Martha Beck

“I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.”

“Sacred play is anything that takes you into that right hemisphere of your brain. It turns out that this move away from left to the right hemisphere, that sense of expansiveness and everythin...”

“As a life coach, I love makeovers, from new clothes to surgery, pedicures to highlights. But redoing makes you feel better only if approached with the right attitude.”

“Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.”

“I cannot count the times I've been defeated, humiliated, or physically injured immediately after saying the words, 'Hey, how hard can it be?' But that never seems to stop me from saying them...”

“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...”

“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 thre...”

“If I tell a man he needs to quit his soul-sucking job, he has to go home and fight with his wife or fight with his parents and fight with his in-laws and fight with everybody, because men ar...”

“Only since the Industrial Revolution have most people worked in places away from their homes or been left to raise small children without the help of multiple adults, making for an unsupport...”

“Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.”

“Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.”

“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.”

“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 s...”

“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.”

“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.”

“Not having time or energy for weight loss makes no sense. Does it take more time or energy to eat fish than prime rib? No.”

“Whatever terrible things may have happened to you, only one thing allows them to damage your core self, and that is continued belief in them.”

“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.”

“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 ab...”