Martha Beck Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Focusing on one mildly disturbing, semi-controllable issue allows the mind to stuff much greater terrors in relatively tidy packages.
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If I tell a man he needs to quit his soul-sucking job, he has to go home and fight with his wife or fight with his parents and fight with his in-laws and fight with everybody, because men aren't supposed to be happy; they're supposed to do well.
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Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'd like to help repair the earth's ecosystems, and to fully live until I'm fully dead.
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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.
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As a life coach, I love makeovers, from new clothes to surgery, pedicures to highlights. But redoing makes you feel better only if approached with the right attitude.
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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.
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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.
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The process of spotting fear and refusing to obey it is the source of all true empowerment.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Whatever terrible things may have happened to you, only one thing allows them to damage your core self, and that is continued belief in them.
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Every worldview I chose, it seemed, edged me toward belief.
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Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.
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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.