"I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light." -- Martha Beck
Martha Nibley Beck (born 29 November 1962) is a American sociologist, therapist, life coach and best-selling author. Beck is the daughter of deceased Mormon scholar and apologist, Hugh Nibley. She received national attention after publication in 2005 of her best-seller, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith in which she accuses her father of sexual abuse.
"Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.""Adults under threat feel like children.""Allowing children to show their guilt, show their grief, show their anger, takes the sting out of the situation.""Almost all my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me, feel about 25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.""Although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, the feeling of being beautiful exists solely in the mind of the beheld.""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.""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.""Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.""Caring for your inner child has a powerful and surprisingly quick result: Do it and the child heals.""Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.""Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.""Every day brings new choices.""Given the eclectic and constantly shifting nature of my metaphysical inclinations, I will probably never feel certain exactly what an angel is.""Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury.""Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.""I always felt that it was my job to try to help other people get it and deal with it.""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.""I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.""I really do think that any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.""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.""If you're living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.""If you're religious, it gives you a perspective.""In one century, we've added 28 years to our average life span - a change so rapid that our brains couldn't possibly have evolved to accommodate it.""Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.""Most of my clients don't realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.""My own nature hovers between neurotic and paranoid. I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.""No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.""No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.""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.""People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.""Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.""Seek art from every time and place, in any form, to connect with those who really move you.""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.""The average adult laughs 15 times a day; the average child, more than 400 times.""The position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.""Use anything you can think of to understand and be understood, and you'll discover the creativity that connects you with others.""We virtually never feel our age, but thinking that we should can lead to disaster.""What laughter is to childhood, sex is to adolescence.""When you meet people, show real appreciation, then genuine curiosity.""Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy."
Martha Nibley was born in Provo, Utah in 1962, one of eight children of Hugh and Phyllis Nibley, and raised as a Mormon in a prominent family. She received an BA degree in East Asian studies, along with an MA and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.
Beck met John Christen Beck, a fellow Mormon from Utah, during her undergraduate studies at Harvard. They married in the LDS Salt Lake Temple on 21 June 1983 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and eventually had three children together.
After the birth of their second child, Adam, who had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome prior to his birth, Beck returned with her husband and children to Utah, to be nearer to family and support. Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth and Everyday Magic is Beck's story about her decision to give birth to and raise Adam.
In 1990, soon after the birth of her third child, Beck joined the faculty of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, teaching a course on the Sociology of Gender in the Department of Social Science. During her tenure at BYU, five faculty members were excommunicated from the LDS church as a consequence of public writings that were deemed critical of the Mormon church. She and husband John Beck also made critical public statements about both the excommunications and other church and BYU matters, which led to first John, then Martha herself, leaving the Mormon church in 1993.
Beck later wrote a book detailing the catalyst for her resignation from the church, Leaving the Saints, in which she alleges having been sexually abused as a child, and the Mormon community's subsequent reaction.
Her first book, coauthored with her husband, John Beck, Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior treated homosexuality as one of several "compulsive behaviors," like bulimia. However, both Martha Beck and her now ex-husband subsequently came out publicly as gay and have stated that they no longer consider homosexuality a form of compulsive behavior. In 2003, Beck separated from her husband, divorcing from him in 2004. She began living with her partner Karen Gerdes, a social worker and professor, during her marriage and has continued this relationship.
Today, Beck lives in Phoenix, Arizona and is a partner in NorthStar, Inc. a life coaching consulting and seminar company. Beck also writes a monthly column in O-The Oprah Magazine. She has also written several self-help books, including Finding Your Own North Star, a book aimed at providing guidance to finding a purpose in life, The Joy Diet: 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life, which offers insights into the importance of healthy and happy living habits to a fulfilling life, and Breaking Point: Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-create Their Lives, which analyzes stresses and challenges that modern women face and offers advice on coping with and overcoming these issues.
In 2005, she received national attention for her bestselling book, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith. According to the Mormon magazine, Sunstone,. the book may have originally been conceived as a novel, loosely based on her life (with a male main character), but was changed to recount her personal experiences, with the encouragement of her publishers. Ultimately released in March 2005, the book is a narrative in which Beck describes recovered memories of alleged sexual abuse by her father, prominent LDS academician Hugh Nibley; her experiences teaching at Brigham Young University; cultural dissonance and anomalies in Utah; her spiritual journey leaving the LDS church.Prior to and after publication of the book, several national newspapers in the United States reported that Beck's memoir had quickly become controversial in Mormon circles. Numerous articles were published in response to the book, including a critical essay by the Mormon author of Hugh Nibley's biography, Boyd Jay Petersen. Petersen states in his conclusions, "Throughout this book, as with her other books, it is obvious that she distorts the record as much as or more than she reports it, jumps to conclusions more than provides evidence leading to conclusions, and blurs fact and fantasy. But to stick to the facts requires more than simply assuring readers that you do. You actually have to stick to them, something it seems Martha seldom does." Beck responded to some of these criticisms by stating that she began having memories of her traumatic events prior to the use of any therapy (including hypnosis), that her vagina had scarring that may have been the result of sexual abuse, and that her memories were vivid and intrusive. Family members have also pointed out the impossibility of activities such as Beck described being carried out in the tiny Nibley home, where there was little or no privacy and multiple children shared every bedroom. Some members of Nibley's surviving family also challenge Beck's allegations by pointing out inconsistencies in her descriptions of events to various media sources. Hugh Nibley's family, including Beck's siblings, have claimed the book's accusations against their father are false and have expressed "outrage" at the book and accusations.
Although most of the criticism centered around Beck's allegations of sexual abuse, a substantial portion of the book involves a discussion of the Mormon church and its policies. BYU professor Robert L. Millet criticized her some of her portrayals as "nonsense", "ludicrous", or "paranoia", saying that she "seems to be a magnet for improbable happenings" and "equate[s] weird anomalies in Mormon culture with the norm." The book also mentions that her father may have misinterpreted certain Egyptian hieroglyphics in order to support some of the writings of early church leaders, including Joseph Smith.
