Toni Cade Bambara Quotes

When some one sorrow, that is yet reparable, gets hold of your mind like a monomania,--when you think, because Heaven has denied you this or that, on which you had set your heart, that all your life must be a blank,--oh, then diet yourself well on biography,--the biography of good and great men. See how little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See scarce a page, perhaps, given to some grief similar to your own, and how triumphantly the life sails on beyond it.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc.

Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self.

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.

I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it. I had to force myself back out into life, back out into experiencing things.

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

A lot of people do have tragic childhoods. But you know what? Get over it.

What happened to me in Somalia doesn't define me.

In life, you have to learn how to heal. You never get over stuff, but you have to learn how to heal.

Awareness is the first step in healing.

Self-compassion is how we recover.

When you've been touched by sadness and grief, it makes you vulnerable. And because I am vulnerable, I try to be positive. And when I say 'try,' I really do mean try, because it's an effort.

Build up your health. Do not dwell in silence upon your sorrows.

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.

There is something very healthy about finding support from others during difficult times. I needed it for my own healing.

Writing about my illness put me into places. It was very triggering. I had to completely remove myself and practice self-care. I learned to be patient.

I want to try to not be the child that had to go through too much too young. I want to be who I am now and not who I was then.

Women shouldn't be burdened by what existed in their past, we should all learn how to turn pain into strength.

The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.

As a therapist, I know that when you're vulnerable, the best way to move on is to admit your vulnerability, don't beat yourself up for it, and try to find a way to analyze your vulnerability. Pull up your socks and try to do better for you and your family.

All of us heal in time. The strongest are born again. We only keep the scars we choose to keep.

I know how hard it is to live your life with your wounds exposed to heal other people

I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, 'I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever.'

Don't let your wounds make you become someone you're not.