[EP 33] How the AWAKE Method Can Transform Your Life with Debra Poneman

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Welcome to our podcast everyone. And today I'm thrilled to welcome a wonderful friend of mine and a true pioneer in the field of personal development and success training, Deborah Poneman. Now, for more than 40 years, Deborah has been sharing her incredible insights and her strategies through her company, yes to Success, helping countless people achieve extraordinary levels of success and happiness and fulfillment. And her success formulas have helped her clients become mega successful entrepreneurs, renowned transformational leaders, New York Times best selling authors, millionaires, even billionaires, and many of whom have become household names. I don't know if we'll mention any of them, but you would recognize them immediately. And she's also worked with many major corporations like Mattel Toys. I just loved watching Barbie. I don't know if you had anything to do with that. We'll talk about that. The Xerox Management Group and the Enterprise Bank. And Deborah has also appeared in print around the world, on TV networks, including also abc, NBC, Fox, and cnn. And today I'm going to be talking with Deborah about a number of things, but I also want to talk have her share about the launch of her the Awake Method, which is a groundbreaking approach designed to help people live more awakened lives. And we're also going to dive into how her teachings can help you build a foundation of inner silence and unshakable peace, which would be really valuable in today's world. So Deborah, I'm so glad to have you with us today to share your journey and this new chapter in your work.

Well, thank you so much. It's like I have to come on your show to spend some time with you, although we did see each other a few weeks ago. It's always great.

We're both so busy. We see each other at conferences and things like this. That's about it. But I love you. And so it always feels like I'm seeing my sister who lives in a different city. I don't see her that much either. But let's jump right in and have you tell us. Let's start with the Awake Method. You've developed this. Talk about what it is, what inspired you to create it, and how it builds on your previous work and what people can expect from it.

Yeah. Thank you for asking me, you know, a little bit about my background that I started out in the early 1970s. 50 years ago I became a meditation teacher. Actually I had my 50th anniversary this year of becoming a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. And for years I taught meditation full time. And I loved it because I loved being able to help people Establish that foundation of inner silence which, as you said, it is so necessary, especially right now. I love the hugging Saint Amaji said we must cling to our spiritual practices so that when the world shakes, we remain unshakable.

I like that.

I love that. And that's what we have to do, is we have to have a foundation so that if a hurricane or tornado comes, it's not going to knock the building of our lives down. So I love teaching meditation. And I did that full time for 10 years. And then I went to the Learning ANNEX actually in 1980. And there is this gentleman there, and he was talking about how there are these principles that can help you create a successful outer life. You know, many of the success principles that you teach. And he said, one of the things he said is that we are like tuning forks. And if we are vibrating like a tuning fork that's an F sharp, it will repel a B flat. And if we're vibrating with negativity, I'm never going to find my soulmate. I'm never going to be wealthy. And your soulmate starts coming towards you. Well, you're not vibrating in a way that your soulmate con merge with you. You actually repel the soulmate. And so many principles of success. And I had this epiphany. I thought this is what people need. They need the inner silence, but they also need to know how to create the outer structure of success. So I started my company, yes to success in 1980. And it became very successful using the principles that I. I learned. I actually remember meeting you in 1981 or 1982, although you don't remember. I do. And. But I. So I started teaching these principles around the world. And I, as you said in my introduction, I help people create a life of success. But because the name of my company was yes to Success, people thought that what I was going to teach them was how to have a fancy car, a big house, and a number one TV show or whatever. But what I was really teaching people were the energetic principles to again, to create success from the inside out. But that name yes to Success was deceiving because people would come and think that I was going to teach them how to have a nice car. The truth is, however, that when you learn the energetic principles of creating success, then not only is it easy to get that nice car and the nice house and even the best selling book, but the most beautiful part about it is that it doesn't even matter if your book is the bestseller. It's not the bestseller because you still have you, and that's true success. It's having that foundation of knowing who you are, whatever happens on the outside. So recently I realized that I am going to rebrand and I'm going to call what I teach the Awake method, because I really do teach people how to wake up. And AWAKE is an acronym for the steps that you can take to create true success.

Oh, wow.

The A is awareness. Because without awareness, you don't know that your thoughts are creating your reality. You don't know that the words you speak do, in fact, manifest. I mean, if they manifested immediately, you would know it. But since they manifest down the road, sometimes you think you could just say anything you want, but you have to become aware, and that's the first step in becoming awake. And then the W is wisdom, because you might be aware that you need to switch up the or. You might be aware that you're negative. You might be aware that you're getting sick all the time. You might be aware that you might have something to do with marrying the same person five different times in a different body who still is disrespectful to you, but you need the wisdom to switch it up to create a different life. So that's the W. And then the next A is action. Because now you're aware. Now you have the wisdom. But I'll ask you, Jack, how many people have we given that wisdom to, but they just don't take the action?

A lot, unfortunately.

A lot, unfortunately. So the next A is simple techniques to take the actions that you need to create a truly successful life. And then the K, which I know is one of your favorites, is just letting go. It's knowingness. Knowingness that we live in a benevolent universe. It's like you put your order into life, and you don't have to keep reminding God, hey, I ordered that. It's like, he's got it, she's got it. It's just knowingness. Surrender, let go. Have faith, have trust. And then the E is enlightenment. The E is really living in that flow. Living in that flow without the obstacles, without the obstructions, and living a state of true inner peace where there's this concept in rocket science called escape velocity. And escape velocity is the point that you move out of the Earth's gravitational pull. If there's enough thrust, you get to escape velocity. And then that rocket ship just floats, okay, in the. In the atmosphere. And there's a point that we get to escape velocity that we're not held back anymore by our negative beliefs, by Our negative self talk by those things that we're doing to create our own unhappiness in our lives. And that's enlightenment. So that is the awake method.

I love it. I love it, I love it. You know, when you talked about the knowingness, you reminded me of something I heard recently where, you know, when you're manifesting and all that stuff, and then it's not. It's not happening as fast as you thought it should. And now you're going into focusing on the not having of it, because impatience means you're focusing on not having it, which then changes the tuning for it, vibration to not having instead of having it. They said, you know, if you, if you, if you go, if you ordered a pizza from Domino's and then you called him up two minutes later and said, are you really making it? Are you really going to deliver it? Then you called him up three or four minutes later. How's it doing? Is it going to come? You sure you're really going to deliver this? You know, they would stop. They put you on the don't pick up the phone list. You know, I think the same thing is true with the universe, with God, however we want to hold that. So anyway, I love that knowing this is just, you know, you got to trust and allow and all those things.

I love it is that my son once said, I don't know where he heard this, and he said, you know, you get on a bus and you trust the bus drivers going to get you where you're going. You get on the plane, you trust the pilot's going to get you where you're going. You get. But we don't trust that the Creator is going to get us where we want to go, even though we're very clear where we want to go. So that's what we need. It's like people say, well, I'll let Jesus take the wheel. And then we. Then we go over with, oh, but let me just make this turn right here. Jesus, you don't have it down. So we just have to really let the proverbial Jesus take the wheel once we know. But we got to be clear. That's what you teach. Got to be clear where you want to go.

And, you know, whether it's a Christian singing that song and actually living their life that way, trusting in Jesus, or whether it's someone trusting in the universe, ultimate universal intelligence, the infinite, you know, however we want to hold that through our own spiritual and religious beliefs, it's really the same thing of just trusting that I'm surrendering to something bigger than me. And I love what Michael Beckwith says. The evolution of consciousness is happening through you as you. Meaning that we're all moving toward that place of, I think, surrender and allowing things to be, but also allowing our part of our wants to be. In other words, the whole thing is like this, connecting with it and really getting that it's all working in my behalf, entrusting that which is an amazing place to live your life from. And I know that when we're in that space and we'll talk about that silent space and when we have that space, what happens is consciousness is in that space. And that's when our intuitive downloads happen. That's when we get these inner impulses to do, to not do, to wait, to, you know, don't say that, say this. It's not time yet, you know, where we start to feel in, in sync with the flow. And as Abraham says, you know, Abraham Hicks, it's much easier to flow downstream than it is to try to fight the current, you know, And I love that song. Matt Weinstein, who, you know, says life is all summed up in one song. Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily Joy, joy, joy Life is but a dream, it's all an illusion anyway, so let's just enjoy it. And so I love what you're doing with all this. So obviously if it was that simple and you just say those words and then everyone would be enlightened. It's not like that. We have to do some discipline practices, etc, so talk about that a little bit.

Well, I believe, especially at this time in creation, that there are a few things that we need to do if we want to have really happy. Like a lot of people are living in fear right now. There's a lot of fear going on. And I still believe with all my heart that we all need spiritual practices, that they are no longer an option. And our spiritual practices create that basis of inner silence, like I say, so that we're unshakable even in the face, face of chaos. And spiritual practices are something we do, that we take ourselves out of our daily routine. I'm talking about things like meditation or breath practices or drumming or ecstatic dancing or prayer or joppa, rosary fire ceremonies. What they do is they create this expansion of consciousness so that you can actually see the truth of reality. Because you could see like one incident of injustice and we go all crazy over it, but we don't see the big picture. But when we do our Spiritual practices, our consciousness expands, and then we see the truth of creation. And when we do these practices, a lot of people say, oh, we have to live in the present moment. But most people live ruminating over what happened in the past, worried about what's going to happen in the future. But I know that you and I, we both meditate. And what happens is when we meditate, that we contact that infinite silence, that unbounded field of pure consciousness that is silent. And then when we come out, we create or not that we create. We experience more and more silence, no matter what's going on in the world. And it's hard to be in the present moment. Okay, let's be in the present moment right now. Let's be in the present moment right now. It's hard because actually, I don't want you to be in the present moment. I want you guys to be listening to what Jack and I are saying. Right. But the truth is that the reason why we're not in the present moment is that we're so filled with impressions from the past, from the way we were hurt, from the way we were abused, from, you know, what somebody said about us. They're all. They're embedded in our physiology. But when you do a spiritual practice that brings you to that place of silence that gives you such deep, profound rest that it releases all of those impressions, which in Sanskrit are called samskaras. You start spontaneously living in the present moment because all those impressions from the past are now gone. And so one reason we need to do our spiritual practice is that to get rid of those samskaras. But another reason we need to do spiritual practices is because when we become unshakable, our inner state radiates out to the world. And people are always, how can I contribute to the world? How can I? We have this visceral desire. Haven't you seen that? That's. People just want to contribute to a peaceful world. Well, you know what you can do? Do a practice that you are that creates peace inside yourself, and then you radiate that peace. You create an aura of peace around yourself, and you are. And it's like a contagion. When you're around somebody who is peaceful, you feel more peaceful. When you're around somebody who's stressed, you feel more stressed. And we need more people right now on this planet who are peaceful to counteract that fear and that chaos that's in the air.

Yeah. And to take it from the planetary to the more individual. When you're in that space of radiating that Peace, that joy that comes from that, the calmness, the certainty, whatever you want to call it, people are attracted to you. And that also helps you in terms of the traditional concept of success. They're going to want to do business with you. They're going to trust you more than that guy over there who looks like he's just trying to take advantage of them or who looks like they're in fear. Do you want a doctor who looks scared or one who feels radiant and joyful? You know, and so all of that works on every level. And I know I recently had that same thing in one of my meditations, that there's a lot going on in the world right now. And it could get, quote, unquote, worse in terms of how we measure these things. Wars in the Middle east, you know, China and Taiwan and, you know, race wars and revolution. People talk about. We see it in some other countries, you know, happening with riots and so forth. And I think it just happened in Sri Lanka and so forth. And the reality is in all that chaos, there needs to be more people holding the peace. And I know from your experience with Transcendental Meditation, talk about that a little, because I don't think everyone knows about it. The experiments that were done where you get a whole bunch of people meditating and how it affects a city and all the things about wars went down, amount of bombs, just let people know about that.

Well, it's called the Maharishi Effect, named after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation program. And what happened was that in the year 1988, it was another time when the world was chaotic. And so what he did is he asked as many meditators as possible to come to Washington, D.C. and to meditate in a group. Because what had been shown scientifically is that when there are people in one place, like right now, I'm in Fairfield, Iowa, and we meditate together every day, and these two beautiful golden domes. And we do it for ourselves, but we do it because we feel that we're affecting the world. But what they showed, because there were thousands of people, we tried to get the square root of 1% of the population of the US meditating together, which we did. We didn't try. We did. And during the time when people were doing their meditation practice together, not only did accident rate go down, the homicide rate go down, the hospital admission rate go down, not only in D.C. but in a greater area, but the stock market went up. And I'll tell you one other thing that you might not know about last September, there was a meditation on the National Mall. I know because I actually was the emcee of the event. There were 1.1 million people meditating together on the Washington Mall. And again, same thing. The statistics were mind blowing. It was that night, remember that night when the US government was going to shut down and nobody was willing to give in, so that wouldn't happen. And so that night, because we were having this thing, the Art of Living foundation was putting on something called the World Culture Festival. And there were thousands of people performing from all over the world, from Ukraine, from Korea, from Mongolia. So Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had us all meditate together. And you could actually see we are on the Washington wall. You could see the Capitol in the background. And miraculously, during the time that we were all meditating is when they decided that they weren't going to shut down the government and everything shifted. So meditating in a group is very, very, very powerful, scientifically proven.

I love too what John Hagelin says about the power of an intention is the square of the number of people holding that intention. And so when I'm teaching a workshop, if there's like 500 people in the room, I say if we all hold the same intention, whatever that might be, and we play with it in the group is, you know, that's 500 times 500, that's like 250,000 or whatever math it is. And people go, wow, you know, if I can get me and my wife intending the same thing, whether it's peace, love, joy, raising good kids, you know, whatever. And then the whole family, my whole company, our city, in your case, a million people on the Mall, which I did not know about. That's really fascinating to know. I think there was another experiment done with people in India. And during that time, the amount of wars that broke out went down. The total tonnage of bombs that dropped went down, the peace treaties that were signed went up. I mean, it was just incredible what happened.

Yes. And also our other dear friend, Lynn McTaggart.

Right.

Her intention experiment, also they, she had people from all of. First of all, you know, the intention experiments started. She wanted to see if people's thoughts could actually affect matter. So she got a group together in England and they intended for a bacteria in Germany and a plant in Germany and somebody with disease in Germany. If this group in London could actually affect these things in Germany, it killed the bacteria, it made a dying plant grow, it turned the person's disease around. This group in London and the scientists in German. I might not have gotten the exact statistics right. So then she took it higher and she got groups to intend for peace in the Middle East. And during that time, I mean, this was decades ago, but the conflicts went down, and then in Afghanistan and the conflicts went down. So the power of group coherence is. It's indisputable. But even if we. I was just gonna say, but even if we can't do it. Group just radiate peace yourself and it. That also is contributing to.

Well, and know that when you're doing that, there are other people out there doing it too. So even though the group isn't aware, you're not. You're not aware there's 12 other people and you know them. There's always people meditating. And when you're part of that, all of that adds up into the. The. The field, if you will, around the universe. The Heart Math Institute has proven that I. She's now doing these intention, healing intention groups and groups of eight or more who intend, like this person, we're going to help them, you know, get beyond their cancer if that's for the highest good and all of that. And what they're finding is not only are the people that are being on the other end receiving that growing and being better and being healthier, the people that are meditating or intending that healing are also getting benefit from it. So it's like, you know, as one of my friends says, the love, I give you a second hand because I had to feel it first. And so, you know, that whatever is coming through me to you is coming through me. You know, love and healing and light and all of that. So it's like, you can't go wrong. There's so many benefits.

For other people. I could feel it because I do that in my groups too. We intention for people, and people just want to keep going and going because they feel so good. But Lyn actually scientifically proved that the intentioners do get as much or more than the people being intentioned for. So it's a win.

Yeah. And then there's Massaro Emoto in Japan, who basically realized everything has a consciousness and awareness and that if we send gratitude and love to the water of the world, the water changes its structure, you know, and we think about. Our brain is like, I don't know, 75 to 90% water, depending on whose brain it is. What happens is when you're in that state of gratitude and appreciation, it's affecting your brain, and you're going to be healthier as a result of that. And the thing that's fascinating about it is there's no limit to how far it goes. We have experiments that prove consciousness can extend as far as the moon, because that astronauts up in the moon where they have these envelopes and there's shapes in there like squares and circles and triangles and pentagons and so forth, they don't know what it is. But the envelopes are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. And on a specific day, at 10 o' clock in the morning, they open envelope three and they record that they did that. And then they look at that shape for about five minutes. And people down at Duke University in the parapsychology labs close their eyes and just open up to receiving that shape. And sure enough, way beyond statistical chance, they get it right. So we know 250,000 miles away that thought form is being transmitted and received here. So think about this. The earth is only 25,000 miles around. So every thought you're thinking is going out as a radio wave or to simplify it, and it's being picked up by people all over the world. And what I love about that is like, all of a sudden, the person you're visualizing your vision for, whatever, and then you're sitting on a plane two weeks later, and the person you start talking to is the exact person you need to get involved in this project you're doing, or you're standing in line of Starbucks and you turn around, introduce yourself, this person becomes a client, a life partner and whatever. And they were attracted to you. Like you mentioned the tuning forks. You know, I learned that when I was a kid. My cousin had a piano. We were poor, he was rich. I used to go to spend two weeks in the summer with him and get to experience tennis courts and swimming pools and all that kind of stuff. But one of the things, he had a piano, he had two pianos. And so because he and his, I think, mother would play duets and stuff, and he would play a string, he would hit a note on one piano and that same string on the other piano would start to vibrate. And that was the first. And I was like 15 years old when I saw that. You know, I was like, oh, my God. Just like the tuning force, if you have a C turning fork and you hit this one, this one will start to vibrate. So literally all this stuff with vibration is scientifically proven. Quantum physics is. We think most of it's proven and. But most of us never learned this stuff, so we didn't learn it in school. Now we have to learn it as adults by listening to podcasts like this, reading books. I'm going to be interviewing Tony Nader, who talks about consciousness is all there is and, you know, makes a wonderful case for all of this. And I, it's. We are looking for that unified theory of the universe and I think he's kind of come up with it.

I just have this thought. Did I ever tell you about my near death experience when I saw the power of our thoughts? No, I don't think I ever shared this with you. This is, this is really quite profound because, you know, both you and I, for decades we've been teaching about the power of our thoughts. And I always say when, when people say, well, I desire this, and it didn't manifest. Well, okay. I always say, I actually learned this from a 92 year old friend of a friend. And he said, when you ask God for something that you want, you will only get one of three answers. Yes, here it is. Be patient, it's on its way, or I love you too much to give this to you. There's something better coming. So it might not, you know, you desire to meet your soulmate, and then you go out to Starbucks and you might not meet them at Starbucks. But then months later, some really crazy circumstance happens and you run into your soulmate. So again, it's that, that same thing of trust.

Yeah. No, I remember for me, I was working with W. Clement Stone. Well, what happened? I was, I, I was a high school teacher. I got a job at a job Corps center where they trained kids who dropped out of high school. And we were teaching reading and math skills and also job skills, like computer skills, different things. And I remember, I love that job. I just really love that job. A lot of freedom. We had a good budget. Kids were really eager to learn because now they realize dropping out of school wasn't their best choice. So now they're going, I'm really going to work here. And all of a sudden our job Corps center got shut down. We were in a Democratic congressman's district. Nixon got elected and he decided, I'm going to shut down every Job Corps center and government program in Democratic districts to kind of punish them for not voting for me. And I was really depressed at that time, like, this sucks. And then I went, I took a workshop at the W. Clement and Jesse V. Stone Foundation. W. Clement Stone, being a teacher of this work with Napoleon Hill and all of that. This was worth $600 million at the time. And they said they learned I worked in an Inner city high school. And I worked with these kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods, and they said, oh, we need someone like that. Almost all the people we have are teaching in white schools and the suburbs and stuff, so we'd like to offer you a job. And I went, okay. They paid me more. I got to travel all around the states of, like, the Midwest, teaching achievement, motivation. How do you motivate people to achieve more? Many of these things, affirmations, visualization, all this stuff. And had that job Corps center never closed down. I might still be working there. You know, it's like, it's. It's so amazing how it all works. Like, it's, you know, this is better. It's coming.

Yes, absolutely. And I love the story. Another mutual friend of ours, Sherry Salata, you know, her great story about how she had applied to this little company called Harpo, and they never called her back, you know, decades ago. And then she applied for another job. I. All of us in Chicago. And. And they told her, oh, you're a perfect person. We can't wait for you to start working with us. We'll call you on Monday. So this is on a Friday. She had a big celebration with her friends. They went out to a bar and, you know, toasting her new job. And then they don't call her on Monday, and they don't call her on Tuesday, and they don't call her on Wednesday. She called them on Thursday. They said, oh, we're sorry, you know, changed her mind. And she was, she didn't know this concept that. And she. But she wrote a book called the Beautiful. No, because what happened was that she was so depressed and she didn't even want to get out of bed. And then one day, these people from Harpo, these little studios said, you know, we found this application. You must have sent it to us weeks ago. It got caught in a. In a file cabinet. But I think that we have a great entry level position for you. And she was like, well, whatever, at least it's a job. And so she got this little job with Oprah, and then she got a promotion. Then she got another promotion, and she ended up being the executive producer of the oprah show for 10 years. And those of you who saw that final show, she was the blonde lady who came out that Oprah thank for the success, the incredible success of Harpo. But the beautiful now. But back to my story of my near death experience, which I haven't shared with you.

Oh, yeah, we got off track there. Go ahead.

Yeah. Which we tend to do. But about I guess it must have been eight or nine years ago. You know, I never get sick. And by the way, it's one of the things I affirm. I never get sick, and I really do never get sick. And because your word is your wand. Thank you for the name of the title, Catherine Ponder the word. Your word is your wand. But I had just gotten back from a developing country. I won't name them name. I don't want to blame them, but I must have picked up something in this country because it was a Monday and I felt kind of sick. And I thought, oh, I'll just take some echinacea, some golden seal electrolytes. I'll be fine. Tuesday, I was worse. Wednesday is worse, worse. By Saturday, I was lying in bed and I. And I was living by myself. And I thought, if I die here, nobody's going to know. So I did the intelligent thing anybody would do is I called my favorite healer and I said, I think I'm dying. And he looked in on me long distance and he said, well, I could help you, but you have to do exactly what I say. And I'm like fading. I'm going, anything. He said, Call 911. I said, you. I. I couldn't even open my eyes to press the buttons for 911. So the ambulance comes, has to break in my door. I couldn't get out. I couldn't get out of bed. Asks me what hospital I want to go to. I was living in Evanston at the time, it's a suburb of Chicago. Said, I'd like to go to Evanston Hospital. Or I whispered that. And they commiserated. My blood pressure, by the way, was 52 over 28. Because they. Yeah, yeah, as they said, incompatible with life. They didn't time the 11 minutes to get me to life that's incompatible with life. They. So they took me to this little hospital around the corner. They wheel me into the emergency room, and they started hooking me up to everybody, tube, every machine, everything possible. And I started dying. The reason why I know I was dying is because when my eyes were open, I could see everybody running around trying to save my life. But when my eyes were closed, I could also see everybody running around trying to save my life. But I saw something that I will never forget, and that is, you know how we always say there are no mistakes in the universe? I saw in that place between life and death that every single thing in that emergency room, every movement of the nurse's hands, the doctor's hands were guided by a celestial Light. It was quite the light show. I even saw one of the nurses fumble an IV bag and drop it on the gurney, and everybody shot her these daggers, like, you're so clumsy. But I saw her move her head down away from a monitor, and another nurse gasped and went over and made an adjustment. There are no mistakes in the universe.

Wow.

And then what happened? Which was even more crazy because another thing we. We always teach is your word is your wand, that your words do have manifesting power. Even in the Bible, it says, thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be added unto you. It doesn't say, thou shalt decree a thing. And who knows? It might be added on to you Now. It's like, thou shall be decree a thing, it shall be added unto you. Well, I saw a nurse, because it didn't look like I was going to make it. And by then, my former husband, still my best friend, had arrived because the healer told him to get his butt over there. And he's sitting in a chair next to me, and he's crying. There are tears going down his face. And the nurse saw it, and she went over and put her hand on his shoulder and said, don't worry. She's going to be fine. And I saw in that place between life and death, the words come out of her mouth, she's going to be fine. They were accompanied by this light. It looked like My Little Pony Rainbow. Like, she's going to be fine. Went out of her mouth, went into my body, and actually gave me all my strength back. And I started coming back to life. And at that moment, the doctor walked in, looked at the monitors, and said, get that blood pressure up. We're losing her. And when he said, we're losing her, I saw those words come out of his mouth, but they were, like, kind of grayish brown. They even had a smell. They smelled kind of like a swamp. In that place between life and death, we're losing her. Went out of his mouth into my body and started taking my strength away. I started dying again. And at that moment, I made a deal with God. I said, God, I see that everything that I have been teaching all of these years, that your words have dominion over life and death. I said, if you let me live, I promise I will tell everybody the power of their words. And then I up the ante, because I'm, like, dealing, right? And then I up the ante, and I said, and I promise that I will never say anything that I don't want to manifest again. Because I used to say, say Things about my kids, like, oh, my daughter, if, blah, blah. And I would say all these things I didn't want to happen in her life, or, oh, my son, he. This isn't it. Like, he forgets if his head wasn't screwed on, whatever. That isn't what I'd say. But I said plenty of things about my kids. And then I realized that my words were making that happen in their lives. I saw that in the place between life and death. So I said, I mean, have I been perfect? No, but pretty close to it. And the good news is I lived. You kind of noticed. And I have told as many people as. It's not just Deborah and Jack's theory about life, that our words have manifesting power. They really, really do.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if when people spoke, you'd either see a rainbow come out of their mouth or gray smoke. If you go, not listening to that. I'm going to listen to this. We kind of feel it when people are negative, scared. And so the doctor was scared in that moment. We're losing her, you know, and so he thought as your things were going down, but your body took that in. I heard a story once about a person went through surgery and postoperatively they were good. They should have been fine, but they weren't. And they were just went on. The healing wasn't happening. So finally this person's psychotherapist actually did a hypnotic age regression with them. Took him back to the surgery. And we know that our mind is tracking everything that's said by the doctors. It's in the subconscious, but they were able to access the subconscious. And what the doctor had said is, I have a dog and I can't get her to heal. And basically, like, you know, heal, like follow you, like, you know, in dog obedience trials. And what she heard was, I, I can't get her to heal. And like, you know, or she'll never heal or whatever it might have been that he said. And when they then went back in the hypnosis part of it and got them to re. Got her to rehear that in a positive way, she started getting better immediately. But it's so powerful, the things we say about our kids in front of them, the things that doctors say in their operating room. You know, some of my conscious friends, before they go into a surgery, they put a playlist together for their headphones of positive songs and positive music and that plays the whole time. They don't want to hear anything else except that, you know, and they, they claim it really helps them heal a lot faster. And it makes sense to me that it would.

Well, that's amazing. I can't get her to heal, That is. But, yeah, it's. You know, sometimes people think, oh, that's so lightweight. You know, words. But it's not lightweight. It's. Everything is energy. And if you. You know, a lot of people, they feel one way or another way about politics and. But they sit around with their friends talking about all of the things they don't want to happen. Well, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and then we're going to get our rights to. And then it's like, stop it. Paint a picture. Word pictures of what you do want to happen. What you do. Because that's the energy that you are going to put towards what you want, and that's what's going to manifest. And enough of us would just know this. We could create the world that we want.

Yeah. I remember Buckminster Fuller talking about education and saying, everyone's complaining about the schools because we've all been through them. We know what some of the negative aspects of education are. And some guy I remember wrote a book once called School or. It was a study done by the government. At the end of it, his opening comment in this report was, schools are grim and joyless places. And so, you know, a lot of us talk about that and we resent it, and we had trauma from it and all that. And what Bucky said was, stop trying to fix the schools. Go start the school you want. You know, create a model for what you want. Focus all your energy on that. Quit focusing on what's not working. You know, and we so do that. You know, we watch the news. Someone said to me a couple years ago, if you watch the news and you get upset about it, stop watching it. If you can watch the news and stay centered and maybe think, well, there's something I could do to help with that, that's fine. But if you're sitting there going, that shouldn't have happened, that sucks. You know, the Israelis shouldn't have done that. The Palestinians shouldn't have done that. You know, and we have these fights back and forth and protests, and people get killed during protests, you know, it's crazy. So, yeah, absolutely.

And the other thing that, about watching the news, I've also heard it said that if you are gripped by these people who you see on the news, then they have power over you. And one of the ways that you can break that chain of their having power over you is pray for them. I think Norman Vincent Peale said that if you pray for somebody, then it can alter your opinion about them because you might be affecting them with your energy, but they're affecting you. So pray for them to be happy, pray for them to see the truth. Pray for them to want goodness for everybody. You know, just send those prayers, and the least thing that'll happen is that it'll make you feel a lot better than that guy. He's such an idiot. Here. It's like it's gone into your physiology, just like you said. Messages from water. Misuro Emoto.

When you.

You're saying that stuff, it's affecting you. Just like the, you know, the beakers of water that were affected by the negativity that people said towards the water.

You know, it's interesting, you know, about Sufi tales. The Sufism is a mystical arm of Islam. And there was this guy named Nasruddin who was kind of the epiphany of all this wisdom. And he tells a story about this guy who was robbed. And as the robber was riding away on his horse, the man who was robbed said, may all your dreams come true. May all your wishes be fulfilled. And the robber turns around, comes back and says, why would you wish that for me? I just robbed you. He said, well, if all your wishes came true, you wouldn't need to go around robbing people like me. If we wish good for people who we think are evil, we're sending them positive energy. They may take it in, they may not. We know the impact of negative energy. I'll do muscle testing in my seminars, and I'll have people just say, sandy, I used to do this and say, send a negative thought. And then someone said, don't do that. That's not good. So I said, send a really mild thought like, I don't like your shirt. And they'll test that arm. Their arm goes weak. And then send, I like your shirt. And the arm stays strong. So we know that. That a simple thought from a group. Group or an individual. And then I'll have the person I'm testing send a negative thought, think of someone you don't like, and think a negative thing about them. Their arm goes down. Now send that person a thought of forgiveness, I love you, Joy, I wish good for you, whatever. And maybe the best you can say is, I know you're doing the best you can with the limited awareness and skills and tools you have to meet some basic need. You have their arms stay strong. And so literally, those thoughts are impacting us. Our health Our energy, our, Our longevity, our, you know, all of that stuff. And. But we were never taught that, you know, we were taught all this, you know, stuff that I always said when I was. I was a high school history teacher, and I say, you know, no one ever got divorced because they didn't learn the five exports of Brazil or the three causes of the Civil War or what happened at the, you know, the Battle of the Trent. You know, the things we need to know, like how to manage our states, how to meditate, how to.

To.

How to, you know, manage money, how to affirm good things and all the things we're talking about. I really think there should be a class in school called, you know, Life Skills or Self Awareness Training or Science of Self. You know, we study the science of math and biology. Why not study the science of self? And a few schools are doing that, and the impact's amazing. I mean, you see the school in Fairfield, and I visited there, and I was just telling someone earlier that, you know, I was there watching these little kids meditate in the morning. It was so peaceful, these little, I don't know, 6, 7, 8 year olds. And then later, the thing that totally blew me away, I beat the hall. The kids are passing, and this one boy comes up to what was obviously a friend of his and start teasing her just for fun. And she looks at him and says, you know, I. I know you're trying to have fun, and we usually do that, but right now I'm having a really bad day. And so I really would appreciate if you don't do that. And he goes, okay. And she walked away. And you would never see that in a PS 39 in New York. You know, there'd be this defending, and he's worse, and. And I thought, wow, in that space of silence that gets created every morning and every afternoon for those kids, they've created that space where they can do that that's so valuable.

And, you know, the. Through the David lynch foundation, they are teaching meditation in schools all over the world. So we're hoping to spread that effect further than just here down the street in Fairfield, Iowa.

Yeah, I went to a fundraiser for the lynch foundation, and they talked about the. They're doing a bunch of this in San Francisco. There was a number of school systems that were applying this. And the dropout rates went down, the time on task went up, the days of absenteeism went down. And for schools, that's big because they get paid in California for how many kids showed up every day. That's the money you get if the kids absent, you'd have less budget to work with. So people pay attention to that. You know, less fights, higher grade scores. Just everything went up that was supposed to go up and everything went down. It was supposed to go down. So it. The data's there. The data's there.

I have to tell you something because something of your teaching that made a difference for these kids too because there are two organizations. The Transcendental Meditation organization has programs in schools. And the Art of Living foundation also has what's called yes, which is youth empowerment seminars. Yes for Schools. And they, they teach similar principles in schools. And one of the heads of the yes for Schools program, I told them something you teach and now they teach it and you say that I think it's achievers, people. Actually you had email about it recently that achievers as opposed to just dreamers, that achievers take a hundred percent responsibility for their lives. Not 99% or not 98%. Because the moment you take 100% responsibility, I'm just quoting to you from you, you're given a magnificent power. And that's the power to change your circumstances. But until you take 100% responsibility, you don't have the power because it's always somebody else's fault. And then when you blame or shame or complain, you energetically also get pulled lower instead of lifted higher. So one of the things that these kids do now is they are they now notice when they're about to not take 100% responsibility for their actions and they're taught to pause and say, yes, I did make that excuse. I will do better next time or I'll do it different next time. So that's because of you.

Wow, that's good to know. You know, one thing I've learned about this work is you don't know half of the impact you're having. I remember sitting at a fundraiser up on a dais. I was the emcee for raising money to help deal with parents who are being violent to their children. It's called the probe. It's called calm and. And sitting next to me was Arnold Schwarzenegger's ex wife, Maria Shriver. Shriver. Yeah, I was gonna say Shriver, and that's not right. Maria Shriver. And so she says to me, something you probably don't know is a couple Christmases ago, when we were a little younger, my dad bought a chicken soup book as a Christmas present for everyone in the family. And a different one, Horse Lovers for my sister, this one for my brother, you know, and And I never would have known that if she hadn't told me me. And I would have never known what you just shared with me. And you know, one of my friends has a quote I can't remember exactly, but you never touch someone so lightly that it doesn't leave a mark. And the idea that everything we say, everything we do has an impact that flows out from us like ripples in a pond. So the more loving we are, the more kind we are, the more positive we are versus how mean, negative, whatever. It's not just us. We're affecting the entire energetic field around us, you know. So anyway, we're going to have to bring this to a close soon, which I hate. I love talking to you, but talk about your Saturday Success videos for a moment because I want people to start. I want the people to get on your list so they receive that.

Yeah, well, they're called Success Saturday. And really it's just a 1012 minute video. Sometimes a little shorter, sometimes a little longer. And it's a principle for the week that it's simple. So it's something that you could do for the entire rest of the week. I'm going to give you a hint of what I'm going to talk about this coming Saturday. Can I do that?

Sure.

Okay. I'll tell you what it is because it's one of my favorite principles and it's a great place to end. But that's what people do. They can sign up on my mailing list. It's yes, yes to success dot com. Just go to yestosuccess.com and you'll see a place where you could get a free ebook. And then you'll be on the list for Success Saturday. But I was thinking about this conversation that we were going to have today. And I was thinking that right now on the planet, the most important thing that we could do is be loving and be loving ourselves. Because I think that that's one of the things that the world needs most. But the reason why aren't loving is because we're afraid of rejection. And back to Maharishi Maheshogi. I was on a course for six months with him back in the 1970s where we meditated eight to 12 hours a day. A lot of our mutual friends were there. John Gray was there and Janet Atwood and Marcy Shimoff. We were all, we all became TM teachers in the 1970s. Barbara DeAngelis. And you know, we fasted, strict vegetarian diet, had silence for weeks at a time. I know you don't believe I was silent for weeks at a time, but I was. And at the end of the course, this was actually an all woman's course. It wasn't one John was on. But everybody was very sad that they had to go home and they had to leave Maharishi and they're like crying and, and, and I'm the only one who isn't sad because I've been there for six months and I'm like, get a grip. You know, we get to go home, we get like pizza and go movies and see real life men. Like, I just couldn't wait to get my butt out of there. So anyway, we all got to have a private meeting with Maurishi and everybody goes in, they're crying, they come out, they're even crying more. And I'm like rolling my eyes. I mean, I love Maharishi, but you know, I also love men and pizza. So anyway, my turn comes and I go into the room and I was actually, we got to ask him one question. I was going to ask him if I should teach TM full time or go back to college. I was like, like maybe 22 at the time. So I went in and there's a little chair next to him and I look into his eyes and I burst into tears. And the question that comes out of my lips is, why does everyone love you more than I do? And his answer changed my life forever. I think it's a good place to end. He said, when love comes, let it flow, don't stop it with your thinking. And I think if we stop, if we didn't stop love with our thinking, we would all be open hearted love machines. But we do, we think, oh, if I let that person know how I feel, I'm going to be rejected. Or oh, I heard that, you know, they're a bad person, I'm not going to give them love. But then if so we just judge and judge and judge and we reject and protect and reject and protect. But there's a sequel to the story and that is when I shared this story with my friend Suzanne Lawler, who I think, you know, she, and this was like decades later, she said, you know what, Deborah, I think Maharishi was actually saying something different to you. When he said, when love comes, let it flow, don't stop with your thinking. I think that what he was really saying is that when love come, comes towards you, let it flow thinking. And I think she was right because I believe that even more than stopping the flow of love going out, most of us stop the flow of love coming in. And more than anything else, if we want to contribute to a world that works, if we want to have a great life, we have to stand in the fire of our own fear and let love in. And the harder and scarier it is, the greater the light you'll bring into your own life and to the world if you do let that love in. So I love you, Jack Canfield.

Well, I love you, too. And I have a title for a book, if you ever write it. It's called Maharishi Pizza and Men.

All right, I'll go get the URL.

Oh, my gosh. That's too much fun. All right, yestosuccess.com, make sure you go over there and find out. And if people want to work with your Awake method, what's the vehicle for that?

Same thing. Just go to yestosuccess.com, you'll get on the mailing list. We are launching it on September 1st.

Okay, very good.

We are launching it at the end of this month.

And the it is what It's a course they can.

It is going to be, of course, called the Awake Method.

Got it.

Step by step to all of the steps of becoming awake.

Okay. We need to be awake. Thank you, Deborah, so much. Appreciate you and love you. And thanks to all of you who've joined us today. If you found this conversation valuable, and if you didn't check your breath in the mirror, please let your friends and family know about it. And make sure to tune in next week, where I'll once again be talking with a transformational leader about how to be more conscious. Experience more love, more joy, more happiness, more true fulfillment and the true essence of what success is about. Until then, let the love in. Let it come, let it flow. Love you. Bye.