What's in the Way is the Way with Mary O'Malley

Mary O'Malley: 0:00

The more you come out of this conditioned self, the more you see life is an absolutely trustable process. Whatever that is that created the DNA molecule out of Stardust and beats your heart a hundred thousand times a day knows what it's doing.

Liz Wiltzen: 0:25

Hey, hey, hey. So glad you're here. This is Tracking, yes, and you are exactly where you're meant to be. I'm your host, Liz Wiltzen, coach creator and round-the-clock philosopher. And this, my friends, is where the magic happens. Join me and my guests for stories that will inspire you to dial up your curiosity, fine-tune your courage and wisdom and create an empowered relationship with whatever's happening now. If you're curious about coaching or have been thinking that you might want to work with me, now's a really great time. I have some spots available in my practice and I offer a free sample session so we can have a conversation and see if it feels like a good fit. And also, due to a current client who is a generous benefactor, i have a partial scholarship available if someone can't afford my full rate. You can find out more about coaching and working with me at my coaching website, lizwiltzencom. Mary O'Malley is a highly regarded leader in the field of awakening and the author of several books, including What's In The Way Is The Way. We cover a lot of ground in our conversation today, diving into why we're addicted to struggle, what fuels our compulsions, the eight spells of separation and how to free ourselves from them, and Mary offers her insights into the healing power of wonder and why we can trust that we are supported by the inherent intelligence of life. Mary, i am so thrilled that you said yes and agreed to come on the Tracking Yes podcast. Thank you so much.

Mary O'Malley: 2:11

I'm glad to be here, Liz.

Liz Wiltzen: 2:14

I first discovered your work when I heard you being interviewed by Tammy Simon because, sounds true, published What's In The Way Is The Way, One of your books. And that interview was so full of powerful structures and tools that I started to bring a lot of the concepts into my coaching work with my clients. And they love you, They love the work. It's so deeply resonant So I feel like I've been kind of walking with you for some time now. But now that my podcast is up and rolling, when I was building my podcast, like two years ago, and they said who? or three years ago, they said who do you want for guests? You were top of my list, but I just never.

Mary O'Malley: 3:00

I'm so glad we're doing this.

Liz Wiltzen: 3:02

Yes, yeah, but I never asked you till now, and now I did ask you and now you said yes, so yay here we are. And Mary, you are acknowledged as a leader in the field of awakening by many wonderful spiritual teachers, including Eckhart Tolle, jeff Foster, tara Brock, jack Cornfield and Steven Levine, who I know you work extensively with Yes, yes. In your journey, And you facilitate a wide range of workshops, both in person, online. You also have on demand workshops, and you're author of several books, three of which I will name here The Healing Power of Wonder, The Gift of Our Compulsions and What's In The Way Is The Way, And these are all. They have similar veins, and then they have their own unique tax that they take as well, And so I'm so wanting to talk to you about these books, And I wanna start with just we'll just dip a little bit into The Healing Power of Wonder. Well, actually, that isn't a book, it's a CD. I found it on your website. You can download, you can order the CD or you can download it as an MP3. So recommend it, you guys. Absolutely worth it, Because what's fascinating is that you hold it as it's a way to bring the leading discoveries in science that can awaken us through the curiosity of showing up for life. Yes, yes, This is what tracking, yes, is the curiosity of showing up for life. So tell us a little bit about the book, about what it is about.

Mary O'Malley: 4:38

Well, i teach out of metaphors. I love metaphors And one of my favorite metaphors right now is imagine the ocean of being The most beautiful ocean you could ever imagine. That is your true nature. You were born from that ocean. You lived intimately connected to that ocean. You were awake to life. You weren't yet aware, but you were awake. And then, as thoughts began to fill up our head, we began to crawl into this very tiny, opaque bubble that floats on the ocean, and I call that the bubble of struggle. And this is it, it, it. Once you open back up into life, you will be stunned at how much you have missed. This bubble is made out of fear and it's glued together with judgment, and it's all about doing and trying and fixing, and getting rid of and rising above and good and bad and right and wrong, and so so much of my work is about how do you become free of the bubble of struggle. Everybody lives in it to some degree or another, and it's curiosity coupled with compassion. It's the kind of curiosity where your attention and your immediate experience come together And when you begin to dissolve this bubble of struggle and you come back to the ocean of being, you see the miraculousness of life. There's so much that we take for granted, there's so much we miss. It's like come sit on the moon with me and you see that of the seven, eight billion people on the planet, most of them have clouds around their heads And they don't connect with life, they don't connect with themselves, they don't connect with loved ones, they don't connect with the earth, they don't connect with other people And because of that they can cause great harm to themselves, to others and to the planet. So this was my attempt to kind of open up those blinders and really recognize the. I mean, for heaven's sakes, life took stardust and created the DNA molecule, and in the DNA molecule you change a few bases and you get a slug. And you change a few bases and you get a hummingbird. And you change a few bases and you get a human being. I mean, what is this intelligence that can have? you be one cell, one cell, and that cell knows how to multiply and divide into the 70 trillion cells that you are, and those cells hardly need a thought from you. There is this greater intelligence that permeates everything. The quality of this intelligence is love, and we are homesick. So that CD was my attempt to kind of let's take the blinders off of your eyes, because in order to learn how to dissolve the bubble of struggle rather than always trying to solve it, that's what keeps us caught. It's like quicksand, but in order to dissolve it, you've got to learn the art of turning toward rather than away, and at the beginning it takes a lot of courage. That's why I do free nights and have ongoing classes online, so that we get the clarity and the support so that we can meet this bubble of struggle, not try to get rid of it, not try to fix it. Meet it so that it dissolves and we come back to the joy of being alive. So we need a little. That CD was almost the carrot in front of the donkey to go. Oh my God, there's so much that we miss.

Liz Wiltzen: 8:54

Yeah, like because you lay out through, you know, current discoveries of science. You lay out what we now understand about the whole evolution that got us to this point in time. And how can you have that in your awareness and not be in absolute awe?

Mary O'Malley: 9:15

Yeah, yeah And recognize. I just finished my latest book, which is a story form of this. It's the story of a child is standing on the ridge above the valley of forgetting And she doesn't quite know how she got here, but she sees the mountain of being at the end of the valley and she knows that her journey is to the mountain of being. And as she goes down into the valley of forgetting she begins to close off and she eventually locks herself in the fort called Mind. We think our way through our lives, but then she's called. She's called to continue her journey And the first day out she's treed by a mother bear and up in that tree she sees glimpses of white. She doesn't remember what it is but she knows it's calling to her. And then, as she goes through the forest and the meadows and onto the mountain, she has many experiences with wolf pups and hummingbirds and ancient trees and angry men and a sprained ant. All this that slowly and surely she opens up again from the contraction that she took on when she thought she was a separate human being. And then, when she gets to the mountain, she is consciousness itself and she knows that is what is going to heal our planet. So we are in an evolutionary shift and it's happening in human consciousness and we're in the middle of great chaos as the old way is dying, the me, me, me kind of mind that doesn't give a fly Putin Putin's a very good example of that Doesn't give a fly big, this is what he wants, doesn't matter who he kills or whatever what he takes. That's the old kind of mind And this new kind of mind is being born in so many of us and you are part of it. You are seeding it by offering this podcast to the world, because we need as many people as we can. It was absolutely essential that we that are being woken up out of the dream, the separation and struggle, we gather together, we remember together, because this is a major, major shift in evolution.

Liz Wiltzen: 11:29

It's very interesting in the healing power of wonder. You are a colleague and friend with Brian Swim, who is a cosmologist and really tells long arcs and stories of evolutionary history, our story, our story.

Mary O'Malley: 11:48

he calls it our story. One time we were just atoms and then we became mollicose. It's so amazing, and his documentary, the Journey of the Universe, won the Emmy in 2018. And if anybody wants to be lifted into seeing you are part of this magnificent, intelligent, beloved process, watch that documentary.

Liz Wiltzen: 12:15

Yeah, yeah. And so then, you, building on that in the healing power of wonder you talk about, we had galaxies in evolution, and then we had proteins, and then we had photosynthesis and we had like all these different phases of evolution, and you said that you hold. what is asking to be born at this moment of evolution is our ability to show up for life, cultivating our ability to pay attention.

Mary O'Malley: 12:44

Yes, and to celebrate. I mean, the slug can't do that. The slug has its life and its purpose. The bee has its purpose, but we are the only thing on this planet that can truly see and celebrate, from the top of the mountains down to the bottom of the sea, and that is our job. Brian says the difficulty is we do not see what is before us. We are sleepwalking through our lives. So so much of my work is I become the prince kissing the princess awake, because most people are sleepwalking through their lives and we need as many people as we can that are coming out of the valley of forgetting and onto the mountain of being. And the sleepwalking in your book.

Liz Wiltzen: 13:33

What's in the Way is the Way you talk about the spells of forgetting And so the sleepwalking is being under a spell. Exactly Yeah.

Mary O'Malley: 13:43

Exactly A spell is something that's later, over the top of you. You believe it's not true and it can be lifted. And the spells that make up this separate self, that literally put a veil between us and life and the way that we are, and that's what we do, we do, we do, we do, we do, they can be lifted through the power of attention.

Liz Wiltzen: 14:08

Yes, and so we'll come back into that a bit later, and let's just, first of all, let's just lay the groundwork for that from speaking about your book, the Gift of Our Compulsions. So, because you're well before we even get into any more of that, let's just have you define compulsion. What is a compulsion?

Mary O'Malley: 14:30

Something that comes over and over again, that you have very little choice around And it is something that is taking care of a part of you. Compulsions are a finely crafted survival system, holding it by things that when we were little, if we didn't stuff them, they would have overwhelmed us Our loneliness, our anger, our fear. We had to stuff these things And as we got older, we needed something to stuff them. But the wonderful thing about compulsions is we're finally beginning to understand that whatever you try to control controls you And everything that's out. There is about controlling your compulsions And it doesn't work. Us Surgeon General 97% of every pound that is lost in the US is gained back. Lost some within a year and a half. So this is about how to connect, how to listen, how to allow your compulsions to be your teacher.

Liz Wiltzen: 15:50

Okay, I want to make a distinction here. Help me with this. So is it that we are trying to control our compulsions or is it that our compulsions are trying to control our fear and our loneliness and our? It's both.

Mary O'Malley: 16:06

Okay, it's both, because if you really, as you're awakening, we just stuff so many parts of us Robert Bly says it's like all the unacceptable parts of ourselves we put in a bag hanging off of our shoulder and we're left with this little tiny slice and we think that's life And that stuff in the bag gets grinchy. How do you bring that stuff out of the bag and set it free? Your compulsions will help you if you learn how to listen.

Liz Wiltzen: 16:41

Yeah, because they're showing you the stuff. Your compulsions are showing you the stuff Whenever they're here.

Mary O'Malley: 16:48

There's something that's trying to be seen that you haven't yet learned how to give it space, and so the compulsion comes to stuff it back down again, and back down again, and back down again, and so you need a kind of a pathway for the going towards so that it becomes safe. It could be very scary at the beginning until you learn I like to say it in this way The mind thinks there's all sorts of monsters inside of us. There's just children in monster costumes that are waiting waiting for us to say hello And when your compulsions come, that's when you don't have to find out what it is. There's a very step-by-step process in that book. Just acknowledging that your compulsion is trying to take care of something, it's a huge leap in healing compulsions.

Liz Wiltzen: 17:52

Yeah, and so there's two parts here. Let me see where do I want to go, because another thing that I think in that book that you say that I think is so interesting is that our primary addiction is to struggle. You got it.

Mary O'Malley: 18:11

Yeah, and most people. it's interesting most people miss that when they read the book, because it's right at the very beginning. but that's the bubble of struggle And then we have been trained to struggle with struggle and that's our life.

Liz Wiltzen: 18:25

And so it's like a loop. It's a loop that we're addicted to. Yes, It's almost like and I notice this sometimes with clients and with myself where, if I start to set down the struggle, I start to get very uncomfortable, very antsy, very like it's restless. Restless If I open up to okay, what if I didn't need to struggle? What if there was ease Very quickly. What starts to happen is well, this isn't going to last.

Mary O'Malley: 18:56

I start to go on alert, I start to like, uh-oh, I'm going to get blindsided because, Because, yeah, The last time that you were fully open to life, that you were an integrated part of the flow of life, was when you were young and we got the living, but Jesus scared out of us. So there is a break, a fail-safe break, that says do not open or you will die. But we're not children anymore And to not open, you will never thrive. And so we need intelligent pathways for turning towards and setting these compulsions free. And as I said in the book, i mean I once gained 97 pounds in a year, so this really has come from. And I was washing all of it down with alcohol and taking every single drug I could get my hands on, because I had a very terrified childhood And everybody tried to fix me, even to the point of mental hospitals and all that. And then I was 27 and a teacher came into my life and he taught me in the seeing is the movement. It's nothing that needs to be fixed. We're only beginning to realize the phenomenal power of focused attention, just accepting attention.

Liz Wiltzen: 20:34

Let me quote you from Okay, we are going to jump all over. if that's perfect though.

Mary O'Malley: 20:37

That's more. We'll follow. Yeah, it's more fun.

Liz Wiltzen: 20:40

So I want to quote you from what's in the way is the way. When your attention and your immediate love of this so much, when your attention and your immediate experience come together with curiosity, then you are in the seeing of life. And when you are in the seeing, the seeing itself is the shift. There's nothing we need to do. Our awareness takes care of it.

Mary O'Malley: 21:06

Yes, i just got chills because we need to hear that over and over, because if you could watch the bubble of struggle, it is dualistic in nature and it thinks this is good and that is bad, and this is right and that is wrong, and it's an endless game of struggle And what we're learning how to do is pull our attention out of that struggle, because you need to strengthen the muscle of your attention, because it's followed thought wherever it goes. You need to strengthen it. So in all my books, talk about that at some level, so that you can begin to ask the question. In this moment, what am I experiencing? Your old boyfriend is at a party and he is talking very loudly about you loudly enough so that he knows you can overhear him and he talks about all the things that are wrong with you And just you know. You can just feel yourself curling up inside and either one or two things happened. You attack or you retreat, you fold into yourself. Well, there's a third. What does this bring up inside of me? What is asking to be seen? That feeling of being rejected was a big part of all of our childhoods, even if we were in a fairly healthy family, and to be able to be with that feeling the way I describe it. It's almost like your feelings are foster children that have been in an unhealthy foster family. Because you have hated these things, you judge them. You judge yourself for having them. You just want to get rid of them. And then you learn how to listen. Who's here right now? I learned this going to holidays at my sister's house. The bully that I lived in the same bedroom with for most of my life And she had a little bathroom off of her kitchen and that was my little sanctuary. Because I would be driving there and saying, okay, i'm going to notice what comes up inside of me, that I would get caught and I would go into the bathroom, i would breathe, i would notice, okay, what am I experiencing? If all I could do was just notice my breath, that was enough. It grounded me again. And then I went back into the theater of family, knowing that I was here in that theater to recognize parts of me that I took on when I was young, that are ready to be set free.

Liz Wiltzen: 23:58

You have such a beautiful way that you say it. Can we become more interested in what's happening than in our story?

Mary O'Malley: 24:09

about what's happening. Yeah, that story, oh my God, it's so seductive. I was working with somebody that had this exact experience not quite exact, but she was at a retreat and she was fully and resoundly rejected and we began to explore and then she just kept on jumping up into it. I'm so angry at them and she would get lost in the story. And I said, okay, you breathe, Can you be with the anger? As she was with the anger. she saw it was trying to protect the great hurt and then she could be with that hurt for the first time, without a story. She could just feel this hurt that she had carried her whole life.

Liz Wiltzen: 25:00

Yeah, yeah, And so I think the most pivotal message in the gift of our compulsions is we are not trying to stop our compulsions, We're actually I love how you say this we're adding more engagement.

Mary O'Malley: 25:19

Yes.

Liz Wiltzen: 25:21

Yes, that's such an interesting way to say it.

Mary O'Malley: 25:24

Yes, because it's all been management. If you look at all the books on the New York Times Bell Seller list about how to control your comp, it's all about management And we don't throw away management. I may work with somebody that is still working with 12-step at some level, but we're adding engagement, curiosity. What is here? when we want to fall into our compulsion And oftentimes at the beginning you'll fall into your compulsion You can't. There's no consciousness whatsoever, so then you do it afterwards. Afterwards is when we just ream ourselves. I mean just, oh God, i did it again. What's wrong with me? And then we go into despair. I'll never get out of this. You can then say hello to the judge here that's been trying to take care of you your whole life, very painfully so And you can learn how to say hello to the despair.

Liz Wiltzen: 26:32

It takes a while.

Mary O'Malley: 26:33

Okay, listeners.

Liz Wiltzen: 26:35

Who wants to sign up for saying hello to despair?

Mary O'Malley: 26:39

The person that wants to be free, because despair is just bound up energy, and that bound up energy puts a veil between you and the joy of being fully alive. But, we don't start. It's like one of my main teachers said you don't go into the gym the first day and pick up the 50 pound weights. You go and pick up the two pound weights and you slowly. it's just like when we learn how to walk. we fell down a lot But slowly and surely the muscles of our legs got strong enough to hold us that we can walk and run. Slowly and surely the muscle of your attention will get strong enough that even despair can arise And it's like a cloud passing through the vast blue sky of your true nature. It takes a while to get there, but that's the path of awakening.

Liz Wiltzen: 27:53

Yeah, yeah, and I guess I want to bring in now too, and we haven't spoken much about your history. But if I may name a couple things, because I want the audience to feel what you have pushed off of in your own life and in your own experiences, Yes. I know that you tried to commit suicide three times in your 20s. And you tell a story somewhere. I listen to you tell a story of breaking your own arm. Yes, Tell us that story of.

Mary O'Malley: 28:25

I was living in Switzerland and I had been kidnapped and raped and I ran away. I just packed everything and ran to. I didn't even know anybody in Europe. That's the unconscious mind. Just get away from this pain. And I was house sitting for a person that I met over there and they had lots of alcohol And I went about trying to drink as much alcohol as I could without them noticing that I drank their alcohol. And one night I got so mad at myself and I was drunk and I went to hit the bed. It was a four-poster bed and had a duvet cover over the bottom and there's a board across the bottom And I hit my arm and it felt good to hurt myself And I just kept on hitting it until I passed out. And then I woke up with a football for an arm the next morning And then the doctor said I broke that bone. But that is. I think that if I look at my life, i never would want to live the first 27 years over again, because it was just darkness and more darkness and more darkness and more darkness. That's why I tried to kill myself three times. But I am very grateful for it, because I have experienced the depth of what human beings can experience. The main feeling of my childhood was no way out And that helpless, hopeless despair. And that was the truth It was. We don't need to go into all the insanity, but it was really truly insane. But I experienced all that And then, when I was 27, i began this inkling of maybe there's nothing wrong with me. All these psychiatrists and psychologists and people at mental health all of them said there's something wrong with you, you have to be fixed. And it's the first time I thought oh, wow, it's your attention, that's what heals all the pain. But I spent 11 years struggling doing this and not doing it well enough. And then I had the grace to meet Stephen Stephen Levine, yes, and he opened me back into my heart. And he is. People don't know him. He's written many books on death and dying And I had the Hanuman project for many years in his house. You could call if you were dying, 24 hours a day. If you were dying, the loved one was dying, your child was kidnapped. It was people on the edge that taught him to be fully alive. One of the things he says is may you be so lucky to come across something you can't control? You know, the first time I heard this I went, no, no, don't want that. I kept on getting drawn back to him And slowly and surely he taught me to bring curiosity and compassion into all these moving pieces of the terror and the despair and the extreme self-hate and the revulsion, to bring curiosity and compassion to them. And I live in a lot of spaciousness now. You know I still have challenges in my life, but you learn how to respond to them rather than react from them. And I think one of the most amazing things is and it's woven all throughout the CD about wonder is the more you come out of this conditioned self, the more you see. Life is an absolutely trustable process. It's not always likable, but the more you wake up, the more the veils have lifted. You see, whatever that is that created the DNA molecule out of Stardust and beats your heart a hundred thousand times a day, knows what it's doing, and that's when you begin to show up for your life. So every morning when I wake up, i say, yes, life, i will do my absolute best to be with whatever you bring me So I can be a part of the healing of humanity.

Liz Wiltzen: 33:11

In the healing power of wonder, you bring in this scientific understanding that we are made up of 99.99% space And that isn't empty space, that space is filled with non-material intelligence. And then somewhere I think maybe in that book somewhere you give an example of if you cut yourself, you get a little cut and looked at that immediately under a microscope And will you say you tell it.

Mary O'Malley: 33:43

Yeah, And these little filaments. I mean, it's just stunning to watch these intelligent filaments beginning to weave the skin back together again. And this is what we miss when we're caught in the bubble of struggle. We think our way through our lives, and so I say to people yes, initially this may feel a little scary, but believe you me, you are homesick for being at one with your life.

Liz Wiltzen: 34:14

Yeah, Yeah. Well, let's come in now to what's in the way. Is the way Okay? Well, I tell people.

Mary O'Malley: 34:21

you don't even need to read the book, just list the title. We have the title.

Liz Wiltzen: 34:25

Yeah Well, and something I want to say up front, get this book because, in addition to all the wisdom that's in it, i want to really applaud the structure of it. You've done such a beautiful job with. You lay out a chapter, some concepts, then at the end of the chapter you highlight the key concepts of that chapter, so just your takeaways, and then you have a thing called a remembering session, where you also have a guided meditation that has you deeply integrate the concepts that were taught in the structure Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Mary O'Malley: 35:03

So you do this for the mid-ville, yeah, yeah.

Liz Wiltzen: 35:05

And so you do this for 10 chapters and suggest like you could do one a week, or you could spend three weeks on one and one week on another, but working your way through, and I really think if you just took this book and said I'm going to do the 10-week course that you have so easily and beautifully laid out, it'll start to really get into the experience of what Mary's teaching, what you're bringing in your teaching. Yeah, so awesome structure, love the way you did the book. And so let's talk about, like, really, what is the key message of this book? And something that I heard you say in your interview with Tammy that really landed for me was in our childhood, all of us, every single one of us, starts to have experiences of invasion or abandonment. Right, so take us there. Say a bit more about that, yeah.

Mary O'Malley: 35:59

Yeah, if you really look at the fuel for creating this storyteller, i call it the storyteller, this thing that talks in our head all day long, that we think is us and it's not. The two core wounds are invasion and abandonment. Invasion can go all the way from a parent that thinks that parenting is telling you what to do to deep, deep abuse sexual, physical, mental, whatever. Abandonment can go all the way from a parent that is too busy to be with you to a parent or a caretaker that just walks out and never comes back. So when we were born, there was not a thought in our head, not one thought. And slowly and surely we absorb, just like we absorbed language. You know, if you lived in an American home, you didn't absorb Chinese. You know, maybe some people did, but you absorb the language. That's how you learn it. It's the same thing we do with our parents' unconsciousness. I say somewhere, if our parents were having a very strong argument in a completely sealed, safe room down in the basement and you were up in the attic and you couldn't hear it, you could feel it. That was a child's world. And so we absorb these experiences And our experience of life is. Now we'll get into the eight core spells, but the first spell is I'm separate and the second spell is life is not safe. And that's where this thing that begins to try to take care of us. It plans, it judges, it remembers. I think I've worked with everything from homeless people to CEOs, the corporations to psychotherapists. All of us, all of us have inside at some level, this fear of not being enough, and it just fuels just think it fuels the makeup industry. It fuels the car industry Oh, now I've got a Lamborghini, so you know I am. And that's all false. What we want to do is come back and feel our value. Every single person is an absolutely unique expression of life, a unique and necessary expression, and so much of awakening is relearning how to discover our value. So I came from being a worthless piece of shit. excuse the French, but that's how you can break your arm and try to kill yourself three times And the last time I was splitting my wrist and I couldn't get myself to bleed enough. Thank God I didn't know that you go up. I was going across my wrist And I can remember Liz. I was in a windowless bedroom in a basement apartment, leaning against the wall and sobbing because I was even a failure at suicide. How do you come from there to a life where I love myself exactly as I am? My arms flap in the wind. Now you know and I love my body. I'm not a perfect person but I'm a work in progress And that's what so much of my work is about. They say in the first 18 months, that's when your brain starts getting hardwired. It can be changed. but that first 18 months, and then definitely the first five or six years, that's when you fall into the bubble of struggle. you fall into ideas about yourself And most people go to their deathbeds lost in that world. Stephen tells a story about a 93-year-old woman. utter deathbed said it can't end now because it hasn't started yet. So when we begin to explore this conversation of struggle inside of us, we need to understand the foundation was created by a child that felt very alone and very separate, and that happens to all of us.

Liz Wiltzen: 40:58

You say it really well. We learned how to hold our breath, tighten our bodies and run away to our minds And then we begin to believe we have to manage the outside world in order to be safe And ourselves And that is seductive And you can literally spend your whole life in that.

Mary O'Malley: 41:22

But people that are listening to your podcast or read my books or whatever, those are people that something is beginning to move. They're beginning to think okay, there's something more than this. There's something more than being caught in the storyteller in our head and doing life And what's calling to you is the absolute joy of being.

Liz Wiltzen: 41:48

Yeah, it's like there's something more and there's something truer. Truer, that's a great word.

Mary O'Malley: 41:53

Yes, yes because all this is fleeting, but this is real and it's right here and it's always. Always. That's what she sees up on the mountain. In the new book She sees that this moment holds everything that she has ever longed for in her whole life, and it's always with her.

Liz Wiltzen: 42:19

So let's come into the spells, because the spells are the things that are the veils that separate us from knowing it, accessing it, being in touch with it, being aware of it. Yeah, and you talk about eight spells that are laid over us through our childhood experiences, that keep us feeling separate from life Two foundational spells, three operational spells and three hidden spells. Hidden spells, so take us through them, so to begin.

Mary O'Malley: 42:54

The spells help you to kind of step back and start looking relating to, let's say, fear comes. Oh, my God, i've got that presentation and my God, if I don't do that presentation right, i'm going to be fired. That's being caught Relating to. It is oh, fear is here. A huge difference between I am afraid and fear is here. And that's what you can learn while you do this work, and I have three online courses that help also. But these eight core spells I mean I have worked with people for almost 40 years, tens of thousands of people, and I've been able to hear the words from the retreats, lead groups do talks and I'm a pretty safe place. So I've been able to hear into the minds and hearts of so many people. And these are the spells we all take on. And the most inspirational spell is I am separate. We've always been an integral and necessary part of this creative bowl that is life. But our minds separate us out And as soon as we separate out, then it looks big and scary And as we get involved in the dance of life, you realize, oh my God, it's so highly intelligent and it loves you more than you could possibly know, but when you separate out. It's scary. So the second foundational spell is life is not safe. Now you go into the operating spells. Because it's not safe. I've got to do it, i've got to figure out how to do this thing And I've got to do it right. And I'm not doing it right enough. And that's where most people live, just going around in that circle, because underneath those are the three hidden spells that most people don't know how to meet. You don't face it, you meet it And remember these spells were created in the mind of a child. And so the hidden spells, because I'm not doing it right, i am wrong And I just want people just to let that in. We try to keep that so far away from ourselves. And yet as I explore with people, we always come across that belief And it says I am wrong. Because I am wrong, i am unlovable. And I can't read which book I put it in The study at the University of Wisconsin in 1952 with baby Reese's monkeys, very, very painful study. They took the babies away from their mothers at birth. They put them in cages all by themselves And they had the choice of two separate mothers. One was a wire form monkey that had a bottle that hung from it And the other was a cloth monkey. And if you chose the cloth monkey to snuggle, you didn't get fed. If you chose the wire form monkey, you got fed but you didn't get to cuddle. And 100% of the time the babies chose the cloth monkey. It just brings tears because the depth of this scar, i am unlovable. As you wake up, you see absolutely everybody is so lovable. You see through the eyes of your heart, but the heartache of taking on that spell and trying to hide it inside Because I'm not doing it right, i'm wrong, because I'm wrong, i am unlovable. In other words, i'm not seen, i'm not heard, i'm not meant. And because of that we come to the last core spell. I am all alone And that's the greatest fear of all human beings. But the amazing thing is, liz, we've never been alone. These are just spells And if you take that word in English and you separate it out, it's all one. So again, you don't go there right away. You slowly and surely strengthen your capacity to be curious about what your experience is, seeing it through the eyes of compassion, and slowly and surely these spells will lift. Do they still sometimes come? for me, yeah, when there's a big family or whatever, or there's something going on with my health. But I don't last very long there Because once you've come back to life, you know your natural state is free, flowing aliveness. That's your natural state. You're just like nature. Everything flows in nature The wind flows, the water flows, the seasons flow, and when a spell takes over, it becomes very evident because you contract. And I call it becoming a tightness detective, so that when the contraction comes, then immediately, rather than being lost in it, you can learn how to relate to it, to explore it and set that spell tree. And it's totally possible. And it's people that are causing so much heartache on this planet that are caught in the spells. There's politicians that are just take, take, take and their word is all about fear, and so on and so forth. We desperately need more and more people that are becoming smarter than their spells, so that we.

Liz Wiltzen: 49:18

I love that Becoming smarter than their spells.

Mary O'Malley: 49:21

And most politicians at some level are really enmeshed in their spells. But we are the awakening, we are the healing You and I and the people that read my stuff yeah, we are the clarion call. The most I hear back is two things Oh my God, you've made such a difference in my life And what you say makes so much sense Because it's grounded here, right here, right now, and I am a living example that you can become free from the spells, even if they're just as huge as mine, you can become free.

Liz Wiltzen: 50:04

And what I love about, like looping back to where we opened. it's more than just your individual journey that supports the collective. It is the evolutionary call that Oh, it just got chills. It's like this is what is supported by the whole cosmos to happen. If we decide to go with it, we're supported by the whole evolutionary cosmos.

Mary O'Malley: 50:34

And in every major shift there's always been chaos, as the old is dying And the evolution, thomas Berry says for the first time, evolution is happening in human consciousness And there is this old kind of mind that is getting very loud right now. All you have to do is look at politics. You know it's this dualistic mind, that I'm right, you're wrong. But the power of just one person seeing through that and seeing that there is not one iota of this whole universe that's not sacred, that one person can be the difference.

Liz Wiltzen: 51:17

So let's bring in the three core skills that you give people as tools to come out of the spells and wake up out of these spells. And so we start with the tightness detective, where you notice you're paying enough attention to notice, oh, i'm constricting, i feel a tightness in my being. Okay, so now bring us into this approach of these three core skills that we can then bring to meet that tightness.

Mary O'Malley: 51:47

So our condition self doesn't like unpleasantness. We spend our lives trying to get to the pleasant and get rid of the unpleasant, and it's just amazing that most people don't acknowledge that doesn't work. So we learn the art of curiosity and compassion. So the tightness detective wakes you up. And this is where the body is so important, because it takes a while to develop the muscle of your curiosity enough that you can be present for your mind when it's struggling, whether it's in fear or despair or rage or whatever. Your body will always tell you the truth. And so it's a lot easier to begin to become a tightness detective in your body and know that if something tightens there's a spell operating there. And I would say I'm going to change the order right now. I think the second scale is the art of asking questions, because Gertrude Stein said the power of questions is not in finding the answers, it's in the questions themselves. So you marshal this ability to pay attention to what you are experiencing, because what's in the way is the way That begins to become very evident. I think was it Byron Katie that said life is simple, it doesn't happen to you, it happens for you, and everything happens in the exact right time in the exact right way, neither too soon nor too late. So the ability to ask questions. There's two ways to ask questions. I talk about this in all my books. The first is just checking questions. What am I experiencing right now, rather than getting lost? oh my God, if he hadn't done that then I wouldn't be feeling this and I'm going to go talk to his boss and go get him fired And there's something tightening inside of us that needs us. It's going you up there, you know. But slowly and surely we learn how to notice and we can use questions to help us keep our attention there. We want our attention and the immediate experience to come together. The other kind of question is open-ended questions, and I would not be where I am today on my journey without open-ended questions. And that is asking questions without looking for the answer. What is asking to be met? What am I ready to see? What is the way through this? And when you ask a question, it takes a while to learn how to do this, because questions, our mind gets. It's like a dog, you know. Tree, tree sits up and all that gotta figure this out. No, you're asking a question and you create a vacuum in the universe and you discover the intelligence at the heart of life is keeping pace with you every step of the way, and that question will be answered. Not usually in your timeframe, but it will be answered. So the art of questions keeps us engaged in the living process that life is giving us. That's when we can use our attention and our compassion to actually set these bound up energies free. Whenever you use your attention in a compassionate way to meet that scared one, that lonely one, that angry one, that judgmental one, that despairing one, you set that bound up energy free and the exact opposite quality arises, and so life becomes an adventure.

Liz Wiltzen: 56:10

Okay, so we've got presence, and presence as this spaciousness that you're talking about, that can hold. Whatever is arising in your experience doesn't have to be pleasant, doesn't have to be comfortable, that's fine, i can hold it And I also love because part of presence is coming into relationship with the breath. I love what you say about the breath. Our breath can calm what is agitated, open what is closed and ground what has flown off into the ethers. That's such a cool way to say that, because that is when we're I can feel how, when we're under the spell and the story gets going, we leave ourselves.

Mary O'Malley: 56:56

We do far, far away, but I assure you. Somebody asked Stephen how long does this take And he said it's the work of a lifetime. But what I would add is that people that are hearing this, they are very, very blessed to be on this path of awakening.

Liz Wiltzen: 57:13

Wow, yeah, i wonder if, in closing, you would lead us in a short exercise, whatever one you pick, whatever one feels right for the moment, just something that people can experience for just a few moments, what it is to drop into this space and out of the spells.

Mary O'Malley: 57:32

Yeah, yeah. So close our eyes And just for a moment, just notice are you sitting, are you lying down, are you walking? Maybe you're driving in the car? Just know that all of the millions of moments of your life have brought you to this moment And as you recognize it. Recognize it is no ordinary moment. This is the only moment that matters in your whole life. But we're not used to being here. So now notice Breath is happening. Just notice breath moving through you in whatever place it becomes most evident to you in your body, that breath is happening. Here is this great river of breath that comes to you from dolphins and cedar trees and beautiful flowers And then you send on its journey on your out. Ask yourself how do I know I'm breathing And as deeply as possible feel the sensations of your breath Rising and falling, rising and falling, and of course, your mind will grab your attention again, don't? be, dismayed, just gently bring it back. The breath doesn't leave you. You leave the breath. Allow yourself to sink into the breath so deeply that, rather than breathing, you begin to allow yourself to be breathed. And now for one more circle of breath. Be as intimately connected to it as you can. Launch that in breath, fill you up and spill over into your out breath. And then how different the out breath is than your in Know. Your breath is always here, a sanctuary that you can return to when you're mine, when you are lost in your mind. And now step back and notice what happened inside of you, when you are asked to be breathed, to actually recognize this very amazing gift of breath. And even if your mind wandered most all the time, just one moment of being with breath is a moment of coming home. It's a moment of healing And, as you open your eyes, realize that no matter what life brings you today, the rising and falling of your breath will be always with you, namaste.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:02:54

Thank you. That was beautiful And it reminds me of one of my favorite tic-nut hon quotes, which is home is one breath away.

Mary O'Malley: 1:03:05

He is with. I'm dealing with rare form of blood cancer and his mantra breathing in, i know I'm breathing in. Just feel that You know you're breathing in. For that moment your attention is not in the struggling mind, it is actually here in life as breath. And then, breathing out, i smile Because you're out of the world of struggle and you're back into reality, into this deliciously wonderful, eminently trustable but at times very challenging reality.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:03:48

Mary, thank you so much for all the wisdom that you shared today. Fabulous conversation. I know my audience is going to get so much value from it And I would love people to connect with more of your work, your books, your courses. Is your website maryomalleycom? So simple, yeah, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And is there anything else you would like to say in closing?

Mary O'Malley: 1:04:14

Thank you to everyone who is listening. No matter where you are in your life, no matter what is happening, you are now on the path back home And whatever shows up is for you And you can learn, like I learned, how to quiet your mind, open your heart and become one with the river of your life yes.