Martha Beck

Her latest book of the Way of Integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self, has had a tremendous impact on me and I cannot wait to share this conversation with you. Welcome to Holy Human, my friends, Martha Beck, thank you so much for joining me today on Holy Human. It is such an honor to have you on here. And I have to say, um, there are very few people that scare the ship out of me, and you

are one of them. Yes, because I am homicidal and in the best of ways, in the best of ways, I have so much respect for you and your life. I'm gonna cry because I just I just your level of integrity, um is something like it's a north star. It really is. Um. People like you, women like you who uh really inspired me and you make me question my life. Like I started reading Um, I started reading

two of your books at the same time. I started on the Joy Diet and then I started in on the Way of Integrity, and man, I had, I had. I've had many conversations, like deep conversations of truth, UM, and they have. Yeah, it's been the last four weeks of those two books have been incredibly powerful and eye opening. Yeah, so that's why you scare me. Well, you know, it's

so weird. You sit in your little I sit in my bedroom typing away and then I throw stuff out like a message in a bottle from a desert island, and you just sort of sit in your room going to hope that works and then to hear back, you know, through time and through space from someone I've admired for a very long time. Is It's surreal in a very wonderful way. But please do stay gared, because I like people to be afraid as much as possible. Well, I mean,

do you. I think you kind of when you start questioning everything about your life and you start to live in this kind of level of integrity. I mean, I feel like I have deep integrity, but I always know that there's a new level. I guess, Um, you know, like how honest can you be in the moment? I do you feel like integrity? Do you feel like it comes to you in layers like one? I know that you wouldn't okay because I know one day you decided to go through basically it was a year long integrity clans.

Basically like when you were going to lie. Um, how do I mean, how does one just make that decision and then keep it for a year? One word suffering Like I was suffering so hard. I was depressed. I was in a lot of physical pain, people from autoimmune diseases. People didn't understand, and I was just desperate. And I was like, they say, the truth will set you free, So I'll try not lying for a year and see what happens. And I might as well have detonated a

nuclear device. It just went like everything in my life, Um, I either walked away or quit except for my children, and I lost a lot of things. I lost a lot of relationships, my family of origin, my religion of origin, my job. Realized I didn't like it, so I do not advise anyone out there to do to do things that abruptly. Integrity literally means whole, and it's just about doing what keeps you whole. Okay, So that's how you define integrity, is what keeps you whole. Yeah, it's like

structural integrity and a machine. If the machine parts are all lined up, it works. And that's not a judgment, it's just what happens. And when you're living in the truth, and I know you've done so much work on this, when you're speaking the truth in your case, singing the truth, living the truth, all the hearts line up and the machine of your life works incredibly well. So it's not about integrity or I'll hate you and you'll be bad,

you'll go to health. It's you've lost pieces of yourself, bring them together and teach them to love each other, and you will not believe how the world transforms to a gentle, benevolent space. I think that's what's so interesting about that word integrity, because a lot of people consider it, you know, a moral compass, and I know you talk a lot about our true nature and culture clashing, which I find like completely true in so many ways, Like

with with integrity. I think a lot of people think of it as, like I said, a moral compass, and whose moral compass are you going? Like? What we've been fed and taught and if we never question those like, do we ever find our integrity? No? I don't think we do. And by culture I mean any group of

other people. So everybody. Anytime there are two people in a room, culture is the third guest, like we all and it's just pressure to behave in certain ways, and we all have multiple cultures, family, ethnicity, whatever and what what. We're born whole. We're born to our true nature, but before we can even talk, we're pressured to do things more the way other people like us. So maybe cry less than you want to be, braver than you want to,

or less brave than you want to be. And we're just structured so that, as little babies, we start splitting away from our nature to serve the culture. And that is emotionally and ultimately physically painful. It hurts to be divided from yourself. So integrity is finding the lost parts of yourself and bringing them back into the fold and uniting with them and it feels wonderful. Well, you said suffering was what inspired integrity. And then there's when you

blew up your life, which I've done a couple of times. Um, it sucks. Um, you know it does. It sucks. But I almost and I'll get I want to ask you this because is there another way? But I do. It's like you you go from one pain to the other. Um, yeah, what's the if you're If you're going to be in that much pain, I guess you might as well do it in truth, right, I Mean that's the thing. Where do we suffer either way? Well, the real, the clean

suffering doesn't last. So there's a guy I quote in the book, Mario Martinez, who says, when you break from the lies of your past, you go through something called morning, the known misery. So you're grieving for what you knew because it was familiar, it was all you knew, and to be pulled away from that is this involves loss in it initiates huge tidal waves of grief, like that's how we process loss. But when you've lost yourself, it

never it never ends. It's just this dull, sad, painful and whatever it is for your anger, whatever, it just goes on and on and on. When you separate from the things that have been pulling you away from your nature, and you say, I must live according to my nature. There's sorrow for losing the people and things that go away, but it heals. It's like having a broken bone that's been set and it heals. So it does, and and we become strong in the broken places. So there's an

end to that suffering. And when we come out of it, there's enormous joy, wherewith losing yourself there is none. Wow. Yeah, that's powerful. The suffering, though, I mean the the avoidance of grief. This has been something I've really been going down myself and understanding how deeply I've built my life around the avoidance of grief. Yeah, we all do that. Now. We're running toward anything that feels good and away from

everything that feels pain, and that's perfectly normal. But when it takes us away from the stillness in our cores, when we lose that essential hardcore of ourselves, um, we actually are running into a much worse form of suffering than any grief. So Carl Young, the psychologist, said, every neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering. And what he

means by that is if you're crazy. If you're messed up in any way whatsoever, it's because there's a part of you that can't quite face the legitimate suffering that is part of your life story. And you have to sit in that grief and let it consume you. And it consumes all the pain, and it leaves you with nothing. It's like a smelter. It leaves you with nothing but pure gold. But it hurts, and it's normal to avoid it for as long as you can. So don't blame

yourself if that's what you're doing that. No, I mean I I just have come to understand it by some really d work of like, Oh that's that's been a guiding force in my life as to avoid grief. So how do you go? Have you started going into it now, changing and turning towards it? I think so a little by little. Um, I haven't blown up my life yet. Um again, but I yeah, I always it's always time for that. I'm only thirty nine. I'm about about to turn forty in August. I feel like you know that

that's probably gonna blow up my life in some way. Um, But I do think, like I say it as a joke about it, but it's you know the times that I have um, there has been so much, so much beauty that's come out of that. It's just continuing, like when do you how do you choose to turn towards it? Like that's that's the hard part. Well, I had this, you know. One of the events in my life was that I had a child who was diagnosed with Down

syndrome before he was born. And I had just like a few days where it would have been legal to terminate the pregnancy. But and I'm actually pro choice, but I want I was already in love with the baby, so I kept him. And I would walk around and I was getting a PhD at Harvard at the time, and I would walk around and see all these brilliant people, and I think, my son will never be one of these people. What can he do? You know? And then

I started to think what is worth doing. I'd go into people's offices and they all look haunted and miserable, and other students were miserable and exhausted, and I would think, why why this this is like, we're at the apex of academia. We should be happy. And then I thought, oh, it's about being happy. Like one thing, my son absolutely will be able to do his experience joy and so that became the absolutely Emerson said, beauty is its own excuse for being, and I think joy is its own

excuse for being. And going toward joy became the whole focus of my life. So if it doesn't feel like joy, I turn away from it. And sometimes that means I turn into a situation that's hard or sad or scary. But if the life I had led was not bringing me joy and a situation is in the way of joy, and I know it, I'm sort of honor bound to go straight into the worst um the thing I'm avoiding the most, and it's on the other side of the thing I've been avoiding the most that I always find

the greatest liberation. Yeah. Absolutely, well that's true. Let's just turning, just turning towards that thing. It doesn't need to hurry, like take it super easy and don't don't do it one minute before you feel like it's the thing you absolutely must do. Yeah. Well, I think what's been interesting for me that I've been questioning is what is truth?

Because you know what what is truth? Because truth can be very subjective, and like what's true for me right now might not be true for me ten minutes from now. When you talk about true nature or truth, like where what is truth? How you're absolutely right? Is completely subjective and we can't know, you know, and Um Descartes said, man, the only thing I can know is that I'm thinking, So I guess that's the reason I know I exist. But I can't know if your truth is like my truth,

or if if any truth sustains. So the first thing is um for me, I think there's a sense of truth in us, and it comes when all our ways of making meaning, our mind, our heart, our body, and our soul they all align and there's a sensation of physical sensation that comes with that, of of landing, of loosening. And it's only in the present moment. The truth never goes to the pastor of the future. It's always right here, right now, and it's we enter it by feeling something

with our entire bodies. And there's actually a phrase. After years and years of coaching, I kept trying to see what would give people that ring of truth or that sensation, and the biggest thing I found was the phrase, I am meant to live in peace. So anyone I've I've worked with people in prison, I've worked with people who should be in prison but aren't. I've worked with billionaires, and there's never been a person who said that didn't feel true to them. I am meant to live in peace.

So then if you find I mean, if you say that a couple of times in your mind, do you feel it? There's a wholeness and alignment that comes. Mm hmm. There's there's a kind of quiet calm. Yeah, and it can go so deep. At first we don't even notice it because our culture is all about bright lights, big city, you know, big noise, and it's so quiet, but damn it goes down forever into this place of sweetness and it becomes this sort of fountain that can feed you

every minute of your life. Mm hmmm. What are your How do you stay connected to that in your everyday life? I meditate. That's that's like bedrock. Every culture in the world has its own way of saying, go sit by yourself for a while and don't make any noise. Um. But I also writing as a form of staying on on truth. For me, because I'm very alert when I'm writing. I associate with people who bring me that joy, and who will tell me when I'm lying, They will call

me on my bullshit. And I love that. So I just structure my whole life around staying in that zone of joy because I don't ever want to leave it. It sucks to leave it. All right, We are going to leave that thought for just a moment, for a quick break, but we'll be right back, and we're back with Martha Beck talking about the joyous but sometimes complicated concept of joy. Joy has been really interesting for me, and I think it might be for a lot of people,

and in the way that it can feel very uncomfortable. Um. I grew up a gripping as an only child, and I had a mom who was very depressed and sad and a dad who was angry, and so you know, being in joy was almost um it was something that would almost alienate my parents. Um oh yeah, absolutely, it was threatening. I guess. Wow, that's that's a hell of a culture to run into, as you know, as an

innocent little baby. Wow. So have you found it? Have you found a sensation where you they're these moments when and for me, they used to be incredibly rare and when all these forces would align and for one moment I would feel this sweetness and this clarity, and I would think, please, please never let me lose this, and then I would lose it. Yeah, of course, don't go No, Yes,

I have had. I actually I just finished writing and recording an album and I had I wrote this song called Innocent on my album, and I had this moment. I was doing some somatic work and I had this moment where like innocence and this this joy was like outside of me, it was up here, and I found this moment where it like dropped into my body and it was I just burst into tears because it was so like you're saying, sweet and pure, And out of

that came a song. But I remember, for about forty eight hours, I could like tap back into that place of like for me, it felt like endless possibility and just openness and sweetness and like you're saying, it was like, please don't go anywhere. Um Can I recreate this feeling of dropping it and I can revisit it to an

extent um and I find moments. I've been looking more for moments of joy in my life because it's so easy for our brain too, you know, when we're locked into this old trauma pattern of finding trying to keep ourselves safe. It's so easy to miss out on the joy that is present. So for me, that one experience made me realize, oh that is that is part of my true nature and I I do miss it when it's not there. It's very it's very heartbreaking. Can you find it? And this is I'm putting on the spot.

Can you find it now? Yeah? I can. There's a sense of it. So like where sorry, this is turning into a country where totally people learned through me too. So where is it? Where is it in your body? I feel it like here around your head? Yeah, people, I can't see. Um, I feel it like around my left side, especially of my my face, my head, my shoulder. What does it feel like physically? Um, it feels very vibratory. Yeah,

it feels light. So can you go into that, like put all your attention, as you said, onto that and make it make the vibration stronger and deeper and louder, stronger, deeper, louder that. Yeah, And it's about focus. I mean right now you've sort of you're sort of looking up into the to the left I think, so you're using a certain part of your brain to track the sensation of joy the way a hunter might track an animal um to keep it as a pet, not to kill it

um exactly. But we all have ways that we can track it, and we have to sit quietly to find that. It's a deep internal uh sort of knowledge. In the East and Asia, science and the great thinkers didn't look at the outside world the way they did in the West.

They turned inward and everything was about tracking joy through the body, tracking suffering through the body, the mind, the soul, and it can go as deeply into you as an astronomer could study the galaxies going outward like it's infinite, and it becomes quite fascinating when you start to find it and feel it and then be able to hold it.

And I actually think you really did that brilliantly in your Human and Holy album Thank You, Like the song be Still and No Damn, you actually make audible a vibration that I had I love to find in meditation. And I love that because it was just just turn on a song and it can take you where hours of meditation might not be able to. So I know you've been there, and I know well that came through meditation.

I mean those songs, everything that I was on that record, I sat and meditated, and in fact I did it right before we jumped on here because I'm working on the next chair record, and I just sat there and I just I listen and I whatever, I don't judge it, and just let whatever comes through come through. And it's so cool too to see, just like what spills out

of my mouth from silence. It's so fascinating because, um, we know from brain science that if you put two people in a room and they don't even talk to each other, three people whatever, within twenty minutes, they're the vibrations of their brain, the patterns of electrical activity in the brain and in the heart will will come to match the calmest person in the group, even though they're not speaking or looking at each other. And it's something

called entrainment, and it actually pulls the brain state. It's an electrical signal. Just like our iPhones or our laptops or whatever are electrical machines that operate wirelessly. We're the same thing. Are our nervous systems are electrical systems made of meat, and they have a wireless communication and feature. And um, certain sounds and certain and the presence of certain people will pull other people's energy into that state.

So I can't say enough about that album of yours because it pulls that state in and makes it so much easier to access. And it's like getting a piggyback ride to happiness. Love it, love it. That makes me so happy. You know, music is music is amazing. It's such a gift to be able to write and express emotionally, like what not only I'm feeling, but like I know, I speak for so many people when I do emote and express, and it's such a cool gift. And then

to to be able to write my feelings down. I've always been in awe of that process because like we create. I mean, when you write a book, it's the same thing you when you're a creator, you create something out of thin air, like from nothing, and then you sit there.

I was. I was playing my the actual record of my new album UM the other night, and I's just sitting there bawling because I'm like, this is such a gift that has come through me UM, which I love because you talk a lot about creativity and creative energy, and I think one of the biggest Miskins options about creative energy and creativity is that only creators quote unquote creators like that create music or art art creators and we all came from creative energy. Like that's yeah, And

is that when you talk about true nature? I mean that creative energy is that basically the core? Yes, And interestingly the whole the way life fragments us, and it fragments us all we all get pulled away from our true nature is just the way things are in human life. So we get fragmented, and parts of ourselves go out and suffer because they're separate, and they're split away from truth,

from love, from wholeness. Then when we come together. The interesting thing about creativity is seen from a brain perspective, is that it occurs when things that are very different are brought together. And there's actually a thing in the brain called a far transfer where something that's really different from anything you've thought ever connects with something else that you're thinking, and it brings this brand new thing that no one else could bring in because nobody else has

the same fragments. So even the suffering that we have, but I mean, that's my justification for suffering. It hurts a lot, and we're having all these experiences. But then when they come back together, which I think they're always meant to do. We were supposed to go out and be fractured and then regain our integrity, and when we do, we have this far transfer of all these experiences and when they come together in a place of peace, of wholeness.

We are creation. We don't have creativity. We're not products of the creator. We are aspects of the creator. And there is nothing about us that doesn't create. When we're a whole, and it creates everything as you said, events, relationships, moods, poems, songs, whatever, But we are we are by nature creation itself. I love that, even offering a course offering called think like a Wayfinder. I was watching the four steps. That was part of it was create creating. How do you how

would you define wayfinder? Like? What are the pieces? Are components of thinking like a wayfinder? So I borrowed the term from an anthropologist who studied the people of the Pacific Islands, who are such great navigators that they can actually they set off from like Papua New Guinea, and they knew that there would be the Hawaiian Islands three thousand miles away because they understood wave patterns so at such an incredible level, and they would travel three thousand

miles over open water and find these little islands. And I thought, the way change is so intense right now and it will be for the foreseeable future. Societies are changing, I mean, look at the pandemic. Everything can change any time, and it's almost like we're on these tossed seas a sea in a storm, Like how do you navigate life?

You have to be like these people who were the way finders, And for me, it's getting into becoming whole, getting into that state of integrity, because it's like there's a built in navigator that will take us over any rough water towards any destination as long as we stay absolutely on our compass right, like really true, and if it wobbles and change this intense we're all kind of

there's a lot of danger. If you're off your true path, things are going faster and rougher than they ever have before. So if you stay really clean and think like a wayfinder, like focus on those internal compasses and don't let yourself be distracted by the pressures on you, that's how your life is peaceful, even in the middle of chaos. M Yes, I like that you with create with creativity, you know,

part of creativity. I feel like it's play, which is another we talk about joy and play like things I really I didn't get to do as a kid much. Um, I didn't. I'd really like it never affected me how much. I didn't have a childhood until like I've had my stepson's and then one of them turned eleven, and I remember going, I signed my record deal at your age and wow, like you you have no concept of that at all in your life, and like this was how this was how child is supposed to kind of develop. Um,

it didn't occur to me. How odd that was? Um? You know, so I know I had no I had nothing to go off of until them. So play for me, play has been very convoluted. Like I don't even sometimes I don't even know where to begin, um to allow myself play. Where do you where do you find inspiration for play? Like? What's play in your life? Um? Nature? And you know I got to have a kind of wild and crazy childhood seventh of eight kids, wild and crazy, but it was really crazy. It just wasn't a childhood

for you. Yeah, and and by the way people think that being famous and having people fawn on you and all that stuff is going to make them happy. And when I work with people who have had all that, it is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. I mean it really is. One of the being famous is like one of the worst things that could happen to people. I truly believe this. So anyway, back to your childhood and enjoy and play. Um, if you go into nature and you like you look at baby things.

Humans have this really interesting mutation where we were born in we're like apes, except that we don't have the gene that turns off are playing mechanism when we hit puberty. Other like chimpanzees and guerillas, they have this. They're very curious and playful. Then they hit puberty and they're brain says okay, I'm set, and they stopped playing. But humans

have a mutation where we never stopped playing. And if we keep playing like children, which you don't know how to do, I'm learning that we never we never have to be old in our minds and hearts. So the first thing, first, you look at the suffering that's there, that's keeping because playing through sorrow is not real playing. When a child is grieving, you don't send her out to play. You hold her in your lap, and you say, what would feel like relief, sweetie, And maybe that means

bundling up in bed. I mean, my mother died last week and we hadn't Yeah, we hadn't been in touch for a long time because of I left Mormonism and whatnot. But um, there was a day when I just I got to go to her funeral. It was live streamed, and um so even though I'm the black sheep of the family, someone sent me the link. And the only thing I could to do that with the day was curl up in bed and let myself be loved by my family and grieve and think and cry. And that

was my play for the day. But the next day, when I was feeling a little better, I went out and played in the yard with my bird feeder and all the I like to meditate in the forest. I cover myself with bird seed and the birds come sit on me, and I really love it. And so I have learned a lot of my play from animals and babies, but animals more because babies they're being pressured. You were

being pressured from the moment you were a baby. So with you, I would say, play is how can you find comfort, sweetness, anything that makes you go, that's your play for now. And if you go there, then the wild stuck ups later. Bird seed is great. Oh my god, that's the best I have. I've been wanting hummingbird feeders because we have we have all these hummingbirds in our backyard. Um. I've been really touching into nature a lot, and we have we have hawks that fly around the backyard like

it's just it's pretty amazing. So nature has definitely been something that I agree has taught me how to play more. Yeah, go join them, because really the heart of play is loving connection. And I'll never forget the first bird that landed up because I didn't really I was very depressed from an early age, also as a result of um abuse, sexual abuse that stride when I was five, so I

didn't feel happy as a child after that. But when I was fifty something and I sat there with bird seed all over me in California in the forest, and the first bird dared to land on my leg, I could I still feel a little scratch of his tiny little claws, and he knew I was there, he knew what I was, and he looked straight up at me with so much trust, and it was like my heart exploded with joy. And it was because I was actually being loved into a childhood state by this sweet, little

innocent creature. You never know who your teachers are going to be, but if you open yourself, they come, yeah, wow, that's so true. And on that thought, we are going to pause for a quick breath, but we'll be right back with more and Martha Beck welcome back, Loves. Martha Beck and I were just discussing the powerful role that play can have in our lives and how it can often reveal lessons we need to learn. I know my dog teaches me so much. My dog before she's actually

sitting right by me right now. She's out. Um. My dog before her was like super intense, and it was like she used to talk to me like by looking at me. And this one was so very different than her. She has so much joy, and she's also much bigger. She's seventy pounds child um, but she she has so much joy and she wants to play all the time. And I can. I sometimes will see myself going like basically I don't have time for that amount of play.

And I catch myself because I'm like, she's trying to teach me exactly what I'm asking, Like, she's trying to teach me how to play, and that that energy has been so wonderful in my life because it's been so opposite of what I learned. Here's what I think, And I actually thought of this while I was working on thinks like a wayfinder. The whole process of my life. Now what I'm having a good day is play until you feel like resting, because everything I do for work

or whatever feels like play. Play until you feel like resting, then rest until you feel like playing, then repeat. This is your entire life. This, I believe is how nature and the divine want us to live. Nothing but play until you feel like resting, and then rest until you feel like playing. Wow, that's amazing. So there's no work involved, no, not ever. You know, people say, oh, he works like a dog. Have you ever seen dogs work? They love it, like like I can catch your frisbee, I can check

out bombs from the airport. I can do and they're like, yeah, let's go work. It's that's how we're mental work. Well, and that's what you love and do it. That's interesting well, and you can also lose the love for what you love. I mean, for me, that's what I've I've definitely gone through periods of time and still do like it depends on the day where what I love like I've lost the sweetness or the purity so many things. And that's

once again culture. You know, you mentioned fame like being the worst thing that could happen, and it's it becomes so confusing because you're like, well, where especially when you're trying to keep up a career and you know, part of your job is like if people like you or not, and then you're trying to figure out if you even like yourself and like who who are you? And who are you without them? And who are you without someone

telling you who to be? And you know, when you take a stand, this is my been my experience, when you take a stand and you you go deeper into truth, Yeah, you know, the culture can be like, well, we don't like you in that truth it's like part of it's part of my job to care and then like I'm not supposed to care at the same time, so it's very freaking confused. Yeah, it's so hard when you and this is something I've seen also a lot of people

who are very gifted. I've been privileged to coach people who have incredible skills and talent, and almost all of them, at some point they do something for the joy of it, and they're so good at it, and their joy just rings out and it's so magnetic and infectious, and then immediately a whole bunch of people grab it and say, we're gonna make it into a factory. It's gonna support us for the rest of our lives because it is.

Everybody craves that kind of pure, sweet energy that comes through someone who's got a real talent, and then it gets mercantilized. And that is I mean the one I have a podcast called Bewildered and it's a pun because it's be Wilder. And the thing that I always rail against, and I get too because I have a PhD in sociology, is um I rail against the factory culture that turns

every single thing into work for more money. Everything you do, it becomes work, and the purpose of the work is more money for more people, and it just it becomes this massive grind that just one sociologist. Early sociologist called it the iron cage. It just closes around you and all the joy goes out of the thing you do

for love. And if you're lucky, and I think you really are, if you're looking, you're smart, and you're brave, you are if you find your way back to integrity, you usually stop that for a while, and then when it comes back, it's purified by that suffering and by the search for self, and you come back with more integrity than people who've never been torn apart. And then I think this is why, um, human and holy is

I think? So powerful is this? You've found this pure core of self after being torn to a million pieces by this culture that is all about like, mechanize it, monetize it. So man, I think you have a really really good time ahead of you as that comes back and you can sift away all the crap that got put on it. Thank you. I think that's why that album, to create a chant record that was like I really didn't I just did it for joy. I did it for my own healing, to help people find that place

in themselves. Um and it. You're right, it wasn't about money. There was something so pure about that, and I think, I mean, trust me, I've I followed that for a long time with my music and in that integrity and

purity of like what wants to come through me. But I think I, like you're saying, I've deepened it more and more, and sometimes, you know, I have the new records called God's Work, and it's basically about, you know, if we can if we could move through all what you've talked about and done so well, the superstition and the doctrine of things and our our division, um, everything that divides us, if we could move past that, we could get to doing God's work. We could get to

doing like what we're here to do. And sometimes I I'm terrified of what comes through me because I'm like, am I really supposed to be talking about? Like I'm not. I'm not sure if I'm ready. I mean, Leonard Cohen had this great line, um, don't really have the courage to do what I must do? Uh don't really know? Sent me to lift my voice and pray me the lights in the land of Plenty shine on the truth someday.

It's this really beautiful lyric about being chosen as a mouthpiece by something holy and the inadequac So many people will grab that and say, I'm holy, listen to me, I'll be your guru. But people who who respect the truth and who have their integrity and who then feel themselves being compelled to speak some of that truth as sing some of that truth, there's it's it's a huge and beautiful risk to put yourself, you know, to be a pencil in the hand of God, as Mother Teresa said.

And like, I have this feeling sometimes two people tell me I've said something that helped them, and I'm like, I don't actually remember saying that, but something said it. And then I think, am I delusional? Do I think I grew up around people who said they spoke for God?

I don't want to be that. But the force of like the whatever beauty is, whatever joy is, whatever freedom is, whatever truth is, it wants to express itself through us and putting down the fear and saying I'm just gonna say I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, but I'm gonna do it anyway. That's when stuff comes through that literally

shifts people's consciousness. And I think that's what you're about doing. Yeah, Yeah, like I said, I'm in awe of the process every time, and more in awe the more I do it, because it's like it's it is in that aspect of my life, like this endless well that if you keep going back to the well like it, it doesn't dry up like it's it's it's there to be tapped into, which is so cool. Um, yeah, so interesting that you were talking about you kind of you've shied away from the you are.

You ran away from the people being the mouthpiece of God basically, and then here you are. Well, I mean I grew up, I grew up Southern Baptist, and you know, my my mom is born again Christian, and I respect everyone's views on everything like totally to each their own. It's just organized religion has never been for me. And to like you're saying, to go into this place where God has taken on like a whole new meaning for me.

It's not a person like it's for me, it's an energy, it's creativity, it's it's yeah, it's we all are it. And um, you know there's no hierarchy of things like for me when I speak of God. It's like, it's so interesting that word in itself and how triggering it can be for so many people. It is a bit uh, mind boggling sometimes as I go into you know, this world of talking about it with people with such great

respect and reverence for where everyone is at. Um, it's just a it's a new world that's opened up for me with the title called God's have to say. I love that. Yeah it, Um, it's quite beautiful. Yeah. I mean when when you talk about the not being worthy, how do you deal with how do you deal with those feelings of unworthiness? Well, I know that the eye that's saying I'm not worthy is also the eye that wants to be. Um. It's an ego. It's the part

of me that cares what people think. It's the part of me that, um wants to do it right or whatever when I know there is I have no access to absolute right. So I know when I hear I'm not worthy in my head. Um, it's part of my integrity practice. I always if something stops me or hurts me, I say, is it true? Am I sure? Am I sure that you know I'm not worthy? I have no idea, so and the thought hurts and it stops me from

expressing myself. So I am going to choose to disbelieve it at this point, and then then you enter the work of it, the creative work. And when that happens, if you can just get past all the little barricades in your brain into the part of creation that you're meant to do, whether that's raising a child or writing songs or whatever, the process of the work takes you into a sort of wordless um, even if you're working

with words. My friend Liz Gilbert says, it's when the room falls away and there's just you and the creation and the creator. And I like to call that God sometimes, but I know that a lot of people don't. I don't really care, because it doesn't care what we call it. And there you go. That's what I was getting at. It doesn't care. And to me, exactly like you, there's as much divine in a glass of water as there is in a kitten as there is in me. It's all God to me. I agree you. You talk about

integrity challenges, What is that and like? And how does one begin to to dive into that without blowing up their whole entire life? Yeah. I in the book, I use the analogy of an airplane and when it's in structural and hegridy. It can fly anywhere it wants. And the way I suggest people change is one degree turns. So if you're flying a plane ten thousand miles in every half hour, you turn by one degree. You won't really even notice the shift, but you'll end up in

a really different place. So very simple way to do it is write down a list of things to do that you're going to do this week. Look at each thing and feel whether that's really an authentic thing for you to do. Will it make you happy? Will it make you feel whole? Will it make you feel like you're really on course connected to yourself? If it doesn't, change it a little, you know, or cancel it. So whatever it is, move slightly in the direction of something

that feels more whole. So when I clean the kitchen, I also put on music. This makes it feel like a dance to me. And that's a one degree turn. It's not like you're gonna make the headline with that one, but you make tiny, tiny, one degree turns, you end up in really different lives. Just keep doing that. That's doable, that's doable. I'm gonna go. I'm actually gonna go make my list when I'm done. You know, it's just a nudge it toward happy and do it in a slightly

different way, or do a slightly different thing. And the journey of a thousand miles is just one step by one step by one step. Yeah, I mean there's certain things, like you're saying, like cleaning the kitchen, there's certain things you have to do kind of quote unquote like it's not a half to but there's certain things that you want to do to take care of yourself that maybe you don't like, or certain things that you have to do at this moment that maybe you don't like. So

how can you make those more enjoyable? What's so weird is that when you are focused on integrity um as a on wholeness, what makes you feel whole? Like it feels very risky for me to give up behaviors that the cultures like, what if I really gave up worky, like the stuff that was like work? What if I really just did what feels like play. I remember struggling with this and thinking if I stopped working, you know, my I was supporting my kids, I was supporting I.

What would happen if I stopped working? I did stop working. And what happened was it all transformed into a kind of play and I started to do better. I actually did sort of what you did, um, stepping back. I stepped back and wrote a book that was I was being so pulled around by publishers that I stepped back and wrote a book, a novel about a woman and a pig called Diana Herself, which no one wanted and no one cared about it. I don't know, like it's like on Amazon. But I didn't never do much with

it except play. And then the next book I wrote was The Way of Integrity, and I expected nothing to come of that either, but I didn't care anymore. I was just playing. And actually the reception to that book has been much bigger than any book I've written in the past. So what happens is a wave of fear followed by a wave of fun, followed by a wave of oh my god, is happening. Like I'm not working, but it works. I like that I'm not working. I mean it's the same thing with like I look at rest.

You know, Rest has been such a it's been challenging, especially for someone like me. And I'm not just myself, I know, so many people listening, like especially women, you know, to to rest, like when we're supposed to be juggling a gazillion things in our lives and doing it all really well and beautifully. Um, I joke about that because it never looks like that, but it's you know, rest is rest is like play like it. They think For me, they go hand in hand of like how do I

you know? I don't. For me, I've I've kind of gone through those moments where I've had to get sick to rest, which I think was really interesting about COVID. I actually I had it not long ago. It was first time I I sat there and I was like my my type a like achieving brain. I finally went, if I can just feel like shit, I'm gonna be that's goin. I'm achieving something, I'm doing really well. If I can let myself feel like shit, I'm achieving. And it was the first moment I think I actually felt

what surrender was truly and that's beautiful. All right, It's that time against pause for a quick breath, but we'll be right back. Welcome back. My friends. Martha Beck and I were just talking about the incredible clarity that can come from truly surrendering and letting go, which is something I had to surrender to when I had COVID. I remember thinking it's kind of like joy, I don't to let go of this lesson of true surrender and true rest.

And I'm gonna as I'm gonna keep this as a reminder in my body to to not have to get sick to come to this rest and I have. I've started to. I've started to make those one degree turns of like I found a show I really love the show Grace and Frankie. I've never let myself watch TV and I on a Sunday now will like put on if I'm gonna, I just want thirty minutes of joy

of watching Grace and Frankie. And I've done that for last like three three Sundays, and it's just I know, but is it is for me because it's like, oh wait, those are those kind of like I feel like one degree turns that you're saying with life, like to make it a little bit sweeter, like what are those what

are those things that can bring you joy? And you're right, when it's so different than what culture has taught us terrifying and it always rest and play are not on the docket in our in our culture, and that's all I think life should be. But I think there may be a new culture coming up over the horizon where some of the structures, they're so dysfunctional, some of the social structures, and they're all breaking. And I've been waiting

for this my whole life. Really, I always had a sense, seriously, since I was a kid, that something would shift in the way people think during my lifetime, and I thought, Okay, I'll study it and be a social scientist. And then I was like, no, that's not right. But I think it's a mouth deeper, more profound, and more sacred transition UM, and it's desperately needed because we're destroying everything. What do you what do you envision for the future for now?

I think that it's got to be. You know, when you look at history, it's UM basically a record of who could kill the most people fastest, like who killed who on one day. We're doing a great job of that now, yes we are, and the whole culture is set on it. And I always think, you know, it takes nothing now to press a button and blow up a thousand people. How much work does it take to keep a thousand people alive and happy, to feed, clothes,

clean them. There's this. The real power of human life is that it's the sustenance of life, not the destruction of it. And we've lived in a culture that glorifies destruction for the last few thousand years and we have to come around. And there are many, many other cultures besides the destructive ones who were completely focused on nurture and the sustenance of balance and harmony in the ecosystem with other creatures, with each other. And it's a much

more balanced male female. There's much more feminine energy in it than our culture, and it has so it's shifting towards that. There's the loudest things are the ones that are still killing people. You know, check the news, you'll want to die. But silently everywhere in the world people are watching atrocities and being able to see them in real time and communicate with the people who are experiencing them. And so the ethos of nurture and love and balance

and come to me. I love it in the Bible when Jesus says, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy, heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I remember, and I'm not any organized religion either, but I love Jesus and it's like the concept weight. That's what he wants. He I'll give you rest. That's the promise of the divine, not I'm going to give you bright lights, big city. I will give you rest, and then I will give you life more abundantly, not a

life of more money, but a life that itself. The life, energy, the joy, the beauty, the love. Those will become more and more abundant. So it's rest and play. And I think we're moving towards that. I hope we are. Yeah, I hope so too. Yeah. A lot of us get that confused when we think of abundance, like we've always been taught to think of money, not of the fullness

of life. That's the culture, but our nature is you know, when the when the white people moved into South Africa, the Cooisson who had lived there for a hundred thousand years without a problem, they're like, you guys are crazy. You're always afraid that life won't give you what you need to live. It always gives us what we need to live. And they thought that the farmers who hoarded, you know, the white farmers who hoarded grain for the

winter or whatever. They're just like, that's a mental illness, and I actually think they were right. I don't think they're far off from that at all. You know, you really advocate for questioning our beliefs and are really kind of sorting through what does not align with our integrity. How do we do that when our beliefs like we truly believe, like our core beliefs, we truly believe that

they're true. I mean we see it all the time now with you know, people are so split, there's so divided, and they're so latched onto like what I believe is true. How do we, like, how do we get out of our own bullshit when it comes. Yeah, the brain really locks onto the bullshit as a way of defending itself

when it feels afraid. So, wherever you have someone who's saying I am right and you are wrong, and I will always be right and I will never question anything, guarantee that that that gripped belief is based in fear. And you know you can't change if you try to tell someone who's in that you're wrong. I think differently, they will just double down, They'll just get even worse as we're seeing everywhere, right, But if you in yourself,

you can change it. So if you sit and think, like I've been doing this thing that I call hardcore kindness because I've been reading about anxiety and how self criticism drives anxiety and a lot of other illnesses. So I've ah, I still have self critical that's not integrity. So instead, every time I have a self critical thought, I try to see if the opposite is true. And I really believe those self critical thoughts like you don't work hard enough, get up, get going. I really believe

them so deeply that I've never questioned them. But I've been like, looking, Okay, is that self critical? Is it fear or is it love? That's the simple question. It's not it's fear. Okay. You can let go of any belief that is based in fear and you will get happier.

You can't force anyone else to do it. But in the warmth of your inner peace, if you walk through the world in a place of inner peace because you're dropping those gripped beliefs, remember entrainment, the energy of your peace will begin to draw other people's energy in and they'll start to shift and be more willing to let go of the beliefs that come from fear in um.

And I used to think that you could change the world with policies and wars, and now I think that that is literally the only way we changed the world. M M. I love that. Did you just mentioned to think there's a there's a song on my album called the Only Way and it's the only way to get there is if we hold each other's hand, And that's

that's so true. I'm like, I love creative energy too, because you were on the same wavelength of creating very similar things in very different ways, and it's just that's the why. Yeah, it's such an honor and talk about entrainment. I'm like, sitting here with you and your peace, and I think that's why I've looked so forward to this, because I you just have this peace and grace and playfulness and it's just infectious to be around. So thank you so much for coming on here. It's been an

absolute joy. And I I'm really honored that you would say we're doing the same work in different ways because your work is so deep and profound and is shifting so many lives and I'm just so lucky to get to talk to you. Thank you. I'm such an honor. I Before I let you go, I always ask my guests, because music is such a big deal to me, I ask you, I want to talk about your holy five. Do you have five songs that either from your past, your your whole life, or just right now that you

are digging and why? Uh? Yeah, there's one. It's not a song. It's part of the soundtrack from the Moving the mission. It's called On Earth As it Is in Heaven by Ennio Morricone. It's a glorious, glorious instrumental piece. I love Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. And there's a song by Cheryl Wheeler called Gandhi Buddha and it's the joyful song. It's like I must have been gone to your Buddha in a past life to get to love you. Oh that's Cools the Brown Wrist and it's

so happy. Yeah, check that one out. Love Itself by Leonard Cohen incredible. Love Itself is about an experience he had when he was a monk, and it's it's transcendent, it's gorgeous. And then a song my son who has down syndrome. I heard him singing in his room when he was in his teens, and he found this song by Bibo Norman called Great Light of the World, and

he would sing that. He still sings that. He's thirty three and he sings that a lot, and I felt like it sort of brought the Great Light of the World into the house. And I love that song too. I love that. That's so cool. Well, thank you for sharing those. I'm gonna and definitely on my list. I love it, I love it. Thank you so much. Honestly, this was such an honor, and yeah, you're just a fantastic human. Thank you for lighting the way for so

many of us. The honor was aline and back at you, and that, my beautiful friends, brings my visit with a wonderfully wise Martha Peck two and in very sadly again. Her latest book is called The Way of Integrity and Finding the Path to Your True Self, and it is very much worth your time to pick up a copy. I promise it's life changing. It made a massive massive impact on me, as did this conversation. I hope you

enjoyed it as much as I did. I would love to know your thoughts too, so please share them in the comments and reviews where you listen, and yeah, I'll see you soon. You guys, take care of one and other. On the next episode of Holy Human, I'll be joined by author Brian Scott, who will share the near death experience that put him on the path to write his fascinating book, The Reality Revolution. You won't want to miss his life changing and mind expanding take on how we

can hack our reality. You won't want to miss this episode. I had the best time chatting with him. He's truly truly fascinating, So join us. It's super cool stuff. Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a production of I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes on the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get the podcast that matter most to you.