Whenever you feel like running away to hide rather than face up to your responsibilities, try this: Take a small stone to represent you, put it up to your lips, and breathe into it the "part of you" that wants to run and hide. Then hide the stone somewhere outside. It will do your hiding for you. Then ask for the grace and courage to face your responsibility. When you have finished your obligations, retrieve the stone, place it next to your heart, and let the "part of you " that was in hiding return to you.
— Tom Cowan in The Way of the Saints