Quotes by Martha Beck With Free Shareable Pictures

A joyful life isn't about others; it's about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that replaces thinking with pure flight, pure joy.

The way out of fear isn't safety. It's freedom.

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

When you're weary, find relief. When you're strong, find delight.

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.

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

A confession you make merely to illuminate the murky corners of your little life may end up lighting the path to freedom for a thousand other hearts.

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.

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

Trying to motivate yourself with fear is like screaming

at a child, Do something, dammit! You'll either

freeze up or act in counterproducti ve ways. Fear

widens the knowing-doing gap. Don't use it.

Angels come in many shapes and sizes, and most of them are not invisible.

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.

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.

If your life is cloudy and you're far, far off course, you may have to go on faith for a while, but eventually you'll learn that every time you trust your internal navigation system, you end up closer to your right life.

When making a decision, focus on what feels shackles off versus shackles on.

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

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.

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

Try seeing your world and yourself this way, eyes open to whatever is before you, mind free of dichotomies. Are you good or bad, fragile or tough, wise or foolish? Yes. And so am I.

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

Conflict in close relationships is not only inevitable, it's essential. Intimacy connects people who are inevitably different.

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

If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

I suggest Substituting Inedible Nurturance, or SIN. Don't replace overeating with virtuous work or exercise; instead, make a list of things you love, from watching TV to hanging out with favorite people.

If you did nothing but pursue the truth about yourself for the rest of your life, you would never run out of fresh discoveries.

I am bewildering you a little. Just enough to help you forget what you came to believe, so that you can remember what you've always known.

Imagination is the doorway you walk through into every future

moment. Are you walking through doorways to pain or to joy?

If you begin to face your fears, something bittersweet

is going to happen to you: You'll grow up.

As any good Buddhist will tell you, the

only way to find permanent joy is by embracing

the fact that nothing is permanent.

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.

Heading towards that inner home will take you places-both inside yourself and in the external world-which your heart will recognize as its native environment, even though you have never been there before.

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

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

Learning to quit while you're not ahead, when the dull ooze of depression tells you things are not going to get any better, is one of the best financial and life skills you can master.

My deep belief is that all of us have the same lifelong work: to learn honesty, courage, and love. To learn, in other words, how to be our best selves.

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

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.

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

Slow is fast, gentle is powerful and stillness moves mountains.

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.

Make a plan to change the world. For

one night, don't disbelieve that you can.

If you see failure as a monster stalking you, or one that has

already ruined your life, take another look. That monster can

become a benevolent teacher, opening your mind to successes

you cannot now imagine.

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.

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

The important thing is to tell yourself a life story in which you, the hero, are primarily a problem solver rather than a helpless victim. This is well within your power, whatever fate might have dealt you.

In the pursuit of Knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Way, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

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.

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.

Good fortune has side effects.

If you're doing something you love with people you love in a place you love, you are going to create something of value to the world.

If you find yourself getting nervous stop and relax for three full breaths. Then take one small step, then another. That is how people get to the top of Everest.

The end goal of all of this striving is to live joyfully, and that there are often more direct ways of achieving this than conforming to rigid standards set by social custom.

Pain is like a life coach in your body. It's what made me a life coach because I started paying a lot of attention to what made me hurt and what didn't. It turned out my body was trying to steer me away from a life that was absolutely wrong for me and into a life that was absolutely wonderful.

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

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.

Imagine what you'd do if it absolutely didn't matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back.

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

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

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

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.

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.

By the end of your incredibly arduous, disappointing, stressful journey, you will be your true self, in a place where you belong, with friends who truly understand you and bring all sorts of opportunities your way.

The past doesn't exist except as a memory, a mental story, and though past events aren't changeable, your stories about them are. You can act now to transform the way you tell the story of your past, ultimately making it a stalwart protector of your future.

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

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

The 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.

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.

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

Bad 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.

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

In the moments I get it right, every step I take seems to be matched by a universal mystery, which obligingly, incredibly, creates what I can't.

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 of our stress and suffering come not from events, but from our thoughts. Reframe from negative thoughts, and stress subsides.

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.

Peace is more than just a feeling. It's the mental and physical frequency where you'll find all your real power.

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.

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

Recurrent 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.

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

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.

Focusing on one mildly disturbing, semi-controllable issue allows the mind to stuff much greater terrors in relatively tidy packages.

During the times we think we're being unproductive, the seeds of new worlds are germinating within us, and they need peace to grow.

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.

Your individuality is the most valuable thing you have.

Menders of all times and places have taught that silencing the thoughts in our heads and opening to the experience of the body and emotions is the basis of all healing. It's the only means by which we can reclaim our true nature or feel the subtle cues telling us how to find our way through life.

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.

Don't worry that you've wasted time. Each moment -- no matter how frozen or confused -- was a useful and necessary lesson.

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.

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.

If 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.

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.

The way to find your own North Star is not to think or feel your way

forward but to dissolve the thoughts and feeling that make you miserable.

You don't have to learn your destiny -- you already know it; you just have to unlearn the thoughts that blind you to what you know.

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.

The 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.

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

They needed someone to explain, to spin, the parts of the tale that couldn't be suppressed. Someone reputable and educated. Someone brilliant yet absolutely committed to the faith. Someone like my father.

I want you to notice is that-right here, right now -- you're okay. You may be in pain, you may be in fear, you may be in grief. But you're here, you're surviving; this moment is okay.

I want you to be supervised, all day every day, by people who forgive your errors and believe in your destiny.

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

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.

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.

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.

Every instance of heartbreak can teach us powerful lessons about creating the kind of love we really want.

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.

How we do anything, is how we do everything.

I had a client who was a professional baseball player once, and he would go to clubs and dance for seven, eight, nine hours at a time. He wouldn't drink, he wouldn't take drugs -- he just danced because he had so much physical energy; he was this amazing athlete.

I was learning to track rhinoceroses in Africa and tracked right up on an animal that really I thought was going to kill me.

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

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.

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

I always felt that it was my job to try to help other people get it and deal with it.

Adults under threat feel like children.

I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.

When I tell a woman you really need to quit your soul-sucking job, she goes home, and she can tell her husband, 'I need to quit,' and he's like, 'O.K., let's do it.'

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.

In the developed world, hundreds of millions of us now face the bizarre problem of surfeit. Yet our brains, instincts, and socialized behavior are still geared to an environment of lack. The result? Overwhelm -- on an unprecedented scale.

I'm not saying we have power over everything in our lives -- if that were true, my hair would look so, so different -- but I am saying that there's no circumstance in which we are completely powerless.

A designated patient 'carries' the group's dysfunction. A designated issue performs the same service for an individual, dominating our psyches so that other troubles can go unnoticed.

Friends, there are many areas in which I need encouragement, but worrying is not one of them. I worry the way Renee Fleming sings high Cs: Effortlessly. Loudly. At length.

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!

Seek art from every time and place, in any form, to connect with those who really move you.

Most of my clients don't realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.

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.

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.

Given the eclectic and constantly shifting nature of my metaphysical inclinations, I will probably never feel certain exactly what an angel is.