Sign in with FacebookNancy Schober's Reviews > The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life
The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life
by Martha N. Beck
by Martha N. Beck
On � Nothing� (15 minutes of meditation a day)[return][return]Almost all of us have been assaulted by hurricane winds, rapacious fires, and shattering earthquakes or some sort: we live on that kind of planet. Do you remember the last time your preconceptions were blown to smithereens, your heart burnt to a cinder, your confidence shattered? Look back on it now (or if you� re in the middle of it, look around), and see if in the midst of that devastation � right in the center of it-you half-sense something still and small. Listen for it. Beneath, around, even within the cacophonous chaos of your life disintegrating, something infinitely powerful and surpassingly sweet is whispering to you. It is when all of our something are collapsing that we may finally turn to nothing, and find there everything we need.[return][return]& If you are currently in any kind of pain, you may find something oddly compelling about the words of the great nothing-doers. Though they make no logical sense, they have an irrational resonance that sticks to the suffering soul even after the mind has forgotten them, the way nectar remains on your fingertips after you� ve held a flower.[return][return]***[return][return]On Desire[return][return]Did you ever notice how many award-winning children� s books and films focus on someone who adopts a wild animal, then has to chase it away so that it can live normally with its own kind?...I think this is such a popular theme in juvenile literature because it is an archetype of the way growing humans learn to force away their desires.[return]& [return][return]It� s as though that wild animal you loved, but dutifully chased away, keeps finding its way home and crawling though every door and window of your life. You can spend the rest of your days forcing it to leave again and again and again, or you can give in to what your heart has been telling you all along: that true love � any true love, no matter how impractical, improbable, or inconvenient� is not just one of the things around which to build your right lift. It� s the only thing.[return][return]***[return]I� ve never had a client who was truly enraptured by the thought of just sitting in the sand for the rest of eternity& they also know they are meant to do something � to engage their energy and intelligence, to connect with others, to somehow make the world a better place. [return][return]***[return]Michelangelo once said, � If people know how hard I work, they wouldn� t find my achievements so remarkable.� [return][return]***[return][return]Feasting[return][return]You were born to be open and honest and brave and playful, to laugh often, to love much, to be loved much in return. You were born for joy&
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