The Womens Conference
The Nations Premier Forum For Women
Martha Beck
“Most of our stress and suffering come not from events, but from our thoughts. Reframe negative thoughts, and stress subsides.”
How She Empowers Others
Martha Beck, Ph.D., holds three social-science degrees from Harvard University. She has taught a variety of subjects at Harvard and the American Graduate School of International Management. Author of several international bestsellers, including Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star, and the recently published Steering By Starlight, Beck is also a monthly columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. USA Today and Psychology Today have referred to her as “the best known life coach in America.” She lives with her family in Phoenix, Arizona.
Comments
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Martha was one of my favorite speakers at the event. I so wish that I could re-live her speech in audio or video format. I bought the book, but to hear once again her humor, whit and the wonderful ah-ha moments would be so special.
Also, thanks for the person above giving us the full text and author of the fabulous poem!!Posted by Donna, 28 October 2009.
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Martha was fantastic at the conference. Really awesome. She recited part of the poem KINDNESS by Naomi Shihab Nye. Here is the full text.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Posted by Laura, 27 October 2009.
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Martha Beck is AWESOME! I have Finding Your Own North Star,
and Steering by Starlight. I have learned SO MUCH..I keep them
by my bedside, and read them over and over...I just open them up and read a few pages, than fall asleep thinking about her words. Martha has faced SO MANY personal challenges, as a mom, as an athlete, as a teacher (often stretched too thin). She is a genius with a FANTASTIC SENSE OF HUMOR!!
I am THRILLED to hear her speak, and would LOVE to
shake her hand! This is a WONDERFUL opportunity...COME
AND HEAR HER SPEAK!! YOU WILL LOOOOVE HER!!Posted by pamskinner, 23 October 2009.
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