Martha Beck's Quotes

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

Tiny steps will get you to your goal months and months sooner. A little is better than a lot.

To know what that true self is without social pressure is to know your true nature.

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

We evolved to move and to learn with all our five senses!

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

What laughter is to childhood, sex is to adolescence.

You get social pressure from your parents, who teach you to pay attention to certain things and not to others. You get it in school.

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.

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

Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.

You have the freedom to live and let live, to love and let love. Granting yourself that freedom is one of the healthiest, most constructive things you can do for yourself and the people who matter to you.

Anything you're trying to will is focused on the future; it's always associated with some sort of anxiety that makes the present moment somewhat uncomfortable.

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.

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.

My own nature hovers between neurotic and paranoid. I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.

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.

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.

Sometimes a psychic tells you something and it feels wrong and others may be right on the money. It's your choice about whom to trust, and giving that trust is something we do ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.

Although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, the feeling of being beautiful exists solely in the mind of the beheld.

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

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.

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.

Caring for your inner child has a powerful and surprisingly quick result: Do it and the child heals.

As 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.

Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.

Every day brings new choices.

The average adult laughs 15 times a day; the average child, more than 400 times.

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

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

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.

I really do think that any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.

Rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting, period. Never do anything else.

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.

Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury.

Allowing children to show their guilt, show their grief, show their anger, takes the sting out of the situation.

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.

People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.

Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.

As soon as you think you know someone else's truth better than they do, you are in deep water.

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.

In fact, when care appears, unconditional love often vanishes.