Audiobooks by Martha Beck

Diana, Herself: An Allegory of Awakening

Read by the author, Martha Beck, herself! Maybe, once or twice in your life, you’ve experienced a surge of destiny so strong it made you believe in miracles. Such bolts from the blue seem to hit when weariness or ill fortune have plowed through the ground of reason, breaking it up so magic can take root. What follows is so perfect that to call it accidental defies belief. Diana Archer is an absolutely—mathematically!—average woman, living an unremarkable life, when destiny reaches her. Without quite knowing how or why, she finds herself leaving everything familiar and moving into a world where miracles are commonplace, where her supposed flaws become her salvation, and where each person’s story is everyone’s. In this exuberant allegory, bestselling memoir and self-help author Martha Beck takes readers into the wild parts of the world and the human psyche. The story of Diana, Herself helps every reader chart a course for awakening to greater joy, adventure, and purpose. It feels almost magical to Diana Archer—out-of-work store clerk, former foster child, and bearer of multiple psychological diagnoses—when she’s pulled into the orbit of world-famous life coach and reality TV star Roy Richards. Together, Diana and Roy embark on the latest in his series of “conquests,” surviving a month in California’s trackless Sierras Oscuras National Forest. It’s in the forest that their quest devolves into disaster—and the real magic begins. Lost, alone, and dying, Diana is taken under the trotter of a benevolent spirit animal (or is it a projection of her perennially troubled mind?) who promises to take her home. But “home” proves to be a place much more mysterious than Los Angeles. Awakening is the goal, Diana learns, and bewilderment is the method. Diana will undergo a transformation that will change her irrevocably, and just possibly save the world. Let the enchantment begin.

Martha Beck (Author), Martha Beck (Narrator)

Audiobook

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live

"The North Star-Stella Polaris-is a fixed point that can always be used to figure out which way you're headed. Explorers and mariners can depend on Polaris when there are no other landmarks in sight. The same relationship exists between you and your right life, the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness. I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot. You may think you're utterly lost, but brush away the leaves, wait for the clouds to clear, and you'll see your destiny shining as brightly as ever; the fixed point in the constantly changing constellations of your life." -Martha Beck As the creator of Life Designs, Inc., Martha Beck has helped hundreds of clients find their own North Star and figure out how to fulfill their potential and create joyful lives through her lectures, seminars, and one-on-one counseling. In this book, she shares her step-by-step program that will guide you to fulfill your own potential.

Martha Beck (Author), Karen White (Narrator)

Audiobook

Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic

"He says you'll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been by remaining closed." The messenger is a school janitor with a master's in art history who claims to be channeling "from both sides of the veil." "He" is Adam, a three-year-old who has never spoken an intelligible word. And the message is intended for Martha Beck, Adam's mother, who doesn't know whether to make a mad dash for the door to escape a raving lunatic (after all, how many conversations like this one can you have before you stop getting dinner party invitations and start pushing a mop yourself?) or accept another in a series of life lessons from an impeccable but mysterious source. From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Expecting Adam is a poignant, challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine months of Martha's pregnancy. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked. Martha's riveting, beautifully written memoir captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of facing impending parentdom, being forced to question one's deepest beliefs, and rewriting life's rules. It is an unforgettable celebration of the everyday magic that connects human souls to each other.

Martha Beck (Author), Joyce Bean (Narrator)

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Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want

Many people feel called to help others and change the world, but they just don't know how to fulfill their potential. They have the creativity and passion, but often get lost, not knowing how to direct their energies. Now, popular life coach Martha Beck shows how readers can find their calling in service and healing, while realizing their destiny. With a sparkling, compassionate, and often irreverent style, Beck draws from a combination of ancient wisdom and modern science to help readers consciously embrace vital skills that may be embedded in our DNA and are now made accessible again. Beck shows how to put together an "inner team" and an external "tribe" of people with the same aims and outlines four simple Steps for Transformation: Wordlessness, Oneness, Imagination, and Creation. With step-by-step instructions and guided reflections, Martha shows readers how to drop into the wordless state of communion with nature and self, how to connect with the oneness between self and the universe, how to be empowered by the spark of inspiration, and finally, how to take action and realize their creative potential to make a lasting impact in their own lives and the world around them. Heartfelt, inspirational, and filled with "a-ha" moments, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World provides the map for the unconventional life path that leads to miraculous change.

Martha Beck (Author), Heather Henderson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Steering by Starlight

Described as one of the best-known life coaches in America in media such as Pyschology Today, O columnist Martha Beck has demonstrated a rare gift for helping people whose lives have gone off course to find their way back to authentic, rewarding lives. Now, in Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck describes the step-by-step process she uses with her private clients to help them find their way back to their ""homing instincts""--their true destinies. Bringing together cutting-edge research in psychiatry, neurology,and related fields in an accessible, substantive, original way, Dr. Beck offers powerful new methods for solving the problems that beset ordinary people. Using her trademark wisdom, empathy, and engaging style, she connects listeners with personal coping strategies that are not yet widely available as she helps them overcome the alienation that is causing them to lose sight of their own North Star. Dr. Beck identitfies three stages along the path to recapturing a satisfying life: -"the stargazer" helps listeners understand why it's so easy to lose themselves and offers strategies for sighting their North Star -"the mapmaker" uses this newly clairfied perspective to evaluate one's situation and plot a course for upcoming years -"the pathfinder" discusses the adventures that may be encountered as one travels along this new life course Whether it's seeking better relationships, more focused career direction, the achievement of specific fitness goals, or a more harmonious lifestyle, Steering by Starlight's colorful anecdotes, case studies, and exercises will point the way. ***Please contact member services for additional documents***

Martha Beck (Author), Martha Beck (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Four Day Win

Everyone knows how to lose weight: eat less, move more. But so many dieters who know what to do still don't do what they know. Why not? Because they don't understand the brain-body dynamics of weight loss. Now, cutting-edge research has revealed that millions of dieters following typical weight loss programs are actually programming themselves to get fatter. In The Four-Day Win, Harvard-trained Oprah Magazine columnist Martha Beck, Ph.D., reverses this trend and teaches dieters to get lean from the brain outward. The Four-Day Win tells how to reverse the brain-body programming that makes you fat, so you can create a new, leaner and healthier body . . . for good. As empathetic and funny as she is informative, Martha Beck observes that: Traditional dieting relies on the ability to go numb or to override physical and emotional feelings. Overeating is a self-calming compulsion similar to OCD -- dieters turn to food (and lots of it) when they're deprived of comfort. Overweight people can reverse the brain-body programming that is making them fat. Instead of attacking their bodies, they can learn to support them. Dr. Beck helps you to think thin and end your compulsion to overeat, and includes a Jump-Start weight-loss program that will help you shed pounds in the best way, both psychologically and physically. An inspiring and enlightening challenge to everything you think you know about losing weight, The Four-Day Win provides you with an easy and fail-proof way to change your life.

Martha Beck (Author), Martha Beck (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Leaving the Saints is an unforgettable memoir about one woman's spiritual quest and journey toward faith. As Mormon royalty within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church's high elders known as the apostles and her existence was framed by their strict code of conduct. Wearing her sacred garments, she married in a secret temple ceremony but only after two Mormon leaders ascertained that her past contained no flirtation with serious sins, such as committing murder or drinking coffee. She went to church faithfully with the other brothers and sisters of her ward. When her son was born with Down syndrome, she and her husband left their graduate programs at Harvard to return to Provo, Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them. However, soon after Martha began teaching at Brigham Young University, she began to see firsthand the Church's ruthlessness as it silenced dissidents and masked truths that contradicted its published beliefs. Most troubling of all, she was forced to face her history of sexual abuse by one of the Church's most prominent authorities. This book chronicles her difficult decision to sever her relationship with the faith that had cradled her for so long and to confront and forgive the person who betrayed her so deeply. This beautifully written, inspiring memoir explores the powerful yearning toward faith. It offers a rare glimpse inside one of the world's most secretive religions while telling a profoundly moving story of personal courage, survival, and the transformative power of spirituality. From the Hardcover edition.

Martha Beck (Author), Bernadette Dunne, Martha Beck (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Leaving the Saints is an unforgettable memoir about one woman’s spiritual quest and journey toward faith. As “Mormon royalty” within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church’s high elders—known as the apostles—and her existence was framed by their strict code of conduct. Wearing her sacred garments, she married in a secret temple ceremony—but only after two Mormon leaders ascertained that her “past contained no flirtation with serious sins, such as committing murder or drinking coffee.” She went to church faithfully with the other brothers and sisters of her ward. When her son was born with Down syndrome, she and her husband left their graduate programs at Harvard to return to Provo, Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them. However, soon after Martha began teaching at Brigham Young University, she began to see firsthand the Church’s ruthlessness as it silenced dissidents and masked truths that contradicted its published beliefs. Most troubling of all, she was forced to face her history of sexual abuse by one of the Church’s most prominent authorities. This book chronicles her difficult decision to sever her relationship with the faith that had cradled her for so long and to confront and forgive the person who betrayed her so deeply. This beautifully written, inspiring memoir explores the powerful yearning toward faith. It offers a rare glimpse inside one of the world’s most secretive religions while telling a profoundly moving story of personal courage, survival, and the transformative power of spirituality.

Martha Beck (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices For a Happier Life

Welcome to The Joy Diet, a menu of ten behaviors you can add to your way of living and thinking to enhance every day's journey through the unpredictable terrain of your existence. You can add these behaviors gradually and watch your life become steadily more vivid and satisfying. Or you can go on a 'crash Joy Diet' to help you navigate life's emergencies.The ten menu items are: • Nothing: Do nothing for fifteen minutes a day. Stop mindlessly chasing goals and figure out which goals are worth going after. • Truth: Create a moment of truth to help you unmask what you're hiding, from others and from yourself. • Desire: Identify, articulate, and explore at least one of your heart's desires, and learn how to let yourself want what you want. • Creativity: Learn six new ways to develop at least one new idea to help you obtain your heart's desire. • Risk: Take one baby step toward reaching your goal. The only rule is it has to scare the pants off you. • Treats: Give yourself a treat for every risk you take and two treats just because you're you. No exceptions. No excuses. • Play: Take a moment to remember your real life's work and differentiate it from the games you play to achieve it. Then play wholeheartedly. • Laughter: Laugh at least thirty times a day. Props encouraged. • Connection: Use your Joy Diet skills to interact with someone who matters to you. • Feasting: Enjoy at least three square feasts a day, with or without food. No matter what your long-term goals are, The Joy Diet, written with Martha Beck's inimitable blend of wisdom, practical guidance, and humor, will help you achieve the immediate gift of joyful living in the here and now. Begin your journey today. From the Hardcover edition.

Martha Beck (Author), Kathe Mazur (Narrator)

Audiobook