Coping skill fortune cookies and resilience

Fortune cookie sketch

What is a coping skill fortune cookie, you ask? Each crunchy fortune cookie offers a useful coping skill that perfectly applies to your situation. Want one?

Well, I took a quick spin on the internet. Sadly, “coping skill fortune cookies” are not a thing, looks like they only exist in my mind (if I am wrong, do tell…I would love to be wrong). While I was perusing, I came across the “Fortune Cookie Rule” in this gem of an article. If you don’t want to click another link, I’ll give you the scoop.

“The fortune cookie rule is about training yourself to reclassify almost any criticism or rejection so that it encourages you rather than discourages you — or at least falls into the realm of the irrelevant — by learning to append simple, silent phrases to it in your mind.” —Bill Murphy, Jr.

But what if every negative instance was automatically reframed? Instead of beating yourself up over a break up…maybe it just wasn’t the right timing. Spiraling into a vortex of doom after getting rejected from a job? Maybe they loved everything about you, but already had hires picked out and had to interview due to protocol. If you’re highly imaginative, I urge you to turn all that creative mind power away from despair and towards HOPE.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we all lived in genuine connection with others, shaking off life’s constant little rejections (and sometimes big) with a quick reframe? I think yes.