Why I Almost Quit Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Coach Training so I Could Stay in Jail

I love Martha Beck. I love her books, her podcast, her interviews. I think she has abilities (Telepathy Tapes, anyone?) she hasn’t fully addressed publicly. I signed up for her Wayfinder training program two years ago, but I changed my mind (chickened out?) after putting down the deposit because spending plus or minus $13,000 on something that didn’t come with any tires or a guarantee seemed like not a good idea. Then last year I signed up again because I WANTED TO DO IT.

It was a bit of a surprise the first day to see 100 faces (more or less) crowd into the screen(s). I had thought for $13,000 (more or less) it was going to be me and Martha and a few select others who were brave enough (reckless enough?) to commit to this 9-month program. Clearly, I had not read the fine print or even the print. For the rest of the year, we would be divided into 10-people cohorts and meet with different teachers. We had lots of videos made by Martha to watch and she would lead the class a few times during the training. I was processing all of this…is it worth it?…is it worth it…? still not in with both feet when, on the second or third meeting, I almost decided to bail.

Here’s what happened: we were learning about our internal compass and how to follow it. The teacher was talking about embodiment the way a driving instructor talks about automobile. She was taking for granted we all were embodied, and I found that interested and challenging. Did she not know the word dissociation?

What if you’re not embodied? I finally asked. Oh, the teacher said, you’re embodied. A couple of the students chimed in their agreement. Class continued.

I stayed silent but went into internal tantrum. Where is your fucking curiosity? Isn’t coaching about asking questions and not assuming you know? my tantrum asked those people. How did you get to know more about me than I know about myself? Did you go to the school of Anne when I wasn’t looking?

I stayed in that internal tantrum for two weeks or so. I told a number of people looking for support. If you tell people who also believe they aren’t embodied about a scenario like that, it’s easy to get support.

I thought more about dropping the class, but the thing is, I needed something to change in my life, and I’d been banking on Martha Beck to show me how to get the train of me on a track that felt right. I didn’t have a Plan B. Either I was going to stay in tantrum, or I was going to do something else.

I just wasn’t sure what the something else was, and then one day it just came to me as a thought: Are you willing to consider the idea that you are embodied?

Admit that the teacher and the others were right? Let go of the story that I’m not really here? If I say I am embodied, then, well, here I am.

It was like my brain was a pancake, and, just like that, I flipped it.

It was also like I’d created a cage out of my beliefs and I found that one wall was a door and all I had to do was push it and walk into a much larger world.

All this time I’ve been taking my thoughts so seriously. They tell me something and I believe them! What Martha Beck and her team are teaching me is that I am not my thoughts. This, I know, is most likely not news to you, and if you had told me I was not my thoughts I would have rolled my eyes at you before the training and said, Well, duh, but it would have been my thoughts saying duh, it turns out, not me.

Once again, amazing for me resides in the simple. Slow down, dear one, the world begs of me. Look. It’s all right here. Can’t you see?