Julissa Rolon

“The human feeling experience, much like the weather, is often unpredictably changeable.
No “positive” feeling can be induced to persist as a permanent experience, no matter what
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy tells us. As disappointing as this may be, as much as we might
like to deny it, as much as it causes each of us ongoing life frustration, and as much as we were
raised and continue to be reinforced for trying to control and pick our feelings, they are still by
definition of the human condition, largely outside the province of our wills.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“It's just that living with anxiety - living alarmed - makes it impossible to enter the moment, to land inside my body and be there. I cannot be in the moment because I am too afraid of what the next moment will bring. I have to be ready.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“Is this feeling permanent?” “Is it transient?” “Is it solid?” “Is it fluid?” “Is it fixed?” “Is it dynamic?” “Is it finite or infinite?” You can also ask: “Is this feeling me?” “Is it not me?” “Is it an obstacle?” “Is it a portal?” Or you can touch the feeling, completely free of storyline, and say, “When experienced directly, this very feeling is basic goodness,” or “Basic goodness is found right here.” In other words, you don’t have to wait until the feeling is gone to find basic goodness.”
― Pema Chödrön, Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World

“There is a loneliness to illness, a child's desire to be pitied and seen. But it is precisely this recognition that is elusive. How can you explain and identify your condition if not one has any grasp of what it is you suffer from and the symptoms wax and wane? How do you describe a disease that's not always there?”
― Meghan O'Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness