The Comfort Book

Quotes from The Comfort Book:

“You have survived everything you have been through, and you will survive this too. Stay for the person you will become. You are more than a bad day, or week, or month, or year, or even a decade. You are a future of multifarious possibility. You are another self at a point in future time looking back in gratitude that this lost and former you held on. Stay.”

“External events are neutral. They only gain positive or negative value the moment they enter our minds. It is ultimately up to us how we greet these things. It's not always easy, sure, but there is a comfort in knowing it is possible to view any single thing in multiple ways. It also empowers us, because we aren't at the mercy of the world we can never control, we are at the mercy of a mind we can, potentially, with effort and determination, begin to alter and expand. Our mind might make prisons, but it also gives us keys.”

“Your worth is you. Your worth is your presence. Your worth is right there. Your worth isn't something you earn. Your worth isn't something you buy. Your worth isn't something you gain through status on popularity or stomach crunches or having a really chic kitchen. Your worth is your existence. You were born with worth, as all babies are, and that worth doesn't disappear simply because you have grown a little older. You are a human, being.”

“Curiosity and passion are the enemies of anxiety. Even when I fell into anxiety, if I get curious enough about something outside of me it can help pull me out. Music, art, film, nature, conversation, words. Find passion as large as your fear. The way out of your mind is via the world.”

“When things go dark, we can't see what we have. That doesn't mean that we don't have those things. Those things remain, right in front of us. All we need is to light a candle, or ignite some hope, and we can see that what we thought was lost was merely hidden.”

“There will be other days. And other feelings.”

“As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it: “Lighthouses don't go running all over an island for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

“It's okay to be the teacup with a chip in it. That's the one with a story.”

“It is a strange paradox, that many of the clearest, most comforting life lessons are learned while we are at our lowest.”

“No is a good word. It keeps you sane. In an age of overload, no is really yes. It is yes to having the space you need to live.”

“You can't change the past. You can't change other people. You can change you though. You narrate this story. So start to write a new chapter.”

“But when we find ourselves at a crossroads it is often better to stop, wait a while at the lights and check the map. After all, movement isn't progress if we are heading in the wrong direction.”

“Happiness occurs when you forget who you're expected to be. And what you're expected to do. Happiness is an accident of self-acceptance. It's the warm breeze you feel when you open the door to who you are.”

“Growth is change. And when everything is easy, we have no reason to change. The most painful moments in life expand us. And when the pain leaves, space remains. Space we can fill with life itself.”

“You don't need to know the future to be hopeful. You just need to embrace the concept of possibility. To accept that the unknowability of the future is the key, and that there are versions of that future that are brighter and fairer than the present. The future is open.”

“It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain.”

“Ruining the present by worrying about the future is like burning your most treasured possession simply because you might one day lose other possessions that you don't own yet.”

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you.”

“Your self-worth is not found inside the minds of other people.”

“Don't drain yourself trying to be understood by people who insist on not understanding you.”

“Each of us has the power to enter a new world. All we have to do is change our mind.”

“A reminder for the tough times One day this will be over. And we will be grateful for life in ways we never felt possible before.”