347 Marianne Williamson on Pain, Suffering, and Finding Peace

"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 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Episode number 347 with number one New York Times bestselling author Mary Ann Williamson. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  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 LA, it was good to be back. You know, 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 will crush those things. And it's always been my thing. For whatever reason, I just love sweets. It's just a, I got a sweet tooth type of guy, right?

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  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, 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 little cleanse, a little juice and smoothie cleanse, uh, three days. And I'm on day two and it's been a little, it's been a little challenging for me. My friend Lisa owns a, a juice and smoothie bar called Beaming here in LA. And so I bought the cleanse there and I've been going through it. It's been great.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  It's just hard for a big jock looking dude, uh, to not eat food and just drink it is a, 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 you're everything is on and everything is doing as planned. You know, this is about a middle of the year right now. And you know, 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. Right? I've been allowing myself to eat too much junk food.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  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. Uh, and listen, I'm, you know, I'm not going to be perfect the rest of my life and I'm, I'm going to definitely have sugar a- again, but I've, 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 a super pumped about this interview. Marianne Williamson is someone that I've, uh, known about for a long time. A lot of my friends, uh, love her and really connect with her message. I've only watched her speak and watched a lot of her videos.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  I've actually not, uh, 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. 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. 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.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  Um, 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, Mary Ann, I asked her a question about, you know, what's the longest time she's

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  gone without forgiving someone? And there was an interesting response that she said that I think you've got to 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/347. You can also get all the show notes back there. But without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Mary Ann Williamson.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, Mary Ann Williamson. Thanks so much for coming.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. I'm excited. We were talking before that two years ago, you were running for Congress here in California. And I, 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.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:53Lewis Howes?

  And had a great moment connecting with you, even though you were, you know, all over the place. But that was a cool experience for you, right?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Exhilarating and brutal.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  And brutal? Why brutal?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Running for office is really something.

• 6:05Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  It's an experience like no other.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Okay. What was the biggest lesson you learned from that?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  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 political campaign.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  I thought, well, you raise money and then you hire somebody who knows how to do that.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And that's simply not the case.

• 6:36Lewis Howes?

  Really? What is the case? It's not like a book launch, huh?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Well, interesting you say that. If I had treated it like one, I would have done better.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  It's just a retail operation like any other.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 7:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  So, so that was very unfortunate.

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  And so, you've got a new book out called Tears of Triumph, The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment, and I want to make sure everyone goes and picks this copy up, uh, picks a copy up today. And did this come from, was this an idea before you were running for congress?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:23Lewis Howes?

  Or did this come afterwards?

• 7:23Speaker 01

  No. It's interesting that you ask that because, and I'll take the water away from them.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's a pretty good placement for you.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  About three days after my campaign, I was being interviewed by Maria Shriver.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  Right. There's how many people are running against you, right?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Somebody's going to win, somebody's going to lose. That's, 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, uh-uh. 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. Somebody told me that buffaloes, when there's a storm, buffaloes run into it. They know they can't un-run it, they can't outrun it, they run into it.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  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-

• 8:54Lewis Howes?

  Simon and Garfunkel, great.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  So when I went into this experience, which lasted a year-

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  After, after not winning, right?

• 9:04Speaker 01

  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. 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 bit of divorce, a heartbreak, who hasn't? Financial failure, you go bankrupt, your business fails.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  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 is 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, particularly over-prescription of antidepressants. Now, the FDA itself, which is hardly known for over-regulating, has warned that for

• 10:33Speaker 01

  people 25 years old and younger, antidepressants actually increase, not decrease, suicidal ideation. Wow. We're giving antidepressant, 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 deserving 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 depressive disorder, she'd been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, all these diagnoses, you know?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Everybody's got all these letters after their names today, and it's not PhD and MA anymore. Right. So, I have worked a lot with people in life-challenging situations, I was very active during the age crisis, as I said, I've been through my own times of, you know, 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. Wow. That's another one you hear a lot. Right. 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. Trying to get you off of it. They try to get you off of them. Right. They say, "Take it for just a little while, hello, and these things are addictive for a reason, blah, blah, blah."

• 12:00Speaker 01

  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. That's such a victim mentality, you have a disease, you have a disorder, right?

• 12:13Lewis Howes?

  It's not your fault. You don't have responsibility, right?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  And there's nothing for you to do to work through this.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  Except for take this medication for the rest of your life.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  And I know that and there wasn't, I mean, 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 in various people. She's in her early twenties.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  The twenties are hard. Anybody that's been through their twenties can tell you they're hard.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  Teens are hard, right?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  But they're not a mental illness.

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Exactly with pathologized adolescence, it's hard. It's not a mental illness.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  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 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, 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 and schizo. 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

• 13:36Speaker 01

  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 and fault in Margaritaville. Now, that was painful. So the first pain is-

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  What was painful?

• 13:49Speaker 01

  To see if only I had been different, if where I wasn't forgiving, where I wasn't, where I took him for granted, where I wasn't responsible, where I wasn't, 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 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 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.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Where would we be today if the abolitionists had been able to take the edge off? Right. Right? Where would we be if the abolitionists had not gotten upset? Yeah. 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 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, you know, clear medical supervision. You don't just throw them in the trash.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  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 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. Um, ISIL is clearly out of control, right? And it's affecting all major cities and anything clearly now could happen anywhere. Um, 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.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  There's nothing wrong with the canaries.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  And this is, I think, particularly an issue when I see so many women, like on the side of pharmaceutical okay, because our sensitivity and our not okay-ness is part of our strength. We're part of the internal warning system, I think, of the human race.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  The exquisite sensitivity of women who

• 17:10Speaker 01

  get upset when things aren't right. That's not because we're flawed.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Interesting.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  So what is the difference between suffering and pain, then?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  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, but, 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.

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  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 will say to me, oh, Mary Ann, 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

• 18:43Speaker 01

  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 to set up 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 these suffering Israelites who were slaves in Egypt.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  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 forty 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.

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  So you're saying the only way to experience growth is through pain or suffering?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What was the big pain that you felt for that year after, I guess, not being in Congress?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Well, it's a very public failure when you run for office.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  You went all in. I mean, you were promoting everywhere.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  Everyone was behind you.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Everyone's behind me. That means thank you very much. Giving money.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  I saw it all.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  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. We could have made it if I'd known more what I was doing. A lot of people I had to forgive. I had to forgive myself. So just little things like that.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there was something else you said before that I was going to speak to, but forgot.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  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 the pain?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Well, as I said before, on that situation, 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.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  But I had never been since a very young age around a political campaign. I didn't, I didn't realize how important that was. Like I said, I thought you could just, 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.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  That sounds painful.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  It was a very painful time in my life. And I, and over a period of about a year, I felt that all those pieces of this, this Greek vase, it felt like an ancient vase that it 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. I've read articles of people who've been through crises and traumas and comas and things, and they come out.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  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. Not only-

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  Before you didn't know how to get on a stage and talk?

• 23:41Speaker 01

  I knew how to talk, but I didn't know how to say anything particularly meaningful.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  I didn't know how to hold it together. It just, it didn't-

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  Wasn't there yet.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Wasn't there yet. And 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 lectures. Not they all, but many started coming to my lectures.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Because you experienced it.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  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 we 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

• 25:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  So do you think when we're going through... An experience of pain or suffering or whatever, or 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?

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Very good point.

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  You know what, enough is enough. Let's like get out of this crap and start thinking positively and move forward.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Well, once again, there is that symbol of the forty 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 other times. And we all, 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 be, 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.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  You can feel it in your gut. That point, and other people can feel it too. That point where processing becomes milking it. Talking about it becomes spewing.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  Being a victim for too long, whatever.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  I'm here for you.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Conscious people. And when somebody's, it's become their calling card, their victim story. Now you're doing too much. I know he hurt you, but you're badmouthing him in public. No, that's not cool. 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 forty, 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. Chapter on forgiveness, there's a chapter on relationships, to do our work.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  And then if you have forty-five tears to cry, thirty-five is not enough. And if you, and if you do a pharmaceutical bypass, or whatever you do to self-medicate, to, to, 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, you know? 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.

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  What do you think, 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?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  The lawyer who threw me under the bus and cost me a lot of money.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  I had a hard time with that one.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Around fifteen years ago.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How long were you holding on to that?

• 28:57Speaker 01

  It was a hard one.

• 28:59Lewis Howes?

  We're talking years, we're talking months, we're talking years.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  I was bitter.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Decade?

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Did you finally forgive?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  I, yeah, but you see, once you know a spiritual principle. Spiritual principle, certainly as it's articulated in something like The Course in Miracles, says that you are one hundred percent 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.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  Makes sense.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Someone was talking about, we had a great marriage for twenty-five 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. Twenty-five years.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  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.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  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 universe, 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, 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, from a Course in Miracles perspective, if the money was mine, if I had earned that

• 31:23Speaker 01

  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.

• 31:44Lewis Howes?

  Afford to come back.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Afford to come back, to go on with your life, and more than that will come back to you.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  Be in abundance.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  You are letting him, right, 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 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.

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  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-

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  Say it one more time.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  The things of the material world can provide only temporary happiness.

• 33:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  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 gonna be happy. Then you get there. And as Buddha said, it's only temporary, so inevitably, the fairy dust will rub off. The fairy dust is gonna rub off, the idol, and then the rest of your time, you're in despair over the fact that what you thought was gonna make you happy didn't make you happy.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that was my whole childhood, essentially.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Until I was like 25.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  I was always striving for something, achieving and being like, why am I miserable now?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I saw that in my mind the other day. Well, I got a call that my book had reached a New York Times bestseller list. I was very happy, you're reading it, number five on the New York Times bestseller list. So for about five minutes, I was like, woo-hoo, right? Let's go have a drink.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  And then what?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. Yes, exactly. The ego mind is insatiable. Maybe it's just a spike. Maybe I'm just gonna be on for one week. And by the way, who's one through four?

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  Why am I not number one?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Right, and how it gonna be?

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  I've been number one before, why about this time?

• 34:27Speaker 01

  I didn't quite go there, but I did go to, what if I'm off next week? And, and I just saw that's the activity, that's the way the ego mind works. It's insatiable. It has no, no, it has no capacity for-

• 34:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Should we be ambitious then?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  You can feel it in your body. It puts you in a...

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  So how do you focus every single day on not being tight or struggling?

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Meditation.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Is that a daily practice for you every morning?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. 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. 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."

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  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 gonna feel the effects of whatever."

• 36:40Speaker 01

  What's non-negotiable?

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Like, "I must get a certain amount of sleep or eat a certain way."

• 36:44Speaker 01

  I must monitor myself. And I must not make excuses for myself.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  What excuses do you make or have?

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Well, I had a right to be angry. I had a right to be angry. No, you, you.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  He did this to me.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I, I, um, 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 have a right, I do, 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, that I think that.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  You mean to attack back?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  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, 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 would just have called selfish jerk behavior.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  For example, what do you mean?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Well, I need to tell you that what you just did absolutely did not work for me. Well, that's not gonna 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 genuinely share. No, you're gonna, you're not gonna hear me.

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  You're defensive or you're gonna be guarded or?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  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, you know, this is just plain non, you know, non-violent communication skill. So when you say, "What's non-negotiable for me?" And I'm not, you know, I'm not an enlightened master. I don't get it right all the time. But what is, what I think I am pretty good at is, you know, like they, that, 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. Um, apologize, send an email.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Try to monitor yourself. You know, the ego mom wants to monitor you or you. How did you two never wants to monitor ourselves?

• 39:20Lewis Howes?

  And are you pretty active? Do you do yoga or some type of physical workout practice?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What is it? Yoga?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  I do yoga and I have become less religious with my cardio recently. And I have made a commitment that when I go home this week, I'm getting back to all that.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  All right, okay.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sixty-three years old.

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  What? No.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  And some stuff that's

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  That's impressive.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Thank you. Some of the stuff that's cosmetic when you're younger becomes like, no, you have to do this.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  It's not even like just to look okay. Just stay here.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Gotcha. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  My daughter. Yeah, I have a fantastic daughter.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  How old is she?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Twenty-six.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  All right.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  What are you most proud about with her?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  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?

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  No kids. Not yet.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Nothing like it.

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Everything else pales in comparison.

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson you learned about your life from having her?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  It's just how beautiful life is. You know, not everything else is, I mean, love is what matters.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  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. You know, we, if you, you could buy a Bentley, you could buy a Rolls Royce. You, but you're going to take it off the, off the lot. You're still going to have to put gas in it. You're still going to have to maintain it. The fact that, 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, 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 the spot.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  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,

• 42:06Speaker 01

  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, et cetera. 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.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  And atone, atone for that. 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 your self-respect back is if you do something that would make you respect yourself. Like, I'm gonna be different this time. I'm not gonna be that way next time. I'm gonna be a better person today. And what, if you, 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 kaka and craziness and criticism and blame and victimization. If you filled your house with light, darkness can't come in.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  And are you, you're not married anymore, right?

• 43:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  No, you're in a relationship now?

• 43:37Speaker 01

  No, I'm not.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Tough request.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  Okay, we'll leave it for after the interview.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

• 43:49Speaker 01

  My father.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  My father was a magical character, although, you know, as life has gone on, I think my mother, I think I undervalued my mother in some way.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's interesting.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the military industrial complex couldn't eat his children's brains.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's interesting.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  What do you think was the biggest thing you learned from him?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Why do we do that?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  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 parental drama has been

• 45:14Speaker 01

  reenacted in my relationship drama, just like everybody else, yada, yada, yada, you know, garden variety.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  But if daddy was magical, but, whatever.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Another book.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 45:30Lewis Howes?

  What do you tell your daughter? Or is there anything you haven't told your daughter that you really wanted to know?

• 45:34Speaker 01

  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-

• 45:42Lewis Howes?

  Right. You can communicate a little differently, right?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Oh, she coaches me. We coach each other.

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  Really? Does she work with you?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  And she wants to be a historian. She is a historian. She's got her master's in history, is going to get her another master's, hopefully a PhD. She wants to be a history professor.

• 46:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like if you're in, 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, what were the political and historical circumstances going on at the time? That they would need a wall?

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a whole different orientation.

• 46:41Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  What's something you've always, that no one's really ever asked you that you always wished they did?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Personally or on a podcast where everybody would be listening?

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  Either.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  It's a big difference. Big difference. Because the answer to that is nothing I want to share on a podcast.

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay, well afterwards, you've got to let me know.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 47:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay, we'll skip that one. This is something I call, it's interesting. I've never heard of the Buddhist Four Truths before. Is that what you call it? The Buddhist Four Truths?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  The Noble Truths.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  The Noble Truths. I've never heard of this. But I, I started asking a question about six months ago called The Three Truths.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  And this is-

• 47:28Speaker 01

  What'd you get?

• 47:29Lewis Howes?

  Well, I've been, I've been asking every person what their three truths are.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:32Lewis Howes?

  So if, uh, if this was your, you know, many, many years from now is your last day.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:37Lewis Howes?

  And all your books, for whatever reason, were erased from time.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  And, um, all the videos you put out there and lectures and everything was gone.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  And you got a piece of paper.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:55Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are those three truths?

• 47:57Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  Okay. There you go. I like that.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 48:29Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask you the final question, uh, 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. And also, where do you hang out most online? Where do you spend your most time? Um, should we send people to your website? Anywhere on social media?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Maryann.com.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  And I also have a public Facebook page and Twitter. And I do Instagram, but I mainly, I hang out pretty much on my Facebook page because I, on my public page, yeah. No, I don't do my personal, personal page, but publicly.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  But you're on there yourself.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I absolutely am. And I like talking about political things and I like talking about spiritual things. Um, and it's how I feel I keep, keep in touch with what's going on.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Um, like everybody else, though, I have realized the addictive nature of some of that. And, um, so I think we're all, all, um, like everyone else, getting the, the dangers of too much.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Social media.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Good time.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Well, if people want to connect with you, they should leave a comment on your Facebook page.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And also I do free live streams every Wednesday night that are on.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  And in New York City.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, in New York City. I'm every Wednesday night at the Middle Collegiate Church on Second Avenue between Sixth and Seventh. And the link is available.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  We'll link it up.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and then the book, which I hope.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  You know, I hope that anybody whose heart, you know, we're even happy lives have sad days.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  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 gonna play big, like you talk about, and you're gonna play passionately in life, and you're gonna risk for love, and you're gonna risk for success in appropriate ways, you're gonna, you're gonna, 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.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  And so to know, I can take the hits too, and I'm gonna 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 as well.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  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 at some point, right?

• 50:55Speaker 01

  I think it's the opposite.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Because it also depends on how you use the word ego.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  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.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I just hoped it would sell enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  So, 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 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 body knows how to, to, to, 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,

• 52:02Speaker 01

  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 would make this the outcome that would be best for me. First of all, it is a complete, it turns you into a transaction rather than a relationship. It completely demystifies the universe.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  It takes out any sense of sacred assignment. It it mitigates against my being fully available to the experience. So it really mitigates against my being fully available and then, which is the only chance that anything really beautiful can happen.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. So what about the book, The Power of Intention? Didn't Dyer write that book?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  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 gotta have an intention and you gotta go out and make it happen, so did Hitler. Just having an intention.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so did Nelson Mandela.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  But that was, well, that's why Buddha talks about right intention and wrong intention. So the spiritual mountaintop is not having an intention and making it happen. The the 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. You know, and that's what, that's the difference in The Course in Miracles between magic and miracles. You know, 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, you know?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  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 the love in that person, may they only see love in me? How could it not unfold well?

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Otherwise, you're just on that wheel. The Buddha called a wheel of suffering.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  Why is it easier said than done then?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  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 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 bucket.

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  And so, the course says, my real happiness is going to come from being present here. Because if it's all that, we've talked about it, you get it.

• 55:35Lewis Howes?

  Got it, that's great.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay, well, a final question before I ask it, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  I want to acknowledge you for showing up not perfect in the world.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Or being so honest about it.

• 55:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, 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.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, you know, there is, 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 an enlightened master, I would know it, I guess I'd 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, is actually... Can almost be more helpful.

• 56:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that'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 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.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  And it's a constant reminder that, you know, 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.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  The only failure in life is something we didn't learn from. And that's, you know, the Course of 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 was one thing.

• 57:32Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Well, I appreciate you and I want to ask the final question and that's, what's your definition of greatness?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  God, love. Everything else is so small in comparison.

• 57:44Lewis Howes?

  Mary Ann, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 57:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes, yes. There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. LewisHowes.com/347. Make sure to connect with Mary Ann. Check out her new book, Tears to Triumph. And let me know what you thought. Leave a comment on the blog. Again, LewisHowes.com/347. I am so pumped up for the second half of this year. You have no idea. I have, I've got some big dreams that I want to bring to fruition that are filling 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

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  we release all the behind the scenes stuff, talk about the new podcasts that are coming out and all the goodies that we release as well. At LewisHowes.com, you can sign up there for free. I love you guys so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.