The Gathering Room Podcast

Martha Beck

Welcome to a virtual gathering that will kindle your curiosity and soothe your soul! Join Martha Beck for the podcast edition of her weekly Facebook event, and listen in as she touches on a spirituality or personal growth topic that’s on her mind. You'll also hear the lively conversation that follows as Martha opens the floor to questions from the live viewers. With topics ranging from courage to creativity, purpose to intuition, these discussions will engage and support you on your journey to self-knowledge. Ready to connect with a community of like-minded seekers? Welcome to The Gathering Room Podcast.

  • 31 minutes 15 seconds
    Listen Again: Igniting Your Purpose

    Some people have a bullseye picture of their purpose in life and are headed straight toward it. However, this is extremely rare.

    Why?

    Martha says it’s because we live in a culture dominated by left-hemisphere thinking, which pulls us toward anxiety and socializes us to do as we’re told and acquire material wealth.

    In this episode of The Gathering Room podcast, Martha talks about following your curiosity to activate the right side of the brain, which is where our passion lives. And our passion is what leads us to our life’s purpose.

    If you want to start looking for things that draw your attention (rather than push yourself toward the things you think you should do), and you’re ready to prepare yourself to follow your curiosity wherever it leads, tune in to the full episode—it may contain just the spark you need!

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    10 October 2024, 5:00 am
  • 31 minutes 1 second
    Listen Again: There's Less to Do Than You Think

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, you’ll learn how little you really have to do. If you think that sounds too easy, change what you think, not what you do. Come see how! (Originally aired: January 8, 2023)

     

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    3 October 2024, 5:00 am
  • 30 minutes 31 seconds
    Letting Rest Do the Work

    Is there something you’re trying to get done? Something you really, really want, but you're struggling?

    While our culture teaches us to “never give up the struggle,” in this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about how taking breaks and allowing for rest can lead to unexpected improvements and breakthroughs.

    As many Gatherers know, Martha’s been working on watercolor painting for months now, and she finds it extremely challenging. Recently she had to take a break from it, and when she finally got back to her easel, something strange happened… Her hand just knew what to do!

    As Martha describes it:

    “It was like everything I’d been experimenting with had sunk into my nervous system. And actually, when the brain learns a new skill, especially if it learns playfully, it does start on the top of your brain and then it literally sinks in. The more you do it, the more it goes down toward the core of your brain, and you get better and better at it. And it doesn't feel like it’s you doing it anymore—it feels like magic.”

    If you’d like to learn how to get the kind of rest that leads to magical breakthroughs—Martha’s favorite ways include sleep, laughter, puzzle-cracking, and more—be sure to listen to the full episode. You’ll also be able to take a restful break as she leads you in her favorite meditation.

    Don’t miss it!

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    26 September 2024, 8:00 am
  • 34 minutes 4 seconds
    The Joys of Bewilderment

    Have you been struggling to climb pyramids of power, education, wealth, or anything else our culture teaches us to value? Are you ready to find (or return to) your true nature instead?

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about the importance of “be-wilder-ing” ourselves and the transformative power of making authentic connections.

    She says that if we can get far enough from society's rules and be willing to break them in some ways—and also be willing to look deeply within ourselves—we will go back to what nature wants us to be.

    If we can find our true selves, there's only one task we need to save the world, and that task is three simple words: “Find the others.” With her brand-new online community, Wilder, Martha feels even closer to fulfilling that mission!

    As she tells us, the technology we now have for gathering together is a tool in the hands of the Divine, and with the Wilder Community, it has evolved into a kind of wild space where we can become ourselves and find the others.

    If you can go wild, you will find where you're meant to be—where there’s nowhere to go and nothing to strive for, but everything to love, enjoy, experience, and savor. 

    “That's why we're here,” Martha says. “We are here to enjoy this world.”

    To learn more about finding and embracing your true nature, connecting with others, and using your integrity to navigate life's challenges—and also hear about Martha’s exciting experiences in the Wilder community—be sure to tune in!

    Martha also shares book recommendations, answers listener questions, and leads you in her Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation, emphasizing human imagination and its potential to create positive change in the world. Don’t miss it!

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    19 September 2024, 8:00 am
  • 28 minutes 55 seconds
    When You’re Caught Between Hope and Fear

    There are times when really important things are happening, and we really care about the results. At such times, it’s hard not to get stuck in that awful place between hope and fear.

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about how hope and fear are on the same continuum. The moment you get attached to a hope, you’re also afraid it won't happen. And the moment you’re afraid of something happening, you also hope that it won’t.

    As it says in Martha’s favorite book, the Tao Te Ching, “Hope is as hollow as fear. Whether you go up the ladder or down, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.”

    Hope and fear are fundamentally future directed, Martha says, so to get off this shaky ladder and plant your feet on the ground, you must bring yourself to the present moment by practicing mindfulness and equanimity.

    When we are mindful, we are fully present and aware of our surroundings and sensations, and with equanimity, we can maintain a calm state of mind, regardless of challenges.

    To hear Martha’s insights on how to step off the shaky ladder, ground yourself in the present moment, and mother yourself during difficult times, don’t miss this encouraging episode, which includes Martha’s guided meditation to connect with peace, compassion, and joy.

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    12 September 2024, 5:00 am
  • 30 minutes 46 seconds
    Joy Is the Only Strategy

    Can you remember times when you’ve experienced pure joy?

    Martha recalls some key moments that led her to make joy her strategy for living, and she’s talking about it in this episode of The Gathering Room.

    The dictionary defines a strategy as “a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim." We all want to experience joy, and yet we have a society that tells us joy is not a strategy—that we should be strategizing to achieve success instead.

    But until you have joy, Martha argues, what good is a strategy of success? There is no point in having success without joy.

    So, how do you make joy your strategy?

    All the way to joy feels joyful, Martha says, and that feeling is letting you know you’re on your right path— because joy is what we all are in our essence. When we feel misery or flatness or bitterness, the message is that we’ve gotten off track and need to change course.

    Martha urges us to turn toward joy and join with other people by sharing our joy and asking what we can do to help others experience more of it. Because as joy grows, it more than multiplies!

    To find out how to connect with joy even in times of pain or sorrow, learn the difference between happiness and joy, and join Martha in a meditation to help open yourself up to joy, be sure to listen to the entire joy-filled episode. 

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    29 August 2024, 5:00 am
  • 31 minutes 52 seconds
    Your Best Next Step

    There’s a saying Martha likes that goes, “A hundred years before you were born, God drew a circle around the place you're standing now." 

    In other words, you are here because you are meant to be here—but  from this place, you can literally go in any direction! 

    So what is the best next step for you to take? That’s what Martha is talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room podcast. 

    She shares all of the things she’s been “nerding out” over in her quest to discover her best next step: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, and what Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

    The “adjacent possible” means something that can happen but hasn’t happened yet, and we humans are in an adjacent possible right now—it’s possible to fix everything that is broken, given the technologies we have and the ideas that we come up with.

    Martha says that when there's a big thing that wants to happen, the information and ideas necessary to come up with it are hidden in a kind of mosaic: We’re all equipped with different fragments that only make sense when we come together.

    “Whenever I am close to a best next step,” she says, “the hair on my arms prickles a lot. I feel sort of guided to certain books. I get obsessed with songs and I look them up and the lyrics give me ideas, and I am drawn to certain other people.” 

    Martha shares how to sense when something wonderful is coming—something delicious and delightful and exhilarating and new that you've been preparing for your whole life—and allow the intelligence of nature to show you your best next step toward it. 

    If you’re ready to take that best next step, be sure to tune in for the full episode, where Martha also shares the best next step she’s most excited about in her own life. Don’t miss it!

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    22 August 2024, 5:00 am
  • 30 minutes 46 seconds
    Finding the Joy

    Did you know that joy is your birthright as a human?

    Finding joy is one of Martha’s favorite topics, and that’s what she’s talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room!

    Martha says that joy, like beauty, is its own excuse for being, and she shares ways we can look for and experience joy, even in the midst of difficulty.

    She quotes a Jack Gilbert poem that says, "We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.” Meaning, we must find joy wherever we are.

    Martha clarifies that joy is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness is what you feel when something you do succeeds, or you recover from an illness, or someone you love comes back from far away. Happiness is wonderful, of course, but joy goes much deeper.

    Joy is something that says, "I am here on an experience-gathering mission, and my soul loves adventure and is not afraid to suffer."

    Martha says that joy is what gets you through this world because it reminds you that you are not of this world. It is something more lasting, more powerful, and more loving than your physical experience could ever be.

    To hear how Martha found joy during some difficult times in her own life, learn easy ways to find joy if it's been eluding you for a while, and get inspired to jump for joy wherever you see it, tune in for the full episode. You can also join Martha in meditation for a little “energy bath” of joy.

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    15 August 2024, 5:00 am
  • 29 minutes 59 seconds
    The Only Way Forward

    Do you ever try to make forward-thinking plans, but then you get hit with surprises you never saw coming?

    Martha says it seems to happen to her about once every six months… For example, because of a recent trip to Costa Rica, where she happened to befriend the incredible women of Sleep-Works, she’s now a sound sleeper (and a morning person!) after a lifetime of insomnia.

    Trying to make plans in a world of escalating change is a challenge, Martha says, because there’s just no way to plan for everything that’s going to happen.

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, she talks about how to move forward by embracing change and uncertainty—and the delightful surprises that can come your way when you do.

    Martha’s method is to keep a wide-open mind and throw herself upon the mercy of the universe. If something feels good to her soul (and by “good” she means a feeling of complete peace washing over her) then she moves toward that thing in a very specific way.

    “In my life,” she says, “I have found that the sense of being pulled by my heart and soul is a kind of yearning mixed with peace—and trust that I'm meant to have what I deeply desire.”

    That feeling is what has always pulled Martha forward, and it's the reason she started teaching her Wayfinder Life Coach Training program—she wanted to teach people to find their path forward the way she does.

    As she started getting cohorts of new Wayfinder trainees, she’d ask why they joined the program, and fully 85% would say they had no idea, which filled her with the joy of connection: "Yes! My people! They're out there!"

    To hear more about how you can work toward perfect integrity, learn to recognize the feeling of pull or push that can guide you to your true yearning, and move toward your next wild and wonderful experience, tune in for the full conversation!

    This episode also includes Martha’s guided Space, Stillness, and Silence meditation to help you bring your attention off the reasons you do things in the outer world, so you can focus on the field of connection that’s pulling you toward what you're meant to do next.

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    8 August 2024, 5:00 am
  • 31 minutes 54 seconds
    Your Economic Ecosystem

    Are you someone who likes making vision boards? 

    They’re a fun way to direct your attention—and because whatever we put our attention on tends to show up in our consciousness and in our lives, vision boards can be powerful tools for healing and for helping you manifest your desires.

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares how to create a vision board, starting with digging deep into your preferences to find out what you truly want (not what you’ve been socialized to think you want) and allowing yourself the time and space to be creative. 

    Then, Martha says, you’ll start “constellating an economic ecosystem.” 

    Constellating means coming together by natural forces, so you sit in the center of your desire and your creativity, and the things you want—such as more income, good health, happy relationships—will start forming around you like a constellation.

    Any place on earth where you have space, energy, and water, you're going to get ecosystems. And the same is true with each of us, Martha says. Our yearning is the energy, our creativity is the water, and the space is the time we give it in our lives.

    Society has traditionally taught us that we should get one job, keep it until we retire, and that one job is where we’ll get all our money forever. So we’re not used to seeing our personal economy as a complex system of things. 

    However, because of technology and competition, the old way of doing things is collapsing, and it’s become more feasible in our economy to have an economic ecosystem. To create one you need liberated deep desire, plus liberated creativity, plus time—and a vision board can help.

    To learn Martha’s steps for making vision boards that create thriving economic ecosystems in your own life, join her for this fun and inspiring episode! She’ll also lead you in a meditation to help your deepest desires and the infinite power of your creativity do their magical work.

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    1 August 2024, 5:00 am
  • 30 minutes 39 seconds
    Mending Your Energy Shields

    Did you know that we’re energetically connected?

    We all have the ability to feel each other’s energy: if someone is happy and calm, we can feel it, and when someone is angry or dangerous, we can feel that as well. What’s more, we’re each projecting our own energy all the time.

    However, when you’re not aware of the energy you’re giving off, you inadvertently create what Martha calls “energetic dark spots”—and these make you vulnerable to people with negative energy who want to prey on you in some way.

    In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about how you can mend any energetic dark spots you may have and create an integrous energy that is calm, pure, and doesn't attract negativity.

    She’ll walk you through the process she uses to heal her own energy shields—using questions she learned from the work of Byron Katie—and she’ll also lead you in her Space, Silence, and Stillness meditation to help you visualize the energy that connects us all.

    Plus, Rowan Mangan will join Martha at the end for a very exciting announcement, so be sure to tune in for the full episode!

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    25 July 2024, 5:00 am
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