Depression and Transformation - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 2/12/23

anything that you recommend. I know that you're a big student of the course and miracles. Well, it has to begin on the inside, of course, and many people pray, many people meditate, anything that has to do with finding that love inside yourself. Sometimes we are so wounded and hurt by life that we become hard and we put a shell around ourselves so we won't be hurt by

anyone again. But putting up that shell and putting up those walls actually invites more hurt because when we do put up a wall, what we're really signing deep in a heart someone please love me. But we deflect, you know, we send away the love, the relationships, the good will that we most want. So it does begin with waking up in the morning and just sending love out to

everybody you're going to see today. You know, people say, oh, that's silly, Well, it's funny to hear when you know, theoretically, isn't that what the words of Jesus were, that we should love one another, The words of Buddha, where our infinite compassion brings happiness, the words of the Old Testament justice, justice,

do justice, of mercy, walk humbly with thy God. And many people who don't relate specifically to a particular religious philosophy are coming to understand we've all got to find that inner quiet within ourselves. I think between social media, the fact we're all on our tablets, we're on our on our you know people, you know, we go to the dinner table and our kids are on their computers, they're on their tablets, are on their iPads or iPhones.

We've got to discover each other again. And I think that takes some discipline because the one thing, as far as those tablets are concerned, we're all addicted and we know it, and they they they're designed that way. Yes, they're designed to addict us. And we all know have to start in our own families. It has to start in our own homes. It has to start with parents saying, you know, you're not going to bring that to the

dinner table. It has to start with our talking to one another again and just asking, you know, asking the God of your understanding, make me an instrument of love. Make me a person who contributes to other people. Help me not worry about myself so much that I'm not thinking about how many other people are in the same boat that I'm in, going through the same struggles that

I'm going through. That's the only way that aren't any silver bullets that's going to heal everything, right, But there's if there's way to the only thing that's going to dissolve all the hate that's in the era is if we put out more love. Love is the only thing that can drive out hate. You you have the only thing that can drive out darkness. You've been a student and a teacher of course and miracles for many, many, many years. I've followed your daily lessons from the course.

Could you tell us a little bit about what that is? Was it originally? Was it a channeled text. Well, the Course in Miracles. You know, no book like The Course of Miracles has a monopoly on truth. It's a psychological mind training based on universal spiritual things. So people from all religions read the course, people from no religions read

the course. It's simply about recognizing the power of the mind, and that every single thought we think carries with it the capacity to affect our lives and the lives around us, not just everything we do, but everything we think. And we are trained in this world, and we're trained by the narratives of this world. And in many ways we're tempting, because of all the anxiety that we've been talking about

here tonight, to be very judgmental and very mean. So and so the problem that group of people is the problem. And we can disagree about things like we were talking politically before. It's important to have passionate disagreements or to call systems to accounts that are unjust, but we don't have to personally demonize one another. And we once again it's on social media. It's in too much of the media.

We are far too indulgent of hatred and our hearts and the only you know, we ourselves are responsible for transforming our lives on the inside. We have rights to expect our government to do a whole lot more than it now does to help transform things on the outside. But none of that is a substitute for the changes that we have to make inside our hearts. You know, everybody who's listening right now, they even think of just one person, and everybody's listening, there's one person who If

you forgave that person, your whole life would change. Because you are holding onto resentments, and you're holding onto grievances, you're holding onto what they did to you, and so you're not letting life begin again. You're not letting you know, the way the universe works is kind of like a GPS. If you took the wrong turn, the GPS will automatically recalibrate. Well,

that's how life works. You know, somebody treated you without love, You did something without love, somebody else did something to you, you did something stupid. We all have those things. We all have those things. This is so important to remember. At least, so we all have those things. But life is created to give you another path. But not if

you're holding onto the resentments. You know, not if you're holding on to the you know what they did to me, you know, then you get a ship on your shoulder, and then you actually subconsciously invite more of the same kind of experience that you're so upset about, and life compounds the pain, and then you say, see, nothing ever changes, you know, to begin with us, it has to begin with a toning in our hearts, with a mistakes we've made, and praying in whatever way we pray, or asking, you know,

whatever language works for us, that we might we ourselves might change and be more open hearted. Every thought we think, every spot we think, is either an open hearted response to life or a response to life that is a hardened heart. And when the heart is open, we attract good things. We attract people who want to be with us, We attract love, we attract happiness. But when our hearts are shut tight, what we attract is pain, and what we attract is other people who are shut down to

us the way we're shut down to them. And you know, everybody's listening recognizes everything I'm saying, because this is just a human experience. Yes, it definitely is, and you have I was listening to a lecture from lind twist, and she wrote a book recently about the prophecies that she's gained from her years and years at with the pachamamallions

visiting indigenous tribes. And there's a prophecy amongst these tribes collectively twenty or thirty of these tribes of the Eagle and the Condor, and I don't know the exact timing, but it's something about being in the last hundred years of this five hundred year cycle, where the beginning of this cycle is very tumultuous, very dark, very much filled with contrast as we've seen the first twenty three years of this hundred year cycle we're in, but where the

prophecy says that we're moving is more towards this light, more towards humanity coming together, more towards hope, more towards solution and resolution. And so this conversation is aproposed to that because you're talking about, yes, these daunting statistics and the place that humanity is in right now, specifically Americas in this country, very a lot of despair. Yet this conversation needs to go towards that level of hope. What do you feel is possible, Marianne, what do you see

in the next twenty years. Well, we're living in two simultaneous realities right One world is clearly falling apart around us, There's no doubt about it. Our institutions, our environment, our democracy, I mean, things are crumbling, and clearly there is the end days of a certain era. But at the same time, as you've been talking about on the show tonight, wonderful things are happening and a new world. You know, there's an Indian writer, Aarondati Roy and she said there is

a new world that is struggling to be born. We feel that too, And I think in that space called God or whatever we want to call it, there is infinite capacity to transform, to change, to begin again, I mean all of us, since I mean that's the mercy of God. Is this part of the power of faith that you know? I love the story in the Bible of this the prodigal son. The father is more excited to see the son who left and came back than

to see the son who had never left it. We've all made our mistakes, we've all fallen down, but the issue in life is getting back up, you know him Anyway, the writer said life breaks everyone, but some people grow stronger in the broken places. That's happening too. What's happening

is regeneration. What's happening is repair. And that's what we have to understand, I think, is that with every thought, every action, everything we do with our lives, we are either contributing to the energy of the downward spiral of our civilization or we are contributing to the upward spiral. And you know, there are so many ways that solutions are available today, from regenerative agriculture to green energy, to

new ways of doing community and economics and business. The problem is the people who have the power aren't applying the solutions because they don't necessarily make quick corporate profits, and the people who have the solutions don't necessarily have the power. So we're living in this time of struggle,

there's no doubt about that. But I think it's a time of great hope and possibility because if you believe in a power higher than we are, greater than we are, that lives within us, then the possibility of what God can do. You know, there's a line. God can only do for us what he can do through us. But if we surrender our lives and ask that our lives be used as instruments of good and peace and this extraordinary revolution of consciousness and love that is trying to

take place. Then you start attracting more people who have that same kind of consciousness, the same kind of mindset. You stop attracting people around you who are just saying, ain't it awful. You start attracting more people who are inviting you into the space of the relationship and circumstance where people are doing cool new things. Both things are happening, and we ourselves, I think, have to take responsibility for

which one of those things we're put in our attention to. Yes, as I mean, it's according to the prophecy and what you're talking about, these two worlds existing now, and I'm sure astrologically this is all being supported that we're in this transition I feel is taking place. But do you have any evidence of the fact that we are transitioning towards this more hopeful future, a more connected humanity. Well, I think we need to realize which way it will go. It is up to us, you know, I mean, that's

the thing. You know, it's not you know. One of my least favorite comments or one of my biggest piece is when people say, well, we'll see, and though we have no power, you know, I think it's true that on an external level, the average American has much less power to change their circumstances than we should have for all the things we were talking about, lack of healthcare and all that kind of stuff. But internally we have the power. You know, Nobody can determine for you how

you choose to live your life. No one can determine for you where you put your attention. No one can determine for you whether you're going to spend your life blessing other people or blaming other people, whether you're going to be an instrument of forgiveness or you're going to be an instrument of judgment. Only we can, you know, only you can determine that for yourself. And you know, nobody should just believe me because I said, you know, or because anyone else said it. Try it and see.

And I just know in my own life when I always say, Lisa, when I practice what I preach, my life works really well. Get there twenty four hours every day. But when we seek, in whatever situation, to be kinder, to be to ask about other people's issues and not just our own to ask how we can be an agent of vetterment in somebody else's life. That's we are participating in a fundamental movement on the planet away from

darkness and into light. And otherwise, with the state of our democracy, with the authoritarian stresses, with a stress of environmental breakdown, with the economic inequality, if we do not consciously exert a proactive effort to move in the direction of a light, then the darkness could definitely overwhelm us. And we shouldn't kid ourselves. Oh yeah, civilization could go through chaos the likes of which we've never known in

our lifetime. Yes, there are I love that we're talking about this, that we have the power to change our thoughts,

our neurology towards this conversation or towards a more hopeful conversation. Yes, we're aware of the statistics, and yes there is an onset of even new technologies with the first part of tonight's show is talking all about AI and chat GPT in this whole level of technology that's going to accelerate over the next ten months, likely what we've seen in the past ten years, and if just an ounce of this could be used towards good How do I create a more positive future? How do I learn to love

my neighbor? How do I be kind to one person a day? That could be used towards anything that could create or generate goodness. It would make sense, It would make so much more sense, and then that could start to generate more of the same like it does in Ai. Well, also, you know when you say how do I, it's just there is no how to to this? You decide to You know, I realized a few years ago that the best advice I can give myself, I'm telling you, ninety percent of the time when I have a problem, the

answer is some form of oh, Marianne, get over yourself. Yes, think about somebody who's life is a little harder than yours right now, And how could you help just that kind of thinking begin to transform everything? You know? Martin Luther King How to term cosmic companionship. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more