The Pedestal Problem: Why I Stopped Worshipping Experts and Gurus

In this episode, Martina reflects on a shift that has deeply changed the way she sees authority, expertise, and influence — the pedestal.

For years, she unconsciously placed coaches, gurus, and public figures above herself, assuming they knew more, were more evolved, or had access to wisdom she didn’t. But what happens when those pedestals start to collapse?

In this conversation, she explores:

• The psychology behind pedestal culture and why we outsource our power
• How admiration slowly turns into self-abandonment
• Why authority feels safer than self-trust
• What happens when the pedestal falls
• How this realization helped her reclaim discernment and grounded confidence

This episode isn’t about attacking anyone. It’s about coming back to yourself — learning from others without shrinking, admiring without worshipping, and respecting without surrendering your own authority.

If you’ve ever elevated someone only to feel disappointed later, this conversation is for you.

Follow Martina on Instagram @femmagical for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and more!

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Transcript

Why Pedestals Cracked

Martina 0:00

In today's episode, I reflect on how I used to put coaches, gurus, and people I admired on pedestals, assuming they were more involved, more knowledgeable, more wise, more there than me. Without realizing it, I was outsourcing more authority. Through experience and honest self-reflection, that pattern started to crack. And whatever illusion was still lingering in my system completely dissolved when the Epson files showed up. That is a stark reminder that status doesn't equal ever integrity. And today I share what has shifted in me and why I'm choosing discernment and self-trust over idolizing authority. So really it means the world to me. And if you tuned in now for the first time, thanks for being here. Everyone who likes tunes in is it just means the world to me because I am letting you into my world by being also very honest that I'm not where I want to be when it comes to speaking off the cuff, speaking freely, having no scripted podcast outline. So this is still very new to me. I I give my best to not ramble. I give my best to, you know, let you in on my progress and leave all my mistakes, all errors, everything that doesn't sound maybe good, or you know, moments where I'm just like maybe completing just a half sentence in there because I don't want this to make I don't want this podcast to be something perfectly curated. I want this to be as authentic as possible and I want to give you my point of views. I want to give you some of the tips that I felt are resonating and helpful in my life, or give you what I you know is kind of felt experience where I feel like I will share that with you because sometimes, you know, our shared felt experience resonates. So thank you. That's all I wanted to do in the beginning. Just thank you so much for for being here. So and today I would just want to dive into part of the Epson files, which popped up on the scene of the world more than a month ago, and it took me a month now, really, to to digest to grapple with the wildness of humanity. I went down dark rabbit holes, but don't worry, we'll I will not make this about those files only. The reason I wanna speak about them is because there is some gold in there, and I think this is gold that I dug up myself within me, and I thought I'd share that with you and give you a little bit of context as well to why we do certain things, not like those absolutely horrific things, but I'm talking about the pedestaling of other people and then seeing their downfall and why we should not just watch people's downfall, maybe people that we have trusted, people we have pedestaled, but also say enough is enough. There is no reason to, you know, to project like something on someone that is within you. And I don't mean something bad, you project something bad on someone more like you project that this person is the expert, this person is the guru, this person is the divine human being that I'll trust and I'll read and I will devour their quotes and think like they are so much better and they are to be trusted. I want you to come back to yourself and take something away from this horrific thing of those files because obviously there is so much that we could talk about, and we could take so many different angles, and to be believe me, I am so horrified, I'm so outraged, I am so upset of how terrible this world is. Things we don't even know, but concerns so many young, young children and you know, babies. This is this is terrible, and I there is so much darkness there, and I never want to just go down rabbit holes with you and talk about how bad and dramatic and vile this world is and how disgusting people can be. Because that's just you know, talking about something where we cannot take something away from it, we cannot take action on. I just wanna use an angle where I feel like that is relatable in a way, because so many things that I think you and I have read and been informed of what would happen in the past and for sure is going on still in this world. There's just nothing that we can now take action on. But I think talking about something where I dug up gold within me is something that's definitely making this an experience that's not just horrific, but at least we can change something within us, within me, within you, and grow out of this world of pedestaling, celebrities, spiritual gurus, experts in a wellness industry. Because, you know, I mean, at some point, you know, I realized not just with those Epstein files, but a little bit sooner than that, that whoever we see in in media on social media, where or someone who is being hyped as the number one expert, or someone that you deeply admire, that you feel like, and I can give you so many examples of so many people that I admired for the success of what work they produced, of the words that they like that they uttered, the way how they presented a framework that I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then just seeing either they have been called out because of some bad behavior or some bad actions they took, or now obviously from the Indie Abston Files, a very prominent spiritual guru, like Deepak Chopra. I think you might know him, you might have read a book or two, I mean you might have seen him on social media or some reels of his. I read a book of his many, many years ago. You know, those people pop up, and I just want to bring that to the pedestal problem, as I call it. And this is the goal that I want us to, you know, take a bit of time today in these episodes to talk about it because and I can talk about myself better than I can talk about you, because you might have done this differently. But I have been pedestaling people, especially in the beginning of my childhood or youth that were like celebrities. I was a big, big Spice Girls fan. I absolutely adored them, and I thought, as a as a young teenager, like how pretty they are, how amazing they are. They just have everything. They have money, they have fame, they have produced something meaningful, or at least something that people devoured. And this, I, you know, and then obviously at some point I grew up, and then I went out to spice girls. It might have might have been one or two other Hollywood celebrities, actor, actresses, other singers. And then later on, when I came to the whole self-help development and industry, that was like 11, 10, 10, 11 years ago, I started to worship obviously all like all these Tony Robbins and all these names that you might be also super familiar with. Everyone who just wrote a book or who has had a YouTube channel or who just produced content that was like super helpful, like super eye-opening, gave me one dopamine hit after the other to try to fix things in my life, to try to take actions on to progress and grow. And I was pedestaling people like crazy. And when we pedestal someone, when you pedestal a person, that's not you, but someone outside of you, you split them into they are all good, they are all super powerful, and we put them above human. And here's the truth: every single human has a shadow. And a shadow are all actions, behaviors, traits of ours, beliefs that we disown. So when so a shadow refers to the part of yourself that you don't want to see. It's it's for example, insecurity, not a part of narcissism, greed, jealousy, you know, hunger for power, manipulation, fragility, and the need to be admired. So the shadow is not a monster, it's just an unintegrated part of you, of me, of a human being. And every single person has a shadow. And when we pedestal someone, you unconsciously split them into obviously, as I said, all good, all wise, all ethical. But when and when we see someone as a l as all light, as all perfect, we psychologically deny that they have a shadow. But denying a shadow doesn't remove the shadow. It removes scrutiny, it removes accountability, it removes reflection, we stop reflecting, we start questioning, we start being critical. And shadow that isn't seen obviously does not disappear. If you deny insecurity within you, or in my case, I often deny the emotion of jealousy, it goes underground. And instead of sitting with the discomfort of being jealous or being yeah, or acknowledging I'm jealous of this person, when I start to deny it and you know repress it, it kind of brews in the background and it steeps out in different ways that I would not be proud of. I, you know, might project on somebody, I might say something hurtful to someone, so all those things. So this is what we talk about. Like, I just wanted to find a little bit what I mean with shadow, because you might be familiar with that term, but maybe also like, okay, what is it again? So I just wanted to bring a little bit of definition into this game. And the reason you pedestal or eye pedestal in the first place is because it reduces uncertainty. If we know that someone knows, I don't have to know. I can just say, okay, they know, they just said something valuable and I can just take that on. And I don't have to know because they already know. It also soothes helplessness in a way. It's if someone powerful is in charge, well, I can then just relax. It also externalizes responsibility because if they are the expert, I don't have to think critically. So pedestals are psychological comfort mechanisms that we have and create. And we we take them on because it helps us to make sense of the world, it may help us to make sense of human behavior, it may also help us to make sense of who we are. And I'm not to say that experts and spiritual gurus are not good, it's just that I think in the past we all have been more blind to that those experts are actually human beings that have shadows. And when these pedestals shatter, then it hurts. So, you know, like now in the Epstein Files, Deepak Chopra is implicated, or this Dr. Atia, I don't know his first name, I forgot. I was just I I knew his name, I maybe have read uh one or two posts of his somewhere on Instagram in the past, Peter Etia. So, you know, it's it's crazy to to see how and then it's not crazy at the same time because to me it just as crazy as it was that they were implicated, it just shows that yeah, the the pedestaling, the this outsourcing uh knowledge and wisdom, and thinking that they are all right and they have no evil in them, they have no you know, shadow, I think that is also the danger in this whole game. And I think this uh veil got lifted. And to me, I honestly it has been so healing, and it has been healing to me because latest now with the Epson files and seeing the names in there, I'm like, you know what? I am done pedestaling any, any, anyone, be it a friend or be it someone in the media or I don't know, a spiritual coach or teacher. I am so done with this, and not done in a way of like I am now, you know, upset. Obviously, I am upset about this humanless information that is in these files and that's going on in the world. But I'm saying this in a way of like it's been healing because I know now that there is no one outside of me who knows it better. They are just marketing things better, they might be entrepreneurial, more savvy, they have maybe greater teams that they pay a lot of money to, you know, be the expert out there who go on all these podcasts, who produce all this content, who write all those books. So no one out there has it all together. No one out there has perfect thoughts, no one out there is just good. So many people out there are actually scammers in a way, and there are names in this world that I am so deeply suspicious of. I name two names to be a bit more specific here. For example, Che Shady. I am super suspicious of his picture perfect facade of this former monk turns self-help help spiritual guru who now owns a huge house in Los Angeles, which, you know, fine, he definitely worked hard. If he earns it or not, that money I don't mind. Everyone's, you know, everyone should do what they should do. But what I mean is what they say and how they are privately are not the same things. So, you know, I mean, you know, when people see fame, power, and money, that changes them in a way. It emphasizes things in them, and obviously not just the good things, also something that's lurking in the shadow. And I've been always very suspicious of exactly him. He's a great talker, he's a great podcaster. I, you know, he has obviously gained so much fame in the past 10 years, and his quotes are so quote worthy, right? But I was like, there was always a part in me where like I don't I don't trust, I don't get it, but I never had really evidence for this, and I still don't have. But and another name, to be specific, who I actually dislike from the bottom of my heart is Mel Robbins. I just don't like her, I cannot listen to her. I I'm so suspicious of also her story of like from rags to riches. So also one thing that I stopped pedestaling are people who jumped from poverty to absolute fame money. Not that I'm saying that does not exist, it obviously exists, but not in the way how they framed it, of like, oh, they made that themselves or they hit rock bottom. Like this hero's journey, I, you know, of Joseph Campbell is also something that, you know, is such a marketing tool. So many people use this to, you know, when they start to become famous, they need a story, they need a hero's journey. And you know, when you tell a story to someone, they connect with you deeply, they it makes all it makes sense. And when you, as a child, were listening to a story, were you questioning the hero? Were you self-critical? Were you not thinking, oh my god, they are, you know, they did so well, they conquered the beast, they showed so much resilience and strength in the darkness, and oh my god, I I wanna be like them. You know, and I don't know. When it comes to Mun Robbins, I just I don't believe anything. I just know she's amazing in how to present herself and all this all her books. I've never read one of once a book of her because hers because I I just I just can't with her. But I just wanted to name these two names because I was always like, I don't believe them, and there is obviously no evidence whatsoever about them doing anything wrong, I want to be clear, but it's just my personal opinion, and you know, sometimes you just can't vibe with someone. And yeah, so coming back to this whole thing, so I I was always suspicious, but then obviously, you know, that's just a gut feeling, and then there's so many people out there who have been accused of something, you know, of doing bad things, of doing unethical things, and I feel like sometimes I don't know if it's true or not, but now after all that has unfolded, just this year alone, I'm like, you know what? I don't need to know if they did something wrong or not. It's also not about that person, it's about more about me, where I have been for my entire life thinking that someone knows better, is better, and they don't have that bad, they don't have those bad traits I have, or those parts that I'm repressing. They don't have that, they're just amazing, and I was jealous, I was envious, I was like, I want to be like them, or I wish I would be like them, and that is painful, you know. I mean, I was so used to this kind of thinking and this pattern that I wasn't even questioning this, but then obviously, you know, at some point I was like, is it really like that the experts know it all? And then, you know, you hear one expert saying something and then another expert saying something completely else, and sometimes it's contradictory information. And I was like, okay, you know what? Now, if we're alone this year, I will completely change that. I don't want to glorify someone because if I glorify someone's good, uh something's someone's success, you know what? I'm also glorifying the darkness. Because again, where there is light, there is fucking dark. It light does not exist without dark. And human beings are capable of tremendous good, but of obviously of tremendous evil, and I don't exclude myself. I know how I think, and I know of sometimes how I feel, and I know that there is no no such thing as I I'm just good. I know myself so well, and that was sometimes the problem because I know I I am capable of bad things. I'd be honest with you because I always was like, How can I be sure under circumstance under under certain circumstances that I'm just always perfect? But then obviously. The overemphasizing of your on your on your darkness also doesn't help. It's just a balance. And so people are good, people are evil. And power amplifies both. So if someone is elevated and we don't scrutinize them enough, Shadow has room to expand. And the moment we stop seeing someone as a human with all their weaknesses, we create conditions for harm to happen. And obviously, there is danger in this collective outrage, right? I mean, as much as terrible all the information we have to date, I hope more is to come so that we can really see the whole truth. And then obviously, I put that on a quotation mark because you know what is truth, you know. Also, there's also a part of me that's like everything the media shows us, or like whatever. There's a you know, let's put it this way. They put out parts of the Epstein files that they wanted us to see, and it's not everything. You know, so I'm also like, are we maybe misled or given something to be distracted? And oh, there's noise outside. Oh, okay. It's done. Isn't that just to distract us in a way? So yeah. I am always very mindful of not getting too outraged that I'm getting blind. So, first of all, outrage can wake us up and it woke woke me up, and I hope it woke you up too. I mean, the outrage latest when it came to whole the whole COVID conspiracy and scam scam woke me up big times. But outrage obviously can also hijack our nervous system, it can completely fry us, it can also make us numb to everything else because we see so much evil that we get desensitized, that we get so used to it that we just feel like you know what, I'm just just don't want to bother anymore. It can also create addiction to scandal and also it can, you know, uh replace our thinking, our rational and critical thinking, with just outrage, uh just without with emotions. And the goal here is with this collective outrage, or the goal with being outraged is discernment, but not paranoia, not going down rabbit's holes and being then just pimp pessimistic and feel like the world is ending right now because it isn't. And you know, this should empower you to see things that you haven't seen or believe things that you haven't believed, but it shouldn't destabilize us because that is no good. And in my own life, I have been pedestaling mentors so much. I have like the whole the whole coaching industry that I have been in for many, many years, and I just exit the coaching industry, I think over one and a half years ago, has been full of shadow of people who I believe knew it all, like gave them a lot of money just to realize that they don't know it all at all, and that they are all privy to their own shadow. Or, you know, I've seen so much, let's be more specific here. I have seen coaches coaching people in such a non-compassionate, traumatic way. I've seen my own previous mentor, she has sometimes been condescending, she has been gaslighting, so all everything, I've seen everything. In every room I have seen a lot of those things, and it's been shocking. And back then I thought, okay, yeah, it's just maybe her, you know. And then I've seen another coach doing similar things, and then at some point you cannot unsee those things. At some point, I was like, they are all not that perfect, and of course not, right? And over time I noticed that those either spiritual teachers or coaches who denied and hate and repressed their humanity often would uh would cause the most harm onto others. And you know, now there are very, very, very few people I truly trust. And these are especially the ones who are very authentic, who can admit without any drama that yeah, they get triggered, or that they feel jealous, or that they need help, that they need support. And that is where I start to trust them because there is humility there, they own their vulnerabilities, they don't present themselves in a light that's just amazing, that's all pure, and just curated. No, they are tearing off those band-aides or this kind of you know image that they are just these flawless human beings. And there is no pedestal among these people I trust. They are human beings with as a sensitive nervous system and a history as we all have. And you know, the real gift, the real gold of being shocked, being disappointed, being outraged of the very people that I have trusted that I thought they were it. They were the perfect teachers, was actually that I stopped searching for the perfection in others. And I stopped trying to be perfect myself. And that is the goal. This is also what I want you to take away from this episode today. It's not the darkness, it's not just don't trust anyone else outside of you. It's not that, it's way more nuanced. This is not a black and white thinking here. It's just that I want you to stop trying to be perfect when you see someone else outside of you being, I don't know, eloquent, amazing looking, you know, have all the accolades, have all the certifications, have so like have a big following. You know, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't try to be like them. Be yourself and own your imperfections and your development areas. And this whole process made me so much kinder. It made me so much more open, so much more forgiving towards myself. Because obviously, I forgave everyone who I was disappointed in, who kind of, you know, didn't deliver on what they were promising me. And I forgave them because actually I was wrong. I should not have pedestaled them. And it's not about not shoulding, you know, or hey, I I I shouldn't have done this, should not this and that. It's just about, hey, I've done this for such a long time, and now I can see that pedestaling someone just hurts me more. And I it I became more discerning. I trusted my gut feeling if I disliked someone, if I didn't like if I felt like I don't trust that person, and not needing to have logical facts behind it, not needing evidence for their wrongdoing. And it's not about making someone wrong or like wanting something bad. Just because I said before I don't like Mel Robbins, for example, doesn't mean I I wish her harm or she has done something wrong or evil. Not at all. I'm just that was my personal opinion, and I also want to be more about sharing some personal opinions I have, but now I'm just more discerning, more understanding that this gut feeling is okay to have. And it just teaches me that I have so much inside of me that you know I'm grateful to have, even those things that we call shadow, like my development areas. And I am so grateful of my experience to seeing behind the curtain that the pedestal collapsed, and it helped me heal so much. And also, what I want to share with you is some little bit of some more gold here. Because I realized that the pedestal was never actually about the people that I put on on there, it was more about me. It was about the comfort of believing someone else knows better. Someone else is wiser than me, more evolved, more certain, more put together. Because if they know, I don't have to. If they are powerful, I can relax into their power. If they are the experts, I don't have to trust myself. I don't have to believe in myself. And pedestaling reduces uncertainty, it soothes this helplessness, it reduces the complexity of this world, and it kind of makes that world feel more, let's say, organized. And also, you know, then there is the guru out there, there's the hero out there, there's the expert, and there is the little me, the student, the follower, the one who listens without discernment, without critically thinking. And the moment you put someone above you, you automatically put yourself below them. And that's the subtle split here. Because pedestal looks like admiration, but underneath, what is there underneath? It's most of the time the self-abandonment. It's outsourcing your discernment, it's quieting your intuition. It's actually like the inner voice that we should strengthen that we, you know, that is so important of actually turning up the volume. We are actually decreasing the volume. We are overriding that often small and uncomfortable voice that says, hmm, something doesn't fully land. Somehow, you know, there's something that feels off. And, you know, as I said before, and I've done this all with celebrities, with mentors, with spiritual teachers, with other coaches, with people in rooms I paid a lot of money to be in. I made them bigger so I could actually feel smaller and more addicted to I need to fix myself, I need to get better. And that somehow felt just safer. It felt safer than just putting all risk and all like putting all eggs in my own basket. It felt safer to put all my eggs in someone else's basket. And then when my eggs got shattered, I was like, oh my god, you know. And now it's like, yes, people can be extraordinary, but that doesn't mean I don't have to. That doesn't mean I am not extraordinary to so and I'm not saying here, don't get that wrong into black and white thinking of like don't admire people. I'm not saying don't learn from teachers or read books, listen to podcasts, or respect people who are acclaimed expertise, have exp acclaimed expertise, respect people who have achieved tremendous success. Yet what I'm saying with this podcast episode is admire without worshipping, learn without shrinking, respect without surrendering your own authority, because every human being has light and shadow in themselves, every single one. And when you pretend someone is all light, you're not being loving, you're being naive. You remove scrutiny, accountability, and obviously your own critical thinking. And you know, when you pedestal someone, what you do is you disown the parts in you that are powerful per nature. You see their confidence and you forget about your own confidence. You see someone's success and you dismiss your potential, your success that you have already achieved in your life. And if you see someone else's clarity, you question your own clarity and your own wisdom. And when they fall, it hurts so much because you attached your own unlived power to them. You thought they were what you could never be, but you can't admire something you don't already have a blueprint for insight, for inside yourself. And the reason you recognize someone else's brilliance is because some part of you knows it. The reason you feel activated by someone's courage is because you your your courage is waiting for you. And you know, maybe the collective unraveling we're witnessing here with these Epsin files isn't about the outrage. It's an invitation, an invitation to to grow up psychologically, to stop needing here to stop needing heroes, to stop needing villains, to stop splitting the world into all good and all evil, and to hold the complexity, to just say that yes, I can learn from you, and also no, I will not give you all my brain and all my trust and outsource all my intuition. Yes, I can admire you, and no, I will not place myself beneath you. I think that is such a gold, so much gold in there to say yes, I can admire someone, but I don't place that person above me or beyond me for the opposite, right? It's just about let's just put ourselves all on one pedestal, on one, and not putting someone above or beneath you, underneath you. Okay, so I think that was a lot for today, but I think there was some gold in there that I wanted to share with you, and I hope it was resonating. I am definitely done pretending I needing I needed to be perfect. I stopped denying my shadow. I just wanna, you know, I'm a human being just as you are, and I just wanna, you know, own my flaws and stop that pedestaling. Every time I unconsciously, and like unconsciously, but it's not every time I see myself pedestaling, I'm immediately like removing the person from the pedestal and you know, know now that I am l need a less confident, need less knowledgeable. You know, I have everything inside of me. And yes, of course, there might be someone who knows more, but that knowing more doesn't make me less worthy, doesn't make me less interesting, doesn't make me not be able to sit on the big table. And I hope that what I shared today is landing in a way because I see in my own client work that the pedestaling is super huge, and we are conditioned to do that. We have been trained to outsource knowledge, uh intuition to governments, to institutions, to so-called experts. So yeah, I that's the goal I dug up for today's episode, and I'm definitely keeping this gold and see how my life already, you know, changed to the better by now not having to follow anyone that I feel is better or above me. And I think that is where so much healing for me kicked in that made me more grounded, and I hope the same happened to you or is happening to you or will happen to you. We are all on our own timeline, so also I want to remind you that don't, it's not just about not don't pedestal someone, but also don't compare yourself to someone else's timeline. Always know that what you see someone's chapter 10 while you're on chapter 1. Your timeline is yours and your unique one, and I can just speak now to all the women who are listening. Don't feel like you are too late, you are too old, or the younger generation is just better, or you know, you can just do what you're dreaming of doing. Whatever it is, do it. I have done it myself. I started podcasting now in my 40s, and I feel like this is something I want to do now for a long time, and it gives me a lot of pleasure. And you know, and I also saw a thought at some point, I'm too late in the game, you know. I it would take me ages to build authority or not authority, but more of like being able to speak eloquently and expressing myself, like like bringing everything on point and like speaking with like, oh my god, like the best information, the most valuable information, you know, it's like no. So I want just to leave you with this trust in yourself, don't pedestal anybody outside of you, don't put someone above or be beneath you, and also cherish your timeline and don't ever believe into this misunderstand misunderstanding that you are too late, too old, or too whatever anything. Okay. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for being with me on this journey, and I'll speak to you next week, okay? Bye.