The Way Of Integrity With Dr. Martha Beck

Tune into this very powerful conversation with Dr. Martha Beck, New York Times bestselling author, life coach and O Magazine contributor on the You-est You® podcast. We go deep into the power of integrity and the effects on our body, psyche and mind when we are not living in integrity with our true self. Martha shares many exercises, tools, tips and ways to find your truth and live in alignment with your You-est You.

Transcript

Welcome,

My friend,

To the USU Podcast.

I'm Julie Riesler,

And I am so honored to have you here.

In this show and community,

You'll find huge-hearted overachievers who want to turn on their inner light,

Learn to trust their heart wisdom,

And help raise the consciousness of this planet,

Just like you.

Whether I'm sharing a conversation with a fellow lightworker,

Luminary,

Or a solo cast about navigating life as an empath,

My goal is the same.

To help you turn your fear into faith.

To remember that you are sacred.

To realign with your highest potential.

To be fully self-expressed as your USU.

If you haven't already,

Consider this your invitation to check out the School of Sacredology.

That's where you'll find even more support and guidance from a big-hearted community,

And unleash your inner knowing and potential.

School is always in session at SchoolofSacredology.

Com.

Are you ready to join me on this journey,

Dear soul seeker?

It's time to listen to your inner guidance and follow your soul's purpose.

Never forget,

The chances of being born were 1 in 14 trillion.

In other words,

You are pure positive divine light,

Born to shine,

To live from your heart,

And to be your fullest,

U-est,

You.

Hello my beloved USU listeners,

Soul family.

Oh my goodness.

I'm so excited.

I really,

Today we are so grateful,

So blessed to have one of my favorite human beings on the planet.

I'm not going to say I said that to her yet,

But I have been just loving and adoring Martha Beck's work,

Words,

Wisdom over the last 16,

17 years since I started reading her articles.

I'm going to just share with you a little bit about Martha,

And then we are going to dive in,

And I'm so excited.

This is an episode,

As you know,

I take notes.

Don't worry if you want to just kind of,

I just say like,

Close your eyes and listen in,

Put on your seatbelt.

We'll talk about the plane,

The airplane,

Making sure it's in integrity.

You're going to strap yourself in and just get excited for a really special conversation.

This is such a gift from my heart to yours.

I'm so excited to introduce you to Dr.

Martha Beck,

Who is a New York Times bestselling author.

She is a renowned life coach and international speaker.

She's amazing.

Martha holds three Harvard degrees,

Not one,

Three in social science,

And Oprah Winfrey has called her one of the smartest women I know.

I agree.

Martha is a passionate and engaging teacher known for her unique combination of science,

Humor,

And spirituality.

Her newest book,

Which I am seriously in love with and recommend to everybody,

All of you,

You must get thee to this book ASAP.

It is called The Way of Integrity.

Making the Path to Your True Self.

This is an instant New York Times bestseller.

I can tell you,

I can see why.

We're going to talk a lot about it because I actually think it is all connected with the idea of being your truest self,

What I call your USU,

Whatever you want to call it,

Being your fully integrated self.

So,

Martha,

I'm so excited to have you here today.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Julie.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's an absolute joy to be here.

Oh my gosh.

And I have to,

This is so funny.

I'm actually from Boston originally from outside of Newton.

I know you spent some time in Cambridge and for the first time,

I don't even have a Boston accent.

I almost called you Martha.

Martha.

That is the Boston way of saying Martha.

Martha from Boston.

So,

I don't know,

Maybe I'm just channeling the inner Boston that has literally not shown up in a long time.

I don't even live there anymore,

But whatever.

Whatevs.

I'm just channeling to the colds.

I'm just,

I'm just tuning in.

Exactly.

I was like,

She spent a lot of time in that Cambridge freezing cold Boston time.

Yeah.

It's no joke.

And from Utah,

Like it's,

Well,

It's cold there,

But not like different.

No,

No,

No.

Different cold,

I promise.

Different cold.

It's a special kind of cold for Boston winters.

You need,

It's,

Let me tell you guys,

All I have to say is you need some really good down jackets.

And if you're not into down,

Get yourself,

You need a good jacket.

That's all I can say.

Yeah.

It's freezing.

All right.

So,

So Martha,

We're just going to dive right in.

And I,

You know,

I was thinking I have all these notes.

I was joking.

We were talking beforehand.

I was listening,

Reading the way of integrity.

And so this is not,

And so in integrity,

I would be driving and I'm like,

Oh my God,

Yes.

And I was like,

Text.

And I'm like,

You're not supposed to text.

And I'm like,

I'm already out of integrity listening to this book,

Writing as I'm driving.

So I'd go back and write more,

But I maybe just to start,

Like,

I think I'm thinking like for those that are just,

You know,

Getting into what this means,

Maybe we just talk about what does integrity mean to you?

And you can just start there and see where it goes.

Well,

It's not like church lighting.

Well,

Are we in integrity?

No,

That's gross.

It means integer,

The root of the word integrity just means intact.

That's why an integer is a whole number.

So if you've got your whole self and nothing but yourself,

You're in integrity and everybody's born that way.

But before we can even talk,

We're getting pressured to maybe cry a little less than we'd like to and smile a little more.

And so little by little,

Starting from very young,

We abandon that intact whole self and we split off to please the people around us or to cope with whatever circumstances we may encounter.

And when we abandon ourselves,

We are not one whole thing,

Which is integrity.

We become two things,

Which is duplicity.

We're split.

And that split after doing like almost 30 years of life coaching,

I realized that that separation from our true self is the single thing that causes psychological pain.

Like you can be in all kinds of physical pain.

You can even be in emotional pain.

But if you have your whole self,

Your true self and nothing but yourself,

You will feel at peace underneath everything.

And there will not be the kind of terrible,

Aimless,

Frightened distress that so many people fear because they have abandoned their true selves.

Yeah.

Woo,

This is,

This to me,

I mean,

Having experiences personally and I wouldn't say I'm fully out of it,

But I certainly,

You know,

And then listening to your story where you talk about kind of reintegrating and becoming whole and one,

Could we,

Would it be okay to talk a little bit about your story?

Because your story,

I actually got nervous.

I knew I'm like,

I know it ends okay,

But I was nervous hearing about your letter.

I don't want to give it away,

But I was like,

Okay,

This is,

This takes something.

And I know you talk a lot about this whole,

You know,

The societal norms and just,

It can be really hard to go against that.

So I don't know where you want to start on it,

But your story,

I mean,

From your son,

What you talked about to religion,

To all,

I mean,

Whatever you want to pick up,

Wherever you want to pick up from.

I was born on a snowy day.

No,

I truly,

I was born very people-pleasy.

I mean,

People have different degrees of being tapped into what others want from them.

And ask anyone who knew me as a child,

I was a horrific people pleaser,

Like just completely out of my own integrity to please anyone.

And I grew up in the heart of Mormonism and my father was a very,

A big cheese in the Mormon church.

And that pulled me into,

I was like,

Sure,

You know,

Everybody,

Every guy gets a planet when he dies.

All right.

I'm three.

What do I know?

But I didn't feel that.

And then it went off when I was 17.

I went to Harvard,

Which is about as far from Utah as you can get and stay on the same plane.

I was like,

Oh,

Yeah,

Materialist atheism.

Absolutely.

I'm right here with you.

So I was just pretending to everyone that I was whatever they wanted me to be.

And I was miserable.

I was depressed.

I was anxious.

I was,

I had an eating disorder.

My body started to break down when I was really young.

When I was only 18,

I started getting autoimmune diseases.

And then I got my BA degree and then my MA and then my PhD.

And by the time I was halfway through my PhD at Harvard,

I was pregnant with my second child.

I'd gotten married,

Had a little girl.

And then my second child was diagnosed at about six months of pregnancy with Down syndrome.

And I knew I'm very pro-choice by the way.

And I recently gave,

Talked to someone in the same situation and I'm,

I just said like,

I'll drive you to the hospital to terminate the pregnancy if that's what's in your heart because I,

Yeah.

But I,

For the first time I was 25,

It was an important enough decision to me and really late in the pregnancy that I went inside and all the doctors at Harvard told me that it was like having a malignant tumor and not letting them remove it.

And then it would destroy my life in every way.

And I just,

I remember looking at them and thinking,

You're,

You don't know that.

You actually don't know what this child's life will be like.

You don't know what my life will be like.

You're making a lot of assumptions.

And I,

You know,

These were really impressive people.

And so breaking from the culture that way,

I'd never done it before.

And I was like,

Deliver this baby and we'll see what happens.

And I don't want to,

You know,

Like we were at odds.

And then I was so bruised by that.

So Adam,

My son comes out,

He's amazing.

He's this little angel with Down syndrome and he changed my life in so many ways for the better.

But I was so bruised.

I went back to Utah to do my PhD dissertation because I thought,

Okay,

Everybody there will agree with me,

Which they did.

But then I ran into the fact that I didn't believe in Mormonism.

So I ended up leaving Mormonism.

And more than that,

I went on this year of telling the absolute truth.

When I was 29 years old,

I said,

I'm going to go a year without telling a single lie.

And I did.

And during that year,

I walked away from my religion,

My community,

Because it was a whole Mormon community,

My family of origin,

My job,

My profession,

My marriage,

My home,

Everything,

Partly because I started getting intrusive flashbacks of being sexually abused by my father.

So then that was not okay with the Utah community.

And I left and then I ended up writing a book about that that got me death threats and threats of being sued and imprisoned and basically just ruining my life in every way.

So it just felt like I kept bumping into circumstances that said,

You are going to be the opposite of a people pleaser.

You are going to displease every frickin' person you've ever met.

And they will be very intense about it.

And you're going to have to learn to live with that.

And in the middle of all that,

That year of telling the truth and losing everything,

I had this experience of connecting with the divine during a surgery.

White light appeared in the room and I,

For some reason,

Was conscious and could see it.

And I connected for the first time with the truth of myself as I was without any alteration at all.

I was full and complete and beloved by this brilliant,

Indescribable,

Loving light.

And it said,

You're not here to suffer until you die and then feel good again.

You're here to feel this way,

Like you're in the presence of the divine in every moment of your life.

Now,

Go out and do that.

And that's when I burned everything down.

But that's also when the light came to stay.

And then I started coaching,

I didn't talk much about it.

But that's what I want for everybody out there who feels lost,

To come home to stay.

I'm fighting back tears.

Honestly,

I'm listening to you.

And I really think anyone listening,

First of all,

All my people,

Please,

Are soul's family out there.

Like,

Hello,

Hi,

We've got you.

Marcus got you.

Because I'm listening to you and honestly,

It's like in your face,

Right?

So you probably did really well in life stepping into that until it just.

.

.

And actually,

When I come back to this,

I personally think there is a connection with autoimmune disease.

Oh,

I do.

Yeah,

And I'm curious,

Just having one from,

I'm like,

I'm in the people pleasing camp.

I could be in your group if you started it,

A little recovery group.

And then seeing the opposite when you step out of it,

I think what you're saying is kind of be ready because you had your face to face now with the opposite.

You had to really hold true.

And so I was listening,

Reading,

I'm like,

This is like people pleaser nightmare.

I mean,

Death threat.

I can't even imagine,

Right?

Especially with all of what you.

.

.

Yeah.

You actually,

What ends up happening is that the part of you that's connected to those relationships ends up dying.

So in some disciplines,

Some philosophies,

They might call that an ego death,

An identification of the self,

But it's got no social context anymore.

And then you're nobody nowhere.

But that is exactly the right state to step into absolute truth.

You've got no pressure on you and you become no-thingness,

Which puts you into communion with the no-thingness that is the source of the universe.

And then you're like,

Oh,

I get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is what I was wanting.

And now let me try to be human and still stay connected to that.

And then you go on a whole journey of how do I stop people pleasing and stay connected with my true self.

And that's what this book is about.

Instead of like throwing your whole life into the fire,

It's like tiny step by tiny step.

How do you edge out of the wrong life and into the right life?

Because it can be a lot more gentle.

Right.

Then for you,

It sounds like just you had to clear away the wreckage of everything that was not like the excavation.

I was like,

I get it.

All of that was not you anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It causes suffering.

And I was suffering intensely and everything looked great.

I was mostly to a Harvard degree.

I was a PhD.

I had a great job.

I had three beautiful children by then.

Everything looked great and it was all not me.

So I had to go and I was suffering horribly and then it all fell apart.

And people who met me were like,

Oh my God,

Are you okay?

I'm like,

Yeah,

Weirdly okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm curious with the,

Because I know you talked about maybe just to share with everyone that I just,

I do feel there's such a body connection,

The autoimmune.

I know you'd had such suffering in your body for a long time.

I felt like,

My God,

I know you took a year off from school.

And what has it been like since then just health wise,

Your body?

I just,

I think there's such a connection with autoimmune conditions.

I feel like people pleasers,

Like just you do it long enough and you go against yourself,

Which is,

I love how you talked about this.

It's really duplicity.

I think our cells are listening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's tons of research on this too.

When you start to do something that's not good for you,

Even long before you recognize that it's not good for you,

Your body is already reacting with stress hormones and higher heart rate,

Blink rate,

Everything like that.

The moment you lie or keep a secret,

Even a little one,

You tell a little white lie,

Your body just goes,

Okay,

I'm shutting it down.

Like the body hates to lie.

Even if you're doing it for the best of reasons,

It gradually gets more and more heavily,

It's a terrible burden for the body to carry a secret or a lie.

And eventually it starts to break.

And it does that as a way of saying,

Hey,

You need to fix this.

You need to find it.

That's what I believe.

So yeah,

At 18,

I started developing autoimmune diseases and I had three or four diagnosed.

And one of which is like,

It's called interstitial cystitis and it's like erodes the lining of your bladder.

This is probably more than people need to know.

But it causes,

Then you've got the acid,

Right?

Pushing right against raw tissue.

And it's so bad.

When I got diagnosed,

They diagnosed it surgically.

So I know I had this and they gave me a pamphlet on how to cope.

And I opened the pamphlet all excited.

And it said,

To keep from committing suicide,

Remind yourself of your religious beliefs.

Oh my God.

That does not sound awful.

But it just went away.

I'm completely asymptomatic from the three or four autoimmune diseases that I had that were like really well-diagnosed and documented and incurable and progressive.

And they went away.

They just went away.

Oh my gosh.

I'm curious to know,

And I don't know where it is today,

But in terms of your family and how that was after,

Really to me,

It felt like I was cheering you on.

It's so funny because I knew it ended okay.

I said this,

But I was like,

She okay?

Like of course the codependent side,

I was like,

Why is she all right?

She did all right.

Like I just want to hug her.

Like she okay?

And of course,

You said you had great peace too,

Even though it was frightening.

What does it look like today?

Are you connected to family or parents?

I don't know what that's like.

I'm a little bit connected,

But I've been told by the people who connected with me that if they told the others that they were connected,

They'd get in trouble.

So I don't know quite how open to be about it.

I will say that there is a tenuous connection still.

And well,

Again,

After 30 years,

There was a tenuous connection.

During those 30 years,

It was really sad.

I missed my family terribly and loved them immensely and was always burdened by this thought that they really believe I did the most horrible thing I could think of to do in the world,

Hurt them.

When in fact I had these messianic ideas about,

I'll set everyone free.

It's just great.

My little Messiah complex.

It's come around to a place where through my own maturation and sort of watching people from a distance on social media and so on,

That there's an enormous bond of love that is not severed by depth,

By distance,

By argument,

By thought frame.

Nothing can break that bond.

And I just rest in that all the time.

And I feel very,

It's very sweet.

It almost,

You know,

And I would imagine,

You talked about this when you had the surgery and connecting it to the being sexually molested by,

I mean,

You talk about that story by your father.

My head was like,

Wait,

What?

And then the surgery,

That experience you had,

I would imagine it's life changing.

That light you saw,

You talked about it.

I'll go over it a little bit more.

I was teaching,

So I'd gone into my year of not lying at all.

And what happens when you don't lie at all is that the first thing is that when people say,

How are you?

You don't say,

Great.

You say,

Hang on,

Let me think.

And then maybe you say,

I'm okay,

Been better or something like that.

That turned out to be mostly the lies I was telling.

I didn't lie on my taxes or any of that stuff,

But I didn't have any deep secrets that I knew of.

So what happens is that it's like an archeology of the self.

It starts digging deeper and deeper layers of the truth.

So I knew something was bothering me that I'd been running from forever.

It felt like there was a tiger right behind me all the time.

I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't relax.

I was always running physically until I couldn't and then mentally.

And I was actually teaching a psychology class where I was behind,

I was in a little observation booth watching this class of students having a free conversation.

And I was observing it with two other psychology students.

I was the assistant professor.

And the women in the room started to talk about date rape and their own experiences of being molested and so on.

And pretty much,

I think nine out of 10 of the women in that room were in the Me Too gang.

And I just started to feel like I had fire ants over every inch of my body and they were biting me and biting me and I couldn't breathe.

And I burst out of this little observation room and ran into the hall and just passed out.

And so when I came to,

I was in a lot of pain down in my southern region.

And my then husband rushed me to the hospital and they put me right into surgery because I had a growth,

They thought.

What it turned out to be was that there was a lot of scar tissue in that area of my body and it was bleeding.

It had spontaneously ruptured and was bleeding and was causing this,

What looked like a tumor.

And so all of this,

They whisked me into surgery,

They knocked me out.

And then I woke up and sat up and watched them operating on me.

And then I thought,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait.

I am lying on a table with my eyes taped shut.

I'm not sure how this is happening.

So I laid down into my body and then I was listening to them.

They said,

There's just blood,

There's scar tissue in here.

And above my head,

Right between the surgical lights,

A small sphere of light appeared about the size of a golf ball.

And it was incredibly brilliant and incredibly beautiful,

Absolutely indescribable.

There's no reason that the words ball of light should make me burst into tears.

But for 20 years afterward,

I couldn't hear that phrase without just sobbing because this thing was so exquisite.

And it began to grow like a ball being inflated and it would go into things instead of bouncing off them.

I could see everything starting to shine.

The instruments and things would start to shine as the light went into them.

And then it touched my body.

And this warmth poured into me and emotional sweetness,

Like nothing I'd ever felt.

And I just started to cry and cry and cry with sheer relief and joy.

And this light was laughing for joy.

It was like the most beautiful reunion.

And I was saying to it,

I forgot,

I actually forgot.

And the light was saying,

Yep,

You said you wouldn't forget.

You said you wouldn't ever believe that you were just this little poor mortal form trapped in this breakable body.

But that's what happens when you're human.

And I was like,

Ah,

Never want to do that again.

I mean,

Like,

It's like the most exquisite reunion you can imagine.

And then it said,

Look,

You don't have to die to feel this way.

You're going to go out of here and hit some really hard times,

But I am right there with you.

And I always have been,

And I always will be.

I never leave anyone not for a second.

And I woke up crying and crying.

And the first person I saw was a janitor who was mopping the floor and he like had no teeth and was kind of odd.

And I opened my eyes and I looked at him and said,

I love you so much.

Oh my God.

I did.

And I was crying and the nurses came and they're like,

Honey,

It's all right.

And I'm like,

I know it's so wonderful.

And they were like,

Really?

And I said,

Is this the way everyone reacts?

They were like,

Yes,

Surgery is hard.

And I was like,

No,

Do they cry because they're so happy.

You were like,

Not really.

So I asked to see the janitor because I was like,

Drug effect.

This is my heart of mine,

Right?

I'm like,

What was that drug give me more?

And he came in and I started thinking,

What are the side effects?

What happens?

And finally he just said,

Look,

Tell me what happened because the surgeons notice tears on your face and they thought that you could feel the surgery.

They thought you were in physical pain and I was going to increase the anesthesia and I was going to do it.

And a voice said to me,

Don't do that.

She's crying because she's happy.

Just relax.

And he said,

I did it.

And he just was white as a sheet.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

He thinks I felt the surgery.

And I was like,

No,

No.

So I told him what happened to me.

And he said,

You know how many times this has happened to me in 33 years?

I said,

No.

And he said,

Once.

And then he kicked me in the head and went away and was like,

They're just angels everywhere.

I just was in the hospital going,

I love you.

And I do.

I just wish I could see the janitor's face.

I just,

It's so,

It's beautiful.

It's so beautiful.

Like I'm like,

Tell the story again,

Martha.

I'm just with you.

You know,

When you told it in the book,

I was like,

I just want to ask her about this because I could tell it was life-changing and profound.

And you know,

You sharing that,

Frankly,

It's sticky in the best way.

Like I'm like,

I forgot too,

I guess.

Like if that,

Like I guess we all forgot,

You know,

That.

But we remember a little bit.

We remember enough to go,

Wait,

This can't be right.

This is,

No,

There's something wrong.

This isn't it.

This isn't the way I'm supposed to feel.

So we remember just enough to make us want to like grab that thread and drop everything else and start that little thread of spider silk and start following it back to our source.

Right?

We get that much memory and the rest is up to us.

Mm.

Gorgeous.

And it's,

Well,

And just to think like it's still every day with you.

You're still,

Do you have a practice of like,

I'm just going,

This is not one of my questions,

But I'm like,

I have to ask,

Do you,

How do you connect with that now that it's a few years after the fact?

The first thing is that when people have experiences like that,

Like a near death experience,

Or sometimes people when they're being tortured or undergoing other trauma will see this light,

Even if they're not close to death.

I wasn't.

Yeah.

But for some reason,

These memories don't fade the way a dream would,

Or even a normal everyday experience or even your wedding or,

You know,

It's like,

It is so fresh and new every time.

It's right there.

The second I try to remember it,

I feel it with me now,

Now,

Now.

The only time I lose it is when I get lost in past and future because it's always,

But it's always now.

And I told a little story in the book about my son when he was about 17,

18,

His best friend's mother died.

And we went to the funeral and it was so sad.

And as we were driving home,

I said,

He said,

I didn't cry.

And I said,

But it would be okay if you did,

Because it's really sad when someone dies.

And he said,

Well,

It's not as sad after the light comes and opens your heart.

And he can barely talk.

And I was like,

What?

I said,

You had a light coming up in your heart?

And he said,

Yeah.

And then nothing is as sad.

And I said,

Well,

When was this?

And he said,

May 10th.

And I was like,

No,

I was 13.

So this was years he hadn't told me.

And what I got out of it was he'd been sitting in his room,

Not feeling great.

And this light appeared and it touched him and entered his heart and said,

You can do this.

You can do this.

And he said,

Since then,

I haven't been to set.

And I said,

Well,

You know,

The light told me that it's always with us,

Even though we can't see it.

And he did this double take and he went,

Oh,

I can see it.

Like,

Mom,

I don't know what.

Really?

You can't?

Yeah.

He's like,

What's wrong with you?

Where is it?

Because to me it was a ball,

Right?

So I was like,

Is it up in the ceiling?

Is it in your heart,

In your head?

And he just shook his head like,

Oh,

You're such a simple thing.

And he said,

Mom,

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

And I remembered how it permeated everything.

And I looked around me and realized that if I look with that sensibility,

Everything is shining.

Everything is radiant.

Everyone is radiant and perfect and whole.

And there is no,

There's,

We are never dropped.

We are never left alone for a millisecond.

Yeah.

We're always held.

That is so beautiful.

I just,

I'm like,

For a second I lost.

I'm like,

Where are we?

I feel it.

I'm like,

Oh yeah,

I'm interviewing.

I'm like,

Oh my God,

I just,

I thank you.

I can feel what you're experiencing and what you're saying.

And it's,

I think this is just,

Especially these times,

Which can be very stressful right now.

It's really,

It's like the,

You know,

The triple biotic that you put on a cut.

The ointment,

I'm like,

Oh right.

Because it can feel,

You know,

With life happening,

There's lots going on in the world.

And it's just,

I love that I can really imagine that light,

Just everything,

All of us.

It's so powerful.

Wow.

And that's the great gift of suffering.

Like if you even watch the news,

You could freak out so badly these days and be totally justified.

And what does that do?

It sends you back for this,

The strand of spider silk that's connecting you to something better.

It says,

Wait,

This cannot be the truth.

And this is the whole thing is that when somebody tells you everything's wonderful,

You are exactly where you should be and you're not,

It doesn't feel good.

It feels bad.

Like if somebody said,

Marry this man,

You may not love him,

But he's the right one for you.

And you forced yourself to do it,

It would not feel good.

It would feel bad.

But,

Or even saying,

I love this job.

If you hate this job,

It's like soul murder.

But you always have the opportunity to say,

You know what,

This isn't the right place.

This isn't the right job or relationship,

Whatever.

I'm kind of miserable.

And in that moment,

The truth,

Even though it sounds like a negative thing,

Because it's true,

It brings you into peace.

Yeah.

The first step toward integrity is just to say,

You know what,

I don't feel perfect.

Maybe I feel really crappy,

But it could be better.

And just acknowledging it takes you one step into the truth and the moment you're on the path of truth for you,

Peace begins to rise and love begins to be more accessible and the light shows itself to you because one and the same as the truth.

Shalls,

Beautiful.

I was just going to ask to give us a little of the steps of it.

And I think that is,

You had an exercise too.

I got to be honest,

I had a hard time with one of them because I was like,

I don't like looking at the fear.

I don't want to say it.

I don't really want to.

You know,

And it's interesting.

I'm still working in that fear that for me,

It's a fear that comes up around wellbeing.

For everyone.

I probably am not allowed.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Definitely.

I'm like,

No one else has this fear.

So I can't talk about it.

You gently,

And I was like,

All right,

I'm with you right now.

And I think just saying,

Like you said,

Just tell your truth.

That is the beginning of,

To acknowledge it.

And the first thing that comes up after this is not okay,

It's not perfect,

Is I'm afraid.

Everyone because we would never leave ourselves except that we're afraid of what would happen if we didn't feel that painful.

So then what comes up,

It's the excavation of the self,

Right?

The secrets you don't want to look at.

And so the next step is to become calm while acknowledging that you're scared to look inside.

So you don't just rip it open the way I did.

I am probably going to die right after saying,

How bad could this be?

You know,

A wheat thresher or something.

But I don't want people to follow my example.

I say not as I do.

So like if we used you as a guinea pig,

And I don't want you to say any of your dark and frightening secrets,

But just feel the fear of what might happen if you were completely out there with everything you really feel and think.

So you can feel anxiety and it will be greater in certain situations.

Yeah,

Like with a certain person or a certain place.

One of the things I realized after writing the book was that people of color feel this every time they're in a room.

Like it is not safe and it's like,

Wow,

I had no idea how hard that was.

I'm so grateful people told me.

And it's a justifiable fear and you don't want to be hurting everything in your mind in every situation.

It could genuinely legitimately feed into a crazy system.

So what you do instead is you sit with the fear of it and go,

This does not feel safe.

I'm beginning to tiptoe toward things that I don't tell people,

Because there could be negative consequences.

Now the task is really simple.

It's to switch the brain and the body out of the fight or flight stage,

The sympathetic nervous system,

Into rest and relax or the parasympathetic nervous system while in the presence of your fear or uncertainty.

And so the next step after I'm not okay is it's okay.

It's okay not to be okay.

You don't have to move at all.

You can be completely still.

And stillness is very frightening to most people.

But if you use it as a refuge in a sanctuary,

Something scary will come up,

But stillness can hold it.

And still,

You know,

The light and the stillness and the silence and the,

You know,

The source,

They're all words for the same ineffable thing,

Right?

Indescribable thing.

So the moment you say,

I'm not okay,

And it feels true,

And then I'm scared,

And that's true.

And then you allow the stillness inside you to just hold the frightened part of you.

Don't have to do anything.

Just keep telling yourself,

It's okay.

You'll be okay.

You'll be okay.

And that's the truth again.

So it lines you up with reality,

Which is another word for the universe,

Which is another word for God.

The moment you say,

I'm not okay,

And it's going to be okay,

You can feel the force.

And then maybe you start tiptoeing into,

I need to look at my job situation or whatever it is.

That is,

It's actually what's so brilliant.

It's so brilliant because A,

The whole like your body,

The fight or flight,

The person that,

Like that makes sense to me.

And then in the end,

It's all about truth again.

It's not negating,

You know,

Well,

I won't go into all the examples,

But I will say the big one that happened in my life,

It's interesting because it woke me up.

I actually did not consciously choose to look at it.

I woke up with what I thought was a heart attack,

Panic attack.

I never had one and it was like,

You're not okay hearing me.

I was like,

Oh wow.

So it's interesting how I'm like,

Okay,

Mine was like something maybe,

I don't know,

By herself something was like knock,

Knock,

The pretending,

It's not happening anymore.

You get to choose,

But here's the thing.

It's right now,

Right here.

This is what I'm,

It's just,

I remember being like,

What the,

I knew at a deep,

Deep level with you know,

And,

And,

You know,

It was interesting.

I'll say this for those that struggle,

The marriage that I was in,

It's a good person.

There was no abuse.

It wasn't like that.

So it was confusing.

It was not logical and it confused me.

Like I,

You know,

But our body,

Our energy,

That's different than logic or on paper.

What makes sense?

I think like you said,

You should marry him.

He's a great person.

It's like,

Well,

But is that,

Is that an integrity with your,

With your truth?

And I,

That I,

I learned a big,

Big ass lesson.

And it wasn't your fault.

It was never your fault.

You were socialized into really believing that was the right way for you.

And I'm like suffering woke you up,

But what happened then?

Did you like stay in contact with the force that woke you up or did you go back and forth or what happened?

Yeah.

And then the quick,

The quick was I,

Well,

This is what's interesting,

Martha.

I'd never,

Oh my gosh,

I'm having,

I was doing an intense,

I had just started doing this intense personal development,

But this is like a little before coaching was on the rise.

And if you know anything,

It was through Landmark.

If you know anything about that work.

So there,

We were talking about integrity and it was like,

It's not workable if your life's not integrity.

And of course I'm like,

Okay,

That's great.

That's lovely.

And I realized it's not an integrity not to share with my former husband what happened with this.

So I went way in the deep end fast.

I wish I had sort of like thought about it because the next morning I said,

I'm not okay.

And I don't know what's going on,

But something's not okay here for me with you.

I mean,

That was honestly one of the harder moments of my lifetime because I wasn't,

I don't know that I would recommend doing it that way,

But I felt like,

Well,

If I know it's not integrity now and I almost couldn't see,

Not see it.

And it was a rough year.

So it was probably when the,

I mean,

I,

And that's my autoimmune condition came right and then,

And right on my thyroid and throat.

And I was like,

Oh,

Speaking truth.

And so anyhow,

I,

This is,

This is,

I just,

You know,

What you're saying,

It's so powerful because to bring him back to the,

That light,

Like who we said,

We forget we are and just stepping into that,

That,

You know,

The,

The oneness,

The wholeness,

Cause the duplicity,

I don't know.

I reading your story,

I was like,

Oh mama,

Like mine was horrible.

But you're,

I'm like,

This is like,

It's not,

It's no fun.

It's no bueno.

I think I really set it up.

So like,

Give me a chance to always be countercultural.

So I went to Harvard to have a baby with intellectual disabilities,

Went back to Provo,

Utah to come out as a lesbian.

Oh,

Okay.

And people come to me for advice.

Like I always went to the exact worst place to be what I really was so that I think I just said,

I want to take it on like in its entirely raw form.

I mean,

Other people got it so much worse,

But it was not a picnic.

I'll agree with you there.

I just,

You know,

And this is one of the things,

And I'll just say everyone listening,

Cause I really believe most people,

Wouldn't you say there's some lack of integrity with most like with almost every,

Yeah.

I mean,

I am obsessed with this topic and I still notice every day I'm a little bit out of integrity.

If my facial expression doesn't match what I'm feeling,

I'll catch it.

I mean,

I'd say I'm to very subtle things now and it's easy during a pandemic to not be too challenged necessarily if you get to,

If you have the privilege to be locked down.

So the pandemic actually was quite helpful.

And I think a lot of people started to get in touch with their truth because they were sort of allowed to finally sit down and take a breath.

Like speaking of Black Lives Matter,

I think that it went,

Oh,

That's a bad thing we need to look at.

I think that's my own feeling.

So yeah,

If you have been put down and you've agreed in any way that you deserve to be less than another,

You're out of integrity.

If you are sacrificing your own health because you're trying to be there for other people and it's slowly eroding you,

You're out of integrity.

You don't have to be bad.

The main reason people leave their integrity is that they're trying so hard to be good.

Right?

And that's the hell of it.

It's going,

Oh,

To be true to myself,

I'm going to have to do these things that feel like I'm not as good a person.

People won't see me as a good person if I do this.

Oops.

And it's like,

All right,

I'm still gay.

I can't help it.

Just have to full speed ahead,

Right?

Yeah.

Like you come out on the other side more whole,

Stronger,

Like a bone that's,

You know,

You heal in the broken places and you heal stronger at the broken places and more and more of the light and joy that are your true nature come through.

Cause that's the truth of it,

But without leaving ourselves,

We exist in a state of joy.

And like I looked at animals now and I used to think,

Oh,

They're suffering.

Yeah.

A lot of animals are suffering,

But I also think that they are connected to their sense of being and that there's a continuous joy that runs through all living beings that is,

That humans run away from,

You know,

And that doesn't mean that animals can't suffer.

It just means that we torture ourselves psychologically in a way that no other species seems to be able to do.

And we have the ability to take that same,

It's our imagination that lets us think the world is dark and horrible and everybody hates me.

But when that imagination is then liberated to be in the truth,

It can create wonders.

You know,

We are the animal that imagines and we imagine ourselves into hell.

And if we switch and go with the truth,

That same imagination creates heaven.

And that's why I put the whole book,

I framed my whole book around Dante's divine comedy,

Because I think he went through that.

And I think he wrote his epic poem as a guide to go from misery to the happiness that is our natural state of being.

And you know,

At 18,

I read the divine comedy as a self-help book and it worked,

You know,

It set me on the right path.

I used it and I kept thinking I'd go back to him and I think in 1320,

He was having the same experiences that we all have today.

It is like,

Yeah,

We are put here in the dark wood of error and our job is to find our way back to the light.

And until we do that,

We will not be able to rest because that's our real,

Unanimous purpose is to rediscovery our divinity while in material form.

Whoo,

That is a mic drop.

I'm like seeing it in like big highlighted quote,

Like that's it.

And you said,

Once you've done this,

This is what I love.

And for those that are like,

Seriously,

You got to read,

You've got to get this book.

Okay,

I'm going to just tell you again,

I don't care if it's an audible,

I don't care how you get it,

Read it.

I seriously,

And I really don't say that often.

It's like,

Literally I would put it,

I mean,

I have it on audio because I do a lot of audio.

So I can't put it next to my,

I was like,

I can't put it on my bedside table,

But I could put my phone and I could listen,

But really could do it that way.

I love listening.

I loved hearing you speak it.

It was great.

And you're funny and you like,

It came through.

And I just think what you said,

You said once you've experienced the peace,

It's like all you want to do is help others to feel this peace because you're unshackled,

You're free.

Yeah,

Maya Angelou said the function of freedom is to free someone else.

And what you realize as there is a state of the brain that in Asia is called enlightenment or awakening,

And it's seen as kind of a mystical state,

But now brain scientists have looked at monks who've meditated for 60,

000 hours and they never suffer.

And they genuinely are these incredibly happy people and their brains are different.

And the state of being awake,

It switches off two parts of the brain.

One is the part that defines itself as an isolated being separate from everything else.

And the other is a sense of controlling everything.

So what most of us are most afraid to lose is our sense of self and our sense of control.

But if you go deeply enough into your own true nature and just live as your own true nature,

Those two things go silent and then you are part of absolutely everything and you don't need to control anything because the force is flowing in a way that's benevolent to everything in the universe.

And you can relax into that.

And that is not only possible now,

This brain scientist I love,

Andrew Newberg says,

It is not only a measurable state,

But it is one to which we are biologically predisposed.

That means we are false.

There is something in our biology that is seeking to wake up.

Integrity is just a path to it.

It's just one of,

You know,

So is meditation.

So is,

I don't know,

Take your pick,

But mine was integrity.

And I really wanted other people,

You know,

The function of freedom is to say,

Guys,

Come in.

The water is amazing.

Come with me.

Come now,

Please.

It's so much better here.

I just feel like integrity is the path and I'm pretty sure it works.

So anybody who does it,

It's there for you.

And you just,

You laid it out beautifully.

Oh my gosh,

Martha.

I don't want this conversation to end.

I'm like,

I have so many other questions,

But I'm going to respect,

I know everyone listening too.

We're just,

I'm speaking because I can feel everyone like,

Thank you.

Thank you for you for just truly thank you for stepping into your light with this ball of light and really like illuminating the path.

I mean,

You're just such a,

You know,

We use the word light worker.

I mean,

Truly you really are,

You are.

And I want to say for those who happen to watch this,

If it's okay,

Because we have it on YouTube too,

Those paintings behind Martha,

I was like,

I don't say my mind is blown.

I don't like that word.

So my mind is still glowing.

Martha is the painter and the artist.

So you are literally just tapped in to this light in all forms.

And I want to say like your,

Your heart,

Your words,

Truly,

It's such a gift to be here with you.

And I know everybody listening.

I can just feel it.

They're like,

Oh my gosh,

I'm listening to that again.

Like just,

It is such,

Again,

It's,

It's like an ointment,

A soothing,

Calming,

It's real.

It feels so true what you're saying.

It is real that we're connected and I can feel those people too.

And the older I get,

The more I know that sensation of being one.

Yeah.

It's all of us.

We're all the same person.

Here we are.

Amazing.

Thank you.

And from everybody,

We love you,

Martha.

Thank you for being here.

I love everyone out there and you especially Julie.

See you later.

My friend,

I am so grateful that you are part of this powerful community.

I thank you for listening to this episode and I hope it inspires you to remember who you really are and who you chose to be in this lifetime.

I created this podcast from my own heart's desire to amplify the vibration of compassion,

Kindness,

Abundance,

Love,

Magic,

And so much more both within you and the collective.

I'm honored to be your host,

Your friend,

And your companion on this life journey and I would love your feedback.

Let me know what did you love?

What would you love more of?

What would you love to see covered on the show?

And if you feel moved,

Please subscribe,

Rate,

And review the USU podcast so that we can continue to shift the way humanity operates and shape this beautiful collective community.

Eager to learn more about your own intuitive superpowers?

I have an amazing free assessment to help you determine what your intuitive type is.

Just visit juliereisler.

Com forward slash intuition assessment or of course check out the show notes.

With the deepest love,

Admiration,

And respect for your USU.

Until next time.

Reviews

Love Martha Beck! Thank You for getting this information out there!

Just wonderful. I finished reading the book the other day and was thrilled to come across your podcast.

19.2.2022
Shalom Julie.
That interview with Dr. Martha was fascinating, educational, up-lifting with vital lesson.s for life; Truth, being true to oneself, Integrity as well as reminding how multi layered we are (“the archeology of the soul”).
I enjoyed listening to the conversation between you.
So - thank you very very much for sharing.
⚪️🔴🔵🟡🟢

🙏