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External circumstances do not create feeling states. Feeling states create external circumstances.

Martha Beck

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Martha Beck
Age: 61
Born: 1962
Born: November 29
Author
Journalist
Sociologist
Provo
Utah
States
External
Circumstances
Create
Feeling
Feelings

More quotes by Martha Beck

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Criticism is an alluring substitute for creation, because tearing things down, unlike building them up, really is as easy as falling off a stump. It's blissfully simple to strike a savvy, sophisticated pose by attacking someone else's creations, but the old adage is right: Any fool can burn down a barn. Building one is something else again.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light.
Martha Beck
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The shortness of life, which we all discuss, but which is very clear to me at the moment, makes keeping and spreading a joyful peace more crucial than ever before. Let us keep our minds on what matters, which is our work, which is astonishment and gratitude. From this quiet magic comes a power for all other new years wishes to come true.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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Don’t worry that you’ve wasted time. Each moment -- no matter how frozen or confused -- was a useful and necessary lesson.
Martha Beck
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During the times we think we’re being “unproductive,” the seeds of new worlds are germinating within us, and they need peace to grow.
Martha Beck
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Most of our stress and suffering come not from events, but from our thoughts. Reframe from negative thoughts, and stress subsides.
Martha Beck
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Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we’re not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail, and sometimes when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.
Martha Beck
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Judgments that constrain your giving are the very demons that are keeping you from receiving.
Martha Beck
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Truth itself is something you live, not something you think.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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Don't expect the future to look like the past. Clear away expectations, and let yourself picture a wild, grand new world.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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The more you claim your own destiny, the easier it will be to love unconditionally .
Martha Beck
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As much horror as we have always created, we are a species that keeps moving forward, seeing new sights in new ways, and enjoying the journey.
Martha Beck
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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.
Martha Beck
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Almost all my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me, feel about 25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.
Martha Beck