Quotes from Martha Beck

It is a frightening thing to love someone you know the world rejects.

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

You're blocking.

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

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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

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.

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

The great power of separating the watching mind from the thinking mind is that the watching mind is innately loving. Some call this part of the psyche the 'compassionate witness.' Sharing our difficult feelings with a compassionate witness is the crucial step that heals the infinite small wounds inflicted upon the soul by everyday life.

Even if you can be the world's best at one thing, you'll be the world's worst at something else. Supermodels make pathetic sumo wrestlers.

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.

Indecision may come from an instinctive hunch that there's more you need to know - which means it's time to learn everything you can about the pros and cons of each option. You can continue on this track, however, only as long as you're unearthing genuinely new information.

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

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

Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.

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.

Forcing yourself to think happy lies doesn't heal your dreams. Getting to the truth does.

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

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

Question every thought that causes suffering and test it against your own sense of truth.

Truth itself is something you live, not something you think.