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.

The best thing about rock bottom is the rock part. You discover the solid bit of you. The bit that can't be broken down further. The thing that you might sentimentally call a soul. At our lowest we find the solid ground of our foundation. And we can build ourselves anew.

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.

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

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.

I used to worry about fitting in until I realized the reason I didn't fit in was because I didn't want to.

If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It's about the determination to keep walking forward.

The hardest question I have ever been asked is: ‘How do I stay alive for other people if I have no one?’ The answer is that you stay alive for other versions of you. For the people you will meet, yes, sure, but also the people you will be.

In order to get over a problem it helps to look at it. You can’t climb a mountain that you pretend isn’t there.

Hope isn’t the same thing as happiness. You don’t need to be happy to be hopeful. You need instead to accept the unknowability of the future, and that there are versions of that future which could be better than the present. Hope, in its simplest form, is the acceptance of possibility.

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.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

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.

The most powerful moment in life is when you decide not to be scared anymore.

There will be other days. And other feelings.

The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title. The best of life exists beyond the things we are encouraged to crave.

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

Don’t envy things you wouldn’t actually want. Don’t absorb criticism from people you wouldn’t go to for advice. Don’t fear missing parties you would probably want to leave. Don’t worry about fitting in. Be your own tribe. Don’t argue with people who will never understand you. Don’t believe anyone has it all figured out. Don’t imagine there is an amount of money or success or fame that could insulate you from pain. Don’t think there is a type of face or job or relationship that safeguards happiness. Don’t say yes to things you wish you had the confidence to say no to. Don’t worry if you do.

To know which path to take, it helps to take a few wrong ones.

You don’t have to be positive. You don’t have to feel guilty about fear or sadness or anger. You don’t stop the rain by telling it to stop. Sometimes you just have to let it pour, let it soak you to your skin. It never rains forever. And know that, however wet you get, you are not the rain. You are not the bad feelings in your head. You are the person experiencing the storm.

Don’t absorb criticism from people you wouldn’t go to for advice.

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.

Forgiving other people is great practice for forgiving yourself when the time comes.

The present is known. The future is unknown. The present is solid. The future is abstract. 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 we demand the future be free from suffering in order to be happy; we can't be happy.

Silence is pain. But it is a pain with an exit route. When we can’t speak, we can write. When we can’t write, we can read. When we can’t read, we can listen. Words are seeds. Language is a way back to life. And it is sometimes the most vital comfort we have.

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.

As Ayishat Akanbi put it, “If you’ve decided your healing is dependent on other people acknowledging their faults you’ll still be waiting in your grave.

The hardest dream of all is the dream of not being tormented by our unlived dreams. To cope with and accept unfulfillment as a natural human condition. To be complete in our incompleteness. To be free from the shackles of memory, and ambition, to be free from comparison to other people and other hypothetical selves, and to meet the moment without any other agenda, to exist as freely as time itself.