Self-Help for Your Nerves: Learn to relax and enjoy life again by overcoming stress and fear

you will find that the wave of fear strikes hardest when it first strikes, and that if you stand your ground and relax, it quietens and disappears. When you have learnt to face fear this way, and see it as no more than a physical feeling, you begin to lose your fear of fear. You step outside a vicious circle.

While occupied, one can, as it were, divide one’s mind into two parts, the part that suffers and a new part that accepts and floats on.

People with nervous breakdown can do a great deal at their own pace, but if asked to work to a fixed time or keep an appointment punctually, they may feel incapacitated by the strain of anticipation.

Even to be away from the strain of being watched by an anxious family must be a relief.

I repeat that this happens only when the emotional pattern is acceptance and looking forward to future healing without resistance, resentment, fighting and fear.

The body will recover as the mind finds peace and the mind is more likely to find peace when occupied than when brooding.

It is essential to get away from the house, where the shadow feels too much at home. It is essential to meet other people.

Muscles that have not been used for some time always complain when first used again. Their aching is only their peevish protest, not a measure of damage done by their re-use. In fact, in spite of such aching they will regain their normal strength much quicker when used than when laid aside to rest.

Remember that the strength in a muscle may depend on the confidence with which it is used.