The School of Greatness - 347 Marianne Williamson on Pain, Suffering, and Finding Peace

Episode Date: June 29, 2016

"Happiness is not the absence of depression; depression is the absence of happiness." - Marianne Williamson If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/347

Episode number 347 with number one New York Times best-selling author Marianne Williamson. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, everyone? I am super excited about this episode. But before we dive in, I want to give you a quick recap of what's going on.

I just got back from Argentina last week, and I realized the week I got back here in L.A., it was good to be back. I was gone for a few weeks playing with the USA men's national handball team. But you know what? Something I typically do, this habit that I have, is when I come back from a trip, I tend to just eat a bunch of junk. I eat a bunch of crappy food. My vice is sweets. Man, put some brownies and cheesecake in front of me, and game over. I eat a bunch of crappy food. My vice is sweets, man, put some brownies and cheesecake in front of me and game over. I will crush those things. And it's always been my thing for whatever

reason. I just love sweets. It's just I got a sweet tooth type of guy, right? You know, I don't smoke. I'd never drink. I've never been drunk in my life. I'll have like a sip every once, once in a while, but I've never been into those things, but man, sugar is, uh, is my addiction. Right. And I'm on this, uh, living in LA. This is only LA. An Ohio boy would never do this unless he's lived in LA for four years, which is how long I've been here. Now I'm doing a, a little cleanse, a little juice and smoothie cleanse, uh, three days and I'm on day two and it's been a little cleanse, a little juice and smoothie cleanse, three days. And I'm on day two, and it's been a little challenging for me. My friend Lisa owns a juice and smoothie bar called Beaming here in L.A., and so I bought the cleanse there, and I've been going through it.

It's been great. It's just hard for a big jock-looking dude to not eat food and just drink it is a challenge. So I am going through a transition. The reason I decided to do this was because, you know what? Sometimes we go through a funk. We go through a funk in our lives. We go through these different seasons. And it's not always this like perfect time where everything is on and everything is doing as planned.

This is about the middle of the year right now, and I just felt like my body was a little off. I felt like a little sluggish, and I needed to kickstart something new to build a new habit. I've been allowing myself to eat too much junk food, and what we put into our bodies fuels our minds, our hearts, our souls, and our decisions. And it gives us the energy to move forward or it holds us back from really living in our greatness. And listen, I'm not going to be perfect the rest of my life, and I'm going to definitely have sugar again.

But I make a decision to kickstart a new habit and really transition into living more fully and not just indulging in so much candy and sweets. So I am on a little three-day cleanse right now. Now, I am super pumped about this interview. Marianne Williamson is someone that I've known about for a long time. A lot of my friends love her and really connect with her message. I've only watched her speak and watched a lot of her videos. I've actually not gone into a lot of her books,

but Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed spiritual author and lecturer. And she has been a popular guest on television programs such as Oprah many times, Larry King live, good morning, America, Charlie Rose, and many more. Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose, and many more. And she has 12 published books, and seven of them have been on the New York Times bestseller list, which is pretty incredible. And in this interview, we talk a lot about her new book, which is called Tears to Triumph, The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment. to enlightenment. If you've ever gone through pain or suffering in your life or depression or any of those experiences, then this is the episode for you. Or if you know someone who has, then this is going to be great for you to listen to, to really help other people in your life

get through some type of pain they're going through and suffering they're going through. And in this, we cover a lot of things, including what's the difference between suffering and pain and are they necessary in our lives to grow? Yes or no. We talk about that. How we have medicalized sadness in our society and the consequences we face because of this medication that we put on people when they go through pain or suffering depression. Also where the culture of depression came from, why forgiveness is so important for bringing abundance into your life. And wow, Marianne, I asked her a question about,

you know, what's the longest time she's gone without forgiving someone? And there was an interesting response that she said that I think you gotta really enjoy. So make sure to pay attention to that point. Also, how to get your self-respect back and so much more. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Make sure to share this with your friends right now on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,

anywhere on social media. The link is lewishouse.com slash 347. You can also get all the show notes back there. But without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Marianne Williamson. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about our guest, Marianne Williamson. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited. We were talking before that two years ago you were running for Congress here in California.

And you spoke about a thousand times in like three months. And I was fortunate enough to introduce you for like three minutes at one of your events. Thank you. And had a great moment connecting with you even though you were all over the place. But that was a cool experience for you, right? Exhilarating and brutal. Exhilarating and brutal. Why brutal? Running for office is really something.

Right. It's an experience like office is really something. Right. It's an experience like no other. Okay. What was the biggest lesson you learned from that? I thought it was legitimate for me to run because I thought that my understanding of the issues and my understanding of government was such that I could hit the ground running from day one as a congressperson. I felt that then.

I feel that now. But what I vastly underestimated was the significance of the fact that I didn't know anything about running a congressperson. I felt that then, I feel that now. But what I vastly underestimated was the significance of the fact that I didn't know anything about running a political campaign. I thought, well, you raise money and then you hire somebody who knows how to do that. And that's simply not the case. Really? What is the case? It's not like a book launch, huh? Well, interesting you say that. If I treated it like one, I would have done better. It's just a retail operation like any other. Really?

Wow. But I didn't know enough to know that I could just trust my own gut. Although when you think about it, why not go around the district and just talk to people? But you buy into this, well, people who do politics know. I didn't know enough to know what to say no, no, no to. Right, right. So that was very unfortunate. And so you've got a new book out called Tears to Triumph, the spiritual journey from suffering to enlightenment.

And I want to make sure everyone goes and picks this copy up today. And did this come from – was this an idea before you were running for Congress or did this come afterwards? No. It's interesting that you ask that because – and I'll take the water away from you. Yeah, it was pretty good. That's a good placement for you. About three days after my campaign, I was being interviewed by Maria Shriver. Uh-huh.

And she asked me if I was sad at having lost. And I told her no. And she said, really? You're not sad? And I said, no, you know, you don't go into a political campaign guaranteed you're going to win. Right. That's how many people are running against you, right? Absolutely.

Somebody's going to win. Somebody's going to lose. You understand that. She said, you sure you're not just a little sad? I said, no, it's sadness. No. She said, because I have a cousin who ran for Congress and he lost and he was really depressed for a long time. You're not sad?

And I said, about two days later, I was sitting in my apartment and I remember the moment it happened. I, I, I, it's as though I saw a black, huge black wave coming towards me. I knew what it was. I knew it was unavoidable. Um, somebody told me that buffaloes, when there's a storm, I knew it was unavoidable. Somebody told me that buffaloes, when there's a storm, buffaloes run into it. They know they can't outrun it. They run into it. I knew in that moment, this was not something I could run away from. And I'd had one other time in my life that I talk about in the book when I was deeply depressed. And so I, you know, it's like, hello, darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk to you again.

I knew what this was. But that was combined with the fact that… Simon and Garfunkel. Great. So when I went into this experience, which lasted a year. After not winning, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I had tools with which to go through this experience, not only having gone through it before, but also, well, what I had learned from having gone through it before, and that's why I tell the story in the book, is how much I had learned and how much I had grown in some really profound ways from having gone through a dark night of my soul.

ways from having gone through a dark night of my soul. But I also have seen in the last few years that we have medicalized human despair. There is a normal spectrum of human suffering. People die as you get older. There's more and more probability. Parents die, friends die, and so forth. We have heartbreaks. You go through a bitter divorce, a heartbreak, who hasn't? We have heartbreaks. You go through a bitter divorce, a heartbreak. Who hasn't? Financial failure. You go bankrupt.

Your business fails. I mean, we've all had disappointing situations in life. But we have, over the last few years, allowed this pharmaceutical, pharmacological, industrial complex to impose this medical model on normal human despair. I'm not talking about schizophrenia and serious bipolar where there's obviously a legitimate conversation about the use of psychotherapeutic drugs. I'm talking about this phenomenon. People talk about an epidemic of depression in America. What there is, is an epidemic of over-medication, but particularly over-prescription of antidepressants. Now, the FDA itself, which is hardly known for over-regulating, has warned that for people 25 years old and younger, antidepressants actually increase, not decrease, suicidal ideation. People are giving anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs like they're candy to young people.

Abilify, which is one of the single largest selling prescription drugs in America, is an antipsychotic drug. A woman was telling me the other day they're giving Abilify to her 16-year-old. So this is particularly disturbing to me for young people. I tell a story in the book about a woman who came to me, a woman in her young twenties, beautiful woman. And she was telling me that she'd been diagnosed with a, with a depressive disorder. She'd been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, all these diagnoses, you know, everybody's got all these letters after their names here and it's not PhD and MA anymore. So I have worked a lot with people in life-challenging situations. I was very active during the AIDS crisis.

As I said, I've been through my own times of pain. And I kept asking her questions because when she told me of all these diagnoses and all these prescription drugs she was on, and she'd been told to expect to be on these for the rest of her life. That's another one you hear a lot. This is what happens when you have a market-based medical system, healthcare system, right? Whereas

in a country, let's say like England, where it's not market-based, they try to get you off of it. They try to get you off of them. They say, take it for just a little while. Hello, these things are addictive for a reason, blah, blah, blah. So I kept asking her questions because there must be something that I haven't heard her say yet that would possibly explain why the girl has been told that she's the victim.

It's such a victim mentality. You have a disease. You have a disorder, right? It's not your fault. You don't have responsibility, right? And there's nothing for you to do to work through this. Except for take this medication for the rest of your life. And I know – and there wasn't – I mean she she didn't certainly didn't sound like she had a

wonderful childhood but there was no there was no story of serious abuse serious trauma that could come anywhere near and then i realized how many times i've met this young girl over and over and various people she's in her early 20s the 20s are hard anybody that's been through their 20s can tell you they're hard but they're not a mental illness. Exactly. With pathologized adolescents, it's hard. It's not a mental illness. Um, going through a rough divorce, it's hard, not a mental illness. The death of a loved one, it's hard, but it's not a mental illness. And you infantilize yourself. You, you stunt your own psychological development when you don't use these experiences to learn the things that we have to learn in order to live our lives in a way that we don't make that mistake again. I went through a breakup where for the first three or four months, all I could see was his stuff.

And I could get plenty of people to agree with me. And we all have the fancy jargon and addictive and avoidant and narcissistic. with me and we all have the fancy jargon and addictive and avoidant and narcissistic and I mean that we all like have the verbiage down and you can get all these people who agree with you about them and blah, blah, blah. After about the third or fourth month, I just began to, in just the littlest way, begin to see, well, I guess maybe I had something to do with it, right? Like that Jimmy Buffett song, you know, hell, it was my own damn fault in Margaritaville. Now, that was painful. So the first pain is to see if only I had been different, where I wasn't forgiving, where I took him for granted, where I wasn't responsible.

Exactly. Now, if I didn't go through that pain, how would I have learned what I needed to learn so that the next time out I would be more grateful for love and more understanding and so forth? That's a lot of the pain of when we go through these periods. If you see it just as a disease, it's a dark night of the soul, which is if you see it only in a context of a medical model rather than of a growth model, a sacred context where this is how you get to self-actualization. This is how you learn. You learn from your failures as well as your successes.

And also everybody says, we want to take the edge off. Where would we be today if the abolitionists had been able to take the edge off? Right. Well, where would we be if the abolitionists had not gotten upset? Where would we be if people had said to Susan B. Anthony, you know, wherever you go, you create so much drama, you know, just learn to chill. And so everybody's, so many people these days are on this artificial chill and it's not a real chill. You know, people talk about a spiritual bypass. Well, there's a pharmaceutical bypass. And I do want to say here that for anybody who might be listening to this, who's rethinking their, their antidepressant use, no one should ever, ever get off them except under very clear medical

supervision. You don't just throw them in the trash. But I do think that this is, is a phenomenon that is very dysfunctional. I think that one of the chapters in the book is called the culture of depression. We live in a very depressing world today. If you're – Why is that? Well, why is it? Well, could we begin? If we don't heal the environment and radically change our behavior towards the environment, the whole ecosystem could implode within 20 years.

ISIL is clearly out of control, right? And it's affecting all major cities and anything clearly now could happen anywhere. Police brutality, criminal justice, prison industrial complex, income inequality. I mean, if you're not depressed at looking at some of this, I think you're not looking. But if you're not rejoicing in the possibilities for greatness that you talk about, if we're not rejoicing in the possibilities for transformation, then you're spiritually and psychologically uninformed. But what's going to motivate you to make the changes in your own life and what's going to motivate you to make the changes in the world around you except feeling this is not working.

And pain, psychic pain conveys a message just like physical pain does. You can't just numb the pain. You have to reset the bone. If it's a broken leg, you have to reset the thinking. If it's thinking that's leading to it. And psychic pain, the psyche has an immune system just like the body does, but you have to work with it. And so, you know, it's like the canaries, all these depressed people. It's canaries in the coal mine.

And the owner of the mine is saying there's something wrong with the canaries all these depressed people it's canaries in the coal mine and the owner of the mine is saying there's something wrong with the canaries right there's nothing wrong with the canaries and this is i think particularly an issue when i see so many women like on this side of pharmaceutical okay because our sensitivity and our not okayness is is is part of our strength we're part of the internal warning system, I think, of the human race. The exquisite sensitivity of women who get upset when things aren't right. That's not because we're flawed. Right.

Thank you. Right, right. Interesting. So what is the difference between suffering and pain then? Well, that's funny that you say that. The Course in Miracles says words are at best but symbols. So, you know, I know that there's a conversation about the difference between suffering and pain, and I know where some people go with that,

the idea that, what do they say, pain happens, suffering is inevitable, or the other way around. I do think that there is, Nietzsche said, to live is to suffer, to find meaning, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. And what I, you know, we have learned a model in terms of medicine and healing where we understand you can't just trash your body, then experience the almost inevitable sickness, and then just try to allopathically eradicate or suppress the symptoms. You have to proactively cultivate health. Health is not the absence of sickness. Sickness is the absence of health. We have to now apply that same model to our psychological and emotional state. We can't just fight depression. We have to proactively cultivate

happiness. Happiness is not the absence of depression. Depression is the absence of happiness. And the reason we're not happy is because we're not thinking happy thoughts. So some people say to me, oh, Marianne, you can't just think happy thoughts. They might not realize what I mean by happy thoughts. You can't think of yourself as a victim and be happy. You can't withhold forgiveness and be happy. You can't fail to take responsibility for your own circumstances and be happy. You can't fail to take responsibility for your own circumstances and be happy.

You can't fail to atone for your mistakes and make amends for them and try to be a better person and be happy. You can't disengage from the suffering of other human beings or other sentient beings, not address them and be happy. So there is a way in which our entire construct as a society is a setup for despair. And I talk about Buddha and Moses and Jesus and this sort of spiritual transmissions, all of it, all the great religious systems, all the great spiritual and religious systems have at their core, the issue of human suffering. Buddha said life is suffering. And his realization of that was the beginning of his journey to enlightenment. God sent Moses to rescue the suffering Israelites who were slaves in Egypt.

Jesus suffered on the cross. Suffering is what happens when you are living within the vortex of the ego mind, the racial consciousness of the human race that repudiates love. You can't be happy here. And then the journey, whether it's symbolized by the 40 years of the Israelites in the desert or the hours on the cross and the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection is those painful times where we are experiencing the suffering, but learning the lessons so that we are then through the grace of God on the way to enlightenment, promised land, nirvana, resurrection, whatever you call it. So you're saying the only way to experience growth is through pain or suffering?

No, I don't think that. The Course in Miracles says it is not up to you what you learn. It's only up to you whether you learn through joy or through pain. And in your own work, you know, but we need to develop the mental musculature that cultivates happiness. I don't think we have to learn through pain. I think most of us have a lot of our lives. I know in my life, I don't want to learn through pain as much as I did. And that's why I've wanted to learn the lessons of painful situations so that next time I do that, I won't create suffering for myself and others. Yeah. What was the big pain that you felt for

that year after, I guess, not being in Congress? Well, it's a very public failure when you run for office. You went all in. I mean, you were promoting everywhere. I mean, everyone was behind you. Everyone's behind me. That means thank you very much. Giving money. I saw it all.

Thank you. So even though you know that people don't necessarily give money to a campaign expecting you to win, I was so aware that people showed up i was so aware i lost other people's money i lost my own money um we could have made it if i'd know more what i was doing a lot of people had to forgive i had to forgive myself so just little things like that right yeah and um there was something else you said before that I was going to speak to him. So why do you think that you weren't able to learn the lesson before then, or you weren't able to learn through the joy of it? Why do you think you needed to experience? Well, as I said

before on that situation, I, I was simply, I thought, because it's funny, I had been around a lot of people in Congress. I've been around a president at a certain point. But I had never been, since a very young age, around a political campaign. I didn't realize how important that was. Like I said, I thought you could just hire somebody to do that. It's not so simple. When I was younger, though, and the story that I tell in the book is about a period of time that was very, very difficult in my life. And I felt, and this is why I feel so strongly about our seeing our suffering within the context of spiritual growth. I went through this very

painful time that I talk about pretty much in the book when I was in my late twenties. And I felt as though my skull exploded into thousands of pieces. That sounds painful. It was a very painful time in my life. And over a period of about a year, I felt that all those pieces of this Greek vase, it felt like an ancient vase that had just shattered. And my skull, it just exploded. And it felt like very, very slowly it had come back together. And when my skull came back together, I felt that there was something in my head that had not been there before. And my career started very shortly thereafter.

And I have read articles since then. I'm fascinated by that. after. And I have read articles since then. I'm fascinated by that. I've read articles of people who've been through crises and traumas and comas and things, and they come out. I remember reading an article. I'm pretty sure it was the actress Deborah Winger. And I think that this is the, I think this is correct. I think it's that when she was a teenager or early twenties or something, she was hit in the head by a horse. I think it was, and was in a coma and came out and said, I'm going to be an actress and was never an actress. So I came out of that experience and shortly thereafter moved to Los Angeles and started lecturing. And I knew how to

get on a stage and talk. Before you didn't know how to get on a stage and talk. I knew how to talk, but I didn't know how to say anything particularly meaningful. I didn't know how to hold it together. It wasn't there yet. It wasn't there yet. But even perhaps more importantly, one of the things I talk about in the book is it's very important not to desensitize ourselves to our own suffering. Because if you desensitize yourself and numb yourself to your own pain, you're more likely to desensitize yourself to the pain of others. Part of the value or the gift of suffering, if you have to go through it, which is not to romanticize it or glamorize it, is that it gives you x-ray vision into the suffering of other people. And when my career began, it wasn't long after that, that the AIDS

crisis burst onto the scene here. And I was very involved because gay men in LA really gave me my career. They all started coming to my, not they all, but many started coming to my lectures. Sure. Because at that time, Western medicine didn't really have anything to offer until it did. And I could be with the agony of others.

I could slide into that frequency in a way that I'm not sure I would have been able to. Because you experienced it. Because I had experienced it. And I think that Americans, you know, people talk about an empathy deficit. That's too cold a way to put it. If you even look at something like the invasion of Iraq, which in retrospect, everybody gets was like, oops. How did we as a nation so easily acquiesce to a situation where even if he had had, quote unquote, weapons of mass destruction, we do business with dictators who have weapons of mass destruction every single day. You think

the Chinese haven't killed their own people? I mean, come on. What are we talking about here? We so easily acquiesce to a situation where fire was going to rain down from the sky on thousands and thousands of men, women, and children who had not done anything to us. Where is the problem just that that happened or the problem that we, there was just a little bit of a whimper of protest

compared to what there might have been. And I think that's because we've all desensitized ourselves too much to what pain feels like. So do you think when we're going through an experience of pain or suffering or whatever, we're going through depression, that we should feel the feelings fully or how should we experience that time? And how long should we be in that pain before we're like, you know what? Enough is enough.

Let's get out of this crap and start thinking positively. Very good point. Well, once again, there is that symbol of the 40 years in the desert, the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. And I saw this. I've seen this in my life. The congressional campaign was an example, but I've had other times. And if you're honest, when you really take a look at yourself, this is the truth. Let's say you know that I went through something painful and you say, Hey, Marianne, I'm really sorry. I heard about your divorce or heard about your banquet, whatever. And I'm like,

thanks so much. And you say, you know, let's go have a drink. Let's talk about it. And you're really there for me. But if six months later you see me again, and I'm telling the story, you're not going to naturally feel like, oh, let's go out and talk about it. You're going to actually be a little repelled. You can feel it in your gut, and other people can feel it too,

that point where processing becomes milking it. Talking about it becomes spewing. Being a victim for too long, whatever, right? And other people can feel it too. And when you're in that holy tomb time, as my friend would say, people have a natural, hey, I'm sorry, you know, heard about that. I'm here for you. Conscious people. And when somebody's, it's become their calling card their victim story

now you're you're doing too much i know he hurt you but you're bad mouthing him in public no that's not cool you and that's how and also you know people talk about but at what point do you need medication because it's gone on too long here we are everybody's talking about the wisdom of the body the genius of the body everybody's doing muscle testing because the body's so smart why don't we count tears as part of that? If the body is so intelligent, why are we assuming that it's not intelligent about how many tears you have to cry? So if you have 44, when you say, how long does it go on? However long it has to go on. If you're conscious, if you're meditating, if you're working on forgiveness, if you're doing your spiritual

work, that's a chapter on forgiveness. There's a chapter on relationships to do our work. And then if you have 45 tears to cry, 35 is not enough. And if you do a pharmaceutical bypass or whatever you do to self-medicate, to numb yourself, to distract yourself, it's in there. I mean, even talking about the campaign, I can talk about it. I don't think I could talk about it. Because the only way to clear it is to move through it in life. And then there are lessons learned and hopefully ways that you can be a better person. What do you think, uh, or how long of time is the longest time you've

held on to not forgiving someone else or yourself for something that's happened in your life? Um, the lawyer who threw me under the bus and cost me a lot of money. I had a hard time with that. When was this? Around 15 years ago. How long were you holding on to that? It was a hard one.

We're talking years, we're talking months, we're talking years. I was bitter. A decade? Yeah. Did was bitter. Decade? Yeah. Did you finally forgive? Yeah. But you see, once you know spiritual principle, spiritual principle, certainly as it's articulated

in something like The Course in Miracles, says that you are 100% responsible for your experience. You and I might both go through the same experience, but how we contextualize it will determine its ultimate effect. Like I was saying at one of my lectures the other night, that I see more marriages break up not because of infidelity, but because of the other person's inability to forgive the infidelity. Makes sense.

Someone was talking about, we had a great marriage for 25 years. He went out, he had an affair with a girl. They did it around four or five times. It's been two years. He wants to remain in the marriage. He's really sorry. I can't forgive him.

25 years. Yeah. I mean, so, right? And fortunately, she got that and she saw that too. Forgiveness means that you are at choice. What are you going to focus on? Are you going to focus on the person's mistake or are you going to focus on anything they ever did right? Now, to the extent, the way the mind operates, to the extent to which I'm focused on what you did

to me, to that extent, I will be emotionally at the effect of what you did to me. Only if I'm willing to take the hook out of you, will the hook be out of me. Now, in terms of that lawyer, I wrote a book called The Law of Divine Compensation. And that book is about the fact that whenever there's a diminishment on the material plane, the universal substance will compensate. It's like if there's a hole in the ocean, it doesn't matter how big the hole, it doesn't matter what the shape of the hole, the ocean will fill it up. So from a metaphysical perspective, the Course in Miracles says God has the answer to every problem the moment the problem occurs. So that money, I had earned that money. So that lawyer, by doing what he did, and I think it was, and many people go through this, and I think a lot of women go

through this. You think the men in suits are the ones who are going to protect you and the men in suits are the ones who like, hello, awakening to that is one of them. Not every, not all of them, but so, so from a course in miracles perspective, if the money was mine, if I had earned that money, the universe, it was already programmed, programmed if I had earned that money, the universe, it was already programmed into the universe for that money to come back. But miracles can only occur where there is love. So unforgiveness and withhold of forgiveness blocks the miracle, deflects the miracle. So the bitterness in my personality was blocking the probability. For it to come back. for it to come back,

for it to come back, to go on with your life. And more than that, we'll come back to you. You are letting him, right? You, the only real abundance is love.

And so when you are in abundance of love, all the abundance that matches the frequency of your need and your ultimate desire for your good, for yourself and all living things is already programmed. So your unforgiveness and your ultimate desire for your good, for yourself and all living things is already programmed. So your unforgiveness and your bitterness, as well as your own lack of atonement about your own mistakes, blocks the flow of the universe that would otherwise bring you all good. So what was happening in this however many years period of this lack of forgiveness for

you? Were you being abundant or were other challenges coming up or did this? Well, yes, it was just one of, you know, many situations in my life, but it just came up for me because you asked what was the longest that you ever, you know, once you know, spiritual principle, that doesn't mean you automatically become a, uh, an enlightened master and you never go to those places, but when you go to them, you know that you went to them. And, oh, I know what it was. It's interesting that you say that because I thought of something from before when I

said I couldn't remember. The Buddha said that one of his four noble truths is that nothing in the material world can provide anything but temporary happiness. So the entire social construct. Can things of the material world can provide only temporary happiness. Okay. Okay. So when you apply that to our culture, you see that the whole thing is a setup for despair

because half the time we're struggling and grasping because our whole thing is you can make it, you can make it happen. Figure out what would make you happy. You can have that. You can make that dream come true. You can have that house. You can have that career. You can have that money. You can have that sex. You can have that relationship. So half the time we're in struggle and grasping, trying to make it happy because that's when we're going to be happy. Then you get there. And as Buddha said, it's only temporary. So inevitably the fairy dust, the fairy dust is going to rub off the idol. And then the rest of your time, you're in despair over the fact that what you thought

was going to make you happy, didn't make you happy. Yeah. That was my whole childhood, essentially. I was like 25. I was always striving for something, achieving and being like, why am I miserable now? Yeah. Well, I saw that in my mind the other day. I got a call that my book had reached the New York Times bestseller list. I was very happy. You're number five on the New York Times bestseller list. So for about five minutes I was like, woohoo! Let's go have a drink. No.

No, no, no, no. Yes, exactly. The ego mind is insatiable. Maybe it's just a spike. Maybe I'm just going to be on for one week. And by the way, who's one through four? Why am I not number one? And how can I be? I've been number one before am I not number one? Right. And how are you going to be? I've been number one before. Why not this time? I didn't quite go there, but I did go to what if I'm off next week?

And I just saw that's the way the ego mind works. It's insatiable. It has no capacity for enough. It has no capacity for I'm happy because I'm alive. I'm happy because I can give love and I can receive love, which is the only source of happiness. Should we be ambitious then? Well, okay. Does the embryo have to be ambitious to become a baby?

Does the embryo have to say, I will become a baby. I will become a baby. Does an acorn have to say, I can strategize becoming an oak tree. Does the bud have to say, I know I can become a blossom if I work hard enough. Nature works through us all. Nature is intentional. Nature is intentional that your heart beat. It is intentional that your lungs breathe. It is intentional that the bud blossom. It is intentional. And so when you are in your self-actualized state, which is not trying to make it happen, but allowing it to happen,

nature is ambitious through you because nature is intentional that all things rise to their highest level of creative possibility. And our struggle mode tightens us. You can feel it in your body. It puts you in a... So how do you focus every single day on not being tight or struggling? Meditation. Is that a daily practice for you every morning? I'm a Course in Miracles student, so I do the workbook of the course. I also do transcendental meditation, although I'm not daily with that like I am with the workbook of the course. There are many different paths of meditation, people doing yoga and meditation and prayer, a serious spiritual path, though,

doing yoga and meditation and prayer, a serious spiritual path though, because a serious spiritual path, which is a path of relinquishing the thought system that dominates the world, the thought system of fear and accepting instead a thought system based on love. So like, I'm not an enlightened master. I'm not beyond going to those places, but it's like the whole thing about the bestseller list. I was able to laugh at myself mightily. I was able to guffaw at myself once I saw myself going there and then you surrender it to God and say, take this false ambition away from me and this craziness. It's only here to hurt me. What would you say are some non-negotiables for you every single day?

It sounds like meditation is one. Are there a few other things? You're like, I must do this every single day. Otherwise, I'm going to feel the effects of whatever. What's non-negotiable? Like I must get a certain amount of sleep or eat a certain way. I must monitor myself. And I must get a certain amount of sleep or eat a certain way. I must monitor myself. And I must not make excuses for myself.

What excuses do you make or have to make? Well, I had a right to be angry. I had a right to be angry. No, you have. You did this to me. Yeah, yeah. You know, we have a right to feel our feelings. You have a right.

Of course, you have a right to feel whatever you feel. But maybe instead of saying I have a right to be angry, I take that back. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to be angry, but I never have a right to express it as an attack on another human being. You mean to attack back. Yes. We are too emotionally self-indulgent in our culture. We have this feeling, well, if I feel it, I have the right to say it. If I feel it, I have the right to do it. And this is a form of self-sabotage. You know, your ego mind is your self-hatred masquerading as your self-love. You know, some of the most selfish, self-sabotaging things we do these days, we call self-care, setting a boundary. Well, there are healthy

boundaries and there is self-care, but a lot of times the ego mind will use that to justify what 20 years ago we just could have called selfish jerk behavior. For example, what do you mean? Well, I need to tell you that what you just did absolutely did not work for me. Well, that's not going to open your heart. Do you know what? I might say, um, may I, may I, I have something I'd like to discuss. Is this a good time for you?

I mean, there might be feedback. There might be, but there is an appropriate way to talk about it. You know, sometimes these days we say, well, I communicated, I needed to communicate my truth, but the word communication has the word commune inside it. So if I didn't commune when I was communicating, I actually didn't communicate because if it was, if I talked to you in a way that felt like an attack to you rather than generally share. No, you're going to, you're not going to hear me. You're defensive or you're going to regard it. So there's a line in the course where it says,

it is your job to tell your brother he is right even when he is wrong. That doesn't mean tell him he didn't do something foolish when he did, but to affirm your basic value as a human being. And if you feel that from me, then within that space, this is just plain nonviolent communication skill. So when you say what's non-negoti that from me, then within that space, you know, this is just plain nonviolent communication skill. So when you say what's non-negotiable for me, and I'm not an enlightened master. I don't get it right all the time. But what I think I am pretty good at is, you know, like that line, tell the truth as soon as you know it.

I think I'm pretty good at telling myself the truth as soon as I know it. Like, wow, you really blew it just now. That was really dumb. Apologize. Send an email. Try to monitor yourself. You know, the ego mind wants to monitor you or you. How did you two?

Never wants to monitor ourselves. And are you pretty active? Do you do yoga or some type of physical workout practice? Yeah. What is it, yoga? I do yoga. And I have become less religious with my cardio recently. And I have made a commitment.

When I go home this week, I'm getting back to all that. All right. Okay. Yeah. I'm 63 years old. What? No. Wow. That's that. All right. Okay. Yeah. I'm 63 years old. What? No. Wow.

That's impressive. Thank you. Some of the stuff that's cosmetic when you're younger becomes like, no, you have to do this. Wow. It's not even like just to look okay. Gotcha. Just stay here. Sure, sure.

Gotcha. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? My daughter. Yeah. I have a fantastic daughter. How old is she? 26. All right. Gotcha. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? My daughter. Yeah. I have a fantastic daughter. How old is she? 26. All right.

Yeah. What are you most proud about with her? She's happy. She's contributive. She's achieved. She's well-adjusted. My only real regret in life is that I didn't have more kids. Yeah.

Do you have children? No kids. Not yet. Nothing like it. Really? Everything else pales in comparison. What's the biggest lesson you learned about your life from having her? It's just how beautiful life is. You know, not everything else is, I mean, love is what matters. You know, everything else is like, what are we talking about? You know, we have a society in which, and I talk about this in the book, people pay more attention to

taking care of their car than taking care of their relationships. If you could buy a Bentley, you could buy a Rolls Royce, but you're going to take it off the lot. You're still going to have to put gas in it. You're still going to have to maintain it. That's why it's high maintenance

because it's a great car. But we expect our relationships to just take care of themselves and not be such a problem. I have to do so much. No, that's kind of the point in relationships, as well as everything else. You get what you put into it. You know, sometimes I'll say, uh, at my lectures, I'll say, I don't want anybody to raise your hand or anything because I don't want to put you on a spot. But if you're in love or if you're married, did you pray for your partner's happiness this morning? Did you wake up this morning and before he or she left the house and said, just want to remind you, you are so fucking fantastic. And I so believe in you and you are so hot and you are so, did you, did you, you know, we always talk about how important it is that we build children's self-esteem. At what age do we stop needing that?

And also we talk about how it's important to tell your children to say their prayers. At what age should we stop doing that? Right? We're so clear that children, you must build their self-esteem. Well, you could use the help too, and so could I. Yeah. And it's a full-time, you know, monitoring your own life, your own mind, being vigilant on behalf of your own best self, downloading the best version of yourself, atoning for your own mistakes. You know, a lot of the pain that we feel when we go through difficult times in our lives is, you know, I messed up and if only I had done it different, etc.

You can't numb yourself or distract yourself from that pain. In all the religious traditions, spiritual traditions, Catholicism, there's confession. In Judaism, the holiest day of the year is Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement. In Alcoholics Anonymous, you have to take a fearless moral inventory. You have to admit the exact nature of your wrongs. You have to look at that. I blew it. I made a mistake and atone, atone for that. It's a, it's a spiritual, it's not self will. It's you give this to God. I did this. I get it. And I atone for that error. It's like a

cosmic reset button. And then the only way you can get yourself respect back is if you do something that would make you respect yourself. Like I'm going to be different this time. I'm not going to be that way next time. I'm going to be a better person today. And if you really see as your life's purpose to actualize and be the best you can be and rise to the occasion in every situation, including your relationships, and to be really present, you don't have time for all that other caca and craziness and criticism and blame and victimization. If you filled your house with light, darkness can't come in. And are you, you're not married anymore, right?

No. No. Are you in a relationship now? No. Well, tougher question. Okay. We'll leave it for after the interview. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up my father my father my father was a magical character although

you know as a as life has gone on i think my mother i think i undervalued my mother in some way um so i realize now that the answer is both my parents. But my father was a magical, charismatic person. Like he took us to Vietnam to show us what war was

during the war. Wow. That's interesting. Yeah, so the military industrial complex couldn't eat his children's brains.

Wow. That's interesting. Yeah. What do you think was the biggest thing you learned from him? To raise hell when you should raise hell.

Tell truth to power. Fight the revolution, he'd say. And I learned that the revolution of love is the most powerful revolution. But I think I, you know, my father died 20 years ago. I think I'm still trying to get his approval. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Why do we do that? Try to get our parents approval? Because if we didn't get it, something is, I think, especially with girls and their fathers, you know, we all know this, a girl and her father and a boy and his mother and all that stuff that has to happen or you're a little too hungry for it. I always felt that I was, I think like everybody else, you know, my, my parental drama has been reenacted in my relationship drama, just like everybody else, yada, yada, yada, you know, garden variety. But if daddy was magical, but whatever. Another book. Okay.

What do you tell your daughter? Or is there anything you haven't told your daughter that you really wanted to know? I used to always joke with my daughter and say, I'll tell you when you're 18. But by the time she was 18, I had pretty much told her everything. It's wonderful having an adult child because- Right. You can communicate a little differently, right? Oh, she coaches me.

We coach each other. Wow. You know, I'm her mother. But we've always had this kind of sisterly connection as well, I think, that goes back lifetimes. But it's beautiful. I was thinking about something today that happened in terms of business, and I defer to her decision. Really? Does she work with you?

She's better at it. No? Does she work with you? She's better at it. No, if she wanted to do that, she definitely would have the job. No, she's a historian. She lives in London. Oh, that's cool. And she wants to be a historian. She is a historian.

She's got her master's in history. She's going to get her another master's, hopefully a PhD. She wants to be a history professor. Yeah. Like if you're walking through Europe, right? And you see a beautiful wall. Let's say you're in Florence, Italy. And I would say, oh, that wall is so beautiful. My daughter would want to know when it was built, who built it, why they built it, why a wall, what were the political and historical circumstances going on at the time that they would need a wall.

Right, right. Yeah, it's a whole different orientation. Interesting. I like it. I want to ask you a few final questions. This has been great, by the way, so thanks for sharing openly. Thank you. What's something that no one's really ever asked you that you always wish they did? Personally or on a podcast where everybody would be listening? Either. It's a big difference.

Either. Big difference. Because the answer to that is nothing I want to share on a podcast. Okay. Well, afterwards, you have to let me know. I don't know. Okay. We'll skip that one.

This is something I call – it's interesting. I never heard of the Buddhist Four Truths before. Is that what you call it? The Buddhist Four Truths? The Noble Truths. The Noble Truths. I never heard of this. Yeah.

But I started asking a question about six months ago called the three truths. Okay. What'd you get? Well, I've been asking every person what their three truths are. Okay. So if this was your, you know, many, many years from now is your last day and all your books, for whatever reason, were erased from time. Right. And all the videos you put out there and lectures and everything was gone. They don't exist. Okay. And you got a piece of paper. You got to write down three truths,

the three things you know to be true about your experience in life that you would pass on to your daughter or to humanity. What would you say are those three truths? Only love is ultimately real. Everything else is temporary. Love is who we are because we are ideas in the mind of God.

That is our essence and it is changeless. It is eternal. Nothing we can do, nothing we think about ourselves, nobody else's opinion changes the truth of who we essentially are. And our purpose on this earth is to download that love and to express it to the best of our ability in every single moment of every single day. And number four, that's also true of everybody else. Okay. There you go. I like that. Before I ask you the final question, I want to make sure everyone goes and gets this book. It's called Tears to Triumph. Make sure to pick it up right now. We'll have it all linked up below in the show notes. Thank you. And also, where do you hang out most online? Where do you spend your most time?

So we send people to your website, anywhere on social media. Marianne.com. And I also have a public Facebook page and Twitter. I do Instagram, but I mainly, I hang out pretty much on my Facebook page because I, on my public page. Yeah, I don't do my personal page, but publicly. But you're all by yourself. Yeah, I absolutely am.

And I like talking about political things and I like talking about spiritual things. And it's how I feel I keep in touch with what's going on. Like everybody else, though, I have realized the addictive nature of some of that. of some of that. And so I think we're all, like everyone else, getting the dangers of too much grid time. Yeah, gotcha.

Well, if people want to connect with you, they should leave a comment on your Facebook page. Yes, absolutely. And also, I do free live streams every Wednesday night. And in New York City. Yeah, in New York City, I'm every Wednesday night. And in New York City.

Yeah, in New York City. I'm every Wednesday night at the Middle Collegiate Church on 2nd Avenue between 6th and 7th. And the link is available. We'll link it up. Yeah. And then the book, which I hope that anybody whose heart, even happy lives have sad days. Absolutely. And we need to not be so afraid of sadness.

We've taken a cheap yellow smiley face and just poured it over everything. And I think if you're going to play big, like you talk about, and you're going to play passionately in life, and you're going to risk for love, and you're going to risk for success in appropriate ways, you're going to, you know, the only way you're going to, you're going to, you know, the, if the only way you can try to control things so that you won't get hurt

is if you live small. Yeah. And so to know I can take the hits too, and I'm going to learn from those and get better. I think that conversation is something that I know has made all the difference for me and I hope that it will make a difference for other people. And I think when we're striving to achieve or be, you know, play big in the world, I think our ego is a little bit involved in some ways. I mean, it's hard to really go after something big and not have the confidence and have your ego in the way. I think it's the opposite.

Really? Because it also depends on how you use the word ego. But if you describe it as a sense of your separate self, it is, it is the way to not succeed. I've never had as big a success professionally as my first book where the word bestseller wasn't even in my – I didn't even think about it. Really? Oh, absolutely. I just hoped it would sell enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed. Right. And I've never lost weight trying to lose weight.

This whole thing of go make it happen is that set up for despair. Look at a mountain. Does nature not know how set up for despair. Look at a mountain. Does nature not know how to create something beautiful? Look at a flower. Does nature not know how to create something beautiful? Why do we think that when you look at the genius of the body, if my body knows how to breathe and my heart knows how to beat, why would I not assume that my subconscious already knows how to rise to its highest?

And when I'm trying to make something happen, I'm actually interfering. You know, the spiritual concept is God's plan works and yours doesn't. So when I'm going out there and trying to make it happen, I'm actually more often than not interfering with the natural flow. Because if I'm trying to make it happen, that goes against my being fully open to the present. For instance, you go to a meeting today, and this has become very common. You're going to a business meeting, you're going to a personal meeting, and somebody says to you, okay, now what's our intention for this meeting? Sounds really good. It is so sick, and I'll tell

you why. If I go into a meeting with you, and this would be true of my coming here today, what's my intention for this? It means that I am programming my subconscious to what? Try to manipulate you or exploit you in whatever way that I think would make this the outcome that would be best for me. First of all, it turns you into a transaction rather than a relationship. It completely demystifies the universe. It takes out any sense of sacred assignment. It mitigates against my being fully available to the experience. So it really mitigates against my being fully available, which is the only chance that anything really beautiful can happen.

Right. So what about the book, The Power of Intention? Didn't Dwyer write that book? Okay. Let's talk about intention. Buddha talks about right intention. He talks about right intention and wrong intention. When people talk today about how you got to have an intention and you got to go out and make it happen. So did Hitler. Just having an intention. Yeah, so did Nelson Mandela. But that was, well, that's why Buddha talks about right intention and wrong intention. So that the spiritual mountaintop is talks about right intention and wrong intention. So the spiritual mountaintop is not having an intention and making it happen.

The high spiritual mountaintop is an intention that you serve love, that you rise to the occasion and allow life to flow through you in the best way possible for all living things, past, present, and future. That's right intention. Evil geniuses have wrong intention, just intention of itself. Do you see what I'm saying? So metaphysics can be used for purposes of ego as well as spirit. That's the difference in the Course in Miracles between magic and miracles. These days, everybody's into magic, trying to use universal principle to get what I want. People are like using God as their errand boy. Miracles is where you place yourself in service and in devotion. Now, this is some

people think, and Christianity is what did this. Christianity as an organized religion cultivated the idea that you have to choose between serving God and being happy. But when you look at the higher metaphysic, it's the opposite. God is love. It's the only way to be happy. God's not outside you. God's inside you. So when you say in any situation, may God's will be done, God is love, will is thought. So to say may God's will be done means may only loving thought prevail here. May my neuroses not get in the way. May I only see love in that person. May they only see love in me. How could it not unfold well?

Right. Otherwise, you're just on that wheel that Buddha called the wheel of suffering. Yeah. Why is it easier said than done then? Well, it's easier said than done because the entire mindset of the human race is upside down from a spiritual perspective is based on fear rather than love and that's why everybody's depressed because the the world is constantly bombarding us with input that repudiates the essence of who we are i mean just look at that alone i can either say i'm here to love you and show up for this moment or gotta make this

successful so that then maybe it's successful in my book. And so the course says my real happiness is going to come from being present here because it's all that we've, we've talked about it. You got it. Got it. That's great. Um, okay. Well, a final question before I ask it, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you. I want to acknowledge you for showing up not perfect in the world. Or being so honest about it. I mean, showing up being honest because, you know, there are so many people who, you know, and I feel this even a little bit now that are writing books or creating big things in the world that people assume that they're perfect, that they always have the right answers,

that they never make mistakes. And so I appreciate your honesty and your realness to be a human being. Well, thank you. You know, there are such things as enlightened masters. There is the Buddha. There is the Jesus. There is the Moses. And when you have, and I do believe that that paradigm and that sense of spiritual transmission

and the vortex of that from the truly enlightened beings i respect that if i was in a line master i would know it i guess i tell you i'm very clear that i'm not so there's another paradigm and that is the teacher who is as the course of miracles calls it half a step ahead and sometimes by sharing oh let me tell you how i failed on that one it is actually can almost be more helpful yeah it's true well i want to also acknowledge you for going for it and going after your dreams of being in Congress or whatever you're doing. Thank you. And constantly pushing your own limits because even though you didn't achieve it, you went for it and you played big. And I saw it and I was a witness and it was incredible.

Thank you. And it's a constant reminder that I go through things all the time that don't work out as I plan them to be. But at least I go for them and I give fully. And so to witness what you're doing, it's really inspiring. The only failure in life is something we didn't learn from. And that's, you know, the Course in Miracles, there's a line that says some of your greatest successes you thought were failures and some of your greatest failures you thought were success. So I had a career before I have a career now. That's, that was a one thing. Exactly. Well, I appreciate you. And I want to ask the final question and that's what's your definition of greatness? God, love,

everything else is so small in comparison. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, yes, yes. There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. lewishouse.com slash 347. Make sure to connect with Marianne. Check out her new book, Tears to Triumph. And let me know what you thought. Leave a comment on the blog. Again, lewishouse.com slash 347. I am so pumped up for the second half of this year. You have no idea. I've got some big dreams that I want to bring to fruition that are feeling inside of my soul right now.

So get ready to see what we're creating here at School of Greatness headquarters. If you're not on our email list, make sure to subscribe to our weekly free newsletter where we release all the behind-the-scenes stuff. We talk about the new podcasts that are coming out and all the goodies that we release as well at lewishouse.com.

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