Especially when the body is damaged and in pain, there is constant, dynamic "bracing" to handle pain. It's not your postman, but same lack of presence. My mind is busy with not wanting to be here, and runs back and forth with anticipation or dread of the next movement. What helps, as usual, has been to slow down enough, be complete (blissfully that's not conditional), and try to apply the principles of body being (relaxing, centering, grounding, being calm, feeling the whole body). It becomes more accessible because of feedback: it works! It still won't happen naturally and I have to keep on training the principles, but I am quicker at pulling them out of my back pocket now. No fantasy here, the damage doesn't go away, healing takes time, but much of the tension around rejecting the experience of pain and expecting to move as I wish I could, that's just proven detrimental. My comfortable, automatic patterns of sitting, standing, putting on clothes, driving - they don't work. But as soon as I reset to body being principles, a world of adaptations and workarounds opens up.

Oh no, I never belong on any pedestal, please push me off, off! Nothing heroic here. Pain is unwelcome of course and no one wants it, but it's concrete and in your face, it makes it easy to not be distracted and investigate. It truly feels entry level, compared to going for what is existence or absolute nothing.

Stop everything Teach the mind to abide not knowing Strengthen focus/intention Face death (and life) Direct experience/truth is always here

You noticed that immobilization and restraint translate as diminished perception, how/why is that? You've already found your "in" to increased consciousness. We have exquisite motor control of voluntary muscles, but the proprioceptive sensing of our bodies is pretty muddled and full of holes, and lives a lot as an image or concept in our minds. Since bone healing takes more time and immobilization than we wish, it can be time to deal with things like impatience, frustration, resentment which, as you know, make themselves known in the body through unconscious tightening, agitation, bracing, even pain. Those can show in your jaw muscles or shoulder girdle, a million miles from your ankle, so you'll never run out of things to sense. There is an immense amount of internal microscopic work that, thankfully, you don't need to direct, but doing as Dimitar suggests with walking (as impaired as you will be with crutches), means going slow and paying attention to all the tensions throughout your body, head to toe; notice you have an inbuilt model for how to move, and the urge to regain that ease but you have to deal with the timeline for your nervous system and body to get there and breathe through the not wanting to be here. Go for micromovements, your cast allows plenty of that; tiny vibrations help direct the laying down of cartilage and new tissue that will eventually harden into bone in the right position, if you don't rush. Best wishes.

@Josie Houghton You're an inspiration. I am constantly having to work on the most subversive habit Peter taught, honesty as the key to freedom.

I have experienced strong emotions arising in the body in very specific places. Someone recently touched the back of my knee, and tears shot out, I had to clamp down on sobbing; the touch wasn't painful, we were in the middle of physical therapy and I expected the touch, no transgression there. I don't have an injured knee. While it happened, I could not name any specific emotion, it was baffling; there was no story, no memory of harm. Just a flood of tears. Not the first time for me, it's happened before in different places, and I've noticed I rush to try to make up a story to justify it. So it seems specific parts of the body make connections with emotional states, which elude conscious thought. Maybe you would not qualify this as an "emotion" but it is expressed through the body just as grief with an attached thought or story would. Tears, sobbing, shaking, etc.

Asking the same profoundly bewildering question, I was told to get Who you are, What you are, and What Another is and then it will all be clear... Here are some not-a-direct-experience musings if it helps. I used to intellectually put that same inquiry to rest with some kind of cobbled up belief involving the wave/particle duality principle... Very satisfied that it was both truly incomprehensible but still seemed smart and erudite for conversation. Then I realized that I did not know what a thought is. Slowing down enough, it really is a complete mystery where it comes from. It seems to just appear and I only experience it after a process of stringing words and feeling responses, building a rock solid sense that this thought is mine, creating this "inner" world. Clearly if I don't share my thought with anyone, no one would never know. So that was my helpful start, beginning as always with "I DON'T KNOW" and looking at the process of creating an inner world. Because we do create it. Best I can say is you're not alone! Thanks for posting. 😗