Good Life Project - Choosing Courage Over Comfort: Elizabeth Lesser

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder of the legendary Omega Institute, recognized internationally for its workshops and conferences in wellness, spirituality, creativity, and social change. She's presented at TED, was named one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100 and is a New York Times bestselling author. Seeking to help save her younger sister's life after a diagnosis of cancer, Lesser donated her bone marrow. While her efforts, devastatingly, didn't achieve their ultimate goal, they led to a profound transformation in the relationship between the sisters that has become the focus of Elizabeth's latest book, Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's helpful for people to know the point of it all is not to become perfected. I don't think we can. I don't think, but we can become authentic and real and kind and aware enough of the wonder of the universe that we lighten up and enjoy. But we're going to trip and fall no matter what. And I have let go of that search for perfection, which I certainly wanted as a younger person. From as early back as she can remember,

my guest today, Elizabeth Lesser, was the rebel, the activist, the feminist in the family. Growing up with three other sisters, she was in a household where there were five women and one very traditional father. And she could never understand why the women didn't make more decisions and have more power. And she voiced her opinion from the earliest age. That led her into a path of seeking and a path of activism, a path of social justice. She eventually became one of the founders of what has now become a legendary sort of holistic learning institute, the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York,

which covers a sprawling campus of something like 140 acres, serves tens of thousands of people from all over the world on an annual basis. And she has also over the years become an author and penned a few different memoirs. Her latest is called Marrow. And in that, she takes us into her relatively recent experience donating her bone marrow in an attempt to save her sister. We dive into her journey, her lens on life, her exploration of seeking, the entire story that led to Omega, and the interesting realizations she's had over the years, learning from so many of the greatest teachers who have lived for a few generations now, and then how her and her sister took the opportunity for matching a transplant to

not just try and create a life-saving medical intervention, but to use it as a window to rediscover each other, to reconnect, to lay bare who they really were to each other, and to a certain extent, to a large extent, actually, forgive old wounds and be honest. Really powerful conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you

8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So you currently reside and have resided for a while in Woodstock. But from what I know, actually you and I share something in common, which is we both started out in Long Island many moons ago. Where? I was a Port Washington kid. How about you?

I was a Huntington kid. So North Shore, similar, water towns. Yes. Beautiful towns back then. Maybe still. I don't know. I haven't been back to Port a whole bunch. But yeah, I mean, I actually loved growing up.

I grew up, the end of my road was a beach. So water is kind of in my bones. Were you similar at all? Absolutely. We grew up right on the Sound. And everything was about going to the beach or driving over to the South Shore and going to the Hamptons or Fire Island, things like that. Yeah. At some point, though, the whole family was uprooted. My family. Yes. Yes. My father and mother were really interesting people for the 1950s, 60s.

My father was a madman, a Madison Avenue adman, if you've watched the Madman series. But he was an odd duck. He never drank. He loved the outdoors. We had like a compost pile in suburban Long Island that nobody knew what it was. And his dream in life was to move to Vermont and go back to the land. Where a little Brooklyn boy got that dream, I don't know. But eventually, he did. He uprooted the entire family. And we moved to a tumble down

farm in Vermont. And we went back to the land. That's amazing. How old were you in that? Well, I was in high school. My younger sisters- That's hard also. Yeah. But my younger sisters actually really lived that life. I graduated from high school the next year and left and came back to New York and went to Barnard College. That's a good beeline back to the city. So you grew up also four sisters. Tell me a little bit. I mean, now I'm fascinated by your dad, who seems like this, he's almost like living a double life to a certain extent.

Yeah, lots of lives. My dad was this kind of thorough kind of guy, even though he also was an advertising guy. And he had, and my mother also, one after another, four girls. And it was very much a female home. My mother, the four girls, my grandmother and great aunt practically lived with us. But he was still always, he ruled the roost. He was a very typical 50s, 60s father. He was in charge. And, you know, I've done a lot of thinking over the past few years because of the journey I went through with my sister and something that we did these therapy sessions

together because she was in need of a bone marrow transplant. And I was the one sister who tested as her match. And we did these therapy sessions to make mine and her body like in love so that perhaps the cells would fall in love once they got into her body. And one of the things she said to me in one of those sessions where we were saying things to each other we never had our whole lives, why did you always have to stand up to dad? Why did you make so much trouble? Because whatever, I don't know what it is, like genetics, past life, whatever you believe, astrology. I just was always pissed off that in a family of all these women, he got to say what happened. Somehow it offended me from the youngest age and set me on a feminist path. But she was like, why did you make such a stink about everything?

That's amazing. Did your mom have that in her also? In a very covert way, that group of feminist women, because I think of her as an early feminist in that she was an activist. She marched in civil rights marches and against the Vietnam War. She was very much an activist, but the true fruits of women claiming equality were not ever going to be hers. You know, she was so bright, graduated with honors from college, and she went back to teaching English in high school. But like in today's world, she'd like be, you know, leading a college or something. So those are your folks, three different sisters also. And it sounds like the way you write about them, everyone really had their own completely different sort of personalities. But you describe yourselves also sort of like with an acronym, which is like the first two letters of each person's name.

It's almost like very distinct, but one. It's so true. And, you know, as a spiritual seeker my whole life, and you are too, we bandy about this phrase, we're all one, we are one. I don't really even know what that means, but I like to say it anyway. But I had this experience with my sister when our blood actually were one after the bone marrow transplant. What happens biologically in the science of transplant is that all of the patient's stem cells are killed and they're replaced by healthy stem cells from the marrow of the donor. And then if it works, over time, all the blood cells in the patient are the blood cells of, our blood was one. And we were sisters. And we really did have an experience

because we opened ourselves to it. I'd say I felt the closest to one with her that I ever did and with anyone. And this sense of we were so different, yet we were one, is somewhat to me the secret if humanity could grasp that each one of us is put here to be ourself. And everyone is so different, and I sure know that about my sisters. Really different, with our own song to sing and our destiny to fulfill, but we really are also one. We are part of a fabric. We are connected, almost as if it's a tapestry and all the strings weave together. But every string is different. That was the big take home I had from the experience of my sister's bone marrow transplant. So this idea of being a seeker, we're absolutely going to circle back because I really want to dive into your journey over the last couple of years,

especially with your sister. But I kind of want to still go back and fill in this gap because I'm fascinated. You said you've been a seeker pretty much your whole life. And I'm curious for folks who identify that way, what's the earliest time that you remember identifying as that person or knowing that you were in search of something? And was there something that actually, was there a moment or an event or a person or a conversation that kind of you connect that to? Such a great question. It should be something we all do, you know? But for me, it came out of a vacuum

in that my parents were atheists, and I was born longing for some guidance in what the heck is this human life? And I think an early awareness of death coupled with absolutely no guiding principles in the home about spirituality, religion, anything. That was a very potent combination of making me seek. Perhaps if I had grown up in a really strict Catholic home and been going to mass since I was two and being spoon-fed what to believe, maybe it would have taken me longer to identify as a seeker. I don't know. But I was one of those little kids, like, I would lie in bed, I think maybe four or five are my earliest memories of like, whoa, what happens? What happens with death? And therefore, what do I do with this precious short amount of time?

I was always aware how short it was. How? What was that about? Three, four. I don't know. But you know what? I've made a very unscientific study of early death awareness. Like one of my sons has it.

I have three sons. Two of them, I don't know if they think about it today, but my youngest son, early, three maybe, asking questions, terrified, crying, wanting to know, being in the conversation. And, you know, I've spent my life in the spiritual world, and they grew up, my kids, on the campus of Omega Institute, the place I co-founded. And two of them have a bemused attitude about their childhood. And my youngest, the one with early death awareness, is now like one of the leaders in the mindfulness and education movement, and a therapist. So I don't know,

I think you're born with the chip of wondering about humanity and life and death. Or maybe you're not. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, because I've had a number of conversations now with people over the years, who've shared a similar story where they said, there wasn't an incident, there wasn't an immediate loss in the family that they can point to, but they recall from an unusually early age, just a deep awareness of curiosity about and fear very often around constantly questioning. And I do have one really early memory of riding bikes with my friends in the neighborhood on Long Island. And so maybe I was six, seven or something. And there was a dead squirrel on the road. And everyone rode their bikes going down the road screaming and I stopped.

I took a stick and started like tearing it apart, like just wanting to, oh, maybe I'll get to see the inside of something. I always wanted to see the inside of life. The outside of things has never interested me as much as the inside of the heart, the mind, the body. I was a midwife for many years. I like to go deeper. Yeah. So you end up going to college in the city. But did you finish or did you leave to? I did not finish at Columbia. I finished in San Francisco, only because my mother would have died if I didn't. But at the same time, you were pursuing midwifery.

Well, at first, when I was at Barnard, Columbia, it was in the early 1970s. Everything was chaotic, political, got very involved in politics, because I've always also been interested in social justice things, but it got violent. And I was so disturbed by the violence. And that was the time, the early 1970s, as I don't know how old you are, but when like gurus were washing up on the shores of America. And I really, I was like, now that's what I want. I want one of them. I got to find me one of these. What was it that you thought they would give you? Everything I had seen. The answers.

You know, as a kid, I would go to mass with my Italian Catholic neighbor, or I'd go to the synagogue with people who went there, and just always looking. And then I found Zen. That was my first experience here in New York City. And then Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche had just come to the United States and he was leading meditation retreats way downtown in a loft. And my boyfriend at the time who became my husband and who founded Omega with me, we would go down there and listen to this wild, brilliant Tibetan young man who he would have on the dais where he was teaching a pitcher of beer. And by the end of teaching, he'd be totally drunk. And I was 19. I was like,

is this what Tibetan Buddhist do? It's apparently the stories that I've heard you're now validating. But he was my first real teacher. And then I met the man who would be my teacher for my whole life, who was the Sufi teacher, Pirvelayat Khan. And I moved to California to be with him, and it was his idea to start Omega Institute that he put me and my ex-husband in charge of, and that really became my path, the Sufi path, which is the mystical dimension of Islam,

sort of like Zen is to Buddhism, Sufism is to Islam. Yeah. The Omega then started as sort of the manifestation of you sort of carrying out the lineage and creating a center for people to come and study and learn as part of that, which is now for those who don't know what Omega is, has now become this, you know, it is a beautiful, sprawling campus in Rhinebeck, New York, with, what, tens of thousands of people attending from all over the world every year for workshops, programs, lectures, across literally every spiritual tradition, every denomination. Does that do it even remote justice?

Yeah, thank you. It's an institute for holistic studies. So it's also the arts, Does that do it even remote justice? are either spiritual retreats from different world traditions or wellness and health and also self-help, you know, self-actualization and healing. These two threads you keep bringing up also, which is one spiritual seeking and social justice, how do you see those relating to each other? Absolutely inseparable because most people would say, well, what do you want the outcome of your spiritual practice to be? Let's say you pray, or you meditate, or you read scriptures, or whatever you do. Like if you call yourself a seeker, what do you want to come from that? And if you really think about it, most people would say, well, I want inner peace. I want to be more peaceful. I'm so anxious and

worried and stressed and negative, like I want peace. And also I want a sense of connection to something bigger than myself. And that is, yes, it's possible for you to achieve that on your own. But if you want to just stay in your apartment all day, it might work. But if you have a family and a community and a town and a country and a world, it's almost impossible to find real peace without wanting peace for everyone and the world. It's just jarring. You actually, you know, the great spiritual Kings, Gandhi, Mandela, you name whoever you want, have deep spiritual practices. It's not some sort of do good ideal. If you're about love and peace for yourself, ultimately, it turns into a desire for the world to have the same thing. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting also, of course, in the day that we're living in, no matter where you fall in the societal political spectrum, almost everybody's feeling some level of baseline anxiety and upset and very much, you know,

a level of tribalism and us versus them that I certainly don't recall in my lifetime. And I think a lot of people really look at, you know, well, there's a separation of church and state. And yes, it's there, and it's there for a good reason. And at the same time, just like you said, there is this long history of the constant interweaving between deep faith and spirituality and fierce activism that somehow, you know, like keeps coming together and keeps coming together. And I wonder when I sort of see people of devout faith struggling with, well, how much, you know, am I supposed to hold space so that there's a safe container for people of all beliefs and make all feel welcome while while at the same time, holding fast to my

convictions and making that clear. I think it's a really interesting dance that a lot of folks who are in leadership positions are sort of exploring right now. I agree. And it brings up a couple of interesting things to think and talk about. One is, there's religion, and there's spirituality. How much are they the same thing? Sometimes they're the same thing. If you define spirituality as a sense that we're all connected and that there's a loving force, a hand guiding the world, even when it looks like it's not being guided. It's bigger than us. Our

minds are very crude instruments to really fathom the universal evolution. So meditation is a way to get the mind out of the way so that maybe that larger intuition could say, ah, yes, it's all okay. It's all moving toward something. It's evolving spiritually. There's that, and then there's religion. And sometimes religion guides people there. And if it really did, it would not be as obsessed with power and tribalism. So much of religion is not really about spirituality. It's about tribe, power, money, influence. It's always been that way. You know, just study history with what went on with the Christian church in Rome or Buddhism and Hinduism. I remember when I went to Cambodia to Angkor Wat.

Have you ever been there? I haven't yet, no. Well, it's just these long, long, long, long chambers of sculptured art. And it's all about war. It's all about the Buddhists and the Hindus fighting and this shamanic group fighting. It doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the history of religion. So, you know, I think for people who love their religion, that's beautiful. I have nothing against religion. But if you really want to claim you're a leader of a faith, really study those scriptures. They're not about exclusion and unkindness. Yeah. I mean, it's such a great point, right? I often feel like the fundamental tenets of nearly

every, quote, religion out there, if you really just dive deep into just the essence of what it is, they're all very similar. And then the, quote, trouble happens when humanity decides that they shall interpret what this means for you and for me and for all people. And it's that filter which inevitably gets interwoven with self-interest and power and all these other themes that are deeply embedded in us and our psyche. That's where things go wrong. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You made a really interesting distinction also, not just between religion and spirituality, but spirituality and mysticism. And you mentioned

Sufism and its relationship to Islam. We have examples like Kabbalah and Judaism. Tell me more about how you see this distinction. I remember when I first discovered the word mysticism. And it was the very first book I read was of a spiritual nature. I was in high school, and it was Thomas Merton, The Seven-Story Mountain. And he talked about mysticism. And I knew immediately, oh, that's what I am. I'm a mystic. And the word mysticism and mystic comes from mystery,

which is, to me, the mystic's path is becoming comfortable that we live in mystery. It's not looking for firm answers to the inevitably unanswerable questions. Listen, if there was an answer to where do you go when you die? What is the best moral code for a human being? If there was like a true answer, we would all subscribe to it, buy it, whatever. But it's a mystery. We live in mystery. My practice is to relax into the mystery and to be comfortable with not knowing. And that practice allows me to give great space to other people to live out their mystery. I mean, I can't claim I'm perfect with this. Just ask my husband.

I'm as judgmental as the next person. But I take it as a practice to allow each person to dance in their mystery however they need to do. And that's, to me, what a mystic is, someone who bows down to the mystery. I like that. It's a beautiful aspiration. I think we would all love to figure out how to probably level one, just survive being in that space, you know, and the notion of then actually potentially being just okay in you know, I can feel the tightening around the anxiety of being human. It's very anxious. It's a very anxious or studied physics, whatever, we don't quite know what's going on and what should go on and what will go on. It creates a lot of anxiety. But I know from practice that when I can relax into that, I'm free and I'm much happier and I'm a much kinder person as well. Yeah. I mean, if you can allow that within yourself, regardless of whatever, you know, the circumstances, that seems like the magical place to a certain extent,

but how brutally hard. It is hard. It seems to have gotten, dare I say, as I age, a little easier. And I don't know if that's the accumulation of practice, you know, meditation, prayer, all the things I've done, or if it's just the gift of thing. I'm 52. And I've definitely noticed that in the last decade or so, my ability to sort of live in the space where, you know, in Joseph Campbell's abyss, where I just, you know, that is the place of mystery, but it's also the place where everything good happens if you stay there long enough. Yeah. the place where everything good happens if you stay there long enough. It's often not fun. It's sometimes excruciating. But I feel like I'm more comfortable spending more time there and knowing that whatever needs to evolve from that space will. And it's a gift to other people, especially if we're parents, and now I'm a grandparent,

to allow other people room to do what they have to do to grow and not to always be putting on other people my thought of what you should do. And I feel if I can stay more in the mystery of my own self and give myself space and be forgiving to myself as a human being, it helps me do that with other people. So the spaciousness just gets larger and larger. Yeah. Okay. So this brings up another question, and I'm guessing that in your role at Omega, both as a teacher and as somebody who has, you know, like run this place for and seen tens and tens of thousands of people come and study and pursue

all sorts of different growth-oriented activities and paths. One of the questions that has come to me so many times, and I have to imagine it's come to you or you've witnessed this struggle, is two people who are in a relationship together, maybe they're partners, maybe they're married in a long time. And as they do the work of honoring their own growth individually, one person decides, I'm going to really dive into this. I'm going to embrace deep exploration, deep study, deep questioning. And the other person is kind of like, I'm good. Because I have to imagine at Omega, like you've seen countless couples show up where it is crystal clear that one person is in tow. Absolutely. Usually, to be stereotypic about it, it's the woman dragging the man. And for many years, we would say, how can we get men to come here on their own?

And we had like Coach Phil Jackson teach the Zen of basketball. And we'd have like classes in survivalism in the woods and all different sports and things. Well, not even that, just dude things. And because it does seem that often women are dragging men, like, I am wanting to bring whatever this spiritual longing I have into our relationship. I want to communicate better. I want to feel we're on a path together. I want to use our problems for growth. Oftentimes, men just see that as like, oh, no. I apologize again for bringing a stereotype into this, but I have noticed this at Omega.

So when I used to lead a lot of workshops at Omega, I would either see that if people came as couples or I would warn people when they were about to go home, like now look, do not go home now in your state of awakened bliss, whatever is your feeling, and start laying your trip on other people. Because you're just going to wreck a whole bunch of relationships. Like go easy, go slow, make your own joy at finding inner peace or an experience of other realms, whatever it is you're experiencing, be that. Don't force it on other people. Be it. And perhaps if in the power of your being transformed, you might just be an invitation to someone else. But sometimes it is so that one's seeking can end a relationship. And that's okay to me. You know, like, I would hate to think that that would happen all the time. But people have often asked me, I just want, like, it's not just marriages. It's like, none of my friends want to talk about this stuff. They just want to talk about, like, it's not just marriages. It's like, none of my friends want to talk about this stuff.

They just want to talk about like, where the kids going to school or what new furniture they're buying or where they're going on vacation, which is fine. But I want to go deeper. I want to talk about other things. And often the answer is, I guess you need new friends. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People change. And the worst thing is to try to make people, you know, there's nothing worse than that deep person who will only talk about deep stuff with people who don't want to do it. It's a bad recipe. And so often it comes from a good place too. It comes from a place like, I've discovered something which is really moving the needle in my life.

I feel better. You know, stuff is changing. And I want that for you. And I want that for you. And I want that for you. And how could you not want that, too? You know, what is wrong with you? Well, that's called evangelism.

Right. Almost like proselytizing. It is. Yeah. So you get that. I think often it comes from a good place or it comes from this other places. If you are in a long-term relationship, just like, please God, let this not end because I don't want it to end because there's the attachment, there's the comfort, there's this still level of deep love.

And yet at the same time, like you said, over a period of years, we would run these very long-term retreats, like seven to 12-month programs. And even though it was about entrepreneurship, it was about conscious entrepreneurship. And part of that was a deep dive into the self, self-knowledge. And it wasn't unusual for people who were sort of going through this experience to really start to bond closely to the others in it and also change and evolve. And that would bring up questions with their partners who were not, you know, who were sort of like going along for the ride, but outside of the group. And eventually it started to come up often enough that I reached out to a friend of mine, actually, you probably know Terry Cole, right? And cause Terry is, you know, released all about really. And I i said give me some wisdom on

this and her answer was really similar to yours she said sometimes relationships are meant to end and it's sad but it's not necessarily the wrong decision right relationships ending are some of the most painful initiations. For me, when my marriage fell apart, it really was the before and after, before I was a child in a way, and it was the gate I walked through to become myself. And it was a very painful way to do it for both of us, for our children. I wouldn't recommend it. On the other hand, in retrospect, I think we both would say that's what grew us up. That's what made us better people. So relationships ending are nothing to take lightly, like, oh, that's okay. If you're more spiritual, just leave. I don't mean that. But sometimes the most difficult things, I wrote a whole book about it called Broken Open. Those are the initiations into true adulthood. Yeah. When that book, Broken Open, was incredibly powerful, raw, shared your stories as well as other stories, what was it like for you? I'm curious to write that book, which was so

transparent and revelatory about something which is deeply personal and disconcerting and completely upended your life. Well, you know, I had this idea I wanted, I was in the middle toward the end of the kind of experience that I call a broken open experience where a break, whether it's the loss of a loved one, a divorce, illness, death, actually opens you, where you have this choice point where you can either break down, fall apart, or eventually break open, have your heart blossom. So I wanted to write about that. And my first book had been more of a academic kind of book. I thought, I'll just write about this. But it became

abundantly clear right away that like, if you're going to write a real book about breaking open, you got to write about your own experience. And in fact, most of the best spiritual books, whether it's the Bible or whatever, are parables. They are stories about human beings. That's what I want to read. Like, yeah, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all before, but like, what was it like for you? What did you do when it got really gnarly and hard? And this is, you know, you ask any memoirist, why do you reveal so much about yourself? Isn't it embarrassing?

Isn't it scary? Yes, yes, all of that. I feel I do that in the service of the human journey. Like I will share my story because you know what? It's exactly your story. None of us are that different. We're all afraid of the same things. We all long for the same things.

So may my story help you on your path. It was hard and it dragged some of my loved ones along with it. It was harder for them probably. But I do that because I know how to write and I feel story is what really helps people. Yeah. So agree with the story being the most powerful way to offer anything remotely wise. Yeah. Kind of like bypasses defenses and allows people to just transfer in and understand without being told.

And the biggest compliment I ever get for any of my books is, wow, that was just like what I've gone through. That's what I think. You know, I don't have anything unique to say or share. It's just, here's how I went through the potholes and rose on the hills, and here's what the view looked like from up there and down there. And let's do this together. Yeah. I mean, it has to be interesting also, because, you know, you're a grown up with a marriage that struggles and ends up ending, and, you know, has led to many memoirs. But you're somebody who had this unique public profile before this, as this, like a deep teacher and a founder of this incredible institute and somebody who's on the path and filled with wisdom and knowledge and understanding of relationships. You're talking about me? Yes. And, like, I almost wonder whether, you know, people put you on a pedestal when they see someone with a sort of public persona of you.

And then they're like, but shouldn't she have been able to figure out how to make this work? I mean, she's the one who's like the closest to, you know, like having all the answers. She's the closest to all of the greatest teachers of our times. Did you feel any of that or were you confronted by any of that when the book came out um and i'm not saying i agree with that i'm just curious whether that's the best question well one people will often ask me okay you've been around all those teachers your whole life since you were 19 you know and you've been like helping them create curriculum and organizing with them and they're your friends and like so you must,

what do you know? What do you know? And what I know is that all of them, all of the great teachers from the Dalai Lama on down, they're all regular human beings with anxiety, fear, relationships, bad relationships, problems, money problems, sex problems. Like, I've never met anyone who has it totally sewn up. Now, some people who like really live a monk's life and shun the more… The householder way. The householder way. And God bless them because they've been able to really hone some deep skills for us.

Some of them have come a little closer than others, but most people are just as messed up as everybody else. That's the book that I could write and make a lot of money, but I won't. I can tell about myself. An anonymous expose. I'm not going to tell about other people. But, you know, it's helpful for people to know the point of the universe that we lighten up and enjoy. But we're going to trip and fall no matter what. And I have let go of that search for perfection, which I certainly wanted as a younger person, and gone for more authenticity and kindness and empowerment. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10,

available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. When sort of moving forward a little bit, sister maggie a little bit further into life who also ended up i guess staying in vermont right oh my whole family stayed right and she seemed like she really followed like her own drum beat to a certain extent but later in life i guess there was a different drum beat that started to emerge towards the very end. But tell me a bit more about her. She and I were barely two years apart. She's younger. And she ended up being a nurse practitioner in Vermont, like a real true Vermont person, raised her own food, her own meat, you know, honey, maple syrup,

and was really the doctor of her little town and her area. She was a very brave person. And she also was an artist, beautiful artist. And she kind of thought most of what I did was woo-woo. She called it woo-woo voodoo, especially since she was a Western medicine practitioner. But she also was proud of me. And we did not have the kind of relationship where we processed, because she didn't do that. And there were lots of secrets that we had never told each other and hurts and very typical sibling things. We loved each other. We'd get together at holidays. Our

kids were devoted cousins. But we had a lot of old wounds from each other that we had never explored. Some, you know, kind of silly, but some really deep. And so when I tested as her bone marrow match, of course, I immediately went to the mind-body aspect of it. And we should say also, the reason you were testing in the first place. Oh, she had lymphoma, a very serious kind. And her first treatment put her into remission for seven years. And she lived a very vibrant life. Those seven years made a lot of changes in her life. But then when it came back, she was going to die very soon unless they found someone who tested. And siblings have the best chance of testing, not parents, not children, but siblings. Testing is what they call a perfect match, a perfect genetic match.

All 10 markers line up. And all the sisters tested, and I was the one who matched her, which she found rather hilarious since she thought we were so different. So I had the idea, well, maybe if we could create this field of love, because after someone gets a bone marrow transplant, there's a chance two things could kill the person. One, my cells could attack her body. That would kill her. Or her body would reject my cells, and it's called, or her body would reject my cells. And it's called rejection or attack.

It's very common, happens all the time. In fact, I just lost a friend last night post-transplant to that very syndrome. So I thought, rejection and attack, well, that's what we've spent a lifetime doing as siblings. Maybe if we went through a path of forgiveness together, revelation, like, I did this, I'm sorry, you did that, will you apologize? Really quickly, because she literally was going to die in weeks if she didn't have the transplant. So we went through that. You know, when your life is on the line, you'll do anything. And for her, doing anything scary, the biggest thing was these therapy sessions with me.

But they were amazing. And we went through stuff really fast and like real warriors because we had to. So like what would a sort of a session look like or a conversation look like for you? Well, to bring back that aspect I said earlier about me standing up to my father. So my sister Maggie was in a marriage for a long, long time. And it was not a happy marriage and not a safe one for her. And none of us knew it. She didn't tell any of us. And it wasn't until she

got cancer the first time that she finally left him and started a new life. So when we went into this session together, I said to her, you know, when I went through my divorce many years ago, you completely abandoned me. In fact, she wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't even let me come to her house. And I said, that really hurt. What was that about? Now, you would think two intelligent women who loved each other might have had that conversation like 15 years earlier, but we never did. So many of us never have these conversations. And it wasn't rocket science. She was like, I am so sorry I did that. It eats me up that I did that. But I was afraid that if you came into my house, I'd want to do the same thing. I didn't want to be around you

because it scared me that you had the courage and you always had the courage. You stood up to dad. You like, you had this courage I didn't have in that realm and I didn't want it and it pissed me off and I just didn't want to be around you and I am so sorry. Hearing that was just, that's all I needed. It was powerful and healing and explained this big confusion I'd had, like what had I done. And then I got to hear from her things that I had done that I could then apologize for. And we went through it very fast, you know, the kind of things that might take couples years to get the courage. And it gave me this sense of, why can't we be radically honest with each other as human beings? What is it in us that makes us hide out from each other, not tell the truth? Now,

I then, of course, being the kind of person I'm like, I'm going to go try this with everyone. And, you know, buyer beware, you don't try it with everyone. There are some people who just are not safe. You unload your heart and then they use it in some way against you. So it's really important, I feel, to practice radical honesty wisely when you can do it. And I often think you can do it a lot more than you think you can and take little baby steps. But I learned how important and deep and talk about a spiritual path, cleaning up the lies and the secrets and stepping into true love together. Yeah.

How did that change your relationship? Because this was short and intense. This was a matter of weeks, right? Yeah. And then I had my bone marrow harvested and then put into her. And then we spent a year. I spent almost a year doing almost nothing but being with her and taking care of her because it's a very hard recovery. And we became, I don't know, I feel as close to her as anyone.

And then her cancer came back and she died. It's three years ago now. So I felt this sense of we got each other. And she got a lot of things from that process with me, not just with me. She transferred it to many of the people in her life. So it's like one of the great love stories of my life. Yeah, I often wonder that same question you wondered, which is why don't we have those conversations earlier?

What is it that so often leads them only to happen when was for this to take, for this transplant to take. It's not just about harvesting and transplantation. There's like a bigger shift. How can we optimize her state of mind, her state of body to make it the most hospitable and increase the chances of doing this? And that turned into something. Did you see coming the depth of the change in your relationship when you started the process? Yeah. I mean, the minute I heard from the hospital that I was the match, I saw it changed everything for me because I knew right away I wanted to do it.

There was no question that I would do it. And I don't know, it just felt like a great honor. And it also, I felt like it was a good thing it was me of the sisters, because I think it would have been harder for my other sisters. In what way? One of them was not in great relationship with Maggie. The other, my oldest sister, is such a caring person to the point of just being overwhelmed by relationships. I think it just would have been too much. You also decided to write about this. What was it like for you?

Because writing about this means to no small extent reliving so much of this. What was that experience like for you? Well, I don't really know what I think until I write. So I started it not to write a book. I just started it and I was writing all along. And so was my sister and a lot of her words are in the book. And I was just writing to make sense of it. And this whole idea, it was shadowing a time in our country that we're fully in now where tribalism was rising and the inability for people from different sides to talk to each other, just to talk to each other, to see the shared humanity. I wanted the book to be both my story and an invitation to people to have difficult conversations. Yeah, I mean, it is such an important point for us to find ways to have these conversations now.

And I think you brought up something which I think is really important not to skip over, which is that, yes, these conversations in this step, this level of transparency and truth can be transformational in so many levels. And at the same time, they're not for everybody. And that there has to be some kind of sense of safety before you can go to that place together. It has to be not just an agreement, but an actual experience of safety before this can happen in a way where it's truly constructive for both people. Yeah. Therefore, I think two things are in order. if it feels naive and dangerous, that most people would like to do this but are too afraid and don't have the skills.

I often think of us as like teenagers at a dance, you know, and everybody's all awkward and just waiting for that one person to say, hey, you want to dance? Like, I have experienced now since going through the process with my sister, people so relieved if, let's say, I'm in a meeting at work and someone says something and I'm feeling it as a personal attack. And instead of storing it and then creating a whole story in my head, oh, why did they do that? Interrupting the storytelling and saying, oh, hold up. Why did you say that? What did you really mean? And then the person can be like, oh yeah, I'm sorry, that came across as really harsh. I didn't really mean that. What I really meant was. And then suddenly

it's a squishier field and And you can say, really? Because I've actually been sensing over the past couple of weeks that there's weird stuff between us. Would you feel good like going for a drink after work and trying to like, so that kind of thing. I think most of the time people will be grateful that you were brave enough. I've actually been calling it the new kind of first responder because it's scary and tough. It's tougher sometimes than running into a burning building to interrupt the story and say, can we get real? Okay, that's number one risky thing. And the other thing, though, is to be smart about it,

because there are some people who just will not play with you. Either they're very defended and too scared and wounded, and that kind of transparency is just too much, or they're narcissistic, hostile kind of people who are like, oh, good, someone I can take advantage of in their weakness. So both have a good bullshit detector and be super open and optimistic about the human potential. Like that's a fine line to walk, but I think it's worth trying.

Yeah, no, I love those. I think it's worth trying. Yeah. No, I love those. I think it's completely, I'm raising my hand also. I can aspire to trying that more, to having those conversations. And I think also, I wonder how you feel about this also, and then we'll kind of come full circle, is the idea of the shorter the amount of time that unfolds between the perceived wrong and the time that you actually say, let me risk having this conversation and seeing if they're safety and see if we can actually resolve this. The longer the amount of time, the harder it is because A, stuff festers, but also B, then you start to add shame to the equation of not having had the wherewithal to address this and to actually take care of this. And now you don't want to address both the original incident and the shame that's been built up, even if it's only perceived shame and it's not really there. Right. And there's shame. And then there's like the blame you have begun to foist upon the other

person who may not even be aware that anything even happened. This is writ large in humanity. This is what tribalism is. This is what happens when one group of people thinks that group of people thinks that. And it's the core problem for human beings. So if we can start small in our circles at work and home, I actually think it's as important as if your job is at the UN or something. Like, start small and do it real. Yeah, which also brings us kind of full circle in an interesting way, because I think another way to say that is sort of social justice starts with personal justice, personal conversations, personal reckoning.

Absolutely. And it's been another being in the catbird seat all these years at Omega and watching. We invite to our campus for free many, many, many groups each year, nonprofits and social justice people, to hold their retreats with each other on our campus. It's something we give to them. And I'm always amazed at some of the like, peace groups are like super angry people, or, you know, the super judgmental and blameful. And, and, of course, I mean, going back to my theory that it's not about being perfect. But if one could combine work on self with work in the world, I think we'd be way more effective in our work. Yeah, agree with that. So as we sit here, this is Good Life Project,

so if I offer up the phrase to live a good life for you, what comes up? Well, to live a good life for me is to walk my talk, you know, to have cherished ideals and morals and beliefs, but to align them with the way I live. Because I think a lot of stress and unhappiness comes, at least for me, when I'm not living up to what I know I could. And especially if I talk about it and write about it, I want to try to live it. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. And thanks to our wonderful sponsors. If you love the show, please support them.

They help make the podcast possible. So check out the links in the show notes. See you next week. Making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. very.