Module Three

Amy: Hello darlings. It’s Amy Ahlers here, and I’m so excited to welcome you back to Find Your Calling. We hope you had a beautiful week off last week, and that you were dreaming and scheming and finding all sorts of hot tracks. Because today we are going to go into Module Three, which is about dealing with fear and self-sabotage, so that you can really cultivate faith and courage and calm. So with that, marvelous, miraculous, magical Martha Beck, would you like to lead us in a meditation?

Martha: Sure, and this is about – we hope you’ve been sort of pursuing your purpose, or the knowledge of your purpose, using the tools that we’ve talked about so far in the telecourse. And at this point you’re in a much better position to really start manifesting – that’s kind of a dirty word for some of us, because there is in our culture, in American culture, a tendency to just grasp at ideas of what we want, even if they’re not really hot tracks for our purpose. You guys have been through the process of looking for hot tracks, and as a result you’re probably closer to what Lissa was just calling Divine Alignment, where the things that you’re hoping will happen in your life are actually aligned with your spirit’s purpose.

Now, it can be kind of confusing to tell the difference between the two, so I like to use this little exercise. Maybe some of you have pencil and paper, you might want to write down a couple of words about this. If not, you can just think about it in your head. So, first of all I want you to just close your eyes and ask a really simple question: what do you want right now? What do you want in your life? Make it two or three things. And choose the thing that you want the most. And what you’re going to do is write it down, or really hold it in your mind, and put your pad and paper aside. And I want you to leap forward about five years, and I want you to imagine very vividly with your senses, your sensory imagination, what it’s going to feel like when you get this thing you want. What changes inside you, emotionally – and physically, in terms of relaxation, which we’ll talk about a lot today – what happens inside you when you know you get this thing you want, it’s already here. Whew, no more concern about Oh my gosh, will it or will it not happen?

And I want you to feel the most significant emotional shift that differentiates that future scenario from this place right now. So for example, you could say, What I really want is a relationship. Right now I’m alone, and what I really want is my soul mate. Imagine being with that soul mate. Imagine the laughter, the warmth, the snuggliness, the excitement, the adventure, the togetherness. And then notice, in this vision of the future, what do I feel that is different from what I feel right now today? And if it’s a soul mate, you might feel like, Oh, I’m not lonely, I am joyful. I’m relaxed. Or, you might think it’s when I get the perfect job, and I have the kind of prestige and the money that I want. So really picture that, picture having all the money you need in your bank account, and a job that makes you feel proud of yourself, or a career you make up yourself that makes you feel proud of yourself, very successful. Just drink that in, what it’s going to feel like when you get that. And then look inside and say, What am I feeling in that future scenario that I don’t feel right now? And it may be something like contentment, lack of anxiety,

confidence, security. So these emotional feelings are actually the things you want the most.

I was talking about, with Lissa and Amy, about how I used to think I wanted to be on television. And I did get on television, but it never felt deeply fulfilling to me for some reason. And then I realized, I guess about seven or eight years ago, I don’t like being on television. I don’t like being in a studio, I don’t like doing things over and over for the camera, I don’t like – I just don’t like being inside. I don’t like not seeing the sun.

Lissa: I don’t like two hours of hair and makeup, I’ve realized.

Martha: Yeah, the whole thing is just –

Amy: Very nerve-wracking.

Martha: So I asked myself, what am I going to have when I – if I got everything I wanted from being on television? So what that meant to me was, I would feel free to just go off and do whatever I wanted to, mostly by myself in nature. And that was the thing I actually wanted, and the things I wanted when I was in the forest, the things I imagined being out in nature in the forest, the things I had were complete peace, connection to the natural world, stillness – those things.

Another way I talk about this, and I’d like you to now do this part of the exercise with me again, once I’ve listed what I want, I go into the situation in my mind, and I see what I yearn for. So you’ve already thought of what you want, but now I’m asking in a different way – what do you yearn for? Write that down if it’s different. It’s the feeling state that you expect to have when the thing you want is manifested.

Now here is the key thing about finding your purpose. You may or may not get what you want. Generally we don’t get everything we want, and if we do, we don’t get to keep it forever. At the very least, we end up losing it when we die. But what you yearn for, that, I believe, you are going to have. It is your divine destiny to have that emotional state and the conditions that would really support it. We may not know exactly what they look like, but that feeling state is your destiny. And when you try to think of something manifesting, typically you get this little anxiety – we’re going to talk a lot today about relaxing, as a way to make things happen, as a way to be at peace in every moment of your life. And the reason that I relax now when I yearn for something is not that I’m okay if it never happens; it’s that I absolutely know I’m supposed to feel that way. So it’s done, it’s done, it’s done. It doesn’t matter even if every piece of the puzzle looks the way I expected it to. When I know that I am meant to feel that bliss, that joy, that peace, that security, whatever it is, when I relax into that, not only am I at peace in the moment, but things manifest with bizarre speed.

So Lissa was kind of saying, Well, y'know, we don’t want to tell people to be confident that they’ll get something if they’re not going to get it. And I said, “Y'know what? I don’t always get what I want, but I always get what I yearn for.” And I’ve never, ever had an

experience as a coach where the person I was talking to, where I didn’t feel that what they yearn for is what they are meant to have.

Lissa: I love the distinction, Martha, because what we were talking about before the call was how often, y'know, I’ve had desires that have not come into being. And in retrospect I’ve realized like, thank goodness they didn’t come into being, because they really weren’t in divine alignment, and it wasn’t the path that I was supposed to be on; it was sort of my ego’s desire, but not what wanted to become. But I love the distinction of, underneath what I thought I would get if I got that desire was that yearning that was fulfilled in a different way.

Martha: Yep, that’s it. But when you give up worrying about not having what you yearn for, everything manifests more easily. I will tell you that without qualms: there is something about the energy of relaxation. So I like to say, embrace the desire, and drop the ... [THE MODERATOR HAS LEFT THE CONFERENCE] [MUSIC]

Lissa: So I wanted to – I’m going to get a little technical here for just a minute. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you there long, but I find that as a scientist and a doctor, I find it very interesting to understand how the brain works when it comes to fear, because it’s so – you can’t talk about desire and yearning without talking about fear, because the minute we start thinking about what we desire, we start being afraid that we’re not going to get it. And so I wanted to just talk to you about how the brain works this way, so that you can understand sort of what you’re up against. Because this is a very very normal response.

So, fear essentially starts in the amygdala, which is kind of the hub of the brain’s wheel of fear. And this is that kind of primal part of your limbic brain. This is not the smart-thinking cerebral cortex, which reasons. It’s not the thalamus, which actually receives information as it comes in. It’s not the hippocampus, which remembers. These are all critical parts of the fear response. But the amygdala is one of the most powerful parts of the fear response. It’s that animal part of your brain, I like to think of it as the little meerkat sentry that’s standing at the zoo on top of the mound, checking out for everybody, signaling danger. And so the amygdala whole job is to signal danger.

But what happens is that as the amygdala signals danger – and the amygdala cannot tell the difference between a real threat to life and limb, so there’s a tiger on the loose or you’re about to get in a car accident – that will trigger the fight-or-flight stress response in the body, and fill the body with cortisol and epinephrine, and kind of create that stress response that turns off the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms. I wrote a lot about that in Mind over Medicine. But what happens is, the amygdala can’t tell the difference between a real threat to life and limb, and an imagined threat. So just the thought, “I’m going to lose all my money,” or “I’m going to wind up living under a bridge,” or “I’m going to lose all of my status in the world,” or “I’m going to fail,” or “I’m going to publicly humiliate myself” – as far as the amygdala is concerned, those thoughts will trigger the stress response just as strongly as physical threats to life and limb. And there’s nothing we can do to prevent that; it’s just important to understand that.

What happens is that repetitive triggering of those stress responses – which are perpetuated from those repetitive negative thoughts or fears about what’s going to happen if we go after what we desire – it makes the amygdala even more reactive to threats. So the amygdala actually gets sensitized, and it turns on the amygdala in this vicious cycle. This then causes the amygdala to form what are called “implicit memories,” and these are like pieces of past experience that are under your conscious recognition, so you’re not even really aware of it. The amygdala is becoming increasingly sensitized, so that the next fear thought actually builds on the last, and it can tinge all of those implicit memories with heightened residues of fear.

So as a result, fearful feelings often wind up manifesting as anxiety – because real fear, the fear of like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and you’re thinking of jumping – that’s a real fear, it’s a valid fear, that’s protecting you, because if you jump over the cliff, you might fall and die and break your leg, or whatever. But over time these other types of thoughts that are not about life or limb, they can manifest as anxiety, even when there’s no objective fearful experience. Even when you have no proof that you’re going to lose all your money, or you’re going to fail, or whatever it is that you’re afraid will happen if you actually lean into your desire.

So what happens at the same time as the amygdala’s getting sensitized, and those implicit memories are getting tinged with fear, is the hippocampus, which remembers, and it’s critical for developing explicit memories, those conscious recollections. Remember, the implicit memories are the unconscious recollections. But those conscious recollections, what actually happened, get worn down by repetitive stress responses. And when this happens, the amygdala actually sort of relatively becomes more powerful. So the amygdala winds up affecting how you experience this, more than the weakened hippocampus, which is fulfilling that conscious recollection part of the brain’s neurochemistry.

So the weakened hippocampus, then, fails to record new explicit memories – I know I’m getting technical here, and I don’t want to get too technical. But what I want you to hear is that over time, you may wind up feeling chronically fearful and anxious, and you have no memory of why you’re even afraid. You just have this overwhelming sense of doom and gloom. You think about finding your calling, and you just get filled with that sense of fear. And when you got to retrieve those memories, that’s what you feel – you get that overwhelming fear, and the body goes into hyperdrive. And like I said, this can be sensitized so it builds upon each other – don’t worry, we’re going to teach you how not to do this.

But this is really a warning system malfunction. I kind of wonder sometimes why our evolution hasn’t caught up with our neurochemistry, because we actually wind up getting alerted to dangers that don’t actually threaten us. So most of the things that we’re afraid of are not actually going to threaten our life or limb, or even our stability or security. They’re sort of made up, and then inflated by this sensitized amygdala.

And this gets really complicated when we start looking at how the brain makes decisions. Because there’s basically two ways the brain makes decisions. Neuroscientists like to break it up into sort of gut decisions and head decisions. And gut decisions are ruled by the amygdala – and this is a good thing. This is sort of your primal gut fear. It’s the part of you that, when you walk into a dark alley in New York City in the scary part of town, there’s a piece of you that says, “I’m not safe here.” And it happens instantly. You don’t have to collect data for that. It’s not about what you see, it’s just that instinctual memory. So a lot of people feel this when they see a snake crossing their path, even if it’s just a harmless garden snake, a lot of people will have that instinctual fear and will back away.

Now, the cerebrum, the conscious-thinking forebrain, is the head. And so the cerebrum will try to talk you out of your gut fears. So you might say, Well, okay, maybe I’m in a dark alley in New York City, but I’m here with my bodyguard. All is well. There’s no evidence of danger, I don’t see anybody with a gun. And so you wind up with this gut-head battle that goes on.

So when you think about your calling, you think about your desire and what you want to create, there may be a part of you that’s having that primal gut fear, where it’s saying, “Oh no, this is not safe. You cannot do that.” But then your brain may be saying, “Of course you can. That doesn’t make any sense. We’ve got evidence. We can collect data that shows that you can do that.” And the opposite can be true as well. You may have a gut feeling that, “Oh my goodness, this is so right, I’m so supposed to do this, this is what I yearn for,” and the head may be going through its rationale and making a calculated risk assessment of whether or not that’s a good idea.

So those two forces of the fear are constantly battling, and here’s the thing – the gut will almost always win, because it’s so instinctual. So it’s just sort of important to know that. When you’re responding to fear with your forebrain – this is your conscious–thinking head brain – that has its downfalls, because you have to take time, you have to research the risks, you have to weigh your options. You only have a split second to make a decision. It’s hard to do that with your head, but your gut can actually come in with instincts. So it’s not that your gut decision-making is bad. It’s that it’s limited, because it can be ruled by that overly sensitized amygdala.

So, when you’re thinking about your fears, you can try to rationalize away your fears, and you may be able to do this, you may be able to calm yourself down – but to some degree, the fear may remain, and no matter how much your head makes the case that you have nothing to fear, you may continue to fear this. But when it comes to assessing your fears, both your gut fears from your primal brain, your amygdala, and your head when your reasoning forebrain is engaged, they’re both important. One helps you tap into your intuitions and the collective consciousness and sort of ancestral memory, and the other educates you and gives you a system of checks and balances, and helps you collect data so that you can make really good decisions. And when you combine the two, you can make more clear decisions. But I just find it really interesting to know that the neuroscience shows that the fear voice that comes from the gut, it can overpower the

thinking, rational forebrain. But the two together, when we recognize that and we have awareness of that, we can actually combine the two in a way that’s more powerful.

And Martha, I know you’re going to talk about lots of tools here of, how do we deal with that? How do we deal with the fact that we have this neuroscience that, regardless of how smart we are, how much self-help we do, that’s just a piece of who we are? So, I know you have so many genius tools on this, I’m going to turn it over to you.

Martha: Well, I’ve been fearful enough in my life that I’ve spent a lot of time developing tools to get through it. So, I want to create a couple of new categories sort of based on what Lissa’s saying. These are from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is a cool neuroscience-based form of therapy. The first thing I want you to sort of label in your mind is what I call clean fear. Clean fear is an actual response to a clear and present danger, and that means that when you see the bear, you run from the bear. You’re not even thinking about what the bear’s going to do in ten minutes; you’re just running from the bear in that moment. And it’s a strong impetus to action, it’s not ambiguous, and because of that, it’s not tormenting. So, it’s like, Oh, I’m doing this – but I’m not in agony about what’s going to happen later. I’m so absorbed in responding in the moment that there’s a clarity, and an action imperative, that keeps me from being sort of this anxious ball of fear that doesn’t move at all. So clean fear actually motivates action.

Then there’s fear and pain that I call ‘dirty’. So, clean fear comes from what’s happening; dirty fear comes from our thoughts about what is happening. So, if I’m in a room with you, and you punch me in the face, I’m going to feel a clean reaction – Oh my gosh, my face hurts, someone punched me. I think I’m going to get away. But if I then go into a bunch of stories about the bad things that are going to happen in the future, Okay, I can’t report her hitting me, I’m going to get hit again by the system. I can’t – she’s going to hit me again. People always hit me. Whatever it is that I make up, it creates what we call an emotional feedback screech. It’s a little like when you have those microphones that feed into their own amplifiers, which then amplifier their sound back and feed it back into the microphone and so forth, and it very quickly goes into one of the horrible screaming sounds that you may have heard when someone’s using a microphone too close to the amplifier. That’s what happens. It’s like the fear creates a story, which feeds into the fear and make it much larger, which creates more stories, which create more fear, which create more stories – and before you know it, something relatively innocuous becomes World War III, right? Because of the stories people are telling to scare themselves.

And in this topic, finding your purpose, the way this typically manifests is, Oh, I want to be X, Y, or Z. I want to be a successful writer. Okay. Oh boy, now I’m going to sit down and write, what if this isn’t good enough? Oh my gosh, I can imagine the humiliation if this just goes nowhere. I think people are going to criticize this. Oh no. So then I get all tensed up, then it’s harder to make myself write, and then I think, Oh my gosh, what if I don’t write at all? This is terrible. I’ve got writer’s block, this is really horrible. And so the story keeps inflating, and the fear keeps inflating, and pretty soon I’m so paralyzed with fear that I don’t even take step one. And that’s the most common thing I’ve seen with clients is, people who are afraid to take step one even, toward their true desires –

because our true desires are precious to us, and the thought of them not coming about, or the thought of something going wrong is paralyzingly frightening when it’s a real heart’s desire.

So this is what today is all about. Now, I’m going to teach you a tool that I call the Pray Rain technique. You may have heard this story, that a self-help writer went out with a Navaho medicine man to pray for rain. And he sat there and prayed and prayed to God that it would rain. And the Indian just stood there. And finally the Anglo guy said, “What are you doing?” And he said, “I’m feeling the rain. I’m feeling it rain.” It’s that sensory imagination I was talking about earlier, of being present in a future moment. That’s something only humans can do. So we create more dirty pain than any other species, but we also have the ability to imagine situations that are not present. And 99.99 percent of our internal suffering comes from the misuse of that imagination. We use it to imagine fearful awful things happening. If you doubt that, go watch TV. You’ll see just one reason to be afraid after another. If it bleeds, it leads, right?

What we need to do if we’re going to manifest our purposes in life is to use our imaginations to create scenarios that we want – very simple. So first you can bring up your fear by, I like to just take a journal and put a date in it, say 2020, I now have my dream realized, and I’m going to write down in present tense what my day is bringing when I have the thing I want. So you’d open a journal and you’d write down, Okay, now I’m with my soul mate, and this is what’s happening. And what you’ll experience if you do this exercise in your journal is that you’re actually afraid to start imagining what would happen in your best life, because immediately you start to tense up. Well, this is such a wonderful feeling, what if it never happens? So instantly you go into the creation of disappointment, instead of saying, “Okay, I’m going to imagine it raining. If it doesn’t rain, when I get there I’ll deal with that. But right now it feels so blissful to imagine in raining that I’m just going to sit here and picture my heart’s desire being around me. And if fear comes up, instead of imagining more fear, I’m going to calm the part of my mind that’s telling stories to create a withdrawal from my heart’s desire, and an imagination that won’t go forward into good things. It only creates disappointments or imagines disappointments.”

So what I like to do is imagine my fear as an animal. So I bring up the fear by writing in my journal, 10 years in the future, this is what’s going on now that my dreams have all come true. Fear comes up and you say, Well, what if it doesn’t happen? Don’t get just blissed out, it could not happen and then if it doesn’t happen, how will you feel? Well, y'know, I’ll deal with that when I get to it. Right now, I’m going to – I love animals, so I’m going to picture my brain as a little frightened being, like a lizard, for example, because it’s the lizard brain, the reptilian brain that creates these fear reactions – so I’ll imagine I have a little iguana on my shoulder. My iguana’s name is Moe. And you can imagine having your own type of reptile – a little snake, a little lizard – and you just calm it down. Nothing’s after you right now, sweetheart, here’s a grape. You’ll be fine.

Another creature I like to use is an anxious monkey, or an anxious baboon – any kind of primate. It’s like Oh no, oh no – it runs around. What if there is – nothing ever happens? Oh no, oh no. And again, I just calm it down, it’s okay, here’s a banana.

And then the last animal I love to use, because this is what I work with now on the ranch that I have – that I was afraid to imagine because I wanted it so much, that I thought if it didn’t happen it would break my heart, then I went ahead and imagined it anyway – and it happened. And I’m not that special. But we have these mustangs right now that we’re working with, horses that are completely wild, that have never been touched, never been tamed. And when they’re afraid, you just let them run. That’s the first step in gentle horse training. You don’t stop them from acting on their anxiety. You let them run. You know you’re not going to hurt them, so you sit with them in the stillness, and you let them run and run and run until they finally realize, the terrible thing we’re expecting isn’t happening. No one’s attacking me. And I’m getting a little tired of being afraid, so I think I’m just going to relax.

So you can picture any animal you want as personifying your fear. The important thing is that you become the wise person who is holding, or calling, or comforting this frightened animal. As soon as you do that, your whole body changes, your whole mind changes, and your imagination changes so that what you want is far more likely to manifest.

Amy, I know you have some comments on the inner lizard. Do you want to take us through that?

Amy: I would love to, yeah. And what I really want to do is I want to lead everyone right now through an exercise that in my work I call “the Wake-up Call three-step process.” And so I want to actually ask everyone to go ahead and think about one of your hot tracks, or maybe you’re even like, Oh my gosh, ding ding ding! I found it! This is my purpose – I’m supposed to be a florist who arranges flowers for people that are going on trips to the moon – or whatever your purpose is, wherever you’re at in that process. And just really bring that up, and bring it up into the forefront.

And then, just like Martha was saying, in the work that I do, we like to call for woman the inner critic the inner mean girl, and for the guys we like to call it the inner mean dude, or the inner bully. And as Martha was just saying, and as Lissa was saying as well, it’s such a gift to start personifying or making that fear into a being that is outside of you, whether it’s an animal, or an inner mean girl, or an inner mean bully – whatever it is that works for you. Because it allows you to start saying, “That is not me, and that, my inner mean girl, my inner critic, my inner lizard does not get to make my decisions.”

Because it’s going to be there, right? The fear is going to be there, no matter what. Our brains are programmed this way, y'all, so it’s going to happen, it’s going to come up – and especially when you’re risking, and you’re growing, and you’re saying, Oh my gosh, I’m feeling this desire, I’m feeling this yearning, you can bet that your inner critic, your inner lizard, that fear is going to be right there with a megaphone, because their job is to keep

you in homeostasis, their job is to keep you in the status quo, so that you don’t grow. That’s what they’re there for, that’s part of how our brains are programmed.

So in this three-step process I found it to be really powerful. It’s super-duper simple to do. You can do it internally, you can do it in partnerships. I’ve done it at book signings and in big circles with hundreds of people doing this at tables together. You can do this all sorts of ways. You can journal it. So actually for today, right now, on this, I’d love for you to take out a pen or a pencil, and I’m going to walk you through this. And then if we have time I actually would love to take a volunteer through it live as well.

So the first step, you’re feeling some fear, you’re feeling any sort of negative emotion – the first step is to ask, What is my inner critic saying? What is my inner lizard, my inner rat, my inner baboon, my inner mouse, whatever it is, whatever term works for you, what is my inner lizard saying? What is my inner critic saying? What is my fear saying? And just let him/her/it rant. Because so often – and this is exactly like the horses that Martha was talking about – sometimes they just need to rant and exhaust themselves out so that they can move over and get out of the driver’s seat in your life. So let him or her, let that inner critic rant. Go ahead and write it down. So take 30 seconds right now. What is your inner critic saying about all this life purpose, this soul’s work, your calling – what is he or she saying to you? What are the big fat lies that she’s beating you up with? Go ahead and take 30 seconds and write that down. Good.

Excellent. You can even, if it’s safe to do so, you can even just start talking as him or her and just start yelling, “Who do you think you are? This is a bunch of baloney. You’re never going to be able to make any money with that. What are you going to do? How are you going to support yourself?” Blah blah blah, let her spin out of control for a moment. Good. All right, and when it/he/she has had its say, your fear has spoken, now I actually literally, physically, want you to move into a different position. I literally just turned my chair away. And close your eyes, very important – this is step two, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and just ask, what does my inner wisdom know? What does my inner wisdom know? You can use the word inner wisdom, Lissa loves inner pilot light – whatever term works for you. Your higher self. Art. What does love know? And go ahead and let that bubble up. Let that intuition inside of you speak. Let that inner wisdom speak.

And after you feel that, and just notice even the way, for me, right now, I feel so grounded, and my voice has gone down like ten octaves, because that’s when I know my inner wisdom is present. And you know when your inner wisdom, you know the difference between the fear and that inner lizard and inner critic and inner mean girl, and your inner wisdom, because of the way that it feels in your body. That body compass that we talked about last time. You’ll feel the difference in your body. So let your inner wisdom speak to you, and you can write this down. That’s step 2. I find it so important to close your eyes and take a deep breath.

And then step 3 – this is a neuro-linguistic programming technique, an NLP technique, where I actually want you to find some sort of gesture or movement that symbolizes your

inner wisdom. So for me, I actually tap on my heart. I have clients that put their hands on their solar plexus, other people who look towards the sky and arch their back a little bit and stretch out their chest – whatever works for you. And I want you to go ahead and say out loud, if you can, your inner wisdom’s truth while doing that movement. And this is to start building one of those new neural pathways in your brain. When we lock it in with that physical movement, it can really help. And what you’ll discover over time is that then you can be in the midst of that meeting, and just even do that gesture just a little bit, and you’ll feel the presence of your inner wisdom. It will start becoming that habit, that new neural pathway in your brain.

So I would love – what do you ladies think, do you think I have time to run just one person through this, a volunteer?

Martha: Go for it.

Lissa: Yeah.

Amy: Okay, so if you’re someone like, you had a great experience and you really have that inner critic voice loud, go ahead and push 1 on your handset. I’ll take someone who’s on the live call. Press one on your handset, and I will come over – the first person that came up, let’s see, we have Donna. Are you there, Donna?

Donna: I am.

Amy: Hi Donna, thanks so much for raising your hand.

Donna: You bet.

Amy: All right, my dear. So let’s jump right in. I want you to let your inner critic, your inner lizard, your fear just rant. Just let him or her go off about this Find Your Calling business, whatever it is. Let ‘er rant, go for it.

Donna: Okay. Every time you start something that you really really really desire to bring into your life, you get almost there, and then you quit. Or you set it up so that it quits for you. You listen to the crappy things that are going on around you, and you think that you don’t have anything to offer. You are looking at everybody else and think how well they’re doing – and you don’t you don’t measure up to that, because my goodness, when have you ever really, actually, done anything about you? All you do is read, you listen to all these little voices and tapes and stuff like that, but you never really really do anything with it. You get started on some wonderful spiritual practice, and then you just get lazy and quit.

Amy: Yeah.

Donna: And it goes on and on.

Amy: Yeah, got it. Got it. Thank you Donna, thank you sweetie, very brave. And I know everyone listening right now to you, do you see that horse running around wild? Right.

Donna: Right.

Amy: Thank you sweetheart. So go ahead and just close your eyes. Everybody, I invite you to close your eyes with Donna here. Take a deep breath. Donna, what does your inner wisdom know?

Donna: That what I have to share is of value. That people I love and care about have benefited from the wisdom that I’ve shared with them. That I have something to offer. And that my heart is ready, and what I do doesn’t have to look like what anybody else does to be important.

Amy: So just keep connected there, and just imagining that I’m holding your hand across from me and looking right into your eyes Donna, right now. You are of value, and the people that you love have benefitted tremendously from your wisdom. You have something really important to say. You have a contribution to make. And the way that you’re going to do it doesn’t have to look like the way anybody else does it. Just take a deep breath and receive that. Now, I want you to go ahead and find that inner wisdom movement, that gesture, and just go ahead and repeat back three pieces of truth out loud while you do that gesture for us.

Donna: What I have to offer is of value. What I offer does not have to look like anybody else’s; it can be uniquely mine. And when it happens, it will happen in the time that’s good, and you can give back. Already unfolding.

Amy: Beautiful.

Donna: Wow.

Amy: How did that feel?

Donna: Awesome.

Amy: Thank you so much Donna. Thank you for your vulnerability, and just thank you for allowing us to witness that. I know that was really powerful for people to witness, and I just want everyone to notice, that took about three minutes. And so you can do this for yourself, you can do this for your partner, you can ask someone to ask you these questions and have a shift in a matter of moments. That’s the power of this tool, and the power of tuning into your inner wisdom, because y'know Donna, I’ve asked this question, What does your inner wisdom know? thousands of times over the last 13 years of coaching, and I mean, we are so wise, isn’t it amazing? You knew. Your inner wisdom was right there, just waiting to remind you of how powerful you are.

Donna: And I know it’s there, it’s just that I allow those other voices to drown out what is essentially my guide, which is my inner wisdom.

Amy: Yeah. Thank you so much Donna.

Donna: Thank you.

Amy: Beautiful. Thank you everyone so much for witnessing Donna and holding her in this container while she did that work. And what Donna said was exactly right. So often we just let that reptilian part of our brain, we let our fear and our inner critic start making our decisions. And if we just let them run around like that wild horse – I love that metaphor – until they get tired, then all of a sudden our inner wisdom can really step in and guide us.

So Martha, I’d love to hand it back over to you, my dear, so that we can talk about your ‘everybody.’

Martha: Yeah. You may have noticed that one of the things your inner critic, or your inner mean girl, or your inner bully is really obsessed with is what ‘everyone’ will think of you. And most of the criticisms that you lob at yourself do not come from fear of natural disaster or predators, or things that might actually threaten life and limb – it’s a social fear. We’re controlled mainly by shame, guilt, and fear. And one of the ways we really cement in our fears, and our shame and our guilt, is that we have in our heads, psychologists think, what’s called the generalized other. I call it your ‘everybody’. So you may say, Y'know, everybody thinks my shoes are stupid. Everybody thinks that I’m a loser. Everybody thinks, everybody thinks, everybody thinks. And when I have a client say that, my comeback is “Name three.” And generally they can’t name three people who actually, literally, have said to them with their own lips, “This is what I think of you.” It’s mostly inference, and projection.

And even if somebody has said something negative, it’s usually, at the most, three people – maybe six if you’re a celebrity – but most people really don’t care what you’re doing. They’re so worried about their own journey, and their own fears and disappointments, that really they’re not thinking much about you. I love – somebody told me the 20-40-60 rule. When you’re 20, you’re obsessed with what everyone thinks about you. When you’re 40 you stop caring so much what everybody thinks about you. And when you’re 60, you start to realize, no one was ever thinking about you.

So what I like to do is replace the generalized other in the mind with people who are supportive of me. So for example, if I’ve written a book that someone doesn’t like, I take into account their advice, but if it makes me feel dark and shut down, then I know it’s probably not my deepest inner truth. So then I go talk to somebody who’s sort of on the same wavelength I am, and at least I can have two opportunities. I can have two different stories to play with. Generally I’ve found it very very productive, and almost never self-serving, to create within your sort of inner circle of the mind a cheerleading squad. And a lot of mine came mostly from books. So when I was struggling with, for example, I left

the religion that I was born into, and when I was trying to figure out what I thought was true, my best cheerleading section consisted of about four people who were all dead – but they’d all written beautiful books about faith. And they were books that sounded – they just felt solid, and healthy, and bracing when I’d read them – and then allow myself to trust that maybe they were true, I felt a great peace.

And so create an ‘everybody’ by either talking to people you deeply trust, or by reading things that are written by people you deeply trust. Either way you’re going to get a generalized other in the head, sort of to approve of you or give you permission to live your dreams. And you will not do that as long as you’ve got an ‘everybody’ in your head that is negative toward your truth.

So just experiment with, if I believe, say, Martha, Lissa and Amy when they say that I’m worthwhile and I have something to contribute, how do I feel? And if I believe what my mother says, that I’m a complete loser and I should just maybe stay home and shoot myself – when I think about that, I don’t feel great. Maybe mom, despite everything the culture says, is not my best cheerleader. Maybe my mom’s troubled herself.

So, I like to just cut to the chase. Think of six people whose words deeply deeply encourage me, and then re-read things that they’ve said. I write them down if they’re my friends, I read them if they’re in books by wise people. And I read them whenever I start to get worried about what everybody thinks. So that’s a very simple tool you can use.

Another one, speaking of people who have taught me to trust in ways that felt really good, is from a spiritual teacher named Byron Katie – I’m sure many of you have heard of her. But thing I love about her work is that it doesn’t just help me dispel my fears about the future and my regrets about the past; it also opens the door for me to understand what is my next step toward a future that of course I can’t completely anticipate. I feel in my heart that I’m supposed to take a step forward toward my destiny, but I’m not sure what that step is. Well, what I’ve learned from doing Byron Katie’s work is that my next step in life is virtually always the reverse of my greatest fear in any given moment. And it’s something that Byron Katie calls a turnaround, where you have a thought – the most oppressive, negative thought for you, the one that creates the most fear is actually a signal and a guide, but it has things backwards. So what you just hear was, Amy working with Donna to talk about her reality, which brought her peace and joy, rather than her fantasy of fear, which was that her life doesn’t matter, and that nothing she does is ever enough and that she never finishes anything. I was just like itching to jump in and do some Byron Katie work – wait wait wait!

And for example, I’ll just tell you a couple of examples on the phone, and then what I’d like to do is work someone through a turnaround so that you can see how this works. But when Donna says I’ve never finished anything, Byron Katie would say, Go look for evidence. Have you never really finished anything? I’ll bet Donna knows how to tie her shoes. I’ll bet she’s no longer in sixth grade. I’ll bet she’s finished a birthday card to someone in her life. There are innumerable things that she has finished.

The story, I never finish anything, is just a dirty lie. And if you can send your brain on a search for the evidence – this is the scientific method, the evidence. You’ve got this hypothesis, I never finish anything. What’s the actual data? What are the data for that task? Well, let’s see, I finished sixth grade. That means I do sometimes finish things. Okay, then you can’t have the same hypothesis. And after you’ve sort of wiggled the thought loose with that, you try a turnaround, which for Donna was, it could be I’ve finished many things, and I’ve done good work in the world and it’s important.

So you heard Amy get into it one way. I’d love to work with someone to come at it using a strategy of finding the worst fear and turning it around. So, if you have a thought that really plagues you – like a really persistent battering belief about yourself that comes from your inner bully, I’d really like to hear from you. So Amy, is anyone raising their hands?

Amy: Oh yeah, we’ve got people raising their hands here. I’m coming over to Rebecca.

Lissa: Rebecca, how you doin’?

Rebecca: I’m good, how are you?

Lissa: Great. Well, you don’t sound like someone in the grip of dirty fear, but it sounds like there’s something –

Rebecca: I’m good at going back and forth. But I think the big fear that I have is that – well, there are couple, but one of them that keeps coming up is that I don’t know what I’m doing.

Lissa: Okay. And what are you trying to do?

Rebecca: Well, that comes up in anything. I actually work in academia and I do research, and when I’m doing my research it’s like, Oh my God, I don’t know what I’m doing, people are going to find out I’m a fraud, that I’m not – like that. And it’s pervasive, in everything.

Lissa: Could I put something on the end of that sentence? I don’t know what I’m doing seemed to be very emotionally charged for you, okay? And basically it’s, I don’t know what I’m doing, and that’s not good. What do you think is going to happen because you don’t know what you’re doing? What’s the biggest fear? Like the worst-case scenario. Let’s not just take your worst fear; let’s pump it up. Imagine the worst case scenario from not knowing what you’re doing.

Rebecca: I’d fail and no one will love me, and I’ll just be a big fat nothing.

Lissa: Oh, I love these, because they’re really juicy when you turn them around. So I’ll be a big, fat nothing. Okay. I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’ll be a big fat nothing. Let’s just go with that. So, first of all, are you sure that not knowing what you’re doing is a bad thing?

Rebecca: Well, when you say it like that, and when I say it out loud, I can see the other possibility that maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. Like maybe that’s just where I’m supposed to be.

Martha: Well, in my experience, Suzuki Hiroshi, the famous Zen teacher, said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” A great scientist who goes in knowing exactly what the answers are is not a great scientist. Openness to learning is what’s important in real research. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Rebecca: Yep, you’re right.

Martha: So you come to it with a fresh and intelligent mind. You do sound very intelligent, and if you have no preconceptions, you’re really cooking with gas now. Tell me where I’m wrong again.

Rebecca: Right.

Martha: And besides – what is your research about?

Rebecca: Well, I do research with people with aphasia who have had strokes, and right now I’m actually doing a meditation research project with that, and looking at how that can affect attention.

Martha: Oh, y'know what? You kind of sound like you know what you’re doing. You were able to tell me very articulately. And have you tried a little meditation in your life?

Rebecca: Yes, I have.

Martha: Have you read about it, and spoken to people with aphasia?

Rebecca: Yes, I have.

Martha: You just told us what aphasia means, it really does sound like you have some background in this.

Rebecca: I have a lot of background in this.

Martha: So not only do you know what you’re doing, but you’re bringing a fresh mind to the subject. This is getting better by the minute.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah. That’s something I can see.

Martha: Okay, let’s turn around the thought, I don’t know what I’m doing. What’s the opposite of that?

Rebecca: I know exactly what I’m doing.

Martha: Or I do know what I’m doing. You don’t need to get too absolute about it. Nobody knows exactly what they’re doing. I do know what I’m doing.

Rebecca: I do know what I’m doing. Yeah.

Martha: How about this one. This is where it gets really fun. When you start to do things that are non-grammatical. How about, “What I’m doing knows me.”

Rebecca: What I’m doing knows me?

Martha: Yes. Your mission in life, this thing that wants to be born into the world, this understanding that wants to heal and help people with aphasia and their loved ones – what if that knows you, and has chosen you?

Rebecca: That’s just really hard to wrap my brain around.

Martha: I know, that’s what turnarounds are like, so I’m going to pound this into you again.

Rebecca: Okay.

Martha: What if your destiny includes working with these people? How does it feel in your body to entertain that thought? Does it feel like a lie? Whatever brought you to this work –

Rebecca: I feel it’s very relaxing.

Martha: And relaxation is a sign that the body is recognizing a truth, that’s why all the great masters have said, The truth sets you free. It’s a feeling of let out of captivity, of being unshackled. So if our destinies can call to us, and your destiny includes this kind of work, could it be that the destiny is bigger than your fear-based little self? Isn’t that what pulled you into this in the first place? The feeling that this thing is meant to be part of your life, and you are meant to be part of it?

Rebecca: Yeah, it seems like, well what comes up is that I think this is the thing that I’ve been trying to get out of and find my “real” calling. And I keep kind of struggling back and forth with – that make sense?

Martha: Yes, absolutely, so let me reapply this. You don’t know what you’re doing about going off to a new line of work, a new purpose, whatever it is. But when I say this is your calling, you said, mmm, I’m moving away from this. Now, you’ve got – and by the way everybody, you’ll hear me switching horses right in the middle of the stream here, because I got new information – and that’s okay. So how do you know that the work that you’re doing isn’t the absolutely fulfillment of your dreams? Is there something inside you that says, No, there’s more? Or there’s something different?

Rebecca: Yes.

Martha: Did you hear Rebecca when she said Yes? There was a sense of, clunk. Like something fitting into place, like a puzzle piece. Yes. Now Rebecca, I’m guessing that that’s a deep feeling for you. Tell me where I’m wrong about that.

Rebecca: That is exactly right. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I feel like there’s something different that I’m supposed to be doing.

Martha: Okay. You heard Amy talk about her voice dropping? Your voice just dropped several tones, Rebecca. So, you have a suspicion that this is not right for you. You’re pretty convinced of it. That could only be because you have some knowledge about what you are meant to do. So if I asked you this, Are you going to be a plumber? Is that your next big step?

Rebecca: No, that is not my next big step.

Martha: Design the most fabulous porta-potty ever created. No?

Rebecca: That’s not my next step, I think, yeah.

Martha: Well, what about a chef? I think you’re supposed to be a chef. What do you think?

Rebecca: No, I don’t think so.

Martha: Oh, she sounds so clear, almost as if she knows what she’s doing. Again, you’re only able to rule out plumber and chef because you have some understanding of what it is – do you see that? You couldn’t give me that clear a no unless there was something in you that knows what yes says, right? What says, ohh, yeah, go toward it. Okay, so again you’re going toward this with beginner’s mind. You know that there’s something waiting for you, and you’re going toward it without preconception. So let’s use the turnaround on this now. What I’m doing knows me. So what you’re doing, your destiny is saying not academia, not research on aphasia, something else. It knows you. Can you feel that?

Rebecca: Yeah.

Martha: This thing that you don’t quite understand yet, you don’t quite see it. You can feel that it knows you deeply, intimately, intensely. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Rebecca: Yeah, I can definitely get a sense for that.

Martha: Okay, so when you go toward this thing that’s a little frightening, but you do know what you’re doing because you can feel it, let’s turn around I’ll be a big fat nothing. Can you think of a good turnaround to that?

Rebecca: Recalculate a big turnaround too that I’ll be a big fat nothing –

Martha: Yeah, give me the opposite of big fat nothing.

Rebecca: Okay, yeah, that I’ll be exactly what I’m supposed to be.

Martha: I love that. Let’s try another one. I’ll be a small, slim everything. Feel the energy that’s pulling you forward. Isn’t it part of the everything that is the one true self? And you’re just a little part of that, but you’ll become part of the everything, the beneficent flow of the force throughout your physical life. I mean, I’m just playing with words now, but my point here, you guys, is that you can start to disrupt patterns by seeing if the reverse might be true. And the more you play with opposites, the more you realize that language has you stuck in your stories. And as you break them apart, even with absurd sentences and start to think in those reverse patterns, it opens the door. So when we’d work through it with the academia – hm, nope, got the wrong feeling from that. When she started to reverse the judgments and apply them to going forward with this new thing, whatever it’s going to be, starting with this class – I would love to coach you more about it, but we don’t have time – but it’s starting to open the door to what wants her, to the thing that’s pulling her toward her harmonious role in this life, among this population of humans, at this moment in history. Something’s opening a door. And when she starts to think in opposites, she can start to see through the door, and then step through.

So would you play with this for me, Rebecca? Would you write down all your negative thoughts, and then just write down the direct opposite, and play with it to see if maybe there are some opposites that actually pop open new avenues of feeling and thinking.

Rebecca: I will do it, thank you.

Martha: Okay, thank you so much. And this is a fun exercise for all of you to do – and it has really liberated me, and really helped me find my way through life. But that didn’t mean that I was free from fear – again, we’re going back to the fear thing. I know Lissa has another exercise that as we start to find our way, even with using the opposites and so on, will help us not stop moving, will help us avoid the paralysis and fear, which is what this whole unit is about. So Lissa, you want to talk to us about that, the feel the fear and do it anyway?

Lissa: I do, and I’m actually writing the sequel to Mind Over Medicine right now, which is called The Fear Cure: Cultivating Courage as Medicine for the Body, Mind and Soul. And so I’ve been doing all this research into other books that have been written about fear, and I just read Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway again. And there’s two things that I wanted to just bring out about it. One was that she basically talks about how all of our fears can basically be broken down into three different types of fears. So one is sort of this superficial fear, like I’m afraid that I’m going to find my calling and go for it, and then I’m going to fail and lose all my money, would be a superficial fear. And then the second level fear she would say would be whatever you’re afraid that you’ll feel if that happens. So I’m afraid that I’m unworthy, I’m afraid I’m worthless, I’m afraid I’m nothing. But what she’s saying is that basically the third level of fear, under all of our fears, is the same.

So no matter what your fear is – I want you to name it right now, just for yourself. What are you most afraid of right now? Just think of what that is. And then see where that is on that scale. Is it the superficial level fear? Or is it the feeling that lies underneath that fear? And what Susan Jeffers says is that underneath all of our fears, no matter how horrible the fear – like for me, one of my most horrible fears is, what if I lose my 7-year-old daughter, right? Like the most horrible thing you can imagine. What she says underlies every fear we have is the third-level fear, which is the same for everybody, which is, “I can’t handle it.” So if my daughter dies, I can’t handle it. If you lose all your money, you can’t handle it. If you fail to achieve your dream, you can’t handle it. And so what she says is that the more evidence that we collect that demonstrates to us, when hard things happen, then we demonstrate that even when hard things happen, we can handle it. And it starts to bench press that muscle of demonstrating to us that no matter how horrible something might be, that we can actually mine the gold from it and come out the other side, even when we get pummeled by disappointment, or by grief, or anger or fear, whatever, that we can still handle it.

The other thing that I really loved about this book was that she talks about the no-lose decision-making. Because I know sometimes I get sort of paralyzed when I’m afraid of making the right decision, and I’ve been in a state like this recently where I’ve been trying to make a tough decision, and it’s so easy to get paralyzed. Because you have this idea that there’s the right decision and the wrong decision. And so what she says is actually, there’s this other model where a no-lose decision tree. And basically you have path A, and path B. So you’ve got this decision or that decision. And it may be that you have paths C, D, and E as well. But we have this misguided notion that only one of the paths is right, and that that’s going to be the correct choice, and everything else is going to lead to regret. But what she says is, what if, regardless of what choice you make, they all have goodies along the way? So if you choose path A, you get goodies. If you choose path B, you get goodies. If you choose path C you get goodies. And that along the way each path is strewn with opportunities to learn and grow. And if you can stay unattached to the outcome, that you literally can’t lose, depending on which path you take on the journey.

So this has helped me, because the more I’ve kind of been in those decision-making trees and realized that even when it might look like I made the wrong decision in the past, in retrospect, with the lens of what doctors like to call the retrospectoscope, where you’re several years past the decision point and you can look back. So often – I’ll bet you can think of something like this in your own life, you look back at the event and you think, Oh my goodness, that was such a good decision even though it felt like a mistake, or the outcome didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. Wow, if I hadn’t made that bad decision, I wouldn’t have met this right person. Or, if I hadn’t done that difficult thing, I wouldn’t have found this awesome thing on the other side of it. So just keep that in mind as you’re trying to make tough decisions, that no matter what you choose, there will be goodies along the way.

I wanted to just lead us through a very quick exercise, so that when you notice that you’re in that fear spiral, there’s a scientifically proven way to get out of it. I included this in Mind Over Medicine. It’s based on copious data by Herbert Benson, who is a physician

at Harvard, who wrote a great book called The Relaxation Response. And this is based on a type of transcendental meditation. But it’s scientifically proven to short-circuit that amygdala response, when you get into that fear cycle. So do this with me for a moment. I’m going to lead you through this relaxation response.

So just take a deep breath, and pick a focus word – some word or phrase or prayer that’s rooted in your own belief system. So this might be Love, or Peace, or Om, or I’m not afraid. And just close your eyes if you can, and get comfortable and just focus on relaxing your muscles. Just start at your feet, and go up your calves and your thighs and your bottom. And relax your abdomen, your shoulders, your neck, muscles in your face, all the way up to the top of your head. And just breathe slowly and naturally, and as you do, on the exhale, say your focus word, or your phrase or your prayer. And you can say it out loud or you can say it silently to yourself as you exhale. And just assume a passive attitude as you do this. Don’t worry whether you’re doing it right. You may notice the thoughts come into your mind, and just call them out. Hello. Remembering, hello. Planning. As you do that, just gently return to your breath, and return to that repetition of your phrase.

Now, if we were in one of Herbert Benson’s studies – you can go ahead and open your eyes – he would have you do this for 10 to 20 minutes once or twice a day, and this has been scientifically proven to improve almost every health condition you can imagine. And the reason that it does this is it flips off the stress response and turns on the relaxation response. But you can do this any time you notice that your monkey is chattering away, or your lizard is whispering evil nothings in your ear, your mustang is running around the ring. You can abort that amygdala cycle by getting into this relaxation response. And over time, what Dr. Benson found is that you don’t even have to sit down and close your eyes to do this; you can literally just repeat this word or phrase while passively disregarding other thoughts that come to mind. And you can do this while you’re exercising, or cooking, or shopping, or driving. So you can very easily abort that cycle. I just wanted to give you that little tool that you can use.

So Martha, did you have any other thoughts about that, or should we move on to our homework assignment?

Martha: Just for 30 seconds, I want to just add one thing. That it’s very powerful to have a community. It could be just your circle of friends, it could be everyone on this call, it could be, as I said, people who aren’t even alive any more. One of my favorite companions is 13th century poet Hafiz, who wrote this tiny little phrase: “Troubled? Then stay with me, for I am not.” Even when I think I want someone to freak out with me, what I really want is someone who’s just at peace, which is why it’s so powerful to be near a dog, or a horse, or even a cow – something that’s calm. If you can lean your head against a calm energy, then you can drop down into this place of trust where everything you yearn for eventually becomes manifest.

So right now, I’d like you to just look around your room, and soften your gaze as they often say in yoga, so that everything in the room is seen as equally important, floor to

ceiling, wall to wall. And then everybody who’s been doing Lissa’s exercises or the ones before, I want you to feel in your heart, your literal chest, the peace of everyone else on this line when it comes to your life. It’s so much easier to believe for one another than it is to believe for ourselves. And it’s a very powerful, energetic and magneto-electrical response. There’s actually a response that can be measured outside the body from a calm part.

And as we offer each other confidence in each other’s dreams, we can lean on that. So having a community and coming to a call like this plugs you into a source of peaceful support that may go far, far beyond what you can see with your eyes or hear with your ears. So just take a second to feel the peace of confidence in everyone else’s destiny. Yeah, it’s easy for me to imagine you succeeding. I hold that in my imagination with absolutely peace. And I know that you will hold mine for me. That is magic. That creates miracles. So thanks guys.

Amy: So, some divine details here, as I like to say. Some homework first all. We’d love for you to create a prearranged role about your dream three years from now. And just look for any resistance or fear that comes up, and allow it to inform where you are pushing away your purpose. We also would love for you to spend the next 90 days in 90 meetings with your ‘everybody’, so six people that will support you, either alive and in your community, or alive and not in your community but you wish were in your community, or even people that have passed on, historical figures, you name it. You get to choose your ‘everybodies’. Go ahead and create meeting with them, every day, where you just gather them up and do your meeting to talk about your purpose and your calling.

And then we’ve also given you a plethora, a smorgasbord if you will, of tools on this call to work with your fear, to work with your inner critic. And so we want you to choose one tool to work with that resonates with you, whether it’s the Wake-Up Call three-step process, or Byron Katie’s The Work, or doing the Relaxation Response, or as Lissa was just talking about, with the No-Lose Decision. So find one of the tools that really resonated and go ahead and put it into practice over this next week.

The other thing is, we have a wonderful Wake-Up Call bonus expert interview with Sark – Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy – so make sure to check that out on the bonuses tab. That was just posted on Monday, so check that out. And just continue using your groups and connecting with each other on the Ning site. We’ll actually be posting this week a new Q&A discussion. And we’ll do that every week on Wednesdays, we’ll post up a new one, that are incredible. Martha Beck Coaching Team will be manning, and standing by to answer your questions on the forum – not live on this call, but on the forum there – so feel free, if you have a question, post it there on the Q&A, and we’re going to go ahead and post up a new fresh one, just because there’s a lot of comments and a lot of questions in the current one. So we’ll refresh that every week so it’s a little bit easier to navigate.

So with all that said, we’re getting ready to go into our interactive party, and we highly recommend that you participate in these if you at all can. So if you’re on the live line of

the phone you’re in the right place, just go ahead and stay where you are. But if you’re on the webcast and you want to participate in a breakout group voice to voice, now’s the time to come on over to Maestro Conference, which is the phone –conferencing system that we’re using. So you can call in right now with your unique pin that you signed up for, or you can use our backup number. And so the backup number is 408-520-2444, the pin is 499546#. And if you want to keep interacting interactively, we’ll keep broadcasting on the webcast, but you’ll be hearing a lot of silence on the webcast as we go into breakout groups. But there’s some fantastic discussions going on, on the Ning site itself, so you can go into chat on the Ning site. Just go over to FindYourCallingNow.ning.com, and you can click on the Chat tab, and you can chat live with people there as well, so if you would just rather participate virtually. So if you don’t want to participate, you can hang up now if you want, or you can go ahead and listen in.

We’re going to take about a five-minute break for us to get a quick glass of water for people to come on over to the phone lines that you can participate in the breakout groups, so when you come over to the phone line, don’t be confused if there’s music playing, because we’re going to put on some music so that you have some nice guitar, a guitar solo playing, while we go on a break. So with that, we’ll be back in about three to five minutes to lead you through an interactive exercise. Okay, see you in three to five minutes everyone.

All right everyone, we are back here ready to go, to lead you through an interactive exercise here. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to put you into triads, into small groups of three, and go ahead while I’m explaining the exercise, go ahead and press 1 on your handset if you would like to be put in a group of 3. Just press 1 on your handset to opt in to participate in this small group. And what we’re going to do is, we’re going to do the Wake-Up Call three-step process in the small group. So once you say hello and see who’s in your group, you can choose the first person that will ask the questions, and the first person that will answer the questions. And then we’ll just rotate around until everyone’s had the opportunity to ask the questions, and also answer the questions.

And so just go ahead and write this down, just so that you have it in front of you. The first question that you ask is, What is your inner critic saying? You can also say, What is your fear saying? What is your inner critic or fear saying? And then, if you are the one answering, your job is to let your inner critic and your fear rant. Amp it up and rant just like Donna did so beautifully in our demonstration here earlier on the call. And then step two, once you kind of hear that little pause there, step two is to ask your partner what does your inner wisdom know? And you’ll ask him or her to actually close their eyes, take a deep breath, and then ask, What does your inner wisdom know? And please make sure to remind your partner to close his or her eyes and take a deep breath, so that inner wisdom can come in and welcome him or her into the space. And then just go ahead and speak your inner wisdom’s truth.

And then the partner’s job is to repeat back a couple of pieces of the inner wisdom’s truth directly to their partner. So just like I did with Donna, when I started repeating back to her how important it was that she do her work, and how it wasn’t going to look like

anybody else’s. So it’s not your job to come up with the words, you’re just repeating back to them what their inner wisdom said to them. So you repeat back your partner’s truth. And then you ask them to repeat it back one more time while doing that inner wisdom movement. Repeat it back one more time while doing the inner wisdom movement. And then Martha’s going to add another piece on there. Do you want to add that on for each person individually?

Martha: Just that everybody, after you’ve shared in your group, the other people in your group can briefly just hold your best future in their hearts, and then let it go. And I mean literally, for 10 seconds, hold it, let it go for each other. You’d be amazed how much that will catalyze over a long time if you just take 10 seconds and then release another person’s best future.

Amy: Perfect. All right so again, the first question is, What is your inner critic and fear saying? The second question, close your eyes, take a deep breath, what does your inner wisdom know? Then repeat back the inner wisdom truth that your partner stated. Then have them lock it in by repeating it back themselves out loud, while doing a physical movement or gesture.

And then as a group you will go ahead and just hold that person that’s been answering all those questions, hold his or her perfect future, that ideal future for them, just hold that, hold that intention for them and with them for about 10 seconds, and then we’ll move on to the next person.

So we’re going to let you have three minutes per person. And again, 1 on your handset, last call, 1 on your handset. If you would like to participate with a live breakout group, just press 1 on your handset. Last chance, get in there. Okay. Good job.

So here’s how it’s going to work. Those of you that have chosen not to participate in the breakout group, you’re going to be sitting in silence while people go ahead and move around, or people actually do this in the small groups. But your job then is to actually journal this, to go ahead and walk yourself through this three-step process. You can even say it out loud with yourself and participate in that way. Okay. Anything, Lissa or Martha, that you want to add while I get the people into their groups?

Martha: Nope, just that we’re rooting for you.

Lissa: Absolutely.

Amy: Yes indeed. Okay, I’m going to do something real quick. There’s going to be a couple of groups of two, just so you know, just so that we don’t have over – all right. Okay, so again, you’re going to be in silence if you’re not in a group, and those of you that are in a group, you are now in your group. You may begin.

Wrap up with this person, and go on to the next person.

Keep breathing everyone, as you move to the final person in your group. Keep breathing.

All right everyone, it’s time to go ahead and wrap up. Go ahead and wrap up, thank your partners. If for some reason you’re not done, just breathe. We will keep you in these breakout groups at the end so that you can connect back. Go ahead and give some virtual hugs and kisses to your partners. All right, I’m going to go ahead and mute so that you don’t have background noise, and we’re back. All right, Martha, are you there?

Martha: Oh yeah.

Amy: Great job everyone, it was really powerful to see everybody there, going around. So let’s go ahead, shall we take some shares?

Lissa: Absolutely. I’d like for you all.

Amy: So press 2 on your handset if you’d like to share. Press 2 – and I see some 1s, if you pressed 1 it’s okay to press 2 now. Okay, coming over to Bernie.

Bernie: Oh my gosh, hi.

Amy: Hi.

Bernie: So, oh, I wasn’t expecting that. Oh my gosh, thank you guys, I think I needed to be heard tonight, clearly.

Amy: What did you want to share, sweetie?

Bernie: I’m in Scotland, I’m northern Irish and I’m in Scotland, and I actually did the Find Your Calling with you last year. And what really struck me tonight is, within our group there is a woman who really was in pain, and knowing that I have been in that pain in the past, and I’ve moved further on than that, it just makes me realize how much work we need to do telling our story, so that other people can realize that it’s not just them, and they are so – it’s not going to last that long. It’s part of bug soup, y'know, and it takes my breath away to hear some of the negative stuff that people say to themselves, and I realize that I say that to myself, because if I’m hearing it, then them saying it, it must be something that’s going on inside of me too. But if I’m hearing the love, that’s the love that’s inside of them too. Yeah. There is a lot of work to do, and it’s really important. This work is really really important. Our children need us to take care of ourselves.

Amy: Yes, thank you so much Bernie, thank you sweetie.

Martha: Wonderful point to think, what if you saw someone in the street using this language towards someone else, the language you used toward yourself, 23 hours a day?

Lissa: Right, call the cops, right?

Martha: Exactly. At the very least, you’d just haul them away.

Amy: Well, let’s come over to Amanda.

Amanda: It’s Amanda?

Amy: It’s you. Hi.

Amanda: Hi. During the call – well first of all thank you. And now I feel kind of put on the spot because you did _____ the call, I couldn’t really connect with what is my inner critic or fear saying, so I’m really glad I stayed on and worked with our group. What my fear was saying is that I’m not good enough in regards to being a new leader in my group that I just joined. What do I have to bring, or why am I special enough or smart enough to be able to lead this group of peers? And so my inner wisdom was reminding me that I do have a lot to offer, and I’m smart. And it was funny when I was doing my movement and I was thinking, if I did this in a group of people, I’m going to feel stupid. And then there it is again, it’s I’m constantly telling myself how I’m stupid.

Martha: That’s a really good point, because what I said about our everybody, we think that people think we’re being stupid, and in fact, on this line I would virtually guarantee that your buddies were not thinking you were stupid. And yet you still told yourself the story and possibly believed it. But then you caught yourself, which was excellent. But think how many times you haven’t caught yourself when you were telling yourself that kind of lie. And I mean that lovingly.

Amanda: Oh yeah, it keeps coming up every time I do some kind of inner work. It comes up a lot. I don’t know, like it’s so strong.

Martha: Just know that it’s coming up from within you, because no one on this line is going to think anything negative about you. We pretty much promise you that, just from what we heard going room to room.

Amanda: Oh yeah, my group was very supportive.

Lissa: I just want to point out that Amy’s book, Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves, is full of really really great exercises for dealing with that voice that says you’re stupid, when nobody else is thinking that. Everybody else is thinking you’re awesome.

Amanda: Thanks Lissa.

Amy: Thank you Amanda. Thank you so much for sharing, sweetheart. Brilliant, brilliant, amazing Amanda, we love you. Okay, and time for one more here, coming over to Rosanna.

Rosanna: Okay, yes, hello. I felt – I don’t know whether I should use somebody’s name or not who’s been in the group – somebody in the group who asked me questions, I felt such

sort of powerful love, a warmth, and kind of security in herself when she asked me the questions, and she was trying to support me. And then when we went over to her, asking her – being asked the questions, her questions were all about not being loved. And it tied me up a bit, sensing from what I’ve received from her as a person, and, y'know, in my perception of her in a very short space of time. And it was just amazing that it was the same person. And that kindness and love that was there in her treatment of me, it was amazing to me that she could feel that she was not a lovable person on some level, when she was giving out so much love to other people.

Martha: Isn’t that interesting? And we all do that.

Rosanna: And I recognize it in myself.

Martha: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, do you see that you yourself do that?

Rosanna: Yeah, very very much so, yeah.

Martha: That’s why it’s so useful to get into a community and start sharing. Really, we can see ourselves in the eyes of other people, and we realize, oh my gosh we’ve been roasting ourselves on these hooks, just like she has been doing, just like he’s been doing. Huh, maybe I’m as good a person as she is. And my own self-insults are as crazy as hers. Wonderful observation, really powerful.

Amy: Thank you Rosanna. All right, ladies and gentlemen. My goodness, what a beautiful way to end the call. And I hope all of you are feeling so much more in touch with your inner wisdom that really does have such love, unconditional love and unconditional compassion for you. I always like to use the metaphor of a baby learning to walk – especially now that I’m knocked up I really think about that a lot because I get to watch that process again, right? It’s so fascinating to watch a little toddler, go from baby to toddler, and y'know, the parents aren’t standing by being like, You loser, you fell. Like what’s your problem? But yet that’s what we do with ourselves. And I’m forgetting the name of the woman that did that Byron Katie work with you –

Martha: Rebecca.

Amy: Rebecca, thank you. As Rebecca was saying, there’s thing like we’re supposed to know everything, and be completely smart and know everything all at once. But guess what? When we’re learning something new, when we’re risking, when we’re doing something as brave as finding our calling, let’s be as kind and gentle to ourselves as we would a little baby learning how to walk. And really, no matter what situation, really eliciting that compassion and kindness towards ourselves and love, there is no downside to that. Don’t worry, you’re not going to turn into an egotistical, stuck-up, arrogant human being by being kind and compassionate with yourself. That is not what leads to it – it’s quite the opposite. So just allowing yourself to feel that self-love. That’s my wish for all of you.

All right, shall we open up the lines and get a wave of love?

Lissa: I just want to say, I’m so grateful to all of you for being so vulnerable with each other. Those of you were willing to get on and be coached by Amy and Martha, and we listened in on some of the small groups, and just really really amazing transparency and vulnerability. And I hope you all feel the intimacy of that, of realizing as you’re exposing your fears and being willing to have your inner wisdom witnessed, the connection that develops when we’re willing to show up in that way, and realize that really, we all have the fears, we all have the wisdom, and we’re all in it together. So I’m super-grateful to all of you.

Martha: Likewise.

Amy: With that, I’m going to open up the lines for just a moment so we can feel a wave of love, and then I will go ahead and put you back into your small groups, those of you that participated in that just so that you can connect a little more, or if someone didn’t quite get through the three-step process, if you have a few minutes, go ahead and finish that off. So just on the count of three. One, two, three. Bye-bye everyone.

All right, you are now back into your breakout groups so you can continue connecting. Much love.