I used to feel like I was an observer of my own life instead of a participant. This book beautifully sums up why that is true for a lot of people. I still struggle with "the voice" inside that enjoys torturing me and trying to convince me that I am somehow tragically flawed and that any minute my life can fall completely apart.
Some quotes from the book:
"We think of ourselves as walking heads with bothersome, unattractive appendages attached. It's as if we would rather pretend we don't have bodies. As if they are the source of our trouble, and if only we could get rid of or otherwise dismiss them, we'd be fine. We crash around in our arms and legs, let them lift for us, hold our children for us, walk for us without ever taking time to actually live in them. Until we are about to lose them."
"Your body is the piece of the universe you've been given; as long as you have a pulse, it presents you with an ongoing shower of immediate sensate experiences."
"Our minds are masters at blame, but our bodies...our bodies don't lie. Which is, of course, why so many of us learned to zip out of them at the first sign of trouble."
"And you realize that torture isn't having these arms or these legs; it's being so convinced that God is out there, in another place, another realm that you miss the lavender slip of moon, your own awakened presence."
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