Episodes
Did you know that you have a superpower you might not know about? đŚ¸đ˝ââđŚ¸ââď¸ In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about how to tap into the creative impulses at the center of your psycheâa superpower we all have but may not realize it! Remember the things you did when you were a child or a teenager for no other reason than the pure joy of it? Maybe you still do these things now, but the culture dismisses them as unimportant âhobbies.â Martha says that the very things that...
Published 04/18/24
"Have you ever tried to manifest something, but it just wouldnât happen? In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha shares how to use what she calls the âtechnology of magicâ to make your deepest yearnings a reality. Martha says that having a thought or intention is a necessary but insufficient condition for manifesting the things you want. Your intention must be combined with inventionâor as Martha calls it, ârolling up your sleeves and getting to work!â At the corner of your...
Published 04/04/24
âHow do we adjust to the drudgery?â Martha was asked this question by Ro when they returned home from a wonderful stay at the Imiloa Institute in the Costa Rican jungle. A lot of upkeep is required to sustain ordinary living, and much of daily life gets consumed by repetitive tasks. In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha talks about a shift we can make to transform drudgery into beauty. In traditions where they have the concept of awakening or enlightenment, Martha says, the...
Published 03/07/24
"Where does your life want you to go sailing? In this episode of The Gathering Room, Martha is talking about the pull for adventure that all humans have but are often too scared to follow. To build up your adventuring spirit, Martha recommends going on âlittle adventuresâ every dayâthings that push you out of your comfort zone and into your growth zone. How do you do this? By consulting with your deep, deep essential self to see how you truly feel about all the different things you could...
Published 02/22/24
"How do you know when something is worth the trouble? Thatâs the question Marthaâs exploring in this episode of The Gathering Room, and the short answer is: If itâs your passion, itâs always worth the trouble! Marthaâs recent trip to New York with her family to see Ani DiFranco on Broadway ended up being an enormous amount of troubleâbut when she finally got to see the show, she was blown away. She found that the joy it brought her was worth all the trouble it took to get there. She also...
Published 02/15/24
Do you feel in desperate need of a rest? Most of us are underestimating our need to rest to an almost criminal degree, and Martha is talking about why that isâand how to change itâon this episode of The Gathering Room. We live in a society that wants us to work constantly. However, nature says that we need to rest regularlyâin fact, this is absolutely crucial. âYou can live without intense activity,â Martha reminds us, âbut you cannot live without rest.â Rest is your connection to the Divine...
Published 02/08/24
What does it mean to âcompose yourselfâ? The usual definition is to calm down and control yourself, but Martha has a very different meaning in mind, and sheâs exploring it in this episode of The Gathering Room: How to Compose Yourself. As Martha defines it, you are literally composing your lifeâthe being that you areâthrough the act of creating something new. Whether itâs a watercolor youâre painting, a meal youâre preparing, a business youâre building, or a child youâre raising, the act...
Published 02/01/24
"Is there something you really want to do, but the thought of it absolutely terrifies you? đą Martha has been there many times, and thatâs what sheâs talking about on this episode of The Gathering Room: Doing the Thing You Think You Cannot Do. If youâre facing something in your life that you want to do but it makes you anxious, Martha says to remember that 99% of every original thing that has ever been done has been done by someone who didnât think they could do it. In other words, youâre...
Published 01/25/24
Sometimes weâre hit with a change so big it knocks us for a loop. We look around in a daze thinking, âNOW what?â đŚ Welcome to what Martha calls âSquare Oneâ in The Change Cycle, a unique framework she developed to help people understand and navigate lifeâs transitions. đŚ As Martha explains, life's changes aren't things we plan in our calendars. They are fundamental metamorphoses. You will go through the four Squares of the Change Cycle over and over throughout your lifetime. And Square One...
Published 01/18/24
Are you someone who makes New Yearâs resolutions? Martha enjoys making one (yes, one) each yearâand she always keeps it! In this episode of The Gathering Room: A Year of Peace, she talks about her resolution to increase her brainâs wellbeing by dropping demands that have an overriding feeling of negativity and tend to make her brain shut down. Research that has shown that our brains work best when we can answer YES to two questions: Am I safe? Am I loved unconditionally? After basic...
Published 01/11/24
Do you ever struggle to do things you know you have to do, even though you donât really feel like it? Weâve all been thereâincluding Marthaâand sheâs talking about it in this episode of The Gathering Room: Keep Swimming. Humans are the kind of creatures that can get so focused on a dream that even if that dream seems impossible, or the work it requires feels like a total slog, we can make ourselves keep going. Martha watched a movie about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who made several...
Published 12/14/23
Did you know that everything around you is conscious and responding to you in various ways? It may sound woo-woo, but Martha says there's a tremendous amount of legitimate scientific research to support this idea! When weâre willing to acknowledge that we don't know everything about the universe, and weâre willing to play with the idea that the universe is conscious, very interesting things start happening⌠In this episode of The Gathering Room: How to Play with the Conscious Universe,...
Published 12/07/23
"Did you know that the right hemisphere of your brain is doing supercomputer-level processing all the time, whether youâre aware of it or not? Wild, right? Martha calls the right hemisphere âthe magicianâ because it can come up with the most amazing, brilliant solutions to very difficult problems, seemingly out of thin air. In this episode of The Gathering Room: Awakening Your Magician, Martha talks about how we can activate our highly creative right hemispheres, so we can solve the...
Published 11/16/23
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 itâs because we live in a culture dominated by left-hemisphere thinking, which pulls us toward anxiety and socializes us to do as weâre 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...
Published 11/09/23
Do you ever feel like your life is a crazy quilt? Martha says that creating your life is the ultimate creative project, and thatâs what sheâs talking about in this episode of The Gathering Room. Each of us is given all the material to make a lifeâa human body, a set of circumstances, and a set of abilitiesâand the life we make from that material is ours to determine in this day and age. Sometimes it feels like weâre just piecing things together helter-skelter without a pattern, ...
Published 11/02/23
"Martha says one reason we humans are a strange species is because we love to make jigsaw puzzlesâbeautiful pictures that we cut up into tiny pieces and disassemble, and then put back together. And we donât like them to be too easy! In this episode of The Gathering Room: Solving the Puzzles of Our Lives, Martha talks about the way problems in our lives are like puzzles, and how it often can be more joyful to have a puzzle than not to have one. These puzzles are the life situations given to...
Published 10/26/23
"Youâve heard of the fight and flight reflexes, but what about flop and fake? Flop and fake (also known as fawn) are two of the other responses in the polyvagal system, a theory about how our nervous systems adapt to stress and the environment. Fake/fawn is a people-pleasing response, and flop means you just lie there unable to drum up motivation. In this episode of The Gathering Pod: The Way Back to Happy, Marthaâs talking about polyvagal theory and how to regulate your nervous system when...
Published 10/12/23
We're not trained to think of a spiritually led life as being hilarious or silly or goofy. But as Martha reminds us, laughter is the beginning of prayer. In this episode of The Gathering Pod: Letting the Force Steer Your Life, she talks about the difference between spiritual faith and religious faith, and how to connect with and trust spiritual energy (aka the Force) to guide you. When you do, youâll be in for some truly delightful surprises! As Martha puts it, âThe universe is not your...
Published 10/05/23
"âBe prepared to stop.â This is serious life advice, Martha says, because no matter what weâre doing (or how much we want to continue doing it), at some point weâre going to get interrupted by life. Whenever we have to stop something we thought was going to continue indefinitelyâlike a job, for example, or a marriageâit can really hurt. In this episode of The Gathering Pod: When Stopping Is the Way to Go, Martha talks about how we can make peace with inevitable interruptions by embracing...
Published 09/28/23
Are you familiar with polyvagal theory? It may sound highly scientific, but Martha says polyvagal theory has a profound effect on spiritual practice as well, and sheâs talking all about it in this episode of The Gathering Room: Dropping Anchor. The polyvagal nerve is a system of nerves connecting the brain to various parts of the body, and it plays a key role in our response to stressâeither revving us up or shutting us down. And according to the work of Deb Dana, itâs also involved with...
Published 09/21/23
Itâs The Best of the Gathering Pod, and this week weâre revisiting another listener favorite from the vaultâEpisode 110: How to Let the Light In. In this episode, Martha talks about her ârage to masterâ and the paradox of imperfection: While we can try our hardest to produce perfect results, we must accept that weâll always make mistakes. Itâs this combination of effort and grace that allows us to let the light into our lives. To find out more, be sure to listen to the full episode!
Published 09/14/23
Weâve got another Best of the Gathering Room episode for you today, a listener favorite called Building on Bright Spots. In this episode, Martha talks about finding and following the almost invisible âbright spotsâ in your life whenever things feel dark and cloudy. Because clouds are illusions, it's always possible to find little breaks in the clouds and see the clear points of truth that can guide you home. To find out how, tune in for the full episodeâwhich might turn out to be a bright...
Published 09/07/23
While Martha is out on vacation, weâre bringing you The Best of the Gathering Roomâa treasury of Gatherersâ favorite episodesâstarting with: How to Heal Your Heart. Many of us believe something outside ourselves can heal us when we're heartsick, but Martha says the opposite is true. The heart can heal itselfâif you know how to access the "heart healer" within you. To learn how to come into integrity so that your inner âheart healerâ can do its valuable work, don't miss this popular episode!
Published 08/31/23
GatherersâI'm thrilled to be joined by Dr. Richard Schwartz, the brilliant creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a wonderful therapeutic model that you may have heard me talk about before because I love using it! IFS provides an optimistic, empowering framework to help us focus on the different âpartsâ of our personalities so that we can shift into a state characterized by curiosity, calm, confidence, and compassion. I hope youâll tune in for our conversation about his latest book, YOU...
Published 08/24/23