Know Thyself - E61 - Marianne Williamson, Heart-Centered Leadership: A New Political Paradigm

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson joins the podcast today to share what a new political paradigm looks like, in a world of heart-centered leadership.  Williamson first ran for president in the 2020 election, where she was heavily criticized by mainstream media for her emphasis on a return to love in governance. Today, as she is running for office again, she shares her perspective on how our current system is broken and what it would look like to create a brighter future for America. She opens up about her struggles with the media and the judgement of others, revealing what the future of embodied, feminine leadership looks like. She also shares why it is essential for the spiritual community to step up and take a stand for the collective. ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:03 Breaking Free from the Prison of the Ego Mind 6:09 It's Time to Stop Playing Small  7:13 Our Destined, Collective Return to Love  12:36 Merging a Spiritual Revolution with Real Change 15:04 Why We Need Spiritual People in Politics 21:50 Choosing the High Road within Criticism 23:52 Why Love Must be Fierce  35:26 Challenging the Patriarchal Perspective: Embodied Feminine leadership 42:31 Blackballed by Mainstream Media: The Importance of Political Conversations 45:40 The Dying World and the Birth of a New World 48:43 Thoughts on Robert F Kennedy's Campaign 50:40 Marianne's Action Plan: How We Change America  59:44 Maintaining Inner Peace in the Fire of Politics 1:01:43 Resentment Towards the System and Men 1:02:20 Conclusion  ___________ Marianne Williamson is a bestselling author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader. For over three decades, she has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 15 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that has delivered more than 16 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. Williamson ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Website: https://marianne2024.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariannewilliamson/ ___________ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

We are living during two simultaneous phenomenon. One world is dying, crumbling before us, falling apart. At the same time, there's another world, a far more beautiful world, struggling to be born. You have a third of America's workers, living on less than 15 an hour. Half of them cannot even find a place to live. Policy after policy after policy, based on making it easier for those who already have capital to get more and increasingly harder for everybody else to then get by. Democracy is not delivering on its promises.

You know, I've advised presidents. I've advised senators. And at a certain point, you think to yourself, I'm tired of advising you. Just get up and let me sit there. Running for president is a chalice like none other. They come after you for a frontal attack. And people saying the most vicious,

I'm not going to let it paralyze me. I don't know how to ever forgive myself. Courage is needed at this time. Bravery is needed at this time. And that's the conviction. Is there a part of you that resents both the system and men. But the system?

Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome back to the Know They Self podcast where every single week we get the honor and privilege to sit down with a brilliant mind, beautiful soul to see how we can learn more about the true nature of self and the world around us at deeper and deeper levels. My guest today is a political activist, a spiritual lecturer, an author of 15 books, many of which have been number one New York Times bestsellers. She has been a spiritual guide for decades for millions and millions of people. and she also founded the L.A. and Manhattan Center for Living and co-founded the Peace Alliance.

She is going to be a 2024 presidential candidate, and you've probably heard of her because she's awesome. Marianne Williams, and thank you for being here today. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. One of my favorite quotes from you, and I'm sure many people because it's so popular, is that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It's not our light, but our darkness that must frightens. us. I think at many times in our development of being human, we taste innate capacity, the power

that we have within. Why do you feel like that can be so scary? Well, you know, that quote is from my book, A Return to Love. And the subtitle of that book is Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. So really, it's taken from a Course in Miracle's notion, which is that the biggest enemy, the opponent, what the course calls the ego self, is, it. And it's the fact, is the very idea of a small and separated limited self. Now, that small, separated, limited self, which is really nothing other than a false belief, is given life through the faith we have in it.

So if I recognize that actually I am one with God, therefore all of the power of God is within me when my mind and my heart are aligned with his power, that the power of God flows through me, that within that space of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, all things are possible. That small limited self says, no, don't go there. Because if I go there in that moment, that small self dies. So to the extent that I identify with that small self, which the world tells me to do,

the world says you're a body. The world says you were born and then you die, whereas, for instance, the course says your physical birth is not the beginning of your life but a continuation. Your physical death is not the end of your life but a continuation. If you open up to that, then all those false beliefs dissolve and the part of you attach to those false beliefs gets very scared. Now, you can't, what the psychotherapeutic approach of the world is, is, well, just try to make things better.

within that small limited kingdom, you know, take your prison, you know, and gild it with gold. But the spiritual approach is realize you're not imprisoned. It's the prison of your own making. You know, I read an article once about elephants. And these elephants were encaged in a fenced area. And then they took the fence down. But those elephants, they didn't realize. Now, I think that probably changed.

I don't know because I don't know after what happened. But at least at the moment, they still stayed within that cage. Because the thinking of the world tells you that you are a being within that cage. And it's terrifying. It's a perverse comfort zone. So it's terrifying to assume that we are bigger than that. And then the ego mind says it's arrogant of you that think that. Well, from a spiritual perspective, what's arrogant is to think that you're the small self.

because God doesn't create small selves. God only creates greatness. So we have arrogance and humility upside down. So beautiful. And it's interesting because running for president, one of the things that I see is, how dare you? Who thinks you can do that?

On the U.S. Constitution, the affront, not just to the patriarchy or anything like that, the affront to the ego mind, because I see as much of that, how dare you, from women is for men. And it's such a testament to this belief that no one should be able to do that. Well, actually, everyone should be able to do that. That self-created prison that we create for our mind,

that identification and attachment to this identity that we have that is attached to all that unworthiness and self-doubt and self-shame. That later part of the quote talks about how as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. So I'd love for you to share how our own self-awakening, the ripples that that has on the world is huge. Huge. Well, the first thing is we all, and I do think women do this more than men, there's this subconscious belief. If I play a little small, you'll approve of, you'll be more likely

to approve of me, which unfortunately is true. Because in ways that I just spoke, if you really claim, well, why not me? There are people who will not be happy with you. So the people-pleasing aspect is a large part of the answer. Why do we do it? Because we're afraid we all want to be loved. And that's the courage involved in standing up for who you are. The courage to know, some people are not going to like this, but there are other people just waiting for you to get there. And you're not attracting the other people who are playing the game that big because you're still hanging out playing the game that small. And one of the ways you play that game small is by trying to appease people who are playing a game that small and get very threatened when they see you

not doing that. But then you realize actually when you do play bigger, people love you for it. It's just a kind of view, often a different group of people. So powerful. I love the way that you broke that down. I feel like it's so important, not just on an individual level, but on a collective level, to realize the space between stories that we're in right now and not having fully moved past the old idea of separation and not fully having embrace the unity consciousness if you want to call it that. And so how important do you feel like it is to place the time that we were currently in as a humanity in a larger context of the human consciousness developing? This is not just the current time we're in. This has been going on for

millions of years. The course of miracle says that the idea of separation occurred millions of years ago in time as we know it, although in reality it never occurred at all, because actually it's just a false belief. You cannot make yourself not one with it. God. So the idea here is, God is all that is, and we are ideas in the mind of God, and that an idea cannot be separated from its source. But the idea that we are separate from God, that we are separate from each other, that we are separate from the universe, the course of miracle says it made itself known in human consciousness millions of years ago, but then it says in reality it never occurred at all. That is because only truth ultimately exists. It's just a false belief. It's

an illusion. It's a hallucination. But it dominates the planet because the idea that we are one gives us love. The idea that we are not one gives us fear. I'll give you an example. I have a new granddaughter and my daughter and my son-in-law are just completely adoring of her. They're wonderful parents. And like most new parents, certainly the new parents who can, just she's so, It's so clear that danger and fear have not entered into her consciousness. Just her body language is the way she lies back. So completely undefended. And you see in a baby who is loved what that looks like.

Constriction hasn't entered in yet. Fear hasn't entered in yet. Defensiveness hasn't entered in yet. So when we are in that place of unity consciousness, we're in love with each other. When we are in separation, we are in fear. I'm fear that you won't like me, fear that I'm not as good as you. Fear that I'm better than you, which is also fear. A belief that I'm better than you also breeds fear because it breeds separation.

Separation consciousness is a life of fear. The Coorsy Miracle says that the world in which we live is dominated by a thought system based on fear. This started way, way, way before the modern era. Now, you and I are living, I believe. in a particularly mean spirit of time. Separation, particularly our economic system, has bred so much survival consciousness, almost dog-eat-dog, which is a malfunction of capitalism. We can talk about the high side of capitalism. We can talk about conscious profit, appropriate competition. But then there's this like, man, if you win, then I lose. If I win, if I win, you.

lose, all of that stuff, which is keeping us separate and has bred particularly a particular kind of mean-spiritedness at this time. Now, I'm going to go out on a little bit of a limb here, and I'm going to say something else. I think the higher consciousness community has unintentionally contributed to this. This constant harping about self-reference, this constant harping about you, you know what, life is not just about you. Sorry.

You know, and I see some of the ways in which we, and I say we because it's my world, you know, where I've been professionally for, you know, I was blessed because when my career started, talking about these issues of spirituality and higher consciousness, when I began in 1983, within two years, the AIDS epidemic had burst onto the scene. So consciousness of the suffering of the other was never not there. The need to attend to the pain of another sentient being was there from the beginning. And I saw what happened to this entire field among those who had been seduced into forgetting that there's something outside yourself. Because even that sign, know yourself. Once you know spirituality, you know, I love how The Course of Miracle says, don't look to yourself to find yourself, for that's not where you are. You are ultimately within me,

as I am ultimately within you, because this whole time space thing is just part of the illusion, as Einstein himself said. So on a realm of spirit, there's no place where I stop and you start. So I cannot know myself unless I am willing to know you. And the course says, you think, once again, the limited mind, you think you're going to know someone to judge and go, I'll figure out whether or not you're lovable. The course says until and unless I love you, I can't know you. That deep-rooted mythos of materialism that's rooted in the idea of separation says that we can destroy ourselves and destroy nature so as long as we can continue to make money and continue to make this machine working. Bingo. Bingo.

So how do you feel like it's necessary and is it necessary for a spiritual revolution of sorts to have to happen in order for this idea to really transmute? Well, it is, yes, and that spiritual revolution of which I am very aware, which I've been deeply involved with for decades, can't stop within its own confines. I mean, it's really nice, you know, like looking at, I mean, who wouldn't want to just hang out with each other? And for decades, that kind of worked. Mainstream culture didn't care about us, and that worked for us that it didn't. It was convenient for all concerned. Just leave us alone. We're in Topanga, right? And that really worked, you know? But now

what's happened is this tribe of ours has said, okay, well, I'm going to just heal myself, which is all I can do. But at a certain point, no, actually, it's not all you can do. And the chorus in miracle says, you can't bring light to the darkness. Darkness must be brought to the light. So at this point, for instance, take politics. A lot of people would say, well, I'm after the light. I'm after higher consciousness and forgiveness and mercy and love. The last thing I want to do is touch something as toxic as politics. Very valid to say. But look at what happened over the years. Great. All the people thinking with love, consciousness, ethics, forgiveness, mercy are over here. So who's left to run things? Hello.

Right. Hello. And the more we disengage, the more toxic it got. Now, for a long time, we thought, well, you know, it's a toxic world, but somebody's like minding the store and like it won't become fascist or anything. Hello. And so what I see happening now in the higher consciousness community is that part of the lifting of consciousness now is to know, oh, we got to go in there. We're going to have to go in there. We can't. We're still citizens of this country. And the fact we can even hang out in these beautiful places is a right granted to us by an ideal which all of us are responsible for. All of us, I don't care what tribe we're in. All of us are responsible for tending to that ideal and expanding that ideal. And the idea that they wouldn't come up for,

you is naive. I want to ask you personally, because you have obviously had this inclination towards mysticism and spirituality. And now stepping into the dragon's den of politics, do you not feel at times paralyzed or crippled approaching the seemingly insurmountable amount of institutionalized corruption that you so passionately want to transform? You know, Martin Luther King said,

we must have quantitative changes in our circumstances and qualitative shifts in our souls. It's a yen and a yang. You are here in this beautiful place. the environment created very peaceful, but somebody actually had to take a hammer to a nail to put those things on the wall. Somebody had to actually put those things up. And that's beautiful too. The physical execution of what had to occur to create this non-physical environment, the relationship between those two is part of the beauty of the human experience. It is both, right?

So that's what politics should be. Politics should be that, yes, it's external execution, But that's got its beauty as well. So you ask me, do I mind the corruption? Do you feel I sometimes paralyzed by it when you approach? I feel heartbroken by it. I feel hurt by it. And I'm definitely informed by it. For instance, they think what we're talking about here is nonsense.

You and I know, we know what they're talking about is nonsense. So that was the first hit, just the derision and the mockery, which is why we've hung out in our own tribe all these years. We were fine with the fact they didn't even want to talk, you know, about us, acted like we weren't there. Fine. Now that through my candidacy, there's some making of this known, the derision, the mockery, which isn't just of me. It's of you and any of us who read these millions of books. I love how somebody said to me the other day, not to me, but in an article I read, he was talking about my candidates and he said, well, I just wish we could have a movement leader. They don't even get,

this is this bigger movement as anything they've got going on. Look how many podcasts we are. Look how many books we are. Excuse me. Right? Okay, that's number one. Now, what I am realizing is that if you actually stay around, they thought they could get rid of you just by mocking you and making fun of you and calling you woo-woo and crystal person. Then if you say, well, no, actually, I'm going to hang around because this needs to be done and said. they come after you full frontal attack. Is it paralyzing? Not paralyzing, but it's painful.

I'm not going to let it paralyze me. I don't know how to forgive myself. And I think that we have to create a template of possibility here so that hopefully I'll hear more people in our, like I hope I will be up in a place like this and here, maybe I will. Today, hear one of you say, you know, I'm running for city council in Topanga.

When I ran for Congress, by the way, I did wink Topanga. Shocker. I'm on the cool places. Right, right. I see that for sure happening. I love what you're speaking to. I think a lot of people have this romanticized notion of spirituality of attaining this bliss state and then you could just disappear into the beaches of Hawaii.

But there comes a point, especially as you grow your awareness, that the amount of pain in vitriol and bigotry that's out there, the pain of witnessing that, far outweighs the comfort of staying in your own little bubble of idealism. And so I would love for you to share more about the privilege and the weight of responsibility. Well, first of all, I think it's important to know that there is no serious spiritual path anywhere that gives any of us a pass on addressing the suffering of other sentient beings. This is just a new spiritual capitalist concoction that came about, it's really with this white bread spirituality. that's really a pseudo-spirituality that came around in the last few years when people decided

realize how much money there was to be made and all this. So you just only talk to people about themselves because anything else makes them uncomfortable and that's what they want to buy tickets for, blah, blah, blah, and that's just what happened. And it's particularly painful to me when I see my projected onto me that I'm one of those because I'm the one who's been in the movement saying, no, from the beginning, because of my experience with people with AIDS. Now what's happening? People aren't stupid.

And people are standing on that beautiful beach in Hawaii. And many of them, I mean, we have a shadow side of our own. You know, we have the ditsy shadow side of our community. But that's not who our community is. Our field, our tribe, whatever. People who read books on Buddhism, who meditate, who do all the things you and I are talking about, also realize that climate change has already reached a crisis catastrophic point. people who went to the things we're into also realize I can't just drink green juice there's P-Fas in the water

they're poisoning the food I can't get everything at whole foods and even if I can afford it what about the people who can't so I think that that's already happening this is not a moment you know sometimes when people say to me Marianne you shouldn't run for president you should just help lift consciousness consciousness has been lifted that weren't happened, your podcast wouldn't exist. You are actually not so much bringing people as maintaining and expanding, listening and audience. It's here now. But the point is not to uplift consciousness. You can even see in, if you can see in poll after poll, the American people are a little bit left of center. We're decent people. You actually see in polls. The problem is the sclerotic political system that actually, particularly through the undue influence of money,

i.e. corruption, really sits on top of the will of the people. So I just don't know what we can do except get in there. I mean, we can talk about it all day, but at a certain point, yeah, we have to get in there. We have to, you know, I've advised presidents. I've advised senators. I haven't advised presidents, I've advised a president, and I've advised senators. And at a certain point, you think to yourself, I'm tired of advising you. Just get up and let me sit there. I think, you know, the rising popularity of the, you know, stewarding this like new possibility for the earth that you're championing. I'm curious, in what ways do you feel like, because it's not just what we do, but who we are while we do it. Absolutely. Everything we do is infused with the consciousness.

So in what ways I'm curious for you personally, do you feel like you are personally limiting or enhancing the size of the success of the campaign based off of your own embodiment? Both. You know, in every moment in life, no matter what circumstance we're in, we are both invited to play the highest possibility of who we are, as well as tempted to fall into our ego default positions. And that's two of me, like a two of every human being. But I can tell you, running for president is a chalice like none other. And so if somebody behaves in a way that is incorrect and appropriate or unfair, how are you going to deal with that? When I deal with it elegantly? When I deal with it, you know, I've always said for years, when I practice what I preach, my life is fine.

So, and this isn't anything else. Are you dealing with it non-reactively? Are you dealing with it generously? All those things that we know. it's about putting into practice then I expand the possibilities when I remember why I'm here what this is for

to love each person to meditate in the morning then we're fine when I get non-reactive when I get angry that they said that lie about me or whatever and I get into a reactive place around it

then I limit the possibilities it's no different than anything else just bigger it's saying it's all bullshit until it's tested in the fire you know and well it's not all bullshit it's just that it's all

theoretical and abstract. Sure. And the course of miracle says, enlightenment begins as an intellectual concept, and then it makes its journey without distance from the head to the heart, to the visceral places, where it's practical. And one of the things I love about the course of miracles is it says over and over again,

this is a practical course. It's about practice. I love how you share how we need to become as convicted behind our love, as so many are convicted behind their hate. and because oftentimes like fear goes to greed and goes to power grabbing whereas people that embody love oftentimes can then become taken advantage of and so I love how you show up as with how love can be very fierce love must be fierce when you say people who show up with love get taken advantage of actually people who show up with fear get taken advantage of you create what you defend against

if you treat me wrong and I stop my feet and say you can't treat me this way. I'm going to attract somebody who's absolutely going to treat me this way. If I'm calm and loving and I set boundaries, actually that's when this inappropriate behavior will stop. The people who are harnessing racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, homophobia, anti-trans, anti-Islamic, all that stuff, anti-Islam, not anti-Islam. They're, as you said, very convicted.

But also we should remember that in some cases, while in some cases they are very definitely abusing power, political power, in some cases they're simply using it. We, for the reasons I said before, the most loving people, oh, I don't want to go there. I have to, like, show up for a political rally. I have to give a donation to a political campaign. I have to like support somebody on a political and I have to I have to like put them on my social media.

And if I put them on my social media, you know, some people don't like her. So, you know, if mud's been thrown at her, I mean, they might throw mud at me and I have to protect my own brand. All that stuff. So it's not fear of what they're going to do to us. It's old-fashioned capitalist brand protection. And that's what I think is an interesting challenge for the higher consciousness community right now. I've seen people, friends of mine. Oh, I really love you, Marianne.

I really hope you'll do well. But, you know, I just really, you know, not everybody in my audience really is into that. So I just have to, you know, I mean, I really love you, but good luck. And, you know, I hope you win. I said, well, will you post about me? Oh, I just think.

So no matter who we are, there is a challenge. I'm not saying that everybody agrees with me politically. That I respect. But when it's somebody who basically does agree with you politically, but I just don't want to say it because, you know, not everybody agrees with me and then not everybody would like me. Wow. Courage is needed at this time. Bravery is needed at this time. And that's the conviction. To be convicted behind love means I'm going to do it whether people like me or not. And then what happens is I read a story once. It wasn't a story.

It was about a study. And it was a study about, and it was about women, but I don't think that this is really gender-based. I don't think it would be different. And it was about women who are in, let's say, a corporate setting. And something comes up. And the woman says, well, I don't know. I mean, I think we'd make more money this.

quarter if we did that, but that's really not healthy. I think it actually manipulates the child into behavior that's probably not healthy for them. Now, if she's the only one who says that, the whole room is silence and awkwardness, and people are thinking, what she do, go to California for the weekend, she's every, just silence. But what this study was saying is that if even one person, one person stands up and says, I agree with her. The entire system will change. The entire system will change. I had an experience many years ago when I was in Israel.

And I was on this trip, and there were a lot of funders of Israeli, like museums and art institutions and educational institutions. et cetera. But it was very, it was a trip that you would not have even known that Palestinians existed. And I knew where I was. And so I didn't want to be, you know, it was not appropriate for me to be a bomb thrower there, no pun intended, you know, to be. So I kept my mouth shut for a long time. And then the last day we were in this room where somebody was giving us a lecture about something going on in Israel. I just couldn't take it anymore. And it was my last day and the room was filled with, there were maybe around 30, 35 people in the room and they were all people who were on this trip and were donors, young, like 30s, 40s, a lot of youngish, but donors, some of

them very major donors to Israel. And the last day, I just sort of couldn't take it. And I thought it's a final day anyway. So what does it matter? And I said, you know, I just, what, how can you guys just expect us to show up, to have these conversations to support Israel? And this is we're supposed to just pretend that what the Palestinians don't exist? Now, I said that. I said, can't we even just included in the conversation what Israel needs to do? Now, I expected. that, oh my God, who invited her? I expected, well, they're not going to want, they're never going to invite me again.

There was a moment of silence, and then the entire room erupted. Yeah, what do you expect us to do when we go back to the United States? How can we, we can't, you think we're just supposed to leave? The whole room erupted. Everybody was thinking that.

What we needed was just one person. And then what was particularly touching was so, the same thing came from the woman who was leading. You know, Israel has a left. Israel has a labor party. Israel has people who are carrying their hair without all this. And I remember the first time I went, the person who was the guide said to me when I left, he said, if you're not heartbroken, we didn't do our job, right? And so I really learned something because I just gave permission. That's really what that quote is about. I expected that everybody would turn around and look at me with cold eyes.

And instead it opened up permission for everybody who wanted to say, what are we supposed to do? How do we go back? How do we justify? Blah, blah, blah. And then, of course, what really was beautiful was it was shared. I mean, too many Americans don't realize it's not like people are stupid or ignorant or uncaring. There are a lot of people as concerned as we are. You spoke to there how courage really can be the catalyst for so many people to have that permission.

And that's this moment. That's this moment. And especially when I see the whole brand protection thing in our community. And it's posturing is just, oh, it's love. No, it's not. It's you're afraid of saying it because, you know, we all, listen, we all have our shadows. And every group has its shadows. And I think that, you know, remember when the late Debbie Ford wrote that book, The Dark Side of the Light Chaser, It's a form of that. It's a form of spiritual bypassing. You have that quote in a return to love that I absolutely love. It says it takes courage to endure the sharp pain of self-discovery instead of enduring the dull pain of unconsciousness. And you know what? That applies for me now every single day.

There is something that happens that is the world. worldly voice, why don't you go home? Why don't you drop out? Who let you in here? And people saying the most vicious things that are, you just want to get in there and you just really want to write on Twitter, like if you only knew, right, whatever. If I were to do that, it would give me a momentary relief. I'm just so glad I'm done with that. And then for the rest of my life, I would feel like I let the bastards get to me, as my father would say. and that is what you're saying the sharp pain of self-discovery

rather than the dull ache of unconsciousness that will last the rest of your life because you know you didn't really go for it you forgot to do what you came here to do I think it's so inspiring it's like how are we going to make progress not that you have to take necessarily take sides although I think we do need to take stands

and really what I spoke to earlier it's the people that are indifferent that get taken advantage of not as much people that show up with love. But that pain of self-discovery, that sharp pain, it's so much more quick than the dull pain. It's more painful, but that speaks to us collectively as well as on an individual level. And that's why we need to look at it in terms of this country. We have to be willing to look in the mirror.

And that's one of the reasons I want to be president. Because I want to help this country look in the mirror with compassion, with love. We have to look at our addiction to. violence. We have to look at our militarism. We have to look at the fact that we sell arms, do you know, we sell arms to 60% of the world to autocrats? We are the largest arms exporters of the world. We have people rationing their insulin, people putting GoFundMe pages up on the internet to pay for life, saving operations for themselves, for their children, for their loved ones. We have one and four million Americans living with medical debt. And for one reason only,

the greed of the insurance companies and the greed of the pharmaceutical companies and their undue corrupt influence. That's the only reason. We have to look at this. Because if you don't look at it, the poison and the toxicity that those things represent will not go away. You know, the word of the word inertia does not mean the tendency of the object to remain static. It means the tendency of the object to go in whatever direction it's been moving. So every time we acquiesce, every time we don't stand up, every time we don't say something, we are basically conspiring with things that will poison our lives. We know this as individuals. And that's why I have said for a long time, speaking about the group in Dupanga and the larger sense of the archetype. I've said for a long time, we're the last people

who should be sitting out the great economic and political and social questions of our day. We're the last people should be sitting out. Because if you know what changes consciousness, which is at the root of all this? If you know what changes one heart, then you, more than anybody who's only thinking in transactional ways, you're the one who has a clue as to what would change the world. That inertia for indifference, like you said, it gives permission for momentum to continue to build on the negative. Exactly what I'm saying. What does embodied feminine leadership look like in a world where, especially on the political

space, it seems like to succeed, you need to be increasingly more masculine. You know, I think one of the things that it's going to take is sisterhood. You know, when I, the age of feminism that I grew up in, let's say the 1970s, it was absolutely understood that in order for any of us to get there, all of us had to get there. Sisterhood was such a part of it. Too often, when women think of feminine leadership today, they only think of the woman herself. No woman is going to succeed. see today unless there's a woman to her right and a woman to her left and a woman in front of her and a woman behind her who when that misogynistic comment gets made say stop right there

stop right there because I know myself even in running people make some incredibly disgusting comment about you that's filled with lies well you can't get on yourself and get defensive but boy the other day there was a man who's a well-known journalist and he defended me on something I almost brought tears to my eyes because I don't know where is everybody And women, when other people say, you know, I've read her books and that's not what she says. Or somebody else says, that's the most misogynistic thing anybody could say. All that stuff. We have to be there for one another.

You can't priest yourself and you can't defend yourself in certain situations. So in order for women's leadership to really work, by definition, it is a challenge to the underlying patriarchal perspective, which hurts both men and women. And both men and women have to stand up to it. So the first thing we all have to do is use our tongues and say something, write something, post something. Don't think that any longer we can say, oh, well, I'm just not into that. It's just got, we will not get there unless we are willing to be brave enough. And then once you do, all it does is change the narrative and everybody's happy.

What were you so afraid of? Now, in terms of being the feminine leader, you know, it's so interesting because I was looking at a, I was looking at a poll that came out the other day. And it was in the New York Times. It said Biden, this is by Democratic voters. Biden's 64%, Bobby Kennedy, 13%, me, Williamson, 10%. So that's pretty good, actually. That's not bad at all. But then I broke it down.

They give you the tabs. Among Gen Z, we're only seven points behind Biden. It's amazing how young people are hearing the message. You know who I did poorly with? Man. It was very hurtful to me. You know, I did something in my work once called the Aphrodite training. I'm actually a very...

I'm into all that stuff. I'm into the geisha girl stuff. I'm into Pat Allen. I'm into all that. But I get that if I'm dating you, I've often told people, because I see it. I mean, I've seen it in my life.

If I'm talking to an audience, right? I'm the masculine. The audience is the feminine. The speaker is the giver, right? And the audience is the receiver. But I've definitely learned that the same consciousness, which is basically masculine-centric that is successful for me in my career would be a failure with a man I'm with in an intimate setting.

I get that. And I am schooled in it. I went to all the Pat Allen lectures too. I believe in all that. In politics, though, it's hard. Because then I read that. And this has been spoken of in politics. if we're coming from that place, which is, you know, and women, no, we've been scarred by that.

You know, it's the Athena. Well, Athena, great. Athena creates in the world and all that. She's also a virgin. You know, nobody wants to do it with her because she's Athena. Well, in politics, I never felt in my spiritual career that that was a problem, although for me and I think a lot of women in my field, if a man, like a Deepak gets up, women never thought we weren't supposed to go listen. But I think a lot of men in my career thought, well, she's only talking to women. No, that wasn't true.

So in politics, I don't know quite how to show up for that. It's difficult. You know, Bobby Kennedy has the whole elite bros around him. You know, Jack Dorsey and Dorsey endorsed him and Elon and Jordan Peterson and, you know, they've all like, hey, like this bro thing, this elite bro thing. I don't have any of that. And a lot of the women who are the sort of elite in that world, they're very the normal Democrat lining up behind Biden. And I would love some help in that area in terms of, I don't know,

you're a man, maybe you could give me some advice because I'm failing in some way. I guess for men to really hear you, there needs to be a collective awakening for men to have a different relationship to the feminine within them, right? because that'll completely shift to see how they perceive you and the way that you're sharing. Because I think so many people are on board with what you're saying, with the energy in which you're bringing to things. And we've just lived in this. It's funny. I just went and saw this movie Barbie, right? I haven't seen it yet.

I know it's so in the side guys that have to see it. What do you think? Well, it's interesting. It's just an interesting dialogue I really found, especially within the masculine psyche, of this desire to be seen and how so much of what we do. do is actually to be accepted by the feminine, especially since we've been so wounded in the past. But it's just an interesting thing to observe how the masculine feminine dynamics and energies are held between both men and women on the planet right now. And that'll obviously lead to who is even willing to listen and hear. And then also on the same front, I feel like there's

such this big movement of cancel culture and this like illusionary. If you say something that isn't accepted by the group. You have to say it the exact right way. Yeah. Otherwise, you won't be accepted by the end group. You're going to be kicked out. You're not part of the tribe. It's just, it's vicious today on every level. Yeah. Everything that you said. I've been really just really thoroughly enjoying this conversation. Oh, thank you. It's great talking to you too. Yeah. I feel at home in a situation like this because this is my home base, you know? Yeah, it's, I could only imagine being on just the more popular news channels and the intensity of you stepping in and really embodying and putting to practice what you've been teaching for so many years is just a continual opportunity

for you to really own it. Well, when I'm actually on, I mean, the biggest problem for me has been how many of them won't have me on mainstream media. And that's why I appreciate things like being here with you. It's about going around a system that has a predetermined sense of what a political conversation should be and a predetermined notion of who should. be able to articulate the conversation that is once again already predetermined. So it's astonishing, given my place in the polls, given the fact that I am running,

some of the outlets that simply clearly I'm blackballed. That's starting to break a little bit this week. Hopefully the break will continue, but that's why I have to get higher on the polls. That's why I need people to support the campaign. That's why, you know, and even I think one of the things about this tribe, there's not a habit of financial giving to political campaigns. And if we are to really take a stand in a convicted way for love, that needs to change. And it doesn't have to be, you know, I was, I did a video the other day and I said to people, you might think your $5 couldn't make a difference. But we all know money is energy.

$5 does make a difference. $10 does make a difference. So that's one thing, that money is part of it. And it's not like this tribe can say we haven't figured out the money is important. So this is not a tribe that doesn't acknowledge money. But to acknowledge that money is necessary for political campaigns, given the unbelievable influence and institutional resistance of the corporate structure against anything like the things that we are talking about.

saying actually I enjoy it. Yeah. I enjoy it when I'm out there except the ones that are really snide and horrible. And there have been a few of those. But the majority of them, I don't, I mean, that's not been my experience. The problem is that there aren't enough of them that there is obviously the words going out, don't book her. It's just interesting, right? How are we going to make progress if we're not willing to talk to each other?

And like even like if debates aren't happening between the different candidates. It's ridiculous. And once again, and it's not going to happen unless we all pay. for it and invest in it and get serious about it and start working and get our hands dirty. That's one of the shadow sides of this tribal identity is we like everything to be beautiful. Well, politics is not all beautiful. It's not. But I saw that, like I said, for me, because my career began, the AIDS crisis was so there.

I saw the blood and the gore from the beginning. and I got, oh, being their presence for this is part of the ministry. And politics is emotional and psychological blood and gore. You know, what it does your career in the smears, it's psychological, emotional, and financial, blood and gore. But we're going to have to address that if we want to take a stand for a more beautiful world. Do you feel like in the actual realization of that more beautiful world, there will have to be a bigger death and rebirth or like it will have to get uglier before people really feel the pain? Well, it's already pretty ugly. I know.

Enough people are feeling the pain. I think we are living during two simultaneous phenomenon. One world is dying, literally, crumbling before ours, falling apart. The pillar is the foundation of civilization as we've known it. Crumbling before ours. some of those things had to die, some of those things, wow, we better fortify that pillar real quick, or this could get violent, chaotic and horrible. At the same time, there's another world, a far more beautiful world struggling to be born.

People such as yourself, articulating it, teaching it, regenerative agriculture, clean energy, food, people everywhere, they are talking about, you know, how to do it differently. That's part of the tragedy of this moment. There's no problem that we have in this country or in this world. where there aren't already the people displaying, demonstrating we could do it this way instead, but that way does not earn short-term profits for huge corporate entities that are therefore blocking the emergence of these possibilities. So we are called to be both death doilers and birth dolers. We must be careful death dolers.

You know, one of the things I feel about being president and why I think I would be good at it is because we've got to turn the ship around. we are headed for the iceberg. That could be biochemical. It could be weather. It could be nuclear. It could be AI. It could be so many things. We've got to turn the ship around.

But we need to turn it around wisely and responsibly and consciously or that would not be good. It has to be someone with almost a motherly perspective like, we're going to do this. We're going to do it really carefully. We're not going to do it in a way. We have to be careful not to, you know, we have to honor this system or that system. We have to be very careful, right? And we have to be birth jewelers. But even in being birth duels, birth is messy.

Birth is messy. There's a lot of blood and stuff. It's messy too. So we have to have grace and grit. That energy of the mother that both has that grace and grit. It's like I think of mama like lion to her cubs are both incredibly nurturing and incredibly fierce and protective. In every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives. A common characteristic of the adult female of the species is fierce behavior

when you mess with her cubs. The bear, the lion, the tiger. And given the crisis of America's children, given the crisis of the children of the world, the women of this country alone, we're not just playing the behavior of a system intent on survival. There's a lot more to honoring the goddess than putting on cut velvet and dancing on, you know, on a full moon. There's a lot more to it than that. There's a fierce side girl. And that's where I believe we need to be as women. What do you make of Bobby Kennedy's campaign and him as an individual?

What do you think of him? Well, he's an acquaintance. And I like Bobby's a person. Listen, democracy is a beautiful thing. Bobby and I have different views. The one place where we align is, is on what's called corporate capture of the agencies of government. We align on the idea that the unholy marriage of government and corporate power

is destructive of our democracy and an invitation to fascism. But he calls himself a free market capitalism guy. He says the way to heal the environmental crisis is through the discipline of the free market. Well, that's very different than what I say. I say we need to declare a climate emergency. So he and I have different views. That's all. We have different views on quite a few things.

Israel, we have a different view on. We have different views. But, you know, hey, I respect him. And he has, he's an American and I'm an American. I think what's important is that we have debates. Biden's agenda for the next four years is very different than Bobby. It's very different than mine. And what matters is what the voters think.

And all I'm asking is that the voters get a chance who hear all of us. I've asked the DNC, you know, obviously I want the DNC to, I've also asked Bobby to debate me. I've put that out publicly and I don't know why the guys don't want to debate me. Hey guys. Meanwhile, he gets the Twitter spaces on from Elon Musk and Elon Musk hasn't given me one and Joe Rogan and Lex Friedman and all those guys, they'll have Bobby and they won't have me. And then that gets back into one of the men like me and that's a lot of them like me. Yeah, I just think there's many different things that... A lot of things going on there. A lot of things going on. A lot of things going on.

Well, I think we talked a lot about the why during this podcast, and I'd love for you to highlight maybe a couple of the whats during your own campaign that you feel like are more at the forefront of what does it actually look like to implement changes. Okay. Okay, thank you for giving me that opportunity. First of all, we're the only advanced democracy in the world that does not have universal health care. I think I mentioned earlier, one and four Americans living with medical debt, people rationing their insulin in this country, 18 million people who can't even afford to fulfill the prescriptions their doctors give them. You know, it's not just a matter of uninsured, it's underinsured as well.

So there are millions of people who can afford to go to the doctor, but they can't afford to buy the medicine or they can't afford to the treatment. Their insurance won't cover it. So universal health care. And once again, as I mentioned earlier, there's a matrix of corporate power. insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, big food companies, big agriculture, big ag, big chemical companies, gun manufacturers, big oil, and defense contractors. They are a matrix of tyranny. They have financialized everything in this country. They have put these tentacles of unfettered, vulture capitalism into every corner of our world.

It's unbelievable. And it's keeping people from being able to self-actualize. It's beating people down. It's why people can't, you know, why people are laden with these college loans. You know, we had accessible near tuition-free and tuition-free college in the United States until the 1970s. University of Florida had a system, Texas, California.

In the 1970s, the average American worker could afford a home, could afford a house, could afford a car, could afford one parent to stay home, and could afford to send their kids to college. That was the 1970s. So the basic tyranny today is the economic tyranny, which is policy after policy after policy, based on making it easier for those who already have capital to get more and increasingly harder for everybody else to then get by. And we can look at privilege all we want, but we have to look at those governmental levels. levers that are really at the source of all this. You can realize it, but then you have to vote it because otherwise the system doesn't have any problem with you're looking into your heart for where it lies. After you look into your heart, do something about it. That's really where

we are now. So universal health care, tuition-free college and tech school, which I have in every other advanced democracy, we should get rid of those college loans because that's because they should never have even existed. This was just an example of the banks and the financial institutions. Ooh, there's another aspect of human despair and human yearning and human wanting to self-actualize and get educated. Ooh, we could turn that into a profit center. The food and the carcinogens in our food, the toxins in our water, all of that.

That's big cam. That's big ag. Destroying the farmer. Destroying a sector of the reverence for the earth and food. We don't have common sense gun safety laws because of the gun manufacturers. a green energy, the catastrophe of a climate right now, and the big oil companies knew this decades ago. And of course, if you look at something like the Iraq War, the last 20 years in Afghanistan, and how much that had to do with the undue influence of Raytheon, North of Brum and Boeing,

defense contractors, the military industrial complex. As president, I wouldn't have a magic wand. It's not like I could just say, oh, you have universal health care as of tomorrow. No. The president does not have a magic wand, nor do you want the president to have a magic wand. But the president sets that moral agenda, as Franklin Roosevelt said. The president not only can set the legislative agenda, then it's going to matter. It's going to matter what kind of House and Senate you have.

You know, if you have people in the House and the Senate who only want to obstruct that, there will be a limit to what I can do. Every president hopes to have people in the House in the Senate who are going to align with his or her views. And that would be true for me. But no matter what, I would still have the power of executive orders. Mansion and Sinema didn't make Joe Biden approve the Willow Project or give more oil drilling permits even than Trump did, all of which completely nullify the otherwise healthy benefits in green energy

that are part of the Inflation Reduction Act. So this business of his hands are tied. No, sometimes your hands aren't tied. There's a lot the presidents can do. The president also has the power not only of executive orders. the president is who appoints the heads of these agencies. I'll give you an example. The head of our Defense Department is a former board member at Raytheon.

I mean, when I was growing up, people would have gone, excuse me, I'm not supposed to happen. This stuff has become so normalized. Broad daylight. Broad daylight. They don't even broad daylight. And on stuff like that, when it comes to big oil and when it comes to defense contractors, I don't care if you're talking about the Democrat or the Republican, but people must step in now. It's like with an alcoholic or drug addict, we must intervene.

So in addition to those issues, I have an economic bill of rights. People can see all this on Mary in 2024. We should have guaranteed housing. We should have guaranteed living wage. We haven't raised the minimum wage. The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. In a city like Los Angeles, I'm sure a living wage is probably $24, $25 an hour. You have a third of America's workers living on less than 15 an hour.

Half of them cannot even find. a place to live. There are people who are working who are living in their cars on this country and going into the McDonald's in order to get Wi-Fi. And one of the reasons they want Wi-Fi is to homeschool their children. And one of the reasons they're homeschooling their children is because since they cannot afford a home and they're living in their car, they're afraid that if they send the kids to school, somebody in the school is going to realize they're living in their car, report it to child protective services and then take away their children. Millions of people are living with this. So we need, obviously, raising the minimum wage.

And some people would say, well, Biden tried to get us that. Yeah. Biden did say raising the minimum wage was very important to him. He was able to unilaterally raise it for federal workers. Then he wanted to put it in the COVID relief bill. And the parliamentarian stopped him. The parliamentarian has no real political power. I assure you, the Republicans do not allow the parliamentarian to stop them. When they want to give a tax cut to the very wealthy or whatever, you know what George Bush did when the parliamentarian tried to stop him? He fired the parliamentarian.

Another thing I would do, as I mentioned before, is declare a climate emergency. We need to mass mobilize for a just transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy. And from a war economy to a peace economy. So I would be busy for four years and then you're handed over to a younger generation We wouldn't have turned a ship around totally But we would have made it around the curve Do you feel like you can win?

Yeah, of course I can The media would have you think otherwise Not only can I win the nomination If people like wake up and think What are we doing? Who do agree with my political vision But I actually think I'm the strongest person to be Trump. I think Biden is not a strong candidate to be Trump. Trump, you know, I'm reminded of a line from

FDR where FDR says, we will not have to worry about a fascist takeover as long as democracy delivers on its promises. When you don't have universal health care, when you don't have tuition-free college and tech school, when you don't have child care, when you don't have paid family leave, when you don't have a living wage, democracy is not delivering. on its promises. So it's not just that I could beat, I can beat Biden if the DNC, if the people rise up and say the DNC should not be determining what happens here. That's not democracy to say we can't have debates. What about democracy? People have to decide, are we going to stand up for democracy now or not? Because if you think it's as simple as well, I'll just wait to see

who the Democrats nominate. No, no, no, no, no. We have to now at this point. But More than that is not only winning the nomination, it's defeating Trump. We will only defeat Trump or any other Republican if we offer to the American people the agenda that allows more people to live a more self-actualized life. That's what will win. And that's what I would offer. And that's what I would give my heart to for the next four years. Your devotion to the course in miracles, I'm just curious what miracle do you feel like

you would be most supportive to you in your life and in this campaign? Oh, how I could use is that I do the workbook every morning. You know, the Dalai Lama said, in order to save the world, we must have a plan, but no plan will work unless we meditate. You mentioned early on in this conversation that everything we do is infused with the consciousness with which we do it. Modernity, and definitely politics,

and definitely a presidential campaign, is an assault on your nervous system. So preparing yourself in the morning. You take a shower, you brush your teeth because you don't want to take yesterday's dirt on your body. But if you don't meditate or do whatever your practice is to prepare your nervous system, then you're taking the stress into the day

and it will find its way into your behavior, into your manifestation. So doing the workbook every morning, remembering God every morning, The First and Miracle says, five minutes spent with the spirit in the morning is enough to guarantee he will be in charge of your thought forms throughout the day. And then just practicing what I preach, you know, and I don't, you know, I'm not an enlightened master.

I think on this campaign, I don't know, I'm making 80%. I'm 80% the person I want to be on this campaign. That's not a terrible weight. Maybe 85 on a lot of days. Many times throughout this conversation, I felt the passion behind your eyes and how you really believe that this is the time that these changes need to make and that you are doing everything that you can within your power to be the change and walk that path. One thing that we brought up earlier that I just want to bring up again in relation to the masculine

and to the men, is there a part of you that resents both the system and men? I resent the system. I don't resent men. Men have been good to me in my life. No. I love men. But the system? But the worst aspects of the system, I see as many women as men holding it up.

The patriarchy is in your head, not in your genitals. This conversation has been filled with so many nuggets, a lot of things that I'm going to continue to think on. It's been such a pleasure sitting with you here today and I'm excited to get to know you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to share before we wrap up? No, just my website. Yeah, sure. Marianne.224.com. There we go. We'll link it down in the description. Yeah, thank you so much for everybody that's been tuning into this podcast.

Thank you for coming on this journey with us. Be curious to let us know your thoughts, drop it down in the comments section below. we'd love feeling and hearing from you. Until next time, be well.