Martha Beck Quotes

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.

Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.

Connecting with the people who are meant to be part of your own North Star is much more important than any aspect of business. It's the essence of happiness, the full realization of your potential for joy.

Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive... The pain leaves you healthier than it found you.

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.

You're exactly where you're meant to be, meandering along a crooked path.

Heading towards that inner home will take you places-both inside yourself and in the external world-which your heart will recognize as its native environment, even though you have never been there before.

If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

At times in my life, I have been utterly lonely. At other times, I've had disgusting infectious diseases. Try admitting these things in our culture.

I want you to notice is that-right here, right now-you’re okay. You may be in pain, you may be in fear, you may be in grief. But you’re here, you’re surviving; this moment is okay.

A confession you make merely to illuminate the murky corners of your little life may end up lighting the path to freedom for a thousand other hearts.

I once read that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past...but forgiving is not the same as obliterating memory.

Many of us assume that we have to do things a certain way: ignore passion in favor of safer bets, act stoic amid inner turmoil, run on an upward trajectory of success and money acquisition at any emotional cost. But these are not rules.

If you find yourself getting nervous stop and relax for three full breaths. Then take one small step, then another. That is how people get to the top of Everest.

To make an activity joyful, keep adding things until the activity as a whole becomes more appealing than repulsing.

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.

No part of your experience is wasted. Everything you've experienced so far is part of what you were meant to learn.

Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we’re not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail, and sometimes when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.

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

True freedom starts with absolute honesty. The moment you call a problem by its real name, you’re already learning how to make it less harmful.

The end goal of all of this striving is to live joyfully, and that there are often more direct ways of achieving this than conforming to rigid standards set by social custom.

Slow is fast, gentle is powerful and stillness moves mountains

Every day brings new choices.

To live a life that is wrong for you is a form of dying. There are people who have lives that look perfect. They try to be happy, they believe they should be happy, they are trying to like it, but if it's off course from their north star, they aren't satisfied.

I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.

Adults under threat feel like children.

I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.

People who get what they want tend to be the ones who make the effort to know what they want.

Your body is free but your heart is in prison. To release your heart, you simply reverse the process which locked it up. First you begin to listen for messages from your heart-messages you may have been ignoring since childhood. Next you must take the daring, risky step of expressing your heart in the outside world. . . . As you learn to live by heart, every choice you make will become another way of telling your story. . . . It is the way you were meant to exist. If you stop to listen, you'll realize that your heart has been telling you so all along.

Your individuality is the most valuable thing you have.

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

I don't believe that there are no spiritual beings around us. I don't know what to call them, I don't know how they work. But I know they're there

If you did nothing but pursue the truth about yourself for the rest of your life, you would never run out of fresh discoveries.

Anyone who comes into your life, under any circumstances, has something to teach you.

When you are in a creative or appreciative zone, you literally have no access to your inner lizard, to that fear-based, non creative, shrieking little beasty who's so afraid you're going to be a bag lady.

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.

A joyful life isn’t about others; it’s about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that replaces thinking with pure flight, pure joy.

When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.

Learning to quit while you're not ahead, when the dull ooze of depression tells you things are not going to get any better, is one of the best financial and life skills you can master.

Most of my clients don't realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.

What laughter is to childhood, sex is to adolescence.

The repercussions of one person living in stubborn gladness are incalculable.

Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

Instead of fretting about getting everything done, why not simply accept that being alive means having things to do? Then drop into full engagement with whatever you're doing, and let the worry go.

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

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

The shortness of life, which we all discuss, but which is very clear to me at the moment, makes keeping and spreading a joyful peace more crucial than ever before. Let us keep our minds on what matters, which is our work, which is astonishment and gratitude. From this quiet magic comes a power for all other new years wishes to come true.

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