What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

by Stephanie Foo

the Chinese word for endurance is simply the word knife on top of the word heart. You walk around with a knife in your heart. You do it with stoicism.

“When the sky falls, use it as a blanket,” she repeated to me, day after day. “Big things, make small. Small things, make nothing. When someone wrongs you, never keep it in your heart. Let it go.”

Being healed isn’t about feeling nothing. Being healed is about feeling the appropriate emotions at the appropriate times and still being able to come back to yourself. That’s just life.”

“Pain is about feeling real, appropriate, and valid hurt when something bad happens. Suffering is when you add extra dollops to that pain. You’re feeling bad about feeling bad.”

“a third of the world is under the control of heaven, a third is under the control of the environment, and a third is in your hands.”