Nurturing Self Belief with Marcia Martin and Chris Janke

Believe in Yourself with Marci Martin and Chris Janke

Chris Janke: :00:00] Hello, and welcome to Health in the Real World. We're here today with doctor Marcia Martin, multiple repeat guests. Marcia, thanks for coming back. 

Marcia Martin: Always happy to be here and excited to share with you everything we can about how spirituality can help us in the real world. It's just Oh, that's awesome.

Well, you know, it's just what are we doing trying to tell people step out of your real life and do this practice for 5 minutes a day. We're not gonna do it. 

Chris Janke: So practical everyday spirituality that fits into your life as opposed to, like you say, time out. I need to go be spiritual now. Right.

Right. 

Marcia Martin: I need to go remember that I'm not supposed to be stressed and that I'm supposed to be flowing. You know, find me somebody that can do that, and they're probably :01:00] someone that perhaps they don't have a job or they've inherited a large sum of money and they don't have a family. So Right. They're all by themselves with no pets or interruptions or anything that you could halfway call what most of us are dealing with in our regular lives.

I just know for myself, if you tell me put everything away and then go do this practice, I'll do it once a month, maybe. 

Chris Janke: Right. Right. So things like prayer, meditation, maybe going to church or temple, synagogue, whatever religious affiliation you're with. I I have noticed recently, going to church, say, like, last just last Sunday, I noticed this that, the average age at a church service tends to be a little older.

Right? So, again, like, maybe maybe these people are retired, and they have more effort, energy, time that they can devote to the church. Right? But very :02:00] important to know that that spirituality, like you say, it's not something that okay. Okay.

It's Sunday. Let's go to church. Right? It can be something that we incorporate in our daily lives. So what, actually, first, let's back up a little bit.

People who don't know us, I'm Chris Janke. I help people eliminate chronic pain through exercise, gentle stretches. Marcia, give a quick introduction, for yourself, and then we can move on. 

Marcia Martin: Okay. I'm doctor Marcia Martin, the heart healer, and I help people overcome abuse and trauma by clearing and healing the energetic heart space with the angelic energetic realm.

So Nice. I'm never far from them. However, this is my work. And when I was far from them, I understood that this had to be a practice that I could incorporate in my daily life as it was and not something that could wait for Sunday or a holiday or, you know, something like that. It :03:00] was too important, and I was too far from my ideal life to believe that I could casually stroll into a new way of being.

I needed an overhaul. 

Chris Janke: Right. Got it. Got it. And a lot of people listening might believe that as well about themselves that they need that overhaul.

How do you start if if you're somebody who feels like you're so far gone from where you should be or could be, what, you know, what what are some steps somebody can take? 

Marcia Martin: I think the most important thing is to step away from criticism. So if you got in a dark place, you're probably not feeling really good about yourself. You might have the whole dialogue running that, oh, I'm such a victim. These bad things just keep happening to me and, you know, things along that line.

But :04:00] 1 thing I think that it it's important for us to understand is if we keep looking at ourselves as victims, even though bad things have happened, we're never gonna be able to move out of that place where you are taking control of your life and honoring all that you are. So you gotta stop with the criticism. Let me Yeah. Get this 

Chris Janke: so that we can do this. I'm playing with the angle.

Marcia Martin: That's okay. Um, you gotta stop with the criticism because the minute you tell yourself, oh, that was stupid, You've just now asked yourself to let everybody else run ahead or let whatever you were working on get away from you while you feel badly about whatever it is that you're working on. So if you can begin from the place let's say you :05:00] did do something that was really stupid. Believe me, I've had my share. So let's start there.

Okay. You did something really stupid. Instead of saying, that was stupid, take a minute, take a breath. Okay. I don't think that was what I wanted to do.

What can I do instead that will make this better? Or how can I fix this? I don't need to spend any time berating myself for what I did poorly because that's not gonna move me out of the situation. So okay. Yeah.

That wasn't great. Acknowledge, immediately move on. Okay. What can I do with what I have from where I am to make this a better situation? Being in the space of that was stupid isn't solving the problem, and then it makes you :06:00] believe that you don't have the ability to solve the problem.

So the sooner you get away from what's wrong and start looking for a way to make it right, the easier it comes for you to find those solutions. And we have to remember too that the problem is going 1 way and the solution is usually going a different way. So we've got to, as quickly as possible, move from the problem lane into the place where we are willing and excited about finding a solution. And you don't get excited if you're busy beating yourself up. Right.

Right. And even if you have to lie and you know, okay. I'm not really telling the truth. You know what? Give yourself a break.

Okay. That may not earn you points as most brilliant thing you've ever done. :07:00] However, just let it go. Okay. You know, I'm really good at and then find something that you do well, something that you admire about yourself, something that can make you feel good.

Take the performance pressure off. You're not in a competition. You're in a life that's going to have things that go up and things that go down. Yeah. So take that pressure off of you.

Hey. You know, I'm really good at whatever it might be. And then give yourself a minute to do that so that you can recover from, oh, that wasn't so good. Be the most forgiving to you that you can possibly be. Most people who have found themselves in a dark place are very unforgiving to themselves and very :08:00] good at excusing other people's behavior.

Chris Janke: Yeah. So I was just I was just thinking about that exact thing. I know, people who suffer from PTSD, for example, it's it's not innocent civilian. They hold that for a long time. 

Marcia Martin: How can I is there's done that?

Yeah. It was so stupid. What was wrong with me? Right. 

Chris Janke: And it's like it is.

It's like we forgive other people so quickly, especially if they're strangers. Right? I noticed this too. I this tendency in myself. I think it's concentric circles.

It's like the tendency to not forgive yourself, and then your family, say your kids or your parents, you you'll forgive them a little bit faster, but still not as fast as a lot of people will forgive a complete stranger and just let them off the hook. So it's so interesting. I love this concept of self belief. :09:00] When we have that self belief, we know that, like you said, you make a mistake. If you have that self belief, you know, okay.

It's a mistake. Yeah. I'll I'll give it to myself. Right? I should have done something different.

Can't do anything because I don't have a time machine yet, but, next time. What am I going to do next time? So what do you what do you tell somebody who's at that point? So they've they've, they've gotten rid of the guilt, the shame, and they're saying, okay. Well, I am ready to move on.

What's the next step would you say? I 

Marcia Martin: think you have to stay in the compliment zone, which is, hey, I'm really believe in myself. And if you can't get that far, well, you know, yesterday, I was really great at getting whatever it is done. Stay in the place where you're winning. Stay in the place where you are seeing yourself as someone that you admire.:10:00] 

If you force yourself to be in the place where you're always finding fault, the things the thing that you are going to attract to yourself are more reasons why you should be blamed or you don't deserve to win or, um, um, you were right in the first place. You're you're always making mistakes. So you gotta stay in the place where you can feel good genuinely about you or what you're doing. And that may mean a little bit of fudging in the beginning. So, you know, maybe you don't tackle the hardest project that you possibly could first thing in the morning.

Maybe you do a bunch of little things first and get yourself motivated. Oh, look at me. I've crossed all these items off my to do list. I'm feeling really good. I'm feeling like I could really do more.

:11:00] Use the momentum of winning in order to get you further, but don't try to set yourself up for failure by doing something that is difficult to prove to yourself that you can win. Prove to yourself that you can win with easy. Let it be easy. It's not a matter of can you win. Yes, you can.

Everybody can win. We are hardwired to win, to advance, to grow. That is what every person is naturally doing. But if you keep setting tasks, goals, or reasons why you're gonna feel good about yourself so far away from where you are, you've just created an obstacle course that nobody could navigate successfully. Right.

Chris Janke: I like that. I there's so much wisdom in what you just said. I, couple years ago, there was that :12:00] really popular speech that was going around. Um, I think he was a navy, retired navy, and he was giving a speech about making your bed. And that just popped into my head just now, and he said, worst case scenario, you make your bed at the beginning of the day, you have the worst day of your life.

At least you get home to a made bed. And it's like getting these very simple, you know, stacking up the simple wins, I think is very important. I also liken it I I do this a lot with metaphors to fitness. Right? Um, you can't bicep curl a hundred pounds until you've done 5 and then 10 and then 15 and then 20.

So it it can be a very gradual progression. I like what you said there. Make it easy. There's no reason. Right?

No reason to make life hard. It 

Marcia Martin: there really isn't because it doesn't if we make it hard, we actually slow down our ability to get to the :13:00] goal. We think that we're challenging ourselves or proving something about how magnificent we are. You know, let's take 15, subjects in school so that we never get to sleep, and then wonder, be amazed at how smart we are and then wonder why our body has broken down, and we didn't really do well in any of those subjects. There's only so much that any of us can do at any time.

We can gradually, as we strengthen, do more and more and more. But if we put the obstacle in front of us, that is climb a high rise building before you know how to walk, it's going to take you a really long time to climb that high rise building because you're gonna have to learn to walk first anyway. So why not just do it where you :14:00] put small manageable goals in your game plan and then feel good about reaching them so that you stay motivated instead of create these crazy goals that make you feel defeated, and you end up at the same place at the same time. It's those people that I never understand that are racing from red light to red light. Okay.

So you used more gas than I did, but we arrived at the same time, and we're going to go forward at the same time. Right. So what's the point? Let's start living intelligent lives, lives where we say, I'm going to give myself a reasonable chance of winning instead of, I have to prove that I'm the smartest, strongest, or whatever ist in the :15:00] room. I'm gonna give myself a reasonable chance at winning, which means I'm going to have to show up.

I'm going to have to do my best. I'm going to have to research sometimes if I don't know what how to go further. But I'm not going to say, I'm gonna be a fitness guru by tomorrow and be disappointed if that can't happen because I'm in a wheelchair. Let's recognize where we are and then small, manageable, meaningful goals. Just because it's small doesn't take away its meaning, and you will get there at the same time as the person that is straining and needs to stop and take a a rest.

Chris Janke: That's the old tortoise and the hare. Right? Yes. That just 

Marcia Martin: popped into my head. It's 

Chris Janke: yes.

It's so interesting. I've I've I've been, teaching myself this and getting a life :16:00] lesson in doing this. Um, I drive, man. I probably drive almost a hundred miles a day, and it's it's, mostly freeway driving. And this particular freeway has a lot of hills up and down.

Right? So it's interesting because I was thinking about this. I said, I wonder how much I could actually improve my gas mileage if I drive differently. Because what I usually do is I'll just put it in cruise control and just same speed the whole way. And so it's very it's very predictable, like, what my gas mileage will be.

So I thought, I wonder if I just take steady just incrementally add a little bit of speed as I'm going downhill and take away a little speed as I'm going uphill. I still I love I love cruise control. I don't drive with my feet unless I'm in in town. But if I'm on the freeway, I'll just cruise control faster, cruise control slower. So it's a little experiment.

So and then you can look down and see, like, what is your miles per gallon. And I :17:00] was keeping it wet, like, almost 40. I drive a Ford Explorer, and it was at 40 even going uphill because I would I would gradually decrease, decrease, decrease. Anyway, I I feel like this is relevant to this conversation because it's almost like when we're going through our lives and we're hitting that resistance or we're we're on the uphill. Right?

And so many people, like you say, will just hit the gas. They'll pedal to the metal. Oh, this is a challenge for me instead of saying, you know, maybe this is a sign that maybe I can just ease off just a little bit. I still wanna keep my forward momentum, but maybe I can ease off just a little bit. And then flat, you know, we can accelerate a little downhill.

Oh my gosh. Alright. I can open up because that's what my environment around me is is telling me. Like, alright. It's a downhill season.

We can pedal to the metal because, you know, everything's going with you. So, um, it's interesting how that sort of just clicked right there because that's been in my mind for the last couple days. I think it's a :18:00] good metaphor for life. 

Marcia Martin: I think it's so important to recognize that when we are flowing with what is, we're gonna get there so much with so much less stress and so much greater ease than if we say, I have to get there now, even when it's impossible. Let's stop creating lives that feel so struggle y and start creating lives that just feel good.

I don't understand why we think it is. You should have a big prize for being in a job that creates tremendous amount of stress and unhappiness to get a big paycheck. Why don't we say, okay. I know what my needs are financially, and I'm going to do a job that I :19:00] enjoy that allows me to honor every aspect of myself instead of push myself for a paycheck that now has to be spent on health care, mental and physical. I mean Yeah.

Yeah. It's like Exactly. If you love that job, great. Money is great. There's nothing wrong with money.

But if you are worshiping money at the expense of your family, your health, your mental and emotional well-being. Now you are creating for yourself a life that you need to run from in order for you to keep going. And then I'll have to ask you, what kind of life is 

Chris Janke: that? Exactly. Exactly.

So, I'm curious to to know because you've alluded to the fact that, you you sort of kinda stumbled upon this and and your life was not exactly where you wanted it to be. How :20:00] did that happen for you? Like, what's your story with that? I wanna hear this. 

Marcia Martin: I was so determined that to make my life 1 long struggle.

I had somehow gotten the message that if I wasn't struggling, if life wasn't complicated, if I wasn't really forcing my way forward, that I should consider myself a failure. I should not be able to take that calm breath and just say, wow. I'm really proud of what I've been able to accomplish. So I kind of built a life that was all around struggle. And if there wasn't a struggle happening, I would find myself kind of uncomfortable.

You know, what's wrong? It It I must not be doing enough if I don't have a lot of resistance coming in everywhere. And it :21:00] finally just wore me down. I had no more ability to keep living that life, and I just almost gave up. Mhmm.

Gave up for a while, and then things got so out of control that then I was ready. Now I'm like, okay. Now I need to find another way. Yeah. Going all in didn't 

Chris Janke: work.

Do you remember that do you remember that rock bottom when you knew your, like, your back was up against the wall and you knew, like, wow. This has to change. Like, obviously, if you if you don't wanna give a hundred percent detail, but as much as you're willing to share. 

Marcia Martin: I remember I was working. The job wasn't bad.

It was just my mind was, well, if I'm not struggling in life, then I'm not doing enough. And I was able to take a vacation. I hadn't had a vacation in years and years and years. And it was just stay at home because :22:00] my daughter was in school. My son had already graduated, so my daughter was still in school, and school is in session.

Don't ask me why I would have taken a vacation when she was still in school. But, anyway, again, like to keep it really confusing and struggling. And I remember sitting on the couch and just falling asleep and thinking I am I'm exhausted. Every part of my being is exhausted. I don't want to do anything except sleep.

This is not a life. This isn't gonna work. I don't know how to get out of this, but that was the first indication. I'm in real trouble. I have no more energy to get off this couch and actually do something, then and I would I did fall asleep.

I spent most of that vacation week :23:00] just kind of sleeping, doing nothing. I 

Chris Janke: agree. And Resetting. Right? Resetting the body.

And 

Marcia Martin: And just thinking, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna go from this point forward? I can't keep this up, but I don't know what else to do. And that's when I really began searching. And because I was searching, then things started appearing in my life that would help.

They were not deep enough yet to really make a difference, but they were enough carrots so that I felt like I had a solution. And that's 1 thing I think is just so important. You're not gonna find the solution tomorrow if you have dug yourself in to a really dark place, but you can find little fairy lights along the way. So take the win. Take anything that feels better than where you :24:00] are now.

And know, if you are willing to commit to a little bit every day, you will find your way out. We get our don't you think, you know, we we get ourselves into these situations because we have been unwilling to commit to small positive change. We've been going for that huge win, and it's usually impossible to find it. And then, well, see, I'm a failure. I knew I was worthless.

Why do I even try? And then you go further and further back until finally, you're sitting on the couch falling asleep no matter where you are Yeah. And or what you're doing, or you're sitting at work falling asleep trying trying to do something. 

Chris Janke: Exhausted. Right?

Marcia Martin: And Yeah. And it it Yeah. You can't operate anymore. :25:00] And then you think, well, you know, I might as well give up. Sometimes I think in that giving up place is where we finally say, okay.

There's gotta be another way. Yeah. I don't know that I was willing to find another way until I just had was physically exhausted. Mentally, I had been exhausted forever. Emotionally, I was, you know, on another planet Yeah.

In terms of of exhaustion. But until the physical body started saying, we got nothing left. Yeah. We're done. Yeah.

I don't know that I was willing to dive deep enough to say, okay. This this this isn't working. Yeah. 

Chris Janke: Yeah. It's it's so powerful.

I mean, it it it, um, I think we we're gonna wrap it up, but I think this is just a conversation that's so :26:00] important. It's I I love what you just said about take the next step. Right? Um, I had a baseball coach, who said, you don't go up there trying to hit a home run. It's the the guys who try to hit a home run, they're always striking out.

But if you just try to make contact with the ball, then you'll get those singles and doubles. And then occasionally, when you get that perfect pitch, you'll be able to rip it out of the park. Another I'm mister metaphor today. that's another, you know, another example of, like, you know, if today can be a little bit better than yesterday or whether it's my effort or my energy level or maybe I ate a little bit better or maybe I got my workout in, it really is those baby steps. Um, And that's what I help, you know, that's what I try to help people with with chronic back pain is that you're gradually diminishing that pain as we go, as we progress.

And, um, and I wanna give you, Marcia, a chance to tell people how to get in touch with you so that they can continue to do this work that we just discussed in this :27:00] in this podcast. 

Marcia Martin: Yes. And just we cannot emphasize enough the importance of beginning wherever you are. We didn't create these problems overnight, and they're not gonna go away overnight. So if we can just be honest with ourselves and say, okay.

I recognize I've got to change whatever I'm doing. Then that is going to be the first step. And the second step is, and I'm going to allow myself to win. So please allow yourself to win. That is the most important thing in the world.

You are worth it. You are capable. But if you don't create something that is measurable, reasonable, and worthy of achieving, you're always gonna believe that you :28:00] can't do it. So please believe in yourself and honor yourself. And you can reach me and we now have a foundation so we can support you in wherever you are and where whatever you may need.

That is the heart healing foundation dot org. We are a nonprofit, and we honor everyone to help them overcome abuse and trauma. And please don't compare yourself. Again, another thing. Please don't compare it.

Well, my trauma wasn't as bad as Sally's. If it was impactful to you, if it is hindering you in your present, if you think about it often, it is worth getting the help and the support that you need. So please reach out, the heart healing foundation dot org. 

Chris Janke: Alright. Thank you so :29:00] much, Marcia.

Again, Marcia Martin, I would love to have you on again. You've I think you've been on 4 times, something like that. You are the number 1 most frequented podcast guest. So proud to have you back and, really appreciate you joining us today. everyone check out her website.

Marcia Martin: Yes. www.thehearthealingfoundation.org.

Chris Janke: Okay. Sounds good. Well, thank you again so much, Marcia. Everyone, we will be back next week for another Health in the Real World, thanking today, doctor Marcia Martin for joining us. 

Marcia Martin: Thanks so much.

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