The Gathering Room Podcast

Using Your Powerful Sensitivity Dec 19, 2024

Culturally we tend to think of sensitivity as weakness, but Martha says that in fact, it’s a superpower!
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Episode #186: Using Your Powerful Sensitivity, she talks about how to appreciate your sensitivity and use it to create the life you’re meant to live.
By definition, sensitivity has to do with reacting strongly to very slight stimuli. As a result, our society has come to believe that it’s not a strong position to be highly sensitive, that such people are fragile.
What Martha has come to realize is that sensitivity is powerful, and sometimes it comes on powerfully. People who are highly sensitive may feel its power before other people do.
If you’re highly sensitive and you experience something wonderful, you actually have a strong uptick in your mood—and you may feel more wonderful than someone with lower sensitivities. But if an impulse comes in that you don’t understand, your brain might go into anxiety.
Martha says that the remedy for this anxiety is to check in with yourself by asking a series of questions: Is this physical? Is this mental? Is this emotional? Once you’ve checked in with body, mind, and heart, then you can realistically ground the sensation.
If your sensitivity is telling you that it’s none of those things, then you can safely assume it’s coming from a spiritual place.
Martha believes we’re in a really interesting, unprecedented landscape—politically, biologically, and ecologically—and we need to be guided. The way that guidance will come, especially to sensitive people, is through this unfamiliar stimulus that may feel weird and scary at first.
But as you start to explore what feels true, then the magic of the brain kicks in—your curiosity will bring you out of anxiety so your sensitivity can guide you exactly where you’re meant to go.

As Martha says, “We are the ones who can start to lead our lives in the direction that our higher selves are signaling to us to go and potentially help a lot of other people whose sensitivities may not be quite as strong—and in this way we serve the world.”

To learn how to appreciate, listen to, and trust your powerful sensitivity, join Martha for the full episode, where she’ll also guide you in her grounding and calming Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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Calling Yourself Home Dec 12, 2024

Martha’s recent encounter with a flock of wild turkeys made her think about her relationship with wild animals and how they always seem to come when she calls them.

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Episode #185: Calling Yourself Home, she shares several stories of her incredible interactions with animals and how her steps for calling to them can also be used on the wild parts of yourself to “call them home.”

This can be especially helpful during times when you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or burned out. In Martha’s coaching experience, December is a particularly rough month for many people, and she herself feels scattered during this time.

Martha says the same technique she uses to call animals can be used to call in all the many parts of your Self, as if calling a flock of birds home to roost.

The first step, she says, is to be in complete integrity. This means telling yourself the truth. You have to track the parts of yourself that are unhappy or angry or fractious in some way and tell yourself the truth about them.

The second step is what Martha calls “centering presence” where you focus on a point in the center of your chest and imagine it filling with warm light. When you can feel the warmth, you’ll be able to breathe more deeply and start to relax.

Finally, she says to imagine each part of yourself—the scared parts, the flighty parts, the parts who are tired, the parts who don’t want to do things—and imagine them coming home to that point of warmth and light in your chest.

“Maybe they're wild turkeys that can come home to roost in the tree that's inside you,” Martha says. “Or maybe it's a whole murmuration of starlings that can come perch and go to sleep for the night together on an infinitely small branch in the center of your chest.”

If you have parts of yourself that need to feel healed and included and loved, be sure to join Martha for the full episode. She’ll lead you in her Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation and help you call all the scattered parts of yourself home to rest.

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How to Access Intuition When You Really Need It Dec 05, 2024

Our culture generally teaches us that anxiety will keep us safe—but really it’s our intuition that does that. In this episode of The Gathering Room—Episode #184: How to Access Intuition When You Really Need It, Martha talks about how to tell the difference between anxiety and intuition and how to hear what your intuition is trying to tell you.

There’s something Martha calls the “sense of truth,” which is a feeling of concord, peace, and calm that comes into us when we believe something that feels true at the deepest levels of the self. It’s trusting that whatever we’re believing at that moment is actually real.

“It turns out that a lot of the things we are anxious about are not real—not yet,” Martha says. “They’re potential, but they’re not real in this moment.”

Unlike fear, which is a rational response to a clear and present danger, anxiety is a chronic, suffering sense of being afraid of things that may not ever happen.

Martha says that one of the lies anxiety will always tell you is that only by staying anxious can you be safe—because when you’re not anxious, you’re not alert. However, exactly the opposite is true: People who are anxious can’t stay alert.

Real intuition arrives when our anxiety is quiet. So many of us are walking around constantly anxious, thinking we’re alert, thinking we can trust our intuition, when in fact, we’re blotting out our intuition with anxiety.

To access intuition, we have to go into a state of stillness and peace and then listen for the fun—that’s the state of being where your intuition can talk to you.

“Your intuition can come in the goofiest, most wonderful ways,” Martha says, “once you realize it’s meant to be a frequency of joy and never a frequency of anxiety.”

To learn more about listening to your intuition and finding its frequency of joy—and to join Martha in her anxiety-relieving Silence, Space, and Stillness meditation—be sure to tune in for the full episode!

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Together We Heal Nov 14, 2024

The state of the world right now is unnerving. In this episode of The Gathering Room, she shares how we can start to heal the parts of us that are in pain or despair over the state of things.

Martha says that when we experience trauma, shock, fear, or loss, our psyches can split into different parts to help us cope. To heal this loss of integrity or wholeness, we need to unite all the parts of ourselves that are hurting. And we do this by loving them unconditionally.

In this episode, Martha walks us through a powerful visualization exercise to help us access our deepest capacity for love, hope, and joy, so we can welcome the suffering parts of ourselves to “be warmed by the fire of love.”

As she describes it, “We have to come together as individuals held by the intelligence of nature, by the consciousness of the universe.”

When we can love all the different parts of ourselves, including our sorrow, our fear, our anger, we can love the people around us. And when that happens, vibrant communities begin to form—like Wilder, the “sanctuary for the bewildered” that Martha created with Rowan Mangan.

As Martha shares, “Everything I’ve seen online from the people I respect most, whether they’re politically savvy people or psychologists or community organizers, everybody’s saying the same thing: ‘Join something. Connect, connect, connect.’”

Shock, overwhelm, fear, and rage are ameliorated as we connect with others who are feeling the same way. And this coming together of the shards of all of us could be what creates the calm beyond the storm.

If you’re feeling devastated or uncertain, isolated or afraid, and you want to learn how to let faith, love, and hope guide you to connection and the next right step, don’t miss this reassuring episode of The Gathering Room.

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Listen Again: Awakening Your Magician Oct 31, 2024

Did you know that the right hemisphere of your brain is doing supercomputer-level processing all the time, whether you’re aware of it or not?
Wild, right? Martha calls the right hemisphere “the magician” because it can come up with the most amazing, brilliant solutions to very difficult problems, seemingly out of thin air.
In this episode of The Gathering Room: Awakening Your Magician, Martha talks about how we can activate our highly creative right hemispheres, so we can solve the problems in our lives—and in the world.
And the best part is, reawakening your own creative genius can actually be a lot of fun!
To learn how to use Martha’s 4 C’s (calm, curiosity, courage, and feeling cornered) to rev up your right hemisphere and start solving problems as if by magic, tune in to this fascinating episode, which also includes Martha’s Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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Listen Again: How to Heal Your Heart Oct 24, 2024

In this Gathering Room, Martha talks about the “heart healer” within every person. When we’re heartsick, this is the only thing that heals us. Learn how to access your own heart healer in this very popular episode! (Originally aired: January 15, 2023)

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Listen Again: Letting the Force Steer Your Life Oct 17, 2024

We're not trained to think of a spiritually led life as being hilarious or silly or goofy. But as Martha reminds us, laughter is the beginning of prayer.
In this episode of The Gathering Pod: Letting the Force Steer Your Life, she talks about the difference between spiritual faith and religious faith, and how to connect with and trust spiritual energy (aka the Force) to guide you.
When you do, you’ll be in for some truly delightful surprises!
As Martha puts it, “The universe is not your butler. The universe is a continuous aspect of your consciousness that loves for you to play with it.” Listen to the full episode to hear some incredibly fun stories about manifesting with integrity, learn more about the overlap between play and spirit, and participate in Martha’s guided Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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Listen Again: Igniting Your Purpose Oct 10, 2024

Some people have a bullseye picture of their purpose in life and are headed straight toward it. However, this is extremely rare.
Why?
Martha says it’s because we live in a culture dominated by left-hemisphere thinking, which pulls us toward anxiety and socializes us to do as we’re told and acquire material wealth.
In this episode of The Gathering Room podcast, Martha talks about following your curiosity to activate the right side of the brain, which is where our passion lives. And our passion is what leads us to our life’s purpose.
If you want to start looking for things that draw your attention (rather than push yourself toward the things you think you should do), and you’re ready to prepare yourself to follow your curiosity wherever it leads, tune in to the full episode—it may contain just the spark you need!

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Listen Again: There's Less to Do Than You Think Oct 03, 2024

In this episode of The Gathering Room, you’ll learn how little you really have to do. If you think that sounds too easy, change what you think, not what you do. Come see how! (Originally aired: January 8, 2023)

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Letting Rest Do the Work Sep 26, 2024

Is there something you’re trying to get done? Something you really, really want, but you're struggling?
While our culture teaches us to “never give up the struggle,” in this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about how taking breaks and allowing for rest can lead to unexpected improvements and breakthroughs.
As many Gatherers know, Martha’s been working on watercolor painting for months now, and she finds it extremely challenging. Recently she had to take a break from it, and when she finally got back to her easel, something strange happened… Her hand just knew what to do!
As Martha describes it:
“It was like everything I’d been experimenting with had sunk into my nervous system. And actually, when the brain learns a new skill, especially if it learns playfully, it does start on the top of your brain and then it literally sinks in. The more you do it, the more it goes down toward the core of your brain, and you get better and better at it. And it doesn't feel like it’s you doing it anymore—it feels like magic.”
If you’d like to learn how to get the kind of rest that leads to magical breakthroughs—Martha’s favorite ways include sleep, laughter, puzzle-cracking, and more—be sure to listen to the full episode. You’ll also be able to take a restful break as she leads you in her favorite meditation.
Don’t miss it!

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The Joys of Bewilderment Sep 19, 2024

Have you been struggling to climb pyramids of power, education, wealth, or anything else our culture teaches us to value? Are you ready to find (or return to) your true nature instead?
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about the importance of “be-wilder-ing” ourselves and the transformative power of making authentic connections.
She says that if we can get far enough from society's rules and be willing to break them in some ways—and also be willing to look deeply within ourselves—we will go back to what nature wants us to be.
If we can find our true selves, there's only one task we need to save the world, and that task is three simple words: “Find the others.” With her brand-new online community, Wilder, Martha feels even closer to fulfilling that mission!
As she tells us, the technology we now have for gathering together is a tool in the hands of the Divine, and with the Wilder Community, it has evolved into a kind of wild space where we can become ourselves and find the others.
If you can go wild, you will find where you're meant to be—where there’s nowhere to go and nothing to strive for, but everything to love, enjoy, experience, and savor.
“That's why we're here,” Martha says. “We are here to enjoy this world.”
To learn more about finding and embracing your true nature, connecting with others, and using your integrity to navigate life's challenges—and also hear about Martha’s exciting experiences in the Wilder community—be sure to tune in!
Martha also shares book recommendations, answers listener questions, and leads you in her Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation, emphasizing human imagination and its potential to create positive change in the world. Don’t miss it!

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When You’re Caught Between Hope and Fear Sep 12, 2024

There are times when really important things are happening, and we really care about the results. At such times, it’s hard not to get stuck in that awful place between hope and fear.
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about how hope and fear are on the same continuum. The moment you get attached to a hope, you’re also afraid it won't happen. And the moment you’re afraid of something happening, you also hope that it won’t.
As it says in Martha’s favorite book, the Tao Te Ching, “Hope is as hollow as fear. Whether you go up the ladder or down, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.”
Hope and fear are fundamentally future directed, Martha says, so to get off this shaky ladder and plant your feet on the ground, you must bring yourself to the present moment by practicing mindfulness and equanimity.
When we are mindful, we are fully present and aware of our surroundings and sensations, and with equanimity, we can maintain a calm state of mind, regardless of challenges.
To hear Martha’s insights on how to step off the shaky ladder, ground yourself in the present moment, and mother yourself during difficult times, don’t miss this encouraging episode, which includes Martha’s guided meditation to connect with peace, compassion, and joy.

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Joy Is the Only Strategy Aug 29, 2024

Can you remember times when you’ve experienced pure joy?
Martha recalls some key moments that led her to make joy her strategy for living, and she’s talking about it in this episode of The Gathering Room.
The dictionary defines a strategy as “a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim." We all want to experience joy, and yet we have a society that tells us joy is not a strategy—that we should be strategizing to achieve success instead.
But until you have joy, Martha argues, what good is a strategy of success? There is no point in having success without joy.
So, how do you make joy your strategy?
All the way to joy feels joyful, Martha says, and that feeling is letting you know you’re on your right path— because joy is what we all are in our essence. When we feel misery or flatness or bitterness, the message is that we’ve gotten off track and need to change course.
Martha urges us to turn toward joy and join with other people by sharing our joy and asking what we can do to help others experience more of it. Because as joy grows, it more than multiplies!
To find out how to connect with joy even in times of pain or sorrow, learn the difference between happiness and joy, and join Martha in a meditation to help open yourself up to joy, be sure to listen to the entire joy-filled episode.

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Your Best Next Step Aug 22, 2024

There’s a saying Martha likes that goes, “A hundred years before you were born, God drew a circle around the place you're standing now."

In other words, you are here because you are meant to be here—but from this place, you can literally go in any direction!

So what is the best next step for you to take? That’s what Martha is talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room podcast.

She shares all of the things she’s been “nerding out” over in her quest to discover her best next step: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, and what Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

The “adjacent possible” means something that can happen but hasn’t happened yet, and we humans are in an adjacent possible right now—it’s possible to fix everything that is broken, given the technologies we have and the ideas that we come up with.

Martha says that when there's a big thing that wants to happen, the information and ideas necessary to come up with it are hidden in a kind of mosaic: We’re all equipped with different fragments that only make sense when we come together.

“Whenever I am close to a best next step,” she says, “the hair on my arms prickles a lot. I feel sort of guided to certain books. I get obsessed with songs and I look them up and the lyrics give me ideas, and I am drawn to certain other people.”

Martha shares how to sense when something wonderful is coming—something delicious and delightful and exhilarating and new that you've been preparing for your whole life—and allow the intelligence of nature to show you your best next step toward it.

If you’re ready to take that best next step, be sure to tune in for the full episode, where Martha also shares the best next step she’s most excited about in her own life. Don’t miss it!

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Finding the Joy Aug 15, 2024

Did you know that joy is your birthright as a human?
Finding joy is one of Martha’s favorite topics, and that’s what she’s talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room!
Martha says that joy, like beauty, is its own excuse for being, and she shares ways we can look for and experience joy, even in the midst of difficulty.
She quotes a Jack Gilbert poem that says, "We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.” Meaning, we must find joy wherever we are.
Martha clarifies that joy is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness is what you feel when something you do succeeds, or you recover from an illness, or someone you love comes back from far away. Happiness is wonderful, of course, but joy goes much deeper.
Joy is something that says, "I am here on an experience-gathering mission, and my soul loves adventure and is not afraid to suffer."
Martha says that joy is what gets you through this world because it reminds you that you are not of this world. It is something more lasting, more powerful, and more loving than your physical experience could ever be.
To hear how Martha found joy during some difficult times in her own life, learn easy ways to find joy if it's been eluding you for a while, and get inspired to jump for joy wherever you see it, tune in for the full episode. You can also join Martha in meditation for a little “energy bath” of joy.
Don’t miss it!

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The Only Way Forward Aug 08, 2024

Do you ever try to make forward-thinking plans, but then you get hit with surprises you never saw coming?
Martha says it seems to happen to her about once every six months… For example, because of a recent trip to Costa Rica, where she happened to befriend the incredible women of Sleep-Works, she’s now a sound sleeper (and a morning person!) after a lifetime of insomnia.
Trying to make plans in a world of escalating change is a challenge, Martha says, because there’s just no way to plan for everything that’s going to happen.
In this episode of The Gathering Room, she talks about how to move forward by embracing change and uncertainty—and the delightful surprises that can come your way when you do.
Martha’s method is to keep a wide-open mind and throw herself upon the mercy of the universe. If something feels good to her soul (and by “good” she means a feeling of complete peace washing over her) then she moves toward that thing in a very specific way.
“In my life,” she says, “I have found that the sense of being pulled by my heart and soul is a kind of yearning mixed with peace—and trust that I'm meant to have what I deeply desire.”
That feeling is what has always pulled Martha forward, and it's the reason she started teaching her Wayfinder Life Coach Training program—she wanted to teach people to find their path forward the way she does.
As she started getting cohorts of new Wayfinder trainees, she’d ask why they joined the program, and fully 85% would say they had no idea, which filled her with the joy of connection: "Yes! My people! They're out there!"
To hear more about how you can work toward perfect integrity, learn to recognize the feeling of pull or push that can guide you to your true yearning, and move toward your next wild and wonderful experience, tune in for the full conversation!
This episode also includes Martha’s guided Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation to help you bring your attention off the reasons you do things in the outer world, so you can focus on the field of connection that’s pulling you toward what you're meant to do next.

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Your Economic Ecosystem Aug 01, 2024

Are you someone who likes making vision boards?

They’re a fun way to direct your attention—and because whatever we put our attention on tends to show up in our consciousness and in our lives, vision boards can be powerful tools for healing and for helping you manifest your desires.

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares how to create a vision board, starting with digging deep into your preferences to find out what you truly want (not what you’ve been socialized to think you want) and allowing yourself the time and space to be creative.

Then, Martha says, you’ll start “constellating an economic ecosystem.”

Constellating means coming together by natural forces, so you sit in the center of your desire and your creativity, and the things you want—such as more income, good health, happy relationships—will start forming around you like a constellation.

Any place on earth where you have space, energy, and water, you're going to get ecosystems. And the same is true with each of us, Martha says. Our yearning is the energy, our creativity is the water, and the space is the time we give it in our lives.

Society has traditionally taught us that we should get one job, keep it until we retire, and that one job is where we’ll get all our money forever. So we’re not used to seeing our personal economy as a complex system of things.

However, because of technology and competition, the old way of doing things is collapsing, and it’s become more feasible in our economy to have an economic ecosystem. To create one you need liberated deep desire, plus liberated creativity, plus time—and a vision board can help.

To learn Martha’s steps for making vision boards that create thriving economic ecosystems in your own life, join her for this fun and inspiring episode! She’ll also lead you in a meditation to help your deepest desires and the infinite power of your creativity do their magical work.

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Mending Your Energy Shields Jul 25, 2024

Did you know that we’re energetically connected?
We all have the ability to feel each other’s energy: if someone is happy and calm, we can feel it, and when someone is angry or dangerous, we can feel that as well. What’s more, we’re each projecting our own energy all the time.
However, when you’re not aware of the energy you’re giving off, you inadvertently create what Martha calls “energetic dark spots”—and these make you vulnerable to people with negative energy who want to prey on you in some way.
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about how you can mend any energetic dark spots you may have and create an integrous energy that is calm, pure, and doesn't attract negativity.
She’ll walk you through the process she uses to heal her own energy shields—using questions she learned from the work of Byron Katie—and she’ll also lead you in her Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation to help you visualize the energy that connects us all.
Plus, Rowan Mangan will join Martha at the end for a very exciting announcement, so be sure to tune in for the full episode!

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Weathering the Waves of Shame Jul 18, 2024

Waves of shame. They're icky, they're toxic, and they're not easy to escape.
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about how we can move past this particularly intense form of anxiety and swim on to better horizons.
Shame attacks us at the level of basic self-identity and makes us believe that our vulnerabilities are permanent, personal, and pervasive. It also wants us to keep secrets and hide things.
So, Martha says, by being open and sharing our humiliating moments—the opposite of what shame wants us to do—we can actually reduce our feelings of shame. And often, the more embarrassing your “shameful” moment, the more it can be turned into a freeing kind of humor that helps you feel safe.
To learn how to share your vulnerabilities safely through openness, humor, and the step-check-step method, don’t miss this liberating episode. It also includes Martha’s guided Silence, Space, and Stillness meditation—with a special devotion to the parts of you that have ever felt shamed.

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How to Bring the Good Times Back Jul 11, 2024

Many of us have heard about the mind-body connection, but have you ever tried sense-memory therapy?

Martha recently lost her sense of smell to a sinus infection, and instead of worrying that she'll never get it back, she's trying sense-memory therapy—she holds her favorite pine-scented candle close to her nose while relishing the memory of smelling that candle.

Recalling positive sense memories creates connections in the brain that reinforce positive, joyful times instead of fear or anxiety, and that's what Martha is talking about in this episode of The Gathering Room.

Martha believes this methodology can help with every aspect of life—from physical ailments to social anxieties to financial struggles and more—and literally bring the good times back!

We can even touch into the memory of what it was to be pure spirit, completely unafraid, and create brains that can go to the place of no suffering, deep wisdom, and the peace that passes all understanding.

Want to learn how? Tune in for the full episode, where Martha will also guide you through a powerful Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation to help you drop out of matter and connect with the deepest sense memory. Join her!

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Your Genius is Calling Jun 27, 2024

Did you know you were born a creative genius?

All of us are, Martha says, but we are socialized out of our genius by the structures of culture. Why? Because the culture wants everyone the same, but genius doesn’t homogenize well.

However, your genius is still calling to you, and in this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares how you can recognize—and follow—its call.

She says your genius will have three main characteristics:

It hides in plain sight—it’s the thing that for you is so easy you think surely anyone could do it. (Spoiler alert: They can’t!)
It makes you curious. When you see something that’s related to your genius, you perk up and go "Hmm…” If it makes you curious, your mind is already shaping itself around that activity.
It makes you feel something called the “rage to master” where you not only feel curiosity, you feel an ache in your heart that says, "Oh, if only I could do that!" If it’s aligned with your genius, you’ll get the “ignition message” to begin doing that thing.

Martha says that when something that's connected to your genius pulls you in and won't stop pulling you in, the worst thing you can do is decide that the time for you to do that thing has passed—because it is never too late.

Sometimes it's an inspiration, sometimes it's a state of consciousness, sometimes it's a way of healing, sometimes it can't be even seen.

“Anything can be part of your genius,” Martha says. “Just go for it!”

To find out more about the genius that’s calling to you and how you can answer the call, be sure to tune in for the full episode!

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Kindness in Motion Jun 20, 2024

The world can be a hard, inhospitable, downright hostile place, and people can quite often be less than kind. Yet Martha says that by practicing what she calls “kindness in motion,” we can start to change the whole complexion of the world.

Martha defines kindness in motion as “kindness while doing things” and she’s sharing how to do it in this episode of The Gathering Room.

As Martha describes it, all of our perceptions come through the filter of the mind. The voice in our heads that we think is coming from the outside actually isn’t. So, as she tells us, “we can unilaterally shift the screen inside the head so that it only brings kindness.”

This means that if there's something that's frustrating you, as you go through it, be as kind to yourself as you would be to a very vulnerable child who has never tried it before, using what Martha calls Kind Internal Self Talk.

Tell yourself things like:

You are okay.

You’re doing so well.

You're doing things a lot of people couldn't do.

This is amazing.

This is going to work out fine.

There’s always a place where you can be kind to yourself, Martha says, and soon you’ll start to see your self-kindness reflected back to you from others.

To hear some inspiring stories of kindness in motion (plus a couple that might crack you up), tune in for the full episode, where Martha will also lead you through her Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation. Be extra kind to yourself and join her!

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Listen Again: Want Out? Lean In! Jun 13, 2024

How do you respond when you’re in a painful situation and there’s no way out? The answer is paradoxical. Come learn how to do it with this week’s Gathering Room!

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Listen Again: The Way Back to Happy Jun 06, 2024

You’ve heard of the fight and flight reflexes, but what about flop and fake?

Flop and fake (also known as fawn) are two of the other responses in the polyvagal system, a theory about how our nervous systems adapt to stress and the environment. Fake/fawn is a people-pleasing response, and flop means you just lie there unable to drum up motivation.

In this special “Listen Again” episode of The Gathering Room, Martha’s talking about polyvagal theory and how to regulate your nervous system when it gets hijacked by fight, flight, flop, fake, or freeze.

One of the things polyvagal theory says is that we can never go into a calm, alert state unless our nervous systems are interacting with one of four things: self, others, nature, and spirit. The good news is that Martha has a process to help you do exactly that!

If you’re feeling frazzled, overstimulated, or overwhelmed and you need some relief, tune in and let Martha guide you back to your center of calm. With a few prompts, you can start to regulate your nervous system and become conscious of the beauty, joy, and love all around you.

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Listen Again: Martha with Dr. Dick Schwartz May 30, 2024

For this special “Listen Again” episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is sharing her conversation with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the brilliant creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a wonderful therapeutic model that Martha loves using!

IFS provides an optimistic, empowering framework to help us focus on the different “parts” of our personalities so that we can shift into a state characterized by curiosity, calm, confidence, and compassion.

Tune in for their conversation about Richard’s latest book, YOU ARE THE ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR: APPLYING INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS TO INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS, which is available at all major retailers.

If you’re interested in learning more about IFS, you won’t want to miss this one!

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Listen Again: How to Spark the Magic May 23, 2024

Are you in the mood to make some magic?

Martha is! And in this special “Listen Again” episode of The Gathering Room, she’s sharing inspiration from Suzanne Eder’s book, What You Want Wants You, to help you reconnect with your true desires so you can follow the path to your soul’s fulfillment.

While our culture teaches us to associate desire with selfishness and even depravity—a.k.a. “base desire”—Eder’s book says this is a misinterpretation. Instead, real desire is an expression of the one soul that is the basic ground of being for all of us.

As Martha elaborates, we’re all pure divine essence, and to be in physical form is to perceive an apparent separation between ourselves and all other things. The truth, however, is that we are all one. Tapping into that truth and being kind to the self are the ways we spark magic.

To learn how to drop the illusion of separation, get in touch with your true desires, and start creating a life that works for you like magic, don’t miss the full episode!

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Your Spiritual Brain May 16, 2024

Have you ever experienced synchronicity?

As Martha defines it in this episode of The Gathering Room, a synchronicity is any event or experience that seems to confirm or indicate that the universe is not random—that there's something making all this happen.

Martha has been re-reading The Awakened Brain by Dr. Lisa Miller, who writes about synchronicities and what she calls a “spiritual docking station” in the human brain.

What Dr. Miller found in her research is that when people are open to the idea of spiritual realities like synchronicities, they have access to much more physical and mental health, and they’re more resilient and more resistant to anxiety and depression.

Martha says that when she opens the docking station of her own brain, it feels like a loving, beautiful presence is able to move through her. It gives her the experience of seeming to do things herself but also relax into being moved by a loving, creative force.

It’s only when we relax our nervous systems, Martha says, that we can feel the consciousness of the universe because the consciousness of the universe does not respond to anxiety and desperation. It responds to joy, love, and trust.

To learn how to keep your spiritual docking station open so you can look for synchronicities in your own life, be sure to tune in for the full episode. Martha will also guide you through her Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation to allow those synchronicities to start showing up!

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Making Up Your Mission May 09, 2024

Has anxiety been keeping you from your life’s mission?

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares that the best way out of anxiety is not simply to calm yourself, but to get creative!

When you take the creativity route, Martha tells us, you get so deep in the process of creating solutions to the problems that matter to you that it becomes literally impossible for your brain to be anxious.

So how do you start living from a creative place?

Martha says the key is getting curious, and to access your curiosity, there are three things that the brain always asks, in this order:

Am I safe?
Am I loved?
What can I learn?

Once the brain knows you are safe and loved, it can go into curiosity and start learning new things. And when you realize that you have the capacity to create around anything that makes you curious, you begin to drive your life towards your own unique mission.

To learn how to feel safe and loved so you can access your zone of genius and create your life’s mission, tune in for the full episode! Martha also guides you through her Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation to calm anxiety and stimulate curiosity.

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The Perfection of Connection May 02, 2024

Is there something you’re having trouble with that you’re trying to do perfectly?

If so, you’re not alone… As Martha reminds us in this episode of The Gathering Room, we are all trained by the culture to strive for perfection and to look for it in others.

However, you are not going to show up perfectly—because it’s impossible! If you show up not to be perfect but to connect, nobody will care that you haven’t done it perfectly.

As Martha says, we are here to be connected with a world in which all of us are imperfect.

Martha is currently learning Spanish, and she recently stumbled her way through a conversation with a Spanish-speaking friend. Despite her less-than-perfect Spanish, the joy Martha felt connecting with her friend in that language was a “return to the sacredness of communion.”

If you've been struggling with the desire to be perfect, and you want to learn how to drop into imperfection and connect to yourself and others, be sure to tune in. You’ll also be able to experience connection through Martha’s guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation.

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The Power of the Pleasant Moment Apr 25, 2024

Pleasure is something that many of us may think of as an indulgence, but Martha says it’s actually the gateway to the things that really enrich our souls… And we access this pleasure by relaxing. 🍃

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares an exercise you can do to drop into relaxation mode, and it doesn’t require a trip to the spa—you can do it anywhere!

Using small, pleasant feelings to anchor the whole mind can lead to revolutionary changes, Martha says, and it begins with just two simple steps:

First, clench your jaw. 😬

Then, release it. 😌

Repeat this a few times, and start to notice the feeling of release when your jaw drops. See if you can find something pleasurable in that release of tension because even the smallest sense of pleasure can pull your attention toward it—and away from negative feelings.

You can extend this Relaxation Pleasure exercise throughout your whole body to help relieve anxiety, anger, or heartbreak. Want to learn how?

Listen to the full episode where Martha will walk you through the steps and also lead you in her guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation. It’s a recipe for what Martha calls “a mighty pleasant moment” so be sure to join her!

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Your Secret Superpower Apr 18, 2024

Did you know that you have a superpower you might not know about? 🦸🏽‍♀🦸‍♂️

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about how to tap into the creative impulses at the center of your psyche—a superpower we all have but may not realize it!

Remember the things you did when you were a child or a teenager for no other reason than the pure joy of it? Maybe you still do these things now, but the culture dismisses them as unimportant “hobbies.”

Martha says that the very things that brought you joy as a child, the things that just floated your boat and you had no idea why…those things have a magic to them. In fact, they’re the keys to unlocking your superpower! 🔑💥

You’ll be able to tell it’s your superpower because it will give you the feeling, the itch, the burning desire to go and play in creation. And, as Martha says, that's how we change the world.

To learn more about how to recognize and follow the pulse of creativity to unlock your superpower, don’t miss this inspiring episode, which concludes with Martha’s guided Silence, Space, and Stillness meditation.

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The Magical Corner of Intention and Invention Apr 04, 2024

Have you ever tried to manifest something, but it just wouldn’t happen?
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares how to use what she calls the “technology of magic” to make your deepest yearnings a reality.
Martha says that having a thought or intention is a necessary but insufficient condition for manifesting the things you want. Your intention must be combined with invention—or as Martha calls it, “rolling up your sleeves and getting to work!”
At the corner of your intention and your invention is where the magic happens. And it only happens, Martha says, when your intention comes to you as part of your life’s true mission.
To learn more about using the technology of magic to manifest your soul’s intentions, be sure to tune in for this episode of The Gathering Room. You’ll also get to join Martha in meditation—and hear about her magical monkey manifestation in Costa Rica! 🐒🐒🐒
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The Joy of Drudgery Mar 07, 2024

“How do we adjust to the drudgery?”

Martha was asked this question by Ro when they returned home from a wonderful stay at the Imiloa Institute in the Costa Rican jungle.

A lot of upkeep is required to sustain ordinary living, and much of daily life gets consumed by repetitive tasks. In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about a shift we can make to transform drudgery into beauty.

In traditions where they have the concept of awakening or enlightenment, Martha says, the emphasis is not on what you do, but how you do it. It's the quality of presence in your body, mind, heart, and spirit while you carry out each task.

As the Zen saying goes, “Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.”

When you are fully present and engaging with all of your senses, any experience can become sublime, even mundane tasks like washing the dishes. You can look at even the simplest object and say, “You are so beautiful.”

To get more insights about transforming drudgery into a spiritual practice, tune in for the full episode, which also includes Martha’s guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation. And if a retreat with Martha sounds like just the thing to help you return to your life with fresh eyes, read about her Pure.Wild.Self Retreat in Costa Rica at the link below!
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Setting Sail Feb 22, 2024

Where does your life want you to go sailing?
In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about the pull for adventure that all humans have but are often too scared to follow.
To build up your adventuring spirit, Martha recommends going on “little adventures” every day—things that push you out of your comfort zone and into your growth zone.
How do you do this?
By consulting with your deep, deep essential self to see how you truly feel about all the different things you could do in a day. Then you do what feels “warmer”—what makes you happier even if it’s a little scary—and you do less of what feels colder.
Because when you live your life in the growth zone, Martha says, it looks like all kinds of adventures are coming to you—because they are!
For more travel and adventure inspiration, plus the opportunity to join Martha in a guided meditation, don’t miss the full episode. And to find out if Martha’s Pure.Wild.Self Retreat in Costa Rica is the adventure for you, you can check out all the details at the link below!
https://marthabeck.com/retreat/

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Worth the Trouble Feb 15, 2024

How do you know when something is worth the trouble?
That’s the question Martha’s exploring in this episode of The Gathering Room, and the short answer is: If it’s your passion, it’s always worth the trouble!
Martha’s recent trip to New York with her family to see Ani DiFranco on Broadway ended up being an enormous amount of trouble—but when she finally got to see the show, she was blown away. She found that the joy it brought her was worth all the trouble it took to get there.
She also realized that so much of the art and music and writing that inspires us—the astonishing art, the amazing music, the brilliant books—took an enormous amount of trouble to create. And the fact that these things take trouble to create means they’re worth the trouble.
Are you looking for some creative inspiration? Want to find out if your latest passion is worth the trouble it’s going to take? Then this episode is for you! You can also participate in Martha’s guided meditation to help you tap into the creative power of silence, space, and stillness.
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Rest for Success Feb 08, 2024

Do you feel in desperate need of a rest?

Most of us are underestimating our need to rest to an almost criminal degree, and Martha is talking about why that is—and how to change it—on this episode of The Gathering Room.

We live in a society that wants us to work constantly. However, nature says that we need to rest regularly—in fact, this is absolutely crucial. “You can live without intense activity,” Martha reminds us, “but you cannot live without rest.”

Rest is your connection to the Divine and comes in many different forms—it’s not just lying down and napping!—and connecting to the Divine is what gives you rest and nourishes your soul.

Tune in to the full episode to learn how to respect your circadian and ultradian rhythms, how to come up with what Martha calls “cultural cover stories” when you need them, and how to cultivate low-demand living to help you get the rest you need.

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How to Compose Yourself Feb 01, 2024

What does it mean to “compose yourself”?

The usual definition is to calm down and control yourself, but Martha has a very different meaning in mind, and she’s exploring it in this episode of The Gathering Room: How to Compose Yourself.

As Martha defines it, you are literally composing your life—the being that you are—through the act of creating something new.

Whether it’s a watercolor you’re painting, a meal you’re preparing, a business you’re building, or a child you’re raising, the act of creation is also creating you—and according to Martha, this is the actual point of creating. (Not, as the culture would have us believe, to make money from it.)

Tune in for the full episode to learn more of Martha’s insights about the beauty and importance of creating “for no reason” and to participate in her guided meditation on imperfection, impermanence, and the essence of creativity.

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Doing the Thing You Think You Cannot Do Jan 25, 2024

Is there something you really want to do, but the thought of it absolutely terrifies you? 😱
Martha has been there many times, and that’s what she’s talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room: Doing the Thing You Think You Cannot Do.
If you’re facing something in your life that you want to do but it makes you anxious, Martha says to remember that 99% of every original thing that has ever been done has been done by someone who didn’t think they could do it.
In other words, you’re in good company! 🏆
Listen to the full episode to find out how to recognize when it's love that wants you to do something that scares you—and how to work up the courage to run at it full speed. Martha also adapts her Silence, Space, and Stillness meditation to soothe your anxiety about the things you're scared to do.

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Big Change. Now What? Jan 18, 2024

Sometimes we’re hit with a change so big it knocks us for a loop. We look around in a daze thinking, “NOW what?”

🦋 Welcome to what Martha calls “Square One” in The Change Cycle, a unique framework she developed to help people understand and navigate life’s transitions.

🦋 As Martha explains, life's changes aren't things we plan in our calendars. They are fundamental metamorphoses.

You will go through the four Squares of the Change Cycle over and over throughout your lifetime. And Square One is about not knowing exactly what to do or what will happen next.

🦋 It’s about letting go and waiting to see what kind of butterfly you’re going to become.

If you’re in Square One and feeling scared or confused…and you want to learn how to get through it with grace and ease, then this episode is a must-listen. You’ll also be able to cultivate an immediate sense of calm by joining Martha in her Silence, Space, and Stillness meditation.

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A Year of Peace Jan 11, 2024

Are you someone who makes New Year’s resolutions?

Martha enjoys making one (yes, one) each year—and she always keeps it!

In this episode of The Gathering Room: A Year of Peace, she talks about her resolution to increase her brain’s wellbeing by dropping demands that have an overriding feeling of negativity and tend to make her brain shut down.

Research that has shown that our brains work best when we can answer YES to two questions:

Am I safe?
Am I loved unconditionally?

After basic survival, Martha says, love is the next imperative. When we feel safe and we feel loved, it’s amazing how fast we can learn, how much we can create and do—and how much happier our lives can be.

Tune in for the full episode to learn how to let go of the demands we place on ourselves for no good reason, hear about some of the demands Martha has dropped so far, and join her for her guided Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation.

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Keep Swimming Dec 14, 2023

Do you ever struggle to do things you know you have to do, even though you don’t really feel like it?
We’ve all been there—including Martha—and she’s talking about it in this episode of The Gathering Room: Keep Swimming.
Humans are the kind of creatures that can get so focused on a dream that even if that dream seems impossible, or the work it requires feels like a total slog, we can make ourselves keep going.
Martha watched a movie about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who made several failed attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida. Despite serious setbacks, Diana kept going back and trying again—and she finally achieved her goal at the age of 64.
On her final successful attempt, Diana’s coach jumped into the water to swim alongside her, which Martha says is something we sometimes have to do for each other.
We may not be able to touch each other, but we can still swim alongside each other like a pod of dolphins, encouraging each other to keep going—because the effort will be worth it.
Tune in to the full episode, Ep 146: Keep Swimming, for more encouragement to keep going despite challenges and to participate in Martha’s guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation.
LINKS

Nyad film

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How to Play with the Conscious Universe Dec 07, 2023

Did you know that everything around you is conscious and responding to you in various ways?
It may sound woo-woo, but Martha says there's a tremendous amount of legitimate scientific research to support this idea!
When we’re willing to acknowledge that we don't know everything about the universe, and we’re willing to play with the idea that the universe is conscious, very interesting things start happening…
In this episode of The Gathering Room: How to Play with the Conscious Universe, Martha talks about the synchronicities and “God winks” that occur when we realize we're all one field of consciousness.
To learn how to start picking up what the universe is actually saying to you—and feel its deep calm as Martha guides you through her Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation—be sure to listen to this fascinating episode.

LINKS

The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin, PhD

The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony

Plant researcher Monica Gagliano

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Awakening Your Magician Nov 16, 2023

Did you know that the right hemisphere of your brain is doing supercomputer-level processing all the time, whether you’re aware of it or not?
Wild, right? Martha calls the right hemisphere “the magician” because it can come up with the most amazing, brilliant solutions to very difficult problems, seemingly out of thin air.
In this episode of The Gathering Room: Awakening Your Magician, Martha talks about how we can activate our highly creative right hemispheres, so we can solve the problems in our lives—and in the world.
And the best part is, reawakening your own creative genius can actually be a lot of fun!
To learn how to use Martha’s 4 C’s (calm, curiosity, courage, and feeling cornered) to rev up your right hemisphere and start solving problems as if by magic, tune in to this fascinating episode, which also includes Martha’s Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.
LINKS

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Igniting Your Purpose Nov 09, 2023

Some people have a bullseye picture of their purpose in life and are headed straight toward it. However, this is extremely rare.
Why?
Martha says it’s because we live in a culture dominated by left-hemisphere thinking, which pulls us toward anxiety and socializes us to do as we’re told and acquire material wealth.
In this episode of The Gathering Room podcast, Martha talks about following your curiosity to activate the right side of the brain, which is where our passion lives. And our passion is what leads us to our life’s purpose.
If you want to start looking for things that draw your attention (rather than push yourself toward the things you think you should do), and you’re ready to prepare yourself to follow your curiosity wherever it leads, tune in to the full episode—it may contain just the spark you need!
Episode Links

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How to Make a Sanity Quilt Nov 02, 2023

Do you ever feel like your life is a crazy quilt?

Martha says that creating your life is the ultimate creative project, and that’s what she’s talking about in this episode of The Gathering Room.

Each of us is given all the material to make a life—a human body, a set of circumstances, and a set of abilities—and the life we make from that material is ours to determine in this day and age.

Sometimes it feels like we’re just piecing things together helter-skelter without a pattern, crazy-quilt style, but Martha says there’s nothing crazy about it. “Crazy” is trying to follow the pattern the culture gives us, using only the materials it wants us to have.

When you stitch together the unique elements of your life to make something that brings you joy and a sense of purpose, that is actually very sane—what Martha calls a “sanity quilt.”

Listen to the full episode to learn how to see beauty in the fabrics of your life so you can make your own warm and wonderful “sanity quilt.” You’ll also be able to participate as Martha guides you through her Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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Solving the Puzzles of Our Lives Oct 26, 2023

Martha says one reason we humans are a strange species is because we love to make jigsaw puzzles—beautiful pictures that we cut up into tiny pieces and disassemble, and then put back together. And we don’t like them to be too easy!
In this episode of The Gathering Room: Solving the Puzzles of Our Lives, Martha talks about the way problems in our lives are like puzzles, and how it often can be more joyful to have a puzzle than not to have one. These puzzles are the life situations given to us by circumstance.
“If we can get into a state of relative relaxation,” Martha says, “and then look at even a very scary problem in our own lives, we can start to appreciate the kind of puzzles our brains like to solve.”
To learn how to approach the problems in your own life like a jigsaw puzzle—and solve them in a way that supports your awakening and can help transform the world—tune in for the full episode. It also includes Martha’s guided Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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The Way Back to Happy Oct 12, 2023

You’ve heard of the fight and flight reflexes, but what about flop and fake?
Flop and fake (also known as fawn) are two of the other responses in the polyvagal system, a theory about how our nervous systems adapt to stress and the environment. Fake/fawn is a people-pleasing response, and flop means you just lie there unable to drum up motivation.
In this episode of The Gathering Pod: The Way Back to Happy, Martha’s talking about polyvagal theory and how to regulate your nervous system when it gets hijacked by fight, flight, freeze, flop, or fake.
One of the things polyvagal theory says is that we can never go into a calm, alert state unless our nervous systems are interacting with one of four things: self, others, nature, and spirit. The good news is that Martha has a process to help you do exactly that!
If you’re feeling frazzled, overstimulated, or overwhelmed and you need some relief, tune in and let Martha guide you back to your center of calm. With a few prompts, you can start to regulate your nervous system and become conscious of the beauty, joy, and love all around you.

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Letting the Force Steer Your Life Oct 05, 2023

We're not trained to think of a spiritually led life as being hilarious or silly or goofy. But as Martha reminds us, laughter is the beginning of prayer.
In this episode of The Gathering Pod: Letting the Force Steer Your Life, she talks about the difference between spiritual faith and religious faith, and how to connect with and trust spiritual energy (aka the Force) to guide you.
When you do, you’ll be in for some truly delightful surprises!
As Martha puts it, “The universe is not your butler. The universe is a continuous aspect of your consciousness that loves for you to play with it.”

Listen to the full episode to hear some incredibly fun stories about manifesting with integrity, learn more about the overlap between play and spirit, and participate in Martha’s guided Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation.

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When Stopping Is the Way to Go Sep 28, 2023

“Be prepared to stop.”
This is serious life advice, Martha says, because no matter what we’re doing (or how much we want to continue doing it), at some point we’re going to get interrupted by life.
Whenever we have to stop something we thought was going to continue indefinitely—like a job, for example, or a marriage—it can really hurt.
In this episode of The Gathering Pod: When Stopping Is the Way to Go, Martha talks about how we can make peace with inevitable interruptions by embracing another perspective:
“In the flow of time in this earthly existence, stopping and starting are the same thing—every time we stop doing something, we start doing something different.”
Tune in to participate in a guided meditation with Martha and learn how you loosening your attachments can ease the pain of stopping, so you can start observing the delicious flow of life.

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Dropping Anchor Sep 21, 2023

Are you familiar with polyvagal theory?

It may sound highly scientific, but Martha says polyvagal theory has a profound effect on spiritual practice as well, and she’s talking all about it in this episode of The Gathering Room: Dropping Anchor.

The polyvagal nerve is a system of nerves connecting the brain to various parts of the body, and it plays a key role in our response to stress—either revving us up or shutting us down.

And according to the work of Deb Dana, it’s also involved with our sense of joy, compassion, love, and connection with higher consciousness through the part of the polyvagal nerve called the ventral vagal.

Martha says that even when we feel overwhelmed, the ventral vagal state allows us to anchor into a state of joyful, peaceful relaxation and hold that state of being even amid chaos.

To learn how to stay anchored in peace when others are in fight-or-flight or shutdown mode, tune in for the full episode. Martha even guides you through a ventral vagal exercise along with her Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation. Don’t miss it!

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The Best of the Gathering Room - Episode 110: How to Let the Light In Sep 14, 2023

It’s The Best of the Gathering Pod, and this week we’re revisiting another listener favorite from the vault—Episode 110: How to Let the Light In.
In this episode, Martha talks about her “rage to master” and the paradox of imperfection: While we can try our hardest to produce perfect results, we must accept that we’ll always make mistakes. It’s this combination of effort and grace that allows us to let the light into our lives.
To find out more, be sure to listen to the full episode!

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The Best of the Gathering Room - Episode 97: Building on Bright Spots Sep 07, 2023

We’ve got another Best of the Gathering Room episode for you today, a listener favorite called Building on Bright Spots.

In this episode, Martha talks about finding and following the almost invisible “bright spots” in your life whenever things feel dark and cloudy. Because clouds are illusions, it's always possible to find little breaks in the clouds and see the clear points of truth that can guide you home.

To find out how, tune in for the full episode—which might turn out to be a bright spot for you!

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The Best of the Gathering Room - Episode 109: How to Heal Your Heart Aug 31, 2023

While Martha is out on vacation, we’re bringing you The Best of the Gathering Room—a treasury of Gatherers’ favorite episodes—starting with: How to Heal Your Heart.

Many of us believe something outside ourselves can heal us when we're heartsick, but Martha says the opposite is true. The heart can heal itself—if you know how to access the "heart healer" within you.

To learn how to come into integrity so that your inner “heart healer” can do its valuable work, don't miss this popular episode!

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Special Gathering Room with Dr. Richard Schwartz Aug 24, 2023

Gatherers—I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr. Richard Schwartz, the brilliant creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a wonderful therapeutic model that you may have heard me talk about before because I love using it!
IFS provides an optimistic, empowering framework to help us focus on the different “parts” of our personalities so that we can shift into a state characterized by curiosity, calm, confidence, and compassion.
I hope you’ll tune in for our conversation about his latest book, YOU ARE THE ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR: APPLYING INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS TO INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS, which is available at all major retailers.
You can follow Dr. Richard Schwartz on:
Twitter @ifs_model
Instagram @internalfamilysystems
Facebook at InternalFamilySystems
LinkedIn at InternalFamilySystems

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Filling the Well Aug 17, 2023

Have you been feeling depleted?
So many of us are tired, so much of the time. To find out what we can do about it, join Martha for this episode of The Gathering Pod: Filling the Well.
Martha points out that there are many situations in human life that are analogous to drought— times when our energy feels like it’s drying up. The good news is that there are sources of energetic replenishment always available to us.
With enough spiritual practice you can actually get to a place where you feel the dewpoint of Spirit filling you up with the energy that never fails—what Martha calls the “water of life.”
To learn more about filling your spiritual well with renewed energy and joy, don’t miss the full episode! You’ll also be able to join Martha’s guided Silence, Stillness, and Space meditation.

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Wired to Awaken Aug 10, 2023

Did you know there is a powerful connection between spirituality and mental health?
Martha recently read a book about this subject—The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Lisa Miller—and she’s talking about it on this episode of The Gathering Room: The Benefits of Awakening.
Martha believes in the transformative power of spiritual awakening, which she defines as being what you are in your true essence, once you’ve discarded illusion. While spiritual enlightenment in this lifetime may be an impossible goal, stories of spiritual awakening abound.
Listen to the full episode to hear more—and as Martha says, “Let’s all wake up together!”

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Special Gathering Room with Emma Nadler Aug 03, 2023

Gatherers—I'm so excited to be joined by Emma Nadler, author of the lyrical, funny, and heart-healing new memoir, THE UNLIKELY VILLAGE OF EDEN.
As a psychotherapist and the parent of a child with disabilities, Emma Nadler is a testament to the resiliency of parents, children, friendships, marriage, and every other manifestation of human love.
I hope you’ll tune in for our conversation about her deeply moving and inspiring book!
THE UNLIKELY VILLAGE OF EDEN: A MEMOIR by Emma Nadler is available at all major retailers. You can follow Emma on Instagram @emmanadlerwrites and find her on Facebook at Emma Nadler.

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How to Look for Help Jul 27, 2023

We’ve all had times in our life when we’ve needed help—and we’ve all had times when we’ve received the help we needed.

In this episode of The Gathering Room: How to Look for Help, Martha says that appreciating those times when you’ve been helped in the past is the key to getting help in the future.

When we focus on need, Martha says, it creates a lifetime that feels like nothing but need. But when you see yourself as someone who’s always ultimately received help, you begin to see the universe as a friendly place where help is everywhere.

To learn how to shift your perspective and start noticing how the universe responds to your appreciation for help, be sure to listen to the full episode!

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Finding Your People Jul 20, 2023

There are more people on earth than ever before… yet so many people are lonely. The thing is, love and friendship aren’t a numbers game. There’s a way to attract the people who are waiting to love you. Come find out how!

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Keeping Your Seat Jul 13, 2023

Content Warning: This episode includes details of a beloved pet passing.
“Keeping your seat” refers to finding the core of peace that is always present at your center. This simple skill changes everything. Listen in to this week’s episode to learn how to do it and the heartbreaking reason Martha had to practice it this week.

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Calm Down, We Can Do Both! Jun 27, 2023

In this episode of The Gathering Pod: Calm Down, We Can Do Both!, Martha talks about how calming yourself frees the brain to come up with creative ways to get everything your heart desires—even when those desires seem to conflict with each other.
Martha recommends that when you reach an impasse in your yearning, push hard against the frustration you feel and let the yearning be bigger—and then let go. That’s when you get calm, which activates your brain’s full creative potential to find solutions you never thought of before!

(Note: Martha will be teaching you to trade anxiety for this kind of creative capacity in her upcoming course, “The Art of Calm.” Registration closes soon! Read more and sign up here: marthabeck.com/calm )

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The Secret to Safety Jun 22, 2023

The secret about how to claim that elusive feeling of safety is hiding in plain sight. But it is disguised! Listen to this week’s Gathering Room to learn all about how to feel truly safe.

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Living in the Learning Zone May 25, 2023

There are three zones we can inhabit. Two will shrink our lives and one will grow them. Learn the difference and how to stay in the sweet spot with this week’s Gathering Room!

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Tracking Your Spirit May 18, 2023

This week, we all go tracking! Your spirit is leaving footprints everywhere; join Martha to learn how to follow them!

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A One-Word Recipe for Inner Peace May 11, 2023

We are naturally inclined to focus on things that frighten us.
Lies spread six times faster than true facts. In fact, there’s only one thing that spreads as quickly as lies, and that’s Martha’s one-word recipe for us this week. Tune in to find out what it is!

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Special Gathering Room with Katherine May! Apr 27, 2023

Gatherers—I'm so excited to be joined by New York Times bestselling author Katherine May!
If you don't know Katherine's work, do yourself an enormous favor and read everything you can that she's written. I hope you'll join me for our conversation about her new book, ENCHANTMENT: AWAKENING WONDER IN AN ANXIOUS AGE.

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Microdosing Joy Apr 20, 2023

This week, Martha talks about new discoveries showing how drastically the arts can improve our health and our lives. Come learn how to microdose! (With a bonus group meditation at the end!)

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Braver Than You Believe Apr 06, 2023

Our comfort zones are always shrinking or expanding. In this Gathering Room, we discuss how to make sure they keep expanding. You really are braver than you believe!

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The Spirit of Audacity with Melissa Kiguwa Mar 30, 2023

For this very special Gathering Room, Martha is joined by extraordinary emerging thought leader Melissa Kiguwa. The two discuss why audacity is an underappreciated personal quality and an essential ingredient for an authentic life.

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Befriending Ourselves Mar 23, 2023

We’re encouraged to “fight” in order to feel better, to love better, to be more successful. But what we fight fights back. Here’s another way.

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The Helpers Who Never Leave Mar 16, 2023

How would it feel to know you were always loved, supported and cared for in every moment of your life? Well, maybe you are. Join Martha to learn how to find the helpers who never leave.

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Want out? Lean in! Mar 02, 2023

How do you respond when you’re in a painful situation and there’s no way out? The answer is paradoxical. Come learn how to do it with this week’s Gathering Room!

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How to Spark the Magic Feb 23, 2023

In this Gathering Room, Martha helps us reconnect with our true desires, which signal the path to the fulfillment of our destiny. (Inspired by Suzanne Eder’s new book, “What You Want Wants You.”)

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How to Begin Feb 16, 2023

This week, Martha talks about the “genius, power and magic” of beginning (thanks, Goethe!). She proposes we look at beginning something new as an end in itself so that we can gently coax ourselves into it. Tune in for more!

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A Strange Place to Find Comfort Feb 09, 2023

This episode of The Gathering Room suggests that you use your “discomfort zone” in a gentle but powerfully positive way. Curious? Come find out!

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The Grace of F-ing Up Feb 02, 2023

In this Gathering Room, Martha discusses the insights and breakthroughs that can only come when we surrender to the fact that we’ve F-ed up. Listen in and find out how!

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How to Let the Light In Jan 26, 2023

This week, Martha talks about the paradox of imperfection: trying our hardest to do our best while still accepting that we will always make mistakes. This combination of effort and grace lets the light into our lives. Listen in to learn how!

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How to Heal Your Heart Jan 19, 2023

In this Gathering Room, Martha talks about the “heart healer” within every person. When we’re heartsick, this is the only thing that heals us. Learn how to access your own heart healer in this very popular episode! (Originally aired: January 15, 2023)

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There's Less to Do Than You Think Jan 12, 2023

In this episode of The Gathering Room, you’ll learn how little you really have to do. If you think that sounds too easy, change what you think, not what you do. Come see how! (Originally aired: January 8, 2023)

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Best of The Gathering Pod: Oprah's Book Club Edition Dec 29, 2022

We’re happy to announce that Martha’s bestselling book The Way of Integrity is out in paperback now!

In honor of this new release, we are replaying Martha’s one-hour Oprah's Book Club Edition of The Gathering Room from March 6, 2022.

In this episode, Martha shares how you can bring yourself back into wholeness (aka integrity) to allow more peace, freedom, belonging, and joy into your life.

She also answers questions from her friends over at Oprah's Book Club and her beloved regular Gathering Room peeps, so you won’t want to miss this very special episode.

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Creating the Perfect Holiday Season—Seriously! Dec 15, 2022

As we head towards another holiday season, this week Martha wants us to know that the most important part of our holiday planning is the “refusal to suffer for imaginary reasons.” To learn to go about this, tune in to The Gathering Room! (Originally aired: December 11, 2022)

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When You Literally Can't Even Dec 08, 2022

This week, Martha talks about what to do at those times when you can’t. She teaches us that even when there is literally no way forward, there is still—literally—a way. Tune in for more. (Originally aired: December 4, 2022)

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What To Do While You’re Waiting Nov 17, 2022

This week, Martha talks about waiting—defined by the dictionary as “delaying action until something else happens.” She says waiting is pointless because “something else” never happens; the only thing we ever experience is what’s happening now. Learn how to stop waiting here! (Originally aired: November 13, 2022)

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Cooperating With Your Destiny Nov 10, 2022

Have you ever felt drawn toward doing something that doesn’t quite make sense? Does it feel warm and exciting for no apparent reason? Pay attention. And listen to this week’s Gathering Room! (Originally aired: November 06, 2022)

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What You Want Wants You Nov 03, 2022

This week, Martha previews an upcoming book by Suzanne Eder called “What You Want Wants You.” Listen to today’s episode to bring what you truly desire into your life. (Originally aired: October 30, 2022)

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How to Not Drown Oct 27, 2022

Today we learn to do when we’re in over our heads and sinking in the complexities, challenges and overwhelms of life. Spoiler alert: it’s easier than you think! (Originally aired: October 23, 2022)

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The Great Thing About Getting Stuck Oct 20, 2022

This week Martha talks about how to have major insights. It is not what you think. If you need to feel better about a project that seems to be going nowhere, this is the episode you need to hear! (Originally aired: October 16, 2022)

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When You Want Not to Want What You Want Oct 13, 2022

What can we do with desires for things we can’t have? This week Martha talks about the experience of wanting. She explains how to turn wanting into an experience of peace and abundance. (Originally aired: October 9, 2022)

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How to Bounce Back Oct 06, 2022

This week, Martha describes human life as a series of “bounces.” We fly high, we fall down, we hit bottom, and we rise. But it may not work the way you think it does. Have a listen! (Originally aired: October 2, 2022)

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Building on Bright Spots Sep 22, 2022

This week, Martha talks about following the almost invisible “bright spots” at times that feel dark and cloudy. Martha helps you part the clouds of illusion and see the clear points of truth that can guide you home. (Originally aired: September 18, 2022)

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The Gathering Room with Special Guest Linda Sivertsen Aug 28, 2022

This week, special guest Linda Sivertsen joins Martha to talk about the spirit of writing after the publication of her new book, “Beautiful Writers”! (Originally aired August 28, 2022)

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Hanging On by Letting Go Aug 25, 2022

This week, Martha takes another look at the concept of “surrender”—the kind of surrender that happens when you literally can’t hang on anymore. She goes through a step-by-step process that leads through the anguish of giving up and all the way back to joy again. (Originally aired: August 21, 2022)

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Triggering Bliss Aug 18, 2022

In this episode, Martha describes a “brain hack” you can use to drop yourself into bliss with minimal effort. Bring your curiosity and a little daring, try this technique and enjoy the ride! (Originally aired: August 14, 2022)

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Your Perfect Problems Aug 11, 2022

This week, Martha explains why our problems can be our best friends, our path to awakening. Each problem is designed to bother you enough to examine the beliefs that are limiting your soul. Learn how by listening to this week’s Gathering Room! (Originally aired: August 7, 2022)

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The Hidden Door to Peace Aug 04, 2022

In today’s Gathering Room, Martha talks about the “hidden doors” in our lives that keep us from seeing our own enlightened nature. Hint: look in the spaces between words, between thoughts, between sleeping and waking. Enlightenment is waving at you from all the spaces you don’t see. (Originally aired: July 31, 2022)

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One Fear at a Time Jul 28, 2022

In today’s Gathering Room, Martha shares the secret of “ICK,” a new tool for calming your fears and finding the creativity to overcome them. (Originally aired: July 24, 2022)

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The Uses and Misuses of Imagination Jul 21, 2022

This week, Martha talks about two ways we can use our imaginations. One buys into the culture and leads to despair. The other leads to our destiny and heals our hearts. Watch or listen for more! (Originally aired: July 17, 2022)

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Outloving Your Fear Jul 14, 2022

This week on The Gathering Room, Martha talks about getting in touch with the parts of ourselves that are afraid, and helping them feel supported and relaxed. (Originally aired: July 10, 2022)

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You Did It! Jul 07, 2022

In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha encourages all of us to stop striving and struggling—even to improve ourselves—and spend some time celebrating what you've already done. Whatever you've done, you did it! Be proud! (Originally aired: July 3, 2022)

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Fresh Morning in This Broken World Jun 30, 2022

This week, Martha discusses how to handle bad news that rocks your world. This involves allowing oneself to “fall apart” in the grieving process, waiting for clarity about what to do next, and moving forward with courage despite your fear. (Originally aired: June 26, 2022)

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Guided Jun 23, 2022

In this Gathering Room, Martha addresses the idea that all of us have a metaphysical guidance system working on our behalf. She suggests ways to request this guidance, and to notice the signs that show the request is being granted. (Originally aired: June 19, 2022)

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The Gift of Uncertainty May 26, 2022

This week, Martha reflects on times of instability and uncertainty in our lives. Using the latest brain science, she shows us that accessing our curiosity can unlock uncertainty and lead us in creative new directions. (Originally aired: May 22, 2022)

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Decoding the Helpful Universe May 19, 2022

This week, Martha compares our waking life to the dreams we have at night. She describes her method of dream analysis and explains how we can use this to “analyze” every event in our lives. Spoiler alert: It turns out everything is trying to help us! (Originally aired: May 15, 2022)

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Your Best Worst Thing May 12, 2022

This week, Martha describes how all the worst things that happen to you can become the best things that happen to you. From major life events to the dreams you have at night to the thoughts that run through your head, the things that capture your negative attention are asking you to flip them to their opposites. In this way, they become stepping stones to your awakening. Tune in to learn this superpower! (Originally aired: May 8, 2022)

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Find Your Muse Apr 28, 2022

On today’s Gathering Room, Martha sets out to connect you with your “Muse”—the thread of passion or curiosity that pulls you toward the creative fulfillment of your life’s purpose. See which method works best for you! (Originally aired: April 24, 2022)

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Your Forever Home Apr 21, 2022

Martha digs into the concept of “home” this week: how it seems to elude us, how much we long for it. Bring the part of yourself that feels homeless to the Gathering Room this week and discover how to find your forever home. (Originally aired, April 17, 2022)

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Come Healing Apr 14, 2022

This week, Martha parses the song “Come Healing,” by Leonard Cohen. She uses the text as a basis for our understanding of the transformation of human consciousness and a lens to understand the good and bad of our own experiences. (Originally aired, April 10, 2022)

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Ditch the Doldrums Apr 07, 2022

This week, Martha talks about what to do when your enthusiasm has hit a wall—when you feel stumped and stuck. “The doldrums” happens to us all, but there’s a simple way to cope. (Originally aired, April 3, 2022)

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No Pressure Mar 31, 2022

In this episode of the Gathering Room, Martha talks PRESSURE. Taking it off ourselves, that is. How do we do it? What happens if we can? The answers will delight you! (Originally aired, March 27, 2022)

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Every Little Thing is Gonna Be All Right Mar 24, 2022

This week, Martha takes on WORRY: that insidious mental autoplay that can ruin any occasion, no matter how joyous! Tune in to learn some simple but powerful tools to ease your troubled mind and discover that every little thing really IS going to be all right. (Originally aired, March 20, 2022)

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Hardcore Kindness Mar 17, 2022

This week on the Gathering Room, Martha introduces a radical new approach to healing: being kind to ourselves. You’ll be amazed how powerful this approach is, and Martha explains it brilliantly through her own experience. (Originally aired, March 13, 2022)

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Oprah's Book Club Edition Mar 10, 2022

In this unique one-hour Oprah's Book Club Edition of the Gathering Room, Martha talks INTEGRITY! She digs deeper into the ways that you can bring your life into more peace, freedom, belonging and joy. With questions from our new friends over at Oprah's Book Club and from our beloved regular Gathering Room peeps, this very special Gathering Room is sure to delight (Originally aired, March 6, 2022)

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How to Have a Breakthrough Mar 03, 2022

In the Gathering Room this week, Martha tells you how to keep moving towards your heart’s desires, even when they seem unattainable. Also, some juicy listener questions in this episode! (Originally aired, February 27, 2022)

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How to Make Everything Better Feb 17, 2022

Life is full of ups and downs, and most of us get pretty knocked around by it. In this Gathering Room, Martha teaches us a simple psychological step that can instantly make suffering diminish and happiness increase. Listen to learn how! (Originally aired, February 13, 2022)

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The Gift of Embarrassment Feb 10, 2022

This week on the Gathering Room, Martha takes on embarrassment, which ensues when we reveal truths the ego would rather hide. We can react by hiding more (increasing shame) or watching our embarrassment calmly. Try the second option, and you’ll see your ego burning up in real time, leaving you freer. (Originally aired, February 6, 2022)

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Slow is Fast Feb 03, 2022

In this week’s Gathering Room, Martha talks about a concept that seems paradoxical in the context of our speed-obsessed culture. Look at that thing you think you need to do. Look at the time you’re estimating it will take you. Now double that time. What happens? (Originally aired, January 30, 2022)

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What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Do Jan 27, 2022

Martha had an unexpected encounter with a wild animal this past week, and it gave her some insight about what to do when you’re freaking out. Listen in to learn the significance of “pulling over,” the role of co-regulation in dealing with fear and trauma, and the answers to listeners’ questions. (Originally aired, January 23, 2022)

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How to Have a Wild Inventure Jan 20, 2022

Martha is joined this week by Rowan Mangan (https://www.instagram.com/rowan_mangan/) to talk about Ro’s concept of “Wild Inventures,” the idea of reframing our lives according to what is true within us instead of borrowing dreams from the culture.
Have a laugh and learn some new skills with Martha and Ro as they talk past adventures, Ro’s passion for kidney beans, and the stillness that comes once you’ve peeled back all the layers of your identity. (Originally aired, January 16, 2022)

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Grit Magic Jan 13, 2022

We hear a lot about flow and ease, and these things are WONDERFUL. Yet part of what makes our human experience worth having is grit. Doing whatever we can to achieve something that our soul craves.
Enter GRIT MAGIC.
Start it when you don’t feel ready. Send your work in before you feel it’s complete. Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.
Learn how to harness your own grit magic today! (Originally aired, January 9, 2022)

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The Planless Plan For the Year Ahead Jan 06, 2022

In this week’s episode, Martha talks about living life the way an improv comedian works on stage. There is no set script, just as there is no set of absolute conditions that we’ll encounter through the coming year. Instead, we can follow the basic rules of comedy. Watch to find out how! (Originally aired, January 2, 2022)

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How to Take a Break - Really Jan 02, 2023

How good are you at taking a break? This week, Martha explains that taking a break starts with letting go of our resistance to what we’re really feeling. Then all kinds of magic can reach us! (Originally aired, December 12, 2021)

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Holiday Survival Tools Dec 09, 2021

At this time of year, some of us feel joy… while others are mostly feeling dread. If you’re in the second group, watch this week’s Gathering Room. Martha helps you make the worst of the holidays into the best. You can find a link to Dysfunctional Family Bingo in the show notes. (Originally aired, December 5, 2021)

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How to Change Everything Dec 02, 2021

Stories. They have more power over us than we might think. But we can choose (yes, CHOOSE) to retell stories in ways that can re-train our brains! Join Martha for this week’s Gathering Room and learn how to teach the fear triggers of the brain to chill out. Just in time for the holidays! (Originally aired, November 28, 2021)

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The Light at the End of the Tunnel Nov 18, 2021

This week on the Gathering Room, Martha goes into the light. She talks about the shift from a bleak and difficult worldview to an experience of life that feels joyful and safe. She calls this the light at the end of the tunnel—but reminds us that the tunnel is one we have to dig ourselves. (Originally aired, November 14, 2021)

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The Hidden Path to Peace Nov 11, 2021

In this week's Gathering Room, Martha talks about the fear that can affect us without our conscious minds ever knowing why. A sight, smell or sound associated with negative experiences in the past can put us into fear or anger without a single verbal thought entering our minds. She explains how to remove the triggers that cause these deep and difficult fears. (Originally aired, November 8, 2021)

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Go Where You're Sent Oct 28, 2021

This week on The Gathering Room, Martha talks about intuition: how to nurture it, what it feels like, and why you should do what it says! Hear some top stories about times Martha followed her intuition and went where she was sent…and the large and small consequences of these moments. (Originally aired: October 24, 2021)

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Elder, Not Older Oct 21, 2021

This week on the Gathering Room, Martha digs into the difference between getting older and becoming an “elder” of society. Learning to be an elder means aging in reverse—starting from a place where you feel cramped and stiff and then moving into more and more fluidity, joy, and playfulness. (Originally aired: October 17, 2021)

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The Thing About Pain Oct 14, 2021

What’s the thing about pain? This week Martha talks about what Alan Gordon calls “neuroplastic pain” and some techniques for dealing with pain using only your brilliant brain! Plus, your questions and a Gathering Room huddle for all our peeps going into surgery this week. (Originally aired: October 10, 2021)

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How to Keep On Keeping On Oct 07, 2021

This week, Martha offers some counterintuitive advice for how to keep going even when our goals feel far-off or the present moment feels difficult. Spoiler alert: the answer is all around you right now. (Originally aired: September 27, 2021)

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The Turmoil of Transition Sep 30, 2021

This week, Martha discusses the often tumultuous experience that accompanies a quantum leap in personal growth. Tune in to hear how bad skiing is the perfect metaphor for life changes, how our brains develop new skills through sudden leaps of insight … And how an anonymous mystical text from the 14th century probably holds the solution to your latest personal faceplant. (Originally aired: September 27, 2021)

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How to Ask Sep 23, 2021

In this week’s Gathering Room, Martha talks about the art of asking. How to ask for what you want—whether it’s love, breakfast, or the fulfillment of your wildest dreams—is hard. And our culture has taught us to misunderstand what happens when you ask for what you want. Martha explains how the “calculus of matter” is misleading and how if we can recalibrate into the “calculus of magic,” life can become truly miraculous. (Originally aired: September 19, 2021)

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Riding the Maelstrom Sep 09, 2021

In this week’s Gathering Room, Martha talks about the times when change picks us up and throws us around. When we reach these “maelstroms” in our lives, Martha says, the key is to surrender as we might in the experience of being dumped by a wave. When the mind surrenders control, we become open to all the natural processes that our souls want to enact through us. (Originally aired: September 5, 2021)

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Finding Second Sight Sep 02, 2021

Martha shares the secret of her own “second sight”—how being a visual artist has changed the way she physically sees the world. Using her own most recent paintings, Martha explains how she sees when she uses the left hemisphere of her brain versus the right. We all have this ability to turn on second sight, Martha says, and to see the infinite light within every material form. (Originally aired: August 29, 2021)

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The Gathering Room: Why and How to Hope With Dr Jill Bolte Taylor Aug 26, 2021

In this very special, hour-long Gathering Room, Martha talks to her friend and hero Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor about a subject we all need to hear more about: HOPE. Jill talks about hope in microcosm (the neural networks of the brain), while Martha looks at how the exact same systems and processes function at the macro level of groups of people and ecosystems. (Originally aired: August 22, 2021)

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The Transformation of Consciousness is Now Aug 12, 2021

Martha has believed all her life that a transformation of human consciousness would take place in her lifetime. Over the decades, she’s met more and more people who share this inexplicable belief that a mass “awakening” could change humanity’s future. In this week’s episode, Martha talks about what this transformation might look like and the hope it offers us at this particularly troubling time in history. (Originally aired: August 8, 2021)

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Tuning Yourself to Joy Aug 05, 2021

When a guitar string is plucked, the note will spontaneously resonate with another guitar nearby—provided they are tuned the same. In today’s episode, Martha uses this metaphor to explore the ways that life creates resonances for us when we tune ourselves in certain ways. Martha gives tips for tuning yourself to joy, if this is the frequency you’d like to see matched in your life. (Originally aired: August 1, 2021)

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The Gathering Room: On Being an Empath, with Anita Moorjani Jul 29, 2021

On this very special Gathering Room, Martha was joined by Anita Moorjani. Anita’s new book, Sensitive Is the New Strong, is a must-read for people who identify as empathic or highly sensitive. In their Gathering Room conversation, Martha and Anita talked about why the world needs its empaths now more than ever, and how to develop a self-love that means we are equipped to give our gifts to the world. Anita’s best tip for this? Learn the art of receiving. (Originally aired: July 25, 2021)

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Get it Wrong in all the Right Ways Jul 22, 2021

We’re often told it’s pointless to beat ourselves up for making mistakes, but Martha takes it a step further and says that error isn’t just useful, it’s crucial to getting things right. Making mistakes leads to learning and can also lead to discovery and reinvention. She points out that accidents and missteps led to the discovery of penicillin, photography, even potato chips! The discussion wraps with an exercise to retrain our brains to notice the good in every gaffe. (Originally aired: July 18, 2021)

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A Little Healing Magic Jul 15, 2021

In his book Break Through Pain, meditation expert Shinzen Young says that pain separates us from the divine, and learning to handle it skillfully is akin to grinding it into sand. In this conversation, Martha is recovering from surgery and describes using Young’s book to map and define her pain. She explains that pain is nature calling us to return to our bodies, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to suffering. There is magic in our minds that can transform pain into wisdom. (Originally aired: July 11, 2021)

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The Treasure in Every Problem Jun 24, 2021

We may conceptualize creativity as a free-flowing stream, but Martha points out that constraint is an excellent source of creative inspiration. When we have all the time and resources in the world, we feel aimless … but given an hour and a socket wrench, we can change the world! Martha shares examples from her own life, showing how every time she faced a situation full of constraints, it catalyzed a creative leap. Every problem contains the raw material for its own solution. (Originally aired: June 20, 2021)

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The Gathering Room with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Jun 17, 2021

The Gathering Pod welcomes neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor to talk about her new book, Whole Brain Living, which Martha describes as “brain science from a user’s perspective.” In 1996, Jill experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain causing her to lose the ability to walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Then she rebuilt it back to full function over the course of eight years, emerging with a truly transcendent worldview. (Originally aired: Jue 13, 2021)

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Don't Avoid the Void Jun 10, 2021

Most people in our community have explored meditation, centering prayer, or other forms of spiritual contemplation … and may have come face to face with THE VOID. (Dun dun dunnnn.) Martha explains that when people encounter nothingness, they often feel fear and despair. Her own first experience with finding the void through meditation felt that way, but in this discussion she explains how we can transform our relationship with the void into one of creativity and genuine joy. (Originally aired: June 6, 2021)

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The Cure for Overwhelm Jun 03, 2021

As we move toward life after Covid, many of us are feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed. We’re facing a deluge of decisions demanding attention, causing bottlenecks in our brains that make it impossible to focus on anything at all. Martha explains that the Practical Wayfinding: Creativity Mindset is the answer. Instead of allowing us to freeze up, it helps us remain curious, explore our options, and focus on building solutions. She offers us a few hacks to help us access our creativity under duress. (Originally aired: May 30, 2021)

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Mess For Success (Why It’s Good to Screw Up) May 27, 2021

As any artist will tell you, creativity is rarely tidy. Lately Martha has been expressing her creativity by drawing and painting, relishing the trail of brushes, rags, and sketchbooks she leaves in her wake. Then, after working intently on one canvas, she decided she’d RUINED it … before she remembered that before order, there is chaos. When we decide to build something beautiful out of our lives, it will be messy. And when we see the mess, we are very close to success. (Originally aired: May 23, 2021)

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The One Simple Skill that Makes Bad Times Shrink and Good Times Grow May 20, 2021

While promoting her new book, Martha found herself tapped out and exhausted. She quickly realized she hadn’t been using the one skill that helps her manage the rollercoaster of life: non-attachment. In this conversation, Martha explains that despite its somewhat uninviting name, this skill makes our good times last longer and go deeper, and makes our bad times easier to weather. She also explains how it relates to spiders and tells us how to apply it to our daily lives. (Originally aired: May 16, 2021)

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Good Guess Mountain and Why It Is Messing Up Your Life Apr 29, 2021

Ever think if you just try harder or achieve more, you’ll FINALLY feel whole and happy? Martha warns us that this is a misconception shoved at us by culture, which insists that fame, money, and accomplishment are the answers to everything. In reality, doing things that don’t feed our souls will be unfulfilling. We must go back to the first principles of what we love, back to the fundamentals of our true nature, to find activities and ideas that will be deeply rewarding. (Originally aired: Apr. 25, 2021)

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Magic Stories from the Cutting Room Floor Apr 22, 2021

In this conversation, Martha reveals several freaky-deaky stories that she couldn’t quite squeeze into her new book, The Way of Integrity! She talks about finding and moving to her ranch in California, meeting a massive rattlesnake, a very unusual flock of turkeys, how she acquired her own personal labyrinth, and more. (Originally aired: Apr. 18, 2021)

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Getting off the Roller Coaster Apr 15, 2021

Just before the release of her latest book, The Way of Integrity, Martha describes feeling pulled in many directions and drifting away from her true self! She describes the ups and downs of preparing to release a huge creative project into the world, and her realization that she must get off the roller coaster of human emotion and back into the truth of her spirit. When your mind, heart, soul, and body are all telling the same story, everything in life flows more easily. (Originally aired: Apr. 11, 2021)

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Managing Problem Relationships Apr 01, 2021

Martha identifies as a codependent: someone who helps others even when helping is to her own detriment. Since many of Martha’s listeners have similar personalities, she shares a coping technique she formulated after reading Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. People who don’t experience empathy, such as narcissists and psychopaths, are very hard for codependents to understand. Managing these relationships means acknowledging that empathy and reasoning are absent, and acting accordingly. (Originally aired: Mar. 28, 2021)

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Signs of New Life Mar 25, 2021

This conversation took place right after the Spring Equinox, a time when day and night are equal in length. Martha points out that this is a time of transition and a reminder that life can be experienced cyclically if we so choose. She adds, though, that while we are experiencing spring again as part of a cycle, we are also experiencing this particular spring for the very first time. Perhaps it’s time to start an entirely new life, with fresh eyes and an open heart. (Originally aired: Mar. 21, 2021)

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The Safe Side of Fear Mar 18, 2021

In an interview with Inspire Nation podcast host Michael Sandler, Martha explained that living with integrity WILL bring fear into your life. You’ll realize you’ve been betraying your authentic self to coddle people around you. We all do this because social pushback is frightening! Then Michael described the edge between destructive fear and fear we feel despite being safe. Martha offers an exercise to approach that edge safely. (Originally aired: Mar. 14, 2021)

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Using Your Creativity for Good Instead of Evil Mar 11, 2021

After hearing Brene Brown declare that “unused creativity is not benign,” Martha and her family decided to hold a Creativity Day … but when Martha sat down to paint, she found it terrifying and overwhelming! This is because culture trains us to value activities done for money or to help others over activities that help us build meaningful and joyful lives for ourselves. Martha challenges us to push the edge of creativity, past any blocks, until we can feel the euphoric flow. (Originally aired: Mar. 7, 2021)

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Making a Fresh Start Feb 25, 2021

We cannot force fresh starts. They come when they want to come, and they always begin inside of us. Martha describes the feeling of being “fed up” as crucial to catalyzing sweeping change, but also explains the concept of being “full fed.” A caterpillar cannot become a butterfly unless it is full fed, meaning plump enough to sustain its transformation. Fresh starts in our own lives must be similarly resourced or true metamorphosis simply cannot occur! (Originally aired: Feb. 21, 2021)

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The Problem with Overgiving Feb 18, 2021

Although many of our cultural stories focus on generosity, selflessness, and giving MORE, Martha uses this episode to stress the importance of reserving resources for ourselves. She points out that when we overgive we may actually prevent people from learning and growing on their own. (And, of course, WE end up drained and exhausted.) Giving should feel joyful, and when it doesn’t, we can absolutely dial it back. (Originally aired: Feb. 14, 2021)

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Holding Boundaries Feb 11, 2021

How do you cultivate vulnerability while maintaining healthy boundaries with others? Striking this balance is especially complicated if we keep ourselves emotionally wide-open or utterly closed-off at all times, tendencies that many sensitive people favor. When we’ve been repeatedly hurt by people or systems, it can be hard to know who and how to trust. Martha offers tactics and resources for connecting with others and sharing ourselves in healthy, safe ways. (Originally aired: Feb. 7, 2021)

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Staying Inspired Feb 04, 2021

No matter where you are in the world, when you hit February you’re likely to hit the doldrums. Martha offers some ideas for keeping our inspiration stoked and burning during tough times and explains that there are many parallels between fire-tending and motivational maintenance. Both require fuel to burn (self-care), heat (energy from other people), and oxygen (truth and integrity). Listen in to find out more about this inspirational triad! (Originally aired: Jan. 31, 2021)

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Finding Relief Feb 03, 2021

We have been socialized to believe that instant gratification is both possible and desirable. It’s neither, of course, and in this conversation Martha reminds us of that fact. She points out that we can do anything one step at a time, including achieving enlightenment! Each step we take toward relief and away from suffering moves us toward the bliss of being. She shares an exercise to help us detach from worry and empower relief in our everyday lives. (Originally aired: Jan. 24, 2021)

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Living the Mystery Jan 30, 2021

As world events continue to dish up unrest and upheaval, many people feel more easily triggered than usual. Since there’s so much potential for misunderstanding, Martha suggests we speak every word from the truest truths we possess. That way, if someone is triggered, we won’t react explosively. She also shares the “spot, stop, swap” strategy from Jay Shetty’s book Think Like a Monk as a way to ensure we’re living from our own truth and mystery at all times. (Originally aired: Jan. 17, 2021)

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Beyond the Barricades Jan 30, 2021

After the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Martha says we don’t need revolution, we need a dissolution where personal suffering is washed away by enlightenment. She contrasts mindless rage and mindful anger, explaining that the former feels good in our amygdalas but is entirely unproductive while the latter gives us both insight and impetus to take meaningful action. Martha assures us that learning to dissolve mindless rage will lead us to dissolving our own suffering. (Originally aired: Jan. 10, 2021)

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A Little New Year's Magic Jan 30, 2021

The season of resolutions, vision boards, and intention-setting lists is upon us! Martha shares a few stories about the magic of creating mindful lists, including remarkably long ones and ones that describe our ideal partners in extreme detail. She implores those of us who make such lists to consider them tools or guidance systems for attracting what we want. She also explains the differences between big dreams and outlandish fantasies. (Originally aired: Jan. 3, 2021)

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2020 As Your Teacher Jan 30, 2021

Sometimes when you think you’re losing your mind, you’re actually regaining your sanity. Martha talks about a colleague who’s coping with the stress of 2020 by buying a huge number of houseplants and explains that this behavior—and other unusual or new behaviors like it—are a reaction to broken culture. She says when culture breaks, our true natures rise. 2020 was challenging, but it also taught our souls what they truly want to be. (Originally aired: Dec. 20, 2020)

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The Season of Letting Go Jan 30, 2021

The winter holiday season of 2020 has felt uncomfortably different for many of us, and Martha is eager to help reframe our year-end celebrations. Celtic Winter Solstice celebrations are about letting go of the year that’s coming to a close, cleansing, and releasing. She points out that many of us have experienced grief and loss in these past months and walks us through a guided meditation for creating emotional closure. (Originally aired: Dec. 13, 2020)

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Making Friends with Money Jan 30, 2021

Money is the single most emotional thing that human beings deal with on a regular basis. As we enter COVID December and much of the world is stressing about holiday gift costs and year-end taxes, Martha suggests we reconceptualize our relationships with money. She points out that committing to work on our emotional connection to money and cultivating an attitude of abundance and generosity can completely transform our financial circumstances. (Originally aired: Dec. 6, 2020)

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I’ve Fallen Off My Spiritual Practice, and I Can’t Get Up! Jan 30, 2021

Martha’s spiritual practices have helped her get through both physical and emotional pain and paved a path to bliss. But now that it’s getting colder, she’s not gravitating toward meditation and contemplation; she’s trading spiritual practice for staying warm in bed! In this episode, she discusses the cyclical nature of intention and relaxation in spirituality. (Originally aired: Nov. 29, 2020)

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Shape Your World, Don’t Be Shaped By It Jan 30, 2021

Every one of us influences the world, but most of us don’t realize this. We focus instead on how much the world has influenced us. Martha points out that we can change this by shifting our attention. If we pay the most attention to people and events that have harmed us, those things will shape us. If we put our energy toward the people and events that have impacted us in positive ways, we can reshape the world as we experience it. (Originally aired: Nov. 23, 2020)

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What Other People Think of You Jan 30, 2021

We’ve ALWAYS been sensitive to what others think of us, but now we are exposed online to more criticism, bullying, and mockery than we experience in person. Including things people would never say to our faces! Martha talks about how prevalent judgment-fueled anxiety and depression have become in the age of the Internet, explains the Spotlight Effect, and shares a psyche-shielding exercise from psychologist Mario Martinez. (Originally aired: Nov. 15, 2020)

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Stay Calm, Everything Will Be Okay Jan 30, 2021

A few days before the contentious 2020 election, Martha delves into how American power systems were born and how they are continuing to evolve. She points out that the changes we’re witnessing can be unsettling (like all changes), which is why many Americans feel intensely fearful and worried. She encourages those of us who can become centers of calm amidst this panic to do so, since our energy has a softening effect on those around us. (Originally Aired: Nov. 1, 2020.)

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Coping When Life Hits the Accelerator Jan 30, 2021

Did you know that at just 5 weeks old, babies hit a major developmental milestone? The new kiddo in Martha’s household has just reached this age and is experiencing the associated burst of neurological development . . . which can be both overwhelming and unpleasant! That got Martha thinking about how adults ALSO experience periods of unexpected acceleration and growth. She shares 7 steps for coping during these tough times. (Originally Aired: Oct. 25, 2020.)

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Escaping into the Earthquake Jan 30, 2021

Into each life, earthquakes must come. Sometimes they come in the form of a traumatic experience, sometimes a choice, sometimes a global pandemic … whatever the initiating event may be, it has a HUGE impact on your life. In this episode, Martha shares a Zen belief that when shaking starts within our lives, the only safe place to be is within the shaking itself. The most effective way to ride a wave of disruption is complete nonresistance. (Originally aired: Oct.18, 2020.)

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Instant Abundance Jan 30, 2021

Martha believes that material reality is an illusion. That we aren’t physical beings who generate consciousness; we are all part of a consciousness that’s busily generating a physical world. And that none of the good stuff that we’re here to gather is physical. We want the FEELING of being well-supplied, secure, loved. It’s the perception that matters! With that in mind, she shares an exercise to help us recognize abundance all around us. (Originally aired: Oct. 11, 2020.)

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The Magic of Self Forgiveness Jan 30, 2021

Maybe you’ve had a baby. Or a crisis. Or a time in your life when you just couldn’t keep up with all of your normal responsibilities. Since we live in a culture that forces people to believe that pausing our normal, everyday responsibilities is a massive personal failure, you probably felt awful. Martha urges us all to explore self-forgiveness in response to the nasty things our inner critics and our social conditioning scream at us. (Originally aired: September 28, 2020.)

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Stop Waiting, Start Living Jan 30, 2021

Many of us have been waiting for the world to right itself. But when we focus on waiting, life can become unbearable. When we live in limbo, it creates some degree of suffering. In fact, Martha reveals her belief that the source of most suffering is misplaced focus: concentrating on a possible future and removing our attention from the present moment. She teaches us how to come home to ourselves through the trans-theoretical model of action. (Originally aired: Sept. 13, 2020.)

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Rest for Success Jan 30, 2021

Have you noticed that even the busiest, most active people in your life are slowing down? Everyone seems to have an increased need for rest, downtime, and relaxation during these decidedly tumultuous times. Martha points out that this isn’t just natural, it’s radical and revolutionary! In fact, taking time to rest is one of the most seditious things we can do to bring down the patriarchy and resist systemic oppression. (Originally aired: Sept. 7, 2020.)

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Miracles and How to Work Them Jan 30, 2021

Having just watched the film “Superhuman,” Martha is eager to talk about miracles! She’s had plenty in her own life—including learning to bend spoons and watching her son Adam create visible balls of light between his hands—and has learned that they are drawn into our lives at particular times. Specifically, when we get into complete alignment with what we feel in our hearts, what we know with our minds, and what we’re doing in the world. (Originally aired: Aug. 31, 2020.)

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When Life Beats You Down Jan 30, 2021

There’s a BIG difference between “hitting a rough patch” and feeling the Universe relentlessly pound you into the ground. In this episode, Martha recounts coaching a client who’s definitely in that latter category yet has remained remarkably clear of mind, heart, and spirit. She explains that sometimes life takes wonderful people and beats them down hard, over and over, in order to forge them like samurai swords. (Originally aired: Aug. 23, 2020.)

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The Source of Courage Jan 30, 2021

How can we approach situations loaded with racism, sexism, or other prejudice without becoming angry? Many of us are conditioned to believe that our anger will upset the system and should be avoided at all costs. Martha explains that, while this is true of anger without wisdom, anger that flows from the wise mind is an important source of courage. In fact, we NEED anger to catalyze change, especially in the face of social and racial injustice. (Originally aired: Aug.18, 2020.)

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Sacred Every Day Jan 30, 2021

Martha’s dogs, her son, and the COVID virus are teaching her a better way of being in the world. Instead of living life like it’s an endless to-do list, she has been living it as a string of sacred ceremonies. The disruption from COVID has caused her to savor her daily rituals: giving the dogs bits of toast, relaxing with the family before dinner, filling the birdfeeders. Martha shares instructions for making every moment more sacred. (Originally aired: Aug. 10, 2020.)

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The Secret to Feeling Better Jan 30, 2021

You may have heard the Buddhist adage that attachment is the root of suffering, but Martha believes it’s actually attachment to desire that’s making us miserable. She points out that if you become attached to wanting something negative to end, it gets worse and it lasts longer. Yet when you grip tight to something wonderful, it slips away! She shares an exercise from internal family systems therapy to help you release your grip on your desires. (Originally aired: Aug. 3, 2020.)

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What Are You Becoming? Jan 30, 2021

We’ve been raised to believe that trying, striving, and constantly creating is the only way to live … but the pandemic has forced us all into a deep stillness. In this episode, Martha urges us to embrace the quietude and allow ourselves to be unbuilt so that we can get closer to our true natures. (This conversation originally aired on July 27, 2020.)

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How to Hang in There When You Feel Like Giving Up Jan 30, 2021

Martha confesses that she—like many of us—is feeling the weight of the racial tensions across America, the worries swirling around the pandemic, the endless economic fears, and more. How do we persevere when things are this hard for THIS LONG? She explains that everything in nature pulses and, if you pay attention, you’ll notice times of pressure and times of letting go. Simply noticing this cycle makes it easier to bear. (Originally aired: July 20, 2020.)

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Claiming Sanctuary Jan 30, 2021

In this deeply emotional episode, Martha explains that while every human culture has created a sacred space where people can claim sanctuary, many of us feel unable to access any form of safety in modern times. She offers up a simple way to create personal sanctuary within ourselves through repetition and ritual, allowing us all to build a sacred place where no one can hurt us. (This conversation originally aired on July 13, 2020.)

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Inviting Magic Jan 30, 2021

How do we find the balance between healthy skepticism and openness to magic? How can we tell coincidence from manifestations of our own inner power? Martha shares several of her own fabulously magical experiences and gives us a list of things we can do to bring real magic into our lives and recognize it when it arrives. (This conversation originally aired on August 19, 2019.)

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The Lost Art of Listening Jan 19, 2021

Martha dives into this episode by confessing that she thought she had a decent handle on what was going on in the world, but the global uprising against systemic racism made her realize her scope of knowledge was actually very narrow. Now, she is practicing her active listening skills and encouraging us all to do the same, saying that listening is powerful magic, but it does take careful practice. (This conversation originally aired on July 6, 2020.)

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We Are All One, Let’s Act Like It Jan 18, 2021

Love, understanding, mutual respect. After watching the video of police officers killing George Floyd, Martha is struck by the disconnect between the forces that unite all humans and the atrocious ways we treat one another. She discusses the importance of recognizing the humanity of other people—especially Black people who have been so relentlessly oppressed and targeted—and resisting the urge to “other” anyone who is not exactly like us. (Originally aired: June 1, 2020.)

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Spring Cleaning Your Life 2020 Jan 18, 2021

"After a huge shock to your life, you may find yourself saying that you’re “back at square one.” Martha insists that, instead, you are “on to square one” and that it’s a sign of forward progress. And when we begin moving toward square two, we are so excited about our new selves that we begin to jettison old things: habits and beliefs, but also old clothes and objects. Martha points out that “spring cleaning” is tied to this internal cycle. (Originally Aired: May 26, 2020.)

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The Gathering Pod Trailer Dec 09, 2020

Ready to connect with a community of like-minded seekers? Welcome to the Gathering Pod.

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