coping-strategies

It sounded somewhat doom-laden, so I felt obliged to look it up more thoroughly, in case I should eat some chocolate rather quickly.

Noble failure atones for the impossibility of resisting progress successfully.

I__e found that it__ of some help to think of one__ moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather. Here are some obvious things about the weather:It's real. You can't change it by wishing it away.If it's dark and rainy, it really is dark and rainy, and you can't alter it.It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.BUTit will be sunny one day.It isn't under one's control when the sun comes out, but come out it will.One day.It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are all are real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault.BUTThey will pass: really they will.In the same way that one really has to accept the weather, one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes, "Today is a really crap day," is a perfectly realistic approach. It's all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. "Hey-ho, it's raining inside; it isn't my fault and there's nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow, and when it does I shall take full advantage.

You can__ be beaten by something you laugh at.

Helen devises plans to become a monster herself.

For children who depend on mentally escaping into their minds to survive, imagination can become both refuge and desert island.

Girls are genius at getting through sexual abuse. Often the only way to get through is not to feel. And that is exactly what these fantasy worlds allow: They give girls a place to go so they don't have to be present in their violated bodies. Brilliant.

Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.

Dreaming was easier than screaming, and screaming was easier than worrying, and worrying was easier than crying, which was what she knew she would be reduced to if she didn__ keep a hard eye on herself.

When you cross a challenge that is expansive and deep, you may not even realize when you__e come to the other side. That day will come. And when it does, how will you look at your crossing?

The only problem was, when your whole existence is something you have to cope with, you look back one day and find that your strategy has become a way of life.

Once an individual shines bright walking in average light to some may appear as dim surroundings..

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire _ then you__e got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.

While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, __an I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam.__ looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.__here are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them._ Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn__ getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. __hat kinds of things?___ad things,_ Beck said. __o you have a lot of sad things in your head?___o,_ I said.Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. __ell, I do.__his was shocking. I didn__ ask a question, but I tilted toward him.__nd these things would make me cry,_ Beck continued. __hey used to make me cry all day long.__ remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.__ou don__ believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it,_ Beck said. __nd so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them.___rain tape?_ I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.Beck smiled, a weird private smile that, at the time, I didn__ understand. Now I knew it was relief at eliciting a joke from me, no matter how pitiful the joke was. __es, brain tape. And a brain blanket over the top. Now I don__ have to look at those sad things anymore. I could open those boxes sometime, I guess, if I wanted to, but mostly I just leave them sealed up.___ow did you use the brain tape?___ou have to imagine it. Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing them into the side of your brain, where you won__ trip over them when you__e thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top. Do you have sad things, Sam?__ could see the dusty corner of my brain where the boxes sat. They were all wardrobe boxes, because those were the most interesting sort of boxes _ tall enough to make houses with _ and there were rolls and rolls of brain tape stacked on top. There were razors lying beside them, waiting to cut the boxes and me back open.__om,_ I whispered.I wasn__ looking at Beck, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow.__hat else?_ he asked, barely loud enough for me to hear. __he water,_ I said. I closed my eyes. I could see it, right there, and I had to force out the next word. __y _ My fingers were on my scars.Beck reached out a hand toward my shoulder, hesitant. When I didn__ move away, he put an arm around my back and I leaned against his chest, feeling small and eight and broken.__e,_ I said.