Option B: Stories of resilience

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Stories of resilience

“When you go through a really hard time there are things that you can learn. And they make you stronger.”

“I’ve left Syria, but I’m not free. The fight starts when you flee. But it doesn’t have an end.”

“If I didn’t pull this off, my family was gone. So I gave it everything I had.”

“She's always going to be in our memory. She's always going to be in our hearts.”

“I’ve got nothing to lose in trying to live the biggest life I can.”

“I’d always been the moon to my mom’s bright shining sun. How do you live without the sun?”

“Option B means realizing that you’re reinventing yourself. There’s no rule book. There’s no guide. It’s about going back to life”

“On my eighteenth birthday, I was sent to prison with a sentence of fifteen years and two felonies.”

“Having two kids with muscular dystrophy has changed how we view the future. We seize every chance to enjoy the time we have.”

“I am a motherless daughter, now fatherless too, but I am not without heart and resilience and grit.”

“When I was 15, I found out I was pregnant. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Walking alongside a child who is grieving is unlike anything else.”

“My dad discovered he had a son less than a minute before he discovered he had lost his son.”

“When you’re a person the world is trying to erase, enjoying the world is truly radical. It’s a revolutionary act.”

“For the first time, I was truly choosing to happen to life, rather than letting life happen to me. I was choosing resiliency.”

“I’ve helped others heal, which gives me an immense sense of meaning and purpose.”

“My grandma told me that once I shake someone’s hand, my disability goes away.”

“Our first challenge was to protect her, to let her know that she was valued. And heard. And believed.”

“I instantly connected him to Leo. I felt that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.”

“I want more people to understand that women don’t have to be abused.”

“My diagnosis was a turning point.”

“I have to keep going for the kids, but more than that, I’m sustained by the thought that I mustn’t let George down.”

“I had always thought, ‘What’s in it for me?’ But seeing these volunteer teachers inspired me to give back.”

“It was something that was swept under the rug. We didn’t talk about it for many years.”

“The hardest part was realizing that my life would be put on pause.”

Grief may change some holiday traditions, but you can create new ones

“Resilience is continuing to live, one moment to the next, when it feels like life has played the cruelest joke.”

“She just sat there and listened—and that meant a lot.”

The holidays are hard if you struggle with mental illness—don’t blame yourself

“It takes a village to survive grief. Together we can build resilience and find strength and hope.”

“As much as I hated the thought, I had become my father.”

“We were ecstatic to have a baby joining our family, but we also consciously made space to acknowledge our previous pain.”

How to conquer loneliness during the holidays

“We continued to thrive to the extent possible because an army of loved ones held us fast through the tortured holiday season.”

"We grieve because we love. How lucky we are to have experienced that love."

“I have found and am embracing my Option B, and I believe that everyone else can, too.”

“When we lose someone we love, we should remember that the person has not become nothing.”

“Thanks to my friend and her mom, I was saved from a pretty awful holiday—and found a husband.”

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Resilience is like a muscle. We’re here to help you build it.

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Resilience is like a muscle.
We’re here to help you build it.