The Book of Waking Up Quotes

“The experience we call emotional pain is, in a very real sense, real. And the experience of this kind of pain doesn’t mean you’re broken or weak or needy. It means your brain is doing what it was designed to do—feel. The experience of emotional pain means you’re human.”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life

“We can see all material, all creation, as an expression of God’s grace to us and an invitation to participate more fully in his Divine Love. Rooted in this sobriety, we don’t have to be afraid of the Stuff of Earth, because we know the whizz-bang of the Stuff of Earth becomes nothing more than a sorry substitute for divine afección. What’s more, on occasion, the objects that once were our poison might become the means of our healing.10”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life

“Fully divine as he was, he could have created twelve jugs of wine and numbed the narratives of pain. He could have silenced the pain by conjuring a week’s worth of narcotics or summoning a billion bucks to offer as a bribe or ordering up an army of sentient robots to annihilate his captors. He didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he walked into the pain awake, rooted in the Divine Love.”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me” (John 6:53–56, emphases added).”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life

“Now, through his work, he shines a light on the fact that our addictions aren’t diseases to be treated or mental illnesses to be cured. Instead, he shows how they are the result of the brain doing what it is meant to do—help us survive in a cruel and pain-filled world. In the opening chapter, Dr. Lewis shares a comment from a reader: “I see my past drinking as a behavioral problem, a learned response to dealing (or not dealing) with emotional pain and stress. Once I achieved the excavation of my wounds, I no longer lived with the same anxiety or sense of dread/guilt and shame.”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life

“Consider that coping mechanism you just can’t shake. Consider that song that burrows into your subconscious like an earworm: This is the fix; this is the fix; this is the fix. In the quietness of this space, pen in hand, examine your life. The fix—what pain is it trying to address? Consider, for example, the substitutionary fix I can’t seem to shake—buying books. Why do I keep buying and buying and buying? If I find the right book, I’ll have access to the right knowledge. If I acquire the right knowledge, perhaps then I’ll have enough, know enough, be enough. If I have enough, know enough, am enough, perhaps then I’ll be able to silence scarcity narratives. Now it’s your turn. What pain narratives are you trying to silence with your coping mechanisms?”
― Seth Haines, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life