Martha Beck Quits Lying

Author, speaker, teacher, legend, Oprah-endorsed Martha Beck is known for quitting a lot of things: her family of origin, her religion, marriage, heterosexuality, academia, multiple versions of herself…the list is long. But the thing she quit that has had the most profound and rippling effect was lying. And we mean, lying about anything at all. Years ago she made a resolution to not tell one lie—to herself or anyone else, even the pleasant little lies we tell to make other people feel better—for an entire year. It was through this one commitment that Martha conceived that if we all quit lying and told the truth ALL THE TIME we’d meet our most authentic, liberated selves. (We tried it; it’s hard.)

In this first episode of a two-part series, Emily has just quit her job and greeting card company, and tells this to Martha right after Martha—one of Emily’s heroes—tells Emily how in her household they know her as the greeting card goddess. 😩 From there we dive right into burning down versions of ourselves that no longer work (even if we’re goddesses in them), how sometimes we would rather die than face what life is asking of us, how when we tell harmless little people-pleasing lies we become exploding doormats, and how if all of us stopped lying our sexist racist patriarchal society would stop functioning. (!!) It’s a fucking gut punch of an episode we promise will make you want to burn some shit to the ground.

Dr. Martha Beck is a New York Times bestselling author, life coach, and speaker. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science, and Oprah Winfrey has called her “one of the smartest women I know.” Martha is a passionate and engaging teacher, known for her unique combination of science, humor, and spirituality. Her newest book, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times Best Seller.

Find her at marthabeck.com

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Music: Michael Blumenfeld, mikebloomstudio.com

Sound engineering + edits: Adam Day, https://www.adamdayphotography.com/

Producer: Cathleen Kisich

Host: Holly Whitaker, https://hollywhitaker.substack.com/

Host: Emily McDowell, https://emilyonlife.com

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