Martha Beck Quotes

Bracketing has turned all my experiences, remembered and present, into a gallery of miracles where I wander around dazzled by the beauty of events I cannot explain.

If your life is cloudy and you're far, far off course, you may have to go on faith for a while, but eventually you'll learn that every time you trust your internal navigation system, you end up closer to your right life.

There are things that can only happen through you when you are still. Silence is often the most important work you can do.

One reason most people never stop thinking is that mental frenzy keeps us from having to see the upsetting aspects of our lives. If I'm constantly brooding about my children or career, I won't notice that I'm lonely. If I grapple continuously with logistical problems, I can avoid contemplating little issues like, say, my own mortality.

Having fun is not a diversion from a successful life; it is the pathway to it.

To care for someone can mean to adore them, feed them, tend their wounds. But care can also signify sorrow, as in 'bowed down by cares.' Or anxiety, as in 'Careful!' Or investment in an outcome, as in 'Who cares?' The word love has no such range of meaning: It's pure acceptance.

Imagine the choices you'd make if you had no fear-of falling, of losing, of being alone, of disapproval.

Judgments that constrain your giving are the very demons that are keeping you from receiving.

The pretty girls get all the good stuff. Oh, God. So not true. I unlearned this after years of coaching beautiful clients. Yes, these lovelies get preferential treatment in most life scenarios, but there's a catch: While everyone's looking at them, virtually no one sees them.

The way we can allow ourselves to do what we need to, no matter what others may say or do, is to choose love and defy fear.

I was learning to track rhinoceroses in Africa and tracked right up on an animal that really I thought was going to kill me.

Instead of hiding your loneliness, bring it into the light. Honor it. Treat it. Heal it. You'll find that it returns the favor.

Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don't match our own beliefs about how we should look.

When your entire brain is active, that means you are taking everything in through all sense perception. Your entire memory bank and your instincts are in play, so you make much quicker and more intelligent choices.

Remember that it's okay to ask for help when you're stumped, because sometimes you really can't be expected to handle everything alone.

I have discovered that many of the things I thought were priceless are as cheap as costume jewelry, and much of what I labeled worthless was, all the time, filled with the kind of beauty that directly nourishes my soul ... Now I think that the vast majority of us "normal" people spend our lives trashing our treasures and treasuring our trash. We bustle around trying to create the impression that we are hip, imperturbable, omniscient, in perfect control, when in fact we are awkward and scared and bewildered.

Almost all my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me, feel about 25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.

What happens when we're willing to feel bad is that, sure enough, we often feel bad - but without the stress of futile avoidance. Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined.

Denial exists because human infants, though equipped with trust-o-meters, are built to trust, blindly and absolutely, any older person who wanders past.

My dog has the intellectual capacity of a lime wedge, yet even he possesses an elaborate set of assumptions, based on his ability to control my behavior through a combination of slavish devotion and incessant howling.

Expectation loiters in the DNA of every sentient being; when you tell yourself or a loved one, 'Don't get your hopes up,' you're fighting ancient genetic programming.

The important thing is to tell yourself a life story in which you, the hero, are primarily a problem solver rather than a helpless victim. This is well within your power, whatever fate might have dealt you.

Don't hide love. If you feel it, express it-not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly. The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person but failure to act on the love you feel.

My story is a love story, but only those who are tortured by love can understand what I mean.

My deep belief is that all of us have the same lifelong work: to learn honesty, courage, and love. To learn, in other words, how to be our best selves.

All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That's why Jesus tried to tell his followers not to get attached to outward form.

Though we often see life troughs as the universe's conspiracy to ruin us, they're actually our own true nature inviting us to lay down our weary heads.

Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.

Fact: From quitting smoking to skiing, we succeed to the degree we try, fail, and learn. Studies show that people who worry about mistakes shut down, but those who are relaxed about doing badly soon learn to do well. Success is built on failure.

Since our society equates happiness with youth, we often assume that sorrow, quiet desperation, and hopelessness go hand in hand with getting older. They don't. Emotional pain or numbness are symptoms of living the wrong life, not a long life.

Play until it's time to rest, then rest until it's time to play.

If you're living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.

The way we do anything is the way we do everything.

In the moments I get it right, every step I take seems to be matched by a universal mystery, which obligingly, incredibly, creates what I can't.

There are several ways to mess up your life by fighting to make your calendar age match your felt age. I live in the Southwest, a part of the country with more than its share of fair skies, material wealth, and people who are trying not to be as old as they are.

Your life follows your attention. Wherever you look, you end up going.

Learning to spot narcissists and deal with their destructive behavior can save you the world of hurt that awaits anyone who mistakes the near enemy for a friend.

When you meet people, show real appreciation, then genuine curiosity.

Many people think passion is a fuzzy feeling that makes taking action effortless. In fact, it's the gritty courage and tenacity to forge onward ...

Creating ways to be happy is your life's work, a challenge that won't end until you die.

Imagination is the doorway you walk through into every future
moment. Are you walking through doorways to pain or to joy?

Don't worry that you've wasted time. Each moment
no matter how frozen or confused
was a useful and necessary lesson.

Trying to motivate yourself with fear is like screaming
at a child, "Do something, dammit!" You'll either
freeze up or act in counterproducti ve ways. Fear
widens the knowing-doing gap. Don't use it.

The knowledge of your destiny is available to you, well before
it actually happens, as a message streaming continuously from
your heart to your brain, written in the language of longing.

I explain to everyone I deal with-co-workers, children, friends-that I'm transitionally challenged and they should call me on my cell phone if I'm even a few minutes late. Such calls often come in when I'm happily writing or rearranging the furniture. The monochrones in my life are so organized, they have no trouble remembering to remind me to show up.

A lot of my clients say they don't deserve to mope about their sad little memories while children are starving in India. I say that just because your broken arm isn't as serious as someone else's gut wound, that doesn't mean your injury isn't excruciating or doesn't require attention. If you want to help the Indian children, or make the world a better place in any other way, you have to start by becoming whole yourself.

Self-pity, a dominant characteristic of sociopaths, is also the characteristic that differentiates heroic storytelling from psychological rumination. When you talk about your experiences to shed light, you may feel wrenching pain, grief, anger, or shame. Your audience may pity you, but not because you want them to.

If we're stuck with having expectations, there's a very good reason to embrace positive ones: It's that we often create what we anticipate.

All mental hygiene is based on the core practice of doing nothing. Most of us are good at wasting time, staring at the wall while telling ourselves we should be working. We call this doing nothing, but our brains are furiously active. We think constantly, and our thinking is often rife with distress.

External circumstances do not create feeling states. Feeling states create external circumstances.

In one century, we've added 28 years to our average life span - a change so rapid that our brains couldn't possibly have evolved to accommodate it.

I had a client who was a professional baseball player once, and he would go to clubs and dance for seven, eight, nine hours at a time. He wouldn't drink, he wouldn't take drugs - he just danced because he had so much physical energy; he was this amazing athlete.

Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill - and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities.

People don't cry when they lose their hope. They cry when they get it back.

You do not owe anyone your time. When you realize that, others will respect your time much more.

If you want to end your isolation, you must be honest about what you want at a core level and decide to go after it.

You will know how to stop suffering as soon as suffering ceases to be valuable. If you are in pain, you are being led.

Forcing yourself to think happy lies doesn't heal your dreams. Getting to the truth does.

If a problem looks difficult, relax. If it looks impossible, relax even more. Then begin encouraging small changes, putting just enough pressure on yourself to move one turtle step forward. Then rest, savor, celebrate. Then step again. You'll find that slow is fast, gentle is powerful, and stillness moves mountains.

Seek art from every time and place, in any form, to connect with those who really move you.

The past doesn't exist except as a memory, a mental story, and though past events aren't changeable, your stories about them are. You can act now to transform the way you tell the story of your past, ultimately making it a stalwart protector of your future.

The holy days are the best times to focus on real enthusiasm, the inner source that lightens and sanctifies our lives all year.

Most of our stress and suffering come not from events, but from our thoughts. Reframe from negative thoughts, and stress subsides.

To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you.

Realizing that we've surrendered our self-esteem to others and choosing to be accountable for our own self-worth would mean absorbing the terrifying fact that we're always vulnerable to pain and loss.

Trust in your truth. It will be the best decision you ever make.

I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.

Most unhappy people need to learn just one lesson: how to see themselves through the lens of genuine compassion, and treat themselves accordingly.

Welcoming imperfection is the way to accomplish what perfectionism promises but never delivers. It gives us our best performance and genuine acceptance in the family of human
and by that I mean imperfect
beings.

Not having time or energy for weight loss makes no sense. Does it take more time or energy to eat fish than prime rib? No.

If you think there is no action that you can perform
in your current circumstances that will increase the
supply of love in the world, you are believing a lie.
At the very least, you always have the option to offer
yourself kindness and understanding. That alone
can increase the supply of love in the world.

You are lovable. Can you show me any baby in any nursery who isn't priceless? No. There's no such thing as a worthless newborn. And the essential value that was born into brand-new-baby you can never be extinguished. This means that even if you think you're being absolutely honest, believing yourself to be anything other than astonishing, incomparable, and infinitely precious makes you a habitual liar.

I practice staying calm all the time, beginning with situations that aren't tense.

Ten bajillion product ads notwithstanding, your looks are another thing that's basically genetic.

Good fortune has side effects.

We virtually never feel our age, but thinking that we should can lead to disaster.

Question every thought that causes suffering and test it against your own sense of truth.

Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories, and after an evening of smacking one another, we'd sit and have a beer while the students swapped tales of martial arts disaster.

It takes about four days of virtuous living to create a little weight loss. That also happens to be the time required to get used to eating less. In other words, if you can get past day three of a fitness regimen, things improve.

If you're totally sedentary and eat 2,500 calories a day, don't instantly go to 1,200 calories and hours of aerobics - your weight loss will be sudden and violent, but also fleeting.

Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.

My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.

Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.

There's a Chinese word that means "soul sister," and that is the word I would use to address you in my heart. Listen to me, soul sister: Fate or luck or destiny already put you through hell once. Please don't make it worse by condemning yourself. There is no choice that would have left you feeling no guilt. Every time I watch Adam struggle to speak, every time I see another child laugh and point at him, every time I watch his face fall as he realizes he is not going to be treated like the other kids, I feel wrenched by guilt just as you did when you heard my story. Life is hard. We make the best choices we can. Condemnation, whether it comes from around you or inside you, only robs the world of another dram of compassion. God knows, we need all the compassion we can get. If you promise to try to forgive yourself, I'll try to forgive myself as well. I think, in my heart of hearts, that there is nothing for either one of us to forgive.

To complete your daily mental hygiene, observe any part of you that is upset or anxious, and offer that part of yourself the following simple wishes: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' Repeat this until you actually mean it.

If you're a bit spongy, vulnerable to the unsettling energy of others, count yourself lucky. You've been given an incentive to armor up, to consciously screen out the ubiquitous stresses that afflict humanity.

Ten years ago, I still feared loss enough to abandon myself in order to keep things stable. I'd smile when I was sad, pretend to like people who appalled me. What I now know is that losses aren't cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing.

Sacred play is anything that takes you into that right hemisphere of your brain. It turns out that this move away from left to the right hemisphere, that sense of expansiveness and everything, can be accomplished through unusual rhythmic action, or any action that requires so much attention away from words that you cannot think in words.

Only since the Industrial Revolution have most people worked in places away from their homes or been left to raise small children without the help of multiple adults, making for an unsupported life.

Our ideas about love and attractiveness are so primal, our need for belonging so intense, that most of us are loath to abandon our favorite beliefs on these issues. If you've ever let yourself feel lovable and lovely, only to be deeply hurt, you may see accepting your own body as a setup for severe emotional wounding.

If you're religious, it gives you a perspective.

The idea is to identify a destructive thought pattern, then simply label it and watch it and let it pass by whenever it appears in your mind.

If you feel stuck in your present life, if you feel no enthusiasm for anything, if you think you have no purpose or that you lost that purpose somewhere along the way, I guarantee you are living in a dungeon made of stories. And that none of those limiting stories are true.

Don't fight fearful thoughts. Just match each one with an alternative thought that brings you more peace.

In the developed world, hundreds of millions of us now face the bizarre problem of surfeit. Yet our brains, instincts, and socialized behavior are still geared to an environment of lack. The result? Overwhelm - on an unprecedented scale.

Don't let your life revolve around whatever you're trying not to do or feel. Live to experience, not to avoid.

Getting bogged down in old stories stops the flow of learning by censoring our perceptions, making us functionally deaf and blind to new information. Once the replay button gets pushed, we no longer form new ideas or conclusions - the old ones are so cozy.

Our culture has created two almost irreconcilable descriptions of a 'good woman.' The first is the individual achiever; the second, the self-sacrificing domestic goddess.

Whether you've seen angels floating around your bedroom or just found a ray of hope at a lonely moment, choosing to believe that something unseen is caring for you can be a life-shifting exercise.

There's tons of magic in the world, and it's all science.