Rowan Mangan:
And I’m Rowan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the podcast for people trying to figure it out. How you doing, Marty, mate?

Martha Beck:
Doing great. Got my lidocaine patches all over my back. Everything’s perfect with lidocaine.

Rowan Mangan:
Lovely.

Martha Beck:
What are you trying to figure out in your life?

Rowan Mangan:
So the other day, this may not be easy for you to hear, Marty, but I’m just going to tell you. The other day, like you and I, we pass each other in the day. Sometimes we’re busy and I’m just coming from the dentist, you’re on your way to a meeting, and little peck on the cheek, little, not hot and heavy kissing, just a little like, “Hey, honey.” And we had one of those. And it struck me afterwards that it’s probably weird that when I go to give my wife a kiss, a look of horror and revulsion crosses her face.

Martha Beck:
What?

Rowan Mangan:
And she tries to lean away from me a little bit, even as she’s leaning in. Like your body’s leaning towards me, but your neck is kind of pushing your face back a little bit. And now I will say I feel quite secure in our relationship so it was more of an idle thought than a panic. “I wonder why she does that.” And then I realized, can you guess?

Martha Beck:
Because of the massive electrical shock we always give each other

Rowan Mangan:
So in our house, at certain times of year, there is some really full on electric shock stuff going on. And I think kisses are often where we feel them.

Martha Beck:
I love you, honey, but I could lose a lip. I’m not kidding.

Rowan Mangan:
What would that look like?

Martha Beck:
Oh, please. The people are going to send us pictures.

Rowan Mangan:
Of people who lost their lips kissing their wives under circumstances that created electric shocks?

Martha Beck:
I’m sure they’re out there.

Rowan Mangan:
So I was trying to figure that out, but I think I’ve done it. And you know what? We’re going to get through this.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. As soon as you said it, I was like, imagine giving you a peck and then, “Oh, no, no, no.”

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
And you often, it must be said that when you come up, you often poke me on the shoulder first.

Rowan Mangan:
That’s true.

Martha Beck:
Trying to ground. Like, “Clear! Clear!”

Rowan Mangan:
Yes. It’s like Gray’s Anatomy in our house trying to just say hi.

Martha Beck:
However, if my heart ever stops, just lean down, and give me a little kiss. That’s hilarious.

Rowan Mangan:
What are you trying to figure out?

Martha Beck:
Not that far distant, really?

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah?

Martha Beck:
If you think about it. We had this wonderful lunch in the city with a most lovely person from a publishing house. And we had just met her and we were having the best conversation. And I was waxing prolix, as one says. I was loquacious. I spoke in many words. Until you started kicking me under the table. And I was like, “Oh, I said the wrong thing.” And I would take a whole different tack. And then you’d kick me again and I’d be like, “Have you ever seen an ostrich?” And then you’d kick me. And then I’d be like, “George III peed blue. Did you know that? He had this.” And you’d then kick me again.”

Rowan Mangan:
Have you ever seen an ostrich?

Martha Beck:
And then you’d kick me again. And I was like, “How about Formula 1 racing?” And you’d kick me. And finally, I literally had to say right in front of this beautiful woman that we just met, “Ro, are you kicking me because I’m saying the wrong things?”

Rowan Mangan:
At which point I said, if I’m remembering this correctly, “What? What are you talking about?”

Martha Beck:
That was your very eloquent answer.

Rowan Mangan:
I don’t wax as loquacious as you, but, yeah, I had not been kicking you on purpose at all. I think I was trying to, there was something about the height of the table that made it tricky for me to cross my one leg over the other leg.

Martha Beck:
Sure. And you’re a victim because you’re tall, is that what you’re telling me?

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, something like that.

Martha Beck:
You have those long, long legs.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. Yeah, tall people can be violent sometimes. That’s how it goes.

Martha Beck:
I wouldn’t know. But I’m glad I didn’t say horrible wrong things.

Rowan Mangan:
“Have you ever seen an ostrich?” I love that the way your mind works is, this is you. I’m being you. “I think my partner’s kicking me under the table for saying the wrong thing. But that’s okay. I’m going to solve it. In this meeting with a publishing house, I am going to pivot to what can’t possibly go wrong. Have you ever seen an ostrich?” Have you ever seen an ostrich? What I like about it is that it’s a yes, no question.

Martha Beck:
That’s right. Brief, simple, to the point. Anyone can participate. But the best thing to say, if you’re at a cocktail party or something, and I hate cocktail parties, and you’re totally out of things to say, and like I get in this block where I can’t talk. All you have to do is have this in your back pocket, this question, you just turn to the nearest person and say, “Have you ever been attacked by an animal?” You will have a group of people around you talking and talking because we evolved to discuss being attacked by animals. It’s a no fail.

Rowan Mangan:
So what you should have said is not, “Have you ever seen an ostrich?” But, “Have you ever been attacked by an ostrich?” Which, oh, can we tell the story?

Martha Beck:
Oh, there’s a story. I think we told it already.

Rowan Mangan:
You’ve got to tell it again.

Martha Beck:
Okay. Well, there was this wonderful ostrich that we knew, who was a wild ostrich who-

Rowan Mangan:
She’s called Jessica. No, it’s Jennifer.

Martha Beck:
Jennifer. People at Londolozi, the game preserve where we do our yearly seminars, this one lone ostrich came in. And they always take people out at sunset and everyone gets out and has a little drink and a snack in the beautiful bush. And this ostrich started running up to groups of people and they’d have to climb in their Land Rovers and drive away and she would come running up to them again. And finally a ranger was out there on his own and he just thought, “This has got to stop. I’m not leaving.” And Jennifer, the ostrich-

Rowan Mangan:
We’re being harassed by this ostrich.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
And I’m not taking it anymore. Jennifer, it’s you and me

Martha Beck:
And Jennifer ran up to him and stopped and just sat there hanging out. And they realized she was lonely.

Rowan Mangan:
She just wanted some friends.

Martha Beck:
I know. So they just started having Jennifer stop at the drink stops and just hang out. And she was less lonely. And then two male ostriches came onto the property after a year, and then they got together and she had eggs, but she was still really tame-ish, but not tamed. But they were telling us this and we were on a game drive with this Shangaan ranger named Exxon, after the company. And he was sitting on this forward seat on the hood of the car, and we saw these ostriches. And sure enough, Jennifer came over, she stood by him, and she put her wing in his lap.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
And he held her wing in his hand.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
They just held hands.

Rowan Mangan:
It was so nice.

Martha Beck:
And then-

Rowan Mangan:
But Marty, have you ever been attacked by a wild animal?

Martha Beck:
Then Jennifer came back to see us. And she leaned over and I put up my hand in ostrich formation, making it look like the head of an ostrich.

Rowan Mangan:
Like you’re trying to do a duck in the shadow puppet.

Martha Beck:
Right. So that’ll fool her. So I reach my hand out and she leans her beautiful beak toward my hand and gently touched my hand, at which moment I feel a violent blow on the back of my head. Wham. And it’s Karen.

Rowan Mangan:
Our beloved Karen.

Martha Beck:
“Marty! She’s going to hurt you.” So yeah, I was severely injured in an ostrich attack by my loving partner, who slapped me from behind as I was being gently kissed by a loving ostrich. It was a love festival, but I came out of it bruised.

Rowan Mangan:
Interestingly, Jennifer’s also in a thruple.

Martha Beck:
That’s true. With the two males. Yeah. Yeah. Thruples everywhere.

Rowan Mangan:
We’ll be right back with more Bewildered.

I have a favor to ask. You might not know this, but ratings and reviews are like gold in the podcasting universe. They get podcasts in front of more faces, more eyes, more ears, all the bits that you could have a podcast in front of, that’s what they do. So it would help us enormously if you would consider going over to your favorite podcasting app, especially if it’s Apple, and giving us a few stars, maybe even five, maybe even six. If you can find a way to hack the system, I wouldn’t complain. And a review would be also be wonderful. We read them all and love them. So thank you very much in advance. Let’s just go out there and bewilder the world.

So listen, I’m just going to go out on a limb and say let’s pivot to the podcast that we’re doing.

Martha Beck:
Oh, that.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
I remember that. Let’s do it. It’s a Be Wild File today.

Rowan Mangan:
It is, it is. And as constant listeners will know, the Be Wild Files episodes are when we hear what you are trying to figure out and try to help with that. And today we’re hearing from Sari.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Sari:
Hi Rowan, Martha. My name is Sari. And I love your podcast. What I’m trying to figure out is how do you know if by learning all the methods to self-sooth, you’re not actually enabling yourself to stay in situations that aren’t aligned with your integrity? How do you know the difference between when you take action outside yourself and when to just deal with the emotions internally? Thank you.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. It can be so confusing, I think, for those of us who are in the habit of questioning our thoughts and not always totally believing what we think in a given situation to know when it’s time for which. Right?

Martha Beck:
Right. Yeah. And for those of you who are not familiar with the whole questioning your thoughts thing, we’re not taught to question our thoughts growing up. So one of the things that we do that’s kind of extra-cultural, I mean outside culture, not more culture, is that we acknowledge the idea that a lot of our problems come not from circumstances, but from our thoughts about those circumstances. So you could be in a conversation where you feel offended by someone, and they could mean all the best, but you have something in your head that says, “She is only complimenting me to mock me,” or whatever. The problem isn’t with the circumstances. It’s with your thoughts about it. So you need to shift your thinking and then you won’t have as much suffering.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, yeah. And Sari, Sari didn’t use that language. She was talking about self-soothing. But this is the direction that we’re taking it in terms of knowing the difference between those two times.

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
When the problem is you and when the problem is the situation.

Martha Beck:
Right. Thank you. So every now and then, we do have to make a judgment about when a circumstance is not going right and we have to, is it requiring us to look at our thinking, just adapt our attitude, look at the situation, freshly change our thinking.

Rowan Mangan:
And you have a lot of clients who have this situation in terms of jobs.

Martha Beck:
Oh, yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
Or marriages.

Martha Beck:
So I stay or should I go is a constant question that everyone has. And I think as things move faster in the world, it comes up a lot.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. And as we were sort of thinking about this topic, we found ourselves focusing mostly on romantic relationships, just because it is very common for this question to come up in that. And it feels like the stakes are especially high in that situation.

Martha Beck:
They are. Very emotional.

Rowan Mangan:
So, what would you say the culture says about this topic, Marty?

Martha Beck:
I think that the culture doesn’t care about our happiness.

Rowan Mangan:
What?

Martha Beck:
It cares about itself. So it basically says, “Look, I don’t care which option you choose, but don’t change the culture, don’t disrupt anything. The correct choice is whatever causes the fewest ripples.” If you’re a modern American, in a bad marriage, divorce is pretty common, very common. It’s like two-thirds of all marriages end in divorce. And it’s accepted, socially. But remember when we were watching The Crown and Prince Philip is stepping out on the queen and Queen Elizabeth is like, “There will be no, there will,” How do you do it? “There will be no-”

Rowan Mangan:
“There will be no divorce.”

Martha Beck:
“There will be no divorce.” And the reason for that, the series is called The Crown, because it’s like maximum cultural pressure when you actually wear the crown. You have to keep the rules of the culture. You are the culture.

Rowan Mangan:
And the culture in this instance, just to be super clear, is actually the culture of the monarchy itself.

Martha Beck:
Yes. Not England necessarily, but the monarchy, especially at that time. There was no divorce. And I remember thinking it, so because she would say, “It’s not my decision. It’s the crown that demands it.” And I thought, “That’s a lot to be taking orders from your hat.” Like, “I must not do that. “Everyone, I hate you, but I’ll not divorce you, because my hat forbids it.”

Rowan Mangan:
So Liz is unhappy, Phillip’s unhappy, but the hat, the hat.

Martha Beck:
The hat.

Rowan Mangan:
Is happy because the culture remains unperturbed, right?

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
They haven’t played with it. I love that you talk about it as the hat.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
Because it’s such a great metaphor for how ridiculous culture is, right?

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
And just how it’s this ridiculous, like, “I can’t do what my heart wants me to do because my hat says I can’t.” That’s what we sound like. I can’t follow my heart because I have to follow my hat.

Martha Beck:
Hat. I actually got a hat and started taking orders from it. “I don’t want to stay in bed till noon, but my hat insists. Where are the corgis?” Sorry, Brits who revere the monarchy. I’ll try to be better. Anyway, we all participate in lots of different cultures these days. So it’s not one monolithic culture as much as ever increasingly it’s multiple cultural pressures. Which is why I think Thanksgiving Day fights in America are getting more and more volatile. You never know what someone’s subculture is going to pressure them into and then they come together wearing different hats.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, yeah. Cultural clashes at Thanksgiving. So we have to be able to take off the hat to some extent before we can answer this question because otherwise we are just going to be, I mean, in fairness to Elizabeth and Philip, I think they sorted themselves.

Martha Beck:
They made it work.

Rowan Mangan:
They made it work somehow, those two crazy kids. But in order to get the clarity, you can’t have any clarity, while you’re still wearing your hat.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
Right?

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
So take off the hat.

Martha Beck:
And as I always say, the best way to get off your hat is to go into a room by yourself. It’s like Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own. When I read that as a kid, I never had a room of my own, and I’m like, “Why is she so selfish?” And it’s like she was just talking about a space to have your own thoughts where you could really be whole. And wasn’t she closeted gay and then she committed suicide because she didn’t-

Rowan Mangan:
Have a room?

Martha Beck:
She didn’t have a room of her own, it looks like.

Rowan Mangan:
Marty, I think you’re going out on a bit of a limb here.

Martha Beck:
It looks like she committed suicide just because of real estate, but in actuality, it was the homophobia of her culture that she wore like the hat of doom. And it did her in. It did her in. Sorry.

Rowan Mangan:
So, in solitude, we can escape culture.

Martha Beck:
Yes. Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
Okay.

Martha Beck:
But you also, you have to get to the point where you know that the battering of your cultural influences has sort of died down. You in a hurricane of cultural pressures. And you were saying something that I’d never heard about this, but to answer Sari’s question, she needs to go, you said, “Below the bedrock.”

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. So I think you can’t even ask the question until you’re way down at the bedrock level of yourself. Because it’s just culture, culture, culture, culture, culture, culture.

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
There’s this whole archeology, layers and layers of the different cultures that we move within and questions that are this high stakes that we ask ourselves. And if you’re asking yourself, it means that there’s some inner conflict, right?

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
So before you even can ask yourself this question.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
You’ve got to get below bedrock, get at bedrock or below bedrock, then you ask it.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
And then we can go on.

Martha Beck:
And you ask it, you know you’re to the bedrock because it gets quiet inside. The culture is very clamorous. You have to, you must. You have to, you must. And I often see people go to their hearts and go, “Okay, I know in the quiet.” And then they start thinking about other people and they’re like, “Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but.” And I used to call it getting on the island of yeah but but where you see the ship and you want to get on it, but you think, “Yeah, but,” and you don’t get on ship after ship and choices pass you by. So that’s a risk.

Rowan Mangan:
And I think that one of the things, it’s one of my bug bears on this podcast, that language exists mostly within culture as well. And so when I hear you saying that about, yeah, but, yeah, but, I think that’s part of our resistance to escaping culture.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
Is if there’s a lot of language going on.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
You’re probably not at the bedrock level yet.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
So in our marriage example, Marty, the options look like, first option, stay, continue to soothe yourself and do the thought work or go to therapy.

Martha Beck:
Right. And stay there, I always tell people, stay as long as you can.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
And somebody told me that when I was a Mormon, and I immediately left. And because being given the permission to follow your heart actually will take you down below the bedrock and now you’ve got somebody on your side. There’s a cultural element too. So if you go down below the bedrock and you know that it’s your integrity to take the exit action, then it’s pretty clear. But stay in as long as you can. Work it, try the therapy.

Rowan Mangan:
And then option two then is to leave or in Sari’s word, to act.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
All right. So you’ve got should I stay or should I go now?

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
What do we, mate?

Martha Beck:
You’re asking the question. Oh, I will tell you, as always, in just a minute.

Rowan Mangan:
So, how did we figure it out?

Martha Beck:
Yeah. You’re in a should I stay or should I go situation? And there’s a question from Byron Katie, a spiritual teacher I admire, that I thought was a really good one. She doesn’t say, “Can you think of a reason not to leave? Can you think of a reason to stay where you are?” She says, “Can you think of a peaceful reason to stay?” Which is really, really different. A peaceful reason.

Rowan Mangan:
And this all relates to knowing your own truth, the feeling that you get you’ve talked about when you say the phrase, “I’m meant to live in peace.”

Martha Beck:
I looked the world over, literally, for one thing that would make everyone feel a sense of truth. And the thing that makes most people feel really in their truth most is making the statement, “I am meant to live in peace.” So if you say that out there, wherever you’re listening, say it a few times. And your body, your heart, your mind, and your soul tend to all come into alignment.

Rowan Mangan:
So if you can get alone and then reach the feeling of bedrock, it’s like a shortcut is what happens if you say to yourself in that solitude.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
I am meant to live in peace.

Martha Beck:
And then say, “I’ll stay. Can I find a peaceful reason, a reason that feels like that? I leave. Is that a peaceful reason? A reason that feels like that?” And I’ve had people go either way, but the peace thing was very strong. It was a very helpful deciding factor. And I think they made the right choices.

Rowan Mangan:
So what if I feel peaceful about leaving today, but then tomorrow I don’t? Like, what do I do if I fear the regret of making a choice that feels peaceful today? Does that make sense?

Martha Beck:
Always. I mean, people always are worried about it. It’s so hard and scary. But when you think about it, either choice is a potential regret. So you could regret leaving a situation or you could stay in a situation and think, “Oh my God, I just gave 10 years of my life. I wish I had acted sooner.” So it’s really hard, but I really think the peaceful option is your best bet.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. I agree. And I mean, I guess there’s also like how often are you having the thought, “Oh, I wonder if I should leave?” Like if that comes and goes, it’s probably not like, “Run away.”

Martha Beck:
If there’s another thing that you should probably consider too, and that’s that there are different parts of you. So I love part psychology. And it’s probable that there’s a part of you that wants to leave and a part of you that wants to go.

Rowan Mangan:
Hang on. There’s a part of you that wants to leave and a part of you that wants to go, eh, Freud?

Martha Beck:
Dr. Freud, to the floor. Part of you that wants to leave and part of you that wants to stay. And one thing you can do is sit down with a notebook and say, “Okay, part that wants to leave, give me your reasons.” And have that part write them down. And then say, “Okay, part that wants to stay, what are your reasons?” Write those down. If you can get them talking to each other, they can pick a best option. Or even better, they can create a third option that you hadn’t thought of before.

Rowan Mangan:
That’s so cool.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. That’s really good.

Rowan Mangan:
I really love that.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. And just remember, if you’re always thinking that question, “Should I leave or should I go? Should I leave or should I go?”

Rowan Mangan:
I think the answer’s in the question.

Martha Beck:
It’s like if you go into a hotel room and you immediately go, “Oh, I think maybe I should get a different room.” If you go into a hotel room that’s copacetic, you don’t ask that question. So if you’re asking it from the moment you get in till the moment you get out, pay attention.

Rowan Mangan:
I remember a hotel room.

Martha Beck:
Do you?

Rowan Mangan:
I once stayed in. Hotel is probably too strong a word. I was out in rural Maharashtra, India.

Martha Beck:
Oh, really?

Rowan Mangan:
And I was staying in this little town that had hot springs and stuff. But I was traveling in my ’20s and I was traveling cheap. And traveling cheap in India is quite a thing, let me tell you. And this one room, I went into the room. It was the only place, it was like I was about to give birth to Jesus. It was the only room available in the town. And it was right in my budget. The room was all cement. As I recall, there was a window, small window with some bars, but the floor was cement, the walls were cement, the ceiling couldn’t have been cement, but it felt like it. Anyway, all there was in the middle of the room was a bed, a twin size bed. And above it, a single light bulb hung suspended from, and it was about a 20 watt one.

Martha Beck:
You didn’t like the chandelier, huh.

Rowan Mangan:
And so it was very dim. So even when the light was lit, you couldn’t see the corners of the room.

Martha Beck:
Awkward. God.

Rowan Mangan:
And the other thing about traveling as a backpacker in India is you got to use your mosquito net, folks, because you don’t want any of that malaria stuff happening.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
So I had my trusty gaffer tape that I took everywhere, and I managed to gaffer tape, this is so bad, to gaffer tape the mosquito net to the light bulb, which of course I had to turn off or else it would catch fire probably.

Martha Beck:
Oh my God.

Rowan Mangan:
So I had to turn the light off in order to go to bed with the mosquito net on. And then I just laid it, I tucked in the mosquito net around the bed, and then I just lay there listening to the skitterings.

Martha Beck:
Oh Lord.

Rowan Mangan:
But, Marty, this wasn’t really one of those, ding, ding call the concierge, “I’d like to request another room.”

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
It wasn’t really that kind of a situation.

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
But listen, here’s the thing. I actually was fine. That was fine. There was peace in that.

Martha Beck:
Really? You didn’t say, “I absolutely have to go.”

Rowan Mangan:
The worst thing about it, looking back, is that I didn’t have a new book to read because I hadn’t met any English speaking Westerners that I could swap books with. This was in the old days. And I had to reread one of Dan Brown’s later books to keep myself entertained.

Martha Beck:
Wow. Okay, wow. I need to take a minute with that. I can handle the skittering, I can handle the one light bulb. But rereading a Dan Brown book.

Rowan Mangan:
It’s not good. Hey, but let me tell you one other thing.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
The next time?

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
I went to a new town and was ready to get somewhere to stay, I did opt, that time, for a room that had a toilet instead of a hole in the corner of the floor.

Martha Beck:
Imagine. The luxury. Oh my heavens. You really upgraded.

Rowan Mangan:
I was fine, but I did upgrade later, much as in my next marriage. I will, no, I’m just kidding, pookie. I’m just kidding.

Martha Beck:
I promise to stop skittering in the corners.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, that is annoying.

Martha Beck:
And I may give you another light bulb soon.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh.

Martha Beck:
Oh.

Rowan Mangan:
Lucky me.

Martha Beck:
Yeah, those are the times when you know have to leave. And I have slept in some crappy hotel rooms, but the one I really thought about leaving, it was paper thin walls with this very gaudy wallpaper. And on the other side of this wall, and it really sounded like it was in the room with me, there were three very drunken men teaching each other to play the banjo. And I think they only had one banjo and they were fighting quite loudly over it. And then the one who had it was like (singing) but not in a really melodic way. Yeah, leaving was the right decision, but I didn’t take it. I stayed in that damn room and it haunts me to this day. So yeah, you can regret staying or you can regret leaving.

Rowan Mangan:
That is an excellent illustration of the theme, yeah.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. Poor Sari’s in some really difficult situation and we’re talking about ridiculous hotel rooms.

Rowan Mangan:
(Singing).

Martha Beck:
(Singing)

Rowan Mangan:
All right, come one, let’s figure this out, Marty, mate.

Martha Beck:
All right, let’s hit it.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
How do we figure it out? First thing we talked about, I always talk about, solitude, solitude, solitude. And when I was thinking about solitude with Sari’s question, is the S-O-L at the beginning made me think of the sole thing, like the S-O-L-E not the S-O-U-L. So get solitude in place so there’s no other people around you, and you have peace, and then there’s solitude in the moment. There’s no other moment. So then you take the risk of future regret out of it when you come into the present moment, which is the only place peace can really get you, by the way. You make yourself available by being in the sole place in the sole time. You’re locked in, then you can get an answer.

Rowan Mangan:
Okay, so this is just, I don’t know if this is a detour or not, but when you’re talking about sole, I started thinking about the sole of your feet. And it just reminded me of something really funny that your wonderful daughter Ellie posted on the internet recently, on Instagram, and this is a run on sentence with no punctuation. It literally says, “I’ve never played so much video game in my life and I will never want to again LMAO I feel so weird I need to connect with the earth or something.”

Martha Beck:
Got a new video game.

Rowan Mangan:
And it made me think there’s something to that. The soles of your feet. The sole place, the sole time. But another-

Martha Beck:
It is.

Rowan Mangan:
-another way away from culture is getting, I am not even kidding, barefoot on the earth.

Martha Beck:
On the ground. Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
Barefoot on the earth is a really powerful thing. And I always think, I feel this way sometimes in sessions when people start making a really key choice and I know I have to be quiet for them. And I think of the Biblical line because I was raised religious where Moses is walking past this bush and it bursts into flames and it says, “Moses, take off they shoes for the ground on which thou standest is holy.” And I think that’s holy ground, when you’re making a really, really hard decision. I actually like that. Take your damn shoes off and stand on the ground to do this.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
Ah, the wisdom of the earth.

Rowan Mangan:
That’s cool, huh?

Martha Beck:
One time I had a brilliant thought, brilliant, in the middle of the night. Reached out for a notebook, scribbled it down. Couldn’t wait to look at it in the morning. And I had written, “the soles,” no, “the palms of my feet are sweating like mules.”

Rowan Mangan:
So listeners just, if you take nothing else from this episode, take that.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
All right. So we’ve got to find, I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to be like. I don’t know what other people are going to want me to do. So what is the most peaceful option for just me, right now?

Martha Beck:
Yeah. And then as you go from one sole moment to the next sole moment, you can do whatever it takes to work on the situation as you have to deal with it because even if you’re supposed to leave, that may take some time, and you have to keep checking in, checking in, checking in. Because the peace is a compass. It changes. Maybe it’s not supposed to be, like I left academia, I thought that was out, and then I got sort of steered into another academic job just for a little while, but it set me on a new course. So the peace river may take you places you don’t expect. Keep checking in with it all the time. Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
And I also want to say that, because the point of this is that we go outside of culture, what the peace river, where that takes you, is very likely to look weird to those around you, Sari.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
It may not make a lot of sense to other people. Don’t look for validation from other people. Look for validation within.

Martha Beck:
Good point. Yes, yes. And your wild self. It’s not like you’ll just be self-indulgent, because for example, you may quit a job because you’re exhausted. And I think you have chronic fatigue syndrome. And there were jobs you thought, “I got to get out of this because I’m too tired.” But now you’re a mom and you’re exhausted and Lila wakes up crying and your wild self.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. And then the only thing that I want to do, and it is the peaceful thing, is go in there and take care of her no matter how exhausted I am.

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, that’s absolutely right.

Martha Beck:
Right. So your wild self may look weird to other people. It may take you in different directions, it may not even make sense to you. But if you always go to that sole time, sole place, soles on the ground, and then find the peaceful option, I really do believe that we are meant to live in that peace. So follow the river, Sari, everybody, folks, and stay wild.

Rowan Mangan:
Stay wild.

Rowan Mangan: 
We hope you’re enjoying Bewildered. If you’re in the USA and want to be notified when a new episode comes out, text the word ‘WILD’ to 570-873-0144.

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For more of us, Martha’s on Instagram, themarthabeck. She’s on Facebook, The Martha Beck, and she’s on Twitter, marthabeck. Her website is, MarthaBeck.com. And me, I too am on Instagram. Rowan_Mangan. I’m on Facebook as Rowan Mangan. And I’m on Twitter as RowanMangan. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the brilliant team at MBI.