The part of you that is unhampered by illusion-the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility-i s waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness. In some unguarded moment, you will hear its wildly improbable words and know that they are guiding you home.
Martha BeckYou 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.
Martha BeckThe effect of emotional venting is to sustain an unsatisfactory status quo. Most people think the opposite, that complaining is part of an effort to change an unsatisfying situation. Nope. Complaining lets off pressure so that we neither explode with frustration nor feel compelled to take the often risky steps of openly opposing a difficult person or situation. Keeping emotional pressure tolerably low doesn't change problematic circumstances but rather perpetuates them.
Martha BeckI am free, and always have been; free to accept my own reality, free to trust my perceptions, free to believe what makes me feel sane even if others call me crazy, free to disagree even if it means great loss, free to seek the way home until I find it.
Martha BeckThe moment we begin tolerating meanness, in ourselves and others, we are using our authorial power in the service of wrongdoing. We have both the capacity and the obligation to do better.
Martha BeckThe process of spotting fear and refusing to obey it is the source of all true empowerment.
Martha BeckTo 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.
Martha BeckYou will know how to stop suffering as soon as suffering ceases to be valuable. If you are in pain, you are being led.
Martha BeckNo one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.
Martha BeckIf 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.
Martha BeckIf 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.
Martha BeckDon't let your life revolve around whatever you're trying not to do or feel. Live to experience, not to avoid.
Martha BeckYou get social pressure from your parents, who teach you to pay attention to certain things and not to others. You get it in school.
Martha BeckLife 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.
Martha BeckAny moment you spend attacking yourself is a moment away from your higher purpose and your power to love. Don't go there.
Martha BeckGiven the eclectic and constantly shifting nature of my metaphysical inclinations, I will probably never feel certain exactly what an angel is.
Martha BeckThe 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.
Martha BeckDon't expect the future to look like the past. Clear away expectations, and let yourself picture a wild, grand new world.
Martha BeckPolite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.
Martha BeckThe only map of your right life is written on your soul at its most peaceful, and the only sure compass is your heart at its most open.
Martha BeckEvery instance of heartbreak can teach us powerful lessons about creating the kind of love we really want.
Martha BeckUse anything you can think of to understand and be understood, and you'll discover the creativity that connects you with others.
Martha BeckIf you ask people, as I often do, how they make decisions, 'lucky' people will talk about tuning in to information and instincts, while 'unlucky' people often mention pushing away the uncomfortable feeling they were headed for trouble.
Martha BeckExternal circumstances do not create feeling states. Feeling states create external circumstances.
Martha BeckBad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.
Martha BeckMost unhappy people need to learn just one lesson: how to see themselves through the lens of genuine compassion, and treat themselves accordingly.
Martha BeckRemember, intimacy increases with honesty. Share less to keep people away and more to draw them closer.
Martha BeckIt isn’t necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse…Begin making choices based on what makes you feel freer and happier, rather than on how you think an ideal life should look. It’s the process of feeling our way toward happiness, not the realization of the Platonic ideal, that creates our best lives.
Martha BeckRecurrent floods of sadness and anger gradually wash away the rubble of the defunct relationship, leaving only the bits of treasure: the remembered moments of real communion, a new understanding of your own mistakes, a clear picture of the dysfunctions you will never tolerate again.
Martha BeckConstantly measuring ourselves against others sours and shortens our lives, robbing us of the very things we think it will bring: prosperity, love, inner peace, the knowledge that we’re good enough.
Martha BeckAs much horror as we have always created, we are a species that keeps moving forward, seeing new sights in new ways, and enjoying the journey.
Martha BeckIf you'd rather live surrounded by pristine objects than by the traces of happy memories, stay focused on tangible things. Otherwise, stop fixating on stuff you can touch and start caring about stuff that touches you.
Martha BeckThe position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.
Martha BeckAny transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis.
Martha Beck