Charlotte Joko Beck Quotes

It's not often that I dedicate a page to one person and their quotes (I don't think I've ever done this, in fact)...but I just discovered this woman and she is worth every keystroke:




“When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it!”



“There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here.”
― from Nothing Special




“Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be. Anxiety is something that stretches between the real and unreal. Our human desire is to avoid what's real and instead to be with our ideas about the world:

"I'm terrible." "You're terrible." "You're wonderful." The idea is separated from reality and anxiety is the gap between the idea and the reality that things are just as they are.




When we cease to believe in the object that we've created -- which is off to one side of reality, so to speak -- things snap back to the center. That's what being centered means. The anxiety then fades out.”





“Most of our difficulties, our hopes, and our worries are empty fantasies. Nothing has ever existed except this moment. That's all there is. That's all we are. Yet most human beings spend 50 to 90 percent or more of their time in their imagination, living in fantasy. We think about what has happened to us, what might have happened, how we feel about it, how we should be different, how others should be different, how it's all a shame, and on and on; it's all fantasy, all imagination. Memory is imagination. Every memory that we stick to devastates our life.”
― Nothing Special




“Body tension will always be present if our good feeling is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is.”




“Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.”




“...we're constantly waking up to what we're about, what we're really doing in our lives. And the fact is, that's painful. But there's no possibility of freedom without this pain.”




“It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.”




'Guilt has a lot of arrogance in it.'

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Would You Brag About Having an Eating Disorder?

Not sleeping 8-10 hours every night?

So many people are not..we've been taught it's lazy to sleep a full night, every night. That's a problem.

The increased weight gain of our society has been attributed in large part to inadequate sleep. There is a one to one connection (which is frankly unheard of in most double-blind studies) that people who sleep less than eight hours a night are unable to lose excess weight. Public safety officials report that the #1 reason people get in car wrecks is sleep deprivation. How many mistakes have YOU made at work this week? And why hasn't that 10th cup of coffee made a difference?

Let's work on this, folks. It's silly to call yourself 'lazy' for needing 8-10 hours a night. And bragging that you only sleep four hours a night (I hear this one a lot from men, especially) is like bragging that you have anorexia. It's a basic need and not negotiable.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Three (Free) One-Minute Stress Breakers

Do one of these three things when you are stressed. They will work. But only if you do it.

1. One Minute Meditation.
Learn to meditate in a moment with this hugely popular animated video, based on Martin Boroson's book, One-Moment Meditation. Reduce stress, improve focus and find peace ... right now.

2. EFT or Tapping.
Emotional Freedom Technique. Also called Psychological Acupressure. Resets the nervous system.

3. Alternate Nostril Breathing.
Balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Excerpts from "Pain in the Butt @ Work" E-book

Here are the first three suggestions out of 101 ways to deal with a pain in the butt at work. That is the title to my FREE e-book ("101 Ways to Deal with a Pain in the Butt @ Work")

#1
First, make extra sure YOU’RE not the Pain-in-the-Butt.

Look, if you can label someone a jerk, you have the ability to be one yourself. Psychologically, without getting into a lot of science, you can’t dislike what you don’t already dislike in yourself. Got it?

#2
I didn’t say this would be easy, I just said it wouldn’t be long-winded. So, let’s be clear: you downloaded this e-book because you dislike someone enough in your office enough to spend the time to read all 101 Ways to see if you can make yourself right about it. Right?

And how often has this strategy worked for you? I mean, of all the times you’ve been right about someone being a jerk, have they stopped?

Exactly. Let’s try something that works for a change.

#3
There are a few ways to deal with butt-like people. First, is avoidance. I’m fond of this as a first step. I’m not talking about the cold shoulder.

I’m talking about NOT being in the breakroom when they are, NOT joining the group around the coffee pot when they are, finding different ways of hanging out so that interface is minimized.

This isn’t cowardice. It’s taking control of your environment. If you HAVE to work side-by-side with this chump, hang on.

Download the rest right now. See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.