“
Many of us have set out on the path of enlightenment. We long for a release of self-hood in some kind of mystical union with all things. But that moment of epiphany—when we finally see the whole pattern and sense our place in the cosmic web—can be a crushing experience from which we never fully recover. Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. You can not turn away. Your destiny is bound to the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors. To seek enlightenment is to seek annihilation, rebirth, and the taking up of burdens. You must come prepared to touch and be touched by each and every thing in heaven and hell.
I am One with the Universe and it hurts.
”
”
Andrew Boyd (Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe)
“
And I'm not sure I ever will recover from what Mr. Knoll did. Not fully. It's changed me forever, but changed doesn't have to mean broken.
”
”
Ashley Herring Blake (Girl Made of Stars)
“
Do not bend," Nina snapped. "Do not leap. Do not move abruptly. If you don't promise to take it easy, I'll slow your heart and keep you in a coma until I can be sure you've recovered fully."
"Nina Zenik, as soon as I figure out where you've put my knifes, we're going to have words."
"The first ones had better be 'Thank you, oh great Nina, for dedicating every waking moment of this miserable journey to saving my sorry life'"
Jasper expected Inej to laugh and was startled when she took Nina's face between her hands and said, "Thank you for keeping me in this world when fate seemed determined to drag me to the next. I owe you a life debt."
Nina blushed deeply. "I was teasing, Inej." She paused. "I think we've both had enough of debts."
"This is one I'm glad to bear.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars)
“
A distinction must be made between that writing which enables us to hold on to life even as we are clinging to old hurts and wounds and that writing which offers to us a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully. Such writing is not an anchor that we mistakenly cling to so as not to drown. It is writing that truly rescues, that enables us to reach the shore, to recover.
”
”
bell hooks (Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work)
“
To make matters worse, everyone she talks to has a different opinion about the nature of his problem and what she should do about it. Her clergyperson may tell her, “Love heals all difficulties. Give him your heart fully, and he will find the spirit of God.” Her therapist speaks a different language, saying, “He triggers strong reactions in you because he reminds you of your father, and you set things off in him because of his relationship with his mother. You each need to work on not pushing each other’s buttons.” A recovering alcoholic friend tells her, “He’s a rage addict. He controls you because he is terrified of his own fears. You need to get him into a twelve-step program.” Her brother may say to her, “He’s a good guy. I know he loses his temper with you sometimes—he does have a short fuse—but you’re no prize yourself with that mouth of yours. You two need to work it out, for the good of the children.” And then, to crown her increasing confusion, she may hear from her mother, or her child’s schoolteacher, or her best friend: “He’s mean and crazy, and he’ll never change. All he wants is to hurt you. Leave him now before he does something even worse.” All of these people are trying to help, and they are all talking about the same abuser. But he looks different from each angle of view.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
Against all expectations, the symptoms of Van Gogh’s mental illness are conspicuous by their almost complete absence from his letters. Much as he chose not to paint before he had fully recovered from one of his attacks, so he refrained from writing at times of crisis. Throughout his life, admittedly, his letters bear witness to a man possessed, frequently agitated, enraged, dejected, obsessed, but never deranged, or emotionally or intellectually unstable.
”
”
Vincent van Gogh (The Letters of Vincent van Gogh)
“
The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can’t change.” Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. “Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars)
“
If you have not grasped the gospel fully and deeply, you will return to being condescending, condemning, anxious, insecure, joyless, and angry all the time.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith)
“
The good news is that there is one kind of food you can never have too much of. The best way to fully recover from a food addiction or body-image problem is to fill up on the Lord.
”
”
Kate Wicker (Weightless: Making Peace with Your Body)
“
I had fallen hard for the woman who had casually smashed someone’s head only moments before, the woman who had held a razor blade to my throat just a few days prior. I knew I would never fully recover from this fall.
But I didn’t want to recover.
”
”
J.C. Böhme (His Savior (Butterflies and Death, #1))
“
But that’s the magic of alone time! You are completely and 100 percent in control of your own happiness. You can imagine anything you want, transforming a bad mood into a good one. Or maybe you want to feel the bad mood fully, in which case you can cry all you want, and nobody can judge you. When you’re alone, there’s no pressure to be someone you’re not. For a while I actually used to need time alone in order to remember who I was. When we’re constantly surrounded by people—especially toxic influences—it becomes really easy to forget ourselves. We get caught up in drama, gossip, and negativity.
”
”
Jackson MacKenzie (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People)
“
Edith who had still not fully recovered from the debauchery at the Hayeses' had glaced at the letter before dinner but she apparently lacked the energy to pry. "Oh to be young as you " was all she'd said before going to bed early.
”
”
Anna Godbersen (Envy (Luxe, #3))
“
Chris was in the rocker, fully clothed, and was strumming idly on
Cory's guitar. "Dance, ballerina, dance," he softly chanted, and his
singing voice wasn't bad at all. Maybe we could work as musicians---a
trio -if Carrie ever recovered enough to want a voice again.
”
”
V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1))
“
Oh Pia, I feel GOOD! Fully recovered!’ he always says in a dazzling tone that tells everyone within a ten-kilometre radius that he’s not.
”
”
Aditi Mathur Kumar (Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life)
“
Eventually, I trained myself not to speak that way because I didn’t want people to single me out. I wanted to fit in other places, not just where I grew up. That’s why I now sound like an Ohio weatherman—neutral, friendly, and almost fully recovered after escaping that cult.
”
”
Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
“
I'm happy you're saying that, because... I mean, I always feel like a freak, because I'm never able to move on like... this! You know. People just have an affair, or even entire relationships... they break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I've been with. Because each person have... their own, specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That's why I'm very careful with getting involved, because... It hurts too much! Even getting laid! I actually don't do that... I will miss on the other person the most mundane things. Like I'm obsessed with little things. Maybe I'm crazy, but... when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk, or... ants crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk... Little things. I think it's the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, and that I miss, and... will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details. Like I remember the way, your beard has a bit of red in it. And how the sun was making it glow, that... that morning, right before you left. I remember that, and... I missed it! I'm really crazy, right?
”
”
Céline
“
Do not bend,” Nina snapped. “Do not leap. Do not move abruptly. If you don’t promise to take it easy, I’ll slow your heart and keep you in a coma until I can be sure you’ve recovered fully.” “Nina Zenik, as soon as I figure out where you’ve put my knives, we’re going to have words.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
You never do fully recover “You.” You will never have another relationship exactly like the one we had. You will become more for the loss of me and you will move forward into a New You. The You I helped you to become. All you can do now is to begin to create the beautiful New You that has been born from your love and from your loss.
”
”
Kate McGahan (Only Gone From Your Sight: Jack McAfghan's Little Therapy Guide to Pet Loss and Grief (Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series Book 4))
“
A person who wants to “know Jesus” must, due to the nature of God’s revelation, know Him as He is related to the Father and the Spirit. We must know, understand, and love the Trinity to be fully and completely Christian. This is why we say the Trinity is the greatest of God’s revealed truths.
”
”
James R. White (The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief)
“
But would she ever recover fully inside? How would she handle being alone in the house? Would she ever again be able to hear someone walking up the garden path without that twinge of fear and panic? He didn’t know. The psyche regenerates itself, too, sometimes. We’re often a damn sight more resilient than we’d imagine.
”
”
Peter Robinson
“
Inej!” Jesper crowed. “You’re not dead!”
She smiled faintly. “No more than anyone.”
“If you’re spouting depressing Suli wisdom, then you must be feeling better.”
“Don’t just stand there,” Nina groused. “Help me get these things on her feet.”
“If you would just let me—” Inej began.
“Do not bend,” Nina snapped. “Do not leap. Do not move abruptly. If you don’t promise to take it easy, I’ll slow your heart and keep you in a coma until I can be sure you’ve recovered fully.”
“Nina Zenik, as soon as I figure out where you’ve put my knives, we’re going to have words.”
“The first ones had better be Thank you, oh great Nina, for dedicating every waking moment of this miserable journey to saving my sorry life.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
Bullshit. The truth is you don’t want to. It makes you feel good to blame yourself. You know why?” Kira shook her head, mute. “Because it gives you a sense of control. The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can’t change.” Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. “Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars)
“
People do fully recover from chronic fatigue syndrome. Know this. Internalize this. Carve these words into your soul as the absolute truth.
”
”
Raelan Agle
“
For some, the war years would be the most fulfilling of their lives. For others, they would be an experience from which they would never fully recover.
”
”
Richard Freeman (Atlantic Nightmare: The longest military campaign in World War II)
“
One adjusts, although you never fully recover from the loss of a loved one.
”
”
Debbie Macomber (Twelve Days of Christmas: A Christmas Novel)
“
I would run down like a battery during my extreme night shifts and I would never fully recover during the week off between them. I would start my next set of extreme night shifts in a sickly state.
”
”
Steven Magee (Night Shift Recovery)
“
And how closely related to you is Cousin Beatrice?”
Reynaud gave him a look. “Not that close.
“Glad to hear it.” Vale dropped into a cushioned chair. “I hope she recovers fully so that you can then propose to her. Because I tell you now, matrimony truly is a blessed state, enjoyed by all men of good sense and halfway adequate bedroom skills.”
“Thank you for that edifying thought,” Reynaud growled.
Vale waved his glass. “Think nothing of it. I say, you haven’t forgotten how to treat a lady in the bedroom, have you?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“You’ve been out of refined society for years and years now. I could give you some pointers, should you need them.
”
”
Elizabeth Hoyt (To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers, #4))
“
Looking out over the water, I spotted him right away,straddling his board. He was only a dot, but I would have known him anywhere.I thought of the shape of his hands,the hollow at the base of his spine,the way my heart had never stopped skipping a beat at the sound of his voice, and I realized it was the kind of loss- because I knew now that the thing I wanted more than anything in the world not to go fully wrong could- from which I would never fully recover. And I'm not sure I ever fully have.
”
”
Heather King (Parched: A Memoir)
“
Try to keep your rest periods between sets down to a minute or less. In the first minute after a weight-training exercise you recover 72 percent of your strength, and by 3 minutes you have recovered all you are going to recover without extended rest.
”
”
Arnold Schwarzenegger (The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding: The Bible of Bodybuilding, Fully Updated and Revised)
“
the American workforce—earned about $767 per week in 1973. The following year, real average wages began a precipitous decline from which they would never fully recover. A full four decades later, a similar worker earns just $664, a decline of about 13 percent.
”
”
Martin Ford (Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future)
“
Once let down, I never fully recovered. I could never forget, and the break never mended. Like a glass vase that you place on the edge of a table, once broken, the pieces never quite fit again. However the problem wasn’t with the vase, or even that the vases kept breaking. The problem was that I kept putting them on the edge of tables. Through my attachments, I was dependent on my relationships to fulfill my needs. I allowed those relationships to define my happiness or my sadness, my fulfillment or my emptiness, my security, and even my self-worth. And so, like the vase placed where it will inevitably fall, through those dependencies I set myself up for disappointment. I set myself up to be broken. And that’s exactly what I found: one disappointment, one break after another. Yet the people who broke me were not to blame any more than gravity can be blamed for breaking the vase. We can’t blame the laws of physics when a twig snaps because we leaned on it for support. The twig was never created to carry us. Our weight was only meant to be carried by God. We are told in the Qur’an: "…whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And God hears and knows all things." (Qur’an, 2: 256) There is a crucial lesson in this verse: that there is only one hand-hold that never breaks. There is only one place where we can lay our dependencies. There is only one relationship that should define our self-worth and only one source from which to seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and security. That place is God. However,
”
”
Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal insights on breaking free from life's shackles)
“
I was never a believer in kismet, but meeting Jasper White has altered that belief. Suffering the loss of Harper is something I will never fully recover from, but what if it was my destiny to experience that defeat to become victorious?
What if Jasper is my victory prize?
”
”
Monica James
“
Do not bend,” Nina snapped. “Do not leap. Do not move abruptly. If you don’t promise to take it easy, I’ll slow your heart and keep you in a coma until I can be sure you’ve recovered fully.”
“Nina Zenik, as soon as I figure out where you’ve put my knives, we’re going to have words.”
“The first ones had better be "Thank you, oh great Nina, for dedicating every waking moment of this miserable journey to saving my sorry life.”
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
I hated funerals. I hated any rite of passage that emphasized how fleeting and fragile our physical lives were. I hated that children died. Even knowing what I knew about life and the afterlife and the momentary condition of our existence on earth, I hated it. It was better on the other side. I knew that. I’d been told by countless departed, but I hated this part nonetheless. And just for the record, telling the living how their loved ones were in a better place rarely helped. Nothing helped apart from time, and even then, the long-term prognosis was sketchy. Most recovered. Many did not. Not really. Not fully.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Sixth Grave on the Edge (Charley Davidson, #6))
“
After the breakup, they will openly brag about how happy they are with their new partner, where most normal people would feel very embarrassed and secretive about entering a new relationship so quickly. And even more surprising, they fully expect you to be happy for them. Otherwise you are bitter and jealous.
”
”
Peace (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, & Other Toxic People)
“
So back to my question: what are you doing here?” Maia asked.
Derek sighed, reached into his pocket and handed her a smartphone. “Viktor wanted me to give you this.”
Jack turned livid with anger. “She’s not yet fully recovered,” he said furiously. “It’s barely been 48 hours.”
“See, I hate getting caught in the middle of this,” Derek said. “It’s almost like a messed-up love triangle.”
Jack’s face grew darker. Maia was controlling a grin.
“Viktor is worried that he has no way of contacting you,” Derek continued. “Oh, stop scowling, Jack! You’re with Maia, Viktor comes with the package.”
“Like fucking hell!”
~Derek, Maia & Jack
”
”
Victoria Paige (Fire and Ice (Guardians, #1))
“
Black Lives Matter, the movement founded by the activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Callie's, and Opal Tometi, began with the premise that the incommensurable experience of systemic racism creates an unequal playing field. The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings. Consequently, our laws and attitudes have been straining against the devaluation of the black body. Despite good intentions, the associations of blackness with inarticulate, bestial criminality persist beneath the appearance of white civility. This assumption both frames and determines our individual interactions and experiences as citizens.
”
”
Jesmyn Ward (The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race)
“
What the soul wants, what it hungers for, what it is spending time on this earth to achieve, is a fully conscious, bodily experience of the Present.
”
”
Philip Shepherd (New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-First Century)
“
Unable to resist any longer, he buried his fingers in the hair at the base of her neck and angled her face upward. He leaned forward and dropped soft little kisses onto her lips, starting at the corner and working his way across until she began to stir. Her lashes flittered. “Gid—?” He smothered her question with his kiss. No longer playful, he took her mouth fully, holding nothing back. She was no longer Adelaide Proctor, governess. She was Adelaide Westcott, wife. His wife. It didn’t take long for her to recover from her surprise. She clasped his shoulder for support and stretched toward him. His pulse surged, and when she finally pulled away, he refused to let her separate from him completely. He rested his forehead against hers and listened to their ragged breaths echoing in the quiet morning. “Feeling better today, are we?” Adelaide asked as she lowered her head back down to her pillow, her face a becoming shade of pink. Gideon grinned. “A little.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (Head in the Clouds)
“
What ultimately did me in was the self-adhesive condom. Putting it on was no problem, but its removal qualified as what, in certain cultures, is known as a bris. Wear it once, and you’ll need a solid month to fully recover. It will likely be a month in which you’ll weigh the relative freedom of peeing in your pants against the unsightly discomfort of a scab-covered penis, ultimately realizing that, in terms of a convenient accessory,
”
”
David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames)
“
The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings. Consequently, our laws and attitudes have been straining against the devaluation of the black body. Despite good intentions, the associations of blackness with inarticulate, bestial criminality persist beneath the appearance of white civility. This assumption both frames and determines our individual interactions and experience as citizens.
”
”
Claudia Rankine (The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race)
“
The truth is you don’t want to. It makes you feel good to blame yourself. You know why?” Kira shook her head, mute. “Because it gives you a sense of control. The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can’t change.” Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. “Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars)
“
READER,
You have here an honest book; it does at the outset forewarn You that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all either to Your service or to my glory.
My powers are not capable of any such design.
I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of me.
Had my intention been to seek the world's favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint.
My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had lived among those nations, which (they say) yet dwell under the sweet liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I would most willingly have painted myself quite fully and quite naked.
Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there's no reason You should employ Your leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject.
Therefore farewell.
”
”
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Essays)
“
It steals away the very essence of you and leaves terrible lies in its place. It takes the logic that is true and twists it so that you can’t see things that are rational and real. That depression lies to you. You recognize these lies when you are sane or stable or balanced, but when you are in the depths of a depression they seem real. When I’m in that hole I remind myself that my brain is lying and that I’ll realize that fully when I recover. And I do.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Broken (in the best possible way))
“
I don’t remember when I stopped noticing—stopped noticing every mirror, every window, every scale, every fast-food restaurant, every diet ad, every horrifying model. And I don’t remember when I stopped counting, or when I stopped caring what size my pants were, or when I started ordering what I wanted to eat and not what seemed “safe,” or when I could sit comfortably reading a book in my kitchen without noticing I was in my kitchen until I got hungry—or when I started just eating when I got hungry, instead of questioning it, obsessing about it, dithering and freaking out, as I’d done for nearly my whole life.
I don’t remember exactly when recovery took hold, and went from being something I both fought and wanted, to being simply a way of life. A way of life that is, let me tell you, infinitely more peaceful, infinitely happier, and infinitely more free than life with an eating disorder. And I wouldn’t give up this life of freedom for the world.
What I know is this: I chose recovery. It was a conscious decision, and not an easy one. That’s the common denominator among people I know who have recovered: they chose recovery, and they worked like hell for it, and they didn’t give up. Recovery isn’t easy, at first. It takes time. It takes more work, sometimes, than you think you’re willing to do. But it is worth every hard day, every tear, every terrified moment. It’s worth it, because the trade-off is this: you let go of your eating disorder, and you get back your life.
There are a couple of things I had to keep in mind in early recovery. One was that I was going to recover, even though I didn’t feel “ready.” I realized I was never going to feel ready—I was just going to jump in and do it, ready or not, and I am deeply glad that I did. Another was that symptoms were not an option. Symptoms, as critically necessary and automatic as they feel, are ultimately a choice. You can choose to let the fallacy that you must use symptoms kill you, or you can choose not to use symptoms. Easier said than done? Of course. But it can be done.
I had to keep at the forefront of my mind the reasons I wanted to recover so badly, and the biggest one was this: I couldn’t believe in what I was doing anymore. I couldn’t justify committing my life to self-destruction, to appearance, to size, to weight, to food, to obsession, to self-harm. And that was what I had been doing for so long—dedicating all my strength, passion, energy, and intelligence to the pursuit of a warped and vanishing ideal. I just couldn’t believe in it anymore. As scared as I was to recover, to recover fully, to let go of every last symptom, to rid myself of the familiar and comforting compulsions, I wanted to know who I was without the demon of my eating disorder inhabiting my body and mind.
And it turned out that I was all right. It turned out it was all right with me to be human, to have hungers, to have needs, to take space. It turned out that I had a self, a voice, a whole range of values and beliefs and passions and goals beyond what I had allowed myself to see when I was sick. There was a person in there, under the thick ice of the illness, a person I found I could respect.
Recovery takes time, patience, enormous effort, and strength. We all have those things. It’s a matter of choosing to use them to save our own lives—to survive—but beyond that, to thrive. If you are still teetering on the brink of illness, I invite you to step firmly onto the solid ground of health. Walk back toward the world. Gather strength as you go. Listen to your own inner voice, not the voice of the eating disorder—as you recover, your voice will get clearer and louder, and eventually the voice of the eating disorder will recede. Give it time. Don’t give up. Love yourself absolutely. Take back your life.
The value of freedom cannot be overestimated. It’s there for the taking. Find your way toward it, and set yourself free.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher
“
So sanctification isn’t something we lean back on, as much as it’s something we lean into. Rather than being an action only God can do, all by Himself (the way justification and adoption are), sanctification is an endeavor He undertakes in full cooperation and partnership with us. It requires us to exert what you might call “grace-driven effort”—made possible only by the merciful initiative of God, of course, and yet fully employing our human brains, brawn, and body parts as we go.
”
”
Matt Chandler (Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective on How to Change)
“
In the absence of this depth of community, the safe container is difficult to find. By default, we become the container ourselves, and when this happens, we cannot drop into the well of grief in which we can fully let go of the sorrows we carry. We recycle our grief, moving into it and then pulling it back into our bodies unreleased. Frequently in my practice patients tell me that they often cry in private. I ask them whether, at some point in this process, they ever allow their grief to be witnessed and shared with others. There is usually a quick retort of “No, I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone else.” When I push it a little further and ask them how it would feel if a friend came to them with his or her sorrows and pain, they respond that they would feel honored to sit with their friend and offer support. This disconnection between what we would offer others and what we feel we can ask for is extreme. We need to recover our right to ask for help in grief, otherwise it will continue to recycle perpetually. Grief has never been private; it has always been communal. Subconsciously, we are awaiting the presence of others, before we can feel safe enough to drop to our knees on the holy ground of sorrow.
”
”
Francis Weller (The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief)
“
If a free people is going to be reproduced, it will require watering and revivifying and owning anew older traditions and awaking the curiosity in the soul of each citizen. National greatness will not be recovered via a mindless expansion of bureaucratized schooling. Seventy years ago, Dorothy Sayers wrote, 'Sure, we demand another grant of money, we postpone the school leaving age and plan to build bigger and better schools. We demand that teachers further slave conscientiously in and out of school hours. But to what end? I believe,' Sayers lamented, 'all this devoted effort is largely frustrated because we have no definable goal for each child to become a fully formed adult. We have lost the tools of learning, sacrificing them to the piecemeal, subject matter approach of bureaucratized schooling that finally compromises to produce passive rather than active emerging adults. But our kids are not commodities, they are plants. They require a protected environment, and care, and feeding, but most basically, an internal yearning to grow toward the sunlight. What we need is the equipping of each child with those lost tools.
”
”
Ben Sasse (The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance)
“
In the end, they're the only ones who can answer for themselves. So stop blaming yourself."
"I can't seem to help it."
"Bullshit. The truth is you don't WANT to. It makes you feel good to blame yourself. You know why?" Kira shook her head, mute. "Because it gives you a sense of control. The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can't change." Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. "Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn't do you any good. Until you stop, unless you CAN stop, you'll never be able to fully recover.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (Fractalverse, #1))
“
The last time the "best and brightest" got control of the country, they dragged it into a protracted, demoralizing war in Southeast Asia, from which the country has still not fully recovered. Yet Reich seems to believe that a new generation of Whiz Kids can do for the faltering American economy what Robert McNamara's generation failed to do for American diplomacy: to restore, through sheer brainpower, the world leadership briefly enjoyed by the United States after World War II and subsequently lost not, of course, through stupidity so much as through the very arrogance the "arrogance of power," as Senator William Fulbright used to call it to which the "best and brightest" are congenitally addicted.
This arrogance should not be confused with the pride characteristic of aristocratic classes, which rests on the inheritance of an ancient lineage and on the obligation to defend its honor. Neither valor and chivalry nor the code of courtly, romantic love, with which these values are closely associated, has any place in the world view of the best and brightest. A meritocracy has no more use for chivalry and valor than a hereditary aristocracy has for brains. Although hereditary advantages play an important part in the attainment of professional or managerial status, the new class has to maintain the fiction that its power rests on intelligence alone. Hence it has little sense of ancestral gratitude or of an obligation to live up to responsibilities inherited from the past. It thinks of itself as a self-made elite owing its privileges exclusively to its own efforts. Even the concept of a republic of letters, which might be expected to appeal to elites with such a large stake in higher education, is almost entirely absent from their frame of reference.
”
”
Christopher Lasch (The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy)
“
And even though they fail us every bit as readily as we fail ourselves, even though they prove just as incapable of fulfilling us as all the other people do in our lives, we still keep pushing that gimme button like blasted morons, fully expecting that the next time we snag whatever comes out of it will be the time when the satisfaction finally takes hold, when the good feelings finally stick around and stay. And so like clockwork, we go down in flames again and again to our alcohol abuse or our sexual lust or our sweet tooth or our credit line—whatever particular desire is so powerful and predictable at deceiving us. We grab for things that have never failed to disappoint us in the past, thinking that what we must need more than anything is more of it . . . more of the same thing that’s never been able to satisfy us before. That’s the call of the world for you. And it’s madness.
”
”
Matt Chandler (Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective on How to Change)
“
Essentially, people with BPD look to others to manage their feelings for them. Someone with BPD wants others to provide them with things they find difficult to supply for themselves, such as self-love, stable moods, and a sense of identity. Most of all, they are searching for a nurturing caregiver whose never-ending love and compassion will fill the black hole of emptiness and despair inside them. Rachel Reiland, author of Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, had BPD for many years, but has fully recovered. In an email, she describes the conflicting feelings
”
”
Paul T. Mason (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
“
We have not fully recovered from the Dark Ages: the insecurity that excites greed, the fear that fosters cruelty, the poverty that breeds filth and ignorance, the filth that generates disease, the ignorance that begets credulity, superstition, occultism—these still survive amongst us; and the dogmatism that festers into intolerance and Inquisitions only awaits opportunity or permission to oppress, kill, ravage, and destroy. In this sense modernity is a cloak put upon medievalism, which secretly remains; and in every generation civilization is the laborious product and precarious obligating privilege of an engulfed minority. The
”
”
Will Durant (The Age of Faith)
“
What we are saying about God is that His being is not limited and finite like a creature’s. His Being is infinite and unlimited, and hence can, in a way completely beyond our comprehension, be shared fully by three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divine Being is one; the divine persons are three. While
”
”
James R. White (The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief)
“
And within two weeks, Peter Foo was already proven right. Business for the firm expanded in leaps & bounds as both old & new clients wanted to meet the lovely slave girl that he kept naked in his penthouse & to partake of the ambrosial Nectar that she served. So much so that the three million dollars that he had paid for her was fully recovered out of profits. And new orders that flooded the firm showed that his initial investment on the girl would increase in value tenfold within a year.
He had therefore acquired the lovely slave girl, Briseis,for free. And that was why Peter Foo was likened by the Directors to Zeus/Jupiter, the King of the Gods.[MMT]
”
”
Nicholas Chong
“
Black Lives Matter, the movement founded by the activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, began with the premise that the incommensurable experience of systemic racism creates an unequal playing field. The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings. Consequently, our laws and attitudes have been straining against the devaluation of the black body. Despite good intentions, the associations of blackness with inarticulate, bestial criminality persist beneath the appearance of white civility. This assumption both frames and determines our individual interactions and experiences as citizens.
”
”
Jesmyn Ward (The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race)
“
People just have an affair, or even entire relationships. They break up and they forget. They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals. I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with because each person had their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved because it hurts too much. Even getting laid, I actually don’t do that because I will miss of the person the most mundane things, like I’m obsessed with little things. Maybe I’m crazy, but when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk or ants crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk. Little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them that move me and that I miss and will always miss. You can never replace anyone because everyone is made of such beautiful, specific details. Like, I remember the way your beard has a bit of red in it and how the sun was making it glow that morning right before you left. I remembered that, and I missed it. I'm really crazy, right?”.
”
”
Celine (Before Sunset, 2004 | Dir. Richard Linklater))
“
His heart stuttered to a halt, then began to slam against his ribs. The first gentle brush of her lips hit him like an electrical current. His breath caught. Hers did, too. She drew back a fraction to stare up at him with wide eyes that acquired an amber glow.
Then Dagon slid his arms around her and locked her against him. Dipping his head, he claimed her lips with greater urgency, letting her feel the heat that had been flaying him inside ever since she had walked onto his bridge, fully recovered from her wounds, and drawn him into a hug.
Moaning, she parted her lips.
Dagon slipped his tongue inside to stroke hers, deepening the kiss, teasing and tantalizing until she inched even closer.
”
”
Dianne Duvall (The Segonian (Aldebarian Alliance, #2))
“
She held a violin delicately tucked in between her soft neck and athletic shoulder, and she was dressed in a white goddess-like gown that pooled on the floor. Wide gold cuffs covered her wrists, dangly earrings hung from her ears and an ornate headband haloed her sharply bobbed black wig. Her eyes were outlined in a smoldering, liquid black, and her lips were the color of blood.
She was dressed as Cleopatra.
Is there a moment in every relationship when it becomes life-threateningly dangerous? When you realize that your heart is so comfortably resting in someone else's hands that should they decide to drop it you would never fully recover? In the case of my relationship with Matilda Duplaine it was at this very moment.
”
”
Alex Brunkhorst (The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine)
“
Ultimately, we should all be seeking to use our time in ways that bring us the greatest overall pleasure and purpose for as long as possible. Just as you cannot recover time that is lost, you cannot recover happiness that is lost. Staying in a boring job or an annoying relationship simply prolongs the misery and any future happiness is unlikely to fully compensate for this loss. Lost happiness is lost forever.
”
”
Paul Dolan (Happiness by Design: Change What You Do, Not How You Think)
“
I have salt and sugar at home, but I'm paying eighty bucks to have ya'll rub it on my feet. If I want to yell at my sister-in-law about that fact that I just found out I am pregnant, and how my boyfriend, the recovering alcoholic, is still fragile and I don't know if he'll make it, whether I'm going to miscarry like I did before, and a whole other list of shit, like, hell, I don't know, what I'm going to be when I grow up, then I will! And maybe, just maybe, for the eighty bucks you're charging me, I can yell a bit."
The woman only blinked as Lacey snickered beside her. "Keep it down and congratulations."
"Thanks, and I'll try," Kacey said as the woman walked away. She then turned to Lacey, who was fully laughing at this point. "Really> This is not funny."
"Oh, I'm cracking up because if you're already this emotional and bitchy, God help us all once you reach the third Trimester.
”
”
Toni Aleo (Overtime (Nashville Assassins, #5))
“
Everything within him went still. “Segonian courtship rituals?” he repeated softly. “Why would you wish to know more about that?”
She sighed. “Because I couldn’t find anything about it in your informational databases, and I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” Reaching up, she rested her small hands on his stubbled cheeks, then rose onto her toes and drew him down for a kiss.
His heart stuttered to a halt, then began to slam against his ribs. The first gentle brush of her lips hit him like an electrical current. His breath caught. Hers did, too. She drew back a fraction to stare up at him with wide eyes that acquired an amber glow.
Then Dagon slid his arms around her and locked her against him. Dipping his head, he claimed her lips with greater urgency, letting her feel the heat that had been flaying him inside ever since she had walked onto his bridge, fully recovered from her wounds, and drawn him into a hug.
”
”
Dianne Duvall (The Segonian (Aldebarian Alliance, #2))
“
As it turned out, the two decades immediately following the popularization of anesthesia saw surgical outcomes worsen. With their newfound confidence about operating without inflicting pain, surgeons became ever more willing to take up the knife, driving up the incidences of postoperative infection and shock. Operating theaters became filthier than ever as the number of surgeries increased. Surgeons still lacking an understanding of the causes of infection would operate on multiple patients in succession using the same unwashed instruments on each occasion. The more crowded the operating theater became, the less likely it was that even the most primitive sanitary precautions would be taken. Of those who went under the knife, many either died or never fully recovered and then spent the rest of their lives as invalids. This problem was universal. Patients worldwide came to further dread the word “hospital,” while the most skilled surgeons distrusted their own abilities.
”
”
Lindsey Fitzharris (The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine)
“
As in other animals, the nerves and chemicals that make up our basic brain structure have a direct connection with our body. When the old brain takes over, it partially shuts down the higher brain, our conscious mind, and propels the body to run, hide, fight, or, on occasion, freeze. By the time we are fully aware of our situation, our body may already be on the move. If the fight/flight/freeze response is successful and we escape the danger, we recover our internal equilibrium and gradually “regain our senses.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
To know Christ truly is to know the Trinity, for God has not revealed himself in such a way as to allow us to have true and balanced knowledge of the Father outside of such knowledge of the Son, all of which comes to us through the Spirit. A person who wants to “know Jesus” must, due to the nature of God’s revelation, know Him as He is related to the Father and the Spirit. We must know, understand, and love the Trinity to be fully and completely Christian. This is why we say the Trinity is the greatest of God’s revealed truths.
”
”
James R. White (The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief)
“
Hoagland," Kingston said in a voice like expensive liquor on ice, "it's good to see you. Your son is better, I trust?"
"You're very kind to ask, Your Grace. Yes, he's recovered fully from his tumble. The poor lad's grown so fast, he hasn't yet learned to manage those long arms and legs. A rackabones, my wife calls him."
"My boy Ivo is the same. He's shot up like a weed of late."
"Will he grow as tall as your other two sons, do you expect?"
"By force of will, if necessary," the duke replied dryly. "Ivo has informed me he has no intention of being the youngest and the shortest.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
“
In August 1977 Canadians reacted with horror and revulsion when they learned that in the 1950s and early 1960s, one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the country had used his vulnerable patients as unwitting guinea pigs in brainwashing experiments funded by the CIA and the Canadian government.
Behind the doors of the so-called sleep room on Wards 2 South, Dr. Ewen Cameron, the director of Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute, exposed dozens of his own patients to barbaric treatments from which some never fully recovered. Operating under the belief that he could wipe brains clean of "bad behavior" and program in new behaviour, Cameron kept patients in a chemical sleep for weeks and months at a time exposing them to massive amounts of electro-shock and drugs such as LSD, and forced them to listen to tape-recorded messages repeated endlessly through headphones.
Cameron was not alone in his desire to reprogram the human brain. The U.S. intelligence establishment found in him an eager collaborator, and funded his work substantially and covertly. Eventually, after years of stonewalling by the CIA, nine of the dozens of victims were at last given a chance to claim restitution for Cameron’s “treatments” by taking the powerful U.S. intelligence agency to court.
”
”
Anne Collins (In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada)
“
People just have an affair, or even entire relationships. They break up and they forget. They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals. I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with because each person had their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved because it hurts too much. Even getting laid, I actually don’t do that because I will miss of the person the most mundane things, like I’m obsessed with little things. Maybe I’m crazy, but when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk or ants crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk. Little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them that move me and that I miss and will always miss. You can never replace anyone because everyone is made of such beautiful, specific details. Like, I remember the way your beard has a bit of red in it and how the sun was making it glow that morning right before you left. I remembered that, and I missed it. I'm really crazy, right?”.
”
”
Celine (Before Sunset)
“
I think I’d felt that as long as I avoided looking for the tickets, they would be there; it was only if I searched the archive that they’d disappear, as if the past were up until that point indeterminate, that I might outrun it. Do you know what I mean? We had to pay a lot of money to get the tickets for the next day; luckily they still had seats, although I suppose there are usually seats to and from Kansas City.
It was kind of like that, recovering the memory of what my father had done. The knowledge was always there, I carried it in my body, but I didn’t know what I knew, although I knew I knew something and that I dreaded knowing it fully, dreaded it as if only coming into the knowledge, into the memory, would make the event that I was repressing real.
”
”
Ben Lerner (The Topeka School)
“
I shall expect your reply within a month. Surely that is time enough to ... weigh your other offers.'
She stared at him. Well. She'd underestimated Lord Prescott. Or perhaps, more accurately, she hadn't fully estimated him ...
'Thank you, Lord Prescott. It's helpful to know that your desire for me will expire by a particular date.'
'Much like the desirability of any woman. You of all people should be fully aware that a woman's bloom doesn't last forever. Nor does her ability to bear children.'
...
'Thank you for reminding me. It slipped my mind, temporarily.'
He nodded, smiling a little, acknowledging her little barb. 'Good day, Miss de Ballesteros. I am not a man without feeling, and I think I shall depart now, to recover from the decidedly ambivalent receipt of my proposal.'
She smiled a little at that.
'Good day, Lord Prescott. Perhaps I should retire, too, to preserve my bloom.
”
”
Julie Anne Long (It Happened One Midnight (Pennyroyal Green, #8))
“
My world had stopped, but the outside one kept going. On Saturday, one week after the murder, Bubba had a basketball game. He wanted to go. I wanted him to go, too.
And if he went, I was going, too. Even though I hadn’t been out of the house except to go to the funeral home.
A friend picked Bubba up early so he could get there for the pregame warm-up. When it came time to leave to watch the game, I decided to run rather than drive. It was five minutes by car, and I thought it wouldn’t take long to trot over.
I was wrong about that.
Four or five of the men at the house accompanied me, including my brother-in-law Jeff, who had just gone through an operation and was still recovering. I’m sure his rehab plan didn’t include running alongside a half-crazy woman, but he did anyway, without a complaint or even a “Hey, slow down.”
We got to the church gym just in time for the game. I felt such pure joy watching Bubba play. It was one of the very few times that whole month that I was able to completely forget my grief and feel fully myself. They were fleeting moments, but they loom large now in my memory, little islands of relief in a sea of dread.
We all walked home. The men tossed a ball back and forth with Bubba. They couldn’t replace Chris, but they provided an enormous, unstated reassurance to Bubba that he would never be alone.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
Fully His I have been forgiven and set free from my sins. There was a boy who lived in a town on the seaside. He was a skilled and clever carver, and he carved himself a little wooden boat. When he put sails on it, it really sailed. One day, he took it down to the shore and was sailing it at the edge of the sea, but the tide changed and carried his boat out to sea, and he could not recover it. So, he went home without his boat. With the next change of the wind and tide, the boat came back again. A man walking along the seashore found the boat, picked it up, and saw it was a beautiful piece of work. He took it to a local shop and sold it. The shop owner cleaned it up and put it on display in his shop window with a price of thirty-five dollars. Some while later, the boy walked past the shop, looked in the window, and saw his boat with a price of thirty-five dollars. He knew, however, that he had no way to prove that it was his boat. If he wanted his boat, there was only one thing he could do: buy it back. He set to work, taking any job he could to earn the money to buy his boat. Once he earned the money, he walked into the shop and said, “I want to buy that boat.” He paid the money, and, when he got the boat in his hands, he walked outside and stopped on the sidewalk. He held the boat to his chest and said, “Now you’re mine. I made you and I bought you.” That is redemption. First, the Lord made us, but we were in Satan’s slave market. Then, He bought us. We are doubly His. Can you see how valuable you are to the Lord? Think of yourself as that boat for a moment. You may feel so inadequate, so worthless. You wonder whether God ever really cares. Just try to believe that you are that boat in the Lord’s arms and He is saying to you, “Now you’re Mine. I made you and I bought you. I own you; you’re fully Mine.” Thank You,
”
”
Derek Prince (Declaring God's Word: A 365-Day Devotional)
“
Godly grief readily confesses. After seeing your sin, and sorrowing over your sin, the worst thing you can do is to try stuffing your sin, hoping nobody ever finds out who you really are. Turns out, the best way to avoid being found out a fake is just not to be one—to be open with people about your struggles, while being equally as open in your praise of God for what He’s making of you, despite your many messes and problems. This is where the church comes in so beautifully, because it gets us around people who can help us carry the nagging issues of our hearts—people to whom we can confess our battles with sin and confess our need for a Savior—while we’re doing the same for them. When the only person that truly knows all about us is the person who uses our hairbrush, we are easy pickings for the Enemy, ripe for being outmaneuvered and outsmarted. That’s how we remain slaves to our repeated failures, by basically resisting the redeeming love of God and the needed, encouraging support of others. Because even if we’re as much as 99 percent known (or much less, as is more often the case) to our spouse, our friends, our family, and the people around us, we are still not fully known. We’re still hiding out. We’re still covering up. We don’t want them to know everything. But true sorrow over sin begs to be vented—both vertically to God and horizontally to others. So mark this down: You have no shot at experiencing real change in life if you’re habitually protecting your image, hyping your spiritual brand, and putting out the vibe that you’re a lot more unfazed by temptation than the reality you know and live would suggest. Even Satan himself cannot succeed at clobbering you with condemnation when the stuff he’s accusing you of doing is the same stuff you’ve been honestly admitting before God and others and trusting the Lord for His help with. That’s some of the best action you can take against the sin in your life. That’s responsible repentance.
”
”
Matt Chandler (Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective on How to Change)
“
Perhaps the immobility of the things around us is imposed on them by our certainty that they are themselves and not anything else, by the immobility of our mind confronting them. However that may be, when I woke thus, my mind restlessly attempting, without success, to discover where I was, everything revolved around me in the darkness, things, countries, years. My body, too benumbed to move, would try to locate, according to the form of its fatigue, the position of its limbs so as to deduce from this the direction of the wall, the placement of the furniture, so as to reconstruct and name the dwelling in which it found itself. Its memory, the memory of its ribs, its knees, its shoulders, offered in succession several of the rooms where it had slept, while around it the invisible walls, changing place according to the shape of the imagined room, spun through the shadows. And even before my mind, hesitating on the thresholds of times and shapes, had identified the house by reassembling the circumstances, it—my body—would recall the kind of bed in each one, the location of the doors, the angle at which the light came in through the windows, the existence of a hallway, along with the thought I had had as I fell asleep and that I had recovered upon waking. My stiffened side, trying to guess its orientation, would imagine, for instance, that it lay facing the wall in a big canopied bed and immediately I would say to myself: “Why, I went to sleep in the end even though Mama didn’t come to say goodnight to me,” I was in the country in the home of my grandfather, dead for many years; and my body, the side on which I was resting, faithful guardians of a past my mind ought never to have forgotten, recalled to me the flame of the night-light of Bohemian glass, in the shape of an urn, which hung from the ceiling by little chains, the mantelpiece of Siena marble, in my bedroom at Combray, at my grandparents’ house, in faraway days which at this moment I imagined were present without picturing them to myself exactly and which I would see more clearly in a little while when I was fully awake.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
The narcissistic mother will manipulate other family members to gang up against you by focusing on everything that’s wrong with you. This conveniently takes the focus away from the real perpetrator, which is of course her. It’s interesting to think about the manipulation that’s actually going on. So if you have been labelled as the black sheep and that has been your permanent role in the family, it actually allows all the other family members to start feeling better about themselves. They actually start to believe that they are healthier and more obedient to the narcissistic mother than you, and again this creates a division within the family. Another important point is that if a child is scapegoated from an early age, he or she may fully internalize all of their narcissistic mother’s criticism and shame. This means that the scapegoats develop this harsh inner critic that will continue that inner dialogue that constantly reminds them of how bad and flawed they are. I guess you could call that “inner scapegoating,” and it is extremely toxic to a young impressionable child whose identity is still being formed. So, the scapegoat may struggle with low self-esteem and often continues to feel deeply inadequate and unlovable. Adult scapegoat children also tend to suppress a huge amount of abandonment anxiety because they were emotionally or even physically abandoned by the narcissistic mother over and over again. Adult scapegoat children therefore become super sensitive to observing any potential signs of approval or disapproval. These are all important aspects of the profound impact that a toxic family dynamic may continue to have on adult relationships. Perhaps you may still have issues with authority. Maybe you’re still used to justifying yourself or somehow proving your worth. This is an unconscious pattern that you may still not be aware of and that you are perpetuating because you don’t realize how powerful these dysfunctional family dynamics still are. And once you wake up and understand you can let go of that label, you can break that pattern by choosing to think and behave completely different. You can learn to choose your battles and do not always have to be defensive. You do not always have to feel victimized. You need to become more self-aware and notice if you are still trying to get your parents’ approval or validation. Maturing into adulthood means that you may need to understand that you may never have a healthy relationship with an intentional perpetrator of abuse. You need to process your feelings of frustration, loneliness, rage, and grief.
”
”
Caroline Foster (Narcissistic Mothers: How to Handle a Narcissistic Parent and Recover from CPTSD (Adult Children of Narcissists Recovery Book 1))
“
One of my male cousins was reprimanded when he tried to marry a Filipina, but he “came around” and fully recovered, ultimately marrying a Pakistani girl.
”
”
Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity)
“
this book has reminded us that American democracy is not as exceptional as we sometimes believe. There’s nothing in our Constitution or our culture to immunize us against democratic breakdown. We have experienced political catastrophe before, when regional and partisan enmities so divided the nation that it collapsed into civil war. Our constitutional system recovered, and Republican and Democratic leaders developed new norms and practices that would undergird more than a century of political stability. But that stability came at the price of racial exclusion and authoritarian single-party rule in the South. It was only after 1965 that the United States fully democratized. And, paradoxically, that very process began a fundamental realignment of the American electorate that has once again left our parties deeply polarized. This polarization, deeper than at any time since the end of Reconstruction, has triggered the epidemic of norm breaking that now challenges our democracy.
”
”
Steven Levitsky (How Democracies Die)
“
There was some clickings and whirrings within the structure of Hex.
Then it wrote: +++ Good Evening, Arch-Chancellor. I Am Fully Recovered And Enthusiastic About My Tasks +++
"Not mad, then?"
+++ I Assure You I Am As Sane As The Next Man +++
"Bursar, just move away from the machine, will you?", said Ridcully.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)
“
This is a very fine nightshirt,” she remarked inanely.
“I wasn’t even aware that I owned one, until Sutton brought it out.”
Kathleen paused, perplexed. “What do you wear to sleep, if not a nightshirt?”
Devon gave her a speaking glance, one corner of his mouth quirking.
Her jaw went slack as his meaning sank in.
“Does that shock you?” he asked, a glint of laughter in his eyes.
“Certainly not. I was already aware that you’re a barbarian.” But she turned the color of a ripe pomegranate as she concentrated resolutely on the buttons. The nightshirt gaped open, revealing a brawny, lightly furred chest. She cleared her throat before asking, “Are you able to lift up?”
For answer, Devon pushed away from the pillows with a grunt of effort.
Kathleen let her shawl drop and reached beneath him, searching for the end of the cloth binding. It was tucked in at the center. “Just a moment--” She reached around him with her other arm to pull at the end of the cloth. It was longer than she’d expected, requiring several tugs to free it.
No longer able to maintain the position, Devon dropped back to the pillows with a pained sound, his weight pinning her hands. “Sorry,” he managed.
Kathleen tugged at her imprisoned arms. “Not at all…but if you wouldn’t mind…”
Recovering his breath, Devon was slow to respond as he took stock of the situation.
She was torn between amusement and outrage as she saw the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Let me up, you rogue.”
His warm hands came up to the backs of her shoulders, caressing in slow circles. “Climb into bed with me.”
“Are you mad?”
As she strained to free herself, he reached for the loose braid that hung over her shoulder and played with it idly. “You did last night,” he pointed out.
Kathleen went still, her eyes widening.
So he did remember.
“You can hardly expect me to make a habit of it,” she said breathlessly. “Besides, my maid will come looking for me soon.”
Devon moved to his side and tugged her fully onto the bed. “She won’t come in here.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
By the time Mansa Musa left the Middle East, he had put so much gold into circulation, its value fell sharply. A reporter in the service of the Egyptian sultan reported that the Cairo gold market had been so saturated that it still had not fully recovered twelve years after Mansa Musa’s fabulous hajj.
”
”
Patricia C. McKissack (The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa)
“
People are poor not just because of their sins; they are poor because of our sins (and people are rich because of our sins). On the wall of New Jerusalem is a sign that reads, “We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.
”
”
Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical)
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share. The company’s stock price immediately fell by 26% as the move was widely hailed as a disaster for premium brands. But it was not; it was just the end of a premium brand being overpriced; the problem was that Marlboro had opened up too big of a price premium, opening the door for all kinds of competitors. The event precipitated the end of cigarette price wars because many competitors were unable to compete with a more affordable Marlboro. Within two years, Philip Morris’s stock had fully recovered. The Canadian cola market has demonstrated time and again the consumer’s willingness to switch from Coca-Cola or Pepsi to private label colas if the price differential were greater than $1 for a box of 12 cans. Opening too big a price differential begins a price war by increasing the volume that moves around the market because of price.
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Greg Thain (Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store)
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During a rabies scare in 1885, Pasteur concocted a treatment and gave the untested drug to a nine-year-old boy, Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by a grocer’s dog. Three weeks later, Meister had almost fully recovered. Pasteur’s legend received considerable help by the fact that Meister hailed from Alsace, a region controlled by Germany but claimed by France. The tricolor declared a victory for French science and for Pasteur who had beaten the German, Robert Koch, who had like Pasteur been working on vaccines. As a grown man, Joseph Meister took a job as a guard at the Institut Pasteur after Pasteur’s death. When German troops entered Paris in 1940, they swarmed the institute’s grounds and ordered that Pasteur’s crypt be opened. Meister likely had been one of several men who defended the crypt against the Wehrmacht and prevented its defilement. Shortly after, Meister inexplicably shot himself through the head. Even this act became part of Pasteur’s celebrity.
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Anne E. Maczulak (Allies and Enemies: How the World Depends on Bacteria (FT Press Science))
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Relying so heavily on an individual is dangerous, Because you never truly know who they put their dependency in And when they walk away You’ll never fully recover that piece of you they took with them.
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Gwyneth Oviere (Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk: Brutal Poetry)
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We sometimes endure horrific losses, from which we’ll never fully recover or forget. But we all have to move on at some point and barring the tragedies, the other things are small bumps. Our challenge is to overcome and find the best solution and sometimes those choices lead us to better things. A change in direction doesn’t mean you fail.” Ellie wiped her eyes with the torn napkin and
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Tammy L. Grace (Pieces of Home (Hometown Harbor #4))
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October 6 Dear Cora, I’ve decided to write you a letter like the one I asked each person in the Friday class to write to explain why they got an A this year. Here it is: May 18 Dear Cora, I got my A because I finally broke the cycle of lashing out at people when they didn’t do exactly what I wanted them to do. I came to see that when I got angry with people or became sarcastic, it was like wiping them out, and our relationship never fully recovered. It was hard for me to “get” that what I wanted was not necessarily what they wanted. For example, if we were preparing an important and difficult concert and players didn’t come to a rehearsal or came late, I would be disappointed and angry because I thought that they should care as much about the project as I did and let nothing stand in the way of being there. Now I see that in a volunteer orchestra whose players have many other commitments, I cannot assume that everyone’s priorities are exactly the same as mine. I have come to realize that people will do what they want to do—which means that sometimes they will come to rehearsals and sometimes they won’t—and I must respect their decisions. And if in my view they fail to adequately inform me of their intentions, I now ask them politely, to please, in the future, leave a message on the voice-mail, or inform the personnel manager directly, so that we can have some idea in advance of what to expect.
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Rosamund Stone Zander (The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life)
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Letting go of control is crucial to living a life where anxiety doesn’t dominate you. It’s the solution to a social phobia, a fear of driving or flying, hypochondria, and many more forms of anxiety. If control is an issue for you, and I bet it is, your mind mistakenly believes that having everything under control will give you the freedom you desire. This is faulty. You cannot have everything under control. There are so many factors we cannot control: nature, the reactions and thoughts of other people, traffic, etc. There are a gazillion things we cannot control, and true freedom comes when you fully embrace that. Embracing the fact you cannot control everything can lift a huge weight off your shoulders and set you free. That sounds like it comes from one of those spiritually enlightening books, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. Trying to have everything under control severely limits your freedom and the quality of your life. Not to mention that it will burn out your nervous system swiftly. This is a true catch-22. The more you try to have everything under control, the less control you’ll have. Imagine what will happen when your mind comes up with a “what if?” question or any other anxiety inducer, and you automatically dismiss it. Can you imagine how free you would be? How easy would it be to say “yes” to all of the experiences life has to offer without worrying?
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Geert Verschaeve (Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life)
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That’s why I now sound like an Ohio weatherman—neutral, friendly, and almost fully recovered after escaping that cult.
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Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
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He had always wanted the world to be just like that – no doubts, no lingering areas of hesitation or equivocation, just action, purity of will and deed, the knowledge that whatever he did could never be, and could never have been, otherwise. From the first day of this rebellion, everything had shaken that single-mindedness. The things he had relied on with total surety had proven to be illusory and weak, and things he had thought of as being fictive and simple-minded had proved to have unexpected power. He had been forced to recalibrate, to reorientate. As every sword-brother knew, the time of greatest weakness was during the correction of a defective technique. He had started to fight… and lose. He had faced Horus Aximand and had been made to withdraw. He had faced Khârn, whom he had not yet been able to bring himself to hate fully, and been beaten. He had even taken on a primarch. Had that been hubris? Or just frustration, a desperate bid to recover his now-so-elusive sense of superiority? If he had somehow done the impossible and bested Fulgrim, would that have finally banished the whispers of doubt?
Probably not. The fault had never been external, he knew now – it had always been within him, slowly metastasising, becoming impassable the longer he ignored it. He had needed to hear Dorn’s words of release to understand it. They had, all of them, been fighting with one hand behind their backs, trying to hold on to a dream that had already died. The enemy was utterly changed now. They were physically stronger and morally intoxicated, eagerly drinking up gifts that should have been shunned as poison. And yet, those who remained loyal had tried to cling on to what they had been at the very start. They had still mouthed pieties about Unity and the Imperial Truth long after fealty to such virtues had become impossible. Once he grasped that, once he faced up to it, he had what he needed to remove the fetters in his mind.
I no longer fight for the Imperium that was, he told himself. I fight for the Imperium as it will become.
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Chris Wraight (Warhawk (The Siege of Terra #6))
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It was a massive black eye for Lightning. First, the news that Barracuda could be hacked killed the product, costing the company millions. But it was also incredibly embarrassing when one of the world’s preeminent tech companies couldn’t get into its own system to fix its own website. It took them six days to repair the damage, during which their stock price tanked. It never fully recovered.
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Stuart Gibbs (Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation (Charlie Thorne, #1))
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They had grown up the best of friends, and seeing
him cut down at such a young age, never to recover fully and with many of his life's dreams impossible…it had destroyed a small part of her heart.
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Victoria Lynn (Once I Knew (The Chronicles of Elira #1))
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Both mindfulness and meditation hold an underlying premise that our minds should be softly directed. We are teaching them a new relationship with intrusive thoughts. When a thought appears during either of these practices, we notice it but do not become engaged with it. Some imagine thoughts as clouds that visit, and then visualize them floating off or popping like a bubble, because where the thoughts are heading, we do not follow. This is the line of demarcation. In white space we may follow thought. We may follow ideas. We dismiss constraints fully. That dog may run through the park without the leash. With ultimate freedom, our minds explore, stretch, and recover.
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Juliet Funt (A Minute to Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work)
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Touch, the most elementary tool that we have to calm down, is proscribed from most therapeutic practices. Yet you can’t fully recover if you don’t feel safe in your skin. Therefore, I encourage all my patients to engage in some sort of bodywork, be it therapeutic massage, Feldenkrais, or craniosacral therapy.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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What are your feelings from Bush to Obama?
Besides being responsible for the death of half a million people, I feel like Bush dealt a huge economic and social blow to the USA, one from which we may never fully recover. He directly flushed 3 trillion dollars down the toilet on hopeless, pointlessly destructive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq …and they’re not even over! For years to come, we’ll be paying costs for all the injured veterans (over 50,000) and destabilizing three countries, because you have to look at the impact that the Afghan war has on Pakistan. Bush expanded the use of torture, and created a whole new layer of government bureaucracy (the “Department of Homeland Security”) to spy on Americans. He created Indefinite Detention (at Guantanamo and other US military bases) and expanded the use of executive-ordered assassinations using the new drone technology. On economic issues, his administration allowed corporations to run things and regulate themselves. The agency that was supposed to regulate oil drilling had lobbyist-paid prostitutes sleeping with employees while oil industry lobbyists basically ran the agency. Energy companies like Enron, and the country’s investment banks were deregulated at the end of the Clinton administration and Bush allowed them to run wild. Above all, he was incompetent and appointed some really stupid people to important positions at every level of government.
Certainly, Obama has been involved in many of these same activities. A few he’s increased, such as the use of drone assassinations, but most of them he has at least tried to scale back. At the beginning of his first term, he tried to close the Guantanamo prison and have trials for many of the detainees in the United States but conservatives (including many Democrats) stirred up public resistance and blocked this from happening. He tried to get some kind of universal healthcare because over 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance. This is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcies and foreclosures because someone gets sick in a family, loses their job, loses their health insurance (because American employers are source of most people’s healthcare) and they can’t pay their health bills or their mortgage. Or they use up all their money caring for a sick family member. So many people in the US wanted health insurance reform or single-payer, universal health care similar to what you have in the UK. Members of Obama’s own party (The Democrats) joined with Republicans to narrowly block “The public option” but they managed to pass a half-assed but not-unsubstantial reform of health insurance that would prevent insurers from denying you coverage when you’re sick or have a “preexisting condition.” The minute it was signed into law, Republicans sued in the courts (all the way to the supreme court) and fought, tooth and nail to block its implementation. Same thing with gun control, even as we’re one of the most violent industrial countries in the world. (Among industrial countries, our murder rate is second only to Russia). Obama has managed to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan over Republican opposition but, literally, everything he tries to do, they blast it in the media and fight it in Congress. So, while I have a lot of criticisms of Obama, he is many orders of magnitude less awful than Bush and many of the positive things he’s tried to do have been blocked.
That said, the Democratic and Republican parties agree on more things than they disagree. Both signed off on the Afghan and Iraq wars. Both signed off on deregulation of banks, of derivatives, of mortgage regulations and of the energy and telecom business …and we’ve been living with the consequences ever since. I’m guessing it’s the same thing with Labor and Conservatives in the UK. Labor or Democrats will SAY they stand for certain “progressive” things but they end up supporting the same old crap...
(2014 interview with iamhiphop)
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Andy Singer
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18. Consistency, consistency, consistency!
Running well takes months and years of diligent work. Unfortunately, there’s no short-term fix or “get fast quick” plan out there. Distance running is a long-term sport and it takes the top athletes years - sometimes decades - to reach their genetic potential.
Remember that what you run today impacts what you’re able to do next week, which impacts what you can do next month, etc. Consistency is king and you’ll often get better results by adding a little bit of running for a few months than trying to jump up your mileage over just a few weeks. Small changes, made over a long period of time, will ultimately help you be a better runner.
19. Don’t blindly follow the 10% Rule.
The 10% Rule states that you should only increase your mileage by 10% or less per week. But this “rule” is too simplistic for most runners and you should modify it for your own situation. Listen to your body because sometimes 10% will be aggressive, while other times you’ll be ready for more.
Figure out your “mileage baseline” - the number of weekly miles you’re comfortable at. You can aggressively increase your mileage to this baseline but then you should be more conservative once you’re at or above your baseline. It’s also a good idea to hold your mileage at the same level for 2-3 weeks before increasing it to ensure your body is fully adapted to the higher workload.
20. Don’t burn the candle from both ends.
This is a rule I learned the hard way in college. If you’re partying too much, eating like crap, or not sleeping enough then you can’t train at your normal level. You’ll need to cut back on your training to allow your body to recover from your non-running extracurricular activities.
When you’re sacrificing a healthy lifestyle at the same time as running and working out a lot, it’s a surefire recipe for injury.
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Jason Fitzgerald (101 Simple Ways to be a Better Runner)
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The crowd were cheering and Geraldine led the Ass squad in that annoying as fuck song about princesses as they all celebrated her win, but I ignore them as I moved forward to offer Roxy a hand up.
“I’ll toss Mildred back in her room, heal her and cast a sleeping spell on her so that she can properly recover,” Cal announced as he moved around us and I couldn’t help but smile at him.
It might have annoyed the fuck out of me that he’d been with my girl, but he really was a good friend. A true brother.
He threw Mildred over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and shot out of the room as Seth howled in excitement.
“Come on,” I said to Roxy. “I’ll clean you up and heal those wounds.”
“Okay.” Roxy followed me back to the couch and I sat her down in my spot before throwing a ring of fire and a silencing bubble up around us to give us some pretence of privacy.
“Doesn’t this count as us being alone?” Roxy asked as I dropped to my knees in front of her and she pulled her busted bottom lip between her teeth.
That shouldn’t have been hot, but it really fucking was.
“I’m going with no,” I replied, but as the ground trembled beneath my knees I had to admit it did.
“Maybe you should just-”
“I’m going to look after you,” I growled, leaving no room for negotiation. “So just let me.”
Her lips parted, eyes flared, fingers gripped the edge of the couch and I was sure she was about to tell me no, but instead she just nodded.
I reached out and curled my fingers wound around her waist as I pressed healing magic from my skin into hers, closing my eyes so that I could concentrate. She had cracked ribs and healing bones was more difficult than damaged tissue.
She fell still as I shifted my hands over her flesh and I tried to ignore the way the floor quaked beneath me. We couldn’t stay in this bubble for long, but I wished that we could. I wished we could just build a bubble where the stars couldn’t see us and stay in it forever. Although I guessed if I offered her that she’d just say no again.
I sighed as my magic depleted, using the last drops of it to heal her and clean the blood from her skin after burning through so much in the game.
A soft touch against my hair made me open my eyes and I looked up at her as she pushed the crown onto my head.
“Mildred knocked me off of the couch first,” she explained in answer to the question in my eyes. “So you win. Besides, you need a big head like yours to pull off a crown like this.”
I snorted a laugh as the ground trembled so violently that I was almost knocked back onto my ass.
Roxy quickly pulled the rings and bracelets from her hands and offered them to me too and I pushed them into my pockets wordlessly.
But as she reached up to unclasp the blood ruby pendant from around her neck I caught her wrist to stop her. “Keep it,” I said, my gaze slipping to the priceless heart where it lay against her flesh. Dragons didn’t give treasure away. Ever. It was inherited through the family or we bought more of it, but we never gifted it to anyone. It went against everything we stood for and the fierce possessiveness of our natures. But for some reason that I couldn’t fully comprehend, I wanted her to keep that necklace. “It looks better on you anyway.”
Her eyes widened but before she could reply, I dropped the wall of fire and stepped away from her. Darcy hurried forward with wild eyes, looking between me and her sister for a long moment like she’d expected us to be arguing or something. But the last thing I was going to do was call Roxy out for beating Mildred’s ass for me. She’d absolutely been working in my interests and I wasn’t even going to pretend to be pissed about it.
“Darius fixed me up like new. Did you see the bit when I kneed her in the vag?” Roxy asked as she grinned and Darcy started laughing.
“It was classic, you’ve gotta come see Tyler’s slow motion footage of you punching her in the throat too!”
(Darius POV)
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Caroline Peckham (Cursed Fates (Zodiac Academy, #5))
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Does history give us any hope for this kind of pragmatic and pluralistic perspective? . . .Today, amid our latest addiction epidemics, we are faced with another precious and rare opportunity for synthesis, and I have hope that we can unite around an inclusive definition of recovery as being any kind of positive change. But in order to do so, we will need to turn to the pain of our shared past, because, as in the case of individual addictions, pain and purpose are so often intertwined, and our despair comes from somewhere. The suffering of addiction is not an individual malady—it also comes from deep, ancestral wounds. We need to face that fact too, in order to fully recover, together.
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Carl Erik Fisher (The Urge: Our History of Addiction)
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In the century following the Cook expedition, the most fertile lands of Australia and New Zealand were taken from their previous inhabitants by European settlers. The native population dropped by up to 90 per cent and the survivors were subjected to a harsh regime of racial oppression. For the Aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand, the Cook expedition was the beginning of a catastrophe from which they have never fully recovered.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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First: “A positive emotion may loosen the hold that a negative emotion has gained on a person’s body and mind.” That means if you do something that helps you feel good—say, feel grateful or do something kind—you recover more quickly from the effects of a stressful or worrisome situation. Researchers even see the effects physically in how readily blood pressure returns to normal.
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Meaghan B. Murphy (Your Fully Charged Life: A Radically Simple Approach to Having Endless Energy and Filling Every Day with Yay)