Dr. Martha Beck (Oprah's Life Coach): I Nearly Died, So I Stopped Lying! Why You're Anxious & How To Fix It! Fix Your Childhood Trauma!

Martha Beck (0:00)

When we lie, our bodies get very weak. For example, stick your arm out and say, I love fresh air.

Steven Bartlett (0:05)

I love fresh air.

Martha Beck (0:08)

Now, I want you to do that while lying. And the lie I'd like you to say is, I love to vomit. Say it.

Steven Bartlett (0:14)

I love to vomit. That's so weird.

Martha Beck (0:16)

Now say, I love fresh air.

Steven Bartlett (0:17)

I love fresh air.

Martha Beck (0:19)

Now say, I love to vomit.

Steven Bartlett (0:20)

I love to vomit. Why is that?

Martha Beck (0:22)

It's because the way the brain is structured, and there are many tricks. Do you want to do some more?

Steven Bartlett (0:25)

Sure, let's do that.

SPEAKER_3 (0:27)

Martha Beck, PhD, is a Harvard-trained sociologist and world-renowned life coach, whose notable clients include Oprah Winfrey.

Steven Bartlett (0:32)

Her neurologic-based techniques have helped individuals cope and adapt to an anxiety-addicted world.

Martha Beck (0:38)

So our brains are biologically pre-programmed to be anxious, taught by innocently believing lies, by socialization or trauma. Socialization says, you're not good enough, you should try harder, that was a bad choice, all kinds of things. And trauma tells you, oh my God, everything's dangerous all the time. And then it creates horror stories that haven't happened yet to make you safe. But the thing about anxiety is if you get stuck in the anxiety spiral, it just keeps getting worse. For example, I have memories and a lot of physical scarring from sexual abuse, which started at five years old. And then by the time I was 30, I had depression and anxiety and been bedridden with autoimmune diseases, thinking I could just kill myself. But I can tell you with 100% certainty, it is possible to trick our brains and shut down anxiety So if I'm feeling anxious, what would you recommend that I do? Here's one of my favorites.

Steven Bartlett (1:34)

To Martha Beck, within all your work, what is it that you're aiming to do? And I guess, most importantly, equally importantly, who are you aiming to do it for?

Martha Beck (1:46)

I could give you the normal answer, which goes down easily with most people. Or I could give you the truth, which sounds really weird.

Steven Bartlett (1:55)

I'll take the truth.

SPEAKER_4 (1:57)

I was hoping you would say that.

Martha Beck (1:59)

So in all my work, and this means from the time I was little, I remember being dreadfully anxious about not having done enough toward it. On the night before my birthday one year, I was lying there thinking, I am supposed, there's something I'm supposed to help with on the earth, and I have not done enough, and I've got to get moving here. And the next day I turned four. So ever since I was little, my whole intent has been based on this feeling that I was meant to help with a shift that would happen in the world during my lifetime, and I did not know what it was. So I would ask myself, what, what is it? I would spend hours thinking, what is it? And the only thing I got as an answer was this poet, this bit of poetry from TS. Eliot. And it goes, I said to my soul, be still and wait without love, for it would be love of the wrong thing. And wait without hope, for it would be hope of the wrong thing. There is yet faith, but the love and the hope and the faith are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness, the dancing.

All right, as I got older and studied more, I began to think what I'm meant to help with is a shift in the way human beings perceive and think. And that is why I couldn't know what it was, because to explain to someone a fundamental shift in the way they think would have to be processed through the way they're thinking now. And so it would be fundamentally misunderstood. So now I'm old and I don't care what people think of me. So I just say this right out loud. I used to, it was a deep secret in my heart for decades. And now I just say, I think there is going to be a shift in the way, in human consciousness. And I think it is going to change the way humans relate to the planet, relate to each other, relate to themselves. And I could be wrong, but I don't care. I'm going to keep trying for it till the day I die.