Welcome to Go, Ask Alli, a production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. I think, like Evort, Gina's have a lot to say. I think we should let them speak out of it and they'll just talk. Yes, one of the hardest things to absorb for those who are new to these kinds of fights.
Again, if we want all of them, we wouldn't be here. If you see a monster, don't try to run away, step right up to it and say, what do you have to teach me?
Why are you? In my mind, I want.
To be the person who has cancer and doesn't run a marathon, Like, do I have to work that hard? No, it's the best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome to Go, Ask Gali. I'm Ali Wentworth. You know, this is the last episode of season three and we're going out with a bang. I have Martha Beck, my spiritual guru, and my bestie Marishka harget Day and it is a
love fest full of life lessons. You know. The thing I love about women, and particularly with my girlfriends, is how we take information and we hand it from one to another. We all rise up together. It's the greatest thing in the world to feed each other. And these girls are just chock full of little wise nuggets. So fasten your seatbelts. Martha Beck I'm sure you all know, is a New York Times best selling author, life coach, and speaker. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science.
NPR and USA Today have called her the best known life coach in America Boom. Her published works include several big hits, Finding her Own North Star, The Joy Diet, and Expecting Adam, and Martha's newest book, The Way of Integrity Finding the Path to Your True Self was an instant New York Times bestseller and everybody should read it, And of course, marshco Hargate my bestie. She's an award
winning actor, director, producer, and philanthropist. She's best known for playing course Detective Olivia Bent's on the NBC drama series Law and Order SVU since nineteen ninety nine. She's been doing this and also on Law and Order Organized Crime since twenty twenty one. Outside of acting, Marishka founded the Joyful Heart Foundation, which provides support to survivors of sexual assault and abuse, with their current primary initiative to end
the backlog of rape kits in the US. One little thing you may not know about Marishka is she sets a beautiful table. So if you ever get invited over for lunch or dinner, take a picture. Okay, so I am so excited. There's no sweeps in podcasts, but if there were, this would be my sweeps episode. Yeah, because there are the two women who are my guests today are my inspiration, my best siet Marishka Hargate and my guru Martha Beck. Hello, Warriors of Life. I'm obsessed with both of us.
Thank you and Martha. I just have to say I am such a big fan that when I read your book The Way of Integrity, I probably sent it to twenty of my friends, Oh my gosh, and told everybody that I met that this was such a must read and for every age. I sent it to my god daughters, I sent it to my friends. I sent it to people that were older than I am.
And if that's possible.
It's it's well, it's I like to tell myself that that's what happened. Anyway, It's just an honor and a pleasure really and a dream to be able to speak with you in this forum. And I said to Ali, I think if my memory serves me, Ali was one of the people that I sent your book to. Oh yeah, so I'm some way. I'm just I feel like I have a little bit of a part of this journey that we're all on together.
No, it's come full circle. And Marishka sent me the book and I said, what integrity? And I looked it up and I said, I don't have any How do I get some?
Yeah?
Okay, So here's you know, the three of us could probably do a podcast that would go on for years and years and years. So I'm going to keep it. I'm going to streamline it because it's something that I think about all the time. And Martha just quick backstory.
I'm in Boston, Massachusetts right now. My mother fell broke her hip, femur and knee, and so I've been spending you know, twelve hours a day at the hospital and one of the things that has and I was planning on talking about this anyway, but I am suddenly struck with all kinds of ideas about mortality and also about you know, being a middle aged woman and what it means now, because I think it's different than it used to be. Because the Golden Girls were in their fifties, right,
which is shocking, were like forty two. Yeah, and I'm looking at the screen now and none of us look a day over thirty. So quite so, I don't want to talk about like what kind of vitamins or hormonal cream we're supposed to use. I want to talk about the inside stuff because Marishka, my friend, lives her life with joy and energy and there's a just a vivaciousness about her that I find intoxicating, and there's a young spirit and you have it as well, you're just more
clinical about it. So I want to go through it. How are we middle aged women right now, with kids, with lives, with anxiety, with global threats, how are we going to thrive in the next ten twenty years of our lives.
You're actually asking me right now to say.
Yeah, yeah, you got to answer this question, and you've got forty five minutes.
Go Okay, you're absolutely right. Nothing's ever been this way before. The change is accelerating so fast and at an exponential rate, and the rate, the exponent that describes how fast it changing, is also changing exponentially, So basically there's a straight upward line of change. That means that our lives are nothing
like our mother's lives or our grandmother's lives. Nothing. When my father was born, because I was born when he was older, horses were still he was born in Hollywood and they were still riding horses around, and like he only died a few years ago. So the pace of change is insane. No one knows what to do about it. I read a column by Richard Reeves, who talks about boys and men, and he said they're in crisis now because women changed the script during the feminist movement about
what men and women are supposed to do. So women are off to the races and men don't have a script and they have to improvise and this is hard on them. And I thought, what do you think it's like for us? And we're making this up as we go along, and we've made more changes in one generation than any generation before. Here's the thing. In an entire world rocked by things that have never happened before, what is needed wisdom, the wisdom of how to tolerate change.
Most men in the old arc would live one season. Spring yay, summer, a fall, hang on asbit long as you can winter, Oh dead boom. Women every day month we go through this, we go through changes, and you know, and then we go through changes where the caretakers of the young, the old, the sick, when they get sick, our lives change. When we get sick, our lives change.
We do more things under more pressure than men have to do, and that is what gives a human being wisdom, and wisdom is the real you know, it used to be that knowledge was power. Then in the twentieth century they said attention is power. Now I believe wisdom is power.
You know, they say, you know, uh, life is wasted on the youth. What's the saying youth is wasted on the young? Yeah, well all that because I feel and Marishka and I talk about this all the time, and Marishka way in here that I'm not only starting to figure it out now at you know, in my late fifties, and I feel like we get smarter and wiser definitely, And I just think, God, what a dumb ass I was in my twenties.
No, not dumb ass.
Oh maybe we don't know, but.
It's not dumbass. And I, you know, I think that's such an important thing, Allie, that you say, because I think all of us look at ourselves. I mean, I know that I certainly do with this self sort of flagellating mentality of all the mistakes we made and what we didn't see. But what I find now is, you know, the question was how do we live in these uncertain times? And I think that the answer is yes, wisdom is
our superpower and flexibility. Yes. And I find now, you know, I figured out sort of a while ago that you know, we can either laugh or cry, and so I've noticed now and I do think it's wisdom. Allian we do talk about it all the time. Is this idea of what are you going to do? And I sort of find myself skipping the drama piece and moving quickly toward okay. It's it's a quicker move toward acceptance and then moving on.
And I think also combined with that is this wisdom that comes where you say, like your boundaries are so clear that I just go, I decide, and I read somewhere, don't hang out with people that are bad for your nervous system. And this is something that has truly changed my life, because you know, what is wisdom, Wisdom is connecting to our unconscious. We already have that the answers inside us, and knowing that and trusting that and trusting our gut we hear, it's your second brain. It's your
second brain. It is, it really is. And it took us a while to sort of grock that. But now I feel I feel such a sense of peace and less anxiety, which is ironic with the state of the world the way it is, and yet and yet knowing that I have the love of my friends and my friendships and how valuable that is to me, but even more importantly my own inner compass, which is again our gut and our deep knowing, and I think that takes stillness, and so that learning to hone that and really trust
it is everything. And my other thing that I'm preaching to the world, which is the idea now of instead of reacting, getting curious about something that happens, getting curious about your own reaction about your own anger about your own like wow, like you can almost feel like you're
overtaken by aliens. And then we say, hmm, wow, that I had a powerful reaction to what's that about, as opposed to you know, which is what I certainly did because of my own trauma and my own fear, and now we get to a place where we go this is how it is, and emotional discomfort is a almost a friend of what the volcano is underneath and what
we need to excavate. And the last thing I'll say, not really the last thing, because Martha Martha, she'll talk, but the last thing I'll say is this is integration, which is just the key. And I know you talk about it, which is it spoke so much to me, the idea of you know, all the parts that we have and making peace with them and integrating and then you know, I look at them like our little children inside of us and giving attention to all of them.
Yeah.
So before Martha, Martha is literally chopping at the bit because she's like, wait a second, Murshka talks even more than me. How could it possibly be wanted? I wanted because Mrshka just hit all all Like if Muska is writing a book right now, she's hit all the chapter heads. So I want to start with something because she's Mrska said this to me many times, and I find it very comforting when she says, don't be around people that hurt your nervous and still love that It takes us
a long time to realize that. And I think, Martha, if I'm not wrong, you describe it as mean, people suck. Not as eloquent as Mariska, But so talk to us when you when you write about me and people suck.
What you mean, Well, you're like an animal inside. Actually, it's like Mauritian has been reading my next book over my shoulder as I write. This is so brilliant. Oh, but when you're around somebody that causes your nervous system to react negatively, your social self tries to override it. I'm supposed to be charming. I'm supposed to be president. I'm supposed to be calm. I'm supposed to give this person a hug and a kiss. But there's an animal self inside us that is actually much older than the
human neocortex. It's ancient and it knows when something is dangerous. So my friend Gavin de Becker, who wrote the book The Gift of Fear, talks about if an animal is alone in a room a dark building at night, and it goes to the elevator and the door opens, and there's someone inside that scares it. The only animal that will voluntarily walk into a soundproof steel box with another animal that scares it is a human, And yeah, that override is what we have to just let go of.
And I think Mariska has because even if it's just a little annoyance, we do not have dying for that.
But let me ask you this, Martha, because I agree with you, and this is something that I've inherited from my own mother, which is, how do you then get rid of the toxicity and be polite? Because there have been people in my life that hurt my nervous system. But I don't want to I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to make waves. I don't want to be confrontational, and I've been brought up to
be very polite. So how do I do that? How do I how do I not get in the elevator without offending the person in it?
Well, if you override your instincts to make peace around you, you go to war on yourself.
Yep.
So the first thing is, if you want peace inside, realize that at some point your nature is going to bump up against somebody else's desires in a way where you'll disappoint them or upset them. That happens and then see what Mariska said is so key. I'm writing about anxiety now, and a lot of women more than men are are hair triggered when somebody else comes out with anger or even disappointment. Uh, it's we get so triggered and we get anxious and we go into what's called a fawning response.
Did you know?
Fight flight are some of the responses of anxiety, But fawning is another one where we please and we smile and we flatter because it's a social primate's way to not get killed by bigger social primates. Right, So we go into this involuntary fawning response that happens when the brain goes to fear boom. But there are two little structures the amy delay left and right at the core of the brain that deal with fear. And when the left of mygdala of fires boom, we get scared, start
getting wound up and anxious and fawning. If at that moment we go instead to curiosity. That's how the right hand amygdalah handles just unusual situations. So there's a bolt of fear, somebody's coming at you. If you can say, huh, what's happening? If you can even force curiosity like a detective looking at this person, your brain will automatically go away from anxiety and into a curious and then a connected space on the right hemisphere, and your anxiety comes down.
And the interesting thing is that anxiety cuts us into and sort of pushes all of our connective parts away, where if we can get into the right hemisphere.
It includes everything.
It includes our nervousness, it includes the other person's anger, but it holds it all in a space of enormous calm, connected wisdom. We're coming right back to that. But curiosity is the chemerisk is absolutely right.
So explain that.
Yeah, Well, first of all, Ali, Ali also has a superpower because we've had many talks about confrontation and not I am not afraid of confrontation. My parents weren't scared to say anything. I wish they were, but Ali and I had I mean, we joke about it because we were raised in such opposite ways, and yet she and I come together and meet so many places. Ali, I think your superpower has been your beautiful and samurai sharp comedy and wit, which can de escalate so many situations.
I have a fraction of it, which I use a lot, but it is challenging for me to be with people that are very social and polite and keep it nice and I smile through it, and you just feel like, oh my god, I don't even know this is everyone's so full of don't say shit. That's what I tell my kids after they watched Shit's creak, okay, sis Shiza, that that's very difficult. And that's when I'll say, you asked about the curiosity, and I've told you Ali, I've
dealt with it with my daughter. I have an eleven year old daughter, and you know, they throw around the words like she was being mean, and then I say, well, let's talk about me. Why do you think somebody would be mean? And let's be And I say, like a detective and say, why would they be mean? Do you think maybe they felt scared? Do you think maybe they felt insecured? Do you think they maybe felt jealous? And
we'll try to break it down that way. But I've found when I'm triggered or angry, or I'm talking to somebody and I go, my god, or we're having like a non conversation because they're not saying the truth. They're saying what they think I want to hear or what's appropriate. And I've done it too. I'm certainly not casting stones. I do it less now. I do it a lot less now. Or I'll be like, tell me about that.
Oh wow, that's different. I just see it so differently, and I I just ask why Martha you have your hand up at Martha?
Okay? So for real pragmatic approach, I used to think, yeah, if people are nice, fine, but if what if people are genuinely mean? What if they're really mean? And my favorite instructions for this come from an FBI hostage negotiator. Oh, Chris Boss. He was the top negotiator, and the way he deals with a hostage taker. So we're talking a psychopathic maniac who's killing multiple people in real life.
Okay, well, now you're talking to Olivia Benson, Marcia.
There you go.
Yeah, I would just say why tell me more about why you want to.
Love your shop?
Thank you.
So what Chris Boss does when he's talking to these people is exactly what I do now with small children or with people who are upset in like in traffic. First of all, you drop your voice. It's really simple and really practical because what you're dealing with is another triggered animal, and the animal is what you're dealing with. So you lower your voice. It's just like you're dealing
with a horse or a dog. Lower your voice, slow your breathing, don't look them in the eye, but look at them with a soft gaze, and then start to reflect what they say. Oh, I'm so upset you. Oh you're really upset. Yeah, I want to kill you. It sounds like you want to kill me. I mean, it seems so stupid when you say it, but you say it in a low voice, a soft voice, and you keep reflecting them, and then they start coming down out of their fireflight. They can't help it. It's mirror yourns.
They can't help it. And then you get calmer, and they get calmer, and you just keep reflecting them. And what I always say is tell me everything, tell me everything. Oh, tell me more. That sounds awful. Within five minutes they're done.
Yeah, this is how my conversations usually go with Allie. Anyway.
By the way, that works for marriage too.
I bet, yeah, I guess. But Martha, what about when you're talking to somebody and that you're talking about to somebody who is triggered. You're talking about that, which is a very effective tactic or technique. But what if you're talking to somebody who's utterly been socialized and polite and disconnected from the self that they never excavated, right Ali, I mean.
Yeah, Murska and I talk a lot about how at our age we just can't do the tip chat anymore. I'm just not interested, you know, can't, as Mersky likes to say, like we go in and we go deeper or not at all. At our age, I don't have time for it anymore.
I have I have.
There's too many people and kids and work, no time. And that is the wisdom.
It's the wisdom that says time is limited. We're not doing any shit. We don't like the end.
Yeah, you know, it's about giving us permission though, too. I need to give myself permission to go. I don't have time for this. I don't have time for this. I'm sick of the bullshit. Yea, just give me my National Inquiry and leave me alone.
Sylvia Plaus said I was not good at small talk, and large talk is not encouraged.
Yeah, oh ouch, but you can, but I just.
Go straight to the large talk. Anyway, I have time for that. If somebody's disconnected, I say to them, you seem completely disconnected. That's the only interesting thing about them. That's the only thing I'm curious about. Yeah, and as an older woman, I can just say.
Shit, yeah, it's so interesting. And I think what got me, that hooked me to you first was, of course you're you know, in the book of the Way of Integrity, of this idea of saying I'm not going to lie for one year. And it's so interesting, right because it's
truly a challenge. I mean when you read that, everyone goes, I'm not gonna lie either, and then you immediately feel that the little, the little micro lies and it is h It is a balance and a dance to not to not hurt it is that's a real skill to not hurt or to couch it in a way that it's authentic to you. That's the part. That's the skill that I'm finding now is this way of being like, I don't want to hurt people ever, but my boundary is crucial and it's my only salvation.
Now.
Yeah, yeah, it always was. We just didn't have it earlier, right.
Right, right, right, or we didn't know we were allowed to have peace and truth and boundaries.
Yeah, and there's a huge there's a huge difference between kindness and caretaking or kindness and fawning and groveling. Fawning and groveling aren't true, and so they bring the whole relationship into a false space. And actually, no one feels safe in there, even though they may be doing the social dance. If somebody just says, you know what, like I just I don't really feel conversational right now. I'm just going to watch you or whatever it is. You know, is it kind?
Is it true? Is it necessary?
Those are the only things you say, and kindness can be no, sweetheart. I mean, think about them all as two year olds. Everybody's a two year old in there.
Yeah, Oh, what a great thing to say.
And you don't let the two year old have the screwdriver.
You just no, right, there's a lot more to come after the short break.
And we're back.
You know. I have found too that when I'm with people that I start to feel unsafe with just because they are doing the chitter chatter small talk as soon as I give permission to be vulnerable, like if I say I can't, there's only so much zoloft I can take. Then they sort of relax into it, and you go, oh my god, me too. It's like it's like it's a hawn you to almost have the ice breaker that gives you a more real human experience with somebody else.
And you can see them, you could see their whole physicality drop into themselves. They go like they actually say like, oh, okay, we're gonna be real. Yeah, and then they just feel utterly relaxed. And that is the gift.
And I think a lot of that, A lot of that is a lot of people that meet Marishka and she's so real with them, She's not performative. They walk away from her and they really feel like they've had a connection. And I'm talking about people she knows, people she doesn't know. And it's been an interesting thing for me to observe because I've learned from it, you know, because I'm less now, my mother, I'm less now, you know. Would you like some more tea and put your white
gloves over there and more? You know, hey, menopause sucks and I heard you're getting divorced, and I think it's a much better space to live in.
Well, first of all, thanks for that. But I find the more honest you are, the more honest they are. And again that's what I was talking about the exhale, and I think that's again what you talked about, Martha in your book, about which you know, I think every shrink on the planet is trying to give. And you did it in such a beautiful and concise way. As we go through the pain, we go through the uncomfortability, your life breaks, falls apart, shatters. You see that this
glass bullshit house you've built. And then on the other side, is that is the definition of wisdom, of peace and everything that God I think intended for us in terms of being all of ourselves, about about having true connection with another, giving one hundred percent, getting two hundred percent, because that's just the mass, and it is been. It's such a honor two to be reminded in such a beautiful and concise way. And and if I may one more, I don't want to overtalk. Allie. Thank you for that
very lovely compliment. And Allie you that's why I love you, is because Ali will level the playing field anywhere. Anytime. We've been in many a situation where I who really like to think of myself as fearless. She'll say something in a group that you don't think is gonna it's gonna land well with and I have been like I mean, speachless and Ali you do that constantly by being so real and so open and saying what everyone's thinking and
not saying. And some people think they don't have the permission to say, and yet it's the truth, and the truth, as we all know, is the only way.
So what you're talking about is courage, yes, And you know there are places where to go through that, Like in the Divine Comedy, which I focus on a little bit in my books, it's the metaphor is a wall of fire that you just have to walk through and it doesn't last long and it's not that painful, but it's terrifying, terrifying to go into it.
So did it happen?
I'm interested in this with both of you, but like.
I'll make a spandwich you guys.
Were you born this way? Did you have an experience where the glasshouse shattered and you've been this way ever since? Or did you learn it incrementally? I want to know from both of you.
Well, my answer is E all of the above. In terms of I did grow up with a father that said that was just bucking the system and said that's bullshit, that's bullshit. Everything is bullshit. So I sort of learned very young to question everything, to question everything. And then as I got old or and I think that I've you know, been through a lot of trauma and so therefore I had so much pain that it really forced me to go into deep self reflection and do work.
And then I started to see the ways that I wasn't being authentic or not I was pleasing or a little bit like the dancing monkey because of my abandonment issues blah blah blah. And then as I worked on them and saw that it was like not my true self, and I started to emerge going, oh, oh, I like
this better. I actually don't like that person or whatever it was, or or you you know, you would if somebody didn't like me, that would be very upsetting and then I could get them to like me, or I'd work too hard on it and then I and then and then I'd get to know them and go, I'm not interested. So it was what happened was I couldn't see clearly, so through the self work and I mean, I'm not going to lie. It's been excruciating. There's been times when I didn't think I could get through, and
it was so painful and so terrifying. But I think for me, it was the courage to the only way out through. It was the courage to go through it and then realizing what I found on the other side was exponentially more peaceful, more authentic. I was more truly loving. I could see clearly people and also what others needed,
and that was just the greatest gift. Wow. And that's why I read the book resonated with me because I had set up things that I thought people wanted or what I was supposed to do, and now I really have no regard for that.
I have met very few people who have done this process from start to finish in one lifetime. Oh my god, you are amazing.
Thank you.
Yeah, Like, everybody look at hurt and you Ali.
No, it's okay, you don't have to look at me.
What is it? Have you always had the laser wit?
Well?
You know, the only thing similar with Marishka is that I grew up in a fractured household of multiple divorces, and I got lost in the system of the family, and so I created wit. You know, that was my way. And I also grew up in a household where there's a lot of secrets, where we pushed everything down. We did not talk about stuff. You did not say words like masturbation or feelings. And so when I got.
Oh, whoa, Who's words for the same thing.
This whole podcast is about master. But so I I at a young age, said I don't want to push things down. I don't want to repress these things. I may not want to masturbate or say the word, but everything else I'm not interested in. And so I would constantly push the envelope and I would do it with my comedy. I would do it with being outspoken. And the more I did that, the more I felt that it was real. So the more I pushed up against my parents and said, well, why did you get divorced?
Why did this happen? Why aren't you like what when was I conceived?
Did this work?
The more I realized that truth is the answer, and truth is going to actually create the human being that I am today. And I still do it. I push hard with my husband, with my friends, you know, even with my mother. Now, who's in the hospital. You know, she's been taking these which make her delusional. She's saying all kinds of stuff, and I, the nurses and everybody
else go, that's right, you're in Ireland. And I go, no, no, Mom, you're in the hospital, because I'm like, we can't play that game anymore, you know, let's just let's just make it up. So anyway, my point is that when I pushed people to tell the truth, I felt safer. Yes, I don't feel safe in a world where everything is make believe and everybody is trying to make sure everybody's okay.
Nobody does. I think that's been such a big part of our friendship and how it continually goes deeper. Yeah, and we've had to go up against a few things.
Which is scary because our personalities are such that, you know, if you if you really get confrontational and you really get down into the muck and mere, you might get abandoned. And both Mariska and I suffer from that. So for to be able to go into a safe space and go all right, let's get dirty and know that we're going to be safe. You know that we're going to
be okay. I mean, I've had times when I've cried with Mushka and I've said to her before we even talked, don't abandon me, don't abandon me, and she goes, ohll never.
You're not getting rid of me.
Yeah, but as soon as she says that, I feel safe and then we can really have a conversation, and that's that you can. And that's just not true of a lot of people. No, it isn't even my husband. He's not going to let go fifty percent of his salary, so I know he's staying.
Plus there's the fact that he's manacled to the radiator.
But yeah, that's also true.
Now, the interesting thing is that even if someone says I won't leave you and then they do, oh, for example, they die, can't help it, it is still worth it because here's the thing. I at a certain point when I decided not to lie for a year, left my religion. So that meantally leaving my entire community of origin because I was raised in this super Mormon community. Whole family gone like huge family, no communication, no friends, like quit my job, quit everything, and a lot of people that.
I still love I never saw again.
It didn't matter the fact that I was finally being honest and saying what I really felt. Even though they said I never want to see you again, and they followed through with that, I was still more whole. And I'll tell you something weird, and it may be woo woo, but it is the truth. You can feel genuine love whether or not someone thinks they love you, and the knowledge that they love you underneath whatever anger they have
can be a part of your own integrity. In fact, if you think they have stopped loving you, you're lying to yourself because love never stops. They can fight it, they can cover it, they can die, it doesn't matter. They are still going to be part of your inner life. And the love of is the only part that's going to get through all the If you put out complete truth, nothing can get through but truth and the love from them is true.
That why God put me on this podcast today to hear you say that.
That's while my guests say every time I record.
Yeah, I'm not talking about you, sweetie, I know, I know. Wait wait wait, Martha, can I ask you one follow up question? Because that is so beautiful And actually that's going to take me a minute to download, and I'd love to talk more about that at another time without Ali kidding offline, Martha offline. But may I ask, because I know that was a while ago when you had the courage to do what you did, which is so heroic.
But did any of those people that said no, no, no, you're done, you're dead to me see you and see what happened and went I want that and come around?
Yeah one of them did one.
Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to say.
Most some other people have come back, you know, distant friends or acquaintance.
Says no, you.
I mean, the grip of that culture is more powerful than you might imagine. But I do have a dear loved one but ended up struggling and struggling, ending up for a while, putting themselves in psychiatric care, and then leaving Mormonism as well, and came back around thirty years later, expecting me to be hateful and mean, and I was like, I have loved you every day of my life. I have never stopped for a second and I never will. And it was just like boom, we were back. We
were there. And the weird thing is, here's the thing. She was the only one I missed.
Oh isn't that interesting?
Yeah, the others I loved, but I missed her and she came back after thirty years, and oh my god, it was like I go through the three. You know, there's the Inferno, there's Purgatorio, and Paradise. Mariska is talking about when you get through all the barriers to integration, you go into a state that's like Dante's Paradise, where everything is so loving and connected and magical. And to have even one relationship like that come back around just
blasted me into that place of magic and beauty. It's so worth being truthful for that, even if you have to wait thirty years.
Yeah, that's so beautiful. Thank you.
You know.
I always say that my one of my favorite feelings is when I am where I'm supposed to be, that I know that there's no place else i'd rather be that. That's that, you know, it's the opposite of I guess fomo right, It's yes, it's somebody said it's called joemo a joy joy of missing out, you know, whatever that was.
I thought that was cute, But this idea of that, and I think what's so tragic to me is that people who are suffering internally knowing something's wrong and don't have the courage to to get out because of how they were indoctrinated, how they were raised. But it's mostly fear based. And for that, I'm so grateful to my father, who was like, challenge everything. And then when I challenged him, because I'd go, I don't agree with you, here's what,
He's like, well what do you think? And I said, well, you said that and that contradicts that, and how can that be true if that's true? And then he would or he you know, when I was a kid, he'd punish me and go, you know, no phone for a week or a month when he was mad. And then I said, Dad, I don't think that that infraction meets the pub and he'd go, you're right. I was mad, Okay, okay,
you could use the phone whatever. It was the sense of the sense of fairness and the sense of also not sticking, not sticking to an emotion in the moment of anger, that things can change and that we have that flexibility to go. That's why I always apologize to my children, to anyone that if I do something wrong, to say that was a moment, a weak moment. I'm sorry. I was mad because I did not navigate my feelings, and Ali and I had this big fight one time that was super scary for us.
It was me's fault.
But no, but that was the moment, remember, And that was the moment that I said, listen to me, I love you, I will never leave you. And that was what changed it, because that's what makes us. That abandonment turns us into the animal, the fearful animal that will do whatever we have to do to protect. And then I think that's what love is saying.
God, so uncomfortable right now, I'm scared shitless, but I love you and I love what you said about it's even it's worth it if that person leaves us.
It's worth it. You know. I have that with my mother. Obviously, it's so so sad and tragic and like I always describe it as sort of a hole in my heart. But sure, but what a beautiful thing to hang on to.
Yeah, and we'll be right back, welcome back to go ask Gali.
You know.
I had a similar experience recently which really made me understand. It was so so cathartic. I had a friend I had known her for twenty five years. We had a full out about a very simple mistake, which is I sent a text to her rather than to my husband, and I was talking about her, and I was critiquing her, and she, because of her very high abandonment, shut the wall.
There's nothing I could do. I called her, and I wrote letters and sent flowers and said, you cannot throw a twenty five year relationship away.
Oh God.
But her abandonment was so high. She just she it was like an iron curtain.
Yeah.
So a few years went by, and I was very sad. You know, I was sad that this relationship had ended for years.
You were sad.
And all of a sudden, she texted me and said, I had a dream about you last night, and we were laughing. Anyway, just to shorten the story, I met her at a restaurant. We met for dinner. This had been six years since we had that thing, and it was the most cathartic evening. It was a four hour dinner wow, where she basically said, I have high abandonment. I'm scared, but I love you, So I'm here and I'm going to be vulnerable with you, and I'm going to hope for the best. And I came to her
and said, I've been hurt by you. I've been angry about this, but I'm putting that aside. I'm going to be totally vulnerable, and I hope I can be safe with you. And we ended up obviously going through everything, but really getting into why we had the reactions we had, why we felt the way we felt, And it was a journey that I got to speed through a journey of what we're talking about now and then came out the other end. And now we have this friendship again.
It's a different friendship than it was, but it's a friendship that went through such a hurdle that now we kind of know each other in a deeper way and there's an understanding of I'm not going anywhere on both sides, you know.
What I mean.
And I took this big risk and this big leap, whereas ninety percent of me is saying like forget it, Like I was even thinking, like you know what, I forget it. She hasn't spoken to me in sixty years, like I'm that's it, I'm over it. And so I got to learn this lesson and play it out, you know, with another human being. As much as I read I read about your lessons in your book. I actually, you know, I had to. It was on my stage, you know, And it's always scary.
It's always scary. But what you both said is so powerful, Like what if we made a commitment right here, and it's like a gust up integrity cleanse. The integrity cleans is no lies. I've been on my current one for seven years.
By the way, you haven't lied in seven years.
Not purposely. Sometimes I slip and say it by accident, but really then I always go back and say, I'm so sorry I said that because I want you to like me.
So who do you think is prettier? You're Marishka.
You're both divine, gorgeous goddesses, and I do not have to lie. You get to hook me up to a Do.
You think it's more wisdom?
We're all part of the one great mind.
So there, haha.
You're both wonderful. But you both said this thing that is incredible is even even deeper than saying I will tell the truth is My truth is love and when I love truly, that can not change you know. So you want to beat me up, I will defend myself physically, but I will love you through the whole thing. You want to abandon me. Go ahead, I'll grieve, I'll cry. I will love you through the whole thing. You will
never be able to stop me from loving you. And then bang, your side of the street is clean and you get to go to paradise no matter what.
Oh, that is the lesson. That is the lesson, Martha. You should write a book or blog or do something something with your life.
But who would read it.
You got to meet our friend Oprah, she would really dig you.
But I have to say, that is such a gift to hear and again the beautiful reminder. And then when we hear something truth, we go our soul ghosts. That's true. That's true. Yeah, And so for that I thank you because like that's my language is love too. But I just love the idea. Ali. Next time, if we have an uncomfortable moment, I'm gonna go I love you.
I want to say one more thing too. The topic I was given, we were going to talk about aging women.
Yeah we're not now, I guess, but we are you No, I know because I just read.
This book by Catherine May, who's who wrote a beautiful memoir, and she talks about meditating and how men get to go off and sit in silence for ninety days and discover them to themselves. But what are the women doing. They have to get up during those ninety days when my husband's not there and take care of people and wipe up vomit and be cursed at and have your mother or your child scream in your face or whatever, and to come back somehow with gentleness and power and strength.
And that is something we learn by doing it over and over and over again. And that is what aging women have more than anybody else in the world. I would venture that as a sociologist. So we have all this time and been talking about that, and the message is be in your truth and love forever, full stop. Yeah, and that's what we bring.
Look at you, Martha, ending the podcast on a perfect notea well before we hop off, and this was great. I told you you can't you know we could literally do a podcast once a week for the next forty years.
That would be fun.
To give people that have been on my show an opportunity to ask me a question. So Martha and Marishka, if you can ask me a question, why don't we start with Martha anything you want?
How do you stay funny when you're scared. Ah, because this is another right brain thing. If the right brain handles humor, if you can bring that in, it does the same thing as curiosity. It deflates all the aggression. So how do you do it when you're scared?
It actually comes on stronger when I'm scared?
Did it always?
Always? So if I'm scared, or if I'm at a very high anxiety level, the humor kicks in and I'm almost not even conscious of it.
Wow?
Yeah?
Wow?
Yeah? Can I quote you in my book that you can quote me as much as you want? Yeah, I mean, Marishka, do you remember when we were running, Yes, and we were scared, and I was making jokes about how well I guess I'm with Olivia Benson, So I can't. That is my That is how my consciousness is trying to calm me down. Yeah, And I'm almost not even aware
of it. It just starts happening. Or if I'm at a dinner party and I'm socially anxious, I almost disassociate and I you know, turn into carrat top and it just it takes over as a way to protect me.
That's fascinating. Yeah, that's fascinating and very true. Yeah, wow, thank you.
Yeah, if you'd like to do some experiments on me for your next book with wires and probes, they will involve wires and probes, right, I love a probe. Mariska your turn asked me anything, although I'm sure you've asked me.
I had like three, You're only allowed one, sweetheart. I'm a rule breaker.
Oh, I guess.
So I was gonna say, how do you stay scared when you're funny? Ah? See how I did that?
Oh I don't see what you did there.
Yeah, I would say, Alie, how do you take care of yourself? And I ask that because Ali is somebody who like, is so incredibly thoughtful and takes care and makes everyone feel so seen, you know, and is cake baker and a text writer, and I know how she takes care of her family and makes children feel number one. She makes me feel like I'm the only person in the world. And yet there's a lot of people that
feel that way. And so the output is big, and it's there's nothing you can't do, even in the middle of the day, And I'm like, Ali, I need cookies, and then like, you know, an hour later, I've got cookies. So how do you take care of you or replenish your soul?
See Martha, I'm going to tell you something right now, Even Marishka right now complimenting me, I get so uncomfortable that I could have made ten jokes. I could have interrupted her and made a million jokes.
Oh yeah, I really want to do probes on you.
You pull me.
What was the first joke that came to you?
How do you take care of yourself? You said, how do you take care of yourself? Then? You know, my jokes were like have you seen my stomach? You know, I'm just like deflect, deflect, deflect, But that's it's God, that's my defense. But how do I take care of myself?
Not? Well?
I mean that's one of the things I'm learning as I get older, because when I was younger, I would not eat, not sleep. You know, I went through a depression in my late twenties where my body shut down. I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't sleep, I was chain smoking, and you know, so I'm I'm the first to turn on myself that way. But I'm learning as I used to be used to yes, and I'm learning as I get older. I'm like, I got to sleep I need to sleep, I need to eat. These are the things
I need to do. And right now, when I'm at the hospital with my mother all day long, I know when I need to go downstairs to the commissary and call my husband and breathe and have you know, a banana. So I'm learning I don't run myself into the ground like I used to, And that to me is wisdom.
Okay, it's certainly the beginning. Yeah, and oh my yeah, Like I'm dying to ask you. I know where at the end, but I'm just dying to ask you. If you take the gester, the one inside you who's making the jokes and who's disassociated from the rest of you and is also running on nervous energy and nicotine and whatnot, And you imagine like watching her jolly and the everywhere, and you're watching her from the position of a calm
like omniscient presence. What is the kindest thing you could say to the gesture?
I think I would put my arm around the gesture and say, you don't have to do that.
Ooh, did you just feel that.
I did?
It's that thing about she came into her body when she said it. Yep, she came back into integrity, because being kind to all the parts of ourselves is integration, bringing them all into the circle of our embrace.
That's right, And you did it.
You just did it so beautifully, Alie.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you, guys. This was more than a girl could ever hope for. And I think people listening to this are going to listen to it over and over again because you are some badass warriors. And I'm so glad that schedule permitted we could get together. And by the way, let's get together not on this podcast.
Yeah. Literally, like what you said about Marishka when you got on, it felt it the moment I saw her face, it was just like, oh she's real.
Yeah, so real. Oh gosh, and Ali, I've always felt that way about you, so Martha.
Yeah, thank you, guys.
I love you.
Thank you for having me.
I love you guys so much.
This was the best you guys, it really was.
Thank you for listening to go ask Galie, whoa what a way to end season three? Oh? I love those girls.
Well.
You can learn more about Martha Beck, her books, and her podcast at Marthabeck dot com, and Marushka can be found on Instagram. At the Real Murshka Hargatea and of course Olivia Benson can be found every day, all day long on every channel. For links and more info and what you heard in this episode, just check out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review, Go Ask Galie and follow me on social media on Instagram
at the Real Ali Wentworth. Now, if you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into for season four, I would love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways you can do it.
You can call or text me at.
Three two three three six four six three five six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go Ask Galipodcasts at gmail dot com. If you leave a question, oh shit, hold on dog sparking. If you leave a question, you just might hear.
Hey, maybe you can put that in.
If you leave a question, you just might hear it on Go Ask Gali And that's a wrap on season three. Go Ask Gali is a production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,