Quote

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.

Martha Beck

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Martha Beck
Age: 61
Born: 1962
Born: November 29
Author
Journalist
Sociologist
Provo
Utah
Ends
Strive
Conforming
Live
Standards
Joyfully
Way
Direct
Rigid
Achieve
Custom
Ways
Achieving
Goal
Striving
Often
Conform
Social
Customs

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You shine for who you are ... because no one can steal your light.
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If you did nothing but pursue the truth about yourself for the rest of your life, you would never run out of fresh discoveries.
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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.
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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.
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The way out of fear isn’t safety. It’s freedom.
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I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.
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My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.
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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.
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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.
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Forcing yourself to think happy lies doesn't heal your dreams. Getting to the truth does.
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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 you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.
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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.
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As any good Buddhist will tell you, the only way to find permanent joy is by embracing the fact that nothing is permanent.
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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.
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Caring for your inner child has a powerful and surprisingly quick result: Do it and the child heals.
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Imagine what you'd do if it absolutely didn't matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back.
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