I didn't mean to cry during this talk, but ...
Mary Schiller got emotional talking about why people suppress their real desires. She shared stories of her mother's unfulfilled dreams and an engineering student who wanted to be a fashion photographer, arguing that cultural narratives make us fear risk. The Coach to 5K Academy is a 12-month program built around activating your authentic life.
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Hello, bonjour, bonsoir. How are you? I am so happy to be here with you for this pop-up Facebook Live in our group, the Coach to 5K Free Coaching Club. I am Mary Schiller of maryschiller.com and the creator of Coach to 5K. If you are joining live, please feel free to type a comment as you come on here so I can see who is here. If you are watching this on the replay, thank you so much for taking the time, and of course, please feel free to comment as if you are joining live. I am hoping that I am on. I'm gonna just look. Um, okay, I am. I can see I can see the comments over on my iPad, so if you see me glancing over, that is what I'm looking at. Hi Sharon, thanks for being here. So, um, I wanted to come on here and do a very special Facebook Live because I just felt really, really motivated to talk to you today, and I'm gonna just dive in to this surprise topic. And again, feel free to comment. I'm just looking over on my iPad. Oops, um, let me see if I can— hi Steve! Sorry, I'm gonna have to keep looking over there for a bit until my phone shows the comments. Anyhow, it has been a really emotional couple of days for me, and I want to tell you a little bit about that and how it relates to you and to your goal of coaching to 5K months and beyond. Yesterday I had an amazing call with the people who are in my 6-week Activate Your Income mastermind, and we are coming up Towards the end of that, there's, I think, we have just one call left, so we've got a couple weeks left here. And it was just such an amazing experience to be with those people yesterday because the energy on that Zoom call was through the roof. It was just through the roof. People were excited. They were happy for themselves and for each other. People have been making offers, earning money, but it wasn't even about that for me. And again, if you're just joining, I can't see the comments currently, so I'm glancing over at my iPad to see, uh, the comments. It wasn't just the fact that the people in the 6-week mastermind have been making offers and some have been making money. It was the fact that the people who were there had made a decision to activate a part of themselves that had been dying to be activated for a very, very, very long time. And I know that I'm gonna get emotional on this Facebook Live, so I'm just warning you ahead of time. But to see and feel the energy that they brought to that call was such an incredible privilege for me because I really felt like Maybe for the first time in a long time, many of them felt like they could really do what they wanted to do with their lives. And when I finished the call, I was so emotional about it that I just cried. I literally got off of that call last night and I cried because It wasn't just that I was happy for them, but I was remembering all of the years when I didn't let myself do that, when I didn't really let myself want what I wanted, when I didn't let myself really just be who I was without apology. All of the years that I spent in suffering when I didn't need to, when I could have just made a decision to stop creating that suffering for myself. And I just had this flood of emotions last night after that Activate call. Hi Nina, sorry I'm having to look over at my iPad to see the comments right now. And I just realized that, you know, most of us— and tell me in the comments if this rings true for you— most of us are not living fully activated lives. Okay, we're not really giving ourselves permission to even want what we want. We have desires for what we want to do in our lives, and if you're here, I'm assuming that you're a coach or you want to be a coach and you want to use those gifts and talents that you have. And maybe you're feeling afraid to even want that too much because what if it doesn't happen? And what I want to say is that it isn't about getting the $5K a month or the $10K a month or whatever the income goal is. It's not even about what you do as a coach for people. Hi, Auron! It's not even about that, which sounds crazy. It's not about even what you do with people. So like last night, I wasn't crying and emotional and moved because of what I was doing in terms of helping those people or creating that space for them. It was because I had allowed myself to be fully me, to be fully activated, and I feel so strongly about this because every single day, and I mean every day, every day, I have some kind of encounter with someone who's on my email list or in my social media or somewhere. I have an encounter with someone who is not allowing themselves to do the thing that they really want to do. And my heart just— it's hard to even explain what happens within me when I encounter that. Because the people that I am surrounded by in this community— thanks, Aurora— and it is— are some of the most incredible people that I have ever, ever, ever known in my entire life. I never thought I could be surrounded by so many gifted and talented and wonderful caring people as I am now, in terms of people who are coaches or who want to be coaches. You're all just incredible people. And anytime I encounter someone who is trying so hard to hold something in that is literally bursting through their chest like the thing in Alien, it's wanting to come out. And they have to work so hard to keep it inside. I can see it in their eyes. I can hear it in their voice. I can see it in their mannerisms. And I recognize myself. I recognize myself and how I used to be. I used to think it wasn't safe to be me. I used to think it wasn't okay to want certain things. I thought that, you know, my role basically was to be as productive as possible in society, to, you know, have a decent job and make a decent living and not being a burden to anybody and all of that. And when I sort of came out of that, snapped out of that, I realized, oh my gosh, that is not what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not supposed to be just getting by. I'm not supposed to be just going to a job and earning money and, you know, yes, having fun. And I'm thinking back when I was living in New York City and going to the Lincoln Center performances and the ballet and all that. I mean, that's all wonderful, but that wasn't my purpose. Our purpose for being here is to allow ourselves to be who we are and do what we want to be doing, what is calling to us to do. And what gets me is that we have decided collectively that it's not safe to do that. Let me know in the comments if that makes sense to you. I'll explain what I mean. But sorry, I'm having to go over here and check for comments again. We have decided collectively that it's not safe for us to venture out on our own, let's say, related to earning a living doing something we love doing. It's not safe to do that. That's what the culture says, because most businesses fail, you know, in the first year, and people don't make it, and terrible things happen and all this. It's just baloney. It's just baloney. That set of rules makes no sense when you match it up to what human beings actually are. We are beings who were given gifts and desires and talents that are meant to come out of us into the world. Hi Nina, there's way too much criticism and disapproval from out there. Not true. So deadening to the spirit. Yes. Sorry, the comments like disappear really quick over there. The, the whole idea that we can't be who we are because we have to be safe, quote unquote, it's too risky to do certain things. I mean, that whole conversation is so wrong. It's just wrong. I'm going to ask you a question right now, and if you are watching, maybe you can answer. And if I can see the comments on my iPad really quick, I'll try to respond. Have you ever felt like you couldn't handle something? I mean, for real. Has there ever been a time when you didn't handle something? Is there— was there— has there ever, ever, ever in your life ever been a time when you didn't come up with some kind of answer, some kind of solution to something, some kind of, you know, way out of a situation or whatever? Has that ever happened to you where that wasn't available to you, where an answer or a solution or something was not available to you when you needed it? Because I know the answer to that. The answer is no, that never happens. That has never happened to you because that's not how we're designed. We are designed to have the answers. We are designed to figure it out. We are designed to be creative. We are designed to be capable. Even people who we might consider to be in dire life circumstances always find some way. They always find some solution. You know, you can look back on your life and you can see 100, 200, 1,000 examples. If you could remember them all, you might think of tens of thousands of examples of times when you had to find a solution to something, an answer, and you just did. And yet we are in this cultural conversation that says we can't do what we want to do because it's too risky? We can't bet on ourselves because it's not safe to do that? What kind of bizarre conversation have we been living in that would ever suggest that you are not capable of handling anything that comes your way. That you, you know, if you make the decision to go forward on, let's say, building your coaching business, why would anyone ever, ever, ever have the gall to say to you, that's never going to work? But that is what the culture is saying, and that's what a lot of people actually do say. Unfortunately. Oh, that's not a sure bet. You don't want to do that. You know, I've told this story before, but I'm going to mention it really quickly. When I was teaching English at a university in California, I had a lot of students who were engineering students, engineering majors, and one of my writing students came in for a conference with me, and she was one of the best writers in the class, but she had an aura about her of sadness. And I just asked her about it because, you know, as someone in that role, I kind of had to watch out for warning signs and things. And I was just like, you know, is everything okay? And she just said, you know, I don't want to be an engineer. And I said, well, why are you studying engineering then? She said, well, my parents thought it would be a good career because there's not a lot of women in it, so they thought it would be a lot of good opportunities for me. And I said, well, what do you want to do? And she's like, oh, well, I really want to be a fashion photographer. That's what I really want to do. And her face just lit up. And I asked her about which photographers she liked and what magazines and things, and she was telling me all about it. And I then asked her, well, Why don't you just go do that? And she's like, oh no, no, I'm going to finish my degree and then go get a job as an engineer. Now, I don't know what happened to her, but that conversation has stayed with me for a very, very long time. That was probably 25 years ago that I had that conversation, and it has stayed with me because that is the conversation that most of us are having outwardly and in our own heads. And I can say with 100% certainty, 100% certainty, that if you are in that kind of mental space where you feel like it's too risky to do what you want, if you feel like it's too risky to become a coach, if you think it's too risky to answer the callings of your heart, whatever they are, If that's the conversation that you're in, you must allow yourself to break out of it. You have to. I'm, I'm saying this with all the love that I have in my heart because when I wake up every day, there's an image that is often in my mind. And what I see in this image in my mind is I'm looking out on a landscape that's kind of dark. It's like dusk or something. And I'm looking out on this scene and I see all of these lights start to kind of come on in the distance. And I, I can— I'm looking out and I can see these lights coming on. And I feel like those lights are all of the people that I encounter who are just dying to make what is within them visible, to really start to speak from their heart, to really do the things they've always wanted to do. And I know this is going to sound corny, but this whole talk has probably been like that, but I don't care, whatever. But I, I often feel like I just want to hold out my arms and just gather all of those lights right here in front of me. We can't fix things. In this world if we don't live the life that we're supposed to live. If we continue to snuff out that light in any area of our life— I'm not just talking about making money or what you do, I mean any part of life— if we snuff that light out and we keep trying to kill it, basically. That is not helping anyone, let alone you or me. If we're doing that, it's not helping anyone. I really believe it's our responsibility as human beings to consciously decide, you know what, I am going to activate myself, turn on that light switch, consequences— oops— consequences be what they may, and go and just go. What is the worst that could happen if you followed the desires of your heart? What is the worst that could happen? Years and years and years ago, during a very tumultuous time of my life, I saw a therapist for a while who asked that question. What is the worst that could happen? Um, well, you might not make as much money as you want if you want to be a coach, at least in the beginning. You might be a little scared. You might be a little embarrassed. I don't know. You're not going to go hungry. You're not going to be living on the street. Yet these are the fears that people live with all the time. But as I said earlier in this talk, there has never ever been a time in your life when you didn't have a solution, when you didn't have the answer. Our life is not meant to be lived doing some kind of job for X number of years and saving up and, you know, squashing our desires so that we can have money when we quote-unquote retire to then do what we want. This is insane. It's absolutely insane. And I know, I know for a fact that going against that societal conversation is difficult. It's difficult. It's a main reason— I don't want to sound like I'm selling anything here, but I'm going to mention this because it's important— it's one of the reasons why I made my Coach to 5K Academy a 12-month commitment. I made it a 12-month commitment because I wanted people to come into a space for a year where they were surrounded by activation, by light, by people who were moving and doing things and cheering them on and, you know, sharing in their successes and supporting them when things seem to be going wrong. And I wanted them to have that experience over a full year. Of being led by someone, namely me, who tries my best to be that example and allows them to have an experience over 12 months of living this way. And I have seen miraculous things happen to those people in that group where they seem like different people. Even just 2 or 3 months in, they seem like different people to me. Than when they first arrived. And it's because collectively we are giving ourselves permission to be who we are, to speak our minds, to be visible, to state what we want, to share our gifts, to ask to be paid. All of these things that, you know, society says, oh, we should be careful, we don't want to, you know, sound greedy. Pardon me, but crying will do that to you. You know, we, we have to— we simply have to start to take more responsibility for the way that we are living our lives. We have to understand that we don't have forever. We only have right now. I mean, that is a big lesson that I have learned from this pandemic, certainly. And, you know, I have also told this story before, but again, I think it bears repeating if you haven't heard it. I will make it brief, but my mom was born in 1919. She had me when she was 41. My siblings were already grown. By that time. My sister was 19 and my brother was 16. So they were— my sister was out of the house already at college and my brother was obviously a teenager. And, um, you know, at that time when I was born, divorce wasn't the thing that it is now. It wasn't common. I know that she had been thinking about it because she told me that later. But my mom never— because of the rules of society that she grew up in and just all of the things that she knew, she never lived the life that she wanted. I'm not saying that she didn't like being a mom. She loved being a mom to me. I felt that every single day. But when she was dying at age 72, I was 30. One of the last things she said to me, literally one of the very last things she said to me, was, Mary, don't end up like me. It's a pretty profound thing. To hear that. And I knew exactly what she meant. Thank you. She meant don't end up living a life that's not the one you want. And it took me a long time to really be able to activate my own life But I finally did a few years ago, and I can honestly say that I never in my wildest dreams thought life could be like this. And it's not just because of what I've been able to create materially or moving over to France or all of these things. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the feeling that I have every day when I get up, where I know that what I do is my decision and that I am allowed to do and say what I want to do and say. And that is my aim every day, is to live from that light within myself as much as I possibly can, because I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking, shit, I played it too safe. Life was there for me and I didn't take it. Life was there for me and I didn't take it. Because if you look at your own life, and you reflect on things that have happened to you. I can do the same thing where even in my lowest moments, there was always some reserve, right? There's always some reserve that is waiting for us to just dip into and take from. And use. And yet most of us walk around in a state of fear, a state of feeling like we can't do what we want, feeling like, you know, it's just too risky. Is any of that actually true? I don't want you to live another day feeling like you are keeping something inside. I don't want you to wake up tomorrow feeling a sense of drudgery about any aspect of your life. I don't want you to feel like you're living in some sort of box or by someone else's rules. I don't want that for you. I want you to wake up tomorrow feeling more like yourself. The people who I spend time with who are coaches— I'm going to repeat this and say it a little bit different way— are in my mind some of the most beautiful, generous souls I have ever come across when it comes to other people. They're not always so generous with themselves. They play down their value and their skills. They don't think that what they have is worth much. And that is not part of living an activated life. Living an activated life one that is really lit up from the inside, means that when we have a thought about ourselves that is like that, we ignore it because it's not true. I made a decision a few years ago that I was not going to engage with any thought or feeling that felt like suffering or felt like heaviness, because I have the option and you have the option not to engage with that. So if you have the sense that you can't really be who you are and that you can't step forward in this world and bring your gifts and talents to the fore and really live the life you want, if you have a sense of fear and heaviness around that, or you're scared or whatever, You know what? You can shift that. You can shift that, and you can say, I can have that feeling of fear or whatever it is, but that isn't defining anything true about me or about what I want to do. That was the lesson that I learned, that any thought or feeling that I had about myself that didn't feel good or whatever, it wasn't the truth. I didn't need to listen to it. When you start to say, you know, all of that be damned, I'm going to just take a few steps today and do what I want to do and be who I want to be and say what I want to say. It starts to get easier and easier and easier to ignore all of that. And then what makes it even easier is when you start to surround yourself with people who are in that same zone, who want to live differently, who want to break free, who want to bet on themselves, and who want to have a more authentic experience. When you surround yourself with people like that Again, it gets even easier. So my real message to you today— I'm really hoping that this is coming through— is that it's our responsibility, yours and mine, to really question, really question what parameters we are living with that don't make sense for us, and to really allow ourselves to break out of those, to really understand that our job as human beings is not to live in these boxes but to be self-actualized, to discover who we really are. And through that process, we can change everything for the better. Some of you have heard me say this before, but I truly believe with everything that I am that if more and more people said no to the way that they have been living that doesn't feel authentic and said yes to who they are and what they really want to do and started acting accordingly in a positive way— because I really believe that this is a positive force— things would begin to change rapidly on this planet. I need to get a sip of water. Hang on. Imagine if I were looking out at that landscape that I described earlier at dusk. It's funny, a little moth just flew by the light for me. Anyway, imagine if I were looking out there and I suddenly saw, instead of a few lights like now, I might see, you know, in my vision that I have sometimes, I might see maybe 100 What if I saw 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000, a million, a billion people saying yes to what was calling to them? Oh my gosh, what would happen to this world? You and I can do that. You and I can do that. We can say yes to ourselves. We can allow ourselves to activate what is calling to us to do. We can start saying yes instead of no. And just to bring this a little bit full circle before I close, if you are someone who really has a desire to work with people in a coaching capacity You are so needed. People are looking for you right now. They want to see that beacon of light that you are. And I want to encourage you to take a step in that direction, even if you are scared to death, even if it feels like it's the most risky thing you've ever done. I promise you it is not. You have everything you need to do whatever it is that you want to do. And even though this group and my mission is Coach to 5K, it's not about the 5K, it's not about the 10K, it's not about the 100K, it's not about any of that. It's not about the money, it's not about the results, it's not about any of that. It's about you and I deciding that we are going to live the way that we are meant to live. It's about the experience of life in an activated state, in a state that is not consuming ourselves with denial of our dreams and desires. It's about being in this higher state this place within ourselves that is so far removed from pain and suffering and is really just a space of light and energy, purity, clarity. It's not to say we won't have emotional ups and downs. That's a normal human experience, but we can have a different experience of that when we are answering what is calling to us, all of that starts to change and shift. I've certainly experienced my share of ups and downs since I kind of became more activated as a human being. I've just experienced them very differently, very, very differently. And It makes such a huge difference when you are with people who get this and who want this too. And that's a big reason why this group is here. I want this to be a place where you know that you can be who you are, that you can share the desires of your heart, that you will be respected and rewarded and applauded and held when you do that. So that is what has been on my heart and mind the last couple of days. I really want you to live the life that you desire, not in terms of whatever the outcomes are, but just in terms of the daily experience of being real, of being your real self, because there's nothing like it. And, you know, I have a friend who we had a discussion about this many years ago about taking the leap and, you know, jumping without a net. And there's that saying about jump and the net will appear. And I told him that's not true. You can jump because the net is always there. It has always been there. There is no way that if you take this leap for yourself— oh, thank you, Mary— there's no way that if you take this leap on behalf of yourself and on behalf of me, frankly, I told you I need you to do this for me to better my life and to better all of our lives. Oh, I can see the comments now, finally. When you take that leap, there is no risk. Because the net has been there since before you were born. You'll always have the solution. You'll always have the answer. You'll always know what to do because you've always known what to do. You've always had the answer. You've always had the solution. So break free of that conversation that says it's too risky because it's false. That is, that is false. A false Narrative that has nothing to do with reality. And if I can do something to support you in this, I am here. I'm here in this free group as I'm talking to you. I'm available in paid things too. I am here for you. I want you to not just succeed financially and to be able to do what you love to do. But I want you to have a more complete experience of being who you are. That is my real aim. If I had to narrow it down and really boil it down to what I want for you, it's that I want you to have a real experience, the real experience of you. So that you don't end up the way my mother did, feeling like she hadn't lived her real life. That's not what I want for me or for you. So maybe you can make a promise to me that after this is done, this video, and after you've finished watching, if you're with me live or on a replay somewhere listening, that you allow yourself a moment to feel, really bodily feel, what it is that you want, what it is you want to be doing, what it is you want in your life. Really, I mean, like, I want you to have a full-body experience. Of that. No more denying, no more hiding, no more trying to push it down. I want you to let it just fill you up and wash over you so it's spilling out all over the place. You may cry, you may scream, I don't know what you're going to do, but I want you to have that kind of intense experience of what it is that you really desire for yourself. And allow that to start to come alive. Let it live. Let it breathe. Let it start to inform what you do every day, because once you have let that happen You will know what to do. It won't be a scary mystery anymore. You'll know what to do, and your life will change. Can you make that promise? Will you let that feeling happen? Will you let yourself really bodily, mentally, emotionally just be engulfed in the most gorgeous way by what you really desire for yourself. Please do that. If you do, come back into the group and tell all of us what it was like. That's what life is for. It's for you to be you. And for me to be me. It's not about following rules that someone on wherever decided. We can let those go now, and we can live from a different space within ourselves. Thank you so much for listening to me today. I really appreciate you so very much. And even if we have never interacted in any way personally, I want you to know something. I see you. I feel your presence. You're one of those lights that I cherish, and you're the reason that I'm talking right now. So thank you for being who you are. Thank you, Auron. Thank you for being here and for everything that you do. And just know that you are loved and appreciated and valued. Thanks so much for listening. I will talk to you again soon. Thank you, Nina. Sending you all my love today. I'll talk to you later. Thanks so much. Bye.
