Martha Beck
Martha Beck
Martha Nibley Beckis an American sociologist, life coach, best-selling author, and speaker who specializes in helping individuals and groups achieve personal and professional goals. She holds a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and master's and Ph.D. degrees in sociology, both from Harvard University. Beck is the daughter of deceased LDS Church scholar and apologist, Hugh Nibley. She received national attention after publication in 2005 of her best-seller, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth29 November 1962
CountryUnited States of America
The most common reason we stumble into the delusion of powerlessness is that we're afraid of what other people would do or say or feel if we were to act as we wanted.
As I obsess about my ancient problems, I feel more like I'm sinking in quicksand than lighting a torch. I'm creating neither heat nor light, just the icky, perversely pleasurable squish of self-pity between my toes. My only defense is that I'm not the only one down here in the muck - our whole culture is doting on tales of personal tragedy.
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.
Our culture has created two almost irreconcilable descriptions of a 'good woman.' The first is the individual achiever; the second, the self-sacrificing domestic goddess.
To complete your daily mental hygiene, observe any part of you that is upset or anxious, and offer that part of yourself the following simple wishes: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' Repeat this until you actually mean it.
Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.
We virtually never feel our age, but thinking that we should can lead to disaster.
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'd like to help repair the earth's ecosystems, and to fully live until I'm fully dead.
I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.
The position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.
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.
I practice staying calm all the time, beginning with situations that aren't tense.
I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light.