We get accustomed to mental as well as bodily pain, without losing our sensibility to it. No misery can equal the struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise. If money if fairly and honestly earned, why should we pretend to care what it comes out of? Death, self-interest, and fortune’s changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. Being able to surrender control is a skill that is often the hardest to learn. It certainly is the one that I continue to struggle with. Yet it actually can be the easiest, because when you take a longer look at whatever happens to be up for you, you will realize that you are not really in control of most situations to begin with. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

As a neurologist who has treated hundreds of people with various forms of brain damage, I became fascinated with consciousness and with identifying the areas of the brain necessary for knowing what you feel. I devoted my career to mapping out what is responsible for our experience of “self.” There is a deep divide between our sense of self and the sensory life of our bodies. As poetically explained, sometimes we use our minds not to discover facts, but to hide them…One of the things the Sunscreen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitute the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day. The Sunscreen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean the ins of it, its interiors. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

The Sunscreen can work in our favor by enabling us to attend to pressing problems in the outside World. Yet it has a cost: It tends to prevent us from sensing the possible origin and nature of what we call self. Self-awareness rests on the physical sensations that convey the inner states of the body: Primordial feelings provide a direct experience of one’s own living body, wordless, unadorned, and connected to nothing but sheer existence. These primordial feelings reflect the current state of the body along varied dimensions,…along the scale that ranges from pleasure to pain, and they originate at the level of the brain stem rather than the cerebral cortex. All feelings of emotion are complex musical variations on primordial feelings. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Our sensory World takes shape even before we are born. It will help you to begin the process of finding a community to engage with by recognizing that surrendering control over the outcome of a venture is something you routinely practice. For instance, if you are stuck in a traffic jam, you cannot move until the traffic starts moving, so you have to surrender control of the outcome, which is staying on your own personal schedule, or you will drive yourself crazy, have an attack of road rage, hold others hostage on your cellphone while you complain about the traffic jam, or otherwise spin your wheels mentally and emotionally. Even after we acquire consciousness and language, our bodily sensing system provides crucial feedback on our moment-to-moment condition. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

What is taking place around us also affects our physical sensations. Surrendering control is especially important when you begin to practice new ways of being in intimate relationships. Trying to control what others do or say is almost always an exercise in futility; we all knows this even if we sometimes forget it. Yet, our conscious self also plays a vital role in maintaining our inner equilibrium: We need to register and act on our physical sensations to keep our bodies safe. Realizing we are cold compels us to put on a sweater; feeling hungry or spacey tells us our blood sugar is low and spurs us to get a snack; the pressure of a full bladder sends us to the bathroom. And keep in mind, real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5