It is difficult to do this (= to turn thought into new channels) if life has hitherto been concentrated upon a very few interests and those few have now become suffused with sorrow. To bear misfortune well when it comes, it is wise to have cultivated in happier times a certain width of interests, so that the mind may find prepared for it some undisturbed place suggesting other associations and other emotions than those which are making the present difficult to bear.
Source: The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
More info.:
https://russell-j.com/beginner/HA26-050.HTM