Martha Beck Quotations | Page 3

Stop fixating on stuff you can touch and start caring about stuff that touches you.

The 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.

Breathe in, breathe out, no fear, no doubt.

You will know how to stop suffering as soon as suffering ceases to be valuable. If you are in pain, you are being led.

I 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.

Whenever you go somewhere that speaks to your soul, you are going home to yourself.

Fear is the raw material from which courage is manufactured. Without it, we wouldn't even know what it means to be brave.

There has never been, and never will be, anyone who sees, thinks, or responds exactly the way you do. Whether you’re revolutionizing physics or making a quilt, you must display your differences to make a difference.

Most unhappy people need to learn just one lesson: how to see themselves through the lens of genuine compassion, and treat themselves accordingly.

Feel about yourself what you would have others feel about themselves.

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

Every aspect of your life, whether it's a task or relationship, personal or professional, will be based on love and joy. And when you get right down to it, nothing else really matters.

Imagination is the doorway you walk through into every future moment. Are you walking through doorways to pain or to joy?

You will never realize your best destiny through the avoidance of fear. Rather, you will realize it through the exercise of courage, which means taking whatever action is most liberating to the soul, even when you are afraid.

I’ll tell you what it’s time to do right now. It’s time to set your schedule in order so that you don’t look back on the day of your death and wonder why you never really lived. It’s time to ignore the opinions of those who think your life should be all about their cause, their rules, their agenda, and not your soul’s desire. It’s time to stop flagellating and start dancing.

The holy days are the best times to focus on real enthusiasm, the inner source that lightens and sanctifies our lives all year.

No one can give you anything-love, shame, self-esteem- until you give it to yourself. Today, give yourself good things.

It seems to me at this moment that laughing is a serious thing, that it connects us with truth and love and God.

You do not owe anyone your time. When you realize that, others will respect your time much more.

Having fun is not a diversion from a successful life; it is the pathway to it.

Constantly 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.

The difference between success and failure isn't the absence of fear but the determination to pursue your heart's desires no matter how scared you are.

Criticism is an alluring substitute for creation, because tearing things down, unlike building them up, really is as easy as falling off a stump. It's blissfully simple to strike a savvy, sophisticated pose by attacking someone else's creations, but the old adage is right: Any fool can burn down a barn. Building one is something else again.

There are things that can only happen through you when you are still. Silence is often the most important work you can do.

Play until it's time to rest, then rest until it's time to play.

What would you do if you knew that every good thing in your life depended on your getting enough rest? Because it does.

The only way to the Place beyond Fear is to do the thing you fear most. This is how to surrender to your best destiny.

My anguish came from my hypothesis that other people's hypothetical hypotheses about me mattered. Ridiculous!

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.

Judgments that constrain your giving are the very demons that are keeping you from receiving.

A lot of my clients say they don't deserve to mope about their sad little memories while children are starving in India. I say that just because your broken arm isn't as serious as someone else's gut wound, that doesn't mean your injury isn't excruciating or doesn't require attention. If you want to help the Indian children, or make the world a better place in any other way, you have to start by becoming whole yourself.

Bad habits fill needs, so find good alternatives for them.

Many people think passion is a fuzzy feeling that makes taking action effortless. In fact, it's the gritty courage and tenacity to forge onward...

Be brave enough to turn away from shiny objects, and toward the light that makes them shine.

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

Slow is fast, gentle is powerful and stillness moves mountains

The more you claim your own destiny, the easier it will be to love unconditionally .

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

When you do the thing you fear, the thing loses its power to scare.

Good fortune has side effects.

Make a plan to change the world. For one night, don't disbelieve that you can.

What should you do now? Find a new way. A better way. Your way. The unknown, uncharted path through this wild new world that allows you---yourself, in your uniqueness--to reclaim the full measure of your true nature.

The knowledge of your destiny is available to you, well before it actually happens, as a message streaming continuously from your heart to your brain, written in the language of longing.

Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period.

This very moment of your life, if you experience it fully, will show you astonishing wonders and exquisite delights.

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.

It's only by starting in a place of peace that we find our purpose and power.

To 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.

There's tons of magic in the world, and it's all science.

Humans only really learn from each other by storytelling. We didn't evolve to memorize things. We evolved to hear each other's stories and feel them in our heart. Your life is the most powerful story you can tell.

Explorers depend on the North Star when there are no other landmarks in sight. The same relationship exists between you and your right life, the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness. I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot.

Make stuff up. Anyone who ever did something new or interesting was making it up as they went along.

Stop trying to change your behavior; instead, rethink your beliefs

You 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.

Your first daily priority should be stillness, attention to what you really know and what you really feel.

Dawn Kotzer is the kind of coach who can see beauty and wisdom in circumstances that seem ugly and chaotic. She's kind, genuine and honest, willing and able to see where her clients get stuck and gently help them recover their freedom. Better than a coach who gives you the answers, Dawn will help you find the answers to your life's dilemmas that are already within you.

When we run from our feelings, they follow us. Everywhere.

Somewhere in there, among the worries, questions, advice and advertising jingles, lives your intuition, your true 'inner voice.' You can hear it to the extent that you give it your attention.

Most people think that once they've found their purpose and the power to practice it, they'll finally be at peace. Actually, though, it's only by starting in a place of peace that we find our purpose and power. Peace is the first step and the final lesson we all need to learn.

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.

I now believe that bêtes noires usually attack because we're thwarting our own destinies. Calming the beast turns us toward our best lives.

If you begin to face your fears, something bittersweet is going to happen to you: You'll grow up.

You can't stay well without telling--and living--the truth.

If you're a bit spongy, vulnerable to the unsettling energy of others, count yourself lucky. You've been given an incentive to armor up, to consciously screen out the ubiquitous stresses that afflict humanity.

The heart is a tender but hardy organ. Daring to have a wonderful experience, even though you may get hurt, is the only way you'll realize its deepest desires.

This is the part of us that makes our brief, improbable little lives worth living: the ability to reach through our own isolation and find strength, and comfort, and warmth for and in each other. This is what human beings do. This is what we live for, the way horses live to run.

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

Remember, intimacy increases with honesty. Share less to keep people away and more to draw them closer.

Though we often see life troughs as the universe's conspiracy to ruin us, they're actually our own true nature inviting us to lay down our weary heads.

We are a time-starved people, obsessed with fitting huge achievements into our few years. In the process, we often fill our buckets with things that don't matter or work. But when we give up on trying to change what can't be changed, and simply embrace what we love, a miracle occurs. We notice that the moment to be happy has already arrived. It's here, now.

Do whatever work feeds your true self, even if it’s not a safe bet, even if it’s like a crazy risk, even if everyone in your life tells you you’re wrong or bad or crazy.

If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing it badly.

Perpetually doing, without ever tuning in to the center of our being, is the equivalent of fueling a mighty ship by tossing all its navigational equipment into the furnace.

To follow your life's guidance, you may have to reassign some seemingly important things to 'unimportant.' If you believe that pleasing your horrible boss or having a spotless house is a higher priority than playing with your children or sleeping off the flu, be prepared for a long and strenuous battle against destiny. Also, be prepared to lose.

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

Any 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.

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.

If you're miserable, make a choice. If you're still miserable, you can choose again.

The 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.

Do something today that you think is too delicious, too selfish, too wacky to fit within the rules of your life.

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.

The way that other people judge me is none of my business.

Any moment you spend attacking yourself is a moment away from your higher purpose and your power to love. Don't go there.

Don’t hide love. If you feel it, express it-not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly. The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person but failure to act on the love you feel.

Just one mental shift-focusing on the abundance of your environment-switches your psychological settings so that your life automatically improves in many areas you may think are unrelated. This is essentially a leap from fear to faith.

Imagine the choices you'd make if you had no fear-of falling, of losing, of being alone, of disapproval.

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.

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.

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.

You shine for who you are ... because no one can steal your light.

Every day brings new choices.

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

A true leader is not someone who feels fully informed but someone who continuously receives insight and guidance.

It 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.

Your life is not little, and your playing small doesn’t serve the world. Your living large, on the other hand-your being your true self despite fear, fatigue, doubt, and opposition- will serve the world more than you can imagine. In fact, it may help save it. And saving the world, after all, is what all heroes (including you) are here to do.

If a problem looks difficult, relax. If it looks impossible, relax even more. Then begin encouraging small changes, putting just enough pressure on yourself to move one turtle step forward. Then rest, savor, celebrate. Then step again. You’ll find that slow is fast, gentle is powerful, and stillness moves mountains.

Don't expect the future to look like the past. Clear away expectations, and let yourself picture a wild, grand new world.

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.

If 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.

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.