041 - Marianne Williamson: The Age of Practice & Courage
Today I am honored to invite 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson to Threshold Moments.
She is generous, inspiring, brave, and highly intelligent woman risking it all to make the change she desires to see in the world. That change includes making sure children (and all of us) have food, education, and proper healthcare. She is also working toward a government that is of the people, by the people, for the people, instead of being of, by, and for corporations.
Join me for an open, honest conversation where we get to know who Marianne is and what she stands for, including:
The speed of the present moment
Addressing chronic economic stress & anxiety
Her economic bill of rights
Speaking up for & supporting women
The power of atonement
Connect with Sarah
Connect with Marianne Williamson
Resources
Email david@marianne2024.com to sign in Maine
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]
Hello welcome, I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, the podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us. Hello, welcome to Threshold Moments podcast.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:43]
Today we have a conversation with Marianne Williamson which is pretty incredible. I have had her book, A Return to Love on my bookshelf by my bedside at my altar for about 20 years. It is a book that one could open up to any page and find a line, quote, a question that would help focus in my attention for the day on something that matters. That is something to attune to. I'll read her bio so you can hear more about how incredible she is.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:22]
And maybe I should just say here, too, that she is running in the primaries in the Democratic Party for presidency. I did some preparation for this. And the preparation included somatic sessions so that I could stay in my body, that I could stay in my range of resonance while being in her presence, while speaking to somebody who's got so much knowledge about politics and really being honest and staying in my lane. And pointing questions more towards the individual and collective nervous system and not pretending to play somebody else's game. And maybe a few lines that I'll say that she says often that she did not say in the podcast is that it's not Democratic or Republican.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:13]
It's powerful verse powerless that she wants the government to turn for being of the people by the people for the people instead of the corporations by the corporations for the corporations. So I think that is a good summary. I will say actually, one awesome part was that I brought up her one of her most famous quotes. And I think one of I think it's just one of the most highly quoted pieces, I want to say of our time. But maybe it's because of the realm I live in.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:44]
It was misattributed to Nelson Mandela for almost 25 years. And at the end, I asked her to add to the complexity of it, to take that base of it all being light and love and like, can we also see the other side of it? So it was so cool to get a chance to have her add to that quote. So you'll get to hear that in this interview. So now her bio Marianne Williamson is a spiritual leader, author, political activist, speaker, humanitarian, and was a presidential candidate in the 2020 election.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:19]
She is running again for 20/24. She is a progressive Democrat. Her literary contributions include 15 books, 7 New York Times best selling books, four of those hitting number one. Her most widely known book is A Return to Love published in 1992. Her political books that I'm aware of are Healing the Soul of America in 1997.
[00:03:45] She will hear quite a bit about in this interview and The Politics of Love, which was written in 2019 or released in 2019. Williamson's career trajectory received an initial boost from the gay community in Los Angeles during the early days of the HIV AIDS epidemic, where her message of universal love resonated strongly. However, it was her frequent appearance on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show that catapulted her into the spotlight. She has also since and recently been on Super Soul Sunday. Marianne Williamson is actively engaged in philanthropic endeavors.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:21]
She founded organizations such as the Center for Living in 1987, Project Angel Food in 1989 to deliver meals to the homebound who are unable to shop or cook for themselves, an organization that has served over 16,000,000 meals. She also Co founded the Peace Alliance in 1998. She serves on the Board of Results, a nonprofit organization committed to developing sustainable solutions to poverty. In the realm of politics, Williamson ran as a Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination in 2020, where she got a stronger sense of the corrupt systems as well as the heart of the individual citizens. She is once again a candidate for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:14]
Her presidential platform emphasizes key issues such as advocating for an increase in the federal minimum wage, addressing racial injustice through reparations, tackling climate change, corporate injustice, a whole health plan, and proposing the establishment of AUS Department of Peace. I hope that this conversation brings some light on who Marianne Williamson is and what she stands for. It was and is truly an honor and joy. Welcome to threshold moments. My name is Sarah Tacy and today we have with us the 2024 one of the 2024 presidential candidates, Marianne Williamson and so honored to have you here today.
Marianne Williamson [00:06:09]
Well, thank you. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for having me.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:11]
One of my intentions today is to create a more coherent and cohesive picture of who you are as a person and what you would stand for as president. As I've listened to many of the interviews with you, I recognize your intelligence. I see you as one of the most intelligent women of our time. Thank you. I've read some of your books and I think that you were ahead of your time with social justice.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:43]
The things that you wrote in your 1997 book were mind blowing. The way you understand history is mind blowing, politics, the corporatization of America. And I'm also, for my own purpose, just really wanting to go at a speed where my soul can drop in and be present with you. And I'm going to leave one image of something that came from Carl Jung's book, Memory Dreams, Reflections, where he talks about going to meet with a shaman and he asked that shaman to come with him to a conference. And the shaman had never left his village.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:20]
So they hike out. Then they get into a car and as the car is taking off, the shaman says pull over. And so they pull over and he throws his body on the ground. And Carly Young says, what are you doing? And he said, I'm waiting for my soul to catch up with me.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:36]
And I think that speaks a lot to our society and the momentum that we have and the speed that we have and how overwhelmed we can be sometimes that it can be really hard to slow down enough to feel the soul and to get back to the depths of feeling. Maybe I don't want to see what's right or wrong, but just feeling for the people around us. And I think that that's something that you really stand for. So I thought maybe you could start to say a thing or two about weaving the soul back in and the yin and the Yang of the country.
Marianne Williamson [00:08:14]
Speed is often the enemy of depth, and there are many levels on which we have moved too fast and lost ourselves in the process. One has to do with technological advancement. We have moved forward technologically at a rate that we have not kept up with morally and spiritually and ethically. I think the biggest place where this is challenging us right now is AII. Mean AI, on one hand, is an extraordinary technological potential for good, but it's also an extraordinary technological potential for absolute catastrophe, even subjugation of the human race.
Marianne Williamson [00:08:54]
But one of the ways in which it has overtaken us is that we still don't seem to get that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. So we're still stuck at this level of if we can do it and it's this bright and shiny technological object or ability, then truly it would be the good thing to do. So America is in many ways like a chicken with its head chopped off, just running around in circles. And that's true of too many Americans. And you see this.
Marianne Williamson [00:09:26]
You see this reflected in so many ways. Nobody has any impulse control and so much ADD. The society is ADD. You open your computer, and if you weren't ADD before, you will be after. You spend an hour with all those ads popping up, all those various articles throwing themselves at you.
Marianne Williamson [00:09:50]
It completely disconnects us from nature, from our own nature, and from the nature which is around us and which is the obvious template and which trains us, if we allow it to, to the level of speed which is natural. I mean, just think about it. For millennia, we existed without electric light. And so there were the hours of the day that were light, and there were the hours of the day that were dark. I remember when I was a little girl and we went to visit Williamsburg, VA, and it was one of my earliest memories of a time when, you know, you're in this house and they're showing you this is how people lived.
Marianne Williamson [00:10:31]
And it was my first experience of having a conscious thought, Wow, what did people do? There was no TV. There was no telephone and of course now it would be so much more. There's no computer. And it occurred to me they talked to one another and then they went to.
Sarah Tacy [00:10:47]
Sleep. Some healthy nervous systems.
Marianne Williamson [00:10:51]
They were tired. They worked with their physical bodies all day by night time. The, the sunsets. You know, I was once in Florida. This was probably 20 years ago, and I was visiting for the weekend with an Orthodox Jewish family.
Marianne Williamson [00:11:11]
It was a very plugged in family, electronically, a lot of everything you would expect in the modern home. And there were teenagers and there were little kids and there were grandparents. And I realized, and I kind of hadn't realized that before I came, that these are like Orthodox. And so for 24 hours, from sunset on Friday night till sunset on Saturday, all electronics off. That means your computer too, Miriam, right?
Marianne Williamson [00:11:41]
That means the phone's off. That means everything's off. And I remember thinking, you know, being confronted with my own addiction to my own devices, right? And also looking around that family and thinking, well, how is this family going to function? I mean, this is not, this is a family where everything's going on and everything electronic that you could possibly imagine.
Marianne Williamson [00:11:58]
But what I realized then was so interesting. First of all, these kids have been brought up that way. So there wasn't any deal. We have to. And as it began to be Sabbath, I saw something unfold that was so amazing to me. The only time the phone would be used would be if it was a call, let's say a grandparent or something like that about how to get them, or obviously if there was an emergency. Television goes off, computers go off, all tablets are off. Everything is completely back to nature and I saw something so amazing. It was like it was such an honor and such a gift and a blessing to be present for it. I saw how teenagers who during the week might be, so I don't know, impatient with little ones were playing games with little 4 year olds and three-year olds and parents talking to the older and the grandparents.
Marianne Williamson [00:12:52]
And I saw the recalibration of these relationships, all these familial relationships. And you really see that's what a Sabbath is. Slow down, stop. And of course, biblically on the 7th day, he rested that moment of rest and recalibration. It's really interesting.
Marianne Williamson [00:13:14]
I remember when I was a kid and I had friends whose parents would have a weekly date night and I knew one friend and they went dancing, They went ballroom dancing. Well, it wasn't until I grew up and thought about it and realized how ballroom dancing recalibrates people's bodies relationship to one another almost sexier in a way than sex because you find some of that that chemical template that goes beyond just the act of sex and one night a week for couples bodies to find each other again that way. So I think from meditation to reflection to slowing down, we all see it's happening. And yet I'm shocked sometimes by the parents who let their kids bring their tablets to the dinner table, for instance, keep television on during dinner. We have to consciously get back to the natural grounding of things in which we talk to one another and think.
Marianne Williamson [00:14:19]
And then the entire country pays a terrible price for all this because it becomes reflected not only in our personal behavior, but even our collective behavior. And that has caused a terrible, truly terrible decline.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:37]
So many Americans are in a constant fight or flight, and I think a lot of that has to do with just feeling like you have to keep going, work multiple jobs, get your kids to all the things. The idea of like keeping up with the Joneses or maybe it's really just trying to survive. I would love for you to talk to us a little bit about your policies that might actually helped the nervous systems of the General American.
Marianne Williamson [00:15:05]
Well, first of all, you're absolutely correct. Modernity as we know it is an assault on the nervous system. And you're also correct at pointing out what to me is the biggest elephant in the room. And that is the role that economics plays in all of this. And This is why an economic Bill of Rights and dealing with a terrible economic injustice that is now baked into the cake in the way America operates is at the core of all of this.
Marianne Williamson [00:15:32]
It is the cancer that underlies all these other cancers. And first of all, let's look back to what it used to be during the 1970's. The average American worker had decent benefits, could afford a car, could afford a house, could afford a yearly vacation. One parent could have one salary that could take care of a family of four, provide for a family of four leaving one parent if they chose to stay home and take care of the kids. And they could afford to send their kids to college.
Marianne Williamson [00:16:02]
Now, what does that bespeak? It bespeaks people who have bandwidth for each other, bandwidth for their kids, bandwidth to go to the PTA meetings, bandwidth to be a citizen who's active in their community and in the life of their nation. And as you said, people are living. The majority of Americans live in economic survival mode. That's chronic economic stress and anxiety.
Marianne Williamson [00:16:26]
And that's why core to my agenda is striking at that an economic Bill of Rights which provides universal healthcare, tuition free college and tech school, eradicating the college loan debt, subsidizing childcare, paid family leave, guaranteed sick pay and guaranteed living wage. If you did those things, it would so radically transform this country, because the absence of those things is so at the core of why people are constantly stressed.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:00]
Stressed and sick, having a hard time with each other relationally. Whereas I know the question is always like, where does that money come from?
Marianne Williamson [00:17:08]
Well, the money is no different than the money that we have now. We need to stop giving tax cuts to the very, very wealthiest among us. We need to stop giving billions of dollars in corporate subsidies to companies that are already making profits of multi billions of dollars. We can afford to cut our defense budget. We can close the loopholes of all the extraordinary very, very wealthy tax cheats in this country.
Marianne Williamson [00:17:36]
There are so many ways in which policy after policy makes it easy for those who already have a lot of capital to have even easier access to capital and harder for everyone else to survive. This isn't about where do we get the money, it's about how we allocate our money. And also, everything that I just mentioned to you is actually financial stimulant. If you think of all the people in this country who are at work every day at jobs that they hate, and the only reason that they are at those jobs is because it's the only place where they could get their health care, where they could get the benefits, where they could be able to afford child care and so forth. Those people are not their most productive.
Marianne Williamson [00:18:14]
They're depressed. They're not their most productive. They're not their most creative. Think of all the kids and others actually, who have that huge college loan debt. Debt is crippling and one in four Americans have medical debt, which is crippling.
Marianne Williamson [00:18:29]
So these people are depressed. These people are more liable to get ill and we pay for that. So we are paying. The issue is not how do we get the money to pay for those things right now. We are paying for those things with our lives.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:44]
So all of your policies are proactive, where the way our society right now is set up is just.
Marianne Williamson [00:18:48]
Completely reactive. That's why, you know, we talk about health, we talk about Medicare for all, which I support. But we need to do more than treat sickness. We need to proactively create a healthier society. The carcinogens in our food, the forever chemicals in our water, the toxins in our air and our lifestyle itself.
Marianne Williamson [00:19:07]
That's why the life expectancy in the United States is on the decline and we have a much higher level of chronic illness than they do in other countries. You know, if you look at a ketchup bottle of ingredients, it's ingredients in the United States versus the ingredients in a ketchup bottle in Canada, because there are all of these ingredients that are known carcinogens, but that increased shelf life, which means they increase the short term profits for big food companies. And so this country has been so deregulated because that's part of the strategy of trickle down economics with the profits of big food, the profits of insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, big chemical companies, big oil, gum manufacturers and defense contractors consistently put before the issue of safety, health and well-being for us and for our children and our planet time after time, the quality of our lives, the length of our lives. So much about what it means to just live is diminished so that a very, a relatively very few people can become richer. That is immoral.
Marianne Williamson [00:20:13]
And it's also a level of economic tyranny. And it's not going to change unless we the people change it. It has gone so far at this point, we're like, we're like frogs in the boiling water and it's boiling. And the system which perpetuates and maintains the conditions that I just described would have us believe there's nothing to see there. There's everything to see there.
Marianne Williamson [00:20:35]
And what we have to ask ourselves is what is happening in us that we would even dream of continuing to vote for those people or for the people who represent either full bore on with what I just described or way too weak response to it. And the system, in my mind, the system feeds that because as long as we're overwhelmed, then we're all exactly people are worn down. Exactly. People are just beaten down.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:59]
We don't have time to look into that. I'm just trying to get my kids to school. I'm just trying to get XY and Z. And there's so little bandwidth to believe that there could be something else or something better, and that something else feels scary.
Marianne Williamson [00:21:13]
I'm the one talking about Medicare for all. I'm talking about the highest level of child poverty. I'm talking about hunger in America. I'm talking about people not being able to work one job. I'm talking about ramping down fossil fuel extraction.
Marianne Williamson [00:21:26]
I'm talking about the defense contractors. I am the candidate having this serious conversation about base needs as well as the higher philosophical vision. The other thing that you just talked about which I find interesting is people say well how do we know what she would do? Well, I have a 40 year career and if you actually look at my 40 year career as opposed to the narrative created, you know, the smears and the hit pieces, if you actually look at what I've done with my life, I'm a decent person. I think that's clear and I have achieved results.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:01]
Yeah, Marianne has over 15 New York Times bestselling.
Marianne Williamson [00:22:05]
Books. No, I have over 15 books, 7 bestsellers and four number ones. Or #1 I wish I had 15 New York Times bestsellers. That's great. That's giving me a little too much.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:14]
I mean The thing is for anyone of these things, if you had one book, I feel like it's a really great accomplishment for given person. So 15 books for number ones your philanthropic work and serving over 16,000,000 meals to Americans through.
Marianne Williamson [00:22:32]
Homebound people with AIDS and other critical illnesses. You know there is a term manufactured consent about how PR works. What I've seen as a candidate is there's not only manufactured consent, there's manufactured derision. You've mentioned my having authored 15 books. I notice on this campaign they didn't even do this on the last one.
Marianne Williamson [00:22:53]
I'm a self help author this year. So what does that mean? That's their way of doing anything possible to say. Well, she's not really a writer. She's not really an author. I mean, she's written 15 books. But I mean, come on. That's how the minimization of a woman's voice. I never felt in my career before I ran for political office. I never felt that my being a woman hindered me in any way.
Marianne Williamson [00:23:24]
In the transformational community, higher conscious community is not a limitation at all. I never felt anything like that. But in politics, it's extraordinary. The erasure of a woman's voice in a way they would never try to do to a man. The way a story is framed, the way your career is framed in a way they would never do to a man. I don't think I really knew what misogyny was, not really. And I also had no idea how much of it is internalized by women.
Sarh Tacy [00:23:53]
Can you say more about that?
Marianne Williamson [00:23:55]
When I was growing up, the phase of feminism that educated me and informed me was in the 1970s. And during that time it was absolutely recognized the importance of sisterhood, that none of us were going to get there unless all of us got there. That if your sister was working on something, you better show up for her because that was key to making anything manifest, that the woman did not go forward alone. So we were all trained to know, hey, a woman I know is doing this, how can I help? And that element, which is so essential to real feminism has been sort of dropped out of a lot of so-called feminist thinking.
Marianne Williamson [00:24:39]
So that now I mean some of what I'm going through, but I'm not trying to make myself really the issue here. It's what any woman goes through, derided, unjustly treated, minimized, diminished, and no woman speaks up for her. I mean, I'm experiencing that, and I'm experiencing it in ways that are very disappointing to me personally. But I think the issue goes way beyond me. But we're never going to have a woman president if women don't wake up.
Marianne Williamson [00:25:11]
We're never going to have the kind of real feminine leadership. I mean, we've been talking for so long about the rising feminine, and we've been talking about the patriarchy resisting her. And yet I can tell you from my own experience. Hello, we're the girls. So I think we all have to do some soul searching.
Sarah Tacy
[00:25:33]
When I look at you, I see a very courageous woman.
Marianne Williamson [00:25:36]
Thank you.
Sarah Tacy [00:25:37]
I noticed for myself, especially when Speaking of politics, we're speaking an opinion, what it takes to stand strong in what I think and who I am when somebody might read like come back at me, especially if it were online. I guess what I'm saying, the way that you are public about what you believe in and the attack that you undergo, you also have a ton of supporters. You also have the experience of being erased. And so when I see that, again, from a nervous system perspective, I see many opportunities with the fight, the fight or flight, with the numbing. And for you to actually continue to live and do what you do and have purpose and continue to move forward, take such incredible capacity to continue to be exactly who you are and stand for what you stand for.
Sarah Tacy [00:26:31]
It's a really incredible thing. And I think a lot of women are afraid of that. And I wasn't going to say this, but I just when I look at your quote which was misattributed for 25 plus years.
Marianne Williamson [00:26:43]
Such an example, right? Such an example.
Sarah Tacy [00:26:47]
At the very end of that very famous quote, it says, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. This is the light side. And the flip side is that yes, you are paving the way and when you are in your power it threatens others and there will be attack. And so for you to be able to stand in who you are knowing that there will be attacked.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:24]
There is a story in Timothy's book of seven women who went to medical school, I believe, in Scotland and the attack that they underwent and the having to be smarter than everybody there and having all of these things, like literally having food thrown at them as they're going into their exams. And at the end of the seven years, being told you can't have your degree. And then they still persisted and they still supported each other and it took many, many years and they helped each other all get their degrees. But I think that it takes a lot of courage. And I see that in you.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:55]
And I think that that's the other side of the quote is yes, now those women paved the way for other women to become doctors. And I think the reason why so many women are afraid is what is going to come at them.
Marianne Williamson [00:28:09]
If we stay tied to the approval of others for financial purposes or any other, then I don't think that we are going to be capable of truly living our best lives. At some point we have to do what we do because we think it's the right thing to do, whether or not others will approve of it and whether or not we are guaranteed any kind of material success. In terms of what you said before, it is true. You know, I always say that two things bring up the darkness and others. Your darkness, but also your light.
Marianne Williamson [00:28:39]
I do feel about my campaign and I feel a particular related to the younger generation, Jinzi. I know that I'm planting the seeds and I know that the conversation contributes to cultural change. As you said, it takes a lot of courage to be here. What I'm more afraid of is living with myself if I let them drive me away. Yeah, that's what I'm more afraid of.
Marianne Williamson [00:29:03]
What am I supposed to do? Put my toe between my legs? Slouch away just because I said a little girl, go home. You know, did those women trying to get into medical school just give up? No, they persevered. But that goes back to what you and I were talking about before. It helps if women will persevere with you and others Do. Please don't get me wrong, as you yourself pointed out, I do have supporters and also it this is not a poor me. You know, you and I were speaking before we sat down to do the podcast. You and I were talking about this idea.
Marianne Williamson [00:29:33] Where's the sweet spot? Do you say nothing? Because if you speak up about it, then oh, she's whining, she's defensive. But if you don't speak up about it, that seems wrong as well. One of the things I noticed is what happens with male politicians. First of all, they I think they have thicker skin. But also I noticed male politicians who have no problem pointing out what just happened, but their reaction doesn't get judged. The whole thing is fascinating. I won't be the same person on the other side of this.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:07]
What will have changed?
Marianne Williamson [00:30:09]
Two things are going to happen here. Either I win or I don't win. If I don't win, the task will be to remember that you can get better or you get better. What was Hemingway's? Everybody gets broken in life, but some grow stronger at the broken places.
Marianne Williamson [00:30:25]
The only failure is that which you fail to learn from. So there's so much grist for the mill here, for my personal growth. And if I win, this will have been the training. Because sometimes I'll say to myself, oh, you think this was hard, Try being president of the United States. You think, you think if you win, everybody's going to be nice to you everyday. So either way, it's a Crucible that is for my ultimate good. And I can intellectually see that.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:49]
How do you deal with it in your body?
Marianne Williamson [00:30:50]
Well, it's interesting because something happened just this morning. OK, Marianne, you have two choices. And I can't even remember the specific, but I was sitting. I remember I was sitting on a couch in my hotel room. And whatever it was, I said to myself, you can call somebody, you can process this, you can whine about this, or you can just burn through it.
Marianne Williamson [00:31:09]
Why don't you just sit here quietly? Why don't you close your eyes? Why don't you go into a meditative, prayerful state and just burn through it? Don't waste your time. And that was the challenge. And I considered it a little bit of growth that I even was that clear with myself. Why don't you just burn through it? And that that is how it feels in your body. We all have the temptation to emotional dysregulation, all the things that we all know. And I think it's important to remember and to remind ourselves and to remind each other.
Marianne Williamson [00:31:41]
You do have a choice. And that's really what the biblical line be still and now just go into a quiet space. Only love is real. Let it burn through you. Take a deep breath. You know, you have the tools. You know, I think for so many of us, particularly people with any kind of spiritual or religious or psychotherapeutic orientation, we have enough data now. We actually know what to do now. It's the age of practice. This is not really the era, age of information. This is now needs to be the age of practice and courage. At a certain point, processing just becomes self indulgence.
Sarah Tacy [00:32:31]
I'm going back to the 1997 Healing the Soul of America. When I first read it, I didn't look at the date that it was published. I just assumed it was like a 2019 book. It was mind blowing to me how clearly you saw our history and you didn't overlook or gaslight the light in the shadow of it. And you talked about atonement, and I'm wondering if you can give us a personal example in your own life of before, during and after and atonement and then what that looks like politically?
Marianne Williamson [00:33:12]
And of course, in Miracles it says you pay a very high price for not accepting 100% responsibility for your experience. And the price you pay is that you can't change it. I mentioned before something about when you realize, well, this wasn't all my fault. Well, but even a little of it, if you contribute in even the smallest way to whatever disaster or breakdown occurred in your life, you must look at that or it will remain operative. Buddha lived about 500 years before Jesus.
Marianne Williamson [00:33:44]
His message was action, reaction, action, reaction. For every action there's a karmic reaction. Jesus brought in the message of yes, but in a moment of grace, O karma is burned. But that grace means a moment of radical clarity. And when you do atone, when you do go back in the course of miracles it talks about, you go back to that moment when you made the mistake, your part in this, and you accept and recognize, you know the word recognize, recognize, you get it and you admit it.
Marianne Williamson [00:34:18]
Yep. In that moment, in that moment, it was my thought, it was my reaction, it was my behavior. And then the, the fascinating concept of atonement is that when you go into that quantum space of the spirit, you can actually go backwards in time, you know, and this is what the Catholics do in confession. This is what the Jews day on the day of Yom Kippur. It's what that you do in a, a when you acknowledge the exact nature of your wrongs and you go back and you admit it and you go into that deep, deep place of regret.
Marianne Williamson [00:34:57]
But regret is an interesting thing. You know, we talk about, you know, some of those people will say, don't feel bad. Sometimes feeling bad is healthy. Only a sociopath has no conscience. And you allow yourself to see where did you? You blocked a greater contribution of your gifts. You blocked the greater experience of your good. You might have caused other people to feel bad or to go through something. And that's what atonement is. And you go into that place of healthy remorse and it doesn't last.
Marianne Williamson [00:35:32]
You burn through that because you know the same part of your mind that led you to make the mistake, call it ego, whatever, would have you then stay feeling guilty about it. But that's the same part of the mind that is out to destroy. What you want to do is get about the business of being a different person now and knowing that when this kind of thing happens again, and it will, that you will be ready to play it at a higher level. And also part of that is that you are ready to make amends in any way that are appropriate. Now, understanding that principle of atonement, how it works in an individual life, is key to my feeling called to run for president.
Marianne Williamson [00:36:16]
Because I see in the United States, you know, all that a nation is, is a group of individuals. So the same psychological and emotional and spiritual principles that prevail within the life of an individual prevail within the life of a nation. That's why, for instance, I feel so strongly about reparations for slavery. Whether you're a nation or an individual, you will not have the future you want if you're not willing to clean up the past. But the atonement has to be matched with a willingness to make amends.
Marianne Williamson [00:36:46]
And so it's not enough for us to feel bad. We need to pay up on a certain level. That's the only way we will have the real healing that we want to pass on is our gifts to our own children, black and white.
Sarah Tacy [00:36:59] And I can put a link to you had a really great conversation with Trevor Noah on reparations. It's a really fabulous interview. And we'll put that in the show notes so people can hear more because he would then go in and ask you details. Well, what does that look like? How do you?
Sarah Tacy [00:37:16]
Yeah, it was really beautiful. And so just for my listeners, if you want to hear more on reparations, it's a great interview. And you also speak quite a bit about Native Americans in your book that seems to fall out of the reparations conversation. And so I'm wondering what your take is on the.
Marianne Williamson [00:37:32]
Elders in the Native American communities, their conversation, in my experience, has not been around reparations. It's been around weak and broken treaties and land rights and water rights and mineral rights. One of the first things we need to do is to give back the Black Hills of South Dakota. They were promised in a treaty with a Sioux in 1864, and it would not disturb the governmental authority of South Dakota to give those back. What's happening now with the pipelines, the sacred lands, the waters, definitely are the legacy of and a continuation of this same transgression against the natural rights of the Native American people. And in me, you would definitely have a president who would not stand for.
Sarah Tacy [00:38:17]
I think we're coming to close on time here. I want to ask you something around what's happening in the world. And I feel like the answers might be obvious. One is that here in Maine a few weeks ago we had we had a mass murder and all the schools shut down and all, you know, all the young kids wondering why. And the conversations that the kids have these days are different than they had a few weeks ago.
Sarah Tacy [00:38:43]
And we had a few people of our house just yesterday who knew a few of the people whose lives were taken. And as I read the articles too, I also understand how much help this man needed. There was so much knowledge ahead of time. His son, his own son, reached out to try to get help for him. His ex-wife reached out, and they were afraid that if he knew they reached out that he would be violent towards them.
Sarah Tacy [00:39:12]
So his comrades reached out to say he needs help, and they reached out again right before it happened. And so this, to me, speaks about mental health and gun laws. And I'm wondering if you could say a few things on where you stand. And maybe also how it's possible as a politician to tap into the brutality that's happening in the world here and in the Middle East, and not get frozen or overwhelmed and find a way to try to do something about it.
Marianne Williamson [00:39:41]
Well, those are two distinctly different, equally horrifying topics. So first of all, there's the domestic issue, as exemplified by the mass shooting here in Maine. I think we are moving beyond the question, is it culture or is it guns? It's clearly both. I was glad to see the congressman from this area that Lewiston is part of come out the next day and say you're right, I'm changing my vote.
Marianne Williamson [00:40:07]
I give up my previous stance regarding a ban on assault weapons. During the time we had 10 years of a ban on assault weapons, there were fewer of these incidents. Second, of course, has to do with the red flag laws, has to do with mental health, has to do with the fact that we are far too LAX. Law enforcement is far too LAX. And in some ways because they're not allowed to be by the laws of the state, by the, you know, reflecting the lobbying of the NRA.
Marianne Williamson [00:40:38]
Given how much we had heard about this man, like you said, his son, his ex-wife, and also people who had been at the military installation that he was part of who had given warnings, there absolutely should have been and should be the opportunity, the willingness. And we should absolutely know for sure that law enforcement will take guns away from that man. Once though enough of those things happen, there should be an automatic trigger. This man, we have reason to believe, society has reason to believe he could be a danger to himself and others. And I don't read the Second Amendment in any way that would limit our capacity to protect ourselves and our children in that way. Also, we all read the stories about how law enforcement had looked for him for two weeks. When they couldn't find him, they gave it up.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:30]
They found him in the Interscoggin River, so it was 2 days long that they searched for him and then they eventually found his body.
Marianne Williamson [00:41:37]
No, I don't mean after the murders. No, I don't mean after the murders. No, this was before long before the murder, when there was so much warning that this one had originally come from the from the people on the military base. And they said you should go check this guy out. And they looked for him. And after two weeks, when he wasn't anywhere where they were looking, they just gave it up.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:58]
I missed that.
Marianne Williamson [00:41:58]
At the same time who knows what would have happened. They might have interrogated him and he could have been a really good actor and made them feel oh I'm cool and no problem here. It even that wouldn't have been enough to me. The warnings of the of the son, the warnings of the ex-wife and the warnings of the people, the military base should have been enough that the guns could be temporarily taken away from him. And once again, he was even put in a mental institution and then was let out.
Marianne Williamson [00:42:22]
So in cases like that, it's why should this man have had access to those guns? That's the society has to ask ourselves, why are we putting what some people would say is Second Amendment rights? I don't believe it is Second Amendment rights. I believe in the Second Amendment. It's part of the Bill of Rights. But you have a right to drive a car. That doesn't mean there aren't any traffic laws. That doesn't mean you can go one way, you know, go the opposite direction in a one way, on a one way St. The fact that you have a right to bear arms should not mean that you have the right to be part of a force field, which is this point terrorizing every American parent.
Sarah Tacy [00:43:00]
Maybe we could end on a highlight. And since Timothy is here and you mentioned that you do have to wing women, would you like to say anything about them or about the people who have showed up for you?
Marianne Williamson [00:43:13]
Mean, I have many wonderful friends, supporters. So I was just reflecting to your friend on three particular women in my life who are so consistently there for the emotional burden that I carry. And once again, not just me, Anybody runs for office. I'm not trying to personalize that. That point I saw an etching once and it was a point in the story of the Exodus where Moses, you know, he had this rod and God-given him this rod and as long as he held his rod high, then the Israelites were victorious.
Marianne Williamson [00:43:55]
And if he dropped it then they were defeated. And the rod in the Bible that Moses had is the same as the wand that Merlin that the wizard has, that the fair that the a fairy godmother has, they have a wand, right? And that means straight, disciplined vertical consciousness, like when the fairy godmother, you know, points her wand at Cinderella's dress. The rags turned into a ball gown, pointed her wand at the pumpkin, it turned into a coach, pointed her wand at the mice, and it turned into coachman. And it surrounds it with light.
Marianne Williamson [00:44:30]
And light metaphysically means understanding you understand something differently, and it transforms. So this etching was about a point in the Bible where it was simply too great a burden for Moses. And there's this etching where his brother Aaron holds him up under one shoulder and someone in the Bible named Url your holds him up by another shoulder and helps him carry this exhaustion. And he's able to then lift up his rod. And I think we all in our lives, the issue is not just what you go through, but do you have anyone to help you go through it?
Marianne Williamson [00:45:09]
That's everything. There is so much that we can take when someone is next to you to say, I believe in you and I love you and you're not alone. And I'll help you when we talk about the crisis of loneliness, the crisis of lack of support, the of just friends, you know, and parents. And that goes back to the stuff you and I were originally talking about here of just nobody has the bandwidth to cultivate community. We're always thinking, find some outsider who can maybe bring in some expertise.
Marianne Williamson [00:45:37]
Know how about human, more human relationship, you know, a deeper, deeper level of human relationship. The one thing that I will add to that is, and I think that our own community of transformation and higher consciousness could take a good look at this one. We're very quick to say, oh, I support you and it mean nothing. Somehow running for office is a microcosm. It takes everything in life and magnifies it.
Marianne Williamson [00:46:06]
I remember hearing Michelle Obama at one point saying about her husband, she said the presidency doesn't change who you are. It magnifies everything that you already are, and I see that in myself running for president, my best and my worst boy. Look in the mirror here, Marian, because it's all there, which means it's such a Crucible for learning and growth. If I choose that it be, do that better. Change that. Rise up in that one and be proud of yourself. All of the above
Sarah Tacy [00:46:36]
Thank you so much for coming.
Marianne Williamson [00:46:38]
Thank you so much for having me and for the nature of the conversation.
Sarah Tacy [00:46:41]
Such an honor. Thank you, thank you. I wish you the best. And what I would add to that then too, is that for my listeners and for myself, that beyond wishing, the best things that we can do are to donate to help the campaign continue on.
Marianne Williamson [00:46:55]
Thank you. And if you're in Maine, we need 2000 signatures. We need 2000 signatures from Mainers. If someone is willing to give one of the signatures, this is so that you can get on the ballot. If someone would write to david@maryann2024.com, then he will tell you because it has to be in person. So he will, he will let the person know, OK, that will mean everything for getting on the ballot in Maine. And if anyone wants to volunteer, we could certainly use your help in New Hampshire and so forth. Please go to maryann2024.com and join us.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:29]
Amazing. All of that will be in the show notes too, so it'll be a direct link to David's e-mail. Thank you. We so appreciate having you here.
Marianne Williamson [00:47:37]
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:52]
Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy, it's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like, apparently it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you Scroll down to the bottom subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.