Quotes by Martha Beck

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

When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.

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

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

Every day brings new choices.

If were stuck with having expectations, theres a very good reason to embrace positive ones: Its that we often create what we anticipate.

Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually youll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.

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

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

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

Something in the human psyche confuses beauty with the right to be loved. The briefest glance at human folly reveals that good looks and worthiness operate independently. Yet countless socializing forces, from Aunt Clara to the latest perfume ad, reinforce beliefs like If I were pretty enough, I would be loved.

Ten years ago, I still feared loss enough to abandon myself in order to keep things stable. Id smile when I was sad, pretend to like people who appalled me. What I now know is that losses arent cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing.

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

Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury. If everyday experience hasnt convinced you of this, theres research that will.

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.

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

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.

Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.

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 youre trying to will is focused on the future its always associated with some sort of anxiety that makes the present moment somewhat uncomfortable.