The Gathering Room Podcast

When a guitar string is plucked, the note will spontaneously resonate with another guitar nearby—provided they are tuned the same. In today’s episode, Martha uses this metaphor to explore the ways that life creates resonances for us when we tune ourselves in certain ways. Martha gives tips for tuning yourself to joy, if this is the frequency you’d like to see matched in your life. (Originally aired: August 1, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this very special Gathering Room, Martha was joined by Anita Moorjani. Anita’s new book, Sensitive Is the New Strong, is a must-read for people who identify as empathic or highly sensitive. In their Gathering Room conversation, Martha and Anita talked about why the world needs its empaths now more than ever, and how to develop a self-love that means we are equipped to give our gifts to the world. Anita’s best tip for this? Learn the art of receiving. (Originally aired: July 25, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re often told it’s pointless to beat ourselves up for making mistakes, but Martha takes it a step further and says that error isn’t just useful, it’s crucial to getting things right. Making mistakes leads to learning and can also lead to discovery and reinvention. She points out that accidents and missteps led to the discovery of penicillin, photography, even potato chips! The discussion wraps with an exercise to retrain our brains to notice the good in every gaffe. (Originally aired: July 18, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In his book Break Through Pain, meditation expert Shinzen Young says that pain separates us from the divine, and learning to handle it skillfully is akin to grinding it into sand. In this conversation, Martha is recovering from surgery and describes using Young’s book to map and define her pain. She explains that pain is nature calling us to return to our bodies, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to suffering. There is magic in our minds that can transform pain into wisdom. (Originally aired: July 11, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We may conceptualize creativity as a free-flowing stream, but Martha points out that constraint is an excellent source of creative inspiration. When we have all the time and resources in the world, we feel aimless … but given an hour and a socket wrench, we can change the world! Martha shares examples from her own life, showing how every time she faced a situation full of constraints, it catalyzed a creative leap. Every problem contains the raw material for its own solution. (Originally aired: June 20, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Gathering Pod welcomes neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor to talk about her new book, Whole Brain Living, which Martha describes as “brain science from a user’s perspective.” In 1996, Jill experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain causing her to lose the ability to walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Then she rebuilt it back to full function over the course of eight years, emerging with a truly transcendent worldview. (Originally aired: Jue 13, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most people in our community have explored meditation, centering prayer, or other forms of spiritual contemplation … and may have come face to face with THE VOID. (Dun dun dunnnn.) Martha explains that when people encounter nothingness, they often feel fear and despair. Her own first experience with finding the void through meditation felt that way, but in this discussion she explains how we can transform our relationship with the void into one of creativity and genuine joy. (Originally aired: June 6, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we move toward life after Covid, many of us are feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed. We’re facing a deluge of decisions demanding attention, causing bottlenecks in our brains that make it impossible to focus on anything at all. Martha explains that the Practical Wayfinding: Creativity Mindset is the answer. Instead of allowing us to freeze up, it helps us remain curious, explore our options, and focus on building solutions. She offers us a few hacks to help us access our creativity under duress. (Originally aired: May 30, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As any artist will tell you, creativity is rarely tidy. Lately Martha has been expressing her creativity by drawing and painting, relishing the trail of brushes, rags, and sketchbooks she leaves in her wake. Then, after working intently on one canvas, she decided she’d RUINED it … before she remembered that before order, there is chaos. When we decide to build something beautiful out of our lives, it will be messy. And when we see the mess, we are very close to success. (Originally aired: May 23, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While promoting her new book, Martha found herself tapped out and exhausted. She quickly realized she hadn’t been using the one skill that helps her manage the rollercoaster of life: non-attachment. In this conversation, Martha explains that despite its somewhat uninviting name, this skill makes our good times last longer and go deeper, and makes our bad times easier to weather. She also explains how it relates to spiders and tells us how to apply it to our daily lives. (Originally aired: May 16, 2021)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.