The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

It was a tool he’d learned in his coaching group. The counselor had given them blank Coping Cards. On one side they were supposed to write a list of the triggers that made them feel mad or sad or upset, and on the back side they wrote down strategies for coping with their feelings. The trigger side had five lines on it, so he had written: the scissors the shower the pane of glass the Christmas ornament Dr. Melanie’s toys His coach looked at his list, and asked him to be more specific and describe the moments when he felt triggered, and so he added to each one: the scissors when they wanted to stab the shower when it cries from its head the pane of glass when it killed the bird the Christmas ornament when I stepped on it in the hallway Dr. M’s toys when they start to remember The coach sat down with him then, and gave him a new card and told him to try thinking of more general things this time, not specific objects, but situations that make him mad or sad or upset, and so he thought for a while, and he said, “You mean like when my mom puts stuff in my room or won’t take out the trash even when I remind her?” And the coach said, “Exactly,” and so he wrote that down. And then the coach said, “Great, now close your eyes. How does it make you feel when your mom puts stuff in your room?” And he closed his eyes, and rocked back and forth, and said, “It makes me feel like there’s this huge dark comet, made of the densest, heaviest matter in the universe, coming right at me really,...