Stress Mastery: The Art of Coping Gracefully

What Is Possible?

But enough of this doom and gloom scenario! Are we totally at the mercy of our past and current stressors? Is there nothing we can do? Research and an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence supports the idea that, just as we have the potential to slowly destroy ourselves, our mind-body system can also create miraculous beneficial results. What is possible can sometimes border on the unbelievable.

For example, you may have heard the story of Norman Cousins, who wrote about his remarkable recovery from a supposedly incurable and very painful connective-tissue disease that leads to spinal deterioration and paralysis in his best-selling book, Anatomy of an Illness (1981). Cousins refused to buy into the gloomy predictions of ...