Are you ready to Take the Leap? Get out of your comfort zone!

Hello, hello, it's Mary Schiller, author and coach of MarySchiller.com, coming to you today from my home here in Paris, France for this presentation called Take the Leap. As I'm talking to you, it is September 28th, 2018. Hi, Gail. Can you all hear me okay? Let me know if I'm coming through loud and clear. So, oh, great. Thank you, Jesus. I appreciate that very much. Hi, Linda. Hi, Jeanette. Hi, Clifford. Hi, everybody. Love having you all here. Thanks so much for joining me. So let's start real quick. Hi, Doug. Thank you. Let us know where you are dialing in from. As we used to say in the old days, dialing in, remember that? Remember when phones used to have dials? Maybe some of you are too young to remember that, but I certainly remember that. So type into the chat box where you are catching this from. Usually we have quite a wide variety of places. Phoenix, Albuquerque, Netherlands, France. Oh yes, Linda's in France like me. Brighton, UK. Hi, Lou. Portugal, says Jesus. Awesome. Isn't that great that we can connect this way? Dallas, Northern Ireland, Scotland. I need to get to Ireland and Scotland. I have not been to either of those places over here, and I need to get there. Portugal too, that's on my list. So thank you for joining from wherever you are in the world. And if you happen to be catching this on the replay, I'm very grateful to have you join me that way as well. Uh, yeah, thank you, Robin. I appreciate the warm welcome. So, um, I have to start by saying that I am going to try very hard not to cry during this presentation because this topic is, uh, very dear to me. Hi, Barbara! And, um, I'm gonna try my best not to, like, you know, fall apart here, but just fair warning, I may do that, so bear with me. Um, this is just you and me talking. I don't have any slides or anything like that. It's just a conversation. Uh, hi, Ali from New Orleans! I know you. Hi, Justfall in Stockholm. Um, it's just you and I having a conversation, and, um, I prefer that usually over having a bunch of slides and things. And especially for this topic, because as I said, um, this idea of taking the leap is really close to my heart and is something that has just been a really beautiful part of my life over the last 4 years. Hi, Andrea. And so, you know, bear with me if I get a little teary-eyed, okay? I've got, I've got a tissue here just in case. Hi, Erna. So, so basically how we're going to do this today is I'm going to start with a little bit of an introduction. I'll ask you a question, do a little introduction, talk about what it means to take the leap. And then I'm going to share with you some details of this program called Take the Leap that just opened officially for registration today. And I'm really excited because on this call, I'm going to announce something really, really, really cool. At least I think it's really cool related to that program. So I hope you'll stick with me. I want to kind of save that for a little bit later in our time together. So Let's get started. So as I said, my name is Mary Shiller. I'm an author and coach, and I have been working as a professional coach now for about 2 and a half years, going on 3 years pretty soon. And a lot of what I do is really helping people to explore what it means to live with more freedom and more joy and just more life in their life. So I want to start by asking you a question. And by the way, if you have a question for me at any point, you can post it in the area that says ask a question, and that will sort of send up a little alert for me so that I see it there. So I'd like to start by asking you a question. When I say the phrase take the leap, what does that mean for you? What does that look like for you, or what could that look like for you? And I'm just going to pause there and see what you folks think. Take the leap. What does that mean for you? Um, is it— does it sound like, uh, going into the unknown? Linda says. Now let me ask you, Linda, going into the unknown, is that like a scary thing or an exciting thing, or how would you classify that? Uh, Lou says no going back. Well, yeah, kind of. When you take a leap into something, you can't really go back up, can you? Uh, it doesn't really work like that. Living fearlessly, Jill says. Oh, that's nice. Andrea, jumping into something you've been afraid to do, something new. Uh, Gail, jump into the unknown, do something that feels scary, do something new. Linda says, not as scary as it used to be. Okay, cool. I love these answers. Uh, Ali, uh, going outside my comfort zone. And Marie, living life exactly how you want with no worry about how it affects anyone else. Hi, Nanny. Uh, taking the leap means, uh, doing something you're scared of into the unknown. There's that word again. Gail, leap into a place I don't currently know exists. Robin, trusting that things will work out. Oh, what amazing answers. This was all fantastic. And, you know, let's see, Jeanette, do something very new while not feeling totally ready. Yeah. You know, this is really funny. I just thought of this, but a couple of years ago, there was a little video that I found on the New York Times website. And it was really funny because it was a film about some people in Stockholm, actually, just while I think it was in Stockholm, it might have been Gothenburg. But anyway, it was in Sweden. And these people were standing at the top of a very high dive, you know, one of those super high ones. And the camera was just focusing on them on the high dive. And they would go to the edge, you know, they did this with several different people and they'd look over and they, you know, they kind of do this like, oh, I can't do it. Oh, I can do it, you know, and it would take them a long time to sort of make the decision whether or not to do it. Sorry, my phone's ringing. It'll go off in a second. And it was really fascinating to watch people's, you could see see what their thinking was. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, that's so far down, can I do it? You know, so it really is kind of leaping into unknown space. Uh, let's see, Doug, a leap of faith or surrendering. And Clifford says facing your fears. These are all fantastic, fantastic answers. Um, so let me ask you a follow-up question. Uh, what might that look like to you in sort of real life physical terms. Is there something that you would love to do or you would love to try or a place you would love to go and you think, wow, it'd be really cool if I could go there or if I could do this thing or if I could change something, what would that be? Is there something kind of tangible? Robin says, start my own business. Hey, I'm with you there, Robin. That was one of mine for sure. And hey, look what I'm doing. So that proves it's not impossible. So what are some things that kind of tangibly represent taking the leap for you? I'm gonna get a sip of water here really quick. Robin, do you have an idea of what business you would start if you took that leap? I would love to hear. So any more tangible thoughts on that? Maybe you're all like, I dreaming right now of what that would be? A principles-based one. Awesome. You know, I think one of the things for me was that I was a little bit scared to look in that direction of what I might want to take the leap into because I thought, could this even happen? It was a little bit frightening. Uh, hi, Tiara. Leaping into, um, is that business life? Fearlessly, physically, I would just go and test it, then figure out your ideal client. What I want to do is so different from what I offer. Interesting. So kind of making a real switch there, it sounds like. That seems pretty exciting. Lou, being able to travel and earn at the same time. Well, thankfully, Lou, now that we've got these things called computers and the internet, that's totally possible because again, I'm kind of living proof of that as well. Great. Any other ideas of things that you would like to do if you took the leap? Is there something that's sort of tugging at you that You know, that is, that just sounds like it would be a really fun thing to do. Hi, Nanny. Be free to do my art, live a meaningful life, and having a steady income. That all sounds lovely and certainly possible, and not just possible, but probable. Any other ones? Oh, I see a question. Let's see. Let me answer Lynn's question and then I'll come back to you, Gail. So Lynn asks, what if you like the idea of taking a leap, but you don't know what it is? Well, Lynn, that's a really common thing that people tell me, and I was kind of in the same boat. And I think it's because we've kind of learned to not listen to what is kind of calling to us because it seems impossible, or it seems at least highly unlikely, or it seems like if we try whatever it is and it doesn't work out maybe the way that we want it to, that we'll be disappointed and we kind of want to avoid feelings like that. We don't want to go there. So my idea is that we actually do know what it is, but we haven't listened to it in a long time. We haven't kind of allowed it to come up to the surface. And it's really okay to, using some other terminology I often use, to give yourself permission to listen to those things, even if they sound outrageous. The more outrageous, the better. Just kind of let them all come up to the surface. And don't immediately dismiss any of them. So I think they're definitely there. I just think that most of us are afraid really to listen to them. So let me know if that helps at all, Lynn. I appreciate the question. Gail, try something brand new, but I don't know what that is. Okay, that kind of fit with Lynn's question. Allie is saying no to what is not working, saying yes to something that is currently somewhat unknown. Good. Yeah. Oh, I'm glad that was helpful to you, Jewel. Thanks. And Lynn, let me know if that was helpful since you were the one who posed the question too. Thanks for the feedback, Jewel. You know, this is really interesting because this topic for me actually came up quite a long time ago. The first that I really remember having this idea was sometime in 2011. Oh, hi, Tiara. Ding, ding, ding. Yep, that's it. I keep not listening to not do what my intuition is Nudging me. Yeah, exactly. So back in 2011, which was quite a long time ago now since we're in 2018, uh, I was working with a therapist. Um, oh, hi Lori, I'll get to your comment in just one second. I was working with a therapist at that time and she asked me a question similar to this, you know, like what would I want to do if I could do anything? And that concept was so foreign to me at the time. It was so foreign to me. It sounded like she was speaking a language that I didn't understand. I was sitting there in her office, which was, to say the least, not a fancy one. It was a— it was in a hospital, and it was in a division of the hospital where they did like social work and things. And it was actually a free counseling program for people like myself who had gone through domestic violence and sexual assault. And so I was very grateful that it was a free service. And she was actually a very nice therapist. But when she asked me a question like that, I just kind of stared blankly. And I remember this so clearly because I had this image come to me at the time. I said, you know, I feel kind of like Jason Bourne here, the character Jason Bourne, you know, who wakes up and he doesn't remember anything. He doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know how he got where he is or how he, you know, in the first movie. I haven't read the books, but in the first movie, you know, he's been shot. He doesn't have any idea how that happened. And I said, that's kind of how I feel. Like, I don't even know who I am. So how can I even possibly answer a question like, what would I want to do, when I have no concept of who I even am? That just seemed like, you know, I don't know. I had been so lost in, in this whole way of thinking and the way of seeing everything that I had been for so many years by that point. You know, some of you who are familiar familiar with me know that I was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and I was very, very wrapped up in that vision of myself, of seeing myself in this very narrow way. And it looked to me like, you know, life had already passed me by basically, that if I were going to do something like taking a leap, it almost was like, I don't even know what, what would I take a leap into? Like, what does that even mean if I don't even know who I am? So that's where I was a few years ago. So let me go to the questions here and I will pick up my story in a second. Lori, I have an idea of what I want to explore but keep trying to figure out what it will look like in the end because I don't know. I keep feeling stuck. Lori, that is also a really common thing because we as humans seem to have this tendency to want to know where we're going before we get there, and that might be helpful in terms of like today I had to take the metro to a location, so it helped for me to, you know, know what stop I was going to get off at to get there. But in most things, we really don't know where exactly we're going. You know, what I have learned over the past few years, and this is a big part of taking the leap, believe it or not, is that we know like usually one step ahead. You know, we have the step that we can take, and beyond that we really can't see much. And so, you know, going back to my story for a second, I didn't even know what that was. I didn't even know what a first step was. I felt like I was living in some sort of complete— when I say unknown, I mean completely unknown zone. Didn't know myself, didn't know what I wanted to do, didn't have any vision for my life. I kind of felt like I was sleepwalking a lot of the time. And just had no real spark at all. I really didn't know what to do at that point. And I was very scared, to be honest. I, I thought, you know, I got to get a grip here if I'm going to have any kind of life left. And by that point, you know, I was— I think I was around 50 years old and I was thinking, you know, I don't know how much time I got left and I feel like I haven't really lived. I, and this is where I can get really choked up because I honestly felt like, you know, my, my whole adult life had been consumed by all of this violence and post-traumatic stress disorder and things like that, all these aftereffects of trauma and things. And I really felt at that point that I hadn't lived. And I thought, you know, I don't want to die without having lived. I mean, that doesn't seem fair. And I would get very, very worked up about that and not know what to do to take this leap. I didn't even know what that looked like. So let me go back to the questions. Lynn, oh good, I'm glad that was helpful. Jeanette, the question that Lynn asked was, what if you don't know what it is that you wanna do? What if you have this sense that you wanna do something and take a leap, but you're not sure into what? Nanny, exactly, the uncertainty is so scary. What if it all doesn't work out and I end up a bag lady on the streets? Exactly. Yeah, you're not alone there. A lot of people feel that way. So fast forward a little bit further, and, you know, over all that time and in the few years, you know, between like 2011 and 2014, I kept trying to figure out what it meant to live. I wanted to know what it felt like to live, and I know that sounds maybe crazy. I don't know, maybe you can relate to that a little bit. Does anyone else here sometimes have the sense that you're kind of sleepwalking or sort of floating through life and not really connected to what life actually could be? Because that is how I felt. I felt like I was just kind of doing things and, you know, things were okay. My experience of my daily life was pretty awful a lot of the time. I had, you know, it's not to say that I didn't have some joy in my life. I have, I still have a beautiful daughter. I have a caring second husband and wonderful family and friends. Yeah, you can relate. Yeah, I didn't, I had this sense that I was, that I had been robbed somehow of real life, capital L life, that I was sort of living this surface life in my head or something. And kind of, you know, moving pieces around a board just sort of aimlessly. I had never had a career direction. I had never had a sense of any kind of purpose at all, not even in a small way. And I kept trying to find all of that. You know, I kept looking. I'm sorry that some of you can relate, but I mean, in a way, it's, it's, it's really heartwarming because I really understand what that feels like. You know, I kept looking to other people to tell me what I should do with my life. I kept reading books. I kept, you know, I just looked everywhere for someone to, you know, please tell me what to do. And I think that the unfortunate thing is that a lot of the messages that we're getting that, you know, surround us are also messages like, you know, life is really hard. And, you know, there's lots and lots of challenges in life that just have to be dealt with, and sometimes you don't get over them. Uh, oh, Clifford says, me too. Yeah, you know, sometimes things happen and you just don't get over them, Mary. You know, I felt like that's what people were saying to me, like, these things, these terrible things happened in your life, and, you know, you've done the best you can, but you're just never really going to get over it. It's always going to be hard for you. You know, those are the kind of messages I was receiving. And even outside of my little sphere, you know, the message that we are continually bombarded with really is that life is stressful, life is sort of heavy, and we should be grateful for the tiny pinpricks of light and, and joyfulness that we happen to feel, uh, from time to time. And if we have that, you know, then we should be grateful, and that's good enough. You know, can anybody relate to this? You know, that we should, you know, embrace those moments when we feel good because we don't know how long it'll last, you know. So appreciate it while you have it, you know, that kind of thing. And me back then, a few years ago, I was even having trouble, you know, metaphorically holding on to those good times. They were so fleeting to me that I felt like, you know, they were a fluke. That maybe something had all lined up and suddenly everything was okay. And, oh, I better try to hold on to that before I lose it again. Gail, there's a huge victim message in our society. Victimhood is celebrated. I really feel like that was a message that I was getting, Gail. And the interesting thing was I didn't really feel like that inside. You know, I, I had the sense that there was so much more to me than what had happened in my life up until that point, you know. But even if your, your life story isn't at all like mine, we still have these heavy messages coming at us about how difficult everything has to be and how certain things and events are always traumatic, you know. Illness or the loss of someone to death or whatever, everything is just, you know, so heavy. And like I said, you know, if we can find some joy in there, we have to just try to hang on to it as tightly as possible, you know, before we don't have it anymore. And, and I think that it's really hard to kind of look past those messages. I really do. But here's the thing that I found out, and this is where I might start crying, so, you know, just bear with me. I'll try not to sniffle too much into this little microphone. So a few years, not too many, like 2 or 3 years after that session with that therapist where I told her I felt like Jason Bourne and I was so confused about who I was and what I was trying to do and what life was and feeling like, you know, I'd been sort of ripped off and, and that I never was going to know what it actually felt like to live. I started to see things in a different way, kind of going back to what Gail was alluding to. I started to ask some real questions about whether the way I had been seeing myself all this time was actually true. And I started also looking around and wondering, you know, how much really am I, am I being affected by all of these various situations, or is something else going on here? And I really felt like at a certain point, about 4 years ago, I really started to get a sense of what was behind the curtain that had, had looked totally concealed to me. And I frankly, I didn't even know the curtain was there before then. I was so lost in a fog a lot of the time. And then I started to see that there was a curtain that maybe I could slightly pull back. And so I remember having this sensation one day of Is there more here than meets the eye? Is there more? Am I really this person who has gone through all this stuff? And am I really this permanently damaged person who is never going to get over this, you know, mental illness? Am I really this person who hasn't lived life, you know, who really hasn't done anything, you know, has kind of been asleep all this time? Is that really true? And as soon as I started asking some questions like that, I saw the curtains start to part a little bit. And as soon as I saw that there was a little opening, it was almost like somebody pushed me through it. And when I say I felt like I took a leap into the unknown, I'm telling you, it was really as if I had suddenly been thrust into an entirely new reality, almost. I started to look at things very differently. I started to question whether or not the way I thought about myself actually mattered, where for so long my whole identity was wrapped up in how I thought. I had lots of trauma thinking. I had lots of stress. I had lots of, like, and not even anxiety, just more like this, you know, hypersensitivity to things. And that really looked like me. And I started to question, is that me? What if it's not me? You know, what if the way that I've been seeing myself, and what if all of the things that people have been saying to me about me, what if those things aren't actually true? And I have to tell you, it was like something like a bolt of lightning hit me. It was like suddenly I was— it's really hard to explain. It was almost like a physical thing started to happen to me where all of these layers and layers and layers of ideas about myself started to just fall away. They just started to fall away as soon as I started looking in this direction and kind of questioning Is it true that I'm permanently damaged? What if it's not? Is it true that I'm really stuck with, you know, the way life looks to me, or is there something that I haven't seen yet? And if there is something that I haven't seen yet, what is that? What is that? So I'd like to pause there for a second and ask you, have you ever questioned whether or not the way that you see yourself, first of all, and the way that you see your life, have you ever questioned whether or not it's actually true or if there is something behind that picture that you're looking at that maybe you haven't totally seen yet or explored yet? I think what kept me going all those years even despite the horrible feelings I had, was that I had the sense that there was something that I wasn't seeing about myself and about life in general. And so I kept trying to see something. I kept trying to see something. And eventually I found a way in. I found a way to start questioning these beliefs that I had and all this thinking that I had about who I was. And the amazing thing about it was that it didn't even feel like I was trying all that hard. It almost felt like, um, the real Mary, if I can call her that, was trying very hard on my behalf to say, here I am. Sorry, to say, here I am, and I want you to see me now. I want you to experience the real you, not the one that you've made up in your mind all these years. This one who has looked a certain way, this Mary who has looked like, you know, life was taken from her. I want you to see the real you. It's time for you to see the real you. And it was like she took me in her arms and just embraced me, and together we took this leap into the unknown. Excuse me one second. Hi, Kathy. I just had an experience just like that. It was incredible. She's here. She's been here all along. Oh, thank you, Linda. Thank you. It's very emotional because we really have so much available to us all the time. And— oh, thanks, Lori. We have so much available to us all the time, and It's, it's there whether we know it's there or not. But I have to say that— thank you, Gail— that it's a lot nicer now being aware of what's available to me and what's available to you and experiencing that on a daily basis. My experience of life, capital L life, is so much different now and so much deeper now and so expanded now. I was saying to somebody the other day that even when I feel— I didn't use the word crap, I used a different word— but I said even when I feel like crap, I feel amazing. Even when I feel like crap, I feel amazing. Uh, oh, hi Kathy! If it wasn't for you, I might not have this experience. Oh, thank you so much. Uh, thank you so much. And I think that what has motivated me now to share even more about this with you is that I've had some time. I think— oh, hi Doug! I know I was looking too and hadn't seen through it. And that's really what this is about, because now that I've had a little bit of space you know, that was 4 years ago that I had that kind of big Mary, little Mary moment there. I've had some time to look back and see what was really helpful to me, what was really helpful to me to start to see more and more and more of what I would call real life, not the life that we're living in our heads. Not the life that is happening sort of on this physical plane, but the one that's going on underneath that and around that all the time. That to me feels like the real reality. And I hadn't really noticed it until very recently, uh, that there were some things that were really, really useful to me over this last period of time that I felt could be helpful to other people. Hi Robin, I used to think that all I had was my thoughts and they're so unpredictable and unreliable, often not helpful. Knowing now there's more to me and behind me has just transformed my life. Exactly. And I think that the— like I said, that the reason why I am at this point right now and talking to you about Take the Leap today is because I feel like I have been able to to decode, if you will, a little bit at least, that I feel could be very, very helpful to you if you feel like you're looking and you haven't had that experience yet and you really want that experience. If you, if you really want to know what it feels like to leap into the unknown and discover more about what is really on offer to you in this life. And I don't mean, you know, what might happen in this physical world, you know, that, that's kind of immaterial. I'm talking about what it means to really experience living, as I said in the description of this, from a sense of gusto and freedom every single day. And I have to tell you that that is how I feel every single day. It doesn't matter what my surface feelings are. It doesn't matter what I'm actually out in the world doing. It doesn't matter if I happen to feel some stress or some sadness or, you know, even happy. It doesn't— none of that has any impact at all on how I feel within, deep within the deepest place there can possibly be. And that is something that I have never experienced before, and I am so grateful that I have it now because I didn't think that was possible for me. For my whole life, I thought that I would never know what it really felt like to live And that was the only thing that I wanted, was to— I remember saying, if I could have one day of peace, even a moment of peace, and if I could know what it felt like to really live just for a day, then I, I'd be good. Like, that would be— that's all I need. And now it's been 4 years of living this way, and it just keeps keeps getting better and better and better. It's pretty indescribable. Uh, yes, this is what I'm looking for— experiencing life in the everyday. Oh, that's beautifully put, Barbara. Thank you for that. Yeah, that's what it's about. It's about having the ability, if you will, to wake up every day as I do now and do what I want. Whatever I'm inspired to do— pardon me— I go and do it. If I am inspired to, you know, have a certain type of conversation, I will go have that. If I'm inspired to write something, I will go write it. If I'm inspired to create something else, I'll go do it. Today I felt like going to a place I hadn't been in a while and be around a bunch of people having a great time. I went and did that. And it's living in that unknown space like all the time and discovering what's in there all the time. Hi, Tara, how did you get the courage to leap to get up, move to Paris? Oh, that was easy actually, because I was living in this space of total freedom, and that idea came to my husband and me. Uh, you know, some stuff happened. We were like, we're gonna try to make this move, and it was just very matter of fact. There was no like drama around it. It was like, this is what we're gonna try to do, we'll see if we can. And, uh, we just follow the steps. And we had— I mean, it was, it was one of the easiest experiences of my entire life. And I never thought that I would say that, even with all of the stuff that's required, even with the language, you know, difficulties sometimes. And all that didn't matter because we were living from this place of freedom. From this place of inspiration, like, all the time. And when you are living from there more and more, things just get easier. It's not to say that I haven't experienced some ups and downs over the last 4 years. I have, but they've been up, up here ups and downs, not in here, not within myself. That is beautifully, uh, steady, if you will, but in the best way possible. And it feels completely open and spacious, like there are no limits on me. And that is what I want every single human being on the planet to feel, because it's on offer to every person, because this is how we're actually made. We are made to live this way. So, um, oh, now it sounds exciting, Lori. Oh, awesome, that's great, that's great. Well, that's a good segue, if you don't mind. Um, what I would love to do now is share a little bit with you about this program that I've got on offer for you. Is that all right? I'll wait until you say yes, it's okay, and then I don't want to, uh, to talk about something if you, if you're not interested. So give me a yes. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, go ahead. Good. Thanks. Um, so this program, I am so like excited, doesn't even, uh, thanks everybody. It doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling, uh, when I think about this program. It's called Take the Leap. And it runs for 21 days, October 8th through 28th, uh, although, uh, the Facebook group that's part of it is open now. So if you were to register now, you can hop over into the Facebook group. So the general structure of the program is I'm going to guide you step by step, day by day through an experience of getting used to what this idea of the unknown is and what it's kind of made of, and then leaping into it and seeing what's on the other side and experiencing that. So I know that sounds vague, but that is how we're going to do this over 3 weeks, and I'm going to do that in a couple of different ways. Every day you'll receive an audio from me and that will give you a piece of that in sort of step-by-step fashion and will give you something to— and I'm using the word do very lightly— each day, an experience that I'd like you to have, an experiment to do, a sort of practice thing to do. And it's You don't have to like go anywhere for anything. You can do it wherever you are, but it'll be something that will help you to sort of more viscerally experience what I'm talking to you about each day. So that's how the course is structured over the 21 days. I will host 2 calls like this each week on Tuesday, Thursday, and I will also have the option of bringing people on camera with me So it doesn't all have to be in the chat. If you'd like to actually ask a question, you know, using your voice, I can bring you on camera and we will talk about what you're experiencing as you go through the program. And you can ask any questions you have and we can share that. And then I have this private Facebook group where we can have an ongoing discussion in there throughout the whole program. And so that's the basic structure. And here is the really, really, uh, cool thing. I think it's cool. One, I have two cool things. I'm gonna save the really cool thing for, uh, last year. So if you register by next Tuesday the 2nd, I believe it is at like 6 PM Eastern time-ish, something like that, you will be invited to an extra call with me, which will happen like 2 or 3 weeks after the program ends. So we can kind of see where we are at that point and what new things you might be experiencing. So I thought that would be really exciting to do. And drum roll, please. Are you ready? Because this is pretty awesome. Are you ready? If you register— I can barely contain myself— by next Tuesday for $299, which is the price of the program, you can invite someone to join you for free. So essentially, you can give this program as a gift to someone and invite them to join you. How's that sound? Awesome, awesome. I'm glad you like that because I really, uh, I really want anyone and everyone who knows that there is more to life and feels like there is more that they can create or simply be or do or experience to be in this program and have that opportunity. Oh, thanks, you guys. And this way if you join and there's somebody else in your life who you'd love to kind of experience this with, then the two of you can sort of go through it together and have, you know, a really interesting time comparing notes and seeing, you know, what's happening for one another and kind of support one another as well. I'll fly you to Paris, Ali. Well, maybe next time. That's a good idea though. Oh, thank you, Lisa. That's so nice. Oh, you guys, that's so nice. Thank you. Yeah, I just thought, you know, it would be really fun. I was thinking, you know, what would I really like? I always think that way. What would I really like? And I was like, yeah, it'd be cool if I could bring somebody in this with me. And I was like, this is what I'm going to do. So all you have to do— I have a friend in mind. Oh, Dorothy, awesome. So yeah, so the way that that would work is you would go ahead and enroll yourself, and then after you enroll yourself, you can ask the person to send me an email. So they email me and I send them back their own unique code that gets them into the program for free. So each person who does that has their own unique coupon code. So they just need to get in touch with me and say that you referred them, and, um, and they're off and running. So that's what we're gonna do. So I'm really, really hoping that you guys will join me for this. What questions do you have? Let me make sure, and so we have about 15 minutes left. I want to make sure and answer any questions you've got before I say anything else. Oh yeah, Lou already joined. You did, with a friend. So I know that was so cool. Lou was my first signup and, uh, and brought somebody in right away. So that was really cool. Um, yeah, because, you know, it's something that actually, um, I wished that I had had someone to really kind of go through, especially in the early days. It would have been really fun for me to have somebody to kind of you know, go through this with me. And, and one thing I should mention too is that the audios are all downloadable, so you can either listen to them in the Teachable app because it will be held on Teachable, the platform which has a nice app, or you can just download them and put them on any device that you want to listen to, and they'll all be labeled so you'll know, you know, day 1, day 2, day 3, so you'll have everything in order and it'll all be very easy for you to, to follow. So that'll be really handy, I think, for you and the person if you bring someone in with you, so you can both, you know, listen on the go or, you know, however is convenient for you. And all of the audios will be released daily, so they won't be there all at once because I don't want you to listen to it all at once. I want you to really have this kind of slowed-down and expanded experience over the 3 weeks. So each day will have an audio. I'm not exactly sure of all of the links. I have some of them I need to redo, but probably no more than 15 minutes each because I don't want you to spend tons of time there. I think you can, you can do a lot with 15 minutes of input each day and then sort of spending the rest of your day experiencing it. Yeah, yeah, thanks, Robin. Awesome. So any questions? Do you guys have any questions about this? Oh, let me see. Will the Crowdcast chats be saved as audio in Teachable too? Yeah, I can put those in there. I'll actually— yeah, I think I can do that. So I'll just download these and then convert them to audio. Yeah, so I can do that. I can't save the chat in there, but you'll have access to the pages where the sessions are like this afterwards. You'll be able to watch the replays here as well. So you can see if there's something in the chat that you want to refer back to, you can see that as well. So it'll be exactly like this, except like I said, we'll have the opportunity to bring people on camera. Let me check out the questions here. Hi, Mary, could you speak more to how you name your unknown? How is this related to a religious god? Janet says— let me see. Okay, Janet, let me ask that question again. Hi Mary, could you speak more how you name your unknown? How is this related to religious God? Janet, for me this is not at all a religious kind of thing. For me, I call it— I think people have different names, whatever they're comfortable with. For me, it's more like looking into truth. It feels like the truth of who we are. I sometimes look— I call it by all kinds of names. It feels like some sort of innate creative force. It feels like spaciousness. It feels like openness. It feels like limitlessness. So it really is up to the individual how they kind of want to look at this and name this. So, you know, I don't have personally a religious affiliation, so, you know, but it certainly to me doesn't seem to have any boundaries around it. So I don't know if that answers your question, Jeanette. If not, let me know. How long will the audios— Gail is asking how long the audios will be. Yeah, I think they're going to probably all end up being around 15 minutes. Some might be longer, some might be as long as like 25 minutes, but I'm going to try to keep them to 15. 15, all of them to 15, because I think that's a good amount of time to listen to something and then kind of absorb it. So Jeanette, how do you get back to Crowdcast for the replay? It's just on this page. So where you're looking right now, that same URL is where the replay will be. So even for this broadcast, the replay will be available just a few minutes after I hang up. It'll be right here on this page. And then if you want to come back for Monday's talk where, you know, I'll probably vary the topic a little bit from today's, it's at the same URL. So Crowdcast makes it very easy to find replays. There's no like different link or anything like that. There's lots more info on Mary's website, FYI. Yes, Ali, you took the words right out of my mouth. So if you want to learn more about the program and enroll and hopefully bring someone with you, you can click the green button here that says "Ready to Take the Leap?" and that will take you over to the page that tells you more details about the program and will have the— there's big pink enrollment buttons all over that, that page. Excellent, excellent. Yeah, and down towards the bottom there's frequently asked questions, and if there's anything on there that I haven't answered please don't hesitate to email me, uh, mary@marieschiller.com. I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have about the program. And like I said, uh, the sooner that you enroll, uh, the better for a number of reasons. One is you'll be invited to the extra call where we kind of check in with each other again. You'll be able to invite someone else with you. And also the Facebook group is open. So I'm facilitating a discussion in there, uh, as of now. So that can give us plenty of time to get to know one another and have some really lively discussion even before the audios start arriving on October 8th. So let me just check my own notes and make sure the Crowdcast calls will be Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I said 7 PM. I have to go back. I think it was so this same time to try to accommodate as many— oh, thanks Gail— as many time zones as possible. And they will go about an hour, or I can stay on longer if need be. If we're having a great discussion and people have a lot of questions, I'm happy to stay on longer than that. So, you know, no real time limits there. And you can jump in and jump off or whatever you'd like to do during those calls, because as I said, they'll be recorded. And yes, I will make the audio portion available to you. I think that's all of my notes. I think so. So, you know, I think if I had to say something to kind of close this out, first of all, I just want to say thank you for being here and for all of your amazing support as I kind of broke down a few minutes ago and and just your comments and questions. And it's just always such a joy for me to be with you and to share in this journey with you. And it really is, you know, I used to think the word journey was sort of corny, but now it doesn't seem like it at all. Oh, thank you, Robin. You're very welcome. Because I do feel kind of like an explorer. I feel like I am exploring who I really am and who you really are and who we all are and exploring, you know, big L life instead of being so focused on little Mary's life, you know, that was just kind of this merry-go-round thing going on in my head all the time. I feel like, you know, while some of that is still there, of course, because I'm only human, I feel like so much more of my attention is now, you know, on what is real, what is true, and that is so much more exciting. Uh, Dorothy, can you start a few days earlier? I have to travel internationally from the 26th. Oh well, no, but, but, um, that you're almost to the end, so, um, you'd be able to be in the, you know, the last week of calls, and, you know, the audios will be delivered to you automatically so you can listen from wherever you are. I'd love to have you there. Oh yes, Erna is the explorer of life too. Yeah, precisely, Erna. So any other questions that I can answer or— oh, hi Mimi. Oh, you know what? It's okay, Mimi, because there's a recording coming up just a few minutes after I hang up on this call. And I'm also hosting another one on Monday, Mimi, at the same time. So sorry, my phone's ringing again. Very persistent salespeople here. They call us like all the time on our landline phone. So what else can I do for you guys tonight? Any other questions or comments? So I wanted to go back to something I think it was Lori said. So when you first were all posting at the beginning of this hour, a lot of you used that term unknown or going into something that was new and unfamiliar to you and breaking out of your comfort zone. So does it sound to you now like that needs to be a scary thing necessarily? Because one thing I want to assure you of, and this is something again I can get choked up about, but I promise I won't. You know, when I was sitting in that therapist's office all those years ago and I was saying I felt like Jason Bourne and I didn't know who I was and everything just looked so unknown and terrifying to me, that there's nothing, nothing, nothing scary here. There's nothing scary here. How about that? How about if the unknown is actually not scary at all? That it's actually beautiful and welcoming and wants you there. It wants you to experience all that there is. So, you know, what does that sound like to you? Does that sound like something you would love to leap into instead of, you know, like I was describing those people at the edge of the diving board going, no, I don't want to go. Allie, it resonates as absolute truth. Oh yeah, Marina. Hi, Marina. Um, I'm glad that's reassuring. You know, I think that if I had, if I had had anybody in my life, in those years that I was talking about, saying something like this, anything like this to me, it would have been very helpful to me to hear because I walked around with a lot of fear living in me all the time. It was very, very vibrant, these fears that I had of all kinds. And it's just been such an amazing experience as I've gone through this the last 4 years of really taking this leap every single day and just going in this direction and realizing that every time I look there, there is something beautiful waiting for me. You know, no matter what might be going on on the surface of life, there's always something beautiful waiting for us if we take the leap into it and, you know, open our arms to it. Uh, hi Doug, how will you facilitate us to break through to our truth of who we are? That's the magic of the audios, Doug. The magic of the audios. I'll be talking in your ear and really, as I said, kind of taking a very slow and expanded look and listen into this whole journey. And yeah, I'm really excited about what might happen for you as you go through that. I need someone to shove me into the unknown. Well, I can arrange that too, if you'd rather. I'll just say, you know, all right, you're off the cliff, Clifford. Dorothy, oh, I know, aren't these comments awesome? Mary, how has this inner peace helped your outer life? E.g., do you take risks that don't seem like risks anymore? You know, it's— that's a great question, Just Paul. I'm glad you asked it. And I think that what's happened is that the outer life as weird as this sounds, it seems not nearly as important as I thought it was. And so, yeah, I do kind of feel free to do whatever I want to. It really does feel like there's no risk involved. There's nothing at stake there. And that kind of freedom was completely foreign to me before. Like, I had no sense of anything like that. And now anything that I want to do in my quote unquote outer life seems completely possible and completely doable, and I simply do what I want to do, and I don't have any expectations around any of it because it doesn't really matter what occurs or what doesn't occur. I'm simply doing things that look interesting and inspiring to me and hopefully helpful to other people, and that's kind of how I live. I'm not really concerned anymore about the consequences of anything like that because I've just seen with so much more clarity that that isn't what truth is. So I hope that helps, Justfall. Oh, you're very welcome, Dorothy. So I think on that note, that was a nice way to end this, Justfall. So thank you. I just want to thank you again for being here for this call. If you want to take a look at the page that describes the program in depth, please click the green button where it says "Ready to Take the Leap?" and that's where the enrollment button is. And don't forget, if you enroll by next Tuesday evening Eastern time, you will be invited to an extra call a couple of weeks after the program ends, 2 or 3 weeks later, and you'll be able to bring a special someone into the program with you for free. So thanks for every— thanks everybody for joining me here today. And oh, thank you, Peter. Thank you, Doug. Thanks everybody. It's been a joy for me and I hope you have a wonderful day or evening wherever you are. Again, if you have any questions about anything, just give me a holler, mary@marieschiller.com. And if you want to bring someone with you, just go ahead and enroll yourself first and then have your special someone send me an email and telling me that they're your, your special someone and I will give them their own unique code to enroll for free. So great, thank you so much. I appreciate it, everybody. Lots of love to you, and I hope to see you when you take the leap with me. And as I say on this, on the program page, take my hand and take the leap. I'll see you guys soon. Bye. Thank you.