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I Am Free, And Always Have Been; Free To Accept My Own Reality, Free To Trust My Perceptions, Free To Believe What Makes Me Feel Sane Even If Others Call Me Crazy, Free To Disagree Even If It Means Great Loss, Free To Seek The Way Home Until I Find It.

-Martha Beck

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I Am Free, And

Martha Beck

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I Am Free, And Always Have Been; Free To Accept My Own Reality, Free To Trust My Perceptions, Free To Believe What Makes Me Feel Sane Even If Others Call Me Crazy, Free To Disagree Even If It Means Great Loss, Free To Seek The Way Home Until I Find It.

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Infinite Possibilities

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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.

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Where Your Attention Goes, Your Life Goes.

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Play Until It's Time To Rest, Then Rest Until It's Time To Play.

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Be Brave Enough To Turn Away From Shiny Objects, And Toward The Light That Makes Them Shine.

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.

I Really Do Think That Any Deep Crisis Is An Opportunity To Make Your Life Extraordinary In Some Way.

Try Seeing Your World And Yourself This Way, Eyes Open To Whatever Is Before You, Mind Free Of Dichotomies. Are You Good Or Bad, Fragile Or Tough, Wise Or Foolish? Yes. And So Am I.

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.

I Have Come To Believe That There Are Infinite Passageways Out Of The Shadows, Infinite Vehicles To Transport Us Into The Light.

Everything Always Passes, And Everything Is Already Okay. Stay In The Place Where You Can See That, And Nothing Will Resist You.

If We're Stuck With Having Expectations, There's A Very Good Reason To Embrace Positive Ones: It's That We Often Create What We Anticipate.

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Do Whatever It Takes To Convey Your Essential Self.

Whatever It Takes

Standards Of Beauty Are Arbitrary. Body Shame Exists Only To The Extent That Our Physiques Don't Match Our Own Beliefs About How We Should Look.

Own Your Failure Openly, Publicly, With Genuine Regret But Absolutely No Shame, And You’ll Reap A Harvest Of Forgiveness, Trust, Respect, And Connection-the Things You Thought You’d Get By Succeeding. Ironic, Isn’t It?

If You're A Bit Spongy, Vulnerable To The Unsettling Energy Of Others, Count Yourself Lucky. You've Been Given An Incentive To Armor Up, To Consciously Screen Out The Ubiquitous Stresses That Afflict Humanity.

We Evolved To Move And To Learn With All Our Five Senses!

We Are A Time-starved People, Obsessed With Fitting Huge Achievements Into Our Few Years. In The Process, We Often Fill Our Buckets With Things That Don't Matter Or Work. But When We Give Up On Trying To Change What Can't Be Changed, And Simply Embrace What We Love, A Miracle Occurs. We Notice That The Moment To Be Happy Has Already Arrived. It's Here, Now.

My Anguish Came From My Hypothesis That Other People's Hypothetical Hypotheses About Me Mattered. Ridiculous!

Creating Ways To Be Happy Is Your Life's Work, A Challenge That Won't End Until You Die.

Rest Until You Feel Like Playing, Then Play Until You Feel Like Resting, Period. Never Do Anything Else.

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.

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 Unsupported Life.

Recurrent Floods Of Sadness And Anger Gradually Wash Away The Rubble Of The Defunct Relationship, Leaving Only The Bits Of Treasure: The Remembered Moments Of Real Communion, A New Understanding Of Your Own Mistakes, A Clear Picture Of The Dysfunctions You Will Never Tolerate Again.

In The Pursuit Of Knowledge, Every Day Something Is Added. In The Practice Of The Way, Every Day Something Is Dropped. Less And Less Do You Need To Force Things, Until Finally You Arrive At Non-action. When Nothing Is Done, Nothing Is Left Undone.

Allowing Children To Show Their Guilt, Show Their Grief, Show Their Anger, Takes The Sting Out Of The Situation.

I Explain To Everyone I Deal With-co-workers, Children, Friends-that I'm Transitionally Challenged And They Should Call Me On My Cell Phone If I'm Even A Few Minutes Late. Such Calls Often Come In When I'm Happily Writing Or Rearranging The Furniture. The Monochrones In My Life Are So Organized, They Have No Trouble Remembering To Remind Me To Show Up.

I Am Free, And Always Have Been; Free To Accept My Own Reality, Free To Trust My Perceptions, Free To Believe What Makes Me Feel Sane Even If Others Call Me Crazy, Free To Disagree Even If It Means Great Loss, Free To Seek The Way Home Until I Find It.

Bad Habits Fill Needs, So Find Good Alternatives For Them.

If You Find Yourself Getting Nervous Stop And Relax For Three Full Breaths. Then Take One Small Step, Then Another. That Is How People Get To The Top Of Everest.

Finding Yourself

The Idea Is To Identify A Destructive Thought Pattern, Then Simply Label It And Watch It And Let It Pass By Whenever It Appears In Your Mind.

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.

Your Individuality Is The Most Valuable Thing You Have.

Valuable Things

To Be Really Productive, It's As Important To Rest When We're Tired As It Is To Work When We're Inspired.

When Making A Decision, Focus On What Feels "shackles Off" Versus "shackles On".

The Only Map Of Your Right Life Is Written On Your Soul At Its Most Peaceful, And The Only Sure Compass Is Your Heart At Its Most Open.

The Moment We Begin Tolerating Meanness, In Ourselves And Others, We Are Using Our Authorial Power In The Service Of Wrongdoing. We Have Both The Capacity And The Obligation To Do Better.

Question Every Thought That Causes Suffering And Test It Against Your Own Sense Of Truth.

It's Only By Starting In A Place Of Peace That We Find Our Purpose And Power.

Places Of Peace

Absolutely Lonely People Have Few Personal Interactions Of Any Kind.

A Joyful Life Isn’t About Others; It’s About The Brightness That Is Associated With Being Alive. Your Path To It Is Through Anything That Replaces Thinking With Pure Flight, Pure Joy.

Make Stuff Up. Anyone Who Ever Did Something New Or Interesting Was Making It Up As They Went Along.

Don't Fight Fearful Thoughts. Just Match Each One With An Alternative Thought That Brings You More Peace.

People Don’t Cry When They Lose Their Hope. They Cry When They Get It Back.

Trust In Your Truth. It Will Be The Best Decision You Ever Make.

What Laughter Is To Childhood, Sex Is To Adolescence.

I Don't Believe That There Are No Spiritual Beings Around Us. I Don't Know What To Call Them, I Don't Know How They Work. But I Know They're There

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.

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.

Feel About Yourself What You Would Have Others Feel About Themselves.

Any Transition Serious Enough To Alter Your Definition Of Self Will Require Not Just Small Adjustments In Your Way Of Living And Thinking But A Full-on Metamorphosis.

If You're Religious, It Gives You A Perspective.

Whenever You Go Somewhere That Speaks To Your Soul, You Are Going Home To Yourself.

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.

Social Pressure

Peace Is More Than Just A Feeling. It's The Mental And Physical Frequency Where You'll Find All Your Real Power.

Anger Elicits Anger, Fear Elicits Fear, No Matter How Well Meaning We May Be.

External Circumstances Do Not Create Feeling States. Feeling States Create External Circumstances.

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.

Seek Art From Every Time And Place, In Any Form, To Connect With Those Who Really Move You.

I Have Discovered That Many Of The Things I Thought Were Priceless Are As Cheap As Costume Jewelry, And Much Of What I Labeled Worthless Was, All The Time, Filled With The Kind Of Beauty That Directly Nourishes My Soul... Now I Think That The Vast Majority Of Us "normal" People Spend Our Lives Trashing Our Treasures And Treasuring Our Trash. We Bustle Around Trying To Create The Impression That We Are Hip, Imperturbable, Omniscient, In Perfect Control, When In Fact We Are Awkward And Scared And Bewildered.

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.

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.

Dangerous World

You Can't Stay Well Without Telling--and Living--the Truth.

During The Times We Think We’re Being “unproductive,” The Seeds Of New Worlds Are Germinating Within Us, And They Need Peace To Grow.

If A Problem Looks Difficult, Relax. If It Looks Impossible, Relax Even More. Then Begin Encouraging Small Changes, Putting Just Enough Pressure On Yourself To Move One Turtle Step Forward. Then Rest, Savor, Celebrate. Then Step Again. You’ll Find That Slow Is Fast, Gentle Is Powerful, And Stillness Moves Mountains.

At Times In My Life, I Have Been Utterly Lonely. At Other Times, I've Had Disgusting Infectious Diseases. Try Admitting These Things In Our Culture.

True Freedom Starts With Absolute Honesty. The Moment You Call A Problem By Its Real Name, You’re Already Learning How To Make It Less Harmful.

In The Moments I Get It Right, Every Step I Take Seems To Be Matched By A Universal Mystery, Which Obligingly, Incredibly, Creates What I Can't.

Your First Daily Priority Should Be Stillness, Attention To What You Really Know And What You Really Feel.

People Are So Afraid Of Authority Figures And Doctors Are Authority Figures.

The Heart Is A Tender But Hardy Organ. Daring To Have A Wonderful Experience, Even Though You May Get Hurt, Is The Only Way You'll Realize Its Deepest Desires.

A True Leader Is Not Someone Who Feels Fully Informed But Someone Who Continuously Receives Insight And Guidance.

If You Begin To Face Your Fears, Something Bittersweet Is Going To Happen To You: You'll Grow Up.

Stop Fixating On Stuff You Can Touch And Start Caring About Stuff That Touches You.

Make A Plan To Change The World. For One Night, Don't Disbelieve That You Can.

Anything You're Trying To Will Is Focused On The Future; It's Always Associated With Some Sort Of Anxiety That Makes The Present Moment Somewhat Uncomfortable.

It Seems To Me At This Moment That Laughing Is A Serious Thing, That It Connects Us With Truth And Love And God.

Imagination Is The Doorway You Walk Through Into Every Future Moment. Are You Walking Through Doorways To Pain Or To Joy?

Your Body Is Free But Your Heart Is In Prison. To Release Your Heart, You Simply Reverse The Process Which Locked It Up. First You Begin To Listen For Messages From Your Heart-messages You May Have Been Ignoring Since Childhood. Next You Must Take The Daring, Risky Step Of Expressing Your Heart In The Outside World. . . . As You Learn To Live By Heart, Every Choice You Make Will Become Another Way Of Telling Your Story. . . . It Is The Way You Were Meant To Exist. If You Stop To Listen, You'll Realize That Your Heart Has Been Telling You So All Along.

The Part Of You That Is Unhampered By Illusion-the Illusion Of Time, The Illusion Of Powerlessness, The Illusion Of Impossibility-i S Waiting For You To Slow Down And Open Up So That It Can Speak To Your Consciousness. In Some Unguarded Moment, You Will Hear Its Wildly Improbable Words And Know That They Are Guiding You Home.

You Do Not Owe Anyone Your Time. When You Realize That, Others Will Respect Your Time Much More.

If You Did Nothing But Pursue The Truth About Yourself For The Rest Of Your Life, You Would Never Run Out Of Fresh Discoveries.

Rest Of Your Life

Slow Is Fast, Gentle Is Powerful And Stillness Moves Mountains

Learning To Quit While You're Not Ahead, When The Dull Ooze Of Depression Tells You Things Are Not Going To Get Any Better, Is One Of The Best Financial And Life Skills You Can Master.

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.

Live And Let Live

If You Feel Stuck In Your Present Life, If You Feel No Enthusiasm For Anything, If You Think You Have No Purpose Or That You Lost That Purpose Somewhere Along The Way, I Guarantee You Are Living In A Dungeon Made Of Stories. And That None Of Those Limiting Stories Are True.

Angels Come In Many Shapes And Sizes, And Most Of Them Are Not Invisible.

Learning To Let Go Of Expectations Is A Ticket To Peace. It Allows Us To Ride Over Every Crisis—small Or Large, Brother-in-law Or End-of-quarter Office Lockdown—like A Beach Ball On Water. The Next Time A Problem Arises In Your Life, Take A Deep Breath, Let Out A Sigh, And Replace The Thought Oh No! With The Thought Okay.

Good Fortune Has Side Effects.

I Want You To Be Supervised, All Day Every Day, By People Who Forgive Your Errors And Believe In Your Destiny.

Take Off Your Watch: The Divine Is Speaking To You.

Truth Itself Is Something You Live, Not Something You Think.

Whether You've Seen Angels Floating Around Your Bedroom Or Just Found A Ray Of Hope At A Lonely Moment, Choosing To Believe That Something Unseen Is Caring For You Can Be A Life-shifting Exercise.

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.

Does This Feel Warmer Or Colder?

Don’t Worry That You’ve Wasted Time. Each Moment -- No Matter How Frozen Or Confused -- Was A Useful And Necessary Lesson.

In Fact, When Care Appears, Unconditional Love Often Vanishes.

Unconditional Love

The Difference Between Success And Failure Isn't The Absence Of Fear But The Determination To Pursue Your Heart's Desires No Matter How Scared You Are.

The Only Way To The Place Beyond Fear Is To Do The Thing You Fear Most. This Is How To Surrender To Your Best Destiny.

This Very Moment Of Your Life, If You Experience It Fully, Will Show You Astonishing Wonders And Exquisite Delights.

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.

Most People Think That Once They've Found Their Purpose And The Power To Practice It, They'll Finally Be At Peace. Actually, Though, It's Only By Starting In A Place Of Peace That We Find Our Purpose And Power. Peace Is The First Step And The Final Lesson We All Need To Learn.

I'm Not Saying We Have Power Over Everything In Our Lives - If That Were True, My Hair Would Look So, So Different - But I Am Saying That There's No Circumstance In Which We Are Completely Powerless.

To Make An Activity Joyful, Keep Adding Things Until The Activity As A Whole Becomes More Appealing Than Repulsing.

We Virtually Never Feel Our Age, But Thinking That We Should Can Lead To Disaster.

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.

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Margaret Bourke-White

Clare Boothe Luce

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