Quotes By Martha Beck

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

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

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

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.

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.

Anger elicits anger, fear elicits fear, no matter how well meaning we may be.

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

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.

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

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.

Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.

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.

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'd like to help repair the earth's ecosystems, and to fully live until I'm fully dead.

Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don't match our own beliefs about how we should look.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light.

No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.

If you're religious, it gives you a perspective.

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

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

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

Every worldview I chose, it seemed, edged me toward belief.

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