Module Two

Amy: Hello darlings, welcome, welcome. Oh my goodness, are you ready for module two of Find Your Calling? It’s Amy Ahlers here, and I’m so delighted and excited to be here with you, along with, of course, the marvelous Martha Beck, and the luxurious, luscious Lissa Rankin. We’re having so much fun interacting with all of you, and I know that Lissa and myself have been doing some Tweeting while these calls are happening. So if you want to Tweet with us, you can use the hashtag FYC2013. That’s #FYC2013. And if you want to interact with each other while we’re on this call, you can also go over to our Ning site, and go to the chat tab, and you can actually chat with other students – which has been really fun to see, because people are chatting up a storm during our live calls and having the opportunity to connect with one another, and so on and so forth. So you can do that at FindYourCallingNow.ning.com, and go on the Chat tab.

So with that, Martha, would you like to bring us in, my darling, here, with a little meditation?

Martha: I would so love to. Y'know, before I wrote my last book, I went and researched all these shamanic traditions and forms of self-healing and self-guidance, or guidance from another person that come from these traditional cultures, before our sort of rationalist, scientific, materialistic world view kicked in all over the world. And I sort of amalgamated a bunch of guided meditations into the exercise we’re going to do next. But I’m always updating everything, so the way I want you to picture this that you need a medicine.

So, we know Lissa’s a doctor. I’m so grateful for modern medicine. I think everything has to be used together. And today I have an eye infection, which has kept me from reading email or doing the things that I think I’m supposed to do for the better part of a week. And I knew by yesterday that I was really in trouble. My eye was swollen shut, the whole side of my face was all puffed out. I looked like I’d lost a fight with Godzilla. And I went to the eye doctor, and he gave me an antibiotic drugs. And I put the medicine in my eye, and my whole body said, “Oh, thank God for medicine. Thank God for medicine.” It started to heal immediately. And I’m so aware of my body these days that I could just – not just in my eye, but in all my cells I could feel, Oh, thank God we got help.

So I was thinking this morning through my meditation that showing up in your life to find your purpose is actually you going to find your medicine. Whatever you’re experiencing right now – anxiety, sorrow, anger, whatever is motivating you or leading you, there is a medicine for everything that is painful. There is a medicine that turns it into healing, immediately. And so one of my friends, who is an Apache Indian, calls this ‘your medicine’. Well, actually a lot of medicine men I met in the American Indian tradition call this your medicine, your personal, perfectly designed medication, that you distil with one drop and immediately your whole life is, Ah. And actually when you’ve found your medicine, it’s really kind of just about allowing it to work.

So we’re all talking one the phone about how we’ve put in motion projects that just feel like they’re on their own now. Like a little kid that you’ve taught to ride a bicycle, it’s like

you’ve been running alongside the kid for a long time, and now suddenly they’re just off on their own, and we don’t really have to do anything – and that’s really interesting. It’s about doing enough inner work, doing enough work to follow your purpose, that you touch the medicine that only you bring into the world. And then it’s about just holding that, and allowing your body to move when it feels like moving. This is talking about riding as if, her hands are moving as if she’s not really having to do it, as if she’s just being at peace. Your only job is to be at peace. And then her medicine comes into her life and writes a book. And Amy’s medicine comes into her life and writes another book, and makes a baby. The three of us share this experience as writers. But the moment you touch your original medicine, it begins to flow through you into the world. And remember that your mission in life is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Nelson Bolles said that.

So this exercise is meant to get you to your deep gladness. And it’s not just, okay, we’re going to tell you bunch of things that make you happy happy, because you may be in sorrow. You may be in fear. You may be in anger. And those emotions are legitimate and important, and part of the journey. But we’re going to use all of that to help take you to the place where you can find your medicine. So this about your going to find your medicine.

So wherever you are, get comfortable, close the door, get an extra blanket if you’re cold, let the cat in, put the cat out, do whatever you do with the cat, and just settle in and get your eyes closed, and let your muscles relax.

And now imagine that you look down at the floor – you’re not going to open your eyes. You’re going to imagine that you look down at the floor, and on the floor there’s a pair of boots, and they’re just your size. And so imagine sitting up and putting on the boots. Remember, you don’t have to do this in your body. Let your body relax, relax, relax, sleep even. Your soul is putting on these boots, and your soul is never tired.

So as soon as you put on the boots, the wall of the room dissolves, and you can just see the city, or the country, wherever you’re living, you see it right outside your wall. So you take a step in the boots, and you realize that when you step, you’re actually staying in the same place, and your step pulls the world toward you – like a treadmill. The whole earth is turning under your feet. So you take a step and it feels like it propels you, but it could just as easily be the world being propelled around you, outside your house, outside your apartment, wherever you are.

Take another step, and you realize that as you pull the world towards you, as you start walking through your city, it’s like starting a train. The first step was harder than the second step. The second step is harder than the third step. The fourth step is easier, the fifth step is easier still, and then you start to speed up. You start to speed up. You’re now walking through your city, and it’s going behind you. You have this amazing power in your legs to bring things toward you. And as you walk, you very quickly get to the place where there is no city. There may be suburbs, and you’re walking through those, and they’re pulling toward you, and going out behind you. And then you walk further and

further. You’re out in the country now. There are farms, there are properties that people have developed. There are dirt roads. And then you go even beyond that, and see what comes up around you. Is it desert? Is it forest? Is it the beach? You’re walking across this terrain, and eventually you come to place where there are a lot of trees. Just see what kind of trees you’ve got. Smell. Maybe it’s sycamores with the fall leaves with their sweet smell. Maybe it’s pine, a pine forest. Maybe it’s a jungle with that beautiful floral intensity of a jungle smell.

And you start to move in among the trees, and the light begins to become dappled as it passes through the leaves. And you walk further in, and the light grows dimmer. It’s just shafts of light coming now through its thick canopy of leaves, or pine needles, or palm fronds. You’re going deeper and deeper and deeper, and you start to notice that the trees are getting bigger, and wider, and older. And you can feel that these trees have lived for hundreds of years, and that your whole life they have been holding the space where humans run around like little bugs.

You go deeper and deeper and deeper. The trees are huge now. And you come to a place where there’s a brook. A little stream running through the trees. Very clear water. You start to walk along the brook. And then you come to place where the brook comes out of the stone as a spring – very very pure, very very clear. Stop and take a sip of the cold cold, clear water coming from the spring. It tastes amazing. You feel your whole being energized.

As you stand up and look around, you realize that there’s a clearing very close to the spring. I think this is my medicine place. My whole life, my medicine has been waiting here for me, being held safe by the forest. Then as you go into your medicine place, you realize there are places to sit, there are places to lie down, there is dry sand for you to sit in and be warm. There’s a nook in a tree where you can sit to meditate. There’s a stone in the middle of the clearing that is big, that’s shaped strangely, so that it’s almost like a table. A big angular stone. Walk up to it, and run your hands across it. Warm with the sunlight, but it’s also cool where your hands touched it long enough to get through the initial feeling of the surface. Be with the stone.

Close your eyes and feel the stone, and then open your eyes. You see a box has appeared on the stone. It may be small, it may be large, it may be made of wood or stone or bone or plastic. It could be made of anything – jewels, but it’s light enough for you to lift. And you take it down, and you think, I’m going to open this box, my medicine is here. But before you do that, something steps into the circle with you, and you realize that even though you’ve never seen this being, it has been your guide since the day you were born. Is it an animal? Wizard? You can just see whatever you see, and realize, “Oh, you’re my friend. You’re my friend. You’ve been with me all along.” And your guide says, “Yes, yes my dear, dear, dear beloved. I’ve been with you all along.” And it comes and sits down with you. You put the box between the two of you, and you open it.

Inside is something that represents your medicine. It may make no sense to you at all. Just see what it is. Pick it up. It could be anything – alive or dead, it could be metal, wood,

animal, vegetable, mineral – it can be anything. And you say to the guide, “How do I use my medicine? What do I do with this?” And the guide says, “I cannot tell you. It can’t be said in words, but I am going to go back with you. Put this gift, this medicine, inside your heart so you can carry it easily, and it will always be safe. And I’m going to be beside you for the rest of your life, whispering to you how to use that medicine, how to hold it, how to drink from the spring in your own mind, and how to give to others as well. The medicine is here to heal you, and you are here to love the world.”

So you stand up, and you take a step. The world gets pulled toward you. And you take another step, and the world pulls more quickly. And you pass through the forest of the ancient trees, knowing that you’ll be back any time you want, and that your guide is right behind you. You don’t have to look, you know. And you walk faster, and faster, through the areas of dirt roads and fences, through the farms and orchards, through the suburbs to the city, the city, to your home, through the opening in the wall of your home to the place where you’re sitting right now in your body. Click back in. Let your soul sit down and click back into the body, like a kind of second body. And now it reaches down and it pulls off first one boot and then the other. Then you put your feet on the floor, or on the sofa, or on the chair. You close your eyes. You let out a long exhale, and when you open your eyes, the room is just as it was before. No boots, no opening. Just you, the guide, and the medicine.

Okay, so that will spin out as it spins out. Amy, you have a lovely invocation that you sometimes offer on this.

Amy: Yes. That was beautiful.

Lissa: I was going to say, we could just spend the next hour and fifteen minutes being quiet, in the silence of that.

Amy: I know, so true Lissa, just really beautiful. Thank you so much Martha for that. And so I’m just going to ask everyone to go ahead and take a deep breath, and put your hand on your heart, or both hands, whatever feels right to you. And we’ll say the words together: I trust that I am being guided. I trust that I am being guided. And this is an invocation. This is an intention. This is an affirmation, this is a mantra for you to really feel in your bones the presence of your guide, the one that you just met in this visualization, or maybe you’ve met many many many many many times.

And so, on the count of three: I trust that I am being guided. One. I trust that I am being guided. Two, I trust that I am being guided. And here we go, three, I trust that I am being guided. Beautiful, thank you all so much for saying those words with me.

So, Lissa, darling, I’m going to hand the heart, the baton, the talking stick to you my friend.

Lissa: I’m so all blissed out from the meditation.

Amy: I know, me too.

Lissa: I’m going on like one mile per hour here. All right. So, Martha, when starting reading Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, which is such a wonderful book, the first line of the book, I read the first line of the book, and I called like ten people. I was like, “Okay, you have to hear the first line of this book, because this is the best first line of a book maybe ever.” So I wanted to repeat it here. “The imminent possibility of being killed by a rhinoceros isn’t bothering me nearly as much as I would have expected.” I love that first line. And then in the book, you then go on to tell us about how you found your rhinoceros. And I wanted to invite you to talk to all of us about what it means to find your rhinoceros.

Martha: Sure. Everything’s just a metaphor. One of my children once said to me, “Gee mom, it must be great to make a living extending metaphors.” It is indeed. You make a solid point, child. So, you know, everything is just a way of getting at experiences that are not really expressible in language. And the best we can come, I think; y'know we’ve all been taught in school systems where we’re lectured to, but the best way to learn is through story-telling, and telling each other the story of our own lives.

And this happened to me when I was 43, and I’d achieved everything that I’d ever put on my list, you know? Everything the world could sort of offer me that felt exciting had, to my great and eternal gratitude, kind of happened. And I was at this place where I thought, I don’t really see the future. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I’d always been such a planner. And I don’t know how many people are on the phone here today who used to be planners, and now it’s like, I don’t see the future. What’s going on? I’m a sociologist, so I think it had something to do with the fact that change is so rapid now that we can’t really plan for it. We’re going to be encountering circumstances that are so different, and they’re moving so fast, that we can’t really use any of our old models.

So if you feel like you don’t know what’s going on in your life, just know that it’s also the world, that actually you’re a huge step forward just by having signed up for a teleconference, because a lot of people are just holding onto old models, and thinking that they k now what to do, and they’re losing joy. They’re losing a sense of efficacy. They’re losing the sort of traction that they used to have, because the world is changing under our feet.

So what happened to me is, I was just like, I think I’m going to die. I actually think that’s what’s coming. So I tripled my life insurance, and I went to Africa. And I thought maybe I’d be in a plane crash or something. I really thought I was going to die – just in this calm, happy way. I just wanted my descendants to be cared for. And I went out rhinoceros tracking. And I was not a good tracker – I’m still not, but better than I was then – and we tracked right up on the rear end of a large mother rhinoceros. And when rhinoceroses get worried, they start to whirl, because they can’t really see very well. They can hear you, but they can’t – so if they hear something but they don’t know what it is and then

you hold still, they start to whirl around trying to see any little movement so that they can charge.

So this is what this rhinoceros started to do. And it was about 20 feet away from me. I could smell it, it was really really close. And the baby got excited and trotted off around to one side of our little party, and the mother, now, was not going to be separated from her baby. And the horn on these things is three feet long. It is huge. And the animal itself weighs as much as a school bus. I mean, there’s just no way you’re going to get out of this alive. And so I looked at it, and I thought, Oh my gosh, I’m going to be killed by a rhinoceros! I did not see that coming when I was back at Harvard.

Amy: That wasn’t in your planning?

Martha: No, but I was like so okay with it. And you guys, what happened was that I fully let go of my entire plan for life. And I didn’t even realize I still had bits and pieces of it, like be humble, get a savings account, whatever. I mean, just little things. I dropped it all. And the second I really dropped it all, it was like an explosion in my mind, and I saw the future, my own future. Little bits of it. Now, I’ve always been able to see little bits of people’s future, that’s why I do what I do. This was like getting – all the little bits that I usually get, it was getting like a huge download of them. And I could see myself going around the world and helping people who are here to heal the earth, to heal ecosystems, to heal social systems, to heal all sorts of things that are under threat right now, and doing it for the joy of it and the love of each other’s company. And it was ecstasy – not the drug, the feeling.

And then my friend – one is my brilliant horse whispering friend, the other is a brilliant animal of all kinds whispering friend – they literally, I now know, reached out with their energy and calmed the mother rhinoceros and herded the baby back to her – simply by extending their energy. And if you don’t believe that’s possible, I invite you to come to a horse seminar and realize that it is literal, and tangible, and not even woo-woo. And so I lived, but I lived with this incredible vision of what was coming – and I had no freaking idea how to make it happen. I mean, nothing. If I hadn’t thought I was going to die, I would never have had the audacity to even think these thoughts.

But that’s why I think you guys are here, so that we can give you the audacity to think the thoughts. Because your lives are bigger than you expected. Your mission is bigger, and you don’t know what the heck it is. So whatever your rhinoceros is, something that makes you go ohhhh, then let go of life so that all that can fall into place.

Lissa: So Martha, for those who have yet to actually run into a real rhinoceros and see their future life flash before their eyes –

Martha: Don’t you love it when that happens?

Lissa: I do, I do, and I’ve had something similar happen. And it is a feeling of ecstasy. And at the same time, for me, it was also like a feeling of grief, because the drive behind my passion

and mission was really a sadness about the state of healthcare and the state of our planet. And I know that there’s some of that for you too. But I know a lot of the people that are listening are like, “Wait! But I haven’t had that moment of ecstasy, or that intuition about the future.” Like where do they start? If they’re just like, I have no clue, I’m completely lost, I know that I’m supposed to be a healing force for the planet, for society, for other people, for plants, animals, whatever, life force – where do people start?

Martha: Yeah, and you don’t have to a huge, grandiose mission. I love Mary Oliver’s statement, “I must keep my mind on what is important, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.” That literally is kind of what I do. So it doesn’t have to be big, it can just be standing still and learning to be astonished. But the important thing is that it gives you joy, it gives you resonance – joy, harmony, delight, peace, stillness – these are all delicious because they are meant to guide you.

Now, you’ve been taught throughout your life to be guided by some model of what was true and good and worthy. But the model did not come from within you. The model came from social structures and human beings who are very powerful and who are no longer really speaking about what’s happening in the world. What’s happening in the world is changing so radically that no model outside of us can actually guide us. So, I like to think, there’s no culture to guide us; there’s only the inner compass.

So to follow up on the rhinoceros metaphor, you can find that moment in your life where you get clarity. It may be quite frightening, but you can find it if you start to track it. And tracking is part of us. It’s so deeply, primally embedded in our psyches that it’s really a joyful thing. It’s a little like being Sherlock Holmes, to follow the trail of evidence to anything that’s worth finding. And certainly your purpose is more worth finding than anything else in the world. So, it leaves tracks, and the tracks feel like joy. And you find them – hang with me here – in your body. Not your soul, not your mind, the abstractions – but in the body, which I believe is actually part of the soul, but we can get into that later.

Any joy in the body is a track leading to your purpose. There are addictive feelings in the body that are what craving and satisfaction and then craving again – that’s not it. This is a feeling that is more like getting a wholesome meal when you’re hungry. It’s not like getting a hit of heroin, where you inevitably crash. And we all know that feeling of being manic and then crashing again. Our whole culture teaches us that too, that you’re supposed to be in these frenzies of joy, and then you do that and it’s all exciting, and then you burn out. Your adrenals get shot.

So to track your purpose, you turn to your body and you say, “Where did I last feel joy?” Because you cannot just stand in a place where there are no tracks and say, “I need to find my purpose from here. I’m going to stand right here and wait for a track.” That’s not the way it works. If your joy isn’t anywhere near where you are right now, if you’re in a job or a relationship or both, or some other circumstance that is far from your life purpose, there will be no tracks. And you may be just thinking, This is so screwed up,

where are the tracks? You have to go back to your track or you go back to what we call the last hot track. A hot track is when you’re hot on the trail. You knew that that was the animal you – there is a clear rhinoceros track, and it is nothing else. Y'know, it’s in fine dust, and there’s no mistaking it. And then the animal might walk into a place where the tracking is harder, but you can find it again if you go back to the last hot track.

So, right now everybody, in your mind, what I want you to do is return to the last moment you felt a combination of stillness and happiness. The kind of thrill underneath it that says, Ah, I’m engaged in life. And it could be the last time you kissed your spouse. It could be the last time it rained. It could be a time – like I recently touched back in on a time when I was still in college 30 years ago. They’re all tracks, and your destiny is calling you to return to that last hot track.

So I’d actually love to hear – I wish we could do a little poll on what people are pulling up as the last time they felt a hot track. But whatever it is, what I want you to do is go back there in your mind, and I want you to survey what was happening at that moment.

Amy: Well, we can. People that are on the life webcast, go ahead and fill it in right there on the Q&A, and I can read out a few right here Martha.

Martha: So put in a time when you were very very peaceful, and yet sort of in a state of happiness that was not manic. So a blend of sort of peace and delight. Peace and delight. Actually, peace is the most powerful element of it, not the happy happy. Peace is the underlying feeling state of your purpose. And it is not a nothing feeling. It is a rich, fertile, gorgeous birthplace of all things. So you may just have felt it as, Oh, I felt kind of good at the dentist yesterday when a cat walked in. That happened to me yesterday, I didn’t make that up. I was at the dentist’s and a cat walked in. It was a great moment. But again with the animals – okay, so animals are part of my hot track.

What I’m saying is, go back and look at the situation. Like I can go back to the rhinoceros, what was the cool thing? There were two things that were super-cool – well, three. Number one, I was in nature. Number two, I was with people I love. Number three, there was an animal there. All my hot tracks seem to have that pattern. Now I’m starting to learn the course of my purpose, and it’s not what you would think it would be. It’s not Oh, I was on Oprah and my book was on the New York Times best-seller list. Nope. Every time I felt peace and delight at the same moment, I was in nature with people I love, and at least one animal. Can you see how my tracks are now different from your tracks? Listen Amy, do you want to – I’d love to hear what a hot track was for you, and then we can start to exemplify this process by figuring out what constitutes a clear track for your individual life purpose. What was one of yours?

Amy: Yeah, and we have a whole bunch on the screen here, so I’ll just read a couple of these off. So, Laguna Beach. Hiking. Meditating. Today’s trail run. In nature. In Kenya I met a pride of lions, and I felt no fear but at home. Virginia says, Cape Cod beach, late afternoon. Julia says, a day at Mount Rainer last summer. Margaret says, NIA white belt training. Staying on the seashore in Nova Scotia on the Atlantic Ocean. Anna says,

Coaching clients. Virginia says, On a call with two cats on my legs. Nikki says, Peace, I was at the beach in mountains in Australia. Margaret says, hugging my girls every hug and dancing to drums. I got chills. Kathy says, driving my pony in the autumn leaves, perfect temperature, beautiful, peaceful day. Those are just a few. And for me, the one that immediately came to me was, I had lunch yesterday with my friend Sarc and her beloved John, and we were just riffing, we’re planning this retreat that we’re going to lead in January, and we were just riffing on all of these things, and how we could be of service. And it was just like a riff session, with good food and people that I adore. It was amazing.

Martha: That is awesome. So if you had to pick out something that is sort of the highest point of that, is it being with Sarc? Is it eating dinner? What pieces of it were the most delicious?

Amy: Being with Sarc, definitely. And John, her beloved John I adore.

Martha: Oh, he’s adorable.

Amy: He’s so awesome. They’re great – and that we were creating. It was like the creating with people I love. I just collaborating in that way.

Martha: There you go, that’s it. For me it’s being in nature with animals, and for you it’s creative collaboration with people you love. And Lissa, I know, we’ve talked a lot about how you adore the writing process, which I find quite painful.

Lissa: I love writing. I was just thinking that, and I was remembering how, back in 2007 when I had quit my job as a doctor, and I thought I was going to be a full-time artist but I was feeling really unfulfilled just being alone in my studio painting. And then I went to Esalen, where I was in Big Sur taking a writing workshop. And the combination of nature and that ability to just sort of really tap in spiritually in this way, that I get to be the garden hose that water flows through, and really just the writing comes through me – like I’m not thinking about it at all. So that combination of that sense of spiritual connection, and the creation process in nature was like a huge hot track for me back then. I was like, okay, I want more of this all the time.

Martha: So it sounds like actually we’ve kind of got a lot of people like us on the call. Either that, or the people who, y'know, my hot track was in Las Vegas, gambling away my nest egg, they’re not writing their answers, but y'know, if that’s your joy, you go girl – or man. So there are different – once you’ve established a hot track, you can start to find other tracks so that you can see where your purpose is headed. One of the ways you can establish a track – we’ve already pulled up one – you can start thinking of things from childhood on that caused you to forget that time was passing. One shaman I know calls this a stopping-the-world, that you can accomplish infinite things in a moment when time stops. We experience it as just looking up and suddenly six hours have passed, or the sun is setting, or whatever. And it could be an activity. It could be again, a group of people or a person that you’re with. It could be a place. So everybody think of some things that made you forget time existed. I hope people are writing that in. Amy, do you want to be

my guinea pigs again and talk about things that made you forget time as you passed from childhood to adulthood?

Amy: Sure, and we can do them on live call, you can press one on your handset if you have one. One on your handset, and we can go ahead and take some life callers here too.

Lissa: That would be nice.

Amy: Yeah, I know, I’m hungry for the interaction. Okay, we got someone here. Okay, come on over to Lisa. Are you there? Coming over to Pat.

Pat: Hi. What is it you want to hear from me? I’ve written a bunch of stuff down.

Martha: I just want to hear some other tracks. We’re trying to track your purpose, so we’re going to look at the footprints and what they look like. Just throw out a few situations, and we’ll see what they have in common.

Pat: Okay, well, the first thing that came up was making love with my boyfriend this weekend, and just having a sense of complete contentment and happiness, just kind of outside my body. And along with that – well, I’m being honest – the second big part of my life, and it’s really important to me, but what came up right after that was, the moment after I gave birth to my son almost 19 years ago, this incredible sense of peace and completion. Oh, it makes me want to cry just mentioning that. Martha, what you were talking about, tracking and animals and these major nature adventures – that’s also been me. Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, or hiking in the redwoods just two weekends ago, just having out-of-body kind of moments. Lost track of time. Didn’t want to go back to the wedding I was supposed to be attending.

Martha: It’s wonderful. Actually you’re saying out-of-body, but you know what those three things have in common? You were moving. You were moving in a way that was connected to the rhythm of nature, and not to society.

Pat: Yeah, exactly right.

Martha: Anybody that says your purpose is not about moving, that you’re supposed to hold still while you do something – they’re wrong. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Pat: Yeah. No, that’s it, that makes total sense. I’m hugely physical. Black belt in karate, a stunt woman for 25 years.

Martha: So have you ever thought, okay, my career has to be something where I put on a suit and sit around with people.

Pat: Oh, I’ve been doing that for 12 years, and I’m ready to kill myself.

Martha: You see? There are hints here, that the track is going cold in the direction you’re going. And do you see how these moments add up to, Oh, I’m supposed to be moving my body in a space where I’m in love – in love with my baby, in love with my boyfriend, in love with the forest. In love. I move in love. So that could be something that you write down. You just jot down, “I move in love” as part of your purpose.

Pat: I love that so much. Thank you.

Amy: Thank you so much Pat.

Martha: Do we have time to do another one? Y'know what? I’d like to go straight into using the compass as part of this. Is that okay?

Amy: Okay, go ahead.

Martha: So I’m going to put a tiny different spin on basically the same exercise, and the exercise that we’re about to go into is like using a compass. So say the tracks have run cold, you really can’t see what you’re doing and you need to know, where’s your north star? Where’s the true north in your world right now? And the way you do that is by, again, tuning into the signals of your body – but not just the times that were perfect. We’re going to look at the whole continuous data readout that is your body’s signal to your consciousness.

And I call this a compass because when you’re moving away – so when Pat is moving away from her best destiny, when she’s sitting in offices, doing things she thinks are going to work, she feels awful. She said, “I want to kill myself.” I call that making a dying. Instead of making a living, she’s making a dying. She’s dying a little every time she takes that body that’s meant to be living in love, and moves it into an office and forces it to sit still. So that would be what I’d call a very due south compass reading from her body. And when she’s on the beach, or with her boyfriend, or holding her new baby, she’s headed due north, and the feeling of due north is that joy.

So everything that you experience is going to give you a readout of some kind. And what I want everyone to do on the phone right now is, imagine a time when your life kind of sucks – in other words, you know that that was not the place for you to thrive. You might have told yourself, It should be. It should be, darn it, it should be. But when you get really honest, you know it never worked. For me, one part of it – this will sound so shocking – it was being the typical mother. Baking cookies, playing with my children. I have to tell you that that didn’t quite work for me. When I began to do things that I loved to do with my children in tow, it turned out they didn’t like baking cookies either, because they have my genes. What they wanted to do was find a dead bird and poke it with a stick until we could figure out what its skeleton looked like. We were kind of like barbarians.

So I want you to find a time when things were wrong for you, and I want you to remember it very vividly. And I want you to remember the physical sensations associated with that time in your life. A relationship, a job, it could be your whole childhood, when

things were wrong for you. You’re just not on purpose, and you know it. And feel the sensation in the body, and describe with words that are physical, where in your body you feel sensation, and what the sensation is. So for me, it’s like having a ton of gravel dumped on my whole body. Amy, what’s yours?

Amy: It is that sensation of feeling really grounded, and incredibly present. It feels like –

Martha: We’re doing the negative here.

Amy: Oh, this is the negative? Sorry, I went straight to the positive. I was thinking about the hot track. When I am out of alignment, the tension and the stress in my chest. I feel it in my chest, I feel my heart beating there, and I’m breathing really shallow.

Martha: If you notice carefully, you guys, or if you listen to the recording of this, you’ll feel that when Amy was describing her good moment, her voice had a completely different energy than when she switched to the negative. The negative was very like, “I’m here to do a job.” You can actually feel the tension in her throat and her chest, if you listen. And when was talking about the good thing, it was like molasses. It was just velvety energy. So what was your bad experience? How did it feel?

Lissa: l always feel mine right in my solar plexus, and it feels like this sharp, burning thing inside of my belly, trying to come out. I almost see it as like this thing inside that’s this alien, that doesn’t fit inside my body. It’s pushing from the inside.

Martha: That’s disgusting.

Lissa: That’s disgusting, yes.

Martha: So everybody think of yours, and realize, this is due south on your body compass. Now the good part comes, so Amy, we can go back to what you just said. I want everybody on the phone to find a time in your life when things were right. And it could just be that you weren’t feeling well, so you finally called in sick and lay down and slept. It could be that you got the Nobel Peace Prize – in other words, it could be something huge that everyone would look at, or it could be something very very subtle and small, that really just felt like relief.

So, go into your body in the good time, recall all the sights, sounds, smells around you, and just notice the reaction of the body – places of tingling, temperature change, muscle changes. Amy, you already started telling us about yours. Do you want to just go there again and talk about what due north feels like?

Amy: Yeah, due north feels almost like I feel so grounded and present, it’s like my legs have become like roots of a tree, and I’m just completely connected to Mother Earth. And I feel this sensation of calm and peace, and then I’m just incredibly grounded.

Martha: And Lissa, what does yours feel like?

Lissa: My due north I feel in my chest. It’s like this heart opening – like I put my arms all the way out to the side. It’s like the butterfly, just like stretching out, just opening, almost fluttering, but not like a nervous butterfly. Just an opening.

Martha: Beautiful. And mine is like there’s this pool of peace that’s in my solar plexus, and I feel this clarity. It’s almost like looking at the blue sky, but I can feel it in my body, and then it saturates my whole body with peace. So you notice how it’s very different. Yours could be flying, Amy’s was being grounded – they can be quite different, but this is your own signal for when you’re on course.

So now, any activity that you do is going to pull your body either toward the good feeling you just had, or toward the bad feeling you had before. So think of something you’re supposed to do tomorrow. Like, I’m going to go to the dentist tomorrow again. Okay, I think about the dentist, so think about the thing you’re supposed to do, and just look at your body. Feel it from the inside without judgment, and without attempting to influence your own feelings. Just let the compass find its place, its residence. Let the needle get still. When I do that with the dentist, I actually get a very strong positive reaction from my body – which is weird, because I used to hate going to the dentist. I love going to the dentist. It’s like having a tiny, deep-tissue massage inside my mouth. What’s wrong with that?

That’s the weird thing. It will tell you to go in directions that are so strange. And really, to live your best life, all you have to do is play the game, You’re getting warmer, you’re getting colder. So Lissa, Amy, you’ve played that game before?

Amy: Oh yeah.

Martha: Literally, look at your list of things to do. Take off one thing that doesn’t feel like a hot track. Take off the thing, or change the thing that is least appealing. Like GE called me and said, “We want you to train executives,” and I was like, “No!” And then I said, “Well, unless they would come outside in the mountains with me.” And they were like, “Okay,” and suddenly that was great. I changed it so that it had my three things – nature and also people I love. Done! So you can change an activity, or you can drop it. But change something negative.

Lissa: Can I be the voice of the resistance here for a minute? I’m training doctors in my program right now, and I’m a doctor myself, so I know that in my training, for example, we really learn to dissociate from the body. So the body compass is still super-hard for me, because I’ve spent so much time being this walking cerebrum that’s dissociated from my body in order to survive the intense physical suffering that I had to endure to get through 12 years of medical education – and I suspect I’m not the only one, because our culture really encourages walking cerebrums.

Martha: Right, absolutely.

Lissa: So I’m just wondering, if we have other people listening in that are like, “I don’t feel my body. I’m not feeling anything,” do you have any kits for people about how to really get in the body, so they can notice that compass?

Martha: Absolutely. Thank you for that, because I forget how disassociated most of us are from our bodies. I had the gift of 12 years of chronic pain, which really helped me learn to pay attention, because the less I paid attention to my body, the worse it hurt so that finally I could give it my attention.

So the first thing to do is that you have to modulate your breathing. And you’ve heard this over and over: “Take a deep breath.” We’re going to take three deep breaths. It’s like, ugh, if anyone else tells me to take a deep breath, I’m going to punch them in the snout. But, the fact is that we are one of the few beings, the few kinds of animal that can actually deliberately influence the pace of our breathing. And when you slow down the pace of your breathing, you can bring yourself out of fight-or-flight, which is a big theme in Lissa’s book, Mind Over Medicine, about how to create a departure from the fight-or-flight mentality that makes us go into a stress reaction, and into rest and relaxation. And the first thing you can do is breathe deeply and slowly. This tells your brain, Oh, we’re in a place of peace. There’s no predator coming. There’s no wolf at the door. I’m not going to starve right now. Ahh, exhale. Waiting to exhale.

So, when you do that, you should feel a little bit of wiggle room where you can get inside the body and feel the breath. Feel your throat, feel your lungs as that happens, and then you can start wiggling your toes, wiggling your fingers, and realizing that you can feel their movement, even if they’re not touching anything. And then move your wrists and forearms, and go up to your elbows and up to your shoulders. Start to move your body slightly a little bit so that you can see, there is sensation here. I can track the feeling in this form. And it may take you quite a while to get there. Don’t panic. Keep relaxing and breathing deeply, and eventually you will find yourself in your body – which is a wonderful place to be, because that’s where all the goodies are hidden. That’s where your purpose is waiting for you. So does that help at all, Lissa?

Lissa: Yeah, it does. I know for me it’s been quite a long journey, so I just want to encourage people to stick with it. I know I did a lot of work with Debbie Rosas who founded Nia. And when I was first working with Nia – it’s this type of dance that’s very much about embodied movement – she would tell me, Feel your elbow in space. And I literally couldn’t feel my elbow in space. I had to put my elbow on the floor, or I had to put my hand on my elbow. I was so disembodied that I needed something to push against. So you had the pain to push against. You could notice from the pain. I had to literally sometime create pain, like I’d have to scratch my elbow. Okay, now I feel my elbow.

Martha: When you’re so numb that only pain will motivate you, pain is a great gift. It doesn’t feel like it, but it is, because it’s telling you to get back inside.

Lissa: Exactly. As you said, that’s a lot of what I talk about in Mind Over Medicine, about how our physical symptoms are often signals that we’re not living our right life – and we can learn from them, and it’s a gift.

Martha: Yeah. And conversely, when you start to follow those signals, not only does your life start to get better, but your body has a lot more chance to operate its own healing mechanisms, and that’s what happened to me. Here’s what it was, you guys – I ended up, every single day, putting in a little something that gave my body relief. At first it was just relief from pain. So if there’s tension or numbness, you’ll have a slight ability to feel. It’s tiny at first. It’s little-bitty. But if you need to tap yourself on the elbow to remind yourself that you have an elbow, go ahead and do it. Do whatever it takes. Tap yourself on the chest, to remind yourself that your chest can feel, and your finger can too. So do whatever it takes to nudge yourself back to the ability to feel even a little bit, the inside condition of your body. This is not what other people want you to feel, because your body’s going to lead you on your path, not the one they have chosen for you. And because of that, you’ve been told to go numb to it, but you need to get it back.

And then, as you start to just steer your life by the tiniest little bit, you’re getting warmer, you’re getting warmer – when a cruise ship turns, and these ships are so big, they are like a city block long, if you’ve ever been on one, they’re so big that if they turned the rudder directly, the water pressure would cause it to snap off, and you’d need an engine almost bigger than the ship anyway. So what they do is, they put tiny little mini-rudders on the back of the big rudder. And these things are called trim tabs. Some of them are only six inches long. And when the captain turns the wheel, the only thing that turns is the trim tabs, but it changes the water pressure so that the big rudder then gets caught in the motion, and it turns all the way around, and then the whole ship turns. All I want you to do is sneak back into your body and make the tiniest trim tab of a change. Just something a little better.

This is what I’d love you to do right now, just feel what you’re feeling, and ask the question, “What would feel better?” What would feel better? And then actually do it. Like, it would feel better to put on a softer shirt. Okay, do it, then say, What would feel even better? Sitting down next to the fire. Okay, then do it, and ask yourself, What would feel better? You have to follow the track. Quitting my job. Okay, do it. Now, what would feel even better? It’s all about following that track of joy, even in places where other people will tell you you’ve lost your mind. Because that’s where the tracks go; that’s the only place your purpose is going to be.

Lissa: Martha, I have to tell you, when you started teaching me about the body compass and measuring it from minus ten being that awful ick feeling, my solar plexus feeling, and plus ten being that chest-fluttering, beautiful, happy feeling, it was so interesting to realize that in my old job, for example, when I was practicing medicine, I was probably a minus five. And so zero, neutral, felt really really good for a while. Except I kept upleveling it, so it was like all of a sudden I’d get to zero, and wow, now I really, nothing less than five felt good. And I’m noticing now that I’m saying no to all these things that five years ago I

would have thought that felt so great. But now I’m like, I’m sorry, I want it to be an eight to ten.

Martha: Yep, you are hot on the track.

Lissa: Yeah, so it’s really interesting, because I sort of feel like, who am I to deserve to get to feel like I get to have an eight all the time?

Martha: You are human! Humans are beloved by the universe, and we are meant to be happy.

Lissa: Yeah, but even that I’ve had resistance around.

Amy: I just want to take a yellow highlighter over what you’ve been saying, Martha, around the turtle steps, the bold baby steps as I like to call them, that there might be a lot of people who wake up in the morning and realize that their life is filled with their body feeling like, Oh my God, I hate this. And so first of all, notice that. But then I loved the example you gave around working with the executives, and that sometimes there’s ways – you can change your perspective about something, and do the exact same activity and have a completely different experience.

I can’t tell you how many times when I drive my daughter Annabella, who’s six, to school, that we can have a joyful ride to school, or we can have a terrible ride to school that’s filled with whining and complaining and arguing – or, we’ll literally get in the car and we’ll talk about her intention for the day. And we’ll talk about what she hopes will happen at school that day. And then I’ll tell her what I hope my day is going to be like. And we’ve done the exact same activity that can be a little mundane, and that my body might be like, Ohhh, because we’re trying to rush to get out the door, and is there a lunch ready, and are the shoes on, and is the hair done.

But it’s like, Oh, there’s a way. Every single one of you on this call has the power to change the way things feel by changing your perspective around it. And by that ‘how’, as you change the what, you can change the how right now. That is absolutely in your power. And as you find more and more hot tracks and are led closer and closer to remembering that purpose that you were born with, that is innate in you, you can change the how all along, even as you keep your life exactly the same. So you don’t need to go and get a divorce, and leave the kids, and run off to Paris tomorrow – unless of course you do – but you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater as you do this.

Martha: Yeah, you always take just the next step, just the next step, just the next step. There will be times when you will do something big, something exciting, or something scary. But most of it is really, truly, Okay, what can I do to make things feel a little better? What can I drop from my schedule that serves no purpose and feels yucky? Where can I add something that makes me feel more alive? I remember the first thing I did when I created this exercise for myself, because I was just like, Ah, help! I knew that I needed nature in my life, and all I could do – I went to the grocery store and I bought a philodendron for

three dollars for my office. This was when I was at Harvard. There was no nature around me. I was in this high-rise building. And I was going to put this plant in my office. And I felt so guilty about buying that plant that I skipped a meal to pay for it. That was the level of my self-esteem, and my feeling about how much control I had in my life. I was a mess. And now it’s like, Oh, all right, I’m just going to go do Africa and do safaris for people, because that is fun for me. I mean, I went to that from really, almost not being able to spend three dollars on a philodendron. It’s been a long trip. But I’m telling you, if you just keep turning, every day, consciously, a little bit – ah, my body relaxes when I do that – and you just go there, you will be guided.

You said at the beginning of this call, I will trust that I am guided. Well, how do you think guidance feels? It feels like yearning. It feels like the ache in your heart. And it feels like hope. Then it feels like a tremulous belief that maybe it’s okay. And then it feels stronger, and then it feels amazing. And then it feels euphoric. This is the way I like to express it. It’s like, you start out thinking, Why is this happening to me? Like your whole life is just screwed, right? And after about ten years for me – but it can happen in ten minutes if you want, I’ve seen this happen – you get to, Huh. Why is this happening to me? Maybe I’m actually being guided. Why did I hate that? Why did this happen? Why did everything go wrong when I tried this, and it went right when I tried that? Why is this happening to me? This is interesting.

And then, you keep going in that direction, and listening to those messages, and turning those trim tabs in the direction of what makes you feel at peace, and calm, and healthy, and in a while you’re going, “Oh my God, why is this happening to me? Little old me gets this? How can that be?” So it’s just, Why is this happening to me? Oh, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me? And I promise you, it’s all just, you’re getting warmer, you’re getting warmer. Keep touching into your body. It’s connected to your spirit. It’s connected to your guide. You are being led by joy, and suffering is just the warning that you have turned your face away from joy. You can trust that. It’s never failed me.

Lissa: Can I just comment on one thing? You’ve both said such important things, and I just want to point out what I think is a constant balancing act, which is, Amy what you said I think is so important about perspective, right? And how we have the power to make ourselves much happier right now without changing anything, just by how we look at it. And actually, later I’m going to work on creating a new program with Rachel Naomi Remen, which is one of the mind-body medicine pioneers who’s been my mentor for a long time. And we’re creating a program about finding meaning in the life you already have. Like really tapping into that meaning, and gratitude, and inner peace with the life you already have. That’s really important.

And, at the same time, what Martha’s talking about, about giving ourselves permission to have the philodendron, and then to take it even a step further, and then for me to go from, I have to have my life be a minus five on my body compass to, No, I’m sorry, I’m going to require that it be a plus eight, whenever I have a choice. Somewhere between those extremes, on one hand if we’re just changing our perspective and saying, “I’m just

going to be grateful for what I have and I’m not going to change anything,” then we don’t go after what we love. We don’t lean in the direction of our joy and ease, necessarily – although we can find contentment where we are. But then if we’re always striving for, I’m going to keep raising the bar, I’m going to keep raising the bar, then we sometimes forget to be so gracious and appreciative, that wow, I’m at a zero when I used to be at a minus five.

So for me, I notice it’s a constant going back and forth between the two – gratitude for where I am and what I have and the blessings in my life, and permission to have my life continually be more playful, more easeful, more peaceful, more joyful.

Amy: I always loved the Abraham quote, “Grateful for what you have, and eager for more.” It’s just so beautiful, Esther Hicks at this point I guess, but Jerry in non-physical form. And it speaks also to what we were talking about on our Q&A call around, sometimes then we feel ashamed for wanting more, and to really release the shame for wanting more. It’s the human experience. And being able to be with that desire for more, and say Yes, and not thinking that your desire for more is cancelling out the gratitude. You can hold both at the same time.

Martha: Yeah, it’s a strange kind of tightrope walk. Any sport that you’ve loved – if anybody there is in golf, or horseback riding, or skiing, there’s always a rhythm, there’s always a back-and-forth to it. There’s always release, and then embrace, and release and embrace, and release and embrace. And I call this the rhythm of resting until you feel like playing, and playing until you feel like resting. So it may sound, to some of you – you’re sitting there going, Well, I’m in prison; how do I operationalize this? I’ve worked with clients in prison – how do they do this? Well, it’s a combination of finding a piece of joy somewhere in your experience, and focusing on that, and appreciating that, and then allowing yourself to feel the yearning pulling you into something better. And I’ve watched people, even in circumstances that seem completely impossible – I’ve worked with beggars in Nairobi, I’ve worked with a heroin addict from the streets, anyone that I could get to go inside the body and feel its bliss, and start to track it with feelings of joy, and give it things it likes. Every single person I’ve seen do that has found their way out of pain and into lightness. Not all of them could do it, but when they did, that’s what happens.

Amy: One of the questions I’m seeing that I’m sure is coming up for some people is around the money factor. What if you need money? Can joy be the only criteria then, Jane says. We’re not even talking about the money right now.

Lissa: We will, by the way. The next class – there’s a very nuts-and-bolts element to this. But this part is prior. If you don’t let go of the money and do this, you will never find this. But, when you find this, it will bring you money.

Amy: So true. So let the money be aside for right now, Jane and anyone else who’s like –

Martha: Yeah, just experiment with just feeling better. Let me just say one thing to touch on this: Love sells better than hate. When you love your life, and you love the people who are in

it, and you love what you are doing, you are eminently hirable; you are eminently marketable. So this comes first, and our culture has not taught us that, but it’s true.

Lissa: Let me add to that, that grasping also makes it hard to create abundance. And I know, because with a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with, when they’re so afraid of money, it literally gets transmitted to the people that they’re trying to get money from. You can sense this energetic desperation that is absolutely a turn-off to the very people that you need to give you money, whether it’s an employer, or a client. So it’s paradoxical, because I get that. I’ve been $200,000 in debt. I know how terrifying it feels to not have the money that you need when you’re trying to find your purpose and live it. But it doesn’t work that way. I can say, having tried it multiple ways, it really doesn’t work to be in that state of grasping.

Martha: I think I mentioned on our last call that my life turned around the day that I was $40,000 in debt with no job, and three kids, and a chronic illness. I opened The Artist’s Way to the sentence, “God has lots of money.” Here’s the thing you guys, you never have to make money, because God has all the money. All of it. So okay, well, if God loves you and God leads you through a trail of joy – and what other kind of God do you want to believe in? – don’t you think you will eventually be recompensed? You will have all you need, if you track your life this way. Just start tracking first. We’re not asking you to give up any money first; we’re asking you to start tracking. To start turning toward joy. To start incorporating things that feel good, and changing things that feel bad, or dropping things that feel bad. To start turning trim tabs. You will feel, if you do this, the pressure of the energy of the world changing around you, and you will find yourself moving in larger ways without much effort. You’ve got to turn the trim tabs. If you say, “No, I’m not going to turn the trim tab because I want – I mean, how can a six-inch thing turn a cruise liner? Give me some proof,” just turn the trim tabs; you’ll start to feel it. And you can write us and tell us about it.

Amy: So we have some homework assignments. Let’s go to our homework assignments, and then we’re going to go into our interactive party with everyone. Do you want to give those, Martha?

Martha: Yeah, last week we wrote a letter from your higher power, and they were amazing. Beautiful compositions, so gorgeously written. I was moved to tears and greatly helped by it. This time you’re going to write a letter from your body, and your body is going to incorporate the guide you imagined at the beginning of this session. So remember, your medicine is still in your chest. Your guide is right behind you. Feel the guide put his or her hands, or paws, or whatever they are, gently on your shoulder and pull you into your body. Let the guide love your body, this beautiful, innocent, complex, magical animal that is your body. Oh, it’s so precious.

And you’re going to write a letter. And if you want to try this, if you’re feeling really detached from your body, I would invite you to use your non-dominant hand. You’ll write small clumsy letters, but they will be very revealing. And I want you to start out, “Dear” and then put your name. So if I were doing it, it would be “Dear Martha.” If Amy was

doing it, it would be “Dear Amy.” And then say, “I am your body, held by your guide. Your guide and I want to tell you the next step toward your purpose. We know the way, like a good horse that knows its way home in the dark. We are going to speak now.” We are going to give you three minutes to write that, and then read the letters or talk about the letters to yourself.

There are some additional bits of homework that we’d like you to do after the call, and those include basically just wandering. Go to a bookstore, go online and start wandering around and finding things that make you go, Ooaw? That’s the sound that my body makes – ooaw? Just like a little animal, like your dog when it things that there’s food there. Ooaw.

Lissa: Like Scooby-doo.

Martha: So basically wander with your eyes open. Wander through the internet with your eyes open. Wander through music with your ears open. Wander through your family with your heart open, to see what feels most delicious. This is the track. This is the way forward. But right now, I want to give you a few minutes to just write these letters from your body, assisted by your guide. So get a piece of paper and a pencil. Get ready. If you’re really brave and really lost, try your non-dominant hand, and write “Dear,” and then your name. And I’m going to set a little timer for three minutes, and you’re going to write this letter. In three, two, one, go.

Okay, well I hope you now have in your hands a document written to you about the next steps toward your purpose. And I know it may seem completely powerless in terms of the way the world has told you to find your purpose. You’ve got to trust what every great master has told us throughout the ages, which is that joy is not attracted to money; money is attracted to joy. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and then everything else comes along afterward. Every great teacher has told us that, and it’s so hard to believe. But I’m hoping this next little interactive part that Amy’s going to take us to will help you feel a little less alone in this crazy enterprise.

Amy: Yes, indeed. And so it’s just a couple of divine details, as we like to call them. There is a wonderful workbook for today’s call that’s posted on the recordings tab, along with this call recording, once we’re off the call here. And there’s some additional exercises in there to just help you uncover and rediscover those hot tracks. So make sure to check that out. And we have a wonderful bonus expert interview. I don’t know if you know Steve Sisgold, Martha, but he’s an amazing human being that, as Lissa and I were in a mastermind group with for a couple of years, wrote a wonderful book called What’s Your Body Telling You? And he’s brilliant. So make sure to check out that bonus expert interview. And there’s now three bonus expert interviews up there. The Q&A call is posted, and there’s also a wonderful song that our friend, Karen Drucker, sent over to me and said, “Hey, feel free to get this to all of your students. It’s about finding your calling.” So that’s on the resources tab, so check out the Resources tab as well as the recordings tab to get all that groove in. And of course, use the site to continue connecting and check out the groups as well.

Now that we have those details out of the way, we’re going to go into our interactive groups, and we highly recommend that you stay on the line for this. If you’re on the live call via phone, you’re in the right place, if you can just stay on the line. And for those of you that are on the webcast, that are on Instant Teleseminar listening via their computer and you want to participate in a breakout group, you want to go ahead and call in. So you can either use your unique pin that you signed up for from MaestroConference, which is the technology we use for that, or you can use our backup number. I’ll give you that real quick, and we’ll see if we can post this on the site as well, or on the chat. And that’s 408-520-2444, and the pin is 499546#. And so if you’re on the webcast, you can go ahead and stop playing on your computer, and come on over and participate in a breakout group with us, where we’ll be reading the body letters. We’re going to actually take about a three- to five-minute break here so people have an opportunity to go ahead and come on over to Maestro. We will keep the webcast going, by the way, and you can go ahead and journal the questions that we’re asking, or sit in silence with yourself if that works better for you. But again, if you want to be in a breakout group, please come over now, because if you come over in ten minutes after we’re in breakout groups, you won’t actually end up being able to get into one. So come on over!

So with that, I’m going to go ahead and just put some music on, as people have the opportunity to come on over, and we’ll be back in about three to five minutes. Here we go, some music.

All right, we’re back. I wish there was a fade-out button. That drives me crazy, to have that beautiful guitar music, gone. We are back, beloveds, we’re so excited to be back with you in this interactive portion of our call here. I guess actually we just had a lot of interaction, actually, throughout the call today. But Martha, do you want to go ahead and let everyone know a little bit more about the letters, and then we’re going to go into some small groups.

Martha: Yeah. We got quite a bit of feedback, it was like huh? What the hell are you talking about? So, I do this so often that it’s very easy for me to picture it, but I’m going to really pull it way back to the pace that I used to take it when I first started. I want you to just feel yourself in your body. Do that breathing in, breathing out, to connect to the body. And then really feel the inside space of it, and give it some gratitude for being an amazing creature.

And now what you’re going to do is, with your mind you’re going to say, “Body, is there anything you’d like to tell me about what you like in my life, and what you don’t like? So tell me what you like or what you don’t like. I’m asking for your input, and I’m going to be completely open to it.” And then you take a pencil and you just write what your body’s response is. And I also mentioned, if you’re right-handed, you can use your left hand, and it takes you to this clumsy place where you’re not really in a normal body state, because you’re writing with the wrong hand for you. And often that will sort of crack things open so that your mind loses its power to control, and the things you write in the letter end up

surprising you. So just ask your body, “What do you like, dear? And what do you not like?” And actually our doctor here has even more specific instructions.

Lissa: What I teach in Mind Over Medicine is that sometimes if you’re having trouble connecting with your body, you can find something in your body that doesn’t feel comfortable. So maybe your shoulders are a little tight, or maybe you have a little bit of a stomachache. Or maybe you’re feeling a little gassy, or maybe your leg hurts from your workout yesterday. Anything in your body that doesn’t feel quite comfortable, you can try writing the letter from that symptom. So if you have shoulder pain, you can write the letter, “Dear you, love your shoulder pain.” In other words, what is the tightness in your shoulders trying to tell you about your life? Sometimes I know for me, because I have a hard time getting into my body, it helps me to ground it with a physical symptom that is maybe a reflection in some way of what might be out of alignment in my life, with my hot tracks, my purpose, my highest self.

Martha: So you may want to amend your letters if that wasn’t clear the first time. You can also actually, as you go to your groups, just tell yourself – like I have an infected eye today, so I can say to Amy and Lissa and all of you guys, Okay, here’s what my eye is saying. “Dear Martha, I am your infected eye. For God’s sake, lie down.” And then I know what the next hot track toward my purpose is. Lie down. And I am here to tell you, if you follow those instructions, as simple and as physical as they are, they actually take you to the next greatest thing. Never forget that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote her masterpiece that became a mega-million best-seller because she was on the floor of her bathroom, inconsolably crying, and she heard a voice say, “Liz, go back to bed.” That is the voice of your purpose. That is the voice of your higher power. Simple, gentle, self-care. Always the way to the track. So are we going to give them a chance to talk to each other here Amy?

Amy: Yeah, so let’s just go ahead. I’m going to just time for a minute so that those of you that maybe were a little confused before about the letter can go ahead and do that again, body, what do you like, what don’t you like? Or if you’re having a particular symptom, let your symptom write you a letter about what’s going on with that. So just take a minute right now to go ahead and do that. We’ll give you a little silence for that, and then we’ll come back and go into breakout groups.

Okay, so we are going to go into small groups of between three and four people, so if you’d like to participate in a breakout group, again, you need to be on the phone line. Just press a one on your handset to opt in to the breakout group. I’ll give another minute for that. If you don’t press one on your handset now, then you’re not going to end up in a breakout group, so go ahead and press one if you want to be in one. I see a lot of people putting their hands up. Great. And so while I get people in the breakout groups, Martha, do you want to just talk for a moment about what they’re going to do in their groups?

Martha: Yeah, there are four people per group, right Amy?

Amy: Yeah, we’ll do between three and four.

Martha: So what you’re going to do is, you’re going to share any information, surprises or not surprises, that came from your letter, and you’re going to make a commitment to the people on your group that you’re going to take at least one step that is going to bring you greater comfort and greater peace. And it could be a very physical thing, or it could be changing your attitude, or any of the things we’ve talked about. This is called in tracking, ‘throwing your eyes forward.’ So you basically stand where you are and say, “Where is my body telling me to find a track?” So we talked a little bit about what are the common threads that tie together the various tracks of your life. Now we want to try to go forward, not just looking at your memory for the track, but where – your purpose is like an invisible animal that has just taken a step ahead of you. What does the track look like? It will look like something that makes your body say, “woah” or “ahh” or “wooo!” It will not be verbal; it will be a kind of emotional, physical pull toward one thing – or maybe two or three. But I want you to share what came up in the letters, and then share a commitment to taking that next step – doing that one crazy, simple, what appears to be meaningless thing can make yourself feel better, so that you know that other people have heard you, and now you can’t say you didn’t know. And then we’ll shift the time after one person has given a report about their letter and about their next track, then person two is going to describe what came up for him or her, and then person three and so on.

Amy: Perfect. So it’s mostly groups of four and a couple of groups of five, so you’ll want to keep track of that time. I’ll chime in there as well. So we’ll give each person about a minute and a half each. So we’ll do about six minutes total. So in a moment here, for those of you that are participating in the breakout group, I’m going to go ahead and chime, and you can go ahead and say hello, and you can say your name and where you’re calling in from, and see how many people in your groups. I’ll give you a minute or so to do that. And then you’ll go ahead and decide who goes first, and you’ll talk about your letter and what the next hot track is for you. What’s that next thing?

Martha: It could be just a warmish track.

Amy: Or a warmish track, perfect, what feels warmer versus colder. And if you’re not participating in a breakout group, you’re going to be sitting in silence. And those of you on the webcast are going to be hearing silence. As so, as you sit in silence, it’s just an opportunity for you to go ahead and write that down. Take some time to journal, and then we’ll come back together as a group and take a few shares. So with that, my darlings, those of you that are in a breakout group, you can now hear each other. You may begin.

Hi everyone. It’s Amy, and you either have just finished your last partner, or if you’re in a group of five, you have about one minute left. Go ahead and say thank you. You might want to exchange names. I’ll keep you in these groups as well. Okay everyone, we’re coming back. I’m going to leave you in these groups, but I’m going to go ahead and mute you now, just so you don’t have any background noise, so you can say ta-ta for now.

So we are back. Martha and Lissa and I were zooming around like little ladybugs on the wall – I don’t want to be a fly, I’d rather be a ladybug, little fairy zooming around. Oh my goodness, just astonishing, what all of you are doing out there, really really beautiful. So we thought that we would go ahead and take some shares, so if you’d like to go ahead and share with the big group here, go ahead and press two on your handset, and we’ll go ahead and take some shares. Coming over to Gabrielle.

Gabi: That’s me, calling from Germany. Oh my God, this is incredible.

Amy: What did you want to share sweetie? Thanks so much. Tell us your name.

Gabi: My name is Gabrielle, or Gabi in German, not Gabrielle please. In the letter I shared with my awesome group just a few minutes ago is, Dear Gabi, I know that you’re still searching and suffering to find your calling and North Pole, but please feel rest assured that at the end of the tunnel there will be warm, rewarding light that will gently cover you in a very blissful warmth, that will never leave you, ever again. Hang in and find your daily joys. And my commitment is, I have some pain in both of my heels for quite some time. So it’s 10 o’clock in the evening here in Germany. After this awesome session again, I will take off my makeup, take some wonderful aromatherapy oil, put on some warm socks and jump into my bed.

Martha: My next step is to go to your house.

Gabi: You’re welcome.

Amy: Thank you so much Gabrielle, that was beautiful.

Gabi: Thanks a lot.

Lissa: I said Renee’s name, so I’m coming back to you. Renee? What did you want to share?

Renee: Well, first of all, I did this exercise on Saturday. I just got a feeling I needed to write from my body. But just a couple of key points first of all. My body has a name, and her name is Beautiful, and she insists on being called by name. And secondly, you have permission to exercise more, because I ground when I run on the trail. And the PS – yes, you really are ready. So the way I entered this today was to get home from college and have a set amount of time to run before this started. I wanted to be live, so I beat a record, and ran my miles in record time, and felt just wonderful.

Amy: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing, Renee. Beautiful. Let’s come over to Sherri.

Sherri: Hello. Oh my goodness, hi. I actually read a Martha’s Backsplash that I got, and she talked about the turkeys, and she also talked about that today, and I had an experience which felt similar, and my body told me I need to spend more time being silent outside. But the biggest thing, I also read your blast about getting enough sleep. And so I need to start

from where I’m standing, because I’m taking baby steps here, and that’s what I need to do. I need to start taking better care of myself. This is so cool.

Martha: I’ve got to tell you really briefly, when I first started to feel guided in my own life, what my inner guidance kept shouting was, “Get more sleep.” And since then I’ve realized it’s not a little thing; it’s that what we intend while we are awake can only be manifested if we are willing to let go completely, and that is part of sleep. That if you want to manifest something in your life and you’re not sleeping, it can’t happen, so I just wanted to add that. Thank you.

Amy: Thank you Sherri, beautiful.

Lissa: I actually find, too, that when I’m sleeping is when I get my guidance – very often. So it’s actually not an indulgence; it’s actually a really critical part of the process.

Amy: Let’s come over with time for one more here. I have Anna.

Anna: Hi. I started the call feeling kind of agitated, and was noticing in my body that I was just kind of agitated. And it’s very much easier for me to be in my head when we’re going more theoretical, philosophical, dreamy kinds of wishful thinking, and trying to check into my body was surprising to me that it was a little more challenging. Because I do yoga regularly, I exercise, walk, I like hiking. But when I finally sat down and wrote my letter, I realized that I love moving to music, but it isn’t the moving to music that’s so important to me; it’s the feeling of freedom in my body, because it’s an unstructured kind of motion that I’m doing. It’s not ballet, which is very structured. And just that feeling of freedom that I can get in my body was an important message to me, I think, to incorporate. And also the feeling of being strong in my body, and empowered by my body actually doing what I ask it to do, and listening to it to have it tell me what it can and wants to do, so setting up a communication two-way there kind of came to me a little bit stronger. And also that I’ve been staying up a little bit too late lately, and that having that sleep is really wonderful, because when I wake up in the morning and I can allow myself to lie there, it’s when I get some of the most incredible inspirational ideas that are actually very practical, and new ways to look at things, and that’s a very precious time. So that all came out of focusing on my body a little more than I’m usually comfortable with, so thank you very much for this opportunity.

Martha: Back at you. Wow. These things are so amazing for me, because, to go back to the very beginning, to believe that you’re guided, when I hear what you’re saying, when I feel the energy around them, I am sort of blown away by the miraculous truth that we are being guided through our bodies by something which is not physical. Ironically enough, the non-physical pours through the physical. What other reason would there have been for us to show up in bodies? So, you guys have been incredibly brave, and incredibly creative and beautifully strong in doing these exercises. A lot of people find it’s very very difficult. And I’ve just been as impressed as hell by everyone we’ve heard from.

Amy: Absolutely. I love it. Well darlings – Lissa, is there anything you want to add there?

Lissa: I think we’ve touched on it, but I can say having had it be a challenge for me, it’s quite a brave journey, to journey back into the body and let it guide you, because I know for me, the reason I got out of my body in the first place is because it was suffering. And so when I first started becoming more embodied, I was like, Wait a minute, now I feel things. This is scary. I started feeling pains that I hadn’t felt before. I started feeling uncomfortable. I started getting these visceral sensations that weren’t sickness; they were guidance, but it was uncomfortable. I did not like that. So I had a lot of resistance. So I just want to speak to any resistance that’s out there, and encourage you to move past the resistance because the benefits of becoming embodied, and allowing your physical body to be a guiding system for you, far outweigh the discomfort that comes with it. But I just want to be the one to say – I know this is easy for Martha at this point – it’s still really hard for me. And so it’s really brave. It was wonderful just kind of listening to you all, and we kind of eavesdropped on a few of you. And I just was feeling, like wow, these people are really brave, so thank you for that.

Martha: It’s always brave, because we are the animal that knows of its own death. And it doesn’t matter how far you go on this road, becoming physical is an act of great courage. So, easy, sort of. Not scary, never. Always a little bit of woooo. But my goodness, you guys are just phenomenal. I’m so impressed.

Amy: Beautiful indeed. I hope all of you are just feeling proud of yourselves. So, I’m going to go ahead and just open up the lines for a moment here. Those of you who were in breakout groups, you can stay in those breakout groups in case I just left you in there, so I’ll go ahead and open up the lines for us to just say a quick good-bye, and hear kind of the wave of energy, and you can all soak that in. I invite you to actually put your arms outstretched and just receive that energy, and then if you’re in a breakout group, I’ll go ahead and return you to that group in case you want to connect more with those people. And you can stay on line for as long or as little as you’d like.

So with that, I’ll go ahead and open up the lines. On the count of three, receive the love. One, two, three – love!

All: Thank you so much, Martha.

Amy: All right, and now you’re back in your breakout groups darlings. So until next time. We’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.