Hey Uplifters,

Dr. Marcia Morgan is a force of nature who has dedicated her life to giving women a voice in some of the toughest environments imaginable. From pioneering as one of the first female law enforcement officers in the 1970s to advocating for incarcerated women, Marcia has faced down challenges with grace, grit, and an unshakeable commitment to justice.

In this episode, Marcia takes us on a journey through her remarkable career, sharing stories of breaking barriers in male-dominated fields and the vital importance of maintaining your sense of self while blazing trails. She opens up about her current chapter of life, exploring new passions and rediscovering the joy of curiosity and play.

Marcia’s book, "GO: How to Get Going and Achieve Your Goals and Dreams at Any Age," distills her wisdom into practical advice for women of all ages. She emphasizes the power of mindfulness, self-reflection, and surrounding yourself with supportive people who uplift your dreams.

This conversation is a reminder that it's never too late to go after what you want – and that the journey itself can be just as rewarding as the destination.

5 Uplifting Lessons:

1. Embrace mindfulness and regular self-reflection to stay connected to your goals and values.

2. Surround yourself with supportive people who encourage your dreams and growth.

3. It's never too late to pursue new passions or revisit childhood aspirations.

4. Use visual reminders or "goal objects" to keep your dreams at the forefront of your mind.

5. Maintain your authentic self even when pioneering in challenging environments.

Listen to this and all of the inspiring Uplifter stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Need a break to battle your own burnout and reset? Join us for our first-ever Uplifters Retreat.

Let’s keep rising higher together.

💓Aransas

Uplift!

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She's a criminologist. She's the author of numerous books and journal articles. She's a researcher, a trainer, a consultant on crime issues for organizations like the U. S. Department of Justice and the Pentagon. With her expertise [00:01:00] in gender and crime, she's spent a lot of time in prisons around the country examining culture and sexual misconduct issues.

And when I first heard about Dr. Morgan, I felt just an extraordinary and [00:01:45] profound level of gratitude. That women like her exist in the world, in these largely male dominated environments to advocate for the safety and the well being of these women [00:02:00] who often go so underrepresented. And then I was thrilled to hear that Marcia has taken her work and expanded it to explore the needs [00:02:15] of women everywhere.

And so today I am thrilled to talk to Dr. [00:02:45] Morgan about her new book, Go, how to get going and achieve your goals and dreams at any age. Dr. Morgan, thank you for being here. Thank [00:03:00] you. It's a, it's an honor to be here. Thank you for asking me. So, what was going on in your life? And in the world that made you want to write this book at this time?

Yet, when you started talking to them, they had dreams, they had hopes that somehow got squished along the way. I shared a lot of that with my friends [00:03:45] on the outsides, a lot of my women friends, and they went, Oh, the same thing happened to me. This is not unusual. And yet there were some common threads that women share of the types of roadblocks and hurdles and barriers that [00:04:00] they experienced.

I'm turning 70 this year and I still have dreams, you know, so it's really important to to capture that and not let it fade away. [00:04:30]

Aransas: We really shortchange ourselves by believing that there's only this one tiny window of life where we get to go after what we want because I feel like teenagers are told it's too early.

My grandmother's 94 and she still runs every [00:05:15] day and she practices yoga every day and she's dreaming about building a tree house before she dies. So there is no limit to this any more than, you know, my daughters when they were three and four. who wanted to be mermaids. [00:05:30] And that still may happen. Who knows?

Marcia: Well, I think this is kind of a broad statement, but I think life gets in the way. We have all these things that come upon us that we get married and have [00:06:00] children and they take a priority.

And I'm dissatisfied. I don't know why I took that job except to pay the rent and do la la. So that type of thing is usually what gets in the way and then who's around [00:06:30] you. I think that's a big part of your show. We really are influenced by not just family, but what our friends are saying and doing. So all that kind of makes this cocktail of what's happening in your life and what you really want to do or [00:06:45] end up doing, whether it's what you want to do.

Yeah. Yeah. [00:07:15]

[00:07:45] It was really helpful to get myself grounded in terms of what I want to do, not just a meditation thing, but really kind of a focus time on, on those goals. And a lot of people think goals are very business sounding. Maybe you can use the word [00:08:00] dreams or aspirations or whatever you want to call it, but it's a good time to do that sort of thing.

keeping things the way they are. Or then there's the other people who are the creators and they really want to create the life that they want to have. And so it's sort of analyzing what are

Marcia: Well, how am I feeling for starters?

So, sort of fun [00:09:15] things that I want to be sure and do that I want, I want to be sure that's part of my day. I start each morning with a mantra that I have on my to do list. I say, start each day with gratitude in each task with Dharma, love, grace, and [00:09:30] compassion. You are the creator of your life, not the manager of your circumstances.

I didn't know Abraham Lincoln said that, but I saw that the other day, and [00:10:00] so I added it to my mantra. But you know, if I read that every morning, I think, yeah, okay, you know, I'm going to, Have this day be amazing. And that's how I'm going to do it. And then what

Aransas: do you put on your

I don't know, maybe other people out here have had that same thing after the pandemic. I really felt like this inertia set in. I really don't feel like I've got this same energy, excitement about life that, and I'm really working on [00:10:30] trying to get that back. So. I really do try to get out in nature. I have reconnected with a hobby that I started many years ago and this probably sounds a little weird, but I collect tea strainers and infusers from around the world.

So they would go to their friend's house and have tea, but they would actually be talking about how can [00:11:15] we get these men and others in the world to listen to us to get the right to vote. What a

And You [00:11:45] are also using it as a forcing function to get yourself into the details of how to do that.

So, yeah. Really getting a handle on how are you spending your time and are you getting, you know, your own oxygen mask on before you're helping others. Kind of, we've heard that phrase many times but, [00:12:30] you know, you want to be sure that you're taking care of yourself as well. Yeah.

How, when, if you do them and what gets in the way if you don't. And it's fascinating to [00:13:00] me to see again and again across every domain of our lives how easy it is to not do what we say we want to do.

Aransas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or even. I want some time alone and I can't seem to get myself to that coffee shop for 10 minutes a day to just sit and [00:13:30] reflect or to maybe have that date with myself that you described. And it's because we are creatures of habit. And it's because we get really good at, as you said, inertia [00:13:45] at doing, at doing what we've always done.

And it can be really hard to break any of those cycles. And certainly conscious awareness of those patterns can help us as a first step in breaking them.

Marcia: Yeah.

Marcia: their patterns? Valuing themselves. It's a kind of a self esteem, self worth that you're worth it.

And almost 99 percent of the time there is [00:15:00] so you start learning that. Okay. Yeah, I can stand up for myself and feel okay. I think there's a kind of tied in with the self esteem can be tired issues, health issues. It can be trauma issues. All those things can be mixed together. [00:15:15] To really start looking at yourself in that way, maybe getting some help.

But once you start getting successful in something or you get that promotion or [00:15:45] you, I don't know, get on TV, whatever it might be, your friends start feeling different. They, you'll find out who your friends are, for one thing, who's the uplifter in your group, but it's a time where you want to be with your, you know, your friends, your [00:16:00] support and everything, but you'll find that all of a sudden they, some people might not feel you're one of them anymore.

Aransas: For sure. And I hear you saying that facing those and starting to really consciously shift our thought patterns. is the first step in this. [00:16:30] And I know you've done a lot of work with women who have been imprisoned and who may not have had access to therapy and lots of reading material or even education in many cases.

Marcia: Well, um, that's a great segue because I think one thing that we all can do [00:17:00] is to contact your local jail. Or prison and say, I want to donate 100 or 50 or whatever, 25 of self help books that you could keep in your library.

And could [00:17:30] make a huge difference for someone in their life. That I think could be a starting place.

And I think that the more we can start to understand who the initiators and the receivers are in different domains in our life, the more we can really empower ourselves [00:18:00] to both be an initiator and a receiver. And I suspect you play an initiator role in a lot of your life. Well,

Marcia: I know my default is a fixer, so if somebody has a problem, I just go, well, have you tried this?

Aransas: better. I get the tendency, yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah. We care so much. Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:30] And then we find ourselves. Perplexed by the resistance we're getting when we see so clearly what needs to happen.

When we fix, we put ourselves in a position to have to do all the work and we can only do so much.

So it's almost a full circle [00:19:45] thing from when I started my career in law enforcement, you know, working with victims of crimes. any age, but, you know, they became younger and younger and especially in the 1980s, when people were aware more of child sexual abuse of boys and girls. The latter part of their career was [00:20:00] in working with the prisons and the women in the prisons, so who were really trying to pull their lives together in a way that they could then go out and love life and be happy and, you know, not harm other people and not do drugs, because that's usually one of the biggest things.[00:20:15]

And we had to show them scientifically, statistically, that women need three rolls of toilet paper. I mean, that, People just didn't talk about that. And so you would [00:20:45] just come to these meetings and hear the numbers. Here's what the medical research is about this kind of thing or, you know, sanitary napkins or whatever it might be.

Aransas: Yeah. Advocacy is very different than writing or fixing.

Marcia: Mm hmm.

Marcia: It's been interesting trying to navigate what that looks like because I felt like I was really in the arena for a long time and I don't want to give it up completely.

I'm trying to figure out how to have more fun. I had to talk to the social security people recently and, you know, they review your work. You know, history to see if there are any, they said, okay, we need to look at where your gaps were. [00:22:15] And he looked at us, Oh, you haven't stopped working since you were 16.

Aransas: And as you look for those, one of the things that I like to work with women on is experimentation and taking an exploratory [00:22:45] mindset toward finding these things.

Because I do think so much of that [00:23:15] fear of change that you're talking about and that fear of failure and judgment is not knowing. And feeling like, am I going to be good at this? Am I going to be able to figure out how to do this? And that can just be paralyzing.

Yeah. You know, when you were little, trying to figure out, Oh, what do I want to do when I grow up?

Aransas: Yeah.

Marcia: So it's the same kind of thing.

Aransas: Yeah. And I think we can put a burden of expectation on it. Mm hmm.

Marcia: Like,

Aransas: this has

So I learned to play bagpipes. I learned, well, I did, I took lessons, put it that way. That's so cool. And then I [00:24:00] learned to use an abacus, how to make balloon animals, how to fence, not like selling stolen goods, like with a foil kind of fence. Either one could be interesting. It could be either one. It could be very interesting that I'd end up back in prison.

Aransas: Yes. And it's play. Mm hmm. And the mental, physical benefits of [00:24:30] play are, They're pretty much undisputed in science, they're very well researched in terms of their impact.

Marcia: One of the main things that makes this book a little different Is the use of goal objects and that's what go stands for [00:25:15] in the title And research shows when you are reminded Of your goal, whatever that may be on a regular basis. You are much more likely to achieve it There was a study done a couple years ago with Like 5, 000 [00:25:30] people, about 82 percent accomplish their goals within, you know, a five year period, and they were reminded of them daily.

If you are reminded and see that, your energy will go more towards that. You'll keep going. focused on it. So the book really helps you walk through ways of really identifying what you want in life and how to find an object. And [00:26:15] you know, Christmas ornaments are great. Maybe it's out in nature, maybe it's at a thrift store, whatever it might be.

I often refer to those

It's really in those micro moments that we find ourselves leaning towards the next. We're leaning towards the last.

Marcia: That's right.

These tiny [00:27:15] moments of saying to ourselves and then saying to someone else, actually, this is what I want. Those little whispers are powerful because every time we say them, we get a little more confident saying them. They sound a little less crazy to us. [00:27:30] In that, we allow ourselves to lean more into them.

Everything came together. Mm hmm. It's for you, but it also helps you talk about it with others, you know, and [00:28:00] gets it out there in the world. It can be a first step toward becoming what we want to become. Mm hmm. Exactly. And just thinking about it. I mean, there are, like I said in the book, you know, there's, there's these steps and really, um, fine tuning about, you know, what did you want to do when you were [00:28:15] 12 years old?

Aransas: Yeah. And I love that you're asking these questions because we all need to ask ourselves these questions.

Marcia: Mm hmm.

Is it belief that I don't have the [00:29:00] resources or tools or opportunity to do or be this thing? Or is it just simply, I'm stuck and I am having trouble getting out of this pattern here?

So many people shared and I totally agree. Who's around you. They can help you [00:29:30] get unstuck or they can keep you stuck. Yes.

Who do you think you are? Those people are not Yeah. They are not the people who are going to help us cultivate our own self belief and growth. It doesn't make them bad, doesn't make, [00:30:00] mean they love us any less. It just means that they have a lot of fear about us changing. But I think it can feel like a reinforcement of our own fears when we hear those people.

Marcia: are right about them. Yeah. I think that's really true. I, even my, my parents, I grew up in a wonderful, loving home, but my mother was a stay at home housewife who was not a risk taker at all.

And it was just that era.

Marcia: like for you? How much time do you have? This is [00:31:15] 1975 to 82 when I was in law enforcement.

We were the only women there. Some of them got groped [00:31:45] during, you know, our trainings. I remember sitting on the phone talking to a survivor one time, and my lieutenant came behind and, you know, put his finger in my ear and rolled it around, and I would be told to wear short skirts, you know, on the day of my [00:32:00] evaluation, and then, you know, I'd have this phallic cactus show up on my desk.

All of [00:32:30] you did. And we wanted to apologize for how we treated you. It was so cathartic. I couldn't tell you. So I was really glad I went. The trailblazing word is kind of, I don't know if it's overused, but it really felt like it, you know, back [00:32:45] then it was hard, but we loved the work and the group of us, we loved working with each other.

So I think we made some really great progress. Yeah.

Yeah. You were taking [00:33:15] care of one another. What skills or strategies did you learn in that period that have stuck with you or, or supported you through the rest of your life and career?

People with power, you try to figure out other ways of doing things if they're working against you. Yeah. Yeah. I really worked, it's really interesting, I'm trying not to be [00:33:45] tough, I mean tough in terms of a hardened, maybe it's a better way to say that, I think I got tough. You know, I still want to, I don't know, navigate the world as a female, I'm really happy to be a female, but it just, I don't want to [00:34:00] be so hardened that I'm cut off to feelings of other people and, and you can get that way very easily in law enforcement or working in prisons.

Aransas: world. I think that happens as a defense mechanism and how much it says of you that you were conscious and aware of staying in integrity with yourself. And I do think that's something that pioneering or [00:34:30] trailblazing women tend to experience maybe disproportionately is in order to belong, in order to survive, figuring out how to do it the way everybody else is doing it.

Marcia: Yeah.

Which is to show up for ourselves and our dreams with the same integrity that we show up for everyone else in their dreams.

Aransas: Yeah. Well said. Most of us uplifters wouldn't think of not showing up for a person we made a commitment to. But we do it for ourselves all the time. We put our own needs and our goals last.

And you are [00:36:00] lifting us up. And that is the beauty of Uplifters Rising Together, is that by sharing your story, you triggered all of us to start to consider goals and [00:36:15] dreams we've been sitting on in the nest for all of these years. And what might be possible for us if we decide to let them [00:36:30] hatch and fly?

com where you'll hear [00:37:00] more of these stories and more research tips and tools designed specifically to help you and help us keep rising higher together. Thank you for listening to The [00:37:15] Uplifters Podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, don't Please share them with the uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over at theuplifterspodcast.

Music: Big love painted water, sunshine with rosemary, and I'm dwelling the perplexing, though you find it flexing.

Lift you up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Lift you up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Lift you up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh [00:38:45] Lift you up, do do do Do do do do do Beautiful! I cry! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's that little thing you did with your voice! Right? In the pre chorus, [00:39:00] right? I was like Mommy, stop crying. Mommy, stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.