Welcome to the Gathering Pod, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast.

I'm Martha Beck.

You know how just sometimes?

Facebook doesn't work and you don't get a good night's sleep and people you love are sick

and other people you love are having arguments and like

things are just going wrong and you wish you could just like not have that be happening and so much

of life is like that I woke up this morning and there were a number of things like that and I was

like oh I want to have a good day I want to be super happy like that. I woke up this morning and there were a number of things like that and I was like,

I want to have a good day. I want to be super happy. And I could feel myself wanting to pull away from the situation because I was having experiences that weren't pleasant. Well, I fortunately

know what to do when I want to get out of a situation or get out of a feeling

or get out of the reality of something happening.

Like, not just one person, but people I love are very ill.

Stuff like that is happening.

And as my favorite spiritual teacher, Byron Katie, says, when we argue with reality, we lose,

but only 100% of the time.

So the first thing I want to do is pull my mood up to a happy space where I'm not reacting

to what's happening. I want to be so enlightened or so adept with

my self-help and my cheeriness that I don't have to feel the negative sides of what's going on in my

life or in life generally. And that I immediately creates this tension. And in that

tension, I've lost my integrity, right? Because what I'm feeling is not so hot, but what I'm

pretending to feel or what I'm trying to feel is much happier. So I'm split. The very first thing

you have to do when you want to get out of a situation, while the first

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