The Gathering Room Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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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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!

CONNECT WITH US

• Follow Martha on Instagram
• The Gathering Room Show Notes
• Join Martha for a Live Episode of The Gathering Room via Facebook

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you respond when you’re in a painful situation and there’s no way out? The answer is paradoxical. Come learn how to do it with this week’s Gathering Room!

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• Follow Martha on Instagram
• The Gathering Room Show Notes
• Join Martha for a Live Episode of The Gathering Room via Facebook

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the Gathering Room this week, Martha tells you how to keep moving towards your heart’s desires, even when they seem unattainable. Also, some juicy listener questions in this episode! (Originally aired, February 27, 2022)

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Life is full of ups and downs, and most of us get pretty knocked around by it. In this Gathering Room, Martha teaches us a simple psychological step that can instantly make suffering diminish and happiness increase. Listen to learn how! (Originally aired, February 13, 2022)

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This week on the Gathering Room, Martha takes on embarrassment, which ensues when we reveal truths the ego would rather hide. We can react by hiding more (increasing shame) or watching our embarrassment calmly. Try the second option, and you’ll see your ego burning up in real time, leaving you freer. (Originally aired, February 6, 2022)

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In this week’s Gathering Room, Martha talks about a concept that seems paradoxical in the context of our speed-obsessed culture. Look at that thing you think you need to do. Look at the time you’re estimating it will take you. Now double that time. What happens? (Originally aired, January 30, 2022)

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Martha had an unexpected encounter with a wild animal this past week, and it gave her some insight about what to do when you’re freaking out. Listen in to learn the significance of “pulling over,” the role of co-regulation in dealing with fear and trauma, and the answers to listeners’ questions. (Originally aired, January 23, 2022)

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Martha is joined this week by Rowan Mangan (https://www.instagram.com/rowan_mangan/) to talk about Ro’s concept of “Wild Inventures,” the idea of reframing our lives according to what is true within us instead of borrowing dreams from the culture.

Have a laugh and learn some new skills with Martha and Ro as they talk past adventures, Ro’s passion for kidney beans, and the stillness that comes once you’ve peeled back all the layers of your identity. (Originally aired, January 16, 2022)

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We hear a lot about flow and ease, and these things are WONDERFUL. Yet part of what makes our human experience worth having is grit. Doing whatever we can to achieve something that our soul craves.

Enter GRIT MAGIC.

Start it when you don’t feel ready. Send your work in before you feel it’s complete. Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Learn how to harness your own grit magic today! (Originally aired, January 9, 2022)

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