in depositing what
(34:00):
it is that you feel will further yourself and your
community around you, and thereby further the world around you
and make it better. That is the core center of
what it is to feel happy. In my personal opinion,
it's that is the joy that we're talking about, the centered,
down home feeling that what I am doing, and what
(34:21):
I am depositing with my life and with my intention,
with my friends, with my podcast, with the work of
art that I'm doing, with whatever it is that I'm
doing with my day, I am depositing what I feel
like will further it. And that intention is more than
anything what I get. That's my that's my hardcore argument
(34:42):
for don't look back at the things that we have
already done to further our communities, like laws that give
us the rights to be who we are. If we're
looking backwards, then that is a negative on the universe.
It is mathematically wrong. Not is something that has anything
to do with opinion. We are going backwards in an
(35:02):
equation that doesn't work for society or for our for
the laws of the universe, and that is negating the
universe and the laws of God. And that is just
true mathematics.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Actually, I don't. I don't like leap out of bed
every morning.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
When I do it in the morning, is I go,
my soul is always happy, And I how you do
it to my body and my heart and my mind?
And sometimes they'll go, oh not so good, and I think, oh,
that's okay, we'll take care of you today. And then
comes the joy. But you're always caring for yourself. There's
always kindness that's.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
To yourself, yourself always being kind to others. And if
we spoke to ourselves like we spoke to others, it
would be a good thing. If we were as easy
on ourselves as we as we are another people. And
it's complimentary.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
If you're trying to force bubbliness and joy, that's not integrity.
If you find the place where you don't feel great
and you say, you know what, we're going to take
care of you, and boom, there comes the joy.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
That's beautiful. So I should have said, you're tired. I
know you're tired exactly, but you know what, You're gonna
wake up, You're going to feel better. You've got this
great interview this morning, you know, today with somebody you're
really excited to talk to, and it's going to be great.
And then you give yourself a plus one. You get
yourself a.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Plus one that you are like, yes, I'm acknowledging who
I am. Otherwise you're hustling yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But right then that's where these comes in. Right there
was me lying yeah, what to myself.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
That's the result of living in a culture where you're
taught to be super bubbly all the time.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
We're not always bubbly, but we can always be loving.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We can we're not always bubbly, we can always be loving.
And it starts with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And then what happens is our compassion rises because we
can recognize in truth. Because we're calm about our truth,
we're cool with who we are. We told ourselves we're
going to take care of ourselves. We're not looking to
somebody else to take care of us. Because then what
starts happening is then we're entering into a conversation with
somebody else where we really hope that make us feel
better for the thing that we're not taking care of
(37:02):
it ourselves, and we're waiting for that compliment or that
look for for accomplishment or approval that somebody else is
and then we start feeling good about ourselves. But as
you say, the man who got a and I love
this story, did you tell the story about them? That
you're a life coach? This is something else that I
think our audience needs to go. Let's get into the
life coaching a little bit. As you're just coaching us
(37:24):
on the on some of the basics, What is what
you are teaching as a professor that you deny.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
You said, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
I want to go into I want to change this
up and I want to go into life coaching.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I didn't. It wasn't a choice I made consciously. I
decided I didn't like teaching the same theories over and
over and over. I was excited by the theories when
I learned them, and then I didn't want to keep
repeating what were you teaching? I taught social science and
variety of different social sciences, and then I taught business school,
and that's where I thought, Oh, you know what I
am interested in is I'm interested in helping my students
(37:58):
develop their careers. So I made a career development course
and it was very popular, and the students started asking
me to work with them just straight across for money.
And I was like, what is that and they said
it's life coaching. I was like okay, wow, wow, and yeah.
It just sort of evolved out of doing what I
really love.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
And so the sessions would include just can you give
us Yeah, some people who don't know, because I think
that that concept for people when they hear a life coach, What.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Is that right? Well, I like to say that a
life coach is to a therapist what a trainer is
to a doctor. So a doctor gets you to healthy,
and a trainer gets you to top fitness, and a
therapist will get you to mentally well. But a coach
can get you to top whatever it is in your
life that you want to do, top performance, top joy,
(38:48):
efficacy whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Can you define effectacy for us? Effective?
Speaker 1 (38:54):
But it sounds like it's a it's a it's a
it's a an effective goal for the effectiveness of your life.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, we look at the place any place of less satisfaction.
So if you feel awful, we try to make your
life feel better. If you feel great, we still try
to make your life feel better. And the idea is
just that we're on a big adventure here and why
not enjoy it as much as we possibly can and
leave the world a better place than we found it,
and just generally be better people.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I'm trying to think of some of the things that
our listeners might want to ask you if they were here,
And I think that a lot of people struggle with
not really having a life purpose or calling or if
somebody is struggling with that, with really the purpose of
(39:40):
their life. Where would you tell them to start or
what advice could we give to those people?
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Boy, Heather, you absolutely nailed it. That is the number
one problem that people come to me with it. You'd
think it would be something like, you know, poverty. No, no, no,
it's loss of sense of purpose. And it's precisely because
they've left their true selves, because your true self knows
your true purpose. But when you really think that what
you're supposed to be doing is hustling up some pyramid
(40:09):
of wealth or something, you don't realize that your sense
of purpose was left back there at the bottom where
your true self is. And you suffer more and more
and more as you divide yourself more and more, and
when you stop and say, wait, what am I actually feeling?
Do I actually like what I'm doing? And not just work,
(40:29):
but on a day to day basis, what do I
enjoy doing?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
What do I not enjoy doing?
Speaker 4 (40:34):
This is a basic principle. Take something you don't enjoy doing,
do less of that, even if it's just like ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Less of that.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Something you do enjoy doing, add ten minutes of that
and then make that change every week ten minutes by
ten minutes. I call it one degree turns until your
whole life is filled with the work you love, the
people you love, the places you love to be.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
So I'm never getting on that peloton, am I.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
That's a great That's a great spectrum to think about
when we think of our life as being a whole
piece of pie, and when you know we don't always
have to look at all of it affecting one part
of it. You know, if we get into bad mood
or whatever something happens in our relationship, we can we
can still categorize that, we can still compartmentalize that we
can still go about our work and have a and
have a have a seventy five percent good part of
(41:21):
our day. Like when we learned about get you know,
take the time to worry, put a worry time on yourself,
which we learned from doctor, where you take it time
to worry you know what, don't worry about it until
four o'clock, and then by the time four o'clock rolls around,
you've already had such a good day you forget what
you're supposed to worry about.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
But also.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
When we talked about paying attention to the thing that
you're really good at and the thing that you like,
and then all of a sudden, starting to develop those habits.
We're starting to get a real system here on better together.
And I just want to be so grateful to you
for being a part of our pool of consciousness that
has added to the rhythms of joy that we can
have all of these different ways. We are being advised
(42:01):
to pay attention to ourselves, imagine what feels good, give
ourselves a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Of that each day. You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
It's not like a change happens in one day, but
it will happen like one hundred percent, but it happens gradually.
You're talking about a one percent degree. Then all of
a sudden it gets easier because you start to form
the habit. It starts to make you feel better. That
feeling better becomes your addiction, so you want to do
it more. So then all of a sudden, it's not
just one degree. All of a sudden, you're like, feel
(42:31):
five percent better or this given your stuf happens a
little bit more, and a little bit more and a
little bit more.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
With all of the.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Mind's surprising as it happens because I know that I
talked a little bit about how I had the change
of thinking in my life and I really genuinely stopped
caring what others thought of me, and that was something
that I was all about. And I recently, you know,
really checked in with myself and said, do I care?
(42:56):
Oh my goodness, I actually don't care. That's so great.
I don't care what you think of me. I just
don't care. I care what I think of me, I
care what my kids think of me, But I don't
care what you know, somebody that I don't know, some
neighbor might think of you know something. It's it's a
freeing feeling.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
And I always put the word respectfully in there.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
And somebody says an opinion that I don't agree with,
I say, I respectfully do not care.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I respectfully do not care. I respectully do not care.
And maybe that goes back a little bit to being
able to ground us. I would like to get just
a little bit of thoughts on you before before we
read about about what a Heather was talking about. We
are in a very divisive time and there are so
many conversations that we're entering where we feel like we're
(43:47):
tiptoeing through them or what are there?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So maybe there are a couple of words.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Right now that we can put put into our I
respectfully don't care how how do we take this head
positive positiveness from get you exactly exactly? My integrity tells
me you're wrong, motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Of just things. You're such a delight and and and
such a joy and such a treat to talk to.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I do want to encourage everybody to get the
book on integrity, but I but also go to Martha's
website because what's there gives you.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think you've written out seven books in total.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
No, I think more than that, my lord, and about
anxiety the magazine articles. You have a book that is
that kind of combines all of your articles that you
are some of the most important ones that you have
written on for the O magazine and really start to
pinpoint for yourself. Which one of the books, because you
(44:49):
do have one novel, and I think that's really talking
about the transformation that you made out of out of
the self that was told what to do, and into
the holy space that you are exactly and I think
that the beginning of that, maybe reading the novel will
help people understand their whole yourselves, but also look at
the one that the best suits where you are, because
(45:11):
I think you've targeted so many different areas and areadas
that you've looked at rather than combining all of them.
And they think that could really help our listeners pinpoint
which which would help them the most.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And as we go with integrity, what would you like
to leave us with today, as we go into.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
This world wanting to be our joyous selves, our and
our truest and most integrated selves, with our love for others.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Thank you, that's very inspiring. So I said a little
bit ago. You always want to treat others the way
you would want to be treated. That's the golden rule, right,
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
But the reverse of that is also true. And this
is where I think more people get mixed up.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
And I'd really like to leave you with this.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
and never allow others to do to you what you
would never do to them.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Oh that's good, that's good.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
So if somebody is screaming at you, trying to push
you around or whatever, don't allow yourself to be treated
that way back right there, where you would never treat
the other person that way, but they're treating you that way.
That's where you say it stops, and I will I
will say it calmly, and I will say it firmly,
and I will say it repeatedly forever. If I don't
(46:23):
want you imposing that on me, I stop you. Wow,
And a lot of women don't have.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Out especially, that's right. That language is really terrific. That's
just really terrific. This is the line. You are doing
something to me that I would never do to you,
and it stops right here.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah, you don't even have to explain, Just go I'm out.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
That's right, I'm out, or as well.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Our religion over here is no thanks, no thanks to that,
and you've given it some eloquence.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
No no thanks, I say yes to please you walking
out the door. This is not welcome any great advice
because because it's behavior against us. Yes, yes, that's still
what I'm working on. Yes, we're all, we're that's why.
That's the why exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
We have such incredible guides and teachers and professors and just.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Women of wisdom.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
We could not be more grateful for you teaching us
about integrity to day and giving us all help and
centeredness as we go forward with more courage and more wisdom.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Thank you so much fun talking to you. I'm honored
to be here.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
We're better again, wis And.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I mean that is just such a wild conversation on
so many levels. This is why we do the podcast.
This is for guests like that to share with our listeners.
What a what a gift to us and to you
all to have had that wisdom imparted on us.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
All.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I took a lot away from that. I did too,
I mean we, I mean it begins sold.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
It's all swirling through my head because it just it's
like from the minute you wake up in the morning
to the minute you go.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
To bed, it feels like there's a there's a system
for you to keep in tune with yourself by checking
in with with the with yourself, with yourself. I think
that we all know if we really just ask ourselves,
we all know what she's talking about. So you can
check in with yourself and you know instantly if something
feels good or bad, or like a lie, or you're
fooling yourself or and we don't pay attention to that.
(48:27):
Oftentimes we tamp it down because we think like, oh,
we have to do this, so let's not even give
that pay that any mind. But you actually, what if
you didn't have to do that. What if you didn't
if you didn't have to take yourself, if you didn't
have to do the things you didn't want to do?
What if you thought about it differently and reorganize your
way of thinking to doing what fell good to you?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I mean, when you think about this she I mean,
imagine if we did this integrity cleanse for three hundred
and sixty five days. When she did that, what ended
up happening?
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Should we try? Which? Yes? When she told the truth?
You know, this is a big one for me. I'm
lived my life, I'm telling the truth. I dedicated. I
don't think I lie. But then I realized I just
lied to myself this morning and getting out of bed, and.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
These are these are the simplest things that what happened
was that the clans became all of the single things
that she was lying about in her life and what
she had lied about to get herself into the situations,
and what would what happened at the end of.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
That she found her soul and she found her true meaning.
And look at her.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
She's the most successful. She has three doctrinates, she's written
nine books. As you said, she's a life coach. She
became her soul, became this extraordinary teacher, woman of wisdom,
the smartest person in the world because she told herself
(49:46):
the truth in every second.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
And she said, Research says that we lie to each
other at least three times within ten minutes of every
conversation we're having.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Let's pay attention to the truth. Just lied in this outro. Well, no,
it doesn't mean it doesn't It doesn't mean it means
that's the habit. Well, I mean that's the habit. But
I think we're living in a little bit different course.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
And I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
We're at a higher level. We've gotten ourselves to the
higher level. I think we might we might be the age.
I think we might.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Maybe we lie to each other once and every time,
but what we're let's encourage you to talk about active
participation and integrity. Let us begin our trial run with
telling ourselves the truth about ourselves for three hundred and
sixty five days. See what.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Let's day to check it next week. Its let's go.
There's already back back, like, holy sh I don't know
what do Hold on a second, that's all I mean,
that's a lot. We were not always wonderful as you're
right there.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
It's a year, right, let's go for a week, guys,
go for a day. Tell yourself a truth for give
yourself twenty four hours to tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
See what you clear. I know, if it's just yourself,
just it doesn't we don't. Just tell yourself the truth.
Tell yourself the truth for twenty four hours. See how
it goes. And a big, big thanks to our Better
Together team, Ryan Tillotson, Silvana Alcola, Daniel Ferrera and of
course and in Heather. If you haven't already, please subscribe
(51:24):
on whatever device or platform you're
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Listening to this on and as always, see you next week.
Straw Hut Media Tata Martha Beck is on Better Together
with an Another, and she's going to make us so
much better with a step by step guide to how
to live with integrity in your life.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oprah calls her one of the smartest people she knows,
and we get to talk to her and you guys
get to livet smart and learn from her. She really
talks about integrity and about the process that you use
to find your sense of purpose and emotional healing and
how to be free of mental suffering and really just
(00:37):
live your best life by looking at yourself in an
honest way and treating others in an honest way, and
gives us all sorts of tips on how to do that.
And this is something you don't want to miss. I
promise let's get better Together.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
We're better to get within and.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hi, everybody, welcome back to Better Together with than in Heather. Today,
we have a show that I think fits right in
line with exactly what we've decided to do with Better Together,
and that is to bring on the experts. In this case,
a doctor sociology is an incredible speaker, writer author.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Calls her the smartest person she knows.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh well, Okay, today, you guys, here's a gift. We
have doctor Martha Beck, the smartest person Oprah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Knows to bring to you. Heather taking it aread. I
don't know how you are going to introduce her in
less than an hour, but go for it. Martha Beck.
She holds three degrees, a BA, an, MA, and a
PhD from a little old school called Harvard University. She
is a world renowned coach, speaker, and writer for the
Oprah magazine. She's authored several books. In her most recent book,
(01:48):
The Way of Integrity, is a New York Times bestseller
and an Oprah Book Club selection. We're so grateful to
have you here today.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Welcome, I'm so grateful to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Thank you so much. Today we want to focus and
ask ask the question, how can you align with your
inner truth, to find the path to integrity, to step
into your full capacity and infuse more joy into your life.
And that's really what your latest book is about and
what we want to dig into today. Absolutely, I don't
know how it began.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I think one of the most difficult things to do
is to give people a guide to how to take
on the responsibility and say I want to live integrity.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to live with intent. I want to know
how to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And what you do is break it down into four
very specific categories. Would you like to describe your book
and how it came to you, and then we'll kind
of dig into to how you began your journey in
this incredible life that you're offering.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You can to give us some of the wisdom of today.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Ah, thank you? Yeah cool.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
First of all, I just started out my life very
unhappy and wanting to be very happy.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, just for about thirty years. It didn't take long.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
So I was looking for any way to be happy.
And the word integrity, the way I'm using it here,
means being whole, becoming a whole again, so integrity just
means intact. And I felt shredded and I didn't know why.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I just knew that.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
You know, when an airplane is not in structural integrity,
it will crash. And all the structural integrity means is
that all the parts work together. So I thought, okay,
I've got to find integrity, but I'm completely in the dark.
And then I read, oh, you'll all be familiar with this,
The Divine Comedy by Dante, and it starts out in
the middle of my life. I came to in a
(03:36):
dark wood and I had lost the right way. I
didn't know where I came from, didn't know how I
got there, and that really grabbed me. When I was
eighteen years old, I remember thinking, well, that's how I feel. So,
you know, A million liter years later, I come around
to writing a book about integrity, after I've worked with
thousands of clients and everything, and I went back to
(03:56):
Dante and I thought he really kind of broke it down.
So there are four parts. One is where he's in
the dark and he doesn't know what to do. The
next is where he goes through hell. He has to
go into himself and find out where he's divided from
the truth, because that's what's hurting, is that division from
the truth. Then, once he knows the truth inside, he
has to behave differently outside. So once we know our truth,
(04:18):
like in our therapist's office, the challenge then is to
go out and live it with our friend's family, the public,
you know, against possible pressure, because the moment, the only
reason we lose integrity is that we're pushed to do
so by socialization and sometimes trauma. But those are inflicted
by other people. So when we get our integrity back,
(04:40):
we're going to face pressure from the culture that made
us lose our integrity. So in my case, I'm gay.
I thought I was straight until I was like thirty one,
and when I realized my true identity, I then had
to live it. And that is what Dante calls purgatory.
You're working your way toward your truth. The top of that,
(05:01):
it's a hill he has to climb. You start to
get it, starts to get easier and easier, and then
there's a place where everything comes into harmony and clicks
together and you find your integrity. And from there on
there's so much joy, there's so much efficacy, there's so
much miracles started happening. I did not expect that. I
just I just did this for the book. I thought
(05:22):
I'm going to be in total integrity. I don't need
to do any of them woo oo stuff. Guess what
you get into your integrity. You start manifesting things like
there is no tomorrow. It's really the way.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I'm gonna put a pin in you for one second. Well,
first of all, we're gonna stop with miracle. We're gonna
start with integrity and Dante. And I'm going to tell
you that our audience, but including me, knows why why
Oprah calls you the smartest woman in the world. Because
after about Dante and getting into the dark forest, we're like,
beep beep, beep beep, help.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Us out, I'll bet.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So what I would like to do is first to
find and one of the things I find is the
most of miracle about you. And I always say this too.
Love is a science. We are here to study something.
You're trying to make logic for us out of what
integrity is. And I would like to go back to
the beginning of integrity and say, could you define for
us what integrity is?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Why do we want to be on this path? Why
are we willing to go through the darkness? Why are we.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Willing to get through up to purgatory to try to
live through it, to get us to the miracles and
kind of break it down a little bit, because I
think our audience right now is just in the journey
with us. We're saying, yes, we want to love, we
want to know how to do it. Yes, we want
to tell the truth, we want to know how to
execute it. And you are really giving us the third component,
which is to identify that if you want both of
(06:37):
those things, integrity.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Is the pathway to live in it. Does that breakdown
for you too, Heather, So, so.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
What I'd really love for you to do is break
down integrity for us and tell us why we're going
to go through this journey with you, why you want
to read your book. And I just got to tell you, guys,
you do not have to read Dante, because Martha has
broken it down for us in her books so that
we can all understand those pathways. But I want you
to identify integrity. It really feels like the active participation
(07:05):
of love and truth.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, you don't even have to put in this stuff
about Dante.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
So integrity a lot of us kind of hear it
as a Sunday school word, like you gotta be nice,
and it's kind of puritanical and yucky. That's not the
way I mean it. The way I mean it is
simply coming together to work as a whole. So integrity
means intact, that's the literal meaning of it. And if
our true selves are being reflected in every part of
(07:31):
our lives, we are intact got it and we're born
that way. Where all every baby is born completely and
totally herself for himself, for themselves, but probably before they
even have language, where we were all pressured away from
our true selves, from our nature. We were pressured by
(07:52):
the people around us, which I call culture, and every
single one of us gets split into that way and
we don't even know it happens before we have words.
So then later we're just walking around going, why don't
I feel good? Why why am I looking for myself?
I mean, where could myself have gone? We know we've
lost ourselves, but we have no idea where to start looking.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So when you're out of when your life is out
of line with how you feel. For example, you have
talked about growing up in the Mormon Church and feeling
that the Mormon Church treated women like second class citizens,
and their views on women didn't align with how you
felt about yourself. So is that would that be an
example of not being in alignment?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Perfect example, And you know, sexism, racism, all of that
stuff bothered me. But even when I was a little kid,
before I understood those things, there was a feeling that
things weren't working right inside me, that I wasn't like.
I tried very hard to be a good girl. Nobody
comes out of integrity because they're trying to be evil.
(08:56):
Everyone does it trying to be good. So it doesn't
even get to the point where you're talking about religion.
It can just be a good girl behaves this way,
and I want you to behave like a good girl,
And so you do what your parents say as a
good girl. But you feel bad. You've left a part
of yourself to please other people, and that split feels
(09:18):
like suffering. I think all psychological suffering comes from being
split from our true nature. And at first it's just
this pain. We don't know where it's coming from, and
that's what makes it so hard to fix.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, did you have a family that surrounded you?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And I don't know how how deep you want to
get into what the culture of Mormonism was for you,
but I mean, I of course been very interested in this.
I myself was raised in a religious cult that was
it was a very sexual cult. I was abused for beers,
and all of our audience knows that. That's what I
talk about getting on the other side of our abuse.
And I think you and I are in line a
(09:53):
lot about what we say about the separation and distinction
of ourselves away from that. Once we are given something
that's not ours, talk about what goes in into yourself.
I say, whatever goes in feeling bad, it's not yours,
and you have to figure out how to give it
away and give it back to where it belongs, and
then you can release it. It becomes a bad ja
of honor. And I think you speaks with a lot
about that and what goes in. Were you surrounded by
(10:16):
a family that was at all understanding.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Of what you were going through?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Were you in I know that you were in a
position where you were being mistreated, and I don't know
how far you want to go into that. Was that
a part of your mental split and your drive to
become and get on the other.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Side of it and become something new. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I was raised my siblings. I'm the seventh of eight siblings,
and I felt very loved by my siblings, and they
were all kind of struggling. We were all struggling. We
didn't know why.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I remember having nightmares as.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
A three four year old about Jesus coming across the
Eastern mountains and all the other people being lifted up
to meet Jesus, and I couldn't be lifted up because
I was bad. There was something bad about me. So
that's just this basic thing that religions teach little kids
that they're somehow bad. So there was that, and my
siblings were in it too.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I was sexually.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Abused by my father, who was this sort of, you know,
epic figure in Mormonism. My siblings don't agree with me
on that, and I haven't spoken to most of them
for a few decades.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Actually it's kind of a pattern, don't you think.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, I was a huge loss, but not as huge
a loss as losing your entire self to a set
of beliefs and practices that are being foisted on you
that clearly cause suffering.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And I think you're so right, Anne, if it hurts,
it's not your truth.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well it's not your choice.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Certainly, if you had a choice, then we wouldn't need
the choice to have something going is feeling bad. We're
all are all of your fe are all of your
siblings still a part of the church.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
They're not so much.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
I mean I recently found out that a lot of
them have have sort of fallen away from it, but
they haven't really reconnected with me.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And what I did was a betrayal.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I wrote a book about Mormonism and about my history
of abuse, and that was such a violation of the
family code that I think it sort of just broke
those relationships.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I have the same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The reason why I'm asking you such specifics is because
I think people need to know that when this is
the pattern. The sameness that I share with Martha is
when you do this, when you tell the truth, and
you are so ostracized. And it's not just in a
religious setting, although I do feel like there are a
lot of children who have been sexually abused that has
been shrouded in the lie of the religion that they
(12:36):
have been doused with that gives them the right to
say that we're not in the truth they are.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And I really.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Appreciate that you're courageous enough to tell the truth about
that and the result of it, because I think the
more of us that say so, the more we'll be
willing to share.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So I appreciate that very specifically.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
However, I do want to share as well, this is
not just about a religious upbringing, and Martha is saying
that too.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
This is about anything that separates.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yourself and distinguishes yourself from the suffering self and the
one that lives in love. How did you start to
find yourself and your path in that obviously world that
was not being supported into the incredible scholar that you
are and get yourself to Harvard?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Is that the next question you want to ask.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I feel like I was guided by something that guides
us all and that is suffering. I know that sounds
kind of paradoxical, but I think if we were anything
less painful than suffering, we wouldn't go to the trouble
of figuring out who we really are. So like what,
I went through a number of forms of suffering, and
since I've been a coach, I've seen this in a
(13:46):
lot of people who are split. And the first thing
is you're just you have negative emotions. You feel sad,
you feel angry, you feel afraid all the time. Then
you get physical symptoms. By the time I was eighteen,
I was already in like a back brace and on
crutches for reasons nobody could understand. I later was diagnosed
with a lot of autoimmune diseases. Then your relationships start
(14:09):
to go wrong. Then you can't push forward with your career.
You may get addictions, and all of these are the
result of trying to ease the pain of being split
from yourself. So again, I didn't know that was the problem.
I didn't know I was out of my truth. I
was just hurting enough to go looking and that leads
us to our truth.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Would now be the appropriate time to talk about, because
I'm very curious about that year of not lying that
you did and to get to get in line with
your integrity, you decided that you were not going to
you were going to be truthful about everything. Can you
talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
So yes, I did something I called my integrity clans.
And this is when I was twenty nine years old,
and I have since done it many times. I called
it an integrity cleans not that I was cleansing away integrity.
I was cleansing away everything else. And my first thing
was just like, okay, I was twenty nine years old
and they said, all these wisdom traditions were telling me
the truth will set you free. So I was like, okay,
(15:12):
I won't lie for three hundred and sixty five days,
not once, not in any way, and.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
I do not recommend it.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
It set me free. It made me a happy person today.
But it is not the easy way. I did not
tell a single life for a year. And you probably think,
like sitting here, I think like, I don't tell lies.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But then you think about it and there's probably like
different ways that you aren't truthful.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Right, yeah, little white lies.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
I mean, research shows that most people lie to each
other three times in every ten minute conversation. Wow, but
it's just polite, you know, a lot of it's just politeness.
I wasn't cheating on my taxes or my husband at
the time or anything like that. I was just telling
lies like oh I'm fine when I was not. So
I stopped that and lost my you know, my religion,
(16:04):
my family of origin, my whole community of origin.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I realized I was gay, so there were in my marriage.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
I quit my job, my industry, didn't want to be
a professor anymore, lost my left my home. Uh, pretty
much everything went on to that fire except my children.
And the one thing I got back was my soul.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So it was worth it. Well why, I think it's
really frightening for people when they hear about this.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
But I don't like the words sacrifice very much because
I think that in the journey that I've taken in
the truth you only get and you only benefit out
of life. And you talked about miracles, and I do
the thing that you when you start to live and love,
you understand the benefits. But I don't know, is a
very difficult thing to show from the outside. And I
think a lot of what we think about success means
(16:54):
is what happens from the outside in and you and
we talk about that too. So you're talking about all
the things that I would say, you know, if I'm
a person who's lived my life the way that it's
supposed to be lived, and I've lived in my in
the fundamentals of a good Christian life or a good
but you know, a good Samaritan would or my parents
told me I have a good house.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I do.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I do want my family around me. I do want
my church around me, or my more and my social group.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
I do.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And you gave up all of that. So from the
outside in, that looks like, hey man, I don't want
to be a part of that. No, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And you're saying, well, I got my soul. So one
I wanted to understand what soul means and what that
what that gift is that you received and the power
of that gift being bigger than all of those things
that the outside say we're crushing it. And I also
know that you use one of the words you know
that I really like that that we've spoken about a
little is that is the hustle once you're not getting
(17:46):
all those outside things the way that you want. So
I want to talk to about the soul and why
the hustle to get things rather than the soul is
the wind and the win for you, and why you
talk about it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, the hustle. It's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's one word that had five definitions when I looked
it up in dictionaries, and they were these were the definitions.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
The first one is to just move rapidly in a
certain direction. Second one is to push someone else to
move in a certain direction. The third one is to
make something happen by force. The fourth one is swindle
or cheat, and the fifth one is prostitute oneself. So
right there, people say you got to have hustled, Well
there's some what kind of hustle do you want? Yeah, exactly,
(18:30):
And yeah, I use the word prostitution. And I don't
mean to say anything bad about sex workers, but what
I mean is you sell bits of your life. You
sell yourself for something that you know is not actually
worth yourself, and that is other.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
People's approval or even money.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
You take a job you hate and you get money
for it, and you go to work every day and
you get money to that supposedly makes your life good.
But you're in hell because you hate your job, or
you're in a relationship where you've sold out and you're miserable.
But it looks good and that's all you're getting from it.
And if that's all you're getting from it, your soul
(19:10):
will not lie quietly down. It starts to raise a ruckus.
It tells you things are bad. It creates illness, it
creates addiction, and it says, get.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Me out of here.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'd be surprised to know how many people are probably
in that too, write how many Americans are in that?
I think. I don't think it's just our country, it's
probably it's probably well, I mean, they live differently in
other places. I feel like America specifically.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Really yeah, there are different reasons we are a big
hustle country. The American people are big on selling out
to get glamour and wealth and fame. Other countries can
be like very restrictive in other ways, you know, restrictive politic.
Right now, we're recording this right after the Supreme Court
(20:04):
overturned Row versus Way. That's not a hustle thing. That's
the restriction by government of personal freedoms. And that's why
it feels so scary and horrible to so many of us.
And you know, right there, if you've got that feeling
in you, this scary, horrible feeling is because part of
(20:24):
you is saying no, you can't actually lie down and
accept that and stay in your integrity. So yeah, it's
a scary moment, and all countries have it.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, right, that is actually a great example of feeling
out of whack with it because it doesn't reflect how
we feel yet it's been forced upon us. Right well,
I mean it's really shocking.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I mean people went through this with the vaccine and
I don't need to bring that up again, but it
was a personal right that you had to say no,
h yes, And then people were saying whether or not
your opinion on it was one there or another. The
fact of the matter was they were saying, you have
to put something into your body and if you don't
agree to it, too bad, you can't get on an airplane,
you can't do the things that we Now that's a
personal right.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, that is a further pa. It is different in
the cities. I'm just set. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But you're still saying that you need to do something
and if you don't agree with it yourself, you have
to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
We just had some laws turned over in Florida and
we are now we are now.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
We now have a system that is saying, whether or
not you agree with it or not, what you do
with your body we're going to take control of and
it's beginning to catapul itself into other arenas and areas
where basically what we're doing is looking back in time
rather than looking forward creating and generating something that is
in forward movement. And we're looking backwards and.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Saying, you know what I want to do. I want
to go dig up the thing that already has.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That it has already been made forward and we're going
to push it back, which is the exact opposite of
how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
The universe works in forward motion. It cannot look back.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It doesn't go gee, I forgot granddad's billionth birthday. I'm
going to go back and give.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Them a tie.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You can't do that.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
It's putting things back in motion, and that's really what's happening.
We are am trying to stop the system of forward movement,
which is called evolution, and we're doing it consistently. That's
why our voices are so important to stand up for
integrity and say you can't stand up for it, because
I think people do feel really trapped right now, I
as a woman, feel really trapped knowing what the hell
(22:16):
to do? How do you We've already stood up. I
saw one of the one of the things yesterday a
woman saying I stood up for this already in the sixties.
Here I am standing up again.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Mind?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And how can we be doing this twice? And why
do we want to Why are of easeectomy is still allowed? Right?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Why can you can you choose?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Well?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, here's the here's the thing to me that doesn't
make any sense at all. We are we are making
sure that we don't that we're taking care of the
what we're calling the feet is the live feet is. However,
what we're not taking care of us, of our children.
That we send ou to war and we'll put them
in the front line. You are adults who are eighteen
to twenty five year old, at the top of their life,
(23:03):
at the top of their game, at the top of
their intelligence potentially, and we are not standing up to
not send them to war to be killed, but we
are going to do.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Why is that something?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It's an exact contradiction of what life is and I
think and this is the not making sense. We're not
making sense out of the nonsense, and we're not standing
up to make sense out of the nonsense. And that's
why all of these things are able to bubble up
because we're not telling the truth about what is actually
really happening.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Was actually really happening, is that.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
We're sending our children to war still and that is
creating disease and hurt and shame and sorrow in our lives.
And we're trying to stand up for ourselves and we
don't know how to do it because life doesn't really
make any sense when we'll kill our children willingly.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, the hypocrisy of the system is just everywhere. I
could you know that example is brilliant. I could cite
a thousand more, and the whole thing is that there's
a very corrupt external culture, but it goes to war
on anything that tries to sort.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Of rock its boat. So you could get a little
kid saying, well, I was born a girl, but I
feel like.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
A boy, and people in Congress will be shouting that
that child is threatening their way of life.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And here's the thing they actually are.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
They are because insisting that people only divide into two genders,
insisting that marriage looks a certain way and parenting looks
a certain way, all of that cultural pressure is going
to be disrupted if people become truly themselves and begin
doing it out loud.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Because they'll be empowered. And then God knows, you can't
overpower somebody who's empowered. You can't overpower a culture that's empowered.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In talking about living in integrity and when things aren't
aligned with your thinking, something that I think has come
up a lot in the past several years, especially with
the Trump presidency and now with Roe v. Wade, and
with some of the laws that were the legislation recent
legislation in Florida with the Don't Say Gay Bill has
(25:15):
has brought up a lot of political issues among family
and friends and people that have different political viewpoints than you,
and it's a very difficult thing to navigate. I found
that I was able to navigate through the Trump era
without too much too much. I just I was able
(25:38):
to navigate it. But recently, the latest issues that have
come up are sort of insurmountable. And there's people who say,
you know, you just cut those people out of your life.
They're not. But it's difficult because there's some people that
have been in your life, your entire life, and it's
do you have any advice for how is there a
way to continue to have these people in your life
(26:00):
and still be in your integrity or I.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Actually am writing about that subject in the next book
that I'm working on, which is about anxiety, and there's
this huge spike in anxiety, and I think it is
because it's what you were saying. The culture seems hell
bent on pushing into every person's life to the point
where we can't even have an ordinary conversation without appearing
to take sides on some issue.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
And it's getting really divisive. So how do you cope
with it?
Speaker 4 (26:29):
You're as honest and as kind as you know how
to be, and that's the thing. It's so frustrating when
these issues come up that we want to go into
an aggressive posture. And I kind of write about this
in the book. There's a thing called the righteous mind,
where it's like I'm right and I don't care what
you say, and there's no listening to each other, there's
no communication.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
If you can get away from that righteous.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Mind, and if you can be present and listen to someone,
it may be that you just go, Okay, that's we
don't have anything in common. I will see you later,
and it's not. This sounds horrible, but it's not that
big a loss because you're just going to be arguing.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The entire time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
You'll have to grieve the relationship, but it's not that
big a loss.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
But if you can get into your own integrity, which
involves treating other people the way you would want to
be treated, then very often, if you listen enough, people
will start to soften and they will come to meet you,
and that's when minds start to change. And I just
take it as my responsibility to be the first one
not to pick up a weapon, but to sit with
(27:32):
compassion and empathy. Well, I would pick up a weapon
if I felt, you know, for self, I have a
brown belt in martial arts. I would fight if I
had to, but yeah, not to be the first one
to pick up a weapon, but the first one to
listen with kindness.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So if you see somebody posting something on social media
that you absolutely are horrified by and disagree with and
is remotely racist, you don't say anything.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You see what's in your integrity, You go inside.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
I mean, for ten years after I left Mormonism, it
didn't feel right to talk about my sexual abuse and
what I felt were the hypocrisy is in Mormon culture.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And then ten years later it was like, now it's time.
And I was terrified, but it was time.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
And that's the thing nobody can tell you for you
what act is in integrity at any given moment. You
have to be so tuned into what I call your
sense of truth. And that's like I'll tell your listeners
how to feel what your sense of truth feels like.
This is the statement that I've found with thousands of
people gets them into truth more than any other. It's
(28:39):
really simple. You say it to yourself silently a few times,
and it's I am meant to live in peace. I
am meant to live in peace. And if you say
it a few times. Your body will say yes, your
heart will say yes, your mind will say yes, and
your soul will say yes. And that's tegrity when they're
(29:00):
all saying yes. And then you say, and I meant
to live in peace, and I need to let my
racist uncle come to my party. And it'll be like no,
or maybe it will be yes because he's it's ready
for him. It's time for him to change. Only you
can know and the right thing to do. You have
to choose it a thousand times a day. What does
(29:24):
what feels true, what feels peaceful, what feels compassionate within myself?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
And then you have to do it.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yep, yeah, I mean that makes sense. It's really listened
to your internal self, right, there's nothing else. And I
think it gets to a certain point. I know for
me personally, I got to a certain point in my
life where I couldn't not listen to it anymore, right,
And I think that that's kind of what happens. I
always describe things for me as as a jar of jellybeans,
(29:55):
and on the last the last one, like there was
it just fell out. It was just no more room
to put it, and I was done. And had to
and had to face things because I think for me
and I know that this is true for a lot
of people, and we already touched on it a little
bit that I think I spent a lot of my
life living to, you know, do the right thing, make
(30:16):
my parents proud, make my make my ancestors proud. And
then you get to a certain point where no, I
actually want to make the next generation proud. I want
to make my kids proud. And and that's a different
that's a different path than what you know. And I
want to make myself proud, and you start living for
yourself and for the next generation rather than for the
(30:39):
last generation. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Well, I mean for me, it's very difficult to be
in a situation where I know that I want to
change the mind of the person who has the opinion
that differs from mine. And that's what you're saying, you know,
getting into a conversation, getting into a thing, knowing that
even if I come in kindness or living in loving
kind is this boo is the is the active participation
(31:03):
better together to to try to enjoin that other, that
other point of view. The fact of the matter is,
I do not believe and I will never believe and
I don't agree that the universe has anything that that
that supports division, because the only thing that gets us
further is a plus one and that's just math.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
One of the things that I like that you talk
a lot about is math. I try to break things down.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
In terms of my own system is mathematical in terms
of how I'm trying to further or go farther. And
so when I try to actively participate in conversation that
I differ with Heather and I used to joke about
words that I couldn't say before and one of the
you know, one of the words was God, and one
of you know, one of the words was you know, whatever.
We couldn't say, but we would look for different different definitions.
(31:51):
So I call God Kieky now because it's her it's
her grandbrother's name. But but one of and and one
of these words, and I understand it's a funny word,
and it's deposit because when I when I talk about
thinking of what you are doing in every single day
from the morment you wake up and this is really now,
I'm going to go back to your book talking about
when we wake up in the morning and you really
(32:11):
talk about when I wake up in the morning, you
want to wake up and get out of bed, and
you're like a cheerleader for yourself and yeah, hurrah, I'm
going to go. And I thought when I first started
reading the book, I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
This is try that. Sometimes. I tried that. This morning.
I was like, it's gonna be a good day. You're
going to accomplish a lot. You're awesome. You go girl.
But it was forced because I was tired.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And it's it's a it's a it's a promise that
you that you give if you get through the four
steps of integrity. And what I see and that is
my active participation in that is and what gives me
the joy. And sometimes it's not that feeling of like yepe,
I just feel so freaking great, Like I woke up
(32:52):
this morning, I have a head cold and I don't
and and I've been trying to get rid of whatever
it's not. We have to remember that we have three
parts of our body that are actively participating our mind,
as you say, the soul, our minds, our hearts, and
our bodies, and each one of them can guide the
way to that feeling. You don't need It's like one
can take up the ore for the other if the
(33:13):
other one's feeling down. So to me, sometimes it's about
what you deposit. Am I depositing the thing first that
I think is going to further the intention of my day,
and that can relate to I'm feeling good about what
I'm doing. You don't necessarily need to feel like you're
just bubbling up like you just had the best class
of champagne and somebody.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Just ask you to marry them that you really want
and your bread.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yet, my god, you just got a million dollars in
the mail, which is sometimes what we think in the mail,
when do I like to get it into the mail?
When we think about when people are talking about healthy
things or how we want to live our lives, the
inner joy with yourself is and I think this is
where intent and intention really come together in depositing what
(34:00):
it is that you feel will further yourself and your
community around you, and thereby further the world around you
and make it better. That is the core center of
what it is to feel happy. In my personal opinion,
it's that is the joy that we're talking about, the centered,
down home feeling that what I am doing, and what
(34:21):
I am depositing with my life and with my intention,
with my friends, with my podcast, with the work of
art that I'm doing, with whatever it is that I'm
doing with my day, I am depositing what I feel
like will further it. And that intention is more than
anything what I get. That's my that's my hardcore argument
(34:42):
for don't look back at the things that we have
already done to further our communities, like laws that give
us the rights to be who we are. If we're
looking backwards, then that is a negative on the universe.
It is mathematically wrong. Not is something that has anything
to do with opinion. We are going backwards in an
(35:02):
equation that doesn't work for society or for our for
the laws of the universe, and that is negating the
universe and the laws of God. And that is just
true mathematics.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Actually, I don't. I don't like leap out of bed
every morning.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
When I do it in the morning, is I go,
my soul is always happy, And I how you do
it to my body and my heart and my mind?
And sometimes they'll go, oh not so good, and I think, oh,
that's okay, we'll take care of you today. And then
comes the joy. But you're always caring for yourself. There's
always kindness that's.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
To yourself, yourself always being kind to others. And if
we spoke to ourselves like we spoke to others, it
would be a good thing. If we were as easy
on ourselves as we as we are another people. And
it's complimentary.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
If you're trying to force bubbliness and joy, that's not integrity.
If you find the place where you don't feel great
and you say, you know what, we're going to take
care of you, and boom, there comes the joy.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
That's beautiful. So I should have said, you're tired. I
know you're tired exactly, but you know what, You're gonna
wake up, You're going to feel better. You've got this
great interview this morning, you know, today with somebody you're
really excited to talk to, and it's going to be great.
And then you give yourself a plus one. You get
yourself a.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Plus one that you are like, yes, I'm acknowledging who
I am. Otherwise you're hustling yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But right then that's where these comes in. Right there
was me lying yeah, what to myself.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
That's the result of living in a culture where you're
taught to be super bubbly all the time.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
We're not always bubbly, but we can always be loving.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We can we're not always bubbly, we can always be loving.
And it starts with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And then what happens is our compassion rises because we
can recognize in truth. Because we're calm about our truth,
we're cool with who we are. We told ourselves we're
going to take care of ourselves. We're not looking to
somebody else to take care of us. Because then what
starts happening is then we're entering into a conversation with
somebody else where we really hope that make us feel
better for the thing that we're not taking care of
(37:02):
it ourselves, and we're waiting for that compliment or that
look for for accomplishment or approval that somebody else is
and then we start feeling good about ourselves. But as
you say, the man who got a and I love
this story, did you tell the story about them? That
you're a life coach? This is something else that I
think our audience needs to go. Let's get into the
life coaching a little bit. As you're just coaching us
(37:24):
on the on some of the basics, What is what
you are teaching as a professor that you deny.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
You said, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
I want to go into I want to change this
up and I want to go into life coaching.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I didn't. It wasn't a choice I made consciously. I
decided I didn't like teaching the same theories over and
over and over. I was excited by the theories when
I learned them, and then I didn't want to keep
repeating what were you teaching? I taught social science and
variety of different social sciences, and then I taught business school,
and that's where I thought, Oh, you know what I
am interested in is I'm interested in helping my students
(37:58):
develop their careers. So I made a career development course
and it was very popular, and the students started asking
me to work with them just straight across for money.
And I was like, what is that and they said
it's life coaching. I was like okay, wow, wow, and yeah.
It just sort of evolved out of doing what I
really love.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
And so the sessions would include just can you give
us Yeah, some people who don't know, because I think
that that concept for people when they hear a life coach, What.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Is that right? Well, I like to say that a
life coach is to a therapist what a trainer is
to a doctor. So a doctor gets you to healthy,
and a trainer gets you to top fitness, and a
therapist will get you to mentally well. But a coach
can get you to top whatever it is in your
life that you want to do, top performance, top joy,
(38:48):
efficacy whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Can you define effectacy for us? Effective?
Speaker 1 (38:54):
But it sounds like it's a it's a it's a
it's a an effective goal for the effectiveness of your life.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, we look at the place any place of less satisfaction.
So if you feel awful, we try to make your
life feel better. If you feel great, we still try
to make your life feel better. And the idea is
just that we're on a big adventure here and why
not enjoy it as much as we possibly can and
leave the world a better place than we found it,
and just generally be better people.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I'm trying to think of some of the things that
our listeners might want to ask you if they were here,
And I think that a lot of people struggle with
not really having a life purpose or calling or if
somebody is struggling with that, with really the purpose of
(39:40):
their life. Where would you tell them to start or
what advice could we give to those people?
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Boy, Heather, you absolutely nailed it. That is the number
one problem that people come to me with it. You'd
think it would be something like, you know, poverty. No, no, no,
it's loss of sense of purpose. And it's precisely because
they've left their true selves, because your true self knows
your true purpose. But when you really think that what
you're supposed to be doing is hustling up some pyramid
(40:09):
of wealth or something, you don't realize that your sense
of purpose was left back there at the bottom where
your true self is. And you suffer more and more
and more as you divide yourself more and more, and
when you stop and say, wait, what am I actually feeling?
Do I actually like what I'm doing? And not just work,
(40:29):
but on a day to day basis, what do I
enjoy doing?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
What do I not enjoy doing?
Speaker 4 (40:34):
This is a basic principle. Take something you don't enjoy doing,
do less of that, even if it's just like ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Less of that.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Something you do enjoy doing, add ten minutes of that
and then make that change every week ten minutes by
ten minutes. I call it one degree turns until your
whole life is filled with the work you love, the
people you love, the places you love to be.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
So I'm never getting on that peloton, am I.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
That's a great That's a great spectrum to think about
when we think of our life as being a whole
piece of pie, and when you know we don't always
have to look at all of it affecting one part
of it. You know, if we get into bad mood
or whatever something happens in our relationship, we can we
can still categorize that, we can still compartmentalize that we
can still go about our work and have a and
have a have a seventy five percent good part of
(41:21):
our day. Like when we learned about get you know,
take the time to worry, put a worry time on yourself,
which we learned from doctor, where you take it time
to worry you know what, don't worry about it until
four o'clock, and then by the time four o'clock rolls around,
you've already had such a good day you forget what
you're supposed to worry about.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
But also.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
When we talked about paying attention to the thing that
you're really good at and the thing that you like,
and then all of a sudden, starting to develop those habits.
We're starting to get a real system here on better together.
And I just want to be so grateful to you
for being a part of our pool of consciousness that
has added to the rhythms of joy that we can
have all of these different ways. We are being advised
(42:01):
to pay attention to ourselves, imagine what feels good, give
ourselves a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Of that each day. You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
It's not like a change happens in one day, but
it will happen like one hundred percent, but it happens gradually.
You're talking about a one percent degree. Then all of
a sudden it gets easier because you start to form
the habit. It starts to make you feel better. That
feeling better becomes your addiction, so you want to do
it more. So then all of a sudden, it's not
just one degree. All of a sudden, you're like, feel
(42:31):
five percent better or this given your stuf happens a
little bit more, and a little bit more and a
little bit more.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
With all of the.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Mind's surprising as it happens because I know that I
talked a little bit about how I had the change
of thinking in my life and I really genuinely stopped
caring what others thought of me, and that was something
that I was all about. And I recently, you know,
really checked in with myself and said, do I care?
(42:56):
Oh my goodness, I actually don't care. That's so great.
I don't care what you think of me. I just
don't care. I care what I think of me, I
care what my kids think of me, But I don't
care what you know, somebody that I don't know, some
neighbor might think of you know something. It's it's a
freeing feeling.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
And I always put the word respectfully in there.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
And somebody says an opinion that I don't agree with,
I say, I respectfully do not care.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I respectfully do not care. I respectully do not care.
And maybe that goes back a little bit to being
able to ground us. I would like to get just
a little bit of thoughts on you before before we
read about about what a Heather was talking about. We
are in a very divisive time and there are so
many conversations that we're entering where we feel like we're
(43:47):
tiptoeing through them or what are there?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So maybe there are a couple of words.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Right now that we can put put into our I
respectfully don't care how how do we take this head
positive positiveness from get you exactly exactly? My integrity tells
me you're wrong, motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Of just things. You're such a delight and and and
such a joy and such a treat to talk to.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I do want to encourage everybody to get the
book on integrity, but I but also go to Martha's
website because what's there gives you.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think you've written out seven books in total.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
No, I think more than that, my lord, and about
anxiety the magazine articles. You have a book that is
that kind of combines all of your articles that you
are some of the most important ones that you have
written on for the O magazine and really start to
pinpoint for yourself. Which one of the books, because you
(44:49):
do have one novel, and I think that's really talking
about the transformation that you made out of out of
the self that was told what to do, and into
the holy space that you are exactly and I think
that the beginning of that, maybe reading the novel will
help people understand their whole yourselves, but also look at
the one that the best suits where you are, because
(45:11):
I think you've targeted so many different areas and areadas
that you've looked at rather than combining all of them.
And they think that could really help our listeners pinpoint
which which would help them the most.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And as we go with integrity, what would you like
to leave us with today, as we go into.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
This world wanting to be our joyous selves, our and
our truest and most integrated selves, with our love for others.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Thank you, that's very inspiring. So I said a little
bit ago. You always want to treat others the way
you would want to be treated. That's the golden rule, right,
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
But the reverse of that is also true. And this
is where I think more people get mixed up.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
And I'd really like to leave you with this.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
and never allow others to do to you what you
would never do to them.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Oh that's good, that's good.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
So if somebody is screaming at you, trying to push
you around or whatever, don't allow yourself to be treated
that way back right there, where you would never treat
the other person that way, but they're treating you that way.
That's where you say it stops, and I will I
will say it calmly, and I will say it firmly,
and I will say it repeatedly forever. If I don't
(46:23):
want you imposing that on me, I stop you. Wow,
And a lot of women don't have.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Out especially, that's right. That language is really terrific. That's
just really terrific. This is the line. You are doing
something to me that I would never do to you,
and it stops right here.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah, you don't even have to explain, Just go I'm out.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
That's right, I'm out, or as well.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Our religion over here is no thanks, no thanks to that,
and you've given it some eloquence.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
No no thanks, I say yes to please you walking
out the door. This is not welcome any great advice
because because it's behavior against us. Yes, yes, that's still
what I'm working on. Yes, we're all, we're that's why.
That's the why exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
We have such incredible guides and teachers and professors and just.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Women of wisdom.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
We could not be more grateful for you teaching us
about integrity to day and giving us all help and
centeredness as we go forward with more courage and more wisdom.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Thank you so much fun talking to you. I'm honored
to be here.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
We're better again, wis And.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I mean that is just such a wild conversation on
so many levels. This is why we do the podcast.
This is for guests like that to share with our listeners.
What a what a gift to us and to you
all to have had that wisdom imparted on us.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
All.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I took a lot away from that. I did too,
I mean we, I mean it begins sold.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
It's all swirling through my head because it just it's
like from the minute you wake up in the morning
to the minute you go.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
To bed, it feels like there's a there's a system
for you to keep in tune with yourself by checking
in with with the with yourself, with yourself. I think
that we all know if we really just ask ourselves,
we all know what she's talking about. So you can
check in with yourself and you know instantly if something
feels good or bad, or like a lie, or you're
fooling yourself or and we don't pay attention to that.
(48:27):
Oftentimes we tamp it down because we think like, oh,
we have to do this, so let's not even give
that pay that any mind. But you actually, what if
you didn't have to do that. What if you didn't
if you didn't have to take yourself, if you didn't
have to do the things you didn't want to do?
What if you thought about it differently and reorganize your
way of thinking to doing what fell good to you?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I mean, when you think about this she I mean,
imagine if we did this integrity cleanse for three hundred
and sixty five days. When she did that, what ended
up happening?
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Should we try? Which? Yes? When she told the truth?
You know, this is a big one for me. I'm
lived my life, I'm telling the truth. I dedicated. I
don't think I lie. But then I realized I just
lied to myself this morning and getting out of bed, and.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
These are these are the simplest things that what happened
was that the clans became all of the single things
that she was lying about in her life and what
she had lied about to get herself into the situations,
and what would what happened at the end of.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
That she found her soul and she found her true meaning.
And look at her.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
She's the most successful. She has three doctrinates, she's written
nine books. As you said, she's a life coach. She
became her soul, became this extraordinary teacher, woman of wisdom,
the smartest person in the world because she told herself
(49:46):
the truth in every second.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
And she said, Research says that we lie to each
other at least three times within ten minutes of every
conversation we're having.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Let's pay attention to the truth. Just lied in this outro. Well, no,
it doesn't mean it doesn't It doesn't mean it means
that's the habit. Well, I mean that's the habit. But
I think we're living in a little bit different course.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
And I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
We're at a higher level. We've gotten ourselves to the
higher level. I think we might we might be the age.
I think we might.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Maybe we lie to each other once and every time,
but what we're let's encourage you to talk about active
participation and integrity. Let us begin our trial run with
telling ourselves the truth about ourselves for three hundred and
sixty five days. See what.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Let's day to check it next week. Its let's go.
There's already back back, like, holy sh I don't know
what do Hold on a second, that's all I mean,
that's a lot. We were not always wonderful as you're
right there.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
It's a year, right, let's go for a week, guys,
go for a day. Tell yourself a truth for give
yourself twenty four hours to tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
See what you clear. I know, if it's just yourself,
just it doesn't we don't. Just tell yourself the truth.
Tell yourself the truth for twenty four hours. See how
it goes. And a big, big thanks to our Better
Together team, Ryan Tillotson, Silvana Alcola, Daniel Ferrera and of
course and in Heather. If you haven't already, please subscribe
(51:24):
on whatever device or platform you're
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Listening to this on and as always, see you next week.
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