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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norie with you. Doctor Donna Mark's back with us. Has been a licensed psychotherapist and addictions counselor in Palm Beach, Florida for more than thirty years. In nineteen eighty nine, doctor Marx developed a chemical dependency training program at the Palm Beach Community College, which has grown into a four year degree now and
received the Florida Governor's Council Award. How about that. She is also a certified gestalt therapist, psychoanalyst, hypnotist, and teaches a course in miracles, along with sharing her methods with hundreds of thousands of listeners on podcasts and radio shows. Her website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, She's on all social but we've got the website linked up at COASTOCOASTAM dot com. She was with me when we talked about her book called Exit the Maze, One Addiction, One Cause, One Solution.
Her latest work is called Healing Moment, Seven Paths to Turn Messes into Miracles of Love. Dona, welcome back.
How are you?
Oh? I'm great and I'm so happy to be back on your show, Thank you so much.
Last week I had the fill on talking about addictions as well, and we'll talk about them in a different way with you tonight. But a lot of people have addictions, don't they. Yes.
I believe it's the number one global health problem and we don't recognize it as such because we have heart attacks, stroke, cancer, lung disease, kidney disease, liver disease, and almost all of those are based in abuse in terms of people who eat too many trans fats, smoke, drink too much alcohol. I take drugs and those toxins have caused permanent damage for the organs, and then person goes to the doctor and they get diagnosed with the physical symptoms rather than the actual underlying cause.
Tell us about the title of your new book, The Healing Moment, thank you.
Well. We all have at some point in our life, and sometimes we realize that sometimes we don't. The healing moment is that moment in time where you get that oh aha, now I see this wasn't so hard after all, or this was a good thing, or I could make this change. We learn how to listen to. We have two voices. One of fear when of love, and we learned to listen to that second voice, that quiet, still voice, and when we do listen to it, we do have
those miracles. And no matter how bad we've messed up or whatever mistakes we've made, we can clean it up and turn it into a miracle.
Some people don't listen to that second voice, don at this side it. So it's one of those things.
Very true, very true, And it doesn't matter what mistakes we make, we can always turn it into a miracle. But we can't do it of our own. We can't do it when we're afraid to do it.
And this is not a very religious, a spiritual book. It's more metaphysical, I would guess, wouldn't you.
Well, I think metaphysical is spiritual, and I don't like to talk about that per se because so many people will put their fingers in their ears and go no, no, no, no, no no. But I think we all can relate to the fact that we have some kind of conscience that guides us. It's like our moral compass, and even atheists, you know, will acknowledge, Yeah, there's something going on in
there that I don't really know what it is. It's my thoughts, and I can recognize that I have two sets of thoughts, so it is spiritual, and that love is spiritual. To me, God is love. Love is God. So once we tap into that source within us, then we can really become much happier and peaceful.
It seems lately, Dona that so many people are negative. Why is that?
Because we're living on fear. It's all around us. We don't even realize that we are afraid. Almost every decision is based on fear rather than love. And if we could make that shift, we would be so much freer to manifest our talents, our dreams, our goals, and get rid of guilt and anger and all the things that keep us stuck.
We're going to talk about these seven paths as you talk about in the book. How did you pick the seven? Why not eight? Why not ten? Why not three?
That's just what came to me when I was writing. There's no magic formula, although seven is one of the more spiritual numbers, I'm told, but it really it's just, you know, to me, the most important. There's probably more, and maybe that'll be another book, but right now it's part two.
That's right, exactly all right, let's go through the seven. The first one, of course, the voice of love tell us about that.
Well, that's what I was referring to a little bit ago. We run on the voice of fear. You shouldn't have done this, you shouldn't have done that, you shouldn't correct this, or you shouldn't take that risk, or who do you think you are? What do I want to eat or what I want to drink? Or I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. And so it's just that it's like I call it the bingo machine in the brain. It just never shuts up. It keeps you awake at night. It doesn't want you to
get out of the bed in the morning. It keeps us anxious, it keeps us depressed, It keeps us in that negative state. It just never stops. But there's also that quiet, still voice. It doesn't intrude upon our thoughts, but it's always there and we can always access that. It's kind of like the water fountain. You have to turn it on to get nourished with the water, and it's the same thing with that voice of love. It's always there. It will guide you, it will help you,
it will have the answers that you need. They don't always come inwards. Sometimes it's a feeling and intuition. People say, when I listen to my guys, I do the right thing, or I wish I would have listened to my gut, and so however you won't perceive it. It doesn't matter. That is the voice of love.
Where does the voice come from? Is it God given?
Well, I believe we're born with it, and I do believe it's God given. But again, God to me is love. It's a loving energy, a loving force, the alpha and the omega, and we are born with it. I do believe we're born perfect. I'm not saying that every you know, I don't discount the fact that some people are born with disabilities, but even in their own purest state, they are perfect. And I don't believe we have brain disorders and things like that, that we're being fed now so
we can take more pills. I believe we're born with this inner knowing. There are people who have severe disabilities, who are missing arms and legs, who become motivational speakers, and so you know, if we tap into the source, we can all be motivational speakers. And I don't mean I don't mean that literally. I mean we can be motivation in the way that we speak and the way that we live life, and the way that we love, and the way that we manifest our gifts and talents.
The second path control.
Yes, well, well we're all busy trying to control everything but ourselves. And so once we redirect that energy from trying to control others or situations, I don't care what it is. Once we rain that in and say, wait a minute, this is disturbing my peace of mind. I'm not here on the planet to try and change anybody else. I can change myself, and sometimes by changing myself, I manifest the change that I'm trying to create. If something is disturbing me, I can work on why that's disturbing me.
If I'm reacting to something, I can work on that reaction to why I'm disturbed. And then if it's something out there, how can I make a difference in a positive way rather than judging and condemning and fighting. How can I communicate or be affected as an assistant or a helper in a positive way. So when we change ourselves, that's when the miracle occurs. Because a miracle is when we go from being upset and distressed and angry and guilty into feeling peaceful and joyful.
Why is it that some people are control freaks.
Donna, because they're running on higher degrees of fear than others. The more fear that we're writing on and being driven by, the more controlling we become.
Is there a difference between that kind of control and someone who's let's say, running a business and he just looks at every detail, every area, he's just in on everything.
Well, that's not necessarily control. Running a business efficiently and effectively is taking responsibility for your business. But when you're trying to micromanage or be a helicopter boss or a mother or a partner or anything like that, then you're trying to manage someone else in a destructive way rather than a constructive way.
That's a good point. Next third path trust, Well, trust.
Is something that people don't realize that it's multifaceted. And what I say in my book is you are the most important person you will ever trust, because number one, if you are trustworthy, then you're not paranoid about everyone
else not being trustworthy. But what I'm really trying to get at and this particular book is that people are so afraid of being hurt, are so afraid of being wrong, are so afraid of making a mistake, that they don't do things that would really empower them and other people. They don't fall in love, they don't manifest their dreams,
they don't use their talents. They're afraid of rejection. And so what I really want your listeners to understand is that the most important person you'll ever trust with yourself to know that no matter what you do, no matter what you go through, you can trust that you will heal.
You will heal. And so once we learn that it's okay to be heard, it's okay to be rejected, it's okay to not have everything I want on demand, or whatever the case may be, it's okay to make mistakes, then we can begin to feel much safer in our own skin.
Next, one of my favorites forgiveness.
Forgiveness is so important because when we hold on to that resentment, it's like carrying every resentment. If you imagine like you're putting a rock in a suitcase and carrying that around with you, it's baggage. It keeps you in that state of fear or guilt or anger. And every time you begin to have the habit of resentment, then you just keep collecting more and more of them, and so eventually you're dragging that around with you all the time.
Forgiveness is lightening up on all that. It's releasing everyone and yourself, especially from whatever happened. And things do happen in life. We do get hurt, we do get wounded, and so we can turn all of those experiences into miracles through forgiveness. And again, what I really want your listeners to understand is at the root, at the very root of any grievance that you hold against someone else
is self blame. And people go, oh, no, no, no, no, I had nothing to do with that, But there is that little part that will say you should have been smarter, you should have known better, even children myself as a child, when I was being abused, there was a I said, what am I doing to cause this? You know? And I had nothing to do with as five years old. But that voice, that's that voice of fear that I was talking about earlier, it always will hold it over
our heads no matter what happens. When when we're hurt, where there's that little part of us that overwhelms everything else and says it's your fault. You should have and we should have, could have, would have? I think you said, you know earlier. Those types of things keep us in jail mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They don't allow us to be free and to let go. You know, it didn't happen the way I think it did. And once we have that wound, you know, the least little thing can
trigger us back to that wound. So when we forgive and we work through it and turn that into no matter what happened, no matter how painful, it can be turned into a miracle of compassion. I see people all the time who were so wounded and so hurt, myself included, and be able to turn that into compassion for someone that hurt me. That is the miracle.
Interesting fast respect.
Well, respect is something that a lot of people want, but you can't demand it. You know, no one's going to respect you more than you respect yourself. All of this comes back to us. No one will respect us more than we respect ourselves. And that doesn't mean throwing our weight around or exercising control or exercising aggression. There's a new term out now, and I love. It's called
soft power, and soft power is love. And when we find that voice of love within us, we will be treated differently than when we let someone push us around. And sometimes it's not immediate. Sometimes we get a little stung or whatever, but we don't have to stay. There are not victims. No one's a victim, and every perpetrator has to have a willing victim. So when we learn respect,
we give it. We give the respect, but we also learn how to find our voice when we don't feel respected, but we don't charge on someone, or we don't get even and things like that. We've learn to say things like, you know, I'm really not comfortable with this, or I really don't understand this, or I love you, but I just don't really like the way you're coming across right now, or I don't like it when you do whatever, but I love you, but I want us to work through this.
Or even if it's a stranger, you know, sometimes you don't need to say anything. You just have enough respect for yourself to neither that person is having a bad day or they're off in some way, you don't have to engage at all. But there's so many times where we just clam up, we shut down, we don't respect ourselves. And sometimes spirituality will even tend to manifest this, you know, take the high road and you know, turn the other cheek and all. But that doesn't mean we can't say
our authentic feelings about things. And you really can't have anything real with someone if you can't do that, because you're choosing fear instead of love. So when we choose love, we learn how to communicate how we feel about something with respect for ourselves and whoever we're communicating it to. You.
Well, the sixth path abundance.
Well, there's a lot of scarcity consciousness. I think this country is wonderful and that you know, it's a lot less here because there is more of an abundance consciousness. So many people have become so wealthy and we have those opportunities to be able to do that here. That isn't always present everywhere else. But abundance consciousness is one of the examples I give given the book. It's about sharing.
You know, so often we withhold you know, we want to make something, we want to have something, but we don't tend to share it. And the laws of prosperity. The divine intelligence didn't create that way, I think. I know. I used, for example, in the Book of Like if you if you had a bag of potatoes and you were trying to conserve them, because that's all the food that you have, and you know eventually you're going to
run out of potatoes. But then you begin you take the eyes of the potatoes, you plant them, and then you have more potatoes, and then you can keep doing that and eventually you have a whole garden of potatoes. But if you start to give those potatoes away everybody that needs them and show them how to plant them, eventually the whole world has enough potatoes. So the whole consciousness of abundance is about sharing what you have, because
the more you share, the more abundance. There is no lack, no lack of anything.
Past number seven, self love one of the most important areas.
I think, Well, that's what I think everything boils down to. And many people don't realize what self love is they And I see this all the time when I'm working with someone, and I was certainly my problem. I had no idea when it was my loving internal voice said to me, that's not me that doesn't love you, You don't love yourself, And I was like, what does that mean? I don't love myself? And I see this all the
time when I ask people do you love yourself? And they'll say they'll just kind of look like shocked, and they'll say things, well, I think so, or yes I do. But then the examples they give really aren't a bad at It's about what they have and not the love for themselves. So this is really important that we do learn how to love ourselves because we've substituted love for all kinds of things. We've substituted love for how things make us feel. You know, if I'm in love, I
feel high. If I'm drinking, I feel high. We love the feeling that we get from certain things rather than self love.
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