How to Find Your Purpose & Design the Life You Want

1. 0:00 – 1:10

   Introduction

   1. MBMartha Beck0:00

      Stuckness always means you're about to be transformed. Tell me one of the scariest thoughts that comes up when you let your fears speak.

   2. MRMel Robbins0:08

      You are about to do something stupid.

   3. MBMartha Beck0:11

      The opposite of the most painful thought in your head is your next step toward awakening. I would say you're about to do something really brilliant.

   4. MRMel Robbins0:20

      Oh.

   5. MBMartha Beck0:21

      Feel that?

   6. MRMel Robbins0:22

      Yes. (laughs)

   7. MBMartha Beck0:23

      We're gonna do time travel.

   8. MRMel Robbins0:24

      Okay.

   9. MBMartha Beck0:24

      So, it's 2034. You're gonna wake up on a day that is an ordinary day in a perfect life. What do you hear?

   10. MRMel Robbins0:32

       I hear waves and I hear little kids laughing.

   11. MBMartha Beck0:36

       Look at the room. Look for the pictures that have, that have been taken in the years between 2024 and 2034.

   12. MRMel Robbins0:44

       Uh, two weddings? Wow. Um ...

   13. MBMartha Beck0:48

       Grandbabies?

   14. MRMel Robbins0:49

       Mm-hmm.

   15. MBMartha Beck0:49

       Can you feel that you are creating this future as we got, go through this?

   16. MRMel Robbins0:55

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MBMartha Beck0:56

       You are out of anxiety and into imagination, and the tears in your eyes tell me it's real.

   18. MRMel Robbins1:02

       Yeah.

   19. MBMartha Beck1:03

       You're finding your purpose right now.

   20. MRMel Robbins1:06

       Thank you for, um, changing my life.

2. 1:10 – 9:25

   How To Unlock Your Purpose

   1. MRMel Robbins1:10

      (clock ticking) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast. I am thrilled that you're here. We're gonna experience something so extraordinary together. And if you're brand new, I wanna welcome you to The Mel Robbins Podcast family. This is the perfect episode to be listening to right now, because we're gonna be digging into the topic of purpose, of discovering your power. You're gonna learn so much from our guest today. This is a woman that I've admired for 19 years. She has changed my life. She's gonna change yours today. And the fact that you hit play on this episode tells me that you're the type of person who values your time and you're also interested in creating more meaning and purpose in your life. And I love that, and today, you're gonna get that, because we have the number one life coach on the planet who is here today to help you make your life better. If you feel stuck, if you're looking for some guidance, if you wanna figure out what your next step is, or if you just have this feeling that something that you're doing, it just isn't working, you're just not quite where you're supposed to be, well, you're in the right place right now. You're supposed to be here with your friend Mel, and you and I are in for the coaching session of a lifetime. And let me just give you the context for how amazing this is. If you wanted to hire the person who's in our studio today, you couldn't book a session with her. Like, that is how renowned she is. But today, she has hopped on a plane and flown across the country, and she is here for you. Dr. Martha Beck is the number one life coach in the world, and she's here to speak with you and me, and to help you live your best life. Dr. Martha Beck is a world-renowned life coach who holds three sociology degrees from Harvard. She's a six-time New York Times bestselling author. She is famously known as Oprah's life coach. And she's also been my life coach for 19 years, but from afar. And this is the very first time that I'm meeting her in person. Through her books, her conversations, she has helped me get clear about what I want and has inspired me to take bigger and more purposeful risks. And she's here for you, to share her best tactics, tools, research, and insights that are gonna help you have the breakthrough that you need and deserve. So please help me welcome the extraordinary Martha Beck to The Mel Robbins Podcast. I just have to say, I am unbelievably thrilled that you're here. I ju- I, I can't believe that I'm sitting across from you, actually.

   2. MBMartha Beck3:41

      I know. Pinch me, pinch me. (laughs)

   3. MRMel Robbins3:44

      I feel the same way.

   4. MBMartha Beck3:45

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins3:45

      I feel like I know you because you've been in my life for so long, and I just am eternally grateful that you got on a plane and you are taking-

   6. MBMartha Beck3:55

      Aw.

   7. MRMel Robbins3:55

      ... the time to be with me and the person who's listening.

   8. MBMartha Beck3:59

      Wow. I just, I am so honored to be here. And it's like, uh, we're just looking in the mirror here, because we've both had parasocial relationships with each other. Like, (laughs) -

   9. MRMel Robbins4:10

      (laughs)

   10. MBMartha Beck4:10

       ... I feel like you're talking to me all the time.

   11. MRMel Robbins4:13

       Aw.

   12. MBMartha Beck4:13

       And it's just such a, an honor to be here.

   13. MRMel Robbins4:16

       I am so excited that you're here, because there are just so many different topics that I cannot wait to learn from you about, from how you find your deeply s- personal sense of purpose, to how you can use the tools that you write about in your new book to manage anxiety, to learning how to live a life that's truly authentic to you. And I've thought a lot about how I wanted to start our conversation, and I'd like to start it by telling you a personal story. So, it would've been early 2005.

   14. MBMartha Beck4:47

       Okay.

   15. MRMel Robbins4:48

       And I was a young mom with two.

   16. MBMartha Beck4:52

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MRMel Robbins4:52

       And I had left the practice of law, and I had studied and become a life coach.

   18. MBMartha Beck4:58

       Ah. Cool.

   19. MRMel Robbins4:58

       And I had a small business coaching individuals and people that ran small businesses, and Oprah Winfrey was doing a big, like, event.

   20. MBMartha Beck5:10

       Uh-huh.

   21. MRMel Robbins5:11

       And it was at the Boston Convention Center.

   22. MBMartha Beck5:12

       Oh, that's right, yeah. So-

   23. MRMel Robbins5:14

       And, yeah, and I thought, "Well, what better place to go to prospect for clients who feel stuck-"

   24. MBMartha Beck5:20

       Ah. (laughs)

   25. MRMel Robbins5:20

       "... than at an Oprah Winfrey conference?" And I walked in and I sat down in a chair, and a woman that I had never seen walked on stage, and she started talking.

   26. MBMartha Beck5:32

       (laughs)

   27. MRMel Robbins5:33

       And it was you.

   28. MBMartha Beck5:35

       Oh my goodness.

   29. MRMel Robbins5:37

       And there was something about you, and I don't even know what the hell you were saying. You were talking about purpose.

   30. MBMartha Beck5:46

       (laughs)
3. 9:25 – 19:40

   Use Past Pain to Create a Better Future

   1. MRMel Robbins9:25

      you. Can you just expand a bit about your personal background and how you got to the point where you were writing all of these New York Times bestselling books? Because there is a lot of personal history that led up to where you are now. I would just love for you to share a little bit about your background-

   2. MBMartha Beck9:43

      Sure.

   3. MRMel Robbins9:44

      ... in case the person listening is getting the gift of meeting you for the first time.

   4. MBMartha Beck9:48

      Oh, hello, it's so nice to meet you. Mm, yeah, I, I was privileged enough to have some fairly difficult things in my life, and, and one of the hardest, probably the hardest, was growing up in the heart of very Mormon Mormonism with a father who was one of the great luminaries of the Mormon faith. He defended the faith. Um, it's called being an apologist. So he was very important to Mormonism, and I think it made him crazy.

   5. MRMel Robbins10:22

      Hmm.

   6. MBMartha Beck10:23

      And part of his crazy was that, uh, he sexually abused me, and then I grew up and, um, after I was having children and trying to not tell any lies, the, the moment I decided one year not to tell any lies, the memory of the abuse just erupted. If you've had that happen to you, ugh, call someone. You need community. Um-

   7. MRMel Robbins10:47

      So you had suppressed all of the memories of it, and then-

   8. MBMartha Beck10:51

      Kind of.

   9. MRMel Robbins10:51

      ... it erupts-

   10. MBMartha Beck10:51

       Yeah, but-

   11. MRMel Robbins10:52

       ... when you're, you, you were actually at Harvard at the time, right?

   12. MBMartha Beck10:54

       Yeah, I was finishing my PhD.

   13. MRMel Robbins10:56

       Yeah.

   14. MBMartha Beck10:57

       Um, but yeah, I had, I mean, it literally, um, I had so much scar tissue in my body, my body wasn't working very well because of all the scar tissue in sensitive areas. So, um, I had surgery for that as well, and it, that blew it wide open. Um, and I started having what they call intrusive flashbacks. But at the same time, I was looking at, "Is this religion..." Like I, I, look, I love my father. He's passed on, but I love him, and I really think it made him crazy to try to wrap his mind around telling people that something was true when it wasn't. Just there were things that were not true that he found a way to say, "Oh, they're true." So I never hated him, but, um, I realized that without speaking the truth and living in harmony with my truth, I couldn't survive psychologically. I would have, I was very close to taking my own life.

   15. MRMel Robbins11:55

       Mm.

   16. MBMartha Beck11:55

       Couldn't do that to my kids. So, I decided to, like, get therapy, do other things, and at that point, I started, my family was like in communica-, like, "No, this did not happen." Um, they tried to shut it down. I started getting scary messages, um, from unknown people saying, "You've been spreading rumors about your father. You need to, you know, I'm gonna..."... you know, drag you behind my truck and tell you, "Tell the truth," that kind of stuff. It was, like-

   17. MRMel Robbins12:25

       Oh, okay.

   18. MBMartha Beck12:25

       ... just from strangers, yeah.

   19. MRMel Robbins12:26

       Yeah.

   20. MBMartha Beck12:27

       And then 10 years later, I waited 10 years, and then I wrote a book about it called Leaving the Saints-

   21. MRMel Robbins12:33

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MBMartha Beck12:34

       ... how I left the Mormons and found my faith, because it was about how I had been set free by the experience of dealing with that, and that, lo and behold, I decided I believed that there was a divine consciousness that loves us all and is always taking care of us. So when that book came out, yeah, my family tried to take legal action to have me put in prison. Um, I lost every friendship I'd had growing up because everyone was Mormon in that community. And going against the church and leaving the church is considered the only sin worse than murder.

   23. MRMel Robbins13:11

       Well, and you not only did that, but to live in your integrity-

   24. MBMartha Beck13:17

       Yeah.

   25. MRMel Robbins13:17

       ... and to live your truth and to set yourself free. You also wrote about it-

   26. MBMartha Beck13:22

       Yeah, and that's what-

   27. MRMel Robbins13:23

       ... in a book that became a massive New York Times bestseller.

   28. MBMartha Beck13:25

       (laughs) I was hoping no one would read it. (laughs) I knew I had to write it.

   29. MRMel Robbins13:30

       Yes.

   30. MBMartha Beck13:31

       But I was terrified and pretty much all the things that I thought would happen, happened. You know, my publishers called me e- after the galleys came out and said, "Why didn't you tell us about this?" And I was like, "I tried." They were like, "We're getting death threats." I was like, "Yeah, I know." You d- don't rock the boat in that... in any very strongly committed ideological community, right? Yeah, so it was just loss after loss after loss after loss. There was immense fear. There was fear for my children whose lives were threatened anonymously by people sending me letters and stuff. Um, had to leave my home. At the same time, realized I didn't really like academia so I left my job. Um, realized I was gay. Oh, so there went my marriage. Phtew. Um, it just... Everything, everything left and everything arrived. Everything painful that was so hard to lose, I had to let them go and in the spaciousness that opened up, the thing I call God moved in and there's just joy, joy, joy, joy in letting go.
4. 19:40 – 33:57

   Finding Freedom When Feeling Stuck

   1. MRMel Robbins19:40

      do today. And so I would love to have you just talk a little bit about how you think about the experience of being stuck-

   2. MBMartha Beck19:48

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins19:49

      ... in life.

   4. MBMartha Beck19:49

      Mm-hmm.

   5. MRMel Robbins19:50

      And even moments in your life where you have felt stuck.

   6. MBMartha Beck19:55

      Yeah.

   7. MRMel Robbins19:55

      And we'll just start there.

   8. MBMartha Beck19:57

      Oh, yeah. Well, the story I just told you, I felt completely and totally stuck. I mean, my advisors at Harvard, even the doctors told me I was throwing my life away by keeping, uh, my son and, m- I'm very pro-choice, by the way. But th- he was diagnosed, like, a week before my sixth month. I had already really bonded to him, so I felt stuck then. And, and here's the thing, the release came from a surrender to what was, but then being caught by some force that is not something we really talk about in our culture. And over and over in my life when I've gotten stuck, when I was, you know, the daughter of one of Mormonism's most famous defendants and then I'm dealing with memories of sexual abuse and the whole religion is, uh, you know, i- invested in keeping me quiet, I felt very stuck then.

   9. MRMel Robbins20:47

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MBMartha Beck20:47

       And when my whole family and all the friends I'd had as a child sort of wrote me off, and I've never spoken to them again, that felt very... I felt very stuck. But I've come to have a really delightful relationship with the feeling of being stuck, and now I even know the brain science behind it. When you have a really big need or desire and you're really feeling stuck, I call it an impasse, this is when your brain, the feeling of just bumping up against it, that is the brain saying, "I'm about to give you a big leap forward. I'm about to tell you things that will blow your mind, so be stuck." Get right down in the mud with it. Say, "I hate this. I'm miserable. I'm..." And then say, "Screw it," and go for a walk or go for a ride in the car. Or if you can't get out of your house, watch the birds outside your window. There is a part of your brain that will actually take the, the impasse, the stuckness, and you will come eventually to a, an idea you have never imagined before. Like, and I compare it to the caterpillar cannot imagine being a butterfly, but that is its destiny. Stuckness always means you're about to be transformed, so embrace it with both arms, enjoy it, lean in. You're gonna love it.

   11. MRMel Robbins22:12

       It's so hard to do, though. And I, I mean, and you literally coach people through this, and I think about moments in my life where I have felt so stuck, and also directionless, right? Like-

   12. MBMartha Beck22:23

       Yeah.

   13. MRMel Robbins22:23

       ... I don't know what I should be doing next.

   14. MBMartha Beck22:27

       Yep.

   15. MRMel Robbins22:27

       And so could you speak directly to the person who's listening-

   16. MBMartha Beck22:30

       Yes.

   17. MRMel Robbins22:31

       ... that feels that right now? Like, they're not only feeling that frustration and-

   18. MBMartha Beck22:36

       Yeah.

   19. MRMel Robbins22:36

       ... "Is this all my life is gonna be?" And they sense that there's something else, but I don't even know how to access it.

   20. MBMartha Beck22:42

       Yep. Okay. (laughs) So, two things. You have two best friends that go with you everywhere. One is your body, the other is suffering. And these are your allies, and our culture really discounts both of them. We need to get a little wilder, as I say in my little online community called Wilder. Y- and the way you get wilder is you sink into the body and you feel for suffering. So if you wouldn't mind, I don't do-

   21. MRMel Robbins23:08

       Yeah, sure.

   22. MBMartha Beck23:08

       ... hypothetical work, so I want-

   23. MRMel Robbins23:09

       Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

   24. MBMartha Beck23:09

       ... to just work it on you. So what I do with myself and what I would do with you if I were coaching you-

   25. MRMel Robbins23:13

       Yeah, let's do it.

   26. MBMartha Beck23:14

       ... I would say, "In this moment, is there anything in you that is not peaceful?"

   27. MRMel Robbins23:18

       Yes.

   28. MBMartha Beck23:18

       Okay. Where in your body do you experience most of the not peace?

   29. MRMel Robbins23:24

       I feel it as, like, this tension in my chest.

   30. MBMartha Beck23:28

       Yeah.
5. 33:57 – 50:32

   Your Path to Purpose Starts Here

   1. MRMel Robbins33:57

   2. MBMartha Beck33:57

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins33:57

      Is being stuck different than not having a purpose? Or how do you think-

   4. MBMartha Beck34:02

      They're very related, yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins34:03

      Okay.

   6. MBMartha Beck34:04

      Because people... The biggest reason people consult me is a sense of losing... of not having a purpose. And they'll put that above things like heartbreak or n- you know, disease. Like, not having a purpose is really a big problem and it's really related to being stuck because our d- our knowledge of the direction we want to take is informed by a sense of purpose, and when we don't have a sense of purpose, we have no way of knowing where to go and that gets us stuck. I do seminars in Africa and one of the things we do is we take people rhinoceros tracking because that's an obvious thing to do, right?

   7. MRMel Robbins34:37

      (laughs)

   8. MBMartha Beck34:37

      If you don't have a sense of purpose (laughs) . The rhinoceros is your purpose. You learn to see every sign it leaves on the earth and everything and then we take them back to the camp and we say, "Now you're gonna track your purpose the way we tracked the rhino and the way you've track... the track of your purpose is joy in the body."

   9. MRMel Robbins34:57

      Oh.

   10. MBMartha Beck34:58

       A sense of joy, lifting or lightness, relaxation in the body is a track and it sa- it never says, "Here's what you're gonna be in 20 years or even 20 minutes." It says, "Here's your next step forward." So with this financial situation, you're about to make a brilliant decision. How does that... If you say that, what happens in your body?

   11. MRMel Robbins35:23

       I feel that freedom and peace-

   12. MBMartha Beck35:25

       Okay.

   13. MRMel Robbins35:25

       ... and ease that you talk about.

   14. MBMartha Beck35:28

       So the Buddha used to say, um, and he said it a lot, "Wherever you find water, you can know if it's the ocean, because no matter what it looks like, the, the ocean always tastes of salt. And when you find enlightenment, you will always recognize it no matter what it looks like, because enlightenment always tastes of freedom."

   15. MRMel Robbins35:47

       Ooh.

   16. MBMartha Beck35:48

       Not giddy joy, not bliss, freedom. It can be scary as hell to serve your purpose but it's free. You are free. So when you say you felt lighter and freer, that's a track. So now, okay, you know that that's what you're gonna follow instead of the thing that says, "Oh my God, I'm gonna make a terrible decision."

   17. MRMel Robbins36:10

       Or, "I'm always gonna be alone," or, um, or, "It's never gonna work out for me," or, "I'm never gonna be good enough." Like-

   18. MBMartha Beck36:15

       No.

   19. MRMel Robbins36:15

       ... that is one lane.

   20. MBMartha Beck36:17

       Yeah.

   21. MRMel Robbins36:17

       And using these tools, you're now accessing and flipping the suffering.

   22. MBMartha Beck36:21

       Yeah, and you're tracking what brings you more freedom in the body, more joy in the body. So if you're making the decision, "Okay, I'm going to put this money in this account or in that account?" Literally sit there and say, "Okay, if I make decision A, what happens in my body? Mm, shut down. If I make decision B, what happens in my body? Little bit lighter." So I always say to people, "Think of the worst experience you had and then feel that, how that was in your body and give that a, a score, negative 10 on the happy meter."... then remember the most peaceful and free you've ever felt, that's a positive turn. And everything in between, zero is neutral. So you may make a decision with this financial thing where it's just a, "That's plus one, that's minus three." Okay, it might be subtle, but as you learn to feel what sets you free, what removes suffering and replaces it with (sighs) -

   23. MRMel Robbins37:19

       Mm.

   24. MBMartha Beck37:20

       ... that's how you know the next step. And as the steps start to add up, you go, "Oh, my God, that's my purpose?"

   25. MRMel Robbins37:27

       Is everybody's purpose different?

   26. MBMartha Beck37:29

       Yes. Absolutely.

   27. MRMel Robbins37:31

       Oh, you said that with such certainty.

   28. MBMartha Beck37:32

       Yeah. Yeah, it's as individual as our fingerprints.

   29. MRMel Robbins37:35

       And how do you define purpose?

   30. MBMartha Beck37:38

       That which brings you the mo- the greatest satisfaction and joy as a being on this Earth, and that allows you to contribute the most satisfaction and joy to the rest of the world. That's your purpose. It's where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. A theologian said that once, I think it was Frederick Buechner.
6. 50:32 – 53:01

   When You Feel Like You’re Not Good Enough

   1. MRMel Robbins50:32

   2. MBMartha Beck50:32

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins50:33

      Over the years, you've worked with so many people. What are the kind of top most painful thoughts? Like, if you cave-

   4. MBMartha Beck50:39

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins50:39

      ... if you had, like, a list of ones you hear over and over, and we all kinda think we're the only one.

   6. MBMartha Beck50:45

      Yeah. Yeah.

   7. MRMel Robbins50:45

      Right? And so I think it would be very validating for someone listening to hear just some of the top things that are the most painful thoughts people have shared with you-

   8. MBMartha Beck50:56

      Yeah.

   9. MRMel Robbins50:56

      ... over the decades-

   10. MBMartha Beck50:57

       Yeah.

   11. MRMel Robbins50:57

       ... and how you flip it.

   12. MBMartha Beck50:59

       Okay, so number one, off the charts is, "I'm not good enough. I'm not, you know, I'm not valuable, I'm not worthy." And it can be imposter synd- syndrome, it can be jealousy, it can be whatever, but the root of it is, "I'm not good." Not even enough. "I'm not good." The biggest lie ever told. Go to a nursery in a hospital and pick up a baby and tell me which one of them isn't good. If we all knew ourselves to be that precious, we would automatically live our purpose. If we could experience ourselves as being these innocent creatures that are bumbling through life, and I just, I feel like the powers that be, the, uh, divine force of the universe is just going, "Oh, sweetie. Oh, honey. How could you think that? Don't you know?" I mean, I remember looking at some horses once and going, "Oh, they're so beautiful," and, and this woman who was with me knew horses and she said, "Well, that one's swaybacked and that one's..." And I'm like, "Shut up. They're all perfect. They're all beautiful." And I, when you step out of suffering enough times, you sit down and say, "I'm not good enough," it immediately flips to, "Oh my God. (gasps) I'm so good." Not, I haven't had to earn it. It's not something I did. M- my favorite spiritual teacher, Byron Katie, says, "If you understood how important you are, you would shatter into a billion pieces and just be light." And she had that experience, um, and I believe she went beyond suffering, and I've come out of suffering over and over again, like someone surfacing out of deep water. (gasps) You know, and taking a breath of the truth. There is no word to describe how utterly precious you are. You have n- Like, hear me now, understand

7. 53:01 – 57:46

   Martha Beck’s Near Death Experience

   1. MBMartha Beck53:01

      me later. I had a near-death experience once.

   2. MRMel Robbins53:04

      What happened?

   3. MBMartha Beck53:04

      Oh my God. (laughs) I mean, I've written about it, I've talked about it. It, I wasn't dead. I was in surgery for actually scars that were inflicted by sexual abuse when I was a child. They had started to, I was getting flashbacks, and the scar tissue had started bleeding internally.

   4. MRMel Robbins53:22

      It, that happens?

   5. MBMartha Beck53:23

      That hap- It did with me. It's, it's actually not that uncommon for post tr- post-traumatic stress syndrome to re-inflict wounds that were inflicted on you at the time of the trauma-

   6. MRMel Robbins53:34

      Wow.

   7. MBMartha Beck53:35

      ... to get your attention, because suffering is always trying to say, "Here, here, look here." So I was in the surgery, and, um, I opened my eyes and I sat up and I looked around, and then I thought, "Wait a second. I'm lying down. I'm, my eyes are taped shut. What's happening?" And I looked at the surgeons, and I was sitting up and my body was lying down and they were working, and I was like, I became very confused, and I lay back down into my body and I looked up at the surgical lights, which were very, very bright, and then in between all of them, and you gotta understand, this was a time of maximum suffering for me. I was in physical agony. I had three little kids under five. All kinds of nonsense. They say we only see a trillionth of the available light spectrum.

   8. MRMel Robbins54:27

      Mm-hmm.

   9. MBMartha Beck54:28

      And it was the whole thing. It was the most beautiful thing. Even for years, if I even read about somebody seeing this light, I would just bawl like a baby. It is so beautiful. (gasps) And it started to grow and just infuse things, and then it touched me, and I was utterly home. I was utterly loved. I was utterly, I belonged. I, there was, I had nothing to prove. I was absolutely included in this love, and it was laughing with me, and it was like, "You said you wouldn't forget, but you totally forgot this, didn't you?" And I was like, "Yes. I really thought life is a bitch and then you die and that's all there is," and I was laughing together, and I was so happy.Then I started crying, and the sur- one of the surgeons saw the tears and thought that I could feel the surgery, but I was-

   10. MRMel Robbins55:25

       Are you kidding?

   11. MBMartha Beck55:26

       ... numb. And so he said, "She's in pain, she's in pain." And the anesthesiologist went to increase the medication.

   12. MRMel Robbins55:33

       Uh-huh.

   13. MBMartha Beck55:34

       And later when I, I, I said, "I wanna talk to the anesthesiologist," 'cause I thought that might be a drug effect. It was not a drug effect. And I wanted to quiz him, and he said, "What happened in there?" And I sort of told him, and he said, "I went to increase the medication, and a voice said to me, 'Don't do that. She's crying because she's happy.'" And he was just pale because he thought he'd done the wrong thing, and he said, "Did I do something horrible?" I was like, "No, no." He said, "You know how many times that's happened to me in 33 years of practice?" I said, "No," and he said, "Once." And then he kissed me on the forehead and went away. But when the light touched me and was, and sort of suffused me, it just said, "You're about to go through some really hard stuff." And I was. Complete loss of all my family members, my job, my industry, my home, all my friends, totally gone. And it said-

   14. MRMel Robbins56:31

       And is that because you left the church?

   15. MBMartha Beck56:33

       Yeah. Yeah. I left everything. (laughs) Becau- And it said, "I just, you're about to go through something really hard. Just remember I'm always, always with you." And I came out of that surgery and my, it was kind of like, um, the experience in Cambridge where I just said, "Okay, that light is with us."

   16. MRMel Robbins56:53

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MBMartha Beck56:53

       "I am going to live as if I can see it all the time." And then I had a son with Down syndrome who told me at a friend's funeral that he can see it all the time. He said, "Life isn't so sad after the light comes and opens your heart." And I was like, "Who told you that?" And he told me that when he was 13, a light had appeared in his bedroom and filled him with peace and told him, "I'm your teacher. You can do this."

   18. MRMel Robbins57:23

       Wow.

   19. MBMartha Beck57:24

       And I said, "You know, I can see the li-" I, I said, "The light told me it's always with us even though we can't see it." And Adam said, "Oh, I can see it." And I was like, "What? Now you can?" He was like, "Yeah, can't you?" I was like, "No, where is it? Is it up there, in here?" And he said, "Mom, it's everywhere. It's everywhere."

8. 57:46 – 1:26:27

   The Ideal Day: Try This Life-Changing Exercise

   1. MRMel Robbins57:46

      You have this incredible, um, exercise that you walk people through that I do think can help you feel and see the light.

   2. MBMartha Beck57:57

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MRMel Robbins57:58

      And it's called Ideal Perfect Day.

   4. MBMartha Beck58:01

      The Ideal Day, yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins58:02

      Can you walk us through it?

   6. MBMartha Beck58:04

      Sure, it's really simple. And now we're at ti- w- you got, uh, you're grounded in your body. This is the track. We have to follow the track. This is how you track forward. So, we're recording this in 2024, end of 2024. How far would you like to go in the future? We're gonna do time travel. So you, uh, uh, don't do hypotheticals. I wanna know what your, you're gonna do.

   7. MRMel Robbins58:25

      Um, I- I immediately thought a decade, 10 years.

   8. MBMartha Beck58:28

      Okay. So it's-

   9. MRMel Robbins58:29

      And is that a good thing?

   10. MBMartha Beck58:30

       Yeah, that's great.

   11. MRMel Robbins58:30

       Okay, 10 years? Okay.

   12. MBMartha Beck58:31

       So it's 2034.

   13. MRMel Robbins58:33

       Okay.

   14. MBMartha Beck58:33

       And think about, you don't have to say it, think about the age you'll be, and the age your husband, your children will be. Sort of move your mind forward like a calendar. Now, here are the instructions. Your life is absolutely what it was meant to be, every expression of your greatest joy and your greatest fulfillment. This, you're gonna wake up on a day that is an ordinary day in a perfect life, in an ideal life. So what I'm gonna do is I'll prompt you with a few things, and I want you to let your senses answer these questions, not your mind. So your mind can't time travel. It s- it will tell you it can, but it can't. Only the body can time travel, and this is how it goes. You wake up on this morning, and you don't even open your eyes. You listen. What do you hear on this day, an ordinary day in your perfect life in 2034? What do you hear?

   15. MRMel Robbins59:35

       You want me to tell you?

   16. MBMartha Beck59:36

       Yeah.

   17. MRMel Robbins59:37

       Um, I hear waves.

   18. MBMartha Beck59:39

       Mm-hmm.

   19. MRMel Robbins59:39

       And I hear little kids laughing.

   20. MBMartha Beck59:42

       Ah, okay. So smell the air. Don't open your eyes yet. What, what do you smell?

   21. MRMel Robbins59:47

       Salt. (laughs)

   22. MBMartha Beck59:48

       Mm, mm.

   23. MRMel Robbins59:49

       Coffee.

   24. MBMartha Beck59:49

       I'm seeing a theme here.

   25. MRMel Robbins59:51

       (laughs)

   26. MBMartha Beck59:52

       All right, open your eyes. Look at the sheets. What color are they?

   27. MRMel Robbins59:57

       White.

   28. MBMartha Beck59:59

       Look at the floor. What, what does it look like? Wood? Carpet?

   29. MRMel Robbins1:00:01

       It's like a, yeah, it's a wide planked wood floor that's sort of, uh, it's kind of, um, it's not shiny. It's, like, worn.

   30. MBMartha Beck1:00:12

       Cool. Look over across from you in the bed. Who's there, if anyone? (laughs)
9. 1:26:27 – 1:27:34

   The Power of Kindness

   1. MBMartha Beck1:26:27

      it's not enough to say, "Go get oi- oil paints. You'll feel good." No. There are three steps, and I remember them with the acronym KAT, K-A-T. So, A is art, making things, and T is transformation and transcendence. But K is kindness.

   2. MRMel Robbins1:26:44

      Hmm.

   3. MBMartha Beck1:26:44

      And everything depends on kindness. There's something I call KIST, K-I-S-T, kind internal self-talk. When you're afraid, just say these things. You don't have to believe them. Say it to yourself all day long. "I'm here. It's okay. You're all right. I've got you. You're gonna get through this. I've got you. I'm here. It's okay. Maybe let's get a blanket. Would you like some tea? Tell me everything. I'm listening. Oh, that sounds like it hurts. You're loved. I'm here. You're okay." That's how I've gotten out of the deepest, like, most horrific fear. And let me tell you, it was bad. And that was the only thing that brought me back from the darkness.

Episode duration: 1:32:33