Marty: Welcome. Hello. This is not your typical leadership coaching and we're back in the saddle today and eager to talk with Bill Tierney about being in the flow. Because we all want to be in the flow, right? I assume everybody wants to be in the flow.

Bill: And yet never been there, right? Get back there.

Marty: Exactly. So, Maybe let's start out by just let's frame like what not exactly specifically scientifically, but what did what do you mean by the flow? And then we'll talk more about

Bill: what gets in the way. You said we're back in the saddle again. And so what you're really referring to is the fact that we haven't recorded an episode for about six weeks.

Bill: That's right. Fortunately, we had some in the bank ready to go. So we've continued to drop episodes into the ether every two weeks or so, right? So I believe that what prevented us from doing those episodes that last six weeks could also be incorporated into this conversation because it has everything to do with flow and what gets in the way of it.

Bill: It's very true.

Marty: Yeah. Good point. Very good. Spot on.

Bill: Yeah, let's just jump in there. So I know I'll speak for myself that by the end of the summer, this is being recorded at the beginning of October, 2023, the summer months, while in so many ways they were wonderful got to see family, had nice weather, nothing bad happened not really, but.

Bill: My business really suffered for whatever reason and I've got lots of theories, To explain why business suffered, but my business dropped to its lowest level so that last month was the lowest revenue generating month that I've had as a coach. And probably at least three years.

Bill: Over the course of that, of the summer, I stayed positive, not as an override, but. It's a genuine sense of positive and flow, positivity and flow with brief visits to some frustration and discouragement back into flow again. But probably about six weeks ago, I was at the beginning of recognizing and acknowledging that I was once again, experiencing ongoing anxiety.

Bill: And that was a new visitor for me. I haven't had visits from anxiety for a long time. At first I wanted to deny that's what was happening because I'm a coach. I'm a results coach and I use the IFS model and I've been in my, on my own, what I call self led journey for years now. People like me don't get anxiety, do we?

Bill: Of course we do. Apparently we do.

Marty: Well, 1 of the questions I'm going to ask, we don't have to answer this now, but I'm going to park it. Yeah, which comes 1st, the anxiety or being out of flow is it Jen? We can come back to this, but I think it's a it's a good question to look at. It does the, that flow does it regenerate it from the inside or is about getting with the flow that's out there, which is.

Bill: Yeah, let's go ahead and go there. Now. I don't have to continue with my long story. Let me just condense it down to say that I suffered for about three weeks just trying to override, overcome, bypass, transcend. Yeah. In all the different ways that I've learned how to do, and it didn't work. Ultimately, I ended up bringing in IFS.

Bill: An IFS therapist did let's see, I did quite a bit of work on my own, some with the support of a practitioner and then finally with a therapist and unburdened an exiled part of me that was holding just tons of shame and a belief the belief was that I had to be whoever the people in my life wanted me to be.

Bill: I couldn't afford to be who I was. And that got unburdened. And once it got unburdened, I found myself in the flow and suddenly and seemingly miraculously business started coming in to

Marty: indicate then that we generate being with the flow from the inside, you had to do all that work on yourself. And then the flow was there.

Bill: I'd say it more like this that the flow is like the sun and what gets in the way of it would be the clouds. The clouds would be what was going on with my anxiety. And the parts of me that were activated that had me experiencing anxiety until I got it until it gave it enough of my attention that the clouds dissipated and the sun showed up again.

Bill: So I didn't generate the sun. It's always been there. Yeah, I dealt with whatever was there in the way. And

Marty: what's a great example of flow. Sorry to interrupt, but I think it's it's one of those, it's a perfect metaphor for what we're talking about, because the we, our whole lives, we have been fed by the flow of sunshine.

Marty: We are born of the flow of sunshine, it never has stopped, but clouds can get in the way. That's right.

Bill: That's right. Clouds. So let's name some of these clouds. There's the clouds of false beliefs, there's the clouds of unresolved trauma there's the clouds of loss. And incomplete grief, there's the clouds of fear. Self-doubt. And now I'm starting to get into, these are manifestations of the core problems that I just named. . I would say probably what generates, if we kept going in deeper and deeper to see what's producing all these clouds? What's getting in the way of flow.

Bill: I want to, I'm gonna really go out on a limb here and say that it's shame. Game is at the core of all of it.

Marty: It's that central. It's not like this is one way that a person can have a cloud is they get ashamed. You're saying, no, shame is at the source of all of the false beliefs, the unresolved trauma, the grief, the fear, and the self doubt.

Marty: And I think a basic question that my clients are asking that's what so far these sort of questions challenges I've been putting to you as you talk and I keep interrupting is that. Is is it a matter? Is it the case that like the flow is going on out there like the sun and I just need to find where the clouds are not get moved myself and or do something to get in the sunshine to get in the flow or.

Marty: Is it that whenever you're not in the flow, that means you're in your head, essentially, in some way or another you're having a false belief, you're re experiencing trauma, you're thinking about how much, grieving something like those are all mental

Bill: places. I want to argue a little bit with that.

Bill: Yeah, we could be, we might be in our head. Not everybody operates in exactly that way, though. Not everybody responds from the inside out with thoughts that are figuring out or processing or reflections of beliefs for many people. The unresolved incomplete past that's associated with some sort of a painful experience or scary experience manifest as in our thinking and our believing in our emotions in our in body sensations in our impulses.

Bill: That aren't associated with thought until we notice them. Same with the emotions might lead, and then we have thoughts about the emotions, we might have body experiences and first and then notice that we have thoughts that are trying to figure out what's going on with the body.

Bill: Impulses. Then we tell ourselves stories about the impulse. I wanted to drink, for example. Let's just say I'm in a situation where I'm uncomfortable and I am in the habit of using alcohol to make myself feel better or to numb out. I might just feel an impulse to walk down the beer aisle at the grocery store and then tell myself the story that I walked down that beer aisle.

Bill: In the grocery store because I wanted a beer. That's just a story. What I actually experienced was an impulse to move down that aisle. And then, of course, our behaviors. Our behaviors are influenced by all of those things. Thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and impulses. And we just notice ourselves doing things.

Bill: Or avoiding things.

Marty: So like in your case, business was slow. Yes. So rather than like getting really busy, like going out and handing out flyers about your business or, calling a bunch of people on the phone or putting up a placard on the side of the road, you went and talked to a therapist.

Bill: Before I talked to a therapist I did all those things in different ways, of course, but I was very much in action and I'd gotten to the point where I had to finally acknowledge and admit that the actions I was taking were counter to what I wanted to be doing. I was doing what I didn't want to do.

Marty: So that leads me to think that the internal work is prior because the same action could have a different effect. It was coming from a different place within.

Bill: Absolutely made up. Oh, you bet the same actions produce different results. And this is a belief of mine. It's I can't provide you with the evidence other than my empirical experience, which was that once the energy shifted.

Bill: The same actions that I'd taken for three months before that. And immediately yielding results. Great

Marty: So then the trick or the key or whatever? Crucial moment is the recognition. I'm not in the flow

Bill: it could be that it could be I recognize what's missing or it could be I recognize what's happening here What's happening is i'm suffering and the way i'm responding to my own suffering is ineffective if I recognize that Where I want to be is in the flow again.

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: right. Which I think, like we said, I think everybody does, but I, it, my observation is that when we're in 1 of those places, like doubting ourselves. Was one that you mentioned or fear or, enthrall of a false belief. I'm stuck to that belief right now. I'm not thinking there's anything wrong with me and the flow.

Marty: It's this belief that, that's, what's got me enthralled. That's why I'm thinking that the recognition like, Oh wait, something is up here. I need to shift inside. To get different results. To get

Bill: back in the flow. Exactly. That's, that's just what my training and my experience has proven to me over and over and over again.

Bill: I still have resistance to it. The last thing I want to do is my internal work when I'm out of the flow. Keep pushing.

Marty: That's right. Exactly. That, and this is the challenge that I'm talking about. I think a lot of people face is I'm going to, I'm going to prove this false belief true somehow, right?

Marty: I'm going to overcome it.

Bill: I'm going to hide it. I'm going to get better. Then I'm going to fix it.

Marty: I was out of the flow these last couple of weeks too. And my coach kept asking me, she said, it feels like you're in your 1 of your feet is nailed to something. And you won't move. What is it your foot is nailed to?

Marty: And it was a false belief.

Bill: Yeah. So I was

Marty: fighting, like you said, I was fighting for everything to fit with that belief, and it didn't occur to me okay, that's what I need to work on is, my relationship to that belief. To get back in the flow. I thought everything else was wrong and the belief was right.

Bill: Interesting. What was that belief? Do you mind sharing?

Bill: The belief

Marty: was that I can't make a difference that I'm worthless. And it's a belief that I've had for a really long time. It goes way back to my youth that I picked up that belief and it's a very personal and I'm surprised I even shared it with you honestly, but I'm just going with the flow and.

Marty: So I protect that belief. Speaking of arts, I protect that belief because it's so delicate and vulnerable and intimate. I don't want people to know that I can't make a difference. I'm constantly trying to show otherwise. And so I wasn't about to give that up.

Bill: Yeah, that was the context. That was the water you were swimming in.

Bill: Given that I can't make a difference, I better work really hard to try to make a difference.

Marty: That's right. Yeah. And because I didn't want to, I was really stuck.

Bill: Yes. That's, that, those are the clouds. Those are some dark, deep, heavy clouds. They are. We know the sun's up there, but we, that's where we have to have faith.

Bill: That sun's on the other side of those clouds. I can't see them. I just have to have faith that if they ever clear, it's going to show up again.

Marty: I think that awareness and faith Like, becoming aware oh, there's something going on here. I'm not producing my usual results, or I'm not getting satisfied, or I can't even smell my coffee sometimes.

Marty: Because I'm so in the grief or the fear of the self doubt. So those 2 and then

Bill: I wait a minute. Wait. So you. You get to the point of your, that your suffering is so bad. You can't even smell your coffee. Correct. I had no idea your suffering had gotten that bad. You can't smell your coffee.

Bill: That's the best thing in the world. The smell of coffee. I know

Marty: that's how bad it got. And I'm just not just coffee, normally when I walk into my garden, the first bed. Is full of zinnias like beautiful, bright zinnias. They're the most gorgeous and it just makes me smile. And then I walk on to the pumpkin patch and the basil and everything else.

Marty: But that's I put that there to greet me and make me smile on the way in and out of the garden. I wasn't smiling the last 3 weeks when I went to the garden. I didn't even notice the zinnias.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Boy, do I understand, but I think it's really small when I'm out of the flow, the further away from flow.

Bill: I am the smaller my world gets. That's right. That's right. And I've got another metaphor for that, but you had something else to say. Go ahead. I want to hear

Marty: it. I'm just noticing. I just want there's 1 3rd element. I think is important to note here. That we have to notice it. Okay. I'm not in the flow.

Marty: I need to do something to get back it.

Marty: The 2nd, 1, we said was faith that the sun is out there shining and I can get back into it. Yeah. The 3rd 1 is. I think an, like an honesty with oneself

Marty: it's almost like it's implied by the whole healing process here. If I can't be honest with myself, there's just gonna be slippage, like the false belief or the unresolved trauma. I'm gonna deny that I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna wanna face it. I'm not going to be honest with myself that I'm not under the sun.

Marty: Or that it's me that needs to get in the sun. It's going to be the sun's fault. There's going to be so much if I'm not honest

Bill: with myself. I want to challenge you on that a little bit. Could I? Sure. I know you as an extremely honest person. During those two weeks that I was around you a lot, during that two weeks that you were suffering, you weren't being dishonest.

Marty: Not to you, but you had to get me to be honest with

Bill: myself. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. You weren't being dishonest with yourself either. You were just unaware and confused. Dishonesty implies motivation. Motive almost like I intend to not see the truth that wasn't going on. I see what you're saying.

Bill: So it's not about being honest with yourself. It's about being open to seeing what's true, even if it counters what I think is true. So

Marty: I, I get what you're saying because like I was honest with myself enough to say, I need help here.

Bill: Yes. I'm suffering. I'm out of the flow. I need help. What I'm doing by myself without help.

Bill: Isn't working. Got it. Okay.

Marty: All right.

Bill: And part of it could have easily been, I can tell you that I've been in this space. Part of me being honest is to say, and I can't find any openness or curiosity right now. I think that the way I see it is the way it is. Am I being dishonest? No, I just don't see what I can't see.

Marty: I see. Okay.

Bill: Put. We're back to shame again. The idea that someone's stuck and they're, the reason they're stuck is because they're not being honest is a shaming.

Marty: Ah. Oh, okay. Shaming myself. Yeah. If

Bill: I could just be honest. Then I wouldn't be so stuck. Okay. I was in a 12 step for years and years and years and years and it was all focused on not drinking. See this person come around for days, weeks, months, and years sometimes, and then they've gone away.

Bill: They've just disappeared. And we would slap each other on the back and say, oh, they're out experimenting again. And when they then would finally come back because they hit some sort of a bottom, it's the way we talked about it and saw it at that time, we would either say to them directly, we'd call them out in the group, or we'd talk behind their backs and wonder what they did wrong.

Bill: What did they do wrong that they went out and drank again, given this? Perfect 12 step program that we're working. They must not have been working a program. I see. Shaming. Shaming. Where was the compassion? Where was the compassion wasn't there because we didn't know the people that were judging weren't being dishonest.

Bill: They thought they knew, and they didn't have any room to be open to what might be true. Got it. So that's

Marty: all of this. That's just another cloud.

Bill: That's right. That the seed of that cloud of shame and I'm going to stick with my hypothesis here that the seed of every cloud that blocks the sun is shame.

Marty: Can you substantiate that? Can you say, at least say more about it? That's a pretty broad and shocking statement. Is it? I love it. Yeah. Shame is at the source of all of our getting out of the flow.

Bill: Yup. Yup. It is. Let's, let me tell you about the other metaphor, and then let's come back to that.

Bill: Let me make a little post it note here, so we can come back to it. And it is, shame is the seed of the clouds. Shame is the seed. That's just written that. Okay. Imagine at birth. We are issued this body, the skin bag, all of the bells and whistles and features that come with that, including an empty 5 gallon bucket.

Bill: The 5 gallon bucket represents our capacity. To be with whatever there is in life to be with it's empty because that means we have a full five gallon of capacity to be with it. Baby doesn't even know how to talk or understand language yet, but has a full five gallons of capacity to deal with whatever's going on in that moment.

Bill: Scream, yell, cry, coo, look cute, do whatever, poop, pee, express, they know what to do. They've got full capacity to do it. But now once that starts getting suppressed punished disapproved of, things start getting in that bucket that stay stuck. They don't flow through the bucket. There's some pain. Oh, that didn't get resolved.

Bill: Here's some fear that didn't get answered. Here's some concern that didn't get addressed. Now it starts staying in the bucket. So when waking up in the morning. What used to be five gallons of capacity might now be reduced to only four and a half gallons of capacity to work with until I fall asleep again tonight.

Bill: Those of us that have experienced a lot of trauma might only have a half a gallon of capacity remaining as we wake up in the morning because we're using the other four and a half gallons just to deal with what's incomplete from the past. We, those of us that have only a half a gallon of capacity remaining often look better than those that have four and a half gallons of capacity remaining because we have to, because we're working so hard.

Bill: We're working so hard to hide and overcome the fact that we, what we believe about ourselves is that we're worthless, that we don't deserve, that we can't, whatever that shame based belief is, has us working multitudes times harder than someone with full capacity that has the confidence that they're okay.

Bill: That has, that doesn't have those beliefs getting in the way. So if you think about that, imagine, that half gallon of capacity gets used up by noon and you're not done till nine or 10 o'clock tonight. What do you do in that next nine or 10 hours? What you do is you slush around a bucket full of gunky, stinky full capacity of incomplete past, like a pair of old socks that you've worn for the last two months.

Bill: And it's stinky, and it's messy, and it gets all over everybody else, and we're sloshing around trying to just survive the day. And when that happens, then we get the kind of negative attention that stacks on top of the shame that filled up the bucket in the first place. I wonder why people have addiction.

Bill: I wonder why people want to kill themselves. I wonder why people can't stay married. Shame. All over the place. Now, that's not just exclusive to the people that have trauma, even the people that still have a full four and a half gallons of capacity every day still have a half a gallon of unresolved past that has enough of an impact from the inside out where they too have some shame, where they too end up with clouds occasionally covering the sun.

Bill: Some workarounds work. We can do some transcending and overcoming. We can act as if we can pray it away. We can meditate it away. But it's still there, and I'm not saying that praying or meditating is a bad thing, not at all. But if that's all we ever do, then we, then the best we can do is retain four, four, four and a half gallons of capacity.

Bill: What if, what would be possible if we could have a full five?

Marty: Some people would say that this is a little bigger here with 11 point. I agree with everything you said. I think it's fascinating. Actually, I have some more questions about it, but I think that just to for people dedicated to the contemplated of what contemplated life. There is evidence out there that you can pray or meditate yourself to a place where you are releasing things from that bucket and you're emptying the bucket through your relationship to God, such that you can empty it.

Marty: That's how the Buddha got enlightened was by sitting for 45 days and he wasn't just biding his time until the clouds blew over. He got rid of the clouds by sitting there. Just a caveat, I think. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Like I said, I, there's, I don't see anything wrong with meditating or praying unless it is a bypass.

Marty: Unless it's a bypass, or just to postpone and you're not really dealing. Exactly. Exactly.

Bill: By the way, one more thing about that. Shame stays in us in the form of beliefs. What we have decided or made our past mean is what locks shame inside

Bill: So if someone is doing transcendent meditation or prayer and they can then see through And past the false belief of, yes, beautiful. That's great. And the question that remains to me is that lasting and permanent? Then once they see through the belief, does it, is it sustained or is there still a part inside that says, yeah, but I still think so.

Bill: Yeah. But I still think that I'm not enough. I saw that you, I get that you saw past the belief that I'm holding this part might say, I see that you saw past me. And we're able to connect with our source great for you, but I'm still here suffering holding this old belief. I need your help. Yeah, that's what IFS and parts work does.

Marty: Yeah there are a number of schools of thought that I'm they're not exactly the same school of thought, but I'm thinking of the stones book on your inner critic or john Wellwood's book on love and awakening where they talk about the. How the inner child gets shut down in some way.

Marty: And I think you could, have a dialogue with them where they would see Oh, you're right. That's shame that ultimately happened there. And I forgot what I was going to say after that. I don't know where I was going to take

Bill: that. I love this conversation. I just love that we're exploring this. And I just want to acknowledge that while I'm on fire and in love with IFS. I just think it's the hottest brand going. They used to say about Texaco.

Bill: I just, I love it. It works so well. It's not the only brand going. It's not the only thing out there that we can do. There's a lot of modalities that acknowledge that we have multiplicity and parts. Oh, I know

Marty: what I was going to say. Yeah, go ahead and say it. That those guys. These other modalities they're saying, and they're not all of them.

Marty: I'm not saying everybody's saying something differently, but I'm aware of some where they say that part that got chained and that, has been there all these years. It will actually, it won't ever like, disappear or go away. You're never completely relieved of it. I'm curious what you would say, but that you can, Thank you.

Marty: You can sap it of its significance, like you can learn to live with it and not be run by it. It's, you acknowledge that's a part of me, I I have a nose. I have this insecurity, but it doesn't run me and that's what they say. Would you, would I have to say that? Or would I have to say, no, we can eradicate that baby.

Bill: We can, the language of IFS is we can unburden the part that's holding that false belief and that shame and the pain associated with it. It's a very, the process itself depends on the facilitator of the process, but there's elements that are predictable unburdening. But there's definitely.

Bill: A way to permanently unburdened parts that hold shame and in the time between recognizing that there is a part that's holding shame and unburdening it there, there's a relationship that gets built so that the as Terry real would say the wise adult as IFS would say the self. Can get enough distance from the burdened part.

Bill: That self can be with the part rather than be blended with the part. I think the unblending is what you're referring to is that this part still exists with its burden, but we can unblend from it and not be so influenced by it. If that's done while on a journey through the jungle of the inner world to that part that's been exiled away because it's holding such painful and overwhelming unresolved past feelings and beliefs and such a shame.

Bill: If that's done on the journey in there, and then once we get there, we actually help that part unburdened from its past by witnessing it.

Marty: That's the key, I think, and I'm also thinking of Richard Carson's book, Taming Your Gremlin.

Marty: It's very, it's a very thin and very helpful book, I find, but he says that you can't have the, the unburdened life by trying to manipulate that piece. No,

Bill: you cannot. I agree.

Marty: And so he says he subscribes to quote, the Zen theory of change. He writes, it's been said lots of ways by lots of people over 2500 years ago, Lao Tzu brushed the picture symbols of the Tao Te Ching, speaking of the flow.

Marty: That's what that means, which included this wisdom, simply notice the natural order of things. work with it rather than against it for to try to change what is only sets up resistance. Beautiful.

Bill: Yeah. Very well said.

Marty: I love that book. It's a little thin book, but

Bill: very helpful. And you must have been reading from your own book where you quoted that.

Bill: Yes, I was. And the name of that book again is?

Marty: Mine is called Listen Until, or Listen Till You Disappear. Listen Till You Disappear.

Bill: Yeah. That's the one that you've had published for a few years now, and now you're about to publish a new book, which is called

Marty: there's some debate over what I should call it.

Marty: It's, the working title is The Burning Bush, A Call to a New Paradigm of Leadership. Nice. Love it. But some people don't like that title. But before it gets published, it might get changed. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. I personally do love it. Good. Thank you. Let's step back away from the conversation that we've had a little bit and see if we can get some distance from it so that we can maybe begin to summarize what we've discussed what might be worth considering around flow capacity flow capacity.

Bill: By the way, the opposite of capacity, I would say, is overwhelm. If we have no remaining capacity, we're overwhelmed. And once we're overwhelmed, then we're going to be in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Yeah. And that is the realm of our burden parts. Our burden parts step in and take over when we get overwhelmed.

Bill: We get overwhelmed, we block the resources of the authentic self, the essence, the core of who we are. We no longer have access to those resources, and without access to the resources, we cannot be in the flow. Whereas if we do have access to those resources and plug into them, then we are plugged in. We are in the flow.

Bill: And from that place, in my personal experience I am the most creative. The most spacious, the least vulnerable to being poked triggered, activated by the external events that are outside of my control. And from the lens that I'm viewing this. It's all about meeting my parts where they are, recognizing what's happening with them when they're suffering, helping them from this detached but caring place.

Bill: It's somehow from this detached and connected place, almost paradoxical, right? Yeah. Helping my parts, meeting them where they are, and providing them from a place of resource, from a resource place, helping them by witnessing them. Understanding them, appreciating them, recognizing that their intentions are positive, and also earning enough trust from them that they're open to considering what might, what else might be true.

Bill: That's great.

Marty: That's great. I just put out a short video today about my book to promote it. It's very short, two minutes, a minute, 56 seconds actually. And one of the things I say in that two minutes is we need to be that kind of aware, that kind of awareness and caring and detached connection to our leaders in Washington, D.

Marty: C. like really get them, really understand them so that They can be unburdened and move

Bill: forward. Beautiful. But this is being recorded right on the heels of Kevin McCarthy being de seated. And former president being in trial and our current president being demonized and.

Bill: All kinds of conflict and polarization in our country. So definitely we are in need of a change in leadership. Not, I'm not talking about the people, especially, but a change in attitude, a

Marty: change. And I think it starts with this very getting ourselves back in the flow, getting me back in the flow, you getting you back in the flow so that we.

Marty: can have those kind of dialogues, right? And get them back in

Bill: the flow. From a place of clarity, these resources that I'm referring to, we can have those kinds of, that kind of dialogue, that kind of connection with people from a place, even if they aren't experiencing that over there, although this is contagious, if we can pull it off, if I can show up with compassion, curiosity, courage, clarity, creativity, connection, confidence, and calm and know that I'm fully in full agency, full choice, fully resourced.

Bill: That's going to, that's going to emanate a much different energy than fear and accumulation.

Marty: Exactly. Or just what is the word that's so popular now cancel canceling the guy because he made a mistake or because, we don't understand him or we don't like him.

Bill: old conversation.

Bill: I was you think I'm bad. Let's look at how bad you are. That's that is getting so

Marty: old.

Marty: Yes, it is very old very, what, five year old.

Bill: Nice. Yes, that's about right. I didn't do it. You did it. I didn't say it. I didn't do it. Making more say about this.

Marty: No, I don't. I really think this was rich and I appreciate the insight that you brought to an old topic being in the flow and you gave us clarity so that we can all get back in the

Bill: flow.

Bill: You know what we didn't talk about. We, you and I both, I don't know how long we've been recording here. So maybe we wrap this up in the next five minutes or less. But we talked about, both of us acknowledged to some degree what it was like for us to be out of the flow and suffering. And maybe the reason that we haven't recorded an episode in six weeks was that, that we were both involved in either getting to a place where we were finally able and ready to do the work that we needed to do to get back in the flow again.

Bill: Or we were supporting each other and getting there a lot of what, so these times that we have set up every single week to get together to record a podcast have turned into times that we've been using for our own well being me being supported by you, you being supported by me with extra sessions outside of that as well so that we could finally get into the flow paradoxically getting into the flow can be a lot of work.

Bill: And it is paradoxical because when I'm in the flow, it is effortless getting into the flow. Sometimes requires a tremendous amount of effort. That's paradoxical. And maybe there's a better way, but I haven't discovered it yet. Well, No, I

Marty: think this is fascinating. It reminds me, sometimes.

Marty: There are a lot of things where, if you put in the daily little bit of effort, it keeps you in the straight and narrow. And if you don't, then you get way off course. And it takes a lot of effort to get back on course where it doesn't take much effort. So I think what that points to is like a daily practice.

Marty: Of journaling of getting cleared with another colleague of doing your meditation practices, whatever it does, going for walks in nature, whatever you do to get back to clarity, do it consistently so that you don't have to put in that huge effort to get back in the flow.

Bill: Yeah. For me, what that practice looks like is

Bill: it's neither having a daily physical regimen that I adhere to. I've done that. There was a time that I was running six and seven days a week. First thing every single morning. And then I was meditating up to three hours a day. And I was writing and journaling and I was, I don't know when I had time for work because I was spending so much time on my daily practices.

Bill: And I can tell you that I was doing that from a place of, because I need to do that just to get my nose above the water and survive a little bit and survive the day. It took that much effort. Fortunately, it doesn't take that much effort anymore. And my practice consists of noticing when something starts to twist inside.

Bill: The moment I start noticing that twist, I find myself at an intersection. Do I notice that twist and then ignore it? Or overcome it or overwrite it or try harder, put effort into it? Or do I notice that twist and get curious about it?

Marty: Yeah. I think that those other practices are helpful in just being able to notice it even,

Bill: Beautiful. Yes. Noticing that is the first big challenge. How do I so I get intellectually maybe how all this stuff might be happening inside of me and I've even connected a little bit with something that Marty or Bill said here that, that has me thinking yeah, I probably have some of that stuff going.

Bill: Maybe I have parts too. Maybe I need to be paying more attention. So getting from that maybe to, Oh gosh, what was that? What was that thing in my throat that just now happened? What, where did that thought come from? I didn't think it, I just noticed that I had it. What's this emotion about? If I had, I don't seem to have any choice with this emotion right now.

Bill: What is going on? Yeah. That's a great question. What's going on? Let's get curious and don't, and notice even the parts of us that are, that get scared about getting curious. If I get curious, I might start feeling emotional. I start feeling emotional. Maybe it'll never stop. That's too scary. No, thank you. Is there anything else I can do?

Bill: How else can I deal with this?

Marty: It reminds me of that the four non blondes. What's going on? Yeah,

Bill: what's going on? Yeah. So I just want to acknowledge that. In the flow I know I said this, but it's it's nothing short of miraculous to me. I, it's predictable. It's a repeatable miracle if in fact it is a miracle.

Bill: And I just, I would say what a miracle is, it's something that happens and I don't understand how or why it did. It doesn't make sense according to what I think I already know. I see. Okay. It's a miracle to me. I do that work. I find myself free. I no longer have the heaviness, the anxiety, or the burden that I had for the three weeks prior and over the next and counting two weeks, two and a half weeks now, clients are calling.

Bill: People are rehiring me from the past. New people are hearing about me. I'm, my schedule's filling back up again. And I'm not doing anything different than I was doing those three weeks before. Or even the three months before. It's just that the energy I'm doing it all in is in it from a different context.

Bill: I'm no longer doing it from the shame that took me to the anxiety. I'm doing it from the flow.

Marty: And parallel to that, my being out of the flow was about the, how confronting it was to me to be raising money to produce this book, to get it marketed and distributed. And after I began to enter the flow again.

Marty: I didn't do anything differently and people started calling up with money. So there you

Bill: have it. Marty, this has been a fun conversation. It's been it feels like long overdue. I've missed recording the podcast episodes with you, but I recognize that we needed to take that six week break in order to get back into the flow again.

Bill: Yep, exactly. Said. All right. Give me a virtual high five. There it is. Okay. It didn't

Marty: do anything. How come?

Bill: Let's see if we can get it to do one more thing. See if you can get Apple to do one more thing for you. Just do some gesture with your hand and see if it notices it. Maybe you end with a heart again.

Bill: Since we know that works. Spread it apart a little bit more. There they come!

Marty: That's lovely.