64 Martha Beck Quotes for You to Enjoy

Martha Beck

American Author

Born: Nov 29, 1962

Life Love People Think You Your

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

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. Martha Beck

Happiness Life Youth Getting Older Desperation Long Pain Older Living Society Assume Symptoms Our Hopelessness Long Life Emotional Wrong Since Sorrow Go Hand Hand-In-Hand Quiet Getting Often

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. Martha Beck

Life You Change Trust Try Mind Focus Tough Understanding Sense Nothing Worst Easy Rising Tough Decisions Feel New Makes New Level Ambivalence Personal Just Again Decisions Them Really Your Full Eventually Level

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. Martha Beck

Sad Smile Myself Me Soul Heart Healing Natural People Enough Abandon Pretend Feared Ten Ten Years Ten Years Ago Cataclysmic Like Know Still Years Loss Years Ago Losses Heart And Soul Stable Order Breaking Cycle Teach Appalled Who Keep Now Things

If 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 Beck

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. Martha Beck

Daily You Be Happy Happy Suffering Yourself Simple Free Complete Following Mental Hygiene Part Observe Wishes Until Well Repeat Offer Anxious Any May Upset Mean Your Actually

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. Martha Beck

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

Loneliness Proof Intact Your Connection Search Innate

The process of spotting fear and refusing to obey it is the source of all true empowerment. Martha Beck

Obey Fear True Empowerment Source Refusing Process

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth. Martha Beck

Truth Good Soul Matter Nothing Difficult How Sounds May Painful

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. Martha Beck

Crazy Failure Beer Strange Compassion Mind Sit Humility Everyone Our Martial Martial Arts Students Had Failures Disaster Tales Cheerfully Learned Another Tradition Off Up Arts Stories After Loved While Turns Karate Evening

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. Martha Beck

Learning Old Down Our Once Perceptions Pushed Longer New Ideas Blind Deaf Conclusions Making New Ideas New Information Replay Cozy Gets Getting Stops Form Stories Information Us Old Ones Bogged Button Flow

The thing I love most about my job is watching people age backward, becoming more lively and energetic as they free themselves from situations that are toxic to their essential selves. Martha Beck

Love Age People Job Free Backward About More Most Toxic Becoming Selves Essential Situations Energetic Themselves Lively Thing Watching

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. Martha Beck

Stress Enough Wave Waves Futile Willing Bad Rises Emotional Never Feel Sure Parts Accepted Without Discomfort Falls Often Happens Us Avoidance Series Each Away Treasures Imagined

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. Martha Beck

Time Good Practice Nothing Active Think Thinking Our Ourselves Telling Distress Constantly Mental Hygiene Most Call Doing Brains Wall Often While Us Should Working Rife Based Staring Wasting Wasting Time Core

As I obsess about my ancient problems, I feel more like I'm sinking in quicksand than lighting a torch. I'm creating neither heat nor light, just the icky, perversely pleasurable squish of self-pity between my toes. My only defense is that I'm not the only one down here in the muck - our whole culture is doting on tales of personal tragedy. Martha Beck

Culture Light Problems Sinking Down Defense Our Pleasurable Ancient Torch Neither About More Only Obsess Feel Lighting Between Like Tales Self-Pity Nor Tragedy Quicksand Than Personal Heat Just Creating Toes Whole Here

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. Martha Beck

I feel about aging the way William Saroyan said he felt about death: Everybody has to do it, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Martha Beck

Death Made Everybody Way William Would Would-Be About Case Exception He Feel Felt Said Always Aging Believed

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. Martha Beck

People Problems Lonely Own Thinking Our Our Lives Say Brooding Constantly Logistical See About Mental My Own Having Never Mortality Never Stop Contemplating Like Most Frenzy Issues Continuously Stop Children Upsetting Little Us Notice Aspects Avoid Reason Lives Keeps Career

Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury. If everyday experience hasn't convinced you of this, there's research that will. Martha Beck

Once we're willing to confront our emotional suffering, we begin making choices based on attraction instead of aversion, love instead of fear. Where we used to think about what was 'safe,' we now become interested in doing what seems right or fun or meaningful or ripe with possibilities. Martha Beck

Love Suffering Fear Become Think Our Once Possibilities Willing Ripe About Seems Emotional Instead Safe Attraction Making Doing Begin Where Interested Confront Meaningful Choices Aversion Used Fun Now Based Right

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