Marianne Williamson on a New Revolution

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is marian Williamson, an internationally

claimed author and lecturer. For the last thirty five years, Marianne has been one of America's most known public voices, having been a popular guest on television programs such as Oprah, Larry King Live, Bill Maher, and The list goes on from there. Oh, and don't let me forget that. Marianne was also a presidential candidate. Seven of her twelve published books have been New York Times bestsellers, and today her and Eric discussed her new book, A Return to Love,

Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. Hi, Marianne, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, glad to be here. It's such an honor to have you on. I don't think we've ever had a presidential candidate on the show before. And you have a long history of writing wonderful books or that, so it's great. And we're going to talk a little bit about your latest book, called The Politics of Love, a Handbook for a New American Revolution. But before we do that will start like

we always do, with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops. She thinks about it for a second.

She looks up at her grandmother. She says, well, grandmother, which one wins, and the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. There are two parts of the mind. One is the spirit and one is what some called the ego. And I don't think that they battle. I think the ego battles and the spirit does not battle back. I think the spirit is who we are,

and the ego screams. The ego speaks first, and the eco speaks loudest, and the spirit is fostered. Our conscious contact with spirit is fed, as the Parable says, by prayer, by meditation, by a disciplined spiritual practice, where we are seeking consciously and proactively to counter the false teachings of the world. We're taught to be afraid of each other more than we taught to love each other. We're taught to seek to get more than we're taught to give.

We're taught to think of ourselves and act as that we're isolated beings rather than one with each other and with the universe. This is the teaching of a thought system that dominates the planet, and it gets fed plenty. It gets fed by almost all of the stimulus that comes at us. And a spiritual practice is where you're feeding the spirit. You're feeding the other part of the mind. And I think that that's what is going on in

the world. You see it in the world, and you see it in yourself, that part of you that is not the best you. And then there's that part of you which is kind and generous and there for the right reasons and showing up for life and not making yourself be a victim. We all see those two parts in ourselves if we are willing to look in the mirror, and we all know that the part of you that you feed is the part of you that becomes the

personality that lives in the world. Yeah, And it is interesting the way the ego is so loud and the spirit is so quiet. In both Christianity and Judaism, there's a phrase the small still voice for God. God doesn't shout, and that's why the quieting of the mind is so important, and it's also why the cacophony of the modern world is so dangerous. I think that it's very interesting. One of the effects of the COVID pandemic, not that you

in any way would say the pandemic is good. But there are gifts in every experience, and in a way, the very fact that it has slowed us down might be ultimate lee, a gift to the society at large, because when we are so taken in by all the superficial stimulus of the world, it becomes very easy to stay shallow. It becomes easy to stay superficial. It becomes easy to be so distracted on a daily basis by things that do not ultimately matter, that nothing compels you

to sit down quietly and think about things. I mean, how many times said we I know I have, I don't know anyone who hasn't made mistakes. And then later you say, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? Well, you weren't thinking. You didn't really sit down and think about it and reflect, pray, meditate, really go deep. You acted impulsively, you acted thoughtlessly, and then later you go, I can't believe it. There you go right with the parable.

You didn't feed the best in you. And when you don't listen, if the lights not put on in the room, the darkness is there. But all the darkness is is the absence of the light. So I think that many people realize this and are in their own way, our own way, seeking through spiritual practice, meditation, yoga, whatever it is, to find that deeper quiet within ourselves, in the absence

of which we have no impulse control. We do stupid things, We undermine situations with self sabotage, and ultimately we participate in the world that obviously has gone here wire. You've been writing about spiritual ideas for a long time, and you've gotten much busier. Maybe maybe I'm making an assumption you've gotten busier in recent years, but running for president must keep you very busy, really forces you into the

public eye. How is your spiritual practice changed over the last several years as you've moved into a more public role, and what is your current spiritual practice look like today. Well, I've been in a public role within a particular counterculture for many years, so form changes, but content doesn't. But I have lived enough, and I think this has less to do with public versus private and more to do

with just the accumulation of life experience. I have lived enough to know how much harm I can do myself when I'm not aligned with my better self. I mean, look at what's happening in the culture today. Look at what's happening, for instance, with Biden's domination of Nero Tandon. She's been brought down by tweets. Look at how many people are being brought down these days because of something that emailed, something they said, something they tweeted. We're not aligned.

We're paying the price for moments when we simply were not our best. And so I think what has occurred in my life is that there have been enough experiences where I see, you know, I I've lived long enough that I really get that. As many times as my life experience has been like being thrown against the rocks over and over and over again, I came to realize that more often than not, I was the wind, that no one had ever hurt me as much as I'd hurt myself. Once you see that, your motivation to pray

and meditate in the morning becomes very strong. Once you really know how powerful thought is, you become very motivated to align yours to the best of your ability with the Angel of your better and nature every morning, because you know, and sometimes those moments that tempt us into things that could be problems and mistakes that we will be regretting for years come out of left field sometimes. So my practice is serious for that reason as much

as anything else. Life is serious. I think one of the things that is a common mistake that we make when we're younger is we don't take ourselves serious. Now, we don't take life seriously enough. And as you get older, you get this is a very serious thing going on here. Human life is a very serious thing. Relationships a very serious thing. Child it is a very serious thing. Marriage is a very serious thing. Intimacy is a very serious thing. Politics is a very serious thing. Ethics is a very

serious thing. The more you know that life is serious, the more inspired and motivated you are to take your spiritual practice very seriously, because it is that which determines how you participate in the world one way or the other. Right right, It really is a foundation that that everything moves from. You say in your latest book that a belief in separation is always at the root of a problem, and a realization of our oneness is always at the

root of its solution. Say more about that. If I realize that obviously on the level of the body were separate, you know you're in Atlanta, I'm in Washington, d C. Even if you were standing in front of me, you're in your body and I'm in mind. But on the level of spirit, there's really no place where I stop and you start. It's like we live in two parallel universes. So my eco mind says that what I give to you is no longer mine, and that what I withhold

from you is nothing I have to worry about. But on the level of spirit, well, don't you understand how the law of cause and effect operates? You know that what I give to you, as the course of miracle says an idea doesn't leave its source. The course of miracle says that if I have an attack thought or judgmental thought towards you, that I should imagine a sword falling down on your head. But actually it's falling online.

So let's take this moment. I can either be thinking, I don't know what this is some podcasts that have to do, but I really have more important things to do, and I don't know what I could be thinking but not really deeply showing up for this experience, keeping myself separate from it. That is the source of my life

not working. I won't realize it. But any time I show up separating myself from what could be my sincere desire to be there in generosity, in giving and love, and whatever I can do that's best is a gift to myself. When I realized that you're good and my good in this moment are the same versus seeing my interests is separate from yours. And this is what's happening

in every single encounter, in every single situation. Either I'm separating myself from the good of the encounter and the good of the situation and thinking it's all about me, or I am seeing myself as one and doing what I can to participate in the betterment of everyone concerned. And you go on from there to say that this is really the root of our political challenges? Is this belief in separation? Well, the Course of Miracle says that this is the original quote unquote sin. The sin isn't said.

The word is an archery tournament means we missed the mark the original moment that the course of miracles has ocurved millions of years ago in time as we know it, when we began to think of ourselves as separate from God or separate from love, and all that's happening in the world is that we are reenacting in our individual lives as well as in our collective experience, this original

mistake of separating ourselves from others. I mean, even what you see politically right now, when you think of the millions of Americans right now, even before the pandemic, of all Americans could not handle a four hundred dollar unexpected expenditure. That was, even before the pandemic, forty percent of Americans could not absorb a four hundred unexpected expenditure. Where do you think those people are now? We already had, even

before the pandemic, forty three million hungry Americans. Something is very wrong that we are not recognizing this and treating this with a level of urgency that would just played deep humanity and deep empathy and deep appreciation for the suffering of other people. Something is so almost sociopathic about the basic cultural, political, and economic tenure of our times. Do you think that there were times that that was different? Yes,

I did, I actually do. When you read about the Great Depression, I mean one thing that was nobody disagreed about. You look, when you know Franklin, Thosevelt became president. One thing there was no question about was the level of deep, deep, deep, deep crisis, and that something had to be done. Now there are people we're not we're not facing it. People

don't want to talk about it. But there are people today who and millions of people whose economic conditions today are as desperate as people were experiencing during the Great Depression. But somehow we have a read we're we're subconsciously conspiring to separate ourselves from a deep recognition that this is so, because if if we did, there would be far more

of a political impulse do something. Now we're having conversations that are stuck on a level that is so disregarding of the level of dis chronic despair being faced by so many millions of people right now. And I fear from my country because we will be paying for this for many, many years. You say that any person, economic system, or political establishment that fails to concern itself with the pain of others is out of alignment with spiritual truth.

And where there is a lack of spiritual alignment, chaos is inevitable. And I wrote that before the pandemic. That was true even before the pandemic, and the same economic and political system I was describing there is now responding to the pandemic in the same way it responded to the situation before. This is bad. This is bad. What is a path forward here? Because you talk about how important it is that we learned to listen to each other more than our ability to yell at each other.

You say that hate anywhere is a toxin everywhere, and if we demonize each other personally, then we're wrong, even if we're right. You also say we all have our fingers pointing at someone today, you know, but in a spiritual sense, the pointed finger is the problem, which I deeply believe. And boy, is it hard not to get really frustrated with people who see the world differently, and

in some cases it seems very callous and cold. You mentioned in the book that you wrestle with us a little bit, but I'd like to know a little bit more about how you make that actually happen, because I think there's a lot of really good people in the world to who say, I don't want to be hateful, I don't want to be angry, I don't want to demonize other people. But boy, I'm having a hard time.

President Eisenhower, who was a Republican president, of course, said that the American mind at its best is both liberal and conservative. There are high minded liberal principles, and there are high minded conservative principles, and at our best we're kind of yen and young. Now, what started happening about the nineties there was originally show called Crossfire. The media began to realize in the United States that there was more money to be made by making it like the

conservatives were fighting the liberals. A whole generation got raised thinking that's what politics was. There was not as high ratings for a deeper, more considered conversation where you could really see the respectful dialogue between the two and then you connect that. Then another parallel phenomenon at the same time was a diminishment of resources in our public education system teaching American children. You have eleven states that don't

even require half a year of American history, civic or government. Now, the first principle of one of the first principles is out of many one. In a democracy, not everyone agrees. We don't have to agree. Nobody has a monopoly on truth. Part of what makes democracy gloriously messy is that everybody everybody, I got my view, you got your view, but out of many one means but we're united in our filthy to these common principles. We have kids growing up today,

they don't even know what the common principles are. Then, in addition to that, compounding all of those, you had Roger Ailes and Fox News that decided, wow, we can have a real money maker just making a whole news department strictly far right. And then the left of the same thing. MSNBC is really the same thing, not that I really see it as left, if not left, but it is a particular view right. So what happened to Walter Cronkie, what happened to the days when we could

really look to the media. So what has happened is that there's no center that holds and so now it's the shadow side of this part of the political spectrum and the shadow side of that part of the political spectrum. Now in the midst of all this, and largely because we were not cleaving to the larger yen and young of American high minded principles on both left and right, a terrible, terrible disregard based on neoliberalism in general that

had its both Democratic and Republican roots. Unfortunately started with the Republicans, but the democratic presidents didn't stop. It was a massive transfer of wealth into the hands of one percent of our people. And we should see large groups of desperate people as a national security risk. Anytime you have desperate people, what happens large groups of desperate people, it's a petri dish out of which arises all manner

of societal dysfunction, including vulnerability to authoritarian leaders. So now you have, in the midst of everything I just said in strides, a neo fascist would be dictator. So now here you've got the liberals and the conservatives fighting each other, when what we really should be concerned about is neither one. A high minded conservative is not the enemy of the high monded liberal, and the high mounded liberal is not

the enemy of the high minded conservative. But we have some neo fascist elements that are enemies of democracy and our enemies of both. So now we are in a place where all of us, I think, need to step back. We have to remember on a personal level what your parable says as who have I become. There's this viciencist on the right, But let me tell you that the

viciousists on the left as well. There certainly we all have to stop and remember, you know, in the philosophy of non violence, Gandhi says, the end is inherent in the means we we ourselves have to become purified of the kind of self righteousness and arrogance and mean spiritedness. I do believe there's a yearning for this. I do believe there's an aspiration for it. I think the very fact that you and I are talking about it, these conversations like you and I are having, people are having

them everywhere. People know this has just got to stop. So I think people are reaching for a greater ability to speak with honor and without disrespect, even with those with whom we disagree, And we must claim that space or we will not be able to solve our problems. What worries me more than any of the short term political things that we see is the overall tenor the

overall way. And it's tough. It's like I see a pandemic happening, and I go out somewhere and I see somebody not wearing a mask, and I just get really angry. Then I'm like, well, all right, let me try and put myself in this person's understand you know, it's it's just really challenging. I don't think that you have to try to put yourself in their head. You can just bless them and move on and work hard at organizing.

You know, they're going to be midterms in two you know, I know a lot of people who are so upset about the direction that the government has taken over the forty years. But who they themselves did not participate in the political process. You know, they themselves were very distracted, They were not voting. Democracy is not that way. There's an old French saying, you don't do politics, and politics

will do you. So I think that one of the things that Trump president and see has demonstrated to everybody, millions of people, is that we really do care about democracy. We just took it for granted. But once we saw it really under assault, we want whoa whoa. You know, Churchill said, you can always depend on Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted every other option. So often it takes us relate to get it. But once we do get it, we slim it like nobody's business.

That is a historical pattern, and I think that what people need now is to realize that citizenship must now become a facet of what we consider a meaningful and well lived life. You have to start reading your local newspaper. You have to know what's going on in your own town, in your own city, in your own state. You have to be involved in local elections. You have to be involved in state elections. You have to be involved in

federal elections. You have to know that. Every time one election ends, just take a nap and then get ready. Because the midterms are coming up next and there are no short term answers, we probably have a twenty year period of course correction ahead of us. Like you said, if not just short term, this issue where that right now we're just playing walk them all, fix this, fix that. It's got to go deeper. But like I said, you and I are having a conversation. I think millions of

people are. Once you start asking the deeper questions, the deeper answers will come. The problem goes back to what you and I were talking about. We were such a superficial culture. We weren't even asking the deeper questions. Now we are, And even though it's painful, I think that I'm putting my money on the American people. If you look at our history, we have been through terrible crises before. There have been terrible transgressions against the principles on which

we purport to stand before. But ultimately, ultimately, our historical pattern is that we self correct, and I believe that we're going to this time. Yeah. One of the things I love about the book is you point us back again and again to the work within us that we've

got to do in order to engage outwardly. Listeners of the show, like he talks about the middle Way again, I'm going to scream, but I'm a big fan of the middle way, and I think there's a middle way between action and contemplation that we have to be able to find, between an inner spiritual life and an outer commitment to the world. And I know you're a fierce advocate for that, and I love that in the book you're really simultaneously pulling people in both those directions. You're

sort of saying, hey, make sure you're going within. You've gotta be working within, but hey, by the way, don't get stuck there. We also need you coming outwards, right, We need both those movements. Yeah, it's not either or it's both. Am. There are a lot of hours in the day. There are a lot of hours in the day. You meditate in the morning, and that's going to make a tremendous difference, and your behavior will reflect the centeredness and the power and the empowerment that that level of

stillness will give you in the wall. Yeah, I think a lot of people might take exception with that idea that there's a lot of hours in the day. I think a lot of people feel very time crunched, work, kids, They feel like it's hard to find ways to get involved in a consistent and meaningful way. What what sort of things do you think that the average maybe to say the average person, I don't really love that word,

but I'll use it. The average person who works, you know, forty fifty hours a week, they've got a family, and yet they go, I want to be more involved, I want to do more than vote, and yet I am somewhat limited in my time. And I see this happen a lot. A crisis comes up, Black Lives Matter happens, and people get temporarily sort of fired up and involved. Or an election like the one we just had, people get temporarily fired up and involved and then sort of

fades back down. And I think what you're really pointing to is that this needs to be sort of a consistency. We need to remain involved in politics. Again, whatever our political leanings, we need to remain involved. But how do we do it in a way that feels manageable and consistent. First of all, we need to recognize that the system is designed to leave you with no bandwidth. The citizenship.

So in the nineties seventies, the average American worker had a decent job, good benefits, could own a home, owned the car, one parent could afford to stay home with the kids, and they could afford a vacation. And that that family could afford to send their kids to college. That was the story of the average working American. Now that person that I just described had more time to go to the PTA meeting. That person I had more bandwidth to read kids a story before they went to

bed at night. That person you just said forty to fifty hours. They're not supposed to have to work work fifty hours. Excuse me, we now have an economy were not only does daddy work fifty Mommy and daddy have to work fifty hours, and mommy and daddy are busy on weekends because they have to so of course people don't have the band work. The last thing they're able to do is go to the city council meeting on

Thursday night. But even there, we have to recognize that's why the reading of the system is so dangerous, why it absolutely must be repudiated. When a crisis happens in anybody's life, it's not convenient, and a crisis like what's happening in our country is not convenient. But we're going to have to dig deep and recognize that this is so dire that if we do not find in ourselves the wherewithal to rise up, that the situation will not change.

But we will never get back to an America where, while I'm not whitewashing or romanticizing the past, the average person did have much more of a shot of making it into the system and making it into the economy and winning there than the average American does today. And I think that there are people and you and I both recognized that just out for whom it's almost a joke to think that, on top of everything else, they're going to have time to go to the city council meeting.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people listening right now who, if they're honest with themselves, have absolutely enough time. It's a zoom call, and they could if they wanted to. So I think if each of us, each of us do what we can, there are enough Americans who can who, if we will, will take responsibility for doing some. And I agree with what you said.

I think that's one of the problems is the way the system is designed at this point is that it's really hard for the average person that's right to get real involved. And so this isn't an either or. But you've mentioned several times local city council meeting, reading the local paper. Do you believe that's the starting point for people, is a more local engagement where they are closer to things,

so to speak. I don't think it's a starting point, but I think it is more and more obvious that no matter what we change on the level of federal policy, for instance, so much of the corruption that we have to worry about is closer to home. The voter suppression efforts, for instance, are being made on the state level. I saw today West Virginia past the bill making work stoppage

and striking illegal. Well, how long this is America. So it's the people of West Virginia, I think with West Virginia who are going to have to deal with that. You know, Alexander Hamilton said, states are the laboratories of reform. So some of the best of what America is capable of, and some of the worst of America is capable of, starts on a state level. So I wouldn't say at the starting point, because the starting point should be whatever

compels someone's attention. But I do think we should all remember that there's a lot more going on to cultural, political, and economic change than just what happens at the federal level. Right, our voice is louder at a city level and it is at a federal level. Right. That is such a good point. It seems easier to have impact. You know, if you're like really concerned about violence against black people, right, your city is the place where that reform starts. You

saw the movie Aaron Brockovitch. Okay, So I don't know if you've had her as a guest on your part. I haven't. I saw you did recently, which we have not mentioned. You have a new podcast where you're having wonderful conversations with people. Thank you well. I I highly recommend that you consider Aeron Brokovitch for your podcast as well, because she talks about how change starts when one person, and she's talking specifically about the issue of water. Now

we all saw Aaron Brockovitch. We know about the chromium six content, the multibillion dollar settlement. Well, the good news was the p g n A paid that huge settlement in Hinckley, California, all those years ago. The bad news is that throughout the country the promium six problem is even worse than it was in Hinckley. And I mean, the chemicals in our water are enough to frighten anyone

who looks deeply into it. Today I was reading about the indicant disruptors and the children being born with deformed genitalia, etcetera, and how the chemicals are companies are fighting against any kind of regulation of the indecant. This is horrifying. But what this book, what Erin Brockovitch's latest book is about is you know, I called the podcast Finding Your Aeron Brockovitch. She said, it's just one person who shows up at

a city council meeting. She talks about how a lot of times you'd be surprised your city council members don't know these issues until someone goes in and tells them. She said, she tells one story of a I can't remember where it was. It was a city council meeting where they said, well, do you have witnesses? You have other people who support you in this position, and she said, oh, yes, sir, we do open the doors. That were two thousand people.

They stayed there until two or three in the morning, and the city council made changes and laws and and read elation that had to be past the very next morning. Those members honestly did not know, and it was all those people showing up that made the difference. I think we too often forget the job that we have as citizens.

Your elected representatives work for you, and you know, when you look at it on the federal level, how can it be enough for them to hear from you every two years or every four years when they hear from multinational corporate lobbyists all day every day. So we have to take responsibility for our part. And I agree with you, a lot of people just can't even imagine having the bandwidth. For those of us who do, it's our responsibility to

make it happen. There's been such a move forward with technology making it so easy these days to like make a very quick call to a representative, to send off a very quick letter. Like these things have really made it possible to engage in those ways with less time. Certainly, every innovation has its ups and downs, but I've certainly found that to be a really useful one. Like, you know, I get a text and it's like, do you want

to talk to your representative? Hit yes, And the next thing I know, it's the phone's ringing me, and you know it's connecting me right to the representative's office. And I think your point is very well taken. The constituent call as opposed to just signing a petition, those constituent calls really matter. The organization that sent you the text. Another thing to realize is that the charitable donations or the political contributions to the organization that sent you that text,

that's what that money goes for. That kind of texting program costs money. Absolutely. Another thing that you say in the book is you say hate has shouted well too often, love has only whispered. I guess this gets back a little bit too when we started, when we said the egos really loud and the spirit is quiet. But you say we need to display as much conviction behind our love as some people have displayed behind their hate. Well,

conviction is a force multiplier. I think there are a lot more loving people, decent people, people who want the best for our democracy and for other people in this country and in this world. Then there are haters. But if you have ten haters acting with deep conviction, and then you have a hundred of people who are loving and decent. But I don't know, I don't you know. I can show up on Thursday, but I can't show

up any other day. Then the force of the energy coming from the convicted ten people will carry more weight, you know. I can't imagine a kind of sort of sometimes when it's convenient, committed terrorists. But there are a lot of people who are sort of you know, when it's convenient, committed to justice and to mercy, into compassion and to democracy. And I think that this point is understood by a lot of people today. I do believe there's an awakening. This country did reject policies that were

so literally assaultive of the basic tenants of democracy. We didn't go over the cliff, but we're still only enters away from it, and people know that too. But I do believe we have been chastened as a country by what we just went through. I think we've been humbled.

I mean, whether you look at nine eleven, or you look at the pandemic, or you look at the Mueller Report, or you look at what happened on January six, the American people are awakened to the fact that so many of the ways that we thought, oh, if it gets too bad, there are people who will handle that. No, there aren't, actually, and we are far more vulnerable than we knew. The fact that nobody knows exactly what to do about it doesn't mean we're not thinking. Doesn't mean

that people aren't reflecting. You know, in the book one of my favorite books that you probably like to basically based on the fact that you love that parable is let Us to a Young Poet by Roca, where he says, when you don't know the answer, lives the question. And like I said before, you don't have deep answers, do you start asking some deep questions? So the fact that we've been humbled, and we've been Chasen's and we've been disillusioned.

I mean, what is disillusion then, except getting rid of things that only allusions to begin with. We have to dig very deep, and all of us have to show up personally in ways that are more powerful and empowered and decent and dignified than we have ever in our lives. But as you know from from reading Politics of Love, if you look in the history, we are the errors of legacies of greatness. Yes, this country had slavery, but

we had the abolitionist movement. Yes we had the institutional suppression of women, but we also had the women's self jet movement and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Yes we have segregation, but we also have the Civil rights movement and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. So, as I see it, it's our turn. It's the newest generation of that separation that you were talking about. That's really a spiritual disconnection from self and our challenge and

our invitation is to rise to this challenge. Now. I also think part of the danger is that there's a lot of very naive arrogance on the part of many people. Once again perhaps ignoring the history or willing to distract themselves from its lessons. Great civilizations have fallen before the There is no guarantee that this thing will last. It's up to us. And when you really take that in and you realize that it's each and every one of us asking the God of our own understanding, how can

I best show up? It takes you to some really deep places. You know, people say it's really sad when a child doesn't get to have their childhood. I think it's also very sad when people never get around having an adulthood. We've had a crisis of adulthood in this country. We've had way too many women acting like girls and way too many men acting like boys. And there's been a lot of talk about you know, this wasn't like the World War two generation that had this coming of

age experience where we have ours now. And I think that at the deepest level, that's what we are in for certainly my generation. You know, I'm older than you. We party, but you know, even for the best party, there comes a time and you know it's party is over. Even if you stay or nights, it's time for the morning. It's time for the next session, America is parted. Now. I feel for these no ones. We never got the party. But then, on the other hand, neither did my mother's

generation when World War two happened. So I think that it's about how seriously we take this moment. And if we take this moment seriously enough and take personal responsibility for it seriously enough, we're going to be fine. What do you think is the best way to start to heal the polarization? Because I agree with you. I think that I've always had an opinion that the vast majority

of people are decent and good. Yeah, I agree, but but if we do look at the divide, it's pretty strong, and it feels like we're having trouble talking across it. Where does the average person, again back to don't love that term, but start to find ways two actually heal the polarization. I think some of it we we talked a little bit about it's about stopping pointing fingers, it's stopping being hateful, it's turning down our rhetoric. What are other active steps that we can do to you find

common ground? You know, several years ago somebody came out with that underwater photograph of the iceberg, and we've always heard the phrase tip of the iceberg, but when this photograph came out, we really did get to see it's what's above the water line. It's just the tip of things. It's all underneath. So when we think about healing the divide, it can't all be done on the level of surface. It can't all be done on the level of how we talk to each other. It can't all be done

on the level of the personality. Yes, we can take responsibility for not being hateful online. We can take responsibility for being more respectful even when we disagree with people online, and there are enough people there are involved in the kind of dialogue, situations and circumstances. There are people trying

to do this. But I think at the deepest level it starts with our own backyards, not where we're necessarily trying to heal a divide, but just when we're showing up more fully for our own lives and the people in our own lives. I think that it's, of course, the miracle says, each of us has a highly individualized curriculum. If any of us take a good look at ourselves and say, where could I be doing more? Who in my family needs me more. Who needs me to show

up for them more? It could be my spouse, could be, my friends, could be, my children, could be my parents. Just right around you. I mean, sometimes those of us who are so concerned with what's going on out in the world are attempted. I know. I have to avoid all the gaping holes where someone closest to me would say, well, it's nice she's out there saving the world, but I'm dying here. What about my tears? Why am I less

important than a stranger. I've had that experience, and I think that that deep level every time you show up with more love, I think that where there is love, there cannot be feared, just like where there's light, there cannot be darkness. Anything we do to contribute more love into the universe starts healing the divide on a deeper level than we can register with our rational minds. That's I think a beautiful place for us to wrap up. I love that because it brings it right back to

right where we are. What we can do and what you just said is in the realm of everyone. Everyone can act on that now. So thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. I appreciate you taking the time to come on and I enjoyed it. Thank you well, thank you. I enjoyed it as well, and I appreciate it and good luck with these conversations are meaningful. Thank you for letting me be

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